Hugely popular Donegal Railway Museum to feature on RTE1 this weekend

The Award Winning Donegal Railway Museum is set to feature on RTE again for the second time this year after its Nationwide appearance, this time on a special two-part documentary called “The Records Show” this Sunday 15th October, 6:30pm.

The landmark documentary will delve into the many stories that make up Ireland’s history of nation building can be found in the boxes and boxes of files in the National Archives - the custodian of the state’s history, much of which has not been seen in public before. The archives in this series come in many different forms; reports, letters, memos and maps shed light on the efforts and struggle to form an identity for the new Irish state while at the same time looking both back to Ireland’s past and forward to modernity. The County Donegal Railway will feature in episode 1 this Sunday.

"When presented with the archive documents from the 1950’s, I was shocked to see how the closure happened, and the lack of knowledge from Dublin in relation to the quality of the infrastructure, the roads, that was to replace them. As was foreseen then, the County was negatively impacted by the closure of the railways, and the promised improved road infrastructure upgrade, did not happen for many decades, leading to the County economically suffering more than most on this island, then and up to the present day.”   

Sunday night’s programme has RTE presenter, Katie Hannon meeting Niall at the  Donegal Railway Museum to discuss the report she found in the archives relating to the end of the Donegal-Ballyshannon line which went along the coast to Rossnowlagh. She also goes in search of the remains of the line along to Creevy where she meets with Molly Reynolds who shows her the remains of a train platform and directs her to where train bridges still stand close by.

The programme which will be broadcast on Sunday 15th October, RTE1, 6:30 was made by Midas Productions for RTE.