Dublin station shut for three hours after dynamite find

DUBLIN’S Connolly Station was shut down yesterday after workers found an old box of dynamite in storage rooms beneath the station.

Hundreds of people had to be evacuated and all Dart and inter-city services were cancelled for more than three hours at lunchtime.

Nearby houses and buildings were also evacuated.

Stranded passengers waiting to board the Belfast train had to take the bus from nearby Busáras.

The emergency was triggered after workers who were clearing out store rooms beneath the station found a large box of dynamite.

The explosives were used by Iarnród Éireann decades ago for blasting rocks to build train lines.

‘It wasn’t anything they were expecting,’ said one official at the scene. ‘If we just lifted it out and it went off, it could be a tragedy, so it is better to be safe.’

An Army bomb squad vehicle arrived at the scene shortly after 1.30pm. In a tweet just after 2pm, Iarnród Éireann said: ‘Security alert lifted: Connolly Station reopening after Army attended to suspect item, historic in nature. Full services resuming, delays remaining but will ease’.

Passenger Alva Browne was due to take a train to Belfast to see a friend but had to take the bus instead. ‘We were supposed to meet up in Belfast and then fly out to Paris tomorrow, so I really have to be in Belfast tonight,’ she said. She arrived at Busáras at 1.40pm for the 2pm bus.

Andy Flannery, from Belfast, had planned to travel home through Connolly yesterday but his plans were put back because of the scare.

Mr Flannery, who was travelling from Galway to his native Belfast, said that he only heard about the closure of the station when he arrived. ‘We are not worried about it, but we just need to find out where we are going and try and get there.

‘They were telling me, if we can get to Malahide there’s a train stopping and turning and going back again. We’ll get the train from there one way or another,’ he said.

Meanwhile, Dublin Airport was the scene of a minor security alert yesterday morning.

Suspicious white powder was found on the person of a passenger travelling through security checks. The powder was later found not to contain explosives or be an illegal drug.