IRELAND: Great Northern & Southern

Inflexible on matters of principle, the Irish are often agreeable to little concessions on matters of practice. With never a good word to say of the territory that lies on the opposite side of the river from their own, Irishmen from north and south of the Boyne frequently find reason to cross the border. By far the pleasantest way to make the trip is via the Great Northern Railway lines, whose engines snort with brisk Ulster efficiency from the lazy glens of Antrim past the Mountains of Mourne. G.N.R. trains cross the border between Northern Ireland and the south up to 50 times a day. Despite the anguished howls of a clergyman who shouted at its first run: “You are transporting the souls of otherwise good folk to the devil,” Irishmen, both Catholic and Protestant, have ridden the Great Northern’s 543 miles of track for 77 years with no more protection than a penny tossed into the Boyne for good luck as they passed over.

In the worst of postwar austerity (which Northern Irish shared with the English), residents of the north found the G.N.R. a royal road to the unrationed paradise of the south, where fresh eggs and fresh meat were plentiful, and Guinness only seven-pence the pint (it cost twice as much m Belfast). The G.N.R.’s crack Belfast-Dublin Express came to be known as the Smuggler’s Special because of the many travelers who rode south in their old clothes and returned in spanking new threads from Dublin’s best tailors. One traveler who made the changeover in the train lavatory was embarrassed, after throwing his old suit out the window, to find that the new one had no pants.

Two years ago,when bankruptcy threatened the favorite road, Orangemen and Fenians alike agreed that nationalization was the only answer for the G.N.R. The next question was how, since Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic were scarcely on speaking terms. For two years, while the argument raged, the money-losing Great Northern chugged on under private ownership. Last week agreement was reached to put the railroad under joint ownership of the two separate nations. “Funny, when you come to think of it,” said a philosophical G.N.R. worker. “We’ll be doubly nationalized. It could only happen in Ireland.”