A Line Less Travelled - Ballaghaderreen to Kilfree Branch Line

Ballaghaderreen Station with train facing towards Edmondstown

The Ballaghaderreen to Kilfree Junction branch line opened in 1874 and closed on Saturday 2 February 1963. The distance from Ballaghaderreen to Kilfree was 9 miles. The speed restriction was 25mph and half an hour was the time allowed for the journey. The basic passenger service was three or four round trips per day until 1947 when it decreased to two round trips in the morning and early afternoon.

I grew up a few hundred yards from Edmondstown Railway Station and travelled on the train to Ballaghaderreen regularly. One of my enduring memories as a child is running with my mother to catch the train and being late. I can still see the guard, Christy Plunkett, or Joe Dorrington, I think, gesturing to us to hurry up! The guard was kind enough to hold the train for us.   

It was exciting to travel on the train with its sounds and smells of a time now long gone. I loved to open and close the windows which were held in position by a brown leather strap. Strangely, the compartment light fitting was filled with water probably because of a leaky roof.

No trip to the town was complete without calling into Nonny and Tess O’Donnell’s for a cup of coffee and a cake before catching the train home. I also remember going there after I made my confirmation. Life was simple in those days. Sadly, the premises were burned down some time later.

There was no need for a watch to tell the time when we worked on the bog all those years ago. The sound and sight of the steam train signalled lunchtime. I was enthralled by the sight of the old locomotive puffing out clouds of white steam against a blue sky. Sometimes the engine would proudly blow its whistle as if saying “Look at me!” If, by chance, the train was running late, my mother would wave something bright or colourful to attract our attention and let us know that lunch was ready.

Edmondstown Station

The railway line ran alongside our land near Edmondstown Station. When haymaking, it was always a thrill to watch the train as it passed, and I was guaranteed a ‘front seat’ view. On the other side of the track was Kelly’s field which had a spring well where we could get water to quench our thirst. Further up in the woods, and behind The Four Altars, was Taaffe’s well where the water was ice-cold even on the hottest of summer days.

One of the highlights of the year was the ‘excursion’ train to Strandhill. Local people, adults and children, gathered on the platform at Edmondstown to catch the train which took us to Sligo via Kilfree Junction. We were then transferred by bus to Strandhill for a day on the beach.

In the evening, there was time to visit Woolworth’s in Sligo before taking the train home. The store was noted for its collection of cellophane-wrapped chocolate rabbits and Guinness bottles which were always popular with the children.

The railway crossing at Edmondstown Station, with its large wooden gates, was a popular meeting point for local youngsters in the evening. Looking along the railway line towards Ballaghaderren, you could see the tall trees that marked the children’s burial ground at Caltragh. In the other direction was Island Road Station and Lough Gara. The line ran close to the shore giving an excellent view of the lake.

Kilfree Junction

On Saturday 2^nd February 1963, the train made its last return trip from Ballaghaderreen to Kilfree Junction, hauled by 0-6-0 steam locomotive 574, departing at 11:50am. I joined the 160 children and 30 adults who made the journey marking the sad end of an era. On the return from Kilfree Junction a local band played a farewell. The last train was a special cattle train which left Ballaghaderreen at 3:22pm.

Many years later I met an old lady who, together with her son, had a farm on the border between Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. When she heard that I came from Co Roscommon she told me that her late husband travelled to Ballaghaderreen to buy cattle which were then sent to England by cattle train. What a small world, indeed. 

Children’s Burial Ground: Creggan, Co. Roscommon

Mattie Lennon, writing in Ireland’s Own magazine recently, described a burial ground for unbaptised children off the coast of County Donegal.  It is called Oilean na Marbh (the island of the dead). It reminded me of the children’s burial ground I knew as a child growing up in County Roscommon.

This graveyard, known locally as Caltragh, is located within a ringfort in the townland of Creggan near Ballaghaderreen. It consists of a rectangular grass-covered area approximately 21m x 14m. The ringfort is roughly circular measuring 57m x 53m and is partly surrounded by a drystone wall. Mature deciduous trees are growing inside the perimeter making it visible for some distance.

In the background: Children's Burial Ground
Creggan, County Roscommon

Children’s burial grounds are thought to have been first established in the medieval period.  In the fifth century AD, Augustine of Hippo declared that all unbaptised people were guilty of original sin. This prompted a debate in the Church which was to last for several centuries.  

From the sixth century the burial of unbaptised individuals in consecrated ground was forbidden. In the twelfth century the church declared that all newborn children had to be baptised. Parents had to bury their unbaptised children in alternative unconsecrated burial grounds.  As Mattie Lennon points out, we can scarcely imagine the heartbreak of the women in Ireland who were left to grieve silently as their babies were taken away at night to be buried secretly.  

Although children’s burial grounds are normally associated with stillborn and unbaptised children, others were buried there including people who committed suicide, mentally disabled, the shipwrecked, criminals, famine victims, strangers and even women who had not been ‘churched’ after childbirth.

These burial grounds are frequently associated with earlier monuments such as early/medieval ecclesiastical sites and ringforts. It is not unusual to find ogham stones at these sites. Some experts have noted that children’s burial grounds are often located close to field, lakeshore, seashore or townland boundaries. Archaeologists have suggested that this choice of location may have served to separate these individuals from ‘normal’ society.

The County Roscommon Graveyard Survey carried out in 2005 identified a total of 287 graveyards in the county. Children’s burial grounds accounted for 25% of the total surveyed. Over half the graveyards in the county are recorded on the Record of Monuments and Places. This is important as it means that these sites are protected under the National Monuments Act 1930-2004. They are nearly always listed on ordnance survey maps as Cillin/ Killeen, Lios/Lisheen, Caltragh, Teampaillin, or simply as Children’s Burial Ground.

Individual burials are frequently marked by small stones placed around the margins of the graves with the remains interred in a cist-like structure. Wooden coffins were often used while some individuals were wrapped in shrouds fixed with pins. In some respects, these burials were similar to those in contemporary consecrated burial grounds and simple stone grave-markers are still to be seen in old graveyards.

It is now believed that many of these ancient burial grounds are much older than previously thought. An excavation of a cillin in Tonybaun, County Mayo in 2003, identified a total of 248 burials of which 147 were infants and 23 were children aged between two and six years. None of the burials were earlier than the fifteenth century.

This excavation revealed that many of the bodies had been placed in wooden coffins. Some 55 adult burials were identified providing evidence of the practice of using such burial grounds for adults who were not considered eligible for burial in consecrated ground. The presence of items such as shrouds, pins, buttons and a small crucifix show that care and religious observance was associated with these burials.

In 2005/06 archaeologists excavated a children’s burial ground at Carrowkeel, County Galway. This site comprised an early medieval enclosure ditch with a cemetery in the eastern half. The remains of 158 individuals, mainly children, were identified with the burials taking place over 800 years from the seventh to the fifteenth century.

In 2004, Pope John Paul 11 appointed a Commission to study Limbo and it reported its findings in 2007. The report, signed by Pope Benedict XV1, stated that it reflected a ‘restrictive view of salvation’ and that it was reasonable to hope that the souls of unbaptised infants are admitted to Heaven by a merciful God.

As Mattie Lennon states, such burial places serve as a reminder of our unenlightened past and a monument to centuries of heartbreak.  For this reason, children’s burial grounds deserve to be preserved, suitably marked and maintained.