PLANS to transform a former railway station in Kilmallock, which has been out of use for almost five decades, have ground to a halt as a derelict site notice has been erected at the station.
The train station closed in 1976 and has lain idle ever since, with numerous calls over almost 50 years to reopen and repurpose the historic building.
The detached two-bay two-storey former railway station was built in 1849 and was on the Dublin Heuston to Cork Kent railway line.
In 2023, Sinn Féin Cllr PJ Carey put forward a motion during a Cappamore Kilmallock Municipal District meeting for Limerick City and County Council to engage with Iarnrod Éireann to discuss the possibility of leasing the station “with a view to subletting to the local branch of the Red Cross”.
When Cllr Carey sought an update on this motion last November, he was informed that the Council was “in the process of calculating estimated costs in relation to the connection of services such as water, sewer, and power to the building”.
Now, a derelict site notice has been issued for the station, dated June 13, 2025.
The Council told the Limerick Post that it “issued a Section 8(2) notice under the Derelict Site Act, 1990, in respect of Kilmallock Railway Station”, adding that it is “currently in discussions with the owners in respect of the notice serviced”.
“The Kilmallock Railway Station is not in the ownership of Limerick City and County Council,” the Council spokesperson noted.
“If the Council were to acquire the property, whether via the derelict sites process or otherwise, at some stage in the future from Iarnrod Éireann, an expression of interest for possible future uses of the property would need to be advertised and interested parties could then apply in the interests of fairness and equality.”
The Council said that substantial work is required to bring the historic building back into use and any group or organisation would need to have sufficient funding in place to redevelop and operate the building from their own resources.
In a statement to this newspaper, Iarnrod Éireann confirmed it had “a third party query from a local councillor earlier in the year about the use of the building for the South Limerick Branch of the Irish Red Cross, and we advised that if a fully funded proposal was forthcoming to do this, we would be open to issuing a licence for this purpose.”
“There has been no further follow up on this since then,” the rail service added.
Iarnrod Éireann confirmed that “there are no plans currently to reopen the station”, noting however that it “will ensure that no action is undertaken which would preclude any future reopening of the station, should such a proposal be funded by third parties and which meets the various approval processes needed”.
Repair and clean-up works have taken place to the station in recent years, including roof repairs in summer 2023, and a general clean-up and window and roof maintenance last month.
