Collooney railway station serves the town of

Collooney Collooney or Coloony () is a town in County Sligo, Ireland. Toponymy Collooney is thought to derive from . Reverend Terrence O'Rorke has previously also suggested ''Culmaine'', as Collooney is designated this way in such works as the ''Annal ...

County Sligo County Sligo ( , ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region and is part of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. Sligo is the administrative capital and largest town in ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

and is on the Dublin-Sligo railway line. It was the first of three stations to be built in Collooney and remains the only one still in service.

History

Collooney once had three railway stations. The first and sole surviving station was opened by the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) on 3 December 1862 as part of the extension of its line from

Longford Longford () is the county town of County Longford in Ireland. It had a population of 10,952 at the 2022 census. It is the biggest town in the county and about one third of the county's population lives there. Longford lies at the meeting of ...

Sligo Sligo ( ; , meaning 'abounding in shells') is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of 20,608 in 2022, it is the county's largest urban centre (constituting 2 ...

. On 1 September 1881 the

Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway The Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway (SL&NCR) was a railway in counties Cavan, Fermanagh, Leitrim and Sligo in north-west Ireland. It consisted of one main line, with no branch lines and remained privately owned until its closure ...

(SL&NCR) opened its station to the east, before building a connection to the MGWR at Carrignagat Junction to the north and thus completing its line from

Enniskillen Enniskillen ( , from , ' Ceithlenn's island') is the largest town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is in the middle of the county, between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 14,086 at the 2011 censu ...

to Sligo. Finally, on 1 October 1895, the Waterford, Limerick and Western Railway (WL&WR) opened its station to the west, as part of the extension of its line from

Claremorris Claremorris (; ) is a town in County Mayo in the west of Ireland, at the junction of the N17 and the N60 national routes. As of the 2017, it was the fastest growing town in the county, having seen a 31% increase in population between 2006 and ...

to Sligo. The WL&DR was taken over by the

Great Southern and Western Railway The Great Southern and Western Railway (GS&WR) was an Irish gauge () railway company in Ireland from 1844 until 1924. The grew by building lines and making a series of takeovers, until in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was the larges ...

(GS&WR) in 1901. Following the creation of the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...

, the MGWR and the GS&WR became part of the

Great Southern Railways The Great Southern Railways Company (often Great Southern Railways, or GSR) was an Ireland, Irish company that from 1925 until 1945 owned and operated all railways that lay wholly within the Irish Free State (the present-day Republic of Irelan ...

(GSR) in 1925. In turn, the GSR became part of Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) in 1945. On 1 October 1957, the SL&NCR's Collooney station closed along with the company. The line to Enniskillen was lifted shortly afterward. The GS&WR station closed on 17 June 1963 when CIÉ withdrew passenger services between Claremorris and Sligo; this line remained open for goods traffic until 1975, after which it fell into dereliction (though it is proposed to re-open in the future as part of the

Western Railway Corridor The Western Railway Corridor is a term, used since , for a partly disused railway line running through the west of Ireland. Currently two sections of the line, from Limerick via Ennis to Athenry and from Collooney to Sligo, see regular services ...

Services

Today, the MGWR station is served by trains on the

Dublin Connolly Connolly station () or Dublin Connolly is the busiest railway station in Dublin and Ireland, and is a focal point in the Irish route network. On the North side of the River Liffey, it provides InterCity, Enterprise and commuter services to ...

–Sligo InterCity service. It is unstaffed.

References

{{reflist

External links

Irish Rail Collooney station website
Iarnród Éireann stations in County Sligo Railway stations in the Republic of Ireland opened in 1862 Collooney

History

Services

See also

References

External links