Just 14 Kms long, but the new motorway link (opening today) between the A1 at Cloghoge in Co Armagh to the N1 at Dundalk will cut out that circuitous/tortuous journey through and around the north Louth border town. At 2 hours, the road link now rivals the rail journey for speed, if not convenience.
Is the best way to overcome the legacy of conflict simply to forget about it? Author and journalist David Rieff spoke on this subject last week in a seminar at the Institute for International Integration Studies (IIIS) at Trinity College Dublin. Rieff has recently written a book titled, Against Remembrance (published in Ireland by Liffey [...] read our review »
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Cruimh,
Yes I remember Ivor the engine (it is the same thing isn’t it) I loved it especially the dragons!
a high speed railway from Belfast to Dublin would be so cool. They are doing this in the Basque country.
Yep – Idris the dragon lived in his boiler!
If you click on the colour picture you’ll end up in a site that even has links to hear his little whistle peep! Happy days
I wonder if Dewi looks like ” Jones the Steam” ?
“a high speed railway from Belfast to Dublin would be so cool. They are doing this in the Basque country. ”
How does that work ?
Cruimh – Fuck off !!
Turgon on @ 10:39 PM:
I know two-sevenths of point nought five of a smigeon about engineering or railway operations.
However (Absolute ignorance has never checked me before):
We’re talking five foot, three inch gauge, which ought to be a bit more stable than the standard gauge of 4ft 8-and-a-half.
We are also talking about one bit of twinned track, linking two major cities, about 100 miles apart. It’s pretty flat, and pretty straight.
Straighten out any wonky bits (and none of that is likely to be in high-maintenance, middle-class high property values).
There’s lots of lovely Euro money and other funds floating about, doing not a lot to any obvious effect. Fond as I am of canals and waterways …
So:
Electrify it.
Buy in five train sets (oh, pricey!)
Operate a one-hour, hourly service (easily possible at 100mph+ running).
Support that with a “regional express” service between the intermediate towns of importance.
Let Deutsche Bahn run it, if the Swiss Travel System are too snooty.
And:
Robert is definitely your dad’s brother.
I’m an Iron ‘Arry and Iron Bert fan myself, but as for Thomas — which was based on the railways of Furness (“Sodor and Man”, I ask you!) — keep reading the books (with “voices”). Any child started that way will love books, stories and whatever for life. Remember the kid who preferred radio to television “because the pictures were better”? Precisely. [Sorry: that's forty years in the classroom taking over.]
Dewi – was it the 11.08 or the 11.09 ?
Malcolm,
Thankyou
Re Thomas: Our cars have been named by our children as Gordon and Emily from Thomas. My mother’s is called Edward. All the adults now refer to the cars by these names which is a bit sad I know but it is easier than number plates or makes.
Turgon @ 11:21 :
Heck, you’re doing everything right. Don’t let the trick-cyclists know: they like screwed-up kids short on imagination.
When crossing France (1000km of long road) for summer camping, I diverted my three with:
1. Postman Pat (and got told off whenever I got the word or voice wrong);
2. Voting for the worst rat-wagon seen daily, regionally, in total (those corrugated-sided Peugeot vans counted double). Later, driving across Mitteleurop, this was adapted to spotting Herr Blob (with regional and national championships).
3. Every French dog had to be triaged, on size and hair quotient, as a “rat”, a “rug” or a “demi-cheval”.
As for naming vehicles, my first motorbike in 1961 was “Morticia” (thank you, Charles Addams). I think the present one is “Morticia XVIII”.
Now, I’m trying desperately to see a link back from this to the thread (don’t want to be “off topic”). The only one I can see is to reflect on my first ever excursion from Dublin by motorbike across the (then, strictly-policed) border, on those less-than-well-maintained roads. Somewhere into the County Armagh, leant over as far as the bike (and my nerves) would go, and distinctly dubious about coming out of the bend alive, I registered the helpful, unofficial, and definitely-in-English road-side notice … “Prepare to meet thy God.”.
The trains are shite in the South for the same reason the phones were shite, Aer Lingus was shite, the Health Services are shite and local govt. is shite.
No-one gets sacked ever and they are run primarily for the benefit of the people who work there.
In a desperate attempt to drag the thread off topic again I just got my wee fella’s UK passport (still waiting for the Irish one, boy those embassy people in Singapore are slow!), and I noticed that in the inside page, the “European Union, United Kingdom Passport” stuff is written in block capitals in English but then also in lower case in Scots Gaelic and Welsh, so it would appear that these languages do indeed have some ‘official’ standing, though not Irish, why not? Irish is of course used elsewhere in the passport along with all the other eleventy million languages of the EU.
Now, trains. When I travel through Europe on trains I always get the same queasy feeling, especially in central Europe. I look out at the pine forests and plains as we rattle long and I just can’t help thinking of who rattled along these same tracks sixty years previously and where they ended up.
I know it’s irrational but whenever people witter on about the marvellous efficiency of civilised European train networks I always think aye but a wee bit less efficiency and a bit more humanity might have served ‘civilised’ Europeans and their fancy trains a bit better in the not so distant past.
Harry, I get that same feeling when I travel by rail in Europe. Not in such eloquent terms, but I do feel ghosts in the carriage sometimes.
//Harry, I get that same feeling when I travel by rail in Europe. Not in such eloquent terms, but I do feel ghosts in the carriage sometimes.
Posted by Donnacha on Aug 03, 2007 @ 02:12 AM//
It’s much the same on the Enterprise. I shudder as we pass through South Armagh and think of the hundreds murdered by Republicans in that stretch of beautiful countryside.
Isn’t it ironic when your Irish speaking “heroes of the revolution” continue, as they have done for decades, to bomb the railway line which would link the two main conurbations on the island which they see as one country?
seriously, I give up with this site. I really cba reading the same shite over and over in different threads when I’m actually interested in the topic at hand.
Now I’m off to drive to dundalk on the new road.
the TGV is the best rail service ive been on. a proper ‘high speed’ train service. in UK terms the enterprise is at best a fairly slow performer. i think i remember it being advertised as 95mph. many people driving down to dublin are doing this on the southern M1! it started off years ago at 1h 59mins, then it went to 2h 10 mins. not sure what it is now. to have any sort of pride in the enterprise is like being all chuffed with your new second hand 1991 fait panda, when everyone round you is driving new 07 Mercs
a high speed rail link from belfast to dublin would be excellent. the problem is that (at the minute) it will never get done. it would take alot of time and hard work to plan and organise and make such a project happen. look at what the 2 main parties (and this thread) are spending their time and effort doing…. arguing about words. have you ever seen anything so ridiculous?…..
Fraggle @ 11:06 AM:
Help the few sane contributors to maintain some kind of decent argument?
Blue Hammer @ 11:00 AM:
You have, of course, matched hammer to nail-head precisely. The Competition Commission report of 1990 (I think I’ve mentioned this previously, perhaps in another posting) is on-line and of more than historical interest [http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/rep_pub/reports/1990/290northern.htm]
At that point the “book-value” of NIR was £56M, with a turn-over of £16M. The Government subsidy was £11.5M. Go figure.
Your point is adequately made in the Report: Both management and staff have coped remarkably well with the dangers and frustrations caused by terrorism and hooliganism. Incidents peaked in the year to March 1990, during which services were disrupted on no fewer than 172 days.
At that time, NIR identified three priorities: the Cross Harbour Link in Belfast between York Road and Central Stations, the building of a new station nearer the centre of Belfast at Great Victoria Street and the upgrading of the Belfast-Dublin line.
On that basis, we can identify real progress over the last 15 years.
Since then there have been more comings-and-goings: the Railway Review Group and the Booz-Allen-Hamilton independent review, together with the (more positive) responses by the political and other interested pressure groups. I notice, for example, that the “Labour Party (Northern Ireland Labour Forum)”, under a startingly-happy piccy of Pat Rabitte, argues that: The existing track, if properly repaired, would permit the new trains arriving on NIR to operate express services from Londonderry to Belfast in around 1 hour 35 minutes, as opposed to the present journey time of around 2 hours. This express service, if extended to Dublin, could permit a through Derry – Dublin express journey time of around 3 hours 15 mins.
My previous argument, based on other sources, is that the “Enterprise” could be a one-hour service, if the electrification programme of Iarnród Éireann could be extended north to meet a similar programme going south from Belfast.
I trust that’s not too much of the “same shite over and over”.
… even if I can’t type “startlingly”.
IIRC when they first tried testing the “high speed” Enterprise it made the verges fall onto the freshly relaid track, so they had to move them back a bit. No doubt some more of that would be required if they put in a quicker service.
Meanwhile, back with the road… I know AirCoach do a good service, but it’s a bit of a pain to change at the airport. It’s also a shame Ulsterbus don’t mention the late buses that now apparently depart up to 3am on their online timetable…
RG Cuan: Irish is the indigenous language of the native Gaelic people of Ulster.
For an argument over the word ‘indigenous’, push button 1.
For an argument over the word ‘native’, push botton 2.
But if you can define the phrase ‘native Gaelic people of Ulster’ – in the context of 2007, 400 years after the plantation – then I think you should tell everyone!
jamie, have to agree with the airport change being a pain. the plus for me is that the aircoach stops at various places around dublin. i can get off around baggot street and walk home instead of paying for a taxi from the city centre.
the late night ulsterbus services are a good move in my view. not sure if its a joint bus eireann ulsterbus timetable or just ulsterbus.
…
im usually driving in the car these days, but i did get the bus at about 12 a few months ago. if theres any ulsterbus peolpe reading, a welcome upgrade would be onboard toilets. it doesnt matter how many times you pee in the pub. as soon as you sit down in the bus you are bursting again
Another point on all this – why is there such a huge difference between the price of the train and bus? A return on the train I think is about 32 quid and the bus 13.50. With such a huge price differential for such a short journey it really doesn’t seem worthwhile getting the train. Hardly encourages people to leave their cars behind either does it?
Harry – The tri-lingual Passports are a brand new thing, your son would be among the first to receive them. It still doesn’t make the languages “official” as such, no more than bilingual roadsigns or having all [public material biligual make them official. They only become official when London says so (or Holyrood). Welsh is about to become official using the new mess of a Government of Wales Act where Cardiff get to draw up their own laws, but have to get the Welsh Secretary and London Parliament to agree before it passes.
Another point on all this – why is there such a huge difference between the price of the train and bus? – Valenciano
That’s a point I was driving at originally – if the road gets so good that there’s no difference in the time it takes to get there by coach or train, will it impact the train service either inasmuch as it’ll lose (more) passengers to the coach services, or that NIR & Iarnrod Eireann will upgrade the line and rolling stock to preserve the train’s Unique Selling Point: it may not be cheap, but it’s the fastest journey.
We already know that AirCoach must be taking customers off the Enterprise coz it costs a quarter of the full ticket price for a not-that-much-slower service – I imagine the train leaving Central station would be almost empty if there was no time advantage in taking it. Are there any plans (or rumours about plans) to speed up the trains?
*The tri-lingual Passports are a brand new thing, your son would be among the first to receive them.*
Well I wouldn’t exactly call it trilingual, the two minority languages get two lines on one page so I think you’re right that it smacks of tokenism. There is more Greek and Polish than Welsh and Scots Gaelic in the passport.
Come to that how come the second language on the passport is still French? Why not Spanish or German or Mandarin if it comes to that? Come on there are more Indonesian speakers in the world today than French, what’s that about?
Just back from Dundalk. The new road extension truely is the polish on the turd that is the newry bypass and the cloughogue roundabout in particular. Travelling north, it was worse than leaving the M22 for the dirt-track to derry. The traffic was backed up for about two miles simply because the roundabouts on the bypass haven’t the capacity they need. I expect this traffic jam to be a fixture for the next two years.
Fraggle
The galling thing is that the good people of Newry made every effort to point out the inadequacy of the bypass before it was built, but they were predictably ignored by the powers-that-be.
Seems to be a perfect example of false economy. The inadequacy of the bypass is exposed by having a decent road attached to it. Now it needs replaced a few short years after it was built.
Is that M1 road in the south a two lane motorway or a three lane?
2 lane.
READER
It’s easy to define the ‘native Gaelic people of Ulster’.
They are the descendents of the Gaelic-speaking people of Ulster who were living here at the time of the Plantation.
Some are still Gaelic-speaking, some are not. The vast majority however still identify themselves with Gaelic culture.
RG Cuan @ 04:46 PM:
Only three slight initial problems with that. Indeed with the whole argument each time it repeats itself on Slugger. Let’s hope no professional archaeologist or ethnographer comes along.
“Gaelic” is a description of a language, a sub-branch of the Celtic group. It does not describe the ethnic group of its speakers. Would one similarly describe an English-speaker, born of Chinese origins in (say) Hong Kong as “English”, “British” or “Chinese” or even all three depending on the context?
Second difficulty: to what group do the despised persons of “planter” origin belong? They are definitely not Saxon: the invaders of the 5th century AD and afterwards into Alba were (I believe) largely Anglic. So try calling a lowlands Scotsman “English” and see what you get for your pains. However, I know of no evidence that the “native” Celts of the Lowlands (see next problem) were simply eradicated or dispossessed. In which case, the Anglic/Celtic migrants (many of whom arrived before the official plantations) have as much affinity to the Gaelic/Celtic people of NE Ulster as to anyone and anywhere else.
Third difficulty: your definition limits the “native” Gaels to the Goidels, the Q-Celts who arrived from southwestern Gaul about the 7th Century BC (as I recollect my history textbooks). They were only the last wave in a series of arrivals. By your definition, Newgrange is not an “Irish” product. Try that on Bord Fáilte.
In all truth, there are no simple definitions here, so why bother? Most “experts” whom I have taxed on the issues here are less-than-categorical in answering your problem. As more evidence becomes available (perhaps as a result of DNA-based studies) the interpretation may alter, but never be definitively settled.
MALCOLM REDFELLOW
While i agree that this is a more complex issue than it often appears here on Slugger, it is clear that you are mixing up genetics with cultural associations.
Ethnic groups are not only defined by their common genetic background, in fact this is increasingly difficult in our ever-changing world.
While Gaelic is a linguistic term, it is also perfectly acceptable, and appropriate, to describe the majority of Ireland’s population at the time of the Plantation – they are culturally Gaelic, no matter what their genetic backgrounds are.
Some Scottish Planters were culturally Gaelic, most were culturally Lowland Scottish. While it is true that a significant P-Celtic population once existed in Lowland Scotland, they assimilated into later Germanic cultures and their only ‘affinity’ to the Gaelic people of Ulster was perhaps through their DNA, nothing else.
Your third difficulty is a nonsense. I use the term Gaelic to describe the cultural ethnicity of Ireland’s native population at the time of the Plantation. Many Celtic peoples came to Ireland, mixed with whatever people were on the island before them, and over time, the population as a whole assumed a Gaelic identity.
Of course Brú na Boinne/Newgrange is Irish, it’s in Ireland. While not built by Gaelic – or even Celtic – tribes, the descentants of the people who built Newgrange were certainly culturally Gaelic from at least 1,800 years ago.
RG Cuan @ 12:40 PM:
Chapter 6 of [Alice] Through the Looking Glass seems to cover the impenetrability of this argument.
As to the Gaels arriving around AD200, I’d like clarification, please. The usually-accepted date seems to be 400-800 years previous to that.
What all this has to do with the communications links, rail and road, authentically Gaelic, Planted or not, between Dublin and Belfast defeats me.
However, in an attempt to link the unlinkable, to unscrew the inscrutable, I offer:
Since the Ulster, D&D and D&B Junct railways linked the two cities in the British-occupied 1850s, I assume that asserts the non-Gaelic nature of the railway. That leaves us the products of the truly-Gaelic Roadstone Ireland (in collaboration with its apparently wholly-owned subsidiary, Fianna Fáil) upon which the native and only-true-Gaels can drive their truly-Gaelic Hondas, Nissans, Volkswagens, Fords …
Oh, for the wit of Flann, the pen of the Nolan, the wisdom of Myles to unravel this! And on the Day of Rest, too.
MALCOLM
Yes, Gaelic ‘tribes’ arrived here before AD 200. What i said was that Ireland was “culturally Gaelic from at least 1,800 years agoâ€.
I said this because it is possible that a P-Celtic language survived in parts of Munster until just before this time.
RG Cuan @ 04:14 PM:
Thanks for the clarification. As I now understand your definition of “Gaelic” Ireland, it is only fully effective from circa AD207, when the last pre-Goidelic elements were assimilated. It must therefore have ended in circa 840-2, when the first Norse “over-winterers” made shelter in Lough Neagh and Dubhlinn.
Does that mean Waesfiord and Hylmrek (and all those other Norse settlements) are for ever non-Irish? Or do we award the descendants (the O’Rourke, the O’Doyles, the McAuliffes and others) bonus points for assimilation?
Or, just possibly, can you conceive in your heart that extreme definitions like that are more reminiscent than is comfortable of Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Füh…? If so, be consoled by the notion that such culturally-based and linguistic nationalism worked quite well for some years among the Afrikaners.
Alternatively, join the human race and stop fretting about meaningless distinctions that are mere inventions of later politics. Worry instead about transport policies across the two jurisdictions, which was the original thread.
I’m back from a brief southern sojourn and have to say that while the journey down was quite simply brilliant, the trip back was a nightmare due to the roundabout mess at Cloch Óg. I think we lost all the time gained on the motorway on both legs of the trip during that tailback – and this was on a Sunday. It’s an awful mess…..