Ringmoylan

I know neither who built the quay at Ringmoylan nor when he or she did so. If you know more than I then, Gentle Reader, please leave a Comment below.

Nor do I know why it’s described as a concrete structure.

The Clare Journal, and Ennis Advertiser of 1 October 1838 tells us that

The Earl of Charleville arrived in Limerick on Friday from Tullamore, and left next morning for Shannon grove, on a visit to his Lordship’s estate in that county.

This liberal and patriotic nobleman has engaged Mr Duhie [who he? Ed] to construct an embankment by the river side from Ringmoylan quay, which will serve to reclaim a great tract of land for years exposed to the tide.

This suggests that there was a quay at Ringmoylan before 1838, although I know not whether that it the one that is there today. Nor do I know whether Mr Duhie’s embankment is the one shown on the OSI 6″ map (which I have called the east embankment) …

… or the smaller, and obviously later, embankment (which I have called the west) shown on the 25″ OSI map from around 1900.

It looks, to this uninformed observer, as if neither scheme was completed: there is water inside as well as outside the embankments, which suggests that reclamation got no further.

The area enclosed on the west side is much smaller than that on the east.

The work must have lasted for many months: the Pilot of 14 June 1839 said that the embankment “will rescue many hundred acres … and prove a valuable acquisition to his lordship’s estates”. That suggests that the work had not yet been completed.

I have no real idea what an acre looks like, but the embanked areas don’t seem to extend to “many hundred acres”.

Perhaps his lordship ran out of money before he could finish the work: the Wikipedia article suggests that he had financial problems. The land seems to have passed into the hands of the Rev John Thomas Waller, but by 1864 [Dublin Evening Mail 15 January 1864] the Landed Estates Court was about to sell off

… the lands of Ringmoylan, Ringmoylan Wood, Ballynacourtis, and the enclosed or banked-in slob land and common adjoining thereto, all situate in the barony of Kenry and County of Limerick ….

That was

… in the matter of the estate of the Rev John Thomas Waller and of William Waller (a minor) and of William Fraser (a Trustee for Sale), Owners; ex parte Alexander Crawford Rodgers, Petitioner.

The legal proceedings were nearing completion in June 1866 [Dublin Evening Mail 7 June 1866].