Royal Canal 2nd Lock (OSI 6″ ~1840)
Inland Navigation from Connaught,
A Large quantity of POTATOES, selling as follows, at the Canal Bridge, Lower Dorset-street, engaged good and Dry, at 7d per Stone. One Hundred Weight sent home to any part of the City, on the North Side of the River Liffey, for 4s 8d, carriage Free.
Encouragement to wholesale Dealers, by Grant, at the Coal and Turf Stores, Second Lock, Royal Canal.
Saunders’s News-Letter 30 June 1830
The public car from Ennis to Williamstown was quite a treat in the way of public travelling; a leather strap, and afterwards a branch of a tree, sufficed for a whip, until an innocent country lad was coaxed into an exchange pro tempore — that is to say, he very good-naturedly lent our driver his whip on a simple promise to return it, and took the branch instead. Although half an hour too late at starting, our loquacious conductor assured us that we would arrive in due time at Williamstown to meet the packet, ‘barring accidents’ — which was well put in, for the wheels were once or twice so hot and the horses so lazy that a stoppage at one time seemed inevitable.
A voyage in a large steamboat of one hundred horse power was quite a novelty to be enjoyed in an inland piece of water, and I greatly enjoyed both this and the voyage up the Shannon, in a less steamboat of twenty four horse power. I had never in my life travelled in a canal passage-boat, and the voyage therein from Shannon Harbour to Dublin was described by a Limerick attorney as a nuisance, horrible beyond endurance. I have never, however, been disposed to rely so much on the opinion of others as on my own experience, and therefore I resolved to try the voyage.
Never was I more agreeably surprised that to find, after sailing in it eighteen hours, I arrived at Dublin too soon, so far as the pleasantness of the journey was concerned. I heard the best Irish songs and recitations, and had a most interesting account of Irish scenery and superstitions from Mr Dennis Leonard, of Kilrush; besides this, I had a very comfortable night’s rest and was altogether much interested and pleased with my first journey on a canal.
From Chapter XV Ireland and the Irish 1838 of Benjamin Ward Richardson Thomas Sopwith MA CE FRS, with excerpts from his diary of fifty-seven years Longmans, Green & Co, London 1891
Posted in Ashore, Canals, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Passenger traffic, People, Roads, Shannon, waterways
Tagged 1838, canal, Dublin, Ennis, Shannon, Shannon Harbour, Williamstown
Mrs M’Cann, of Castlecomer, gave birth to two infant boys and a girl, in the canal fly boat from Athy to Dublin, on Monday.
Limerick Chronicle 3 March 1838
Just as well they were infants: giving birth to three teenagers would have been difficult.
Posted in Canals, Extant waterways, Passenger traffic
Tagged Athy, Barrow Line, birth, canal, Dublin, fly-boat, Grand Canal
Several complaints having been made to the Mayor, that respectable persons are debarred from walking on THE BANKS OF THE CANAL, THE PUBLIC WALKS ON THE RIVER AND THE QUAYS, in consequence of Men BATHING there, and thus INDECENTLY EXPOSING THEIR PERSONS, which, being an OFFENCE INDICTABLE AT COMMON LAW, any PERSONS found BATHING for the future in ANY PLACE OF PUBLIC RESORT will be PROSECUTED; and any PERSONS AGGRIEVED by such INDELICATE EXPOSURE OF PERSONS will, upon application to the Mayor, obtain every redress.
Mayor’s Office, Exchange, Limerick
June 15
Limerick Chronicle 10 July 1839
The fly-boat from Ballinasloe was much retarded in its progress on Monday by the storm. The horses which pulled it were twice driven into the canal by the force of the wind between that town and Shannon Harbour.
Limerick Chronicle 21 November 1840
On Friday, as “the Archer”, Grand Canal passage [passenger] boat, was proceeding from Dublin, Miss Gibson, of Parsonstown, one of the passengers, fell from the landing place, leading to the state cabin, into the canal, between the 11th and 12th locks. The boat was going rapidly at the time, and the lady was whirled under the water, and would inevitably have been drowned, but for the heroic decision of a young gentleman, son of Captain Brennan, of Strangford, county of Down, who instantly jumped from on board, and with the assistance of the master of the boat, and a countryman, rescued her from her impending fate.
Limerick Chronicle 28 May 1834
The Archer, built in 1805, was sold in 1834, according to the list of passage boats in Ruth Delany The Grand Canal of Ireland David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1973.
Posted in Canals, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Passenger traffic, People, Safety
Tagged Archer, Brennan, Gibson, Grand Canal
Irish waterways history 