Carnage and death on the 7.15pm train from Macroom

ON that fateful September Sunday in 1878, a young boy called Denis Burke had set out to Macroom to ensnare some birds.

When he boarded the 7.15pm train back to Cork city, he placed his birdcage beside him and sat in the carriage seat right behind the engine. Picture the child looking on enthralled as the driver, James Rattray, guided the steam train down the tracks.

Also working on the train that evening was the fireman stoker, Patrick Kidney, who was due to marry in a week’s time.

In a split second, all three - Denis, James, and Patrick - as well as two other passengers, had their lives snuffed out, in one of the greatest railway tragedies in Irish history.

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The 7.15pm train on Sunday, September 7, 1878, was running a little late as it sped along from Macroom to Cork city. One passenger later claimed it was the fastest he had ever travelled on a train “and I have used the express to Dublin”.

Its four carriages were packed. Some on board had enjoyed a day out, others had visited family. One survivor said officials had to turn people away at some stations.

Just over a mile after it had pulled out of Ballincollig station, it juddered, jerked and rattled a few times, enough to make some passengers grip their seats to steady themselves.

Then disaster struck.

The train derailed at high speed yards from the bridge at Curraheen, at the junction of the Maglin and Curraheen rivers, because of what were later found to be faulty sleepers.

The engine and its carriages careered off the track, through a thick fence, and ploughed 75 yards into fields. Death and horror ensued.

The driver, James Rattray, died instantly, his body almost cut in two and scalded beyond all recognition by steam. A veteran railwayman, he had driven the first train to Macroom when the track opened 12 years earlier.

Poor little Denis Burke, who lived in Coachford, also died instantly, his battered birdcage found close to his limp body. His older brother, Thomas, aged 12, sitting further back in the train, was injured but survived.

A tailor, Michael Drew, aged 30, of 1, Connell’s Alley, Hanover Street, and his young apprentice, Thomas Murphy, 16, of 22, Chamberlain’s Lane, Cork, also died. They had been visiting Michael’s father-in-law in Kilcrea.

That brought the fatal toll to five, with around 70 injured.

Death, injury, or survival was a pure lottery; those in the closest carriage to the engine had the worst of the luck.

It was only the second railway fatality in Cork county at the time - 23 years earlier, in 1855, a pig drover was killed near Mallow when a freight train crashed.

The Curraheen crash was the second worst railway accident in Ireland in the 19th century, and remained the worst in Cork until the Buttevant tragedy of 1980.

Patrick Kidney, a stoker on the route for four months, lost his left leg from the thigh in the crash, but was conscious and remarkably alert in the immediate aftermath.

He had the presence of mind to warn survivors and rescuers who arrived early on the scene to stay clear of the bubbling boiler in case it blew up.

Sadly, Patrick succumbed to his injuries the next morning.

Among the most seriously injured was a young lady, Miss Catherines Hayes, whose father James was Chief Clerk of Cork. She suffered two broken legs and multiple lacerations, while two young boys she was with - her cousins - also had broken legs.

Newspapers reported the cries of the dying and wounded were terrible. In one third-class carriage, seven men and six women suffered fractures.

One survivor, Timothy Dinan, of 10, Model Cottages, Blarney Street, had been travelling with his wife. She was “buried under five or six screaming persons” and he found it impossible to extricate her and thought she was dead. Eventually, they both managed to crawl to safety.

One reporter at the scene said of the engine: “It seemed almost as if the earth had been banked up around it, so thoroughly had it buried itself in the soil.”

News of the crash reached Ballincollig first, and barracks soldiers and the parish priest - armed with alcohol to treat shock - raced to the scene.

In Cork city, the Examiner reported: “Everyone seemed to think a friend was involved in the catastrophe, and the railway company’s office, as well as the post office, were besieged with anxious inquirers after the welfare of their friends.

“The wires between Cork, Ballincollig, Coachford, and Macroom, and vice versa, were kept in constant work by the friends of the injured people. As is usual in such cases, several persons who were expected to be in the train, were not.”

The reporter wrote harrowingly of “objects besmirched with blood... in the debris, we picked up a playing card - the nine of spades - spattered with the blood of some poor fellow who was no doubt lightening the fatal journey by a quiet game... there also lay a boot of a boy, full of clotted blood.” Mrs Deasy and Mr Cuffe, whose farms adjoined the crash site, donated beds and blankets for bandages, and housed the three victims who died instantly.

****** In the immediate aftermath, the railway company claimed the train was “maliciously thrown off the track”, suggesting vandalism. However, this theory was swiftly rebutted, not least by outraged local residents who “protested loudly against such an imputation on their character”.

It quickly became clear that the poorly maintained sleepers were to blame.

At the inquest in Ballincollig Schoolhouse, James Rattray Jnr, son of the dead driver, said he had been acting stationmaster at Cork station on the evening of the crash and had seen off his father to Macroom at 6.15pm: The last time he saw him alive.

A reporter from the Cork Constitution initially suggested Mr Rattray Snr had been drinking, an accusation that was denied by all concerned, and led to a fierce backlash against the newspaper.

Patrick Kidney’s brother, William, a porter at Beamish and Crawford brewery, told the inquest he had meant to accompany Patrick that day but hadn’t gone.

When he heard of the accident, he went to Curraheen but couldn’t face seeing his stricken brother. “I saw a lot of women lying on the ground moaning and crying. I saw my brother at a distance - but I couldn’t go near him - I hadn’t the heart. I was going up towards him but my nerves got weak and I turned back.” Mary Drew, widow of tailor Michael, had been the victim of a terrible misunderstanding on the night of the tragedy.

She had met the damaged train when it later limped into Cork station with some of the lesser-injured passengers. When she saw her husband was not on board, she assumed he had survived and was “frantic with joy”.

The Examiner reported: “No-one, not even the boldest, had the heart to tell her that her bread-winner lay dead a few miles away, but when at last she learned the dreadful news, her agony of grief was terrible to behold, and as she shrieked, many a manly cheek was wet with tears.” Interestingly, the press gave ages for the males injured, but not for the females.

****** An accident report into the tragedy was carried out by D. F. Sullivan, of 7, Winthrop Street, and defective sleepers at the spot where the engine left the track was given as the sole cause.

The blame lay squarely with the Cork & Macroom Direct Railway, and public outrage was aroused when it emerged that, just a few weeks beforehand, its chairman, W. Hutchinson Massey, boasted at the company’s half-yearly meeting that the business would “get the last shilling out of every sleeper”.

A year before, he had scoffed at any prospect of a crash on the Macroom line, as it was such a “simple” route. Both remarks came back to haunt him.

The inquest found that the company directors were culpably responsible for the accident. This was tantamount to an accusation of manslaughter - and was a terrible stain on the reputations of people like famous poet Denny Lane, Secretary of the Cork Gas Consumers, and Sir John Arnott, one-time principal proprietor of the Irish Times. Some of the directors were even brought into custody No criminal charges ensued, but the company had to pay £15,000 compensation to the injured and relatives of the dead.

It was a huge sum for a small company, and it could not pay a dividend to shareholders for the next 20 years. Up to then, it had been seen as well-managed and efficient - its efficiency regarding the sleepers had crossed the line.

Even in defeat, W. Hutchinson Massey scoffed at the number of injury claims, and suggested the figure of 78 should be closer to 20.

He sarcastically stated he was glad that many of those “who received severe spinal shock in the crash were again walking around quite well since their cases had been disposed of”.

In 1978, in an Echo article marking the centenary of the disaster, railway enthusiast and former Holly Bough editor Walter McGrath pinpointed the exact scene of the crash: “If you turn northwards at Curraheen village and take the narrow road to Minister’s Cross, and Ballincollig, you soon cross over the Maglin stream. Just beyond that was the railway bridge, and on your right, is the exact spot.” The journalist said that his grandmother, who lived in Ballincollig at the time, recalled it was the greatest tragedy in the district and remained in the minds of all who saw the scene of destruction.

****** The Cork & Macroom Direct Railway line opened on May 12, 1866, and ran for 24 miles, with stations at Bishopstown (short-lived), Ballincollig, Killumney, Kilcrea, Crookstown and Ryecourt (or Crookstown Road), and Dooniskey - the latter platform is still visible, on private land.

It began with three passenger trains each way on weekdays, later increased to four, with two return trains on Sundays. Daily goods trains also ran, with additional monthly cattle specials and occasional grain runs.

Passenger traffic ceased in 1935. Eight years later, plans for a special train for a Sunday sports meeting in Cork had to be scrapped due to overhanging bushes.

On June 13, 1950, however, a group of Irish Railway Record Society members were conveyed from Macroom to Cork in a six-wheeled carriage attached to the monthly livestock train.

The last train to use the line was the Fair Day Special of November 10, 1953. The tracks were lifted the following spring.

One man’s poignant crusade to mark the site of 1878 disaster

THE Curraheen crash of 1878 was marked this year, when a memorial stone was put up near the spot where it happened.

Derry Dineen, whose house overlooked the site, long felt the tragedy should be remembered in some way - his great-grandfather, living locally at the time, never forgot it.

Derry persuaded Munster Agricultural Society (MAS), who own the land, to pay for a memorial stone to be erected at the scene, on land near to where the animals are judged in the annual Cork Summer Show.

Sadly, Derry died in Marymount Hospice last November after a brave battle against cancer, and did not live to see it erected. However, his friend, Tommy Wallace, who works for MAS, said: “Before Derry died, I brought the monument up to Marymount so he could see it. After that, he could go to sleep, happy in the knowledge that those who died in the Curraheen crash had been remembered.”

Derry believed that six people, rather than five, died, and the ‘Master Kenny’ named on the memorial may refer to a child who died later of his injuries.