The Great Southern & Western Railway (constructed 1844) and Straffan railway station (used until 1947) opened communications to Dublin for cattle and horse dealers. A railway accident on 5 October 1853, the third-worst in Irish rail history, killed 18 people including four children in the townland of Clownings. It occurred in heavy fog when a goods train ran into the back of a stalled passenger train at a point 974 yards south of the former Straffan Station. The goods train smashed the first class carriage, which was driven a quarter of a mile through station. The tragedy was the subject of a poem by Donegal-born poet William Allingham. It was the third worst accident in rail history to that date.