The Irish Railway Journey

Ireland embraced tourism from mid-Victorian times. Railways and cross-channel steamers between Europe’s two largest islands transformed the travel landscape of a country possessing a unique blend of attractive cultural, heritage, natural and manmade assets. This book records the story of travel, from and around Ireland, and how visitors explored places and new resorts put on the map by railway expansion.

Sought after destinations were made familiar through travellers’ tales and writings, and an explosion in the level of marketing materials produced by competing railway companies and travel organisers, all carefully designed to attract affluent Victorian and Edwardian visitors. In colonial, post-separation and modern eras the numbers of British and American tourists increased rapidly. Together with a story of more organised, planned, and systemic promotion, the development of Ireland came about as a modern tourist destination. Yet for a hundred years the role of the railways were an essential component in a narrative that makes Irish travel so compelling.