A Brief History
Ballyglunin, also known as Ballyglooneen, was opened in Nov. 1860 as a station for passenger traffic with a single 225 ft. platform on the east side of the track. It owes its existence undoubtedly to its proximity to Ballyglunin Park, residence of the Blakes, as well as Skerritt's Brooklodge House and Bodkin's Armagh House. For customers such as these a first class service was provided.

Around the turn of the century, Robert Blake would regularly have his evening  meal cooked in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin and delivered to Ballyglunin station packed in special 'hay boxes', the thermal food containers of the day. A special extra delivery would arrive.-on the evening mail train if there were guests in residence or a county gathering planned.In 1903 GS&WR were the new owners of the line from Athenry to Claremorris. They revamped Ballyglunin and built the west platform of equal length but with a canopy and a single storey residence, waiting room, office & toilets, and lamp room (important at the time), and with a footbridge spanning the tracks, The bridge was taken from Clifden and it has now been moved into service in Ballinasloe. The 1903 improvements also included an enlarged roods store, a run-through goods store for two wagons and a cattle loadin sidin much used from 1935 to 1975 for loading beet wagons for Tuam Sugar factory.

Ballyglunin came to prominence in 1878 with a visit of the Duke of Connaught, the third son of Queen Victoria. Everyone wanted to entertain him, the hunting season was to be enlivened by his visit, great preparations were made. He was to arrive at Ballyglunin to join the hunt, it was elaborately decorated and a cannon was procured to fire a salute. A premature

discharge of the gun caused great excitement and a rush towards the station, but it was found that the salute had greeted a passing goods train and there was no ammunition left to greet the royal train. However by the time the Duke arrived there was a very big crowd gathered to give him a rousing cheer so the gunfire was hardly missed.

Another moment of glory was in 1952 with the shooting there of some scenes of the famous film The Quiet Man. It was late June but they were unlucky with the weather and what appears for less than five minutes on the film took almost three weeks to et `in the can'. The film opens with the arrival of a returning emigrant by train. The station was named "Castletown" for the film and a special old steam train with two 1920 type carriages came out from Tuam each day for that scene and for another where Maureen O'Hara newly wedded is leaving by train when hubby, John Wayne rides in and finds her in the last carriage and drags her away to get her `fortune' from her brother. This second scene caused most trouble and I watched at least six re-takes one fine Sunday, before my patience ran out. But eventually they got the film made and it proved a winner and it has done more than anything else to make Ballyglunin known far and wide.

The busiest ever Sunday Ballyglunin saw was on the 16 July 1967, when six specials for Knock and five Galway-bound passenger specials went through in the morning and returned in the evening. But only eight days after that, the station was closed to goods traffic reopening for short periods each winter for the beet traffic until if finished in June 1980.