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By Shannine O’Neill
IMAGES CAPTURED of the ‘bus graveyard of Cork’ show the history of Irish transport left to ruin including an infamous number 666 buses which led to the site being nicknamed ‘Satan’s Bus Depot.’
Multiple photographs were taken by an urban explorer in Cork, Ireland that show a multitude of buses and coaches left to rot in the open air.
Freelance Photographer Jordan L (24) from London, UK took these images in Kells transport museum outside Cork, which is an abandoned transport museum left to rot in Ireland.
Jordan used a Canon 2000D DSLR combined with the 10-18mm ultra wide angle lens to capture the images of the abandoned buses left stuck in time.
After researching different abandoned locations to explore in Cork, Ireland, Jordan came across Kells Transport Museum and knew she had to check out the infamous transport business that is so well-known across Ireland.
Kells Transport Museum was once one of the largest privately owned collections of buses and coaches across the whole of the UK and Ireland.
It was intended to be an outdoor museum that explored the history of transport throughout Ireland, but unfortunately was never completed due to the owner being jailed for multiple financial crimes.
The owner of the site, Michael Grimes, was sentenced in 2019 for failing to pay almost 340,000- euros in VAT returns, and a two-and-a-half-year suspended jail sentence was imposed on him.
The legal and financial problems of the owner led to the closure of the Kells Transport Museum.
Because of this, the site has been abandoned since 2004 with a varied array of buses and coaches left to decay in the open air, with many dubbing the site as the ‘bus graveyard of Cork’.
Once there, Jordan was taken aback by the sheer size of the location, and spent over three hours exploring the grounds.
Jordan’s favourite part of the location was seeing how many buses were left abandoned and alone in a line, showing how vast and large the location truly was.
Although viewing the enormous size of the location was one of Jordan’s favourite things about the site, the most interesting thing she found there was the bus numbers being changed to ‘666’ on four of the buses, which earned the nickname of ‘Satan’s bus depot’.
“My favourite part was definitely seeing all the old buses in a huge row. It was extremely photogenic and really hit home how vast and large the site was,” she said.
“Someone had changed the bus numbers to 666 on four of the buses which was a fairly unique thing to do and it got a pretty good laugh at the time as it had earned the nickname of ‘Satan’s bus depot’.
“The Kells Transport Museum, aka the bus graveyard of Cork was, at one stage, the largest privately owned collection of buses and coaches in the whole of the UK.
“It was intended to be a huge outdoor museum that looked at the history of transport throughout Ireland but it never happened as the owner, a scrupulous individual, was jailed for multiple financial crimes and the site lay for many years, exposed to the elements and vandals.
“As of today, the majority of the site is cleared, the buses crushed for scrap but most of the site remains intact.”
ENDS
