*Eddie Lenihan.
“FAIRY STORY STUFF” is all planners are good for according to Clare folklorist Eddie Lenihan.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Lenihan voiced his scepticism on the potential reopening of the Crusheen rail stop and the money it could generate.
Born in Brosna, Co. Kerry Eddie has lived in Crusheen for the majority of his life, amassing a massive collection of folklore in the oral tradition. He is also an expert in railway history and published ‘In the Tracks of the West Clare Railway’ in 1990. The seanchaí says there are lessons to be learned from the history of railways in the county.
He said, “I think I am the only person who ever walked the West Clare Railway since it closed, all 58 miles of it. I certainly saw the mistakes that were made by the council and the NRA, they never foresaw things like walkways and cycleways and they allowed things to be built on the railway line.
“It should be possible to have not a station, a halt. A halt is all we need. That’s what they did for the West Clare Railway in its final years when the diesel rail cars came in. In fairness to CIE they gave it every chance. They opened seven new halts and that’s all they need to do to accommodate people. It would be a pity that the railway station couldn’t take advantage of that”, the storyteller continued.
Originally built in the 1860s, Crusheen railway station closed in 1976 for passenger traffic and in the 1990s for freight traffic. The rail stop has been the subject of a socio-economic report by Repucon Consulting which in September detailed that there is an estimated market of 1,700 commuters and students currently living in the catchment of the station and an estimated economic value to the local economy of €25million arising from associated employment opportunities.
Hopes to reopen the rail stop have received a further boost with Clare County Council including it in a submission for the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund (RRDF).
Eddie welcomed the idea of its reopening but was sceptical of the development’s finer details. The author praised the bus service in Crusheen as an alternative. “We have a bus service here that is excellent, the number 51 passes every hour, there’s a lot of places that would envy us. You can go from here to Cork and never get off the bus. The train would pass here five times a day, is that enough? I use the bus all the time. Any of the people that I see backing the railway, I never see them at the bus stop so I mean what are we talking about? Who is the public transport for because a railway station is a big investment”.
He said there was a decline in Crusheen despite the construction of numerous housing developments which have come with no amenities, he flagged. “As you know we have a Crusheen here that there seems to be no planning whatsoever in, estate after estate after estate and no facilities only for the GAA and their field. The school is squeezed into a little corner with no room to expand. Obviously there was no planning, none whatsoever. The Harry Bohan houses that were built here forty years ago when there was nothing here, only a little crossroads. I think it has to do with the motorway, it has finally become just a passing through place, it’s near Shannon, Limerick, Galway, it’s a convenient stop. Nobody knows each other anymore and nobody needs to”.
Lenihan said that he would like to see the rail stop reopened but maintained that it must be handled carefully and looked after. “They talk about opening the railway station, you know the way planners talk and they produce beautiful brochures like the thing there in Ennis. These are produced by companies that are hired to show you a beautiful advertisement, fairy story stuff, a fairy story now in the worst sense”.
