1897 – Midland & Great Western Railway Hotel, Recess, Co. Galway

The main Recess railway station was opened in 1895, when services began from Galway in the heart of the Connemara and closed with the line in 1935. The railway company built an hotel to encourage tourism, with a one platform halt specifically for the hotel in 1902 some 2 miles east of the main Recess station towards Maam Cross and Galway. In 1903 the hotel lunched Edward VII when he visited by motor car from Leanne during his tour of the congested districts of the West. Over the years the company advertising paid off, and the rich and famous came to Connemara to shoot and fish. In August 1922 the hotel was burnt to the ground by the Republicans during the Civil War to prevent the Free-State Army from using it as a billet. The line passed to the ownership of the Great Southern Railway Company and was closed in 1935.