The West Clare Railway Co.

The new W.C.R. Co. was resurrected in 1984. The three founding directors were Steve Kileen, a Galway man and Engineer, working at the Moneypoint Electricity Generating Station, Eugene Kelly, a local man and Solicitor, and Joe Taylor, born locally and a publican and small farmer.
As the owner of a small pub in an area of West Clare populated by small farmers, and dependent to a large extent on a short tourism season, totally at the mercy of weather and other external matters, I saw the need for a permanent tourist project in the area. The most obvious project that could be looked at in the area was the remnants of the old railway that ran through Moyasta. The Railway Station was still there but was been lived in, and that looked out of the equation at the time.
At that time the three mentioned above were in the Lions Club, and became interested in doing something for our local area. We hauled our resources and came up with £3,000 and we bought a nice little field beside Poulnasherry Bay, and beside the railway embankment which took the Railway across the Bay.
Our idea was to build an interpretative center, of the W.C.R. to tell about the existence and its history. Steve duly put a project proposal together, which we hawked around to various State Bodies, (Bord Failte, Shannon Development), to be greeted by total