Tarmonbarry is a small village on the River Shannon. It is the site of the first lock upstream from Lough Ree, upriver from Lanesborough, the town at the head of the lake. Tarmonbarry is also close to Richmond Harbour at Clondra, where the Royal Canal meets the Shannon.
There is a set of sluices at the weir in Tarmonbarry, and it seems to be the lockkeeper’s duty to raise and lower them when required. At about 4.30pm on 9 July, the keeper raised two of the sluices. This set of photos shows the operation.
Access to the sluices is via a walkway across the weir from a locked gate on the east upper corner of the lock.
Access to the sluices
Here’s the keeper heading for the sluices. This photo was actually taken the following morning, when he was going to close the sluices again.
Heading for the sluices
The sluice-opening machine
He has reached the sluice-opening machine and removed the blue cover from it (you can see the cover behind the “BEWARE OF” sign, which reminds me somewhat of “TRESPASSERS W”). As far as I can make out, the sluice-opening machine is a diesel-powered (judging by the sound) winch mounted on railway-type wheels and presumably therefore running on rails. If you can provide any further information, do please leave a Comment below.
The first eight photos below cover a period of about seven minutes. I don’t know what’s happening in the first few photos.
Preliminaries
The winch cable seems to be attached to the front of the machine
He walks around …
… to the other end of the machine …
… but then disappears!
Four minutes later, he’s back …
… and the climax is approaching
Less than thirty seconds after that photo was taken, exciting things are happening.
Exciting happenings (at the end of seven minutes)
The winch cable seems to have been unhooked from the machine. Furthermore, there is a pink rectangle just in front of the keeper’s foot; I think it’s an opening in the floor to provide access to the sluice gate. Then, within less than one minute, the aperture below walkway has been blocked: the sluice is open because the gate has been raised.
The paddle is up
He checks what’s happening. The water is beginning to flow
He seems to be adjusting the winch
He may be disconnecting the winch cable. I don’t know how the sluice gate stays up
A second pink rectangle is now showing, this one over the next sluice along
He’s going to …
… disappear again! But this time, I think he’s by the side of the machine, pushing it along the track
The machine has moved
Perhaps he is attaching the cable to the second sluice
About a minute later, the gate is up
He may be detaching the cable again
There’s a good flow of water
And about ten minutes later, a third gate is raised. This photo also shows the boom protecting the weir
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