Remembering a local fatal rail accident

This article was first published in the Westmeath Independent of August 20, 1960

The first, and perhaps the only major disaster, in the history of the Midland Great Western Railway took place on a fatal October evening between Athlone and Ballinasloe, thirteen years almost to the month, after the opening of the railway to traffic.

PICTURED: The former Midland Great Western Railway Station from which the 1864 train would have departed. It is now Irish Rail offices.

Lives were lost, passengers were seriously injured, carriages were smashed to bits, and yet strangely enough, the disaster was dismissed with scant attention by the local press of the period. Perhaps it was felt that too much publicity would undermine public confidence in a transport system yet in its infancy. However, the bald details available reveal a tragedy of the first magnitude.

The ill-fated train—the 1pm. Dublin to Galway steamed out of Athlone Station in the fading light of the evening of October 29, 1864, carrying, amongst others, harvesters, returning from England to their homes in the West, business , and tradesmen on week-end visits to their families.

Gathering momentum it sped through that flat, boggy countryside between Athlone and Ballinasloe, when suddenly, passing through a district known as Clarara, in Co. Roscommon, about ten miles from Athlone, the third-class carriage beside the engine became derailed. It crashed down the embankment, throwing the tender off the rails and smashing the coupling. The carriages behind propelled the first carriage with such violence that it was pitched into the adjoining field, dragging the the first and second, the other carriages were then overturned and were completely wrecked after it. The remaining carriages were thrown from one side to the other, completely blocking the line.

News of the disaster was sent to Ballinasloe and Athlone, and medical aid was soon.on the way. Several doctors including Doctors Home, Colohan, Eaton and Sharkey, attended the injured at the scene of the accident, and the more seriously injured were removed to the Railway Hotel in Ballinasloe.

Two passengers were killed in the crash. They were George Glanville, a Ballinasloe building contractor, and Thomas Henry, a stonemason, from Galway. Both men were returning from Athlone to spend the weekend with their families. Mr. Glanville was at the time erecting the new Wesleyan Chapel in Northgate Street, Athlone, and Mr. Henry was his foreman. Several passengers received serious injuries and one of them, John Hynes, had his thigh broken.

An inquest was held a few days later in Mockler's Hotel, River Street, Ballinasloe, on the Roscommon side of the River Suck, which separated the counties of Roscommon and Galway at this point. The Company were represented by the chairman, Sir John Ennis, M.P. (whose family seat was at Ballinahown, Athlone) and several other directors, including Sir Percy Nugent. Before the inquest commenced the jury inspected the scene of the disaster. A reporter from the ''Westmeath Independent" also went along and this is what he saw: "The exact locality has nothing to distinguish it from the surrounding waste of bog of which it forms part beyond the evidence of the unhappy occurrence which is strewn around for a considerable distance from the spot where the breakdown took place. The break-van which formed part of the ill-fated train lies on its side in the trench between the permanent way and the bog. The van appears to have sustained little injury but the third class carriage in which the deceased and the other passengers injured travelled, appears to have been smashed into fragments by the concussion, as only a small portion of the framework remains, whilst splinters of wood and ironwork lie scattered along the course of the line for nearly half a mile beyond and to the west of the scene of the disaster."

Back in Mockler's Hotel the jury spent two days investigating the cause of the accident and eventually returned a verdict that it was caused by excessive driving over an unsound line. It was stated that heavy rails caused the embankment under the line to become soft and elastic.