By Brian Mac Aongusa from his book Broken Rails
Around 9.30am on New Year’s Eve 1975 – exactly 50 years ago today – an excavator on the back of a lorry struck Clogh Bridge, some five kilometres south of Gorey in Co. Wexford, dislodged its granite masonry and buckled the railway just minutes before the 8.05am Rosslare Harbour to Dublin was due.
In spite of frantic efforts to stop the train, it hit the bridge at an estimated 60mph causing a terrible accident in which five people were killed and thirty injured. It was the worst rail crash in CIE’s history until that time.
The casualty figures would have been considerably higher only that the first two carriages were closed and empty, as they were intended for use by passengers joining the train further along the line. These leading vehicles, as well as a luggage van were completely shattered when the train jumped the rails at the damaged bridge.
Most of the injured were in the third carriage, but five people were killed in the fourth carriage when it was penetrated by the coach behind it and came to rest spanning the gap in the line.
Driver Joseph O’Neill from Rosslare Harbour, who had been in the left-hand seat of engine No B132, had a miraculous escape. Deeply shocked and with a back injury, he managed to crawl out after his engine overturned and tumbled down an embankment into a field.
Christy Hill, a local man, was driving his car nearby when he was stopped by the lorry driver and told the bridge had been damaged. Almost simultaneously he heard a train siren in the distance. Describing how he ran through a field and up on to the railway embankment to a point about 50 metres from the buckled rails, Christy Hill continued; “I waved frantically at the driver to stop. But the driver blew for me to get out of the way, and I could then hear the brakes going on. I ran to my house, but the phone was not working. I managed to get a phone that did work and rang the gardaí in Gorey.”
Rescue work began at once in bad conditions of heavy rain. A fleet of ambulances, doctors and nurses, fire brigade personnel, gardaí and volunteer workers converged on the scene from Gorey, Enniscorthy and Wexford, but h had a very difficult task in disentangling the wreckage. The impact had been extremely severe; coach bodies being smashed and wheel-bogies and underframes badly twisted.
Rescuers had to spend about two hours trying to extricate the dead and the injured from the wreckage.
Volunteer helpers who earned high praise included Wexford County Council staff, mechanics from garages in the area and people from various businesses throughout North Wexford.
This account of the Clogh bridge rail accident by Brian Mac Aongusa comes from his book, Broken Rails; Crashes and Sabbotage on Irish Railways, first published by Currach Press, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, in 2005. Copies are still available in second hand bookshops.
AUDIO ADDITION – On December 12th, 2005, Brian Mac Aongusa (1935-2023), who was Controller of Programmes, RTÉ Radio 1, travelled to the studios of South East Radio where he was interviewed by Dan Walsh on the popular Mid Week Voices programme. We have saved an edited version of that interview with references to the Wexford railway networks.
WexfordLocal.com 