Driver refuses train with troops

On this day in 1920, a special train which was to have taken two British officers and 31 men from Kildare to Portarlington didn't run when the driver refused to take the train, writes Brian Byrne.

This followed a decision the previous day when the railway men in Kildare Town unanimously adopted a resolution that all railway employees were to refuse to handle munitions or to work on trains carrying troops.

Weapons which had been delivered to Newbridge Station were not accepted by the guard on a passenger train.

(From A Timeline of the War of Independence in County Kildare 1919-1922, available free from Kilcullen Library and Kilcullen Heritage Centre.)

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