Category Archives: Ashore

Victoria’s secrets

Posted on Tuesday 1 May 2012 | Leave a comment

Her Late Majesty Victoria, by the grace of god of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, had at least two locks named after her on this island: one at Meelick on the Shannon and the other at Upper Fathom on the Newry Ship Canal. This page gives a brief account of the canal’s history; it has links at the bottom to six pages (made up almost entirely of photographs) on aspects of the lock and its operation. Several of those aspects are not clear to me and I would welcome enlightenment about both the former manual operations and the current hydraulic operations.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, Sources, Waterways management

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Lough Ennell and the Royal Canal

Posted on Thursday 26 April 2012 | Leave a comment

Here is an account of the background to, and the main features of, the proposed supply of water from Lough Ennell to the summit level of the Royal Canal. It does not discuss the amounts of water involved; I intend to cover that on a separate page.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Operations, Scenery, Industrial heritage, Sources, Weather, Economic activities, Ashore, Restoration and rebuilding, Natural heritage, Built heritage, Engineering and construction, Tourism, Waterways management, Politics, Ireland, waterways, Drainage

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A problem in trigonometry

Posted on Thursday 26 April 2012 | 2 Comments

I mentioned the other day that extensive searches of tinterweb had failed to find any data on the heights of overhead power lines above the Shannon and that I had been forced to resort to the telephone.

I am pleased to report that the ESB expert duly rang me back today, and further pleased to report that he had himself measured the height of every cable over the Shannon. Oh joy, oh happiness, I thought. But not for long.

The ESB, it seems, does not reveal the actual height of power lines above the water. This, if I understood the reasoning correctly, is because the water level varies and a boat-owner might not understand that, hit a line with a mast and then sue the ESB [where "ESB" means "electricity transmission or distribution operation"]. I have been told that a boat-owner in coastal water did just that (presumably between the mainland and an island) and that the lawyers have advised ESB to take no further risk; I would welcome information about the incident.

So, if you want to find the height of a power line, you’ll need to polish up your trigonometry (and then relate the height to Ordinary Summer Level). But the ESB does supply the information to one organisation that makes charts: the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office. That’s OK for coastal charts, but the UKHO (to the best of my knowledge) has not surveyed the inland Shannon since 1839, and I don’t think its inland charts have been updated since then. It is possible, of course, that the UKHO supplies the data to other (electronic or paper) chart-makers; I have emailed them to ask.

The quest continues again. More info when I get it.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Operations, Irish inland waterways vessels, Industrial heritage, Sources, shannon estuary, Economic activities, Ashore, Built heritage, Engineering and construction, Waterways management, Politics, Ireland, waterways, Shannon

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Canal harbour, Limerick

Posted on Thursday 26 April 2012 | Leave a comment

Went out without the camera today, alas, and found Waterways Ireland crews at work at the canal harbour in Limerick. One crew had launched a Pioner Multi (I didn’t see them do it, alas, but it may have come on the back of a truck with a HIAB or suchlike) and were hauling rubbish out of the water. Another were welding new railings to prevent access to the old hotel/canal manager’s house and installing a steel plate in a window aperture on one of the Shannon Navigation buildings.

I presume the new plate will soon be decorated. I rather like the artwork, I must say, and I think it a pity that Young Folk should not have somewhere to go to do the things that Young Folk like to do.

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Posted in Forgotten navigations, Operations, Non-waterway, Scenery, Industrial heritage, Economic activities, Ashore, Charles Wye Williams, Built heritage, Engineering and construction, Waterways management, Ireland, waterways, Shannon

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A lock mystery

Posted on Wednesday 25 April 2012 | Leave a comment

So what lock is this then?

 

Yes, it’s abandoned. Yes, it’s in Ireland.

The answer is here.

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Posted in Forgotten navigations, Operations, The turf trade, Industrial heritage, Sources, Economic activities, Ashore, People, Built heritage, Engineering and construction, Waterways management, Politics, Ireland, waterways, Drainage

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The ghost van of Lowtown

Posted on Wednesday 25 April 2012 | 1 Comment

Look! There behind the camper van: it’s a white Waterways Ireland van.

Here’s a rear view.

What can this mean? Is it a stealth van? A dancing van? A kinky van? Or is Waterways Ireland changing its corporate image, away from the standard blue vans? Does someone in WI want to be a White Van Man? Or is it because the van is based in Kildare? Why is there a white van in the WI fleet?

Enquiring minds want to know.

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Operations, Waterways management

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Power to the people

Posted on Wednesday 25 April 2012 | 1 Comment

So you’re out in your sailing-boat, heading for Portumna, and you see that there’s an electricity cable crossing the waterway ahead of you, just downstream of the bridge. You think you’ll fit under it but it would be nice to know the clearance ….

Electricity is ESB, isn’t it? Well, perhaps not: it could be ESB Networks, which seems to mean distribution, or EirGrid, which means transmission. It could also be one of the other companies that sells volts, but I don’t think they run big wires.

Half an hour of searching the websites of the three bodies failed to produce anything about the heights of pylons or cables or overhead powerlines. Safety advice said not to go near them, but that’s what you are trying to do: it would help to know how near is near. Another half an hour of general googling; still no result.

So, as it’s a smallish line on wooden poles, rather than a large one on very tall steel pylons, you guess that it might be distribution rather than transmission, and thus ESB Networks rather than EirGrid.

I rang; someone will ring back within 48 working hours. The quest continues ….

What is the magic combination of search terms that will find the heights above water of all power lines over Irish waterways?

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Posted in Extant waterways, Operations, Sources, Economic activities, Ashore, Engineering and construction, Ireland, waterways, Shannon

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Drum on the Lagan

Posted on Monday 23 April 2012 | Leave a comment

I was introduced to two places on the Lagan Navigation last weekend. The first was Drum Bridge; here is a page about it.

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Posted in Forgotten navigations, Operations, Irish inland waterways vessels, Industrial heritage, Sources, Economic activities, Ashore, Built heritage, Engineering and construction, Foreign parts, Ireland, waterways, Drainage

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Sluices and streams

Posted on Monday 23 April 2012 | Leave a comment

The heading shows I’m trying hard to find a waterways link for this ….

If you’re anywhere near Belfast, visit Patterson’s Spade Mill near Templepatrick on the Antrim Road. The IHAI visited it after the April 2012 AGM and it was quite fascinating. Did you know that there were once 171 different types of spades in use in Ireland, catering for different uses and different types of soils?

Some of the many types of old spades on display

The mill is powered by water, using a turbine, and it’s the last water-driven spade mill in These Islands:

The channel taking water from the stream to the turbine. Part of the channel runs in a trough made by Portadown Foundry

The turbine

The turbine turns a shaft, which turns these wheels, and the belts power many of the machines in the mill

The water-powered trip-hammer towards the back

A spade after being hammered (just one of the many stages in its production)

The mill (which is original, not a reconstruction) is absolutely packed with machines and must have been a hellish place to work when in full production, with the heat from the furnace, the noise from the trip-hammer and several workers producing spades at the same time. The spade-maker above is one of the last six in Europe and really knows what he’s talking about: not just the process but the uses to which spades were put. The other guide, who took us around the other parts of the site, was also knowledgeable and helpful.

Some new spades

Highly recommended.

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Non-waterway, Restoration and rebuilding, Tourism

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Skew arch bridges

Posted on Monday 23 April 2012 | Leave a comment

The IHAI AGM at the weekend, in Newtownabbey Borough Council’s splendidly restored Mossley Mill,  included a tour of the premises and its museum. Then Professor Adrian Long of Queen’s University Belfast gave a short talk about the FlexiArch bridge, which his team have been developing since the 1990s.

Professor Adrian Long with a wooden model of the FlexiArch bridge

He said that their work started by asking why nobody built arched bridges any more; they developed a system that used pre-cast voussoirs (the wedge-shaped blocks) linked by a polymeric flexible membrane. The voussoirs for any bridge are cast to give the correct taper for the span and rise required for that bridge.

Arch rings arrive on site stowed flat on the back of a truck; when they are lifted off, they fall into the correct shape and are lowered into position on previously-installed footings. Each arch ring is 1m wide; several of them can be placed side by side to give whatever width is required. The end walls are added and the structure is filled and given the appropriate surface (eg tarmac).

FlexiArch is manufactured by Macrete of Toomebridge (beside Lough Neagh); their website shows several examples of installation including one at a name familiar on Irish waterways. There is a brochure [PDF] and there is a video showing the installation of a 15-metre bridge.

Wooden model as a skew arch

No, I haven’t any shares in it. I just thought it was interesting, for three reasons: first, the speed of construction is very impressive; second, there is a link to Lough Neagh; third, it might encourage the construction of more skew arch bridges over canals.

 

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Posted in Extant waterways, Irish waterways general, Operations, Industrial heritage, Sources, Economic activities, Ashore, Restoration and rebuilding, Built heritage, Engineering and construction, Waterways management, Foreign parts, Ireland, waterways

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