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From inside the Howth Tram

Kleptocratic, surely?

Like countries with "democratic" in their names are seldom democratic!

To be fair, commerlad, Clare is a major holiday destination with good transport links. From Dublin it's only a few hours on the motorway, and Shannon Airport brings in visitors from across Britain, Europe and North America. From an Irish perspective, it's a little odd seeing all those references to "the mainland" - for many of us, Ireland is the mainland! 🙂 That said, I think your post does highlight what is probably the more fundamental issue: scale. The Republic has around 5.5 million people compared with roughly 68 million in the UK. Even if you include Northern Ireland, the all-island market is still much smaller. That means a much smaller pool of enthusiasts, volunteers and skilled people to keep heritage railways running, and fewer local visitors making repeat trips throughout the season. Heritage railways don't survive on overseas tourists alone; they depend on local support year after year, people like yourself making regular day trips to their local railways. Tourism certainly helps (Clare attracts huge numbers of visitors) but tourism and heritage railways aren't quite the same thing. A tourist might visit the Cliffs of Moher once, whereas a preserved railway needs a loyal base of repeat visitors, members and volunteers, alongside tourists, to justify the ongoing costs of maintaining locomotives, rolling stock and infrastructure. Ultimately, I think that's the fundamental challenge. Heritage railways need substantial capital, continuous maintenance and, above all, a large and active community of volunteers and repeat visitors. With a much smaller population to draw on, Ireland simply has a smaller base from which to sustain projects like these over the long term.

We have been over this topic before My comment from that thread still applies Posted June 22, 2025 (edited) The above posts have gone on about location and population in those areas, But I think some of you miss the point that those locations are holiday destinations or have good transport links. Wales is only in most cases only 2 or 3 hours drive away from England. Any thoughts that Ireland is that same 2 or 3 hours drive, A 2 hour ferry crossing plus the 1hr check in beforehand and then guess what. Another couple of hours drive to get to the location. It's not that those in the UK are not interested in Irish historic railways, It's just the practicalities of getting there easily are not viable.  Especially as most do day trips to locations on the Mainland. Off the top of my head I can legally get to at least 10 mainland locations within an hours drive from home (according to google maps) for only minimal fuel costs. Anywhere in Ireland is 3 days 2 nights and a ferry fare. After checking I got that number to 16 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   It is unfortunate that the population density of Ireland and the Republic Of (Other than in the Cities) has never fully recovered from the exodus (Not that it was that great to start with) so there are not that many wanting to visit an attraction in the first place, out of those, how many are enthusiasts? You see where I am going with this. There just is not the viable footfall to really support a venture that needs several thousand Euro to succeed and grow. Even now on the UK mainland places are stating to struggle. The availability and cost of Coal, means more Diesel running (And Trump has done nothing to help in that situaton!) So even visitor numbers are down (Not greatly but people may not go out so often and stay more local than long distance) I am lucky enough to be able to enjoy my hobbies, those of you that have read my posts may even realise how "lucky" I am. But just about everybody has limits and unfortunately some are more limited than others.