Messrs Pesda Press have a new book on Canoe Camping. I haven’t read it, but Pesda produced the excellent Oileáin, David Walsh’s superb guide to 570 Irish offshore islands, many of them most easily accessible by kayak. With more emphasis on the development of blueways and canoe trails in Ireland, Tim Gent’s book on canoe camping might be of interest to canoeists and kayakers and to those providing facilities and services for them.
According to the Freeman’s Journal of 5 April 1837, Henry Garnett was
superintendent or agent to the èxtensive and highly respectable firm of Purcell and Jameson, coach proprietors.
Their offices were in Sackville Street. On Sunday 2 April 1837 Mr Garnett had been on his way home to [Royal] Canal Terrace when
as he ascended the hill at the bend of Upper Dominick-street he met a man habited in a dark cloak, and having a cap on his head, who, after looking him steadfastly in the face, opened the cloak, and fired at him.
The man was not more than a yard away, so close that the powder scorched Garnett’s hand, but the bullet struck a suspender button, wounding but not killing the victim.
The scene of the crime [OSI ~1840]
I am shot — stop the murderer, he has run in the direction of the aqueduct.
Cagburn gave chase:
He instantly pursued, crossed the draw-bridge, and came under the aqueduct, when he saw the prisoner running along the Phibsborough road.
Cagburn and the watchman seized the man; the watchman took two pistols from him and another witness found a third, discharged, pistol nearby on the pathway.
The prisoner, Christopher Clanchy, had been a road maker for eight years. The Freeman’s Journal said:
While a contractor for repairing part of the Ashbourne road, in the employment of Messrs Bourne, he [Clanchy] was allowed to travel free by Mr Purcell’s coaches, and Mr Garnett in the discharge of his duty having occasion to withdraw this privilege, hence proceeding his desire to be revenged. […] We are happy to state Mr Garnett is not likely to suffer any inconvenience from the injury.
But of more interest for this site is the route taken by William Cagburn. What or where was the drawbridge he crossed?
Upper Dominick Street and the Foster Aqueduct [OSI ~1840]
Possible drawbridge [OSI ~1840]
Perhaps Mallet’s Insistent Pontoon merely replaced an old nuisance with a new.
Clanchy, incidentally, was found guilty: there were suggestions that he was insane, but the jury rejected them. Baron Richards said [Freeman’s Journal 1 July 1837]
The court had no discretion but to pass the extreme sentence of the law, that he should be hanged by the neck […].
Purcell, Garnett’s employer, had requested a commutation of his sentence; Richards said that it was open to Clanchy to memorial for a commutation, and the court would put no obstacle in his way; indeed it hoped he would meet the mercy “which he would have denied his intended victim”. I do not know what happened to Clanchy.
The Warder and Dublin Weekly Mail of 26 September 1835 mentions the bridge:
Monday night a respectable looking elderly man fell into the Royal Canal Basin, at the Broadstone, on the Dominick-street side, within a few yards of the draw bridge.
A canal employee called Keybourne hauled Mr White out within a few minutes, but he was DOA at the Richmond Hospital.
This seems to confirm that the bridge was moveable and was where the OSI map suggests.
Posted in Ashore, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Ireland, Operations, People, Sources, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged bridge, Broadstone, canal, coach, Foster Aqueduct, Ireland, Operations, Phibsborough, Purcell, Royal Canal, Upper Dominick Streeet, waterways
John Ditchfield very kindly photographed some airholes on the Kennet & Avon Canal and sent on the photos. The captions are his comments.
Good length of overflow. Water flowing.
No overflow.
(Rebuilt) small openings are above the level of the top of the adjacent lock gate. However, just upstream there is another paddle or sluice gate on the canal side (next photo), so perhaps that is used to control the level.
The upstream paddle or sluice gate.
Overflow in action, preventing water overflowing gates.
Note: this lock connects the canal with the River Avon, and the building in the background was a steam pumping station, presumably for topping up the canal from the river.
Many thanks to John for taking the trouble.
It is nice to know that at least one politician has spotted the most important issue affecting Waterways Ireland. Here’s what the minister told him about the 85% of WI’s current budget that comes from her department:
Funding allocated to Waterways Ireland 2011-2014
Year €m
2011 €30.300m
2012 €27.099m
2013 €25.463m
2014 €24.183m
Now, Willie, ask her how much of each year’s allocation is gobbled up by pensions.
Posted in Canals, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged budget, canal, department of arts heritage and the gaeltacht, Ireland, labour, Operations, Royal Canal, waterways, Waterways Ireland, Willie Penrose
On 26 November 2012 I noted that
The Royal Canal water supply applications have been approved by An Bord Pleanala. There were two separate applications […] but they were in effect treated as one.
There were conditions attached, but I concluded that
If I remember correctly, the amount of water available from Lough Ennell will not always provide enough (eg in a dry season) to keep the canal full. Still, this is a significant advance for Waterways Ireland and for Royal Canal enthusiasts.
So here we are, almost two years later, and the work of providing a supply from Lough Ennell to the Royal Canal, reckoned to be about a five-month job, has doubtless been long completed, no?
No.
The work has not yet started and Waterways Ireland will be lucky if it gets done within the next year.
As I understand it — and if, Gentle Reader, you have more information, do please leave a Comment below (your name can be kept out of public view if you like) — there are three sources of delay:
Irish Water has published its proposed Capital Investment Programme [PDF] but Appendix 1, the Investment Plan Project Summary, is in a separate file [PDF]. Category B is headed Review Scope and Commence Construction and it includes
Mullingar Regional Water Supply Scheme (G) … Lough Ennell Abstraction.
I can’t work out what “(G)” means. A few items are so marked; a few others are marked “(H)”; most items have neither.
The Capital Investment Programme [CIP] document says:
The CIP is dominated by contractual commitments entered into previously by Local Authorities, and which have now transitioned to Irish Water. In the 2014-2016 period, Irish Water will fund these contracts to completion and bring forward programmes and prioritised projects to commence. At the same time, it will progress a large portfolio of projects that are at the planning and design stage, reviewing their scope, budgets and, where appropriate, timing to favour maximising the performance of the existing assets through intensified capital maintenance that might allow deferral of major capital investment.
Emphasis mine. So that raises the possibility that Irish Water will decide not to fund the abstraction scheme but will rather opt to pay for continued pumping.
It is, of course, quite possible that I have misunderstood these difficult matters, so I will be glad to hear from anyone with better information.
Incidentally, reviewing Irish Water’s documents suggests to me that there are people there who know what they are doing and who have the expertise to manage large and complex operations. That differentiates them from the politicians in government and opposition, few of whom (as far as I can see) have any experience of running anything more complex than a parish social.
Posted in Built heritage, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Natural heritage, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management, Weather
Tagged bridge, Brosna, canal, Clonsingle, county council, department of arts heritage and the gaeltacht, floods, flow, Ireland, irish water, lock, Lough Ennell, Lough Owel, Mullingar, Operations, Royal Canal, water level, water supply, waterways, Waterways Ireland, weir, Westmeath
My attention was recently drawn to an article [PDF] by Mike Clarke about airholes.
The article is in Clogs and Gansey, the newsletter of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal Society, of which Mike is Founder and President. He is an extraordinarily knowledgeable person and it is well worth while looking around his website: for instance, there’s some material of Irish interest here, a list of publications here and material about the Leeds & Liverpool Canal here including a really excellent document about locks [PDF].
But back to the airholes.
Not being an engineer, or at all technically competent, I’m always reluctant to try explaining these mysteries, so I’ll welcome corrective Comments from any more technically-minded folk.
If the water level on the upstream side of a lock gate is higher than that on the lower, the gate will be difficult to open. If the gate is the tail gate [bottom or lower gate] of a lock, you can raise a rack [paddle] and allow water to flow from the upstream side, which is the chamber of the lock, to the downstream side, thus making a level and allowing the gate to be opened easily.
If the gate is the breast gate [head or upper gate] of a lock, the same applies: you can lift a rack [paddle] in the upper gate, allowing the excess water to flow into the lock chamber.
However, the relationship between the heights of the two gates (or pairs of gates) then becomes important: if the breast gates are higher than the tail gates, the water level in the lock chamber will not be able to reach the height of the water above the lock (at least until you’ve drained down the entire level [pound] back to the next lock upstream).
But for efficient operation, you want to reduce the amount of adjustment that has to be done after the boat reaches the lock but before it can enter the lock chamber. You want a system that is, as far as possible, automatically self-adjusting. That means, in particular, one that ensures that the level of water above the lock is not too high.
On many English canals, that is done by using byewashes.
Byewash on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal (E) at Marsden
As far as I know, though, few Irish canal locks have them, and I have heard British boaters comment on their absence. If memory serves, the canal (Leitrim) end of the Shannon–Erne Waterway does, but I have no suitable photo. I should confess that I have no idea what proportion of Irish and English canal locks are so equipped; I will be glad if anyone who can supply, or point to, the information will leave a Comment below.
Mike Clarke’s PDF article, to which I pointed at the top of this page, provides a possible explanation for the absence of byewashes on Irish canals. He says that airholes were used instead on canals “built or influenced” by William Jessop. Jessop worked on the Grand Canal as assistant to John Smeaton from 1773 and was consultant engineer to the Grand Canal Company until 1802 [Ruth Delany The Grand Canal of Ireland David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1973].
Mike Clarke also says that Jessop trained John Killaly: Killaly joined the Grand Canal Company in 1794 and became its engineer in 1798 [Delany op cit]; furthermore, his designs were used on the Royal Canal from Coolnahay to the Shannon [Ruth Delany and Ian Bath Ireland’s Royal Canal 1789–2009 The Lilliput Press, Dublin 2010].
If I’ve understood Mike Clarke’s article correctly, the airhole system uses the channel for the ground paddle [land rack] sluice instead of building a separate byewash channel. From his photograph, I gather that there is a separate letterbox-like slot in the recess for the rack mechanism: I presume that excess water flows in through the slot, falls to the level of the sluice or channel from there to the lock chamber and thus flows into the chamber. If the tail [lower] gates are left open, or with one rack [paddle] lifted, the water can then flow out into the lower level.
Is my understanding correct?
What proportion of locks on each Irish waterway are equipped with airholes?
Are they still maintained and used?
Land rack [ground paddle] outlet, Belmont Lock, Grand Canal
Ground paddle [land rack] outlet, Lock 43 Killashee, Royal Canal
Possible inlet, Lock 6, Royal Canal
The next three photos were taken at Coolnahay, on the Royal Canal, during the period of very low water levels in 2012.
Letterbox-like slot at Lock 26, Coolnahay, Royal Canal. I must look for similar features on Grand Canal locks and photograph them (if they exist)
A second slot forward of the first (hidden by the land rack mechanism in the previous photo)
Land rack mechanism locked slightly open: the slots were well above the water level at the time
It is of course entirely possible that all of this is so obvious that everybody else already knows all about it, but that I just didn’t understand what I was looking at. I read WI’s Heritage Survey of the Royal Canal [PDF], but it didn’t say anything about this sort of thing: or at least if it did I didn’t spot it. The report uses some non-standard terminology [eg “head gates”] so I may have missed its identification of the canal’s water-management features.
If, Gentle Reader, you know of the existence of papers or other published materials on these arcana, do please leave a Comment and, if possible, relevant links to online sources. It seems to me that there is a shortage of information about these technical matters as they apply to Irish waterways; it would also be nice if we were able to say which technologies were applied when to which waterways. I do not know whether, for example, we can assume that the lock gate designs in use today were always used on all Irish waterways.
Posted in Built heritage, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Operations, People, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, Uncategorized, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged airhole, bye-wash, byewash, Ireland, Jessop, Killaly, lock, Mike Clarke, Royal Canal, water level, waterways, Waterways Ireland
Irish waterways history 