The Houses on Station Road, Lahinch

By Tomsie O’Sullivan

Station Road, Lahinch got its name from the days of the West Clare Railway Line which operated here from 1885 to 1961. The Lahinch Railway Station was off the main road with a wide entrance gate to its “Station”, Family House, Stores and other building. The records of 1990 show just five buildings on the road, a hotel, shop and three family homes. The 1996 records show Station Road having 69 houses and no sight of the Railway Building.

The Aberdeen Arms Hotel is now the first building we see as we turn left off Main Street at Church Corner. This hotel has extended in all directions over the past 30 years and now covers most of what used be called “The Pump Field” and also had the Village’s Spring Well and Pump.

The next bungalow is Mrs. Ann Conway built in 1956 and after that there is a vacant building site. The McGlennon Family are in the next bungalow built in 1964.
Then there is a small Caravan Site off the road.

Along the front of this site there are four two storey terraced houses. No. 1 is now Dr. McGovern’s Medical Centre and the other three belong to Denis Cullinan and are for letting. They were built in the 1970s.

The two storey we next see is a Summer House owned by a Galway Family and then we have a bungalow, a Summer House owned by a Cork Family. There are then two houses in course of construction.

Mr. & Mrs. O’Dwyer’s is the house we see next built in late 1960s.
The next bungalow was built in late 1970s and is home of Tomsie and Marie O’Sullivan and family. There was a small shop there in the 1930s: “Cynthia Rourkes”.

“Pink Lodge” was one of the first five properties on Station Road, owned by the Vaughan family. It remains in the family and Micheál and Phil Vaughan and family live there now.
Beyond the Railway Gate, the last house is now where P.J. Greene lives and after that the rest of the land on the left into Dough belongs to the Slattery Family.

Next the boundary of Dough on the South Side of the Road there is now a very fine housing development undertaken by Clare Co. Council and this is now considered the end of Station Road.

As we walk back towards Lahinch we see two new bungalows – property of Mr. & Mrs. Slattery and next Mr. & Mrs. Coughlan.

Then we have the home of Bridget Kenny possible the first house to be built in the area late 1940s to 50s.
Mr. & Mrs. Christy Donohue built their home next door and then others came on stream. Two retired residence, then Christy Browne’s bungalow, next Nora Moloney and at the corner entrance to the Station, Mr. & Mrs. Tim Murphy. As we enter the station grounds, the old Railway Houses are all gone that had memories of the West Clare Railway. The first bungalow on the left is Mrs. Skerritt, whose husband, J.J., God rest him, was the last Station Master at Lahinch Station. Next to it is Mrs. Young’s bungalow and here a local could possible recognise a bit of the Old Railway Boundary wall just beyond her property.

Opposite to these, on the site of the Railway Offices and Residence, there is now a block of houses for Summer letting so as we walk back down Station Road we see nothing to show this was Lahinch’s West Clare Railway Station. Just at the corner we have on our left the bungalow of Mr. & Mrs. M.J. Looney and family. Next is the home of a Castletroy family and then there is a large two storey double house. This was again one of the buildings of the 1950s built as a Hotel “Realt na Mara” for the McKendrick sisters and in the ‘60s sold as a double house, a Cork family live in one and a Clare family in the other now.

The next bungalow was built in the 1970s and now belongs to an Ennis family. After this, the next bungalow is one of a group build in the ‘50s and the present owners are a Limerick family. The large bungalow next was up in the ‘50s the home of the Conertys and sold to the Presentation Nuns, Mountmellick, who built a new residence and oratory here in the late 1960s. It is now property of Clare Care and is used all year for various holiday groups in Co. Clare.

The next house is in the course of reconstruction by an Ennis family and for a number of years was the local curate’s residence. The bungalow next is the home of Miss Mary Garrahy. The Kennedy family of Moughna own the next bungalow and F. O’Loughlin and family live here.

In the next bungalow lives Mrs. Nan Healy and the house next is home of Mr. & Mrs. Seamus Rush. The bungalow we look at next was built in the late ‘60s on a site of an old house where a Miss O’Sullivan was a tenant.

There is then the bungalow of Mr. & Mrs John McInerny and this is built on the site where the only Pub of Station Road was located during the days of the Railway and was owned by Mrs. Vaughan.

The next large two storey property has two houses, Mrs. McKee (nee Garrahy) in one and Mr. & Mrs. Dervan (nee Garrahy) in the other. From this site, the ground as far as the Railway was once the estate of the Murphy Family. The first houses on the McKee/Dervan site were one storey and also the first R.I.C. Police Station was at Eastern end of property. The Police Station was destroyed by fire in 1923 and later the whole site was purchased by Dan Garrahy (father of Mrs. McKee, Mrs. Dervan and Mary Garrahy). In 1932 he employed Tom McDonagh and others to build the present two storey houses.

Next is the home of Mrs. Mary Comber and finally we have John Galvin’s Public House.

My thanks to the late Lizzie Williams and residents of Station road for their help in compiling this list.

Ennistymon Parish Magazine 1997