Donegal Railway Heritage Museum has received €7,200 in funding from the Shared Island Civic Society Fund for the Reconnecting Through Culture project.
This project is in association with the Alley Theatre, Strabane.
The project aims to take a creative approach to re-establishing cross-border connections through a shared exploration of how transport technologies have effected economic, social and cultural change throughout history.
In a statement manager of the Donegal Railway Heritage Museum said, “Its cultural and creative focus reflects one of the key principles of the new Strategic Plan that we will release in the coming weeks, which outlines our intention to emphasise an approach in which railways serve as a ‘window’ into broader aspects of our history, society, culture, sense of place, and local communities.”
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(Release in Full)
Donegal Railway Heritage Museum has received €7,200 in funding from the Shared Island Civic Society Fund for the Reconnecting Through Culture project in association with the Alley Theatre, Strabane.
The railways that once connected Donegal and Tyrone closed in the 1950s, severing one of the key links between communities in Northern Ireland and the Republic. This project takes a creative approach to re-establishing these cross-border connections through a shared exploration of how transport technologies have effected economic, social and cultural change throughout history and, in turn, how they have come to assume symbolic meaning in art, literature, and the cultural imagination. The project consists of a Schools Art Competition, a unique musical collaboration entitled the Station Sessions, and a day-long event in the Alley Theatre.
The project’s Schools Art Competition will ask students to produce a visual artwork portraying a form of transport of their choosing, along with a short description of what it symbolises in their entry; the car packed up for the holidays might represent the freedom of summer, for example, or the ship on a stormy sea could symbolise a confrontation with the power of nature.
The Station Sessions project will focus on the remarkable cultural impact of the train song as a musical form. Four acts from both sides of the border will select and perform a train song of their choosing to be filmed on location at the museum. The filmed performances will be compiled alongside written materials on the history of the train song into an online digital multimedia exhibition hosted on the museum’s website.
In Autumn 2026, the Alley Theatre Strabane will host a day-long event focused on community exchange, cultural programming, and the achievements of the project’s prior initiatives, with the planned schedule including an exhibition of works and prize-giving for art competition winners; a combined talk and musical performance on the topic of the train song; a launch of the online exhibition; and a guest lecture on the topic of Transport in Irish History, Art and Literature.
Museum Manager Marty Gilroy said in a statement:
We are extremely happy to have received the support of the Shared Island Civic Society Fund for this project. Its cultural and creative focus reflects one of the key principles of the new Strategic Plan that we will release in the coming weeks, which outlines our intention to emphasise an approach in which railways serve as a ‘window’ into broader aspects of our history, society, culture, sense of place, and local communities. Over the coming months, we will engage cross-border partners in a conversation about how material and technological developments in transport infrastructure have profoundly shaped our history, our lives, and the ways in which we express ourselves creatively. We hope this will stimulate new connections and ongoing relationships that cross the border between Donegal and Tyrone—not least between ourselves and our partners at the Alley Theatre.
