LAYING THE TRACKS
Tallow Road Station is etched in the minds of many people from Tallow, Glencairn and surrounds. While many have fond memories, glowing with happiness and nostalgia, many others reflect on lonelier times when family members and friends waved goodbye to those left behind.
Two Tallow ladies, Ann O’Neill (nee Henley) and Margaret Morrison Tuohy, both recall leaving from Tallow Road Station to live and work in the UK. The train brought them to Rosslare via Waterford and they travelled onwards from there.
Frank Cashman, a proud Glencairn man, is one of many who remembers travelling to matches from Tallow Road Station. If Semple Stadium in Thurles was the destination, they would have travelled west to Mallow and then got on the Dublin train to Thurles. If there were matches in Dungarvan, Waterford or even Croke Park, Tallow Road Station was still the starting point.
Frank also recalls purchasing the newspaper in Glencairn Post Office every morning as a child for his schoolteacher, Mrs Barry, in the 1960s. As he walked onwards along the road to school, he would meet Pad Foley, a worker at Tallow Road Station. Pad would request to have a look at the newspaper which he would read cover to cover before returning it to Frank, who was regularly late for school as a result of this routine!
Many will also remember that on Tallow Horse Fair day, if you were willing to walk a purchased horse up to Tallow Road Station, you would earn yourself half a crown. The horses were then transported to their new homes via train. As well as horses, many other livestock and goods were brought up and down that trainline, including the transportation of sugar beet from the Tallow area to the sugar factory in Mallow.
In the late 1860s, the Duke of Devonshire decided to build a railway line that would connect the town of Fermoy to Lismore and it was officially opened on October 1st, 1872. Just five years later in 1878, a railway line was set up to connect Lismore to
Waterford via Dungarvan and so there was a railway line all the way from Mallow to Waterford City, with Tallow Road Station being one of the many station houses along the route.
Tallow Road Station, as it was known, was located just a few miles outside of Tallow town on the Tallow to Glencairn Road. In the station building there was an indoor waiting area and a ticket office, as well as ladies and gents toilets. The two-storey section of the building was the residence of the station master and his family. There was also an outdoor waiting area in front of the station and a small residence for a worker, whose duty was to keep all the fires in the station and station house burning. A large freight shed for goods and deliveries stood just a few metres away from the main building and there was also an area where animals were kept on site. Although the station had distance and home signal posts, it had no signal box. The signalling was controlled from Lismore.
The train from Mallow to Waterford called at many stations along the way, including at Castletownroche, Ballyhooly, Fermoy West, Fermoy East, Clondulane, Ballyduff Upper, Tallow Road, Lismore, Cappoquin, Dungarvan, Durrow and Stradbally, Kilmacthomas, Kilmeaden and finally into Waterford City.
STATION MASTERS
William Hedderman is named as the first station master at Tallow Road Station and the role was taken over by John O’Keeffe in the 1890s, on a salary of £59 per year. He was replaced in 1899 by Christopher Duffy who only remained in Tallow for one year, before he was transferred to Kingsbridge Station (now Heuston Station). During this time, there were approximately three trains per day calling at the local station.
James Sheedy was the next person to take up the post as station master at Tallow Road Station and his residence here is recorded in the 1901 Census. The record shows that in this year, he was a widower aged 36 with two daughters and two sons. A domestic servant named Norah McNamara was present in the house on the night of the Census, as was a visitor named Johanne Quinn. In this Census, the residential section of the station is recorded to have six rooms and had six outbuildings; a stable, a coach house, a fowl house, a store shed and two waiting rooms.
In 1911, Peter Carroll became the station master at Tallow Road and was earning 20s per week. Fast forward to 1942 and a man by the name of John Joseph Callaghan took up the position, but was succeeded by Thomas Cooke in 1944.
Denis Barry was the last named station master at Tallow Road Station and he took up this post in 1949. Many from the Tallow and Glencairn area remember Denis Barry and his family when they lived in the station house.
END OF AN ERA
On March 25th, 1967 the very last train passed through Tallow Road Station. Mary O’Riordan (nee Coughlan) who was born and raised in Glencairn Post Office, just a stone’s throw from the station, is one of the many locals who has hazy but sentimental memories of watching the last train pass by at Tallow Road Station.
Shortly afterwards, the railway tracks and sleepers were all pulled up and removed from sections of the Mallow to Waterford railway line, as were the fittings and fixtures in place at Tallow Road Station.
The station building was sold by public auction on July 25th, 1973 and over time the site fell into disrepair. It remained so for many years and was badly damaged by a fire while it lay idle.
However, in the late 1990s, the O’Callaghan family purchased the site and began the epic task of returning Tallow Road Station to its former glory and converting it into a private residence.
A VISION REALISED
From as far back as she can remember, Dublin born Miriam O’Callaghan (nee Gygax) has felt a very strong connection to Glencairn and in particular to Tallow Road Station. Her grandmother, Mairéad Lehane, was brought up in Glencairn Post Office and although Mairéad left her home at a young age to work in Dublin, she travelled home to Glencairn very regularly, often on the train down to Tallow Road