A restored railway station house in the centre of Listowel.
145 years of North Kerry railway history.
The Station House stands on John B Keane Grove in the centre of Listowel, alongside the route of the former railway. Today it is a distinctive restored home, but its story begins with the expansion of the railway across North Kerry in the late nineteenth century.
When Listowel Station opened on 20 December 1880, it formed part of the Limerick and Kerry Railway: a 43-mile route from Newcastle West to Tralee, connecting towns such as Abbeyfeale, Kilmorna, Listowel, Lixnaw, Abbeydorney and Ardfert. For generations, the station handled passengers, goods and the everyday traffic of a changing region.
The photographs below follow the story from the early railway period through the Lartigue Monorail, the working station years, the final decades of the railway, and the years of disuse before restoration. Historic images are shown in their natural proportions so the detail is not lost.
Limerick had been connected to the Irish railway system in 1848. The onward railway link to Tralee developed in stages: first via the Limerick and Foynes Railway, then the Rathkeale and Newcastle Junction Railway, and finally the Limerick and Kerry Railway. The line to Tralee opened on 20 December 1880, bringing Listowel Station into service.
Listowel was also home to one of Ireland's most remarkable railway experiments: the Listowel and Ballybunion Lartigue Monorail, which opened in 1888. The famous balanced monorail ran close to the Station House, adding another layer to Listowel's unusual railway heritage.
The manually operated turntables shown in these images can still be seen to the rear of the Station House today.
At its peak, the line carried several daily passenger services and goods traffic to and from Limerick. After the Second World War, however, rural railway traffic declined. Passenger services on the North Kerry line were withdrawn on 4 February 1963, although railway activity continued for some years afterwards.
After passenger closure, the railway did not vanish overnight. Freight movements and occasional trains continued, but the line's role was shrinking. In 1972 goods trains ceased running through to Tralee, and freight services were withdrawn from the Listowel-Tralee section in January 1977.
The line closed completely in the early 1980s and an abandonment order was issued in the late 1980s. Track lifting began in January 1988. Even as the rails disappeared, interest grew in reusing the track bed as a walking and cycling route — the beginning of the story that would eventually become the Great Southern Trail and Greenway.
By the 1990s, the building had survived but was visibly deteriorating. Historic photographs from this period show the Station House in a fragile state, with the roof and chimneys badly damaged. These images make the later restoration all the more striking.
Around the year 2000, the Station House was renovated and returned to life as a private home. Today, the building remains one of Listowel's most distinctive pieces of railway heritage: a restored station house in the heart of town, close to the former railway route and the modern Greenway.
These images trace the changing character of the site: from an active railway station, through the quiet years after closure, to the derelict building that would later be restored.
What makes the house special is not only its location, but its continuity. The building has passed from railway station to disuse, from near-dereliction to restoration, it is a genuine piece of Listowel's story.
