Adavoyle Railway Station first opened in 1892, serving the line between Dundalk and Newry. Although trains still pass along the route today, the station itself closed to passengers in 1933.

But its quiet tracks are remembered for a much darker reason.

On 24 June 1921, during the Irish War of Independence, the IRA sabotaged the line near Adavoyle and derailed a military train. Four men were killed at the scene — three soldiers and a train guard — with some accounts suggesting two civilians also lost their lives. Many more were injured, some critically. Among the most tragic losses were the dozens of cavalry horses being transported on board. Many were killed instantly; others were so badly injured that they had to be put down where they lay. Local lore maintains they were buried in a mass grave close to the line. To this day, people still whisper that on certain nights the faint sound of terrified whinnies can be heard drifting on the wind.

In the years that followed, strange sightings became common. Gatekeepers swore they saw the lights of an approaching train at night and dutifully opened the gates — yet no train arrived, and the tracks lay silent. Farmers spoke of hearing brakes screech and timber splinter after dark, only to find nothing amiss on inspection. Around the anniversary of the derailment, phantom whistles and the distant rumble of wheels are said to echo across the countryside. One passerby even reported seeing soldiers standing silently by the line, their uniforms tattered, their faces ashen. The encounter shook him so badly he refused ever to walk that stretch after nightfall.

Perhaps the most famous tale dates to the 1970s. A stationmaster in Dundalk was woken suddenly by an urgent message: an army patrol had sighted a fast-moving train on the Adavoyle line, heading north. No services were scheduled at that hour. Worse, another train stood waiting in Dundalk station with its driver not due until morning. If another had entered the line, a devastating collision seemed certain. But there was something stranger still. The patrol reported the train was hauled by a steam locomotive — long obsolete by the 1970s, but the very type that had been in service during the 1920s. An emergency alert was issued, but no train ever arrived. The stationmaster concluded that the patrol had encountered not a real train at all, but the infamous ghost train of Adavoyle — forever replaying the tragedy of 1921.