Eamon Ryan rules out return of West Cork rail service

Better bus routes are a more realistic prospect for linking West Cork to the city centre, says transport minister

A train crossing the Chetwynd viaduct outside Cork City in March 1961. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive/Ref 657L

A rail link from Cork City to West Cork has been ruled out as a viable transport link in the future, with Transport Minister Eamon Ryan instead insisting a focus on bus routes is a more viable answer to the region's public transport needs.

The possibility of resurrecting the old rail lines from Bantry to Cork has been raised in recent years, albeit seen as ambitious to the point of being realistically unachievable.

Part of West Cork's heritage, the old line opened in 1849 and ran until 1961 along a single 150km track. Falling passenger numbers due to car ownership becoming more prevalent was the reason behind its closure.

However, in the context of the climate crisis, with Ireland's transport sector expected to do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to reducing carbon emissions, the idea of resurrecting a rail link to West Cork was mooted again.

Floated periodically in the Dáil and Seanad, West Cork TD Christopher O'Sullivan admitted last year that such a proposal may be seen as "pie in the sky", but that as roads in the area progressively deteriorated amid growing congestion, "a railway would go a long way towards relieving that pressure and reducing carbon emissions".

Better bus routes

However, Mr Ryan has now effectively ruled it out, despite a nostalgic personal attachment to the concept. Better bus routes were more realistic for West Cork, Mr Ryan said.

"My mother grew up in Bantry, her father grew up in a farm in Glounthaune. I'll be perfectly honest, the odds of us bringing back the Bantry rail line, which served her time, I don't see that happening. 

"In reality, there are other ways, particularly the rural bus services in the likes of Bantry, serving the Beara peninsula and Mizen peninsula, as well as Gougane Barra and back down into Bantry — they are the bus services, the public transport system that has to come next."

Similarly, in relation to East Cork, Mr Ryan said abandoning the proposed greenway from Youghal to Midleton in favour of a resurrected rail link was a non-runner.

"It's never too late... in terms of opening a rail line, but in truth, the focus is on building the Cork Metropolitan Rail Project, which we know we will deliver, where we have been using the European Recovery Resilience Fund, to upgrade the line from Midleton to Kent Station and out the other side to Mallow."

New stations would be key for new housing and communities, he said.