In today’s Urbandoned video, we come across hundreds of abandoned vehicles located in
a field in rural Ireland.
Once a private collection surrounded by mystery, the graveyard has been forgotten for years,
with the many buses and more in irreparable condition, until recently, when the entire
site started to be scrapped.
Join us for the last chance to see the apocalyptic scene before it is no more.
On our Summer trip to Ireland in 2022, there was one location that we were quite curious
to reach, because we hadn’t heard much about it.
During one evening, we trekked towards it, confident we had the right pinpoint after
sighting the mass of vehicles on satellite imagery.
Alistair: Just made it to this bus graveyard.
I think a lot of them have gone but there’s more than enough here to check out.
There’s a few cameras on the site so we need to be quite careful.
They have good coverage though.
They’re all in the air on big poles looking over everything, so I think we just have to
ignore them.
Alistair: Can tell the locals have had their fun with them.
Most of the windows are smashed and the scrappers, as well, have come.
I think I can get in this one.
Looks like a coach.
So much glass on the ground.
Not many seats remaining.
Theo: There’s so many different types and I’m assuming the architecture inside will
be different.
This one’s easily accessible.
Nice ‘Welcome Onboard’ sign there.
Wow!
They are destroyed.
This one is actually in quite good condition, apart from the windows.
All the seats are still intact.
It was a very bizarre, but atmospheric setting.
We tend not to visit too many abandoned motor graveyards, yet this one had caught our eye.
You could see that many of the buses hadn’t moved in a long time, their wheels sinking
into the mud and foliage coating their axels.
Theo: You can tell that these buses are like town services through cities at one point,
and then, you’ve got big coaches like these two.
They’ll be all different inside - this one is nice and accessible again.
You can smell the decay in here.
These seats will definitely hold a lot of mould.
Theo: You can see all the seats have been piled up back here and taken out.
The toilet is at the rear of the bus.
I’m normally used to them being in the middle where that door is, but this one’s got the
door at the back.
Besides these coaches, most of the buses collected were old, dating back to the 70s and 80s.
It didn’t seem like the owner had a specific type and was choosing quantity over quality
in the gathering process.
Theo: This one looks like it’s been converted.
There’s no seats at all, just a load of shelves.
There’s even insulation on the floor that I’m walking over now.
So, this was definitely a home of some sort.
Kept all the original details of the bus, which is cool.
I’ve just seen these labels on these book cases, so perhaps, this acted as a library
or was an installation somewhere.
I didn’t see any clues on the outside walking in, so I’ll have to take a look.
I found this on the back side of it.
Must have missed it coming in, but as you can see, it’s a County Library service,
which explains the interior.
Theo: I wonder if this company is still running.
Alistair: That pile of scrap, there.
Can see tyres on it and some chairs.
All buses.
This place used to be a lot larger and the collection was huge, but very recently, they’ve
decided to scrap them.
I think they are all going.
Really sad.
Theo: This bus* has been completely torched.
Look at the state of the metal in there.
It’s completely twisted.
There’s nothing left.
Can’t even tell which one this would have been.
In fact, judging by the roof and the windows, I think this would have been one of the city
service type buses.
There is hardly any information available regarding the history of the collection, but
scanning the web and matching what we found with satellite images, we could see that it
opened to the public from 2004, specialising in unrestored buses, and grew in size over
the next few years.
By 2008, the owner claimed that, with over 350 buses, he had the largest transport museum
in Europe and ‘possibly the world.’
In 2011, the number was well over 400.
However, since then, the pride seemed to dwindle.
You can see how the bus abundant landscape starts to lessen, and bigger gaps start to
arise.
But why?
Again, there isn’t a great load of fact we can find.
Supposedly, the owner was an elusive man who had multiple run ins with the law.
His methods of vehicle preservation weren’t admired in the community, as it appeared he
would only accumulate buses if they had scrap parts he required to restore others, no matter
how rare or old they were, and wouldn’t look after them like they needed to be as
relics.
As well as him falling into bankruptcy that probably finalised the closure of the museum,
during its activity, the collection suffered from local vandalism due to its isolated position
and open grounds.
Most of the buses have been smashed up for years, and perhaps it got a little too much
to regulate their conditions.
Alistair: These ones are all city buses.
Can see that the seats are intact inside, but in different variations.
Then, you come through into this section, where there are some different vehicles here.
Four of five fire engines, which is really interesting.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen an abandoned fire engine before.
This one, as well, is from the Civil Defence Department.
The four different fire engines and the Irish Civil Defence truck were especially interesting,
and looked very old-fashioned.
If you have any clue about any vehicle seen in this video, be sure to leave a comment
down below as we would love to learn more.
Alistair: See inside the fire engine.
There’s pine trees coming in down there.
Some more seats for firemen, here.
I think you could fit six, maybe seven.
Alistair: Heading inside one of these school buses.
Wow!
It’s really cool, to be honest, with the vines creeping in through the gaps in the
smashed windows.
Alistair: See where scrappers have took this off to take valuables.
Really interesting place.
I’ve not really seen anything like it.
Inside the city buses, it was a peaceful break from the wind.
We were left to wonder how long ago it was when these seats were full of passengers and
where were they headed?
The signs and adverts still hanging up indicated that the fleet would have driven around Dublin,
so we can assume that they are outdated in comparison to the capital’s bus service
nowadays.
Alistair: Onto the second half of buses.
Theo: There’s a lot more down here.
Alistair: Yeah.
Look at this huge sight-seeing one with the open top.
Theo: Yeah.
There’s another one in that corner over there.
Alistair: There’s a lot, but there was so much more.
Theo: Yeah, you can see all the scrapping.
Alistair: Yeah.
That’s crazy!
They would have all been lined up, and you can see what’s happening to this one.
The fronts been all mashed up.
Theo: Such a shame.
Alistair: About to go inside this one.
Still got the map of where it would go in Dublin.
The foliage, as well - everything appears really green.
I just need to make sure it’s not going to tip over when I go in.
Wow… the roof is collapsing.
Let’s go up to the top.
Oh my god!
This one’s really dangerous, to be honest.
The seats have collapsed.
The top deck of that one that’s lost it’s front is still in really good condition amazingly.
Down a hill, we found ourselves facing even more derelict buses with a towering backdrop
of pine trees.
Although half of the assembly had been lost to demolition, in some cases, the vehicles
that were half shredded were intriguing us, as we got to see them in a totally unique
way.
It felt as if this area of the museum hosted the buses that were too far gone, as there
was a considerable difference in deterioration between the others at the summit of the hill.
Restoration looked to have never been attempted for any of these, leaving them to be squashed
into the space and neglected.
Alistair: It’s like navigating a maze, with these little passages between each bus.
This one is quite a big one.
Theo: Never seen this sort of Stop button before.
It’s quite satisfying to press that.
Theo: Let’s see if any of these buses differ from the first set that we looked at.
This is actually quite nice.
It’s really destroyed, but they’re a lot more decaying here with natural growth.
The last thing to do was to check out the rubble at the far end of the graveyard.
Alistair: This is the after effects.
A very unfortunate end of the story for the buses.
So many have been lost already and it seems that the outcome will be the same for all
of them, and this little wasteland will soon become scrap metal bus parts.
Even though personally, I’m not a vehicle expert, it does seem like a massive shame
that in a few years, it’s unlikely that any of the buses will remain.
Some of them are very dated and have become artefacts of the past, due to our constantly
modernising, efficiency-focused society.
However, these relics will vanish soon enough and maybe, when the scrap metal is cleared,
and the grass grows back, the satellite view of the graveyard will return to how it was
prior to the museum’s period, an empty field, as if the whole ordeal never happened.
Still, it was a fascinating experience and one that strayed from the norm of our explorations.
At least, we were able to document some of these vehicles in their final stages despite
it being too late to save them.
Here are some of our photographs captured from the abandoned bus graveyard.
If you like the look of them, check out our Instagram page in the description where we
share images from our explores months before they are seen on YouTube.
Thanks for watching!
It was great to see amazing support on the Debenhams video and we are really glad you
liked it.
Thank you for 82,000 subscribers, as well.
See you next time!