Mullingar’s dilapidated station

Sir, – I was surprised and saddened on Sunday last on my first visit in years to Mullingar railway station. Nothing has been done to conserve the 19th century building. I had sought help a decade and more ago with the support of the journalist Dick Hogan, then editor of the Westmeath Topic.

Nothing has happened. The abandoned building survives like a decayed ghost, the rotting rows of its conjoined vertical pelmets hanging from the roofs, the roof timbers in a much more dilapidated state than when I first admired them.

All this, despite the country being awash with funds for arguably less compelling conservation projects.

The consideration of this significant piece of industrial archaeology is a worthy cause for a politician or the Department of Transport, or the Department of Tourism or even Transport Ireland, or the Heritage Council, especially now that Mullingar is poised to become a major hub in a projected cross-Border railway link.– Yours, etc,