An Irishman's Diary

IT WAS THE last hour of the last day of the year: 11pm on New Year's Eve, 1932. Crowds had begun to gather in Dublin's Christchurch Place, writes KARL WHITNEY.

Soon, as the cathedral’s bells rang out, people would usher in the New Year, wishing one another a prosperous and peaceful 1933.

At the same time, six miles south-west, an unusual two-cabbed steam engine pulled an ungainly double-deck carriage along its track down the main street of Tallaght village. In 20 minutes’ time, the tram would have completed its final journey back to its depot, and the Dublin and Blessington Steam Tramway would be nothing more than a memory.

As the tram chugged along its route, past Balrothery, to its Templeogue depot, crowds turned out to wave it on its final journey.

The tram was on a return trip: it had set out from Terenure to Tallaght at 10.30pm. Earlier that evening, at 6.15pm, the final tram to Blessington had left Terenure. By 11.20pm, all the company’s rolling stock was locked away in its sheds in Templeogue.

When sales notices appeared in newspapers the following April, everything was to be sold off, right down to the desks, map cabinets and even the linoleum in the offices.

After its closing, the tramway was much mourned. However, for much of its existence, the tram was seen by many as a nuisance, a drain on taxpayers and, at worst, a danger to pedestrians, nearby houses and motorists.

The company opened the line to Blessington in 1888, and aimed to provide a service which would appeal to locals wishing to travel to and from Dublin, farmers wishing to transport cattle and produce to the city, and industries such as the numerous quarries which adjoined the tramway. The company also sought to appeal to tourists wishing to take pleasure-journeys into the verdant countryside. With this in mind, the line was extended to the picturesque Poulaphouca in 1895.

In addition, the company secured a contract to provide postal services along the route. Every morning, a tram from the GPO would connect in Terenure with the first Blessington tram at 8.35am.

In Terenure, the Blessington tramway met with the tram routes of the Dublin United Tramway Company, but no passenger trams ran all the way to Nelson Pillar – except for one experimental journey which was never repeated. Instead, passengers changed at the crossroads in Terenure, continuing their journey to central Dublin on a city tram.

The tramway was plagued by its notorious safety record. Numerous fatal accidents occurred along its route, and each accident site was marked with a small cross. Soon, a line of crosses was visible along the line, and this earned the tramway the nickname “the longest graveyard in Ireland”.

In April 1904, questions were asked in the House of Commons about the damage wrought in the previous 16 years of the tramway’s existence.

The answers were provided by George Wyndham, chief secretary to Ireland: “Fifteen persons were killed and four injured; 39 animals were killed. There were 14 cases of burning” – sparks from the engine often set fire to thatched roofs. Accidents such as these continued to haunt the tramway.

Many deaths occurred in freakish and unfortunate circumstances: a girl’s clothing caught under the tram and dragged her under the wheels; several tramway employees fell from the tram while on duty, and another off-duty guard was killed by a fall from the tram while travelling home to Templeogue; a seven-year-old child crossing the line in Tallaght on her way to school was killed by a tram travelling at three miles per hour.

The inquests into the most gruesome tramway deaths were reported in increasingly forensic detail by Dublin’s newspapers, their reports sensationally describing the decapitations and lost limbs suffered by unfortunate victims.

Deaths on the line were occasionally explained by the amount of alcohol the deceased had consumed.

An 1897 law had closed public houses on Sundays to all but “bona-fide” travellers who could prove that they had travelled three miles or more to the bar in question. In an attempt to get around the law, Dubliners had begun to use the Blessington tram to reach more distant establishments. At each establishment along the tramway, they were vetted by the doorman, who was essentially employed to keep out drinkers from the immediate locality.

As many of the tramway’s stations and waiting rooms were located in public houses, the tram provided both a loophole to the law and the perfect vehicle for a leisurely Sunday’s drinking.

The tramway company was largely dependent on taxpayers in Wicklow, who had undertaken to fund the line until it became profitable, as the company had assured them it would. However, the company never really turned a profit, and in its later years, as passenger numbers dwindled, Wicklow county councillors petitioned to have it wound up.

Eventually, a bill seeking the abandonment of the tramway was introduced in the Dáil by the then minister for industry and commerce, Seán Lemass. In April 1932, at the time of Lemass’s bill, this newspaper said of the tram that “it was neither quiet nor beautiful. Yet people liked it, and will regret its passing”. Now, the last few minutes of the old year were draining away. The tram was back in its depot; the tramway was gone for good. The people who had turned up to wave the tram farewell trudged home.

In middle of the city, excitement grew: soon the bells of Christ Church would herald a new year.