RAILWAY HERITAGE EVENTS IN FERMANAGH

On 30 September 2017 the Headhunters Barber's Shop and Railway Museum in Enniskillen received the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service , which was presented by the Lord-Lieutenant of County Fermanagh, Viscount Brookeborough at Enniskillen Castle Museum. Speaking at the event in my role as President of the Heritage Railway Association (HRA) “Headhunters is a remarkable and unique establishment which offers a high quality barber’s shop service in a heritage railway museum environment. The collection of artefacts assembled there is without doubt the best in the county, and possibly in the whole of Northern Ireland. It is almost 60 years since Fermanagh and the surrounding area lost all their railway services and it is therefore imperative that local people and the thousands of people who visit Enniskillen as tourists have the opportunity to get a sense of what the railway was like. Headhunters manages to do that excellently. “As with railway heritage projects across the United Kingdom, the key to Headhunters’ success as a museum lies with its volunteers. It is hard to think of a more worthy candidate for this prestigious award.” Earlier in the year the museum had received an award from the HRA at their annual dinner in February See more news and images here During my visit to Fermanagh I also made a speech at the opening of Fermanagh & Omagh District Council’s launch of the council’s “Each a Glimpse and Gone Forever – Fermanagh’s Railway Story” exhibition at Fermanagh County Museum in Enniskillen Castle. This exhibition marked the 60th anniversary of the closure of all railway lines in the north west of the island of Ireland. Read the speech I gave at the launch of the exhibition here

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