Systems & artefacts

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21 responses to “Systems & artefacts”

  1. Conor Nolan | Friday 9 January 2009 at 18:40 |

    Good to see you back writing online again

  2. Beth O'Loughlin | Saturday 10 January 2009 at 20:23 |

    Great idea, Brian.

  3. Nicholas Grubb | Thursday 21 May 2009 at 11:04 |

    Just seen your piece on the Munster Blackwater, the Bride and Lismore canal. A few inaccuracies. If you give me your email address will do them out for you and may be you might insert our web address into the text.
    Nicholas

  4. bjg | Thursday 21 May 2009 at 11:59 |

    Thanks, Nicholas: I’ve sent you an email. bjg

  5. Mark Maguire | Friday 16 October 2009 at 21:40 |

    Hi Brian, great site…just got Fergal looking at it aswell. Do you want to feature the old hire boats at some stage ? All the best…Mark

  6. Max Sinclair | Tuesday 27 October 2009 at 12:57 |

    The restoration looks fine but surely the No 5 should have C after it. Mr OV Bulleid gave me the 7C plate which is screwed to my toilet wall.

  7. Bill Flynn | Monday 9 November 2009 at 14:38 |

    Hi,
    I have a number of photos taken over the past couple of years on the rivers Suir, Blackwater, Nore & Barrow which you may be interested in. If you forward me an email address I will forward samples at low resolution.
    Kind regards
    Bill Flynn

  8. bjg | Wednesday 11 November 2009 at 23:33 |

    Bill: that’s great; thank you. I have emailed you direct giving you my email address.

    bjg

  9. Stewart Marchant | Friday 8 January 2010 at 09:02 |

    Hi! I sat down last evening to read ‘NarrowBoat’ magazine and found a piece about your website. I have only had time so far to look at one waterway – The Eglinton Canal – but have learnt quite a bit just from that.
    I did have 5 swivel bridges listed for the Eglinton on my website but with very little detail. I will be adding links from my website to yours over the weekend.

    I am looking forward to exploring your website in more detail – great work – I look forward to seeing develolpments!

    ps. I set out to write a book on the history of movable bridges but with over 2,300 sites in the British Isles the task looks ever more daunting!
    Stewart

  10. Evelyn | Tuesday 19 January 2010 at 13:43 |

    Hi, I only came across your website today. As part of my thesis for college I am looking for information on the canals around the University of Limerick. Many of these are out of use since the building of the Ardnacrusha power station. I am interested in finding an old map of the canals and perhaps a bit of information on their use. Someone sugggested to me that they may have been used by Guinness brewerys at one stage. I have failed to find anything on this site but maybe I am looking in the wrong places.Any help would be greatly appreciated.

  11. bjg | Sunday 24 January 2010 at 17:51 |

    Stewart: I’ve added your site to my links and I’ve printed off your list of Irish bridges; I’ll see which of them I have photos of.

    bjg

  12. bjg | Sunday 24 January 2010 at 18:02 |

    I have replied direct to Evelyn.

    I have photos of the Lower Shannon Navigation and of Killaloe, its upstream end, at http://www.pbase.com/bjg/galleries

    They will eventually be moved to this site, but that will take time.

    bjg

  13. Thomas Meehan | Tuesday 9 March 2010 at 21:32 |

    Will be visiting from New Orleans in a fortnight. Is there a best place to see wooden boats to take some photos? I build boats as a hobby and would like to do something that is a traditional Irish design -a rowboat is what I am interested in. I am staying in Maynooth. Thanks very much, Tom Meehan

  14. Jacob | Friday 19 March 2010 at 18:20 |

    Hi, I am looking for information about a proposal from the 1880s to connect Dublin to Galway by a ship canal. I only know about it from google tidbits here and there. I know it was proposed by a British railway magnate, Edward Watkin, that it was designed by James Eads, a well-known American engineer. I would like to find a longer description and/or map of the proposal, but I can’t seem to find anything of the sort anywhere. Any chance anyone who visits this site has encountered the Dublin/Galway ship canal plan before?

    Thanks!
    -Jacob Shell

  15. bjg | Saturday 20 March 2010 at 00:37 |

    Jacob: I don’t know much about this. I think the proposal came up a couple of times in the nineteenth century, first in the 1820s and again when Watkin suggested it. I don’t think it got anywhere on either occasion. I haven’t found any evidence of the involvement of James Eads, but I haven’t much time just now to investigate it. I’ll be able to look into this a bit more over Easter. If anyone else finds anything in the meantime, do please post it here. bjg

  16. Eddie Cantwell | Tuesday 8 June 2010 at 20:21 |

    Wonderful site, would love if you could come and give us an illustrated lecture? on your Blackwater topic.
    Please email me if that is possible
    Thanks
    Eddie

  17. bjg | Saturday 12 June 2010 at 08:21 |

    I’ve emailed Eddie directly. bjg

  18. Robert Forsythe | Wednesday 4 August 2010 at 08:40 |

    I have just searched for Moyour on the site and not found a hit. I found the Moyour river 949877 with my family in May 2009 and it looked extremely “improved” and navigable in a 19th century sort of way with a substantial bridge and embanked above the surrounding landscape. It is running into Clew Bay. Does anyone know anything of this and its history?

  19. bjg | Wednesday 4 August 2010 at 09:14 |

    Robert
    I don’t know that neck of the woods at all, alas. Comparing the two versions of the OS maps available online, I found a winding course for the Moyour on the first (Historic 6″) and a new, straight course on the second (same URL; select Historic 25″). So it’s certainly nineteenth-century work. I don’t see anything to indicate that the new bit was used for navigation (no quays, for instance), but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t: I maintain that there was much more use of watercourses than the books on the formal navigations suggest. On the other hand, navigation was often a side benefit of a drainage scheme, and drainage may have been the intention here. I note that the earlier map has a “Lake in winter” a little distance upriver, a lake that is not mentioned on the second map. I also found Moyour mentioned in the Contents of a Report of the Commission for the Drainage of Land for 1846. I’m afraid that’s not a definitive response, but I lack local knowledge in this case. bjg

  20. Laura | Tuesday 19 October 2010 at 12:03 |

    Hi,
    I’m a student looking at a feasibility study for the restoration of the Plassey-Errina Canal. Your website has proved very useful so far, but information is very hard to find elsewhere! Could you make any recommendations? In particular we are interested in the existing structures (locks) and state of the canal, but all suggestions are very welcome!
    Thanks,
    Laura

  21. bjg | Tuesday 19 October 2010 at 13:22 |

    Laura: I’ve responded to you by direct email.
    bjg

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