Cavan & Leitrim’s Ballinamore station is restored as a local community hub
BALLINAMORE station on the former Cavan & Leitrim Railway has been saved from demolition, thanks to a 2.4 million Euro project which has converted it into a community hub, arts and enterprise centre.
Dubbed Junction Ballinamore, the restored buildings – including the station house, booking office, waiting room and locomotive shed – were officially opened on February 16 by Heather Humphreys TD, the Irish Government rural and community development minister. The project is managed by Leitrim County Council with funding from the Rural Development Fund.
Mrs Humphreys said: “As Minister for Rural and Community Development, I am absolutely delighted that my department was able to support this project with funding of €2.4m under the Rural Regeneration Development Fund.
“I know that this is a really important project for Ballinamore and its surrounding areas, particularly because it brings a derelict and vacant building back into community use.”
Ballinamore station was opened in 1887 and was the hub of the C&LR, with trains coming in from Dromod and Drumshanbo, and, after 1920, when an extension was built to serve Ireland’s only commercial coal mines, from Arigna as well. After the railway closed in 1959, the station was bought by the diocese of Kilmore, which opened St Felim’s College, using the buildings. St Felim’s closed in 2014 when pupils moved to a new school within the town and there were fears that the railway station would be bulldozed.
However, local interests and the council saw its heritage value and potential, and its restoration has been done sensitively, with inlaid strips laid to 3ft gauge, recalling the railway that the buildings once served, as well as information boards carrying information and pictures of railway days.
Junction Ballinmore is also the starting point for the Cavan Leitrim Greenway, the first section of which uses the old C&L trackbed from the station to Corgar Lough, so that the path further underlines and cements the station’s railway heritage.
The restoration of Ballinamore station means that three of the C&L main stations have survived and been restored. Dromod is the headquarters of today’s restored Cavan & Leitrim Railway, which runs to Clooncolry, while Belturbet, where the narrowgauge trains met broad gauge Great Northern Railway of Ireland services, has been fully restored by the Belturbet Heritage Railway. Ballinamore station is of a design often used on the Irish narrow gauge, with the stationmaster’s two-storey, house built on to the station building, which features a glazed screen and clock.
Similar stations were built on the Clogher Valley, County Donegal and Londonderry & Lough Swilly railways, and several examples remain intact today, notably Donegal Town station, home of the Donegal Railway Heritage Museum.