Roads
The
beginning of the road network we have today is due to Sir
George Rawdon. He was known as the "best Highwayman in
Ireland." All the roads he constructed in his district
were described as “very good.” (Dobbs) New roads
linked Lisburn with other towns and the developing villages.
Rawdon could never have anticipated the highways and transport
facilities in Moira district today!
In
1720 coal was discovered near Coalisland. It was brought across
Lough Neagh and ferried to Moira and on to Lisburn or Belfast.
There was one metalled (paved) road in this area available
to those coal cart users and now we call it Colane (coal lane)
Road.
Days of steam
Canal
Only
about six miles separate the river Lagan at Moira from Lough
Neagh and as early as 1637 George Rawdon suggested digging
a canal. Well over a century after it was first suggested,
the Lagan Canal was commenced. By 1794, the work was completed
on out to Lough Neagh. It was a mighty undertaking.
Lagan Canal
Its
route meant it had to cross the Lagan, so a magnificent aqueduct
was built high over the river near Spencer's Bridge on the
Hillsborough Road It was demolished to make way for the bridge
where the M1 motorway now crosses the Lagan.
At
a point on the canal, not far from where Moira roundabout
sits now, a sinking barge in 1941 was saved by using a pound
of Killyman butter to plug the hole.
And
on one occasion a barge waited outside a dock for three weeks
to allow a wild duck to hatch her young! What a different
world we live in today!
The
canal was abandoned on April 1, 1954, and the stretch to Belfast
in July, 1958.
Railway
The
railway from Lisburn to Lurgan through Moira was completed
1841.
Steam Train at Moira Station
Thomas
Bateson, (later to become Lord Deramore) is reported to have
been reluctant to allow the Railway to be built on his land,
so that is supposed to be why the Station is approximately
one mile from the town. Moira Station is the oldest surviving
operational railway station in Northern Ireland.
In
1945 there were 15 men at work to run the station, including
stationmaster, clerks, porters and signalmen.
Motorway
Over
40 years ago the motorway was built. Until then all the traffic
to and from Belfast came through the village.
You
can’t think now of Moira without thinking of the M1.
The planned route in 1946 would have by-passed Moira on the
South, heading close to Waringstown and on past Lurgan.
Motorway
1962
But in 1956 the plan was updated. It was decided to build
the road to motorway standard, calling it the M1. The route
was altered to take the road to the north of Moira and so
in 1965 we got a major junction with all the benefits and
headaches of more than 33,000 vehicles now using the M1 at
that point.
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