The Clough Train Crash

The Rosslare to Dublin train left Rosslare at 8.05am on New Year’s Eve, Wednesday 31st December 1975.  Ninety minutes later, it was due to continue its journey over Clough Bridge near Tuberneering.  However, a tractor carrying an excavator on a low-loader collided with the bridge and damaged the railway line.

A local man, Christopher Hill, on hearing the collision of the excavator with the bridge, ran across a field and onto the train tracks in an attempt to alert the train driver, a Dublin man named Joe O’Neill. Unfortunately, the driver did not have enough time or distance to stop the train before it reached the bridge and crashed down the embankments.  Five people lost their lives at the scene and there were multiple injuries in the crash.   

The farmhouse of Christopher Hill’s parents, Rebecca and Tom Hill, became a sanctuary for the injured and many of the traumatised survivors.  In the years that followed recovery and return to work, Joe O’Neill set a tradition of beeping the horn on the train as it passed the Hill farmhouse in appreciation of the care given to the passengers and CIE employees on that fateful morning in 1975.

 A commemoration service was held by Irish Rail on December 31st, 2015 at the scene of the crash.  It was attended by survivors and relatives of the people who died at the scene.