The Old Railway Line
The Harcourt Street line ran from Bray to Dublin, passing through Dundrum. It was closed down in 1958 by Todd Andrews who was the head of CIE. The land was kept free of development which allowed it to be revived as the Luas in 2004.
The interim period provided us with a wild oasis to explore and colonise. It was a parent free haven where trees could be chopped down, streams dammed and dens built. We called ourselves the Simps, which was the best acronym we could come up with for our initials – Myself, Ivor Kenny, my brother Mark and Paul Mullen and we staked our claim on the section of the railway line which ran alongside the Kenny’s garden and made it our own personal fiefdom. We led apple orchard raids from our power base, we plotted assaults on other local gangs and planned our escape routes. We liberated bottles of champagne from Mr. Kenny’s secret stash and toasted our cunning.
Surveillance of the public car park on the other side of the track was occasionally productive. One evening, a car drew up beside another in a secluded corner. A man got out. He had a bottle of whiskey in his hand, and he climbed into the other vehicle, beckoned by a peroxide blonde who looked keen. The door slammed shut and in no time the windows had steamed up and ruined our view of activities. There was only one course of action open to us. We each gathered a handful of pebbles and threw them in turn at the rocking hotbed. We cackled as we imagined the dilemma faced by the couple. Keep going or sort out whoever had discovered their extra martial assignation. We soon got our answer.
The passenger door was flung open and the man jumped out. As we ducked down to avoid detection, laughing at his flapping shirt tails, he roared. He roared a lion’s roar – fury at being interrupted, after he had reclined the seat and worked out where to leverage his limbs. He followed up with the most fluent list of expletives we had ever heard and left us absolutely clear about what he would do when he caught us. We decided not to grant him that opportunity, and slid down the steep slope and up the other side to the safety of suburbia. The Simps dusted themselves down and glowed with the satisfaction of another successful mission.
