Getting ready for my 175 Years of Navan Railway exhibition! 20th-24th August at Solstice Arts Centre, Navan for Heritage Week. I'm giving a lecture at launch 20th Aug 6.30pm. All free but do book for lecture - more than half seats gone already! solsticeartscentre.ie/event/175-ye...

175 Years of Navan Railway, free exhibition at Solstice Arts Centre Navan 20th-24th August for Heritage Week. I curated this with Navan & District Historical Society. There'll be photos and original drawings on display. Book your free place for launch & lecture solsticeartscentre.ie/event/175-ye...

Really enjoyed the @ssnci.bsky.social conference in Aberdeen at the weekend. Loved the granite city and will definitely be back! Lots of great projects on Ireland's rich history, lovely to meet lots of like-minded researchers too. Thanks to Michael Brown @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social for organising.

Liffey Loop Line railway bridge spliced through Dublin in 1891 linking Connolly Station at Amiens Street and Pearse Station at Westland Row. Designed by John Chaloner Smith chief engineer Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford Railway, and Arthur and George Mills, engineers for Great Northern Railway (Ireland)

Getting ready for Society for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Ireland @ssnci.bsky.social conference at @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social this week! I'll be presenting ‘The Alphabet of the Engineer: The Universal Language of Engineering Draughtsmanship’ at 9am on Saturday 21st June. See you there!

Had a great time presenting my lecture on Dublin's Railway Architecture for Dublin City Council @dublincityheritage.bsky.social It's now free to watch on YouTube: youtu.be/LrEpdxzCZnk?... Great to have Irish Sign Language provided too!

Doing final touches for my talk 'Dublin's Railway Architecture' for Dublin City Council's Oak Room Talks at the Mansion House on 23 April. I see it is fully booked - thank you! - but it will be recorded and available afterwards. Keep an eye out for the other talks: www.eventbrite.ie/cc/oak-room-...

Wilkinstown wayside and level-crossing station, Co. Meath. Now a private residence on the now Boyne Valley to Lakelands Greenway, the tracks, platform and signals have been left in tact. Opened in 1872 the line runs from Navan to Kingscourt in Co. Cavan. It closed to passengers in 1947.

This evening's base: Wynns Hotel, Dublin for the Irish Railway Record Society annual dinner. Great to catch up with members, meet fellow railway history buffs and a few company chiefs!

In my hometown St Albans for Christmas and spotted a photo of the old London Road station opened 1865 by the Hatfield and St Albans Railway, closed in 1951. A station and master's house, it's a handsome example of confident brick railway architecture for smaller stations. The line is a greenway

Navan Station, Meath. Built 1885 designed by William Hemingway Mills for the Great Northern Railway (Ireland). Realised in the characteristic yellow brick, but its original drawing had a lift-up flap with the option for red brick for the main body!

Surely the best use of lazybones goes to Thomas the Tank Engine: "wake up lazy bones!"

One of my favourite drawings in the Irish Railway Record Society archive for the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) signal cabin. They were installed all across the network being just as much a part of the architectural identity of the company as the stations

Design for Dunmurry Station Co Antrim, 1883. Drawn by engineer R J Cooke for Great Northern Railway (Ireland), signed by William Hemingway Mills the engineer-in-chief. Engineering and architectural draughtsmanship has a strict code of colour and shading called descriptive geometry, as seen here!

Today's filming locations are Howth and Sutton railway stations, both early examples and both with later additions by the Great Northern Railway. Video coming soon with Irish Rail!