NR staff used 50 engineering trains to replace over 5km (3.1 miles) of track, install more than 300 track panels, and lay down around 26,000 tonnes of ballast stones to support the track.

Swearing doesn't just mean what we now understand by dirty words. It is entwined, in social and linguistic history, with the other sort of swearing: vows and oaths.

Fishguard Harbour, constructed some 60 years ago by the G.W.R., became the packet port for G.W.R. services to Waterford and Rosslare - the latter port itself was a new venture partly under G.W.R. auspices - and to Cork.

His stance as being against the world of finance and his proposal of a 75% tax on incomes over €1m (£817,000) was approved by a majority in polls. He was convinced that his more measured, if ploddingly serious, style would win out with an electorate tired of Sarkozy's bling and frenetic policy initiatives.