#Midland Great Western | Tracking the Light

Clifden is located on the western periphery of County Galway. Between 1895 and 1935, it was served by a lightly traveled branch of the old Midland Great Western route.

In mid-March, we stayed at the Clifden Station House Hotel. The hotel included the Signal Bar & Restaurant, located across the carpark in the old Clifden Railway Station. This was decorated with antique signaling equipment, photographs and vintage railway advertising posters.

Interestingly, on my first visit to Clifden in 1998, I interviewed the railway gate keepers who lived in a railway cottage near the station. This elderly couple had closed the gate after the passage of the last train in 1935.

I made these photos using my Lumix LX-series cameras.

The Signal Bar & Restaurant is an adaptive reuse of the old Midland Great Western Railway station in Clifden, Co. Galway.

It has been 89 years since the last train served this station. Today, it is a popular railway themed bar and restaurant. We enjoyed live music performed here.

An old distant signal fits the pub’s railway signal theme. This semaphore can only display yellow or green.

How many visitors will recognize this antique Harpers Block Instrument? I remember when these relics of the telegraphy era were still in use in Waterford and elsewhere on Irish railways.

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Two weeks ago, Kris and I made a trip to Maam Cross, Co. Galway.

Taking Irish Rail from Dublin to Galway was the first leg of our journey.

My friends working on the Midland Great Western restoration project at Maam Cross, invited and encouraged us to make this bold trip.

From Galway we caught a bus that traveled across the Connemara to the windswept crossroads at Maam Cross, where we set out on foot to reach one of Ireland’s most interesting preserved railways.