It's a nice map as it gives one place in relation to another without bringing in counties! Forgot to say..one needs to click on image to enlarge it! DH. _________________________________________________________________________________ In 1834 the first railway in Ireland was opened, running between Dublin and Dunleary. this heralded the beginning of the steam age in Ireland. In 1845 there were fewer than 100 miles of track, by 1855 there were 1,000 by 1865 this had doubled to 2,000. The railways encouraged people to travel, previously coaches may have traveled at speeds of up to 10 MPH, Canal boats 2 or 3, with Trains reaching 20 MPH and fares set at half of that of the competition, the railways rapidly became the in way to travel and send freight, which could be dispatched to almost any destination in the country both efficiently and economically, encouraging Irish businesses to look further afield when selling their products. . The success of the railways was the precursor to the slow demise of the Irish canal industry which came into existence in 1731, by the mid 1850's there were 1,450 km (900 Miles) of navigable waterways in Ireland. The Royal Canal, which linked Dublin to the Shannon, was fully completed in 1817.The canals found it impossible to compete with the speed of the railways. In 1845 the Royal Canal was sold to The Midland and Great Western Railway Company, who built a line along the canal banks. In 1845 a load of coal took five days to go from Dublin to Galway (133 miles) by road and canal, by 1855 the same load would have went in ten hours, an example of how small Ireland had become even through the "famine years"!