Peace Train boards

The Peace Train formed in 1989 in response to the IRA's periodic blowing up of the Belfast/Dublin railway line. It constituted itself into two separate committees, one in Northern Ireland and the other the Irish Republic. The first meeting of the Peace Train took place in a Belfast hotel in l989. The idea was to run trains between Belfast and Dublin to protest at the action of the IRA in blowing up the railway, and highlight a more general opposition to paramilitary violence. Seven Peace Trains ran between 1989 and 1995. The main activists within the Northern Committee were well known figures from the arts and politics, while the Southern Committee was dominated by trade union activists. At its peak, the Peace Train got several hundred people supporting it in journeys between the two cities. The movement suffered from internal personality clashes and was wound up in 1995.