“Kilnasaggart Bridge” was a whispered curse on the lips of train travellers in the days of Northern Ireland’s Troubles.

It nudges up close to the border that separates the six counties of Ulster in the United Kingdom from the Republic of Ireland.

The bridge was such a popular target for IRA bombers that uninterrupted travel from north to south was often impossible.

A groan would go up as the tinny tannoy announced that, because of problems on the line, all passengers would disembark at the Newry halt, travel by bus across the border and then clamber back on the train at Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland.

We trundled on, we trundled off. It added at least an hour and more like two to the journey. So much for the “express”. But at least we knew we had crossed the border.

Now, commuters sip posh coffee and sail past this once troubled spot, blissfully unaware of where the north ends, and where the Republic of Ireland begins.

The border is there, but it is not there and the bombs are history.