{"id":59492,"date":"2025-05-05T22:59:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T20:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=59492"},"modified":"2026-05-05T22:50:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:50:20","slug":"lissummon-a-long-abandoned-tunnel-hidden-in-the-northern-ireland-countryside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/05\/05\/lissummon-a-long-abandoned-tunnel-hidden-in-the-northern-ireland-countryside\/","title":{"rendered":"Lissummon, a long, abandoned tunnel hidden in the Northern Ireland countryside"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The island of Ireland is known for its beautiful green landscapes, but amidst them you can find some surprises.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/02\/13\/shoemaker-canyons-tunnels-to-nowhere-a-remnant-of-the-atomic-threat\/\">Shoemaker Canyon's tunnels to nowhere, a remnant of the atomic threat<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/11\/05\/the-death-tunnel-of-tavannes-and-its-tragic-history-of-the-world-war-i\/\">The death tunnel of Tavannes and its tragic history of the World War I<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p><strong>In southeast Ulster lies the city of Newry.<\/strong> To the northwest, off the A-28, is the Lissummon Road, a rural track that runs through the countryside. <strong>There, hidden in the vegetation, is an abandoned old tunnel 1,650 meters long<\/strong> (a little over a mile). According to the blog <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forgottenrelics.org\/tunnels\/lissummon-tunnel\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Forgottenrelics.org<\/a>, <strong>The Lissummon Tunnel began construction in 1861<\/strong> as part of a new railway line connecting Newry and Armagh. The tunnel was lined with masonry and built in a perfectly straight line, with a gradient of 1:75 to the north.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Lissummon railway was the longest railway on the island of Ireland.<\/strong> The first train passed through it on 25 August 1864. <strong>The tunnel was built with shelters<\/strong> to allow any passers-by to get to safety if they met a train. There is one shelter for every 20 yards (18.28 metres) on the north side of the tunnel. <strong>Passenger trains stopped running through the tunnel in 1933<\/strong>. Freight trains continued to use the tunnel until it was <strong>abandoned in 1957<\/strong>. The tunnel is in good condition despite being abandoned for 68 years, but it does leak water. Yesterday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@StephenJReid\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen J. Reid<\/a> <strong>posted a video of himself walking through it<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"I Explored a Forgotten Tunnel Under Northern Ireland\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8j-3IO9vtJY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can see some screenshots from this video here. <strong>Here we see the southern entrance to the tunnel<\/strong>, which had a single rail track. The tunnel is fenced to prevent vehicle access.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54498640097_c3119da497_o.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54498640097_a422c44d97_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The part of the tunnel closest to the south exit.<\/strong> It's in good condition, although there are small streams of water on the floor. We can see a tiny white dot in the background: the north exit.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54499855595_fe655380b4_o.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54499855595_9773954a4d_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The central section of the tunnel is the wettest area.<\/strong> There are water leaks that make it seem like it's raining inside the tunnel, as you can see in the video. The air is saturated with moisture.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54498640082_d285d3b846_o.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54498640082_da11bb7a73_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The northern exit of the tunnel.<\/strong> The immediate area is swampy and it is best to be well prepared with rain boots to traverse it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54499767933_875df0f2e3_o.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54499767933_824d69b72e_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The island of Ireland is known for its beautiful green landscapes, but amidst them you can find some surprises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16880],"tags":[24368,24369,21744,10678],"class_list":["post-59492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infrastructures","tag-lissummon-tunnel","tag-newry","tag-northern-ireland","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}