Two Irish business enterprises that ceased operations a century ago remain lively in the nation’s memory. The Listowel and Ballybunion Railway, a unique monorail, made its final journey in October 1924, ending 36 years of passenger and freight service in County Kerry. Two months later, the last issue of the Freeman’s Journal, a 161-year-old national daily, rolled off the presses in Dublin. The events were unconnected, but the railway and the newspaper shared a few touch points.
The well-established Freeman reported the monorail from its Leap Year Day 1888 opening and published the legal notices about the sale of its assets. The single-track train never made much profit, and the new Irish Free State government’s decision to exclude it from the railway nationalization scheme was a fatal blow. Many of the monorail’s passengers–whether locals or visitors–surely carried copies of the Freeman as they wobbled along the 9-mile, elevated rail from the market town to the seaside resort. More significantly, both businesses were attacked by anti-treaty republicans during Ireland’s civil war: the rail line because it was used to transport Free State troops; the newspaper because it editorialized against the “irregulars.”
The Lartigue monorail in Kerry opened on Leap Year Day in 1888. The line closed in 1924.
The Freeman reported that the Dublin judge who allowed the “famous” railway’s receivers to close the line “did so with regret,” as if to imbue the legal formality with a romantic resignation.[1]”Mono Railway To Go”, Freeman’s Journal, Oct. 8, 1924. The paper retold humorous stories of how operators had to balance passengers and livestock on each side of the pannier-style carriages. The monorail, popularly known by the surname of inventor Charles Lartigue, years after was recalled in verse and a few books. In 2003, the Lartigue Monorail museum opened in Listowel, including a replica model operating on a short stretch of track.
The Freeman’s cessation was compelled by “the conditions of the time,” its editors noted. But, they added, there remained “the consolation of good work done, of great aims accomplished, of a a nation freer and happier for the existence of an institution that now passes away and become a part–and an unforgettable part–of a victorious people’s story.”[2]”1763-1924” editorial, Freeman’s Journal, Dec. 19, 1924
The Freeman was certainly the more consequential of the two businesses. Its digitized archive is “said to be the most important newspaper source” for more than a century and a half of Irish political, commercial, and cultural life. Dublin historian Felix Larkin has noted the paper figures prominently in James Joyce’s Ulysses, while the attack on its equipment by anti-treaty republicans reflects today’s threats to the free press in many parts of the world. Larkin encouraged An Post to issue a special stamp commemorating the paper’.
Over the years this site has published several pieces about both enterprises, a few of which are linked below the photo for additional reading. Enjoy.
May 2024 launch of the Freeman’s Journal stamp with, left to right, Aileen Mooney of An Post; Catherine Munro, granddaughter of Martin Fitzgerald, the paper’s last owner; and historian Felix Larkin, chair of the Philatelic Advisory Committee. Photo taken in front of the O’Connell Street, Dublin, statue of Sir John Gray, owner of the Freeman’s Journal from 1841 until his death in 1875.
Freeman’s Journal
- The slow death of the Freeman’s Journal, Larkin’s 2019 guest post
- U.S. press reactions to sledging of the Freeman’s Journal
- On reading opposing newspapers in Ireland, 1922 & 1888
Lartigue monorail
- Return Journey: Ireland’s Lartigue Railway, my 2009 piece for History magazine
- The Lartigue monorail’s 1888 opening–illustrated
- Irish Civil War’s toll on Kerry’s ‘Lartigue’ monorail