During the IHAI trip to the Suir in May 2010, Ralph O’Callaghan (son of William O’Callaghan; grandson of the last man to take a cargo upriver to Clonmel) showed us around the Carrick-on-Suir waterside and addressed the group in the Carrick heritage centre. He showed a model of a yawl (the horse-drawn vessel used for the traffic upstream from Carrick to Clonmel) equipped as a sand-dredger.
Later, we walked some of the towing-path upstream from Carrick, then took a bus to Kilsheelan. Ralph had come up by water in the Canadian canoe he had had built when he lived in the Americas. He offered to take two of us upriver to the Anner Bridge, where the rest of the group was heading on the bus. I leaped at the chance.
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Then we went for a guided tour of the Bulmers plant. The industrial archaeology enthusiast’s life is a hard one.
