The Great Southern Railways Class 800 steam locomotives were built principally for express passenger work on the Dublin to Cork main line of that company.

They were intended for the Dublin–Cork route, but wartime coal shortages and the early 1950s advent of diesels on main line services resulted in their never having had much chance to show what they were capable of.

[citation needed] The name and number plates were of cast bronze with polished raised lettering and beading on a blue painted background.

The nameplates’ lettering was in Gaelic script using dot above in place of the 'h' (see Irish orthography), although at first locomotive 800 was planned to carry an Anglicised name Maeve in Roman type, though it never did.

In the height of the Great Southern era, when every single locomotive in Ireland was painted in plain unlined battleship grey livery, these engines were turned out in a smart mid-green, with a distinct bluish tint.

In Córas Iompair Éireann days, they received the 1950s standard green, somewhat darker than they had carried before, with black and white lining.

[citation needed] They were slightly modified in the early 1950s with Maċa and Táilte receiving single funnels[4]: 271–277  and all three gaining extra hand-railings and a wheel on the smoke-box door instead of a dart.

[4]: 271–277 With the arrival of the Metropolitan-Vickers A class first generation diesel locomotives in the 1950s, they were made virtually redundant, with Táilte being taken out of service in 1955 and scrapped two years later.