Source: Ballyglunin.com

THE ONLINE FUNDRAISER raising money to carry out renovations on the iconic train station featured in the Quiet Man has reached its €30,000 goal.

Organisers had said Ballyglunin Train Station’s roof was at risk of collapse. They have sent a “sincere thank you to everyone for supporting this worthy project”.

At the time of publication, the campaign had raised over €31,000.

The train station was made famous in John Ford’s classic 1952 film, which starred John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara.

The Galway station was re-named Castletown by Ford and was the location for numerous scenes throughout the Oscar-winning film.

As TheJournal.ie reported last month, the roof of the station began to fall in about a year and a half ago. The local community established a charity in 2012, with the aim of preserving the station.

Conservation architects had said the station would collapse if immediate restoration works were not completed.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie in May, the charity’s public relation officer Paschal Cassidy said: “If we don’t fix it this year, there’ll be nothing left and the whole project will fall apart.

It’s just been local voluntary groups and ourselves trying to keep it together but it’s got to the stage where if it goes that’ll be it. It’ll be very hard to come back from that.

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Leo Moran, the Saw Doctors’ guitarist, who is helping out with the campaign, said at the time: “We need everyone’s help to save this iconic building so that future generations can enjoy and understand our past.

“The Ballyglunin Community Development Charity has huge plans to develop this amazing location however, if nothing is done, we’ll be saying goodbye to an important slice of Irish history,” Moran said.

With reporting by Hayley Halpin