Waterways Ireland has kindly supplied me with the Shannon traffic figures for January and February 2014. The usual caveats apply. I have not made any charts because the traffic levels were so low:
- in January, nineteen boats were recorded; of them, ten went through Portumna Bridge. Thirteen boats were private and six hired
- in February, thirteen boats were recorded, five of them at Portumna; nine were private and four hired.
The total of 32 boats in the two months is extremely low. Since 2003, the Jan–Feb totals have been:
2003 45
2004 112
2005 67
2006 92
2007 127
2008 72
2009 124
2010 72
2011 114
2012 94
2013 97
2014 32
As Waterways Ireland intends to “prioritise navigation opening times to the times of greatest use, in order to achieve maximum use of resources available”, we may expect the Shannon to be closed in winter.
Irish waterways history 