We have purchased the steamer Ballymurtagh on favourable terms, and have placed her on the river Shannon, for the purpose of facilitating your trade in that district. This steamer carries its own cargo, and can be worked with economy in conjunction with your steamers already plying on the Shannon. The arrangement so made places at your disposal the steamer Shannon, which has been employed heretofore in towing boats between Carrick-on-Shannon and Killaloe. We purpose selling the steamer Shannon, when a suitable price can be obtained.
From the report of the directors of the Grand Canal Company, to be presented at its half-yearly meeting on Monday 24 August 1868, reported in the Galway Vindicator, and Connaught Advertiser
22 August 1868
SCREW STEAMER FOR SALE BY AUCTION
FOR SALE BY AUCTION, on Tuesday, the 21st July 1868, at Ringsend Docks, Dublin, at One o’Clock, By order of the Directors of the Grand Canal Company,
Their powerful and strong-built Towing Steamer
SHANNON
She is 71 feet long, 15 feet 6 inches beam, iron-built, and fitted with Marine condensing engines, 45 horse power. Her machinery is in excellent repair, and a large sum of money has been recently laid out on her boiler.
She can be seen at Ringsend Dock, Dublin, and further particulars may be had from Mr Samuel Healy, Grand Canal Harbour, James’s-street, Dublin; William Digby Cooke, Esq, Secretary, or JAMES FOXALL, Broker.
Freeman’s Journal 18 July 1868
Sir
In your impression of the 3d instant, under the head of “The Famine Advances and the English Press”, I find a reference to the (so called) improvement of the Shannon; that of the sum of £313009 advanced by government, £230325 has been repaid. In this case you say (and most truly say) “the jobbing was most flagrant, and the reckless waste of the public money unparalleled”.
So far you are correct, but you are, no doubt, labouring under a very common mistake when you say the works have very recently been completed, such not being the case. Some handsome bridges, with swivel arches, and spacious locks — one in this neighbourhood too small to admit an ordinary river steamer. Nor was the level properly taken, there not being sufficient water to carry tonnage drawing more than 5 feet 6 inches, during the greater part of the summer.
Now, I should wish to know, through your well informed medium, to what cause is to be attributed the present state of the weir, or lock dam, adjoining Tarmonbarry, a span of nearly 500 feet. Owing to the improper manner in which the same has been executed, upwards of 60 feet have given way, and when examined by the engineer of the board, the entire is found in such a state as will involve the rebuilding.
In justice to this gentlemen, I am bound to say he was not the engineer under whom it was constructed, nor do I think, until very lately, he had anything to do with the Shannon Commission, every work in which he has been engaged, being acknowledged to be well executed.
I am not aware whether you are in possession of this fact, that in order to make the Shannon improvements available or remunerative, it has been considered necessary to construct a canal to “Lough Erne”, adjoining Belturbet, and thence to communicate with Belfast, by “the Ulster canal”. You will, I am sure, agree with me in the old adage, that “this would be going round the world to look for a short cut”; but the cut I allude to is not so short, as it involves, I am informed, thirty miles of new canal, and several large and expensive locks.
But, Sir, I must inform you, that the tolls of the river Shannon, from Carrick-on-Shannon to Limerick city, are barely sufficient to pay the lock-keepers’ salaries. The Shannon Commission I would henceforth style “the Shannon job”.
I remain, Sir, though a bad dancer, one who must
Pay the Piper
[Dublin] Evening Mail 17 November 1851
From the British Newspaper Archive
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, Sources, Steamers, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged Ballinamore and Ballyconnell, belfast, Carrick-on-Shannon, Clones sheugh, Limerick, lock, Shannon, Tarmonbarry, tolls, Ulster Canal, weir
From the result of inquiries, which the Directors have caused to be made, into the system of Scotch railways, it is the intention of the Board to use animal power exclusively until the line is finished half way to Drogheda; and even when finished to Drogheda, it is intended that all the goods will be carried by horse power, and in the intermediate hours, when no steam train shall start for Drogheda; that a horse train shall run from Dublin to Malahide, and another from Malahide to Dublin, as this division of the line must be supplied with extra means for its own peculiar traffic, which will not be required on the rest of the line.
Report to the Proprietors of the Dublin and Drogheda Railway in The Railway Magazine; and Annals of Science No XXVI April 1838
The second half-yearly meeting of the Grand Canal Company in 1844 seems to have been an extended affair. It was adjourned to allow the directors to amend their report on “the state of the company’s works” and, when it reassembled on Saturday 23 November, there was an unusually large attendance and a fractious debate, with several criticisms of the accounts and their “ambiguity and unintelligible nature”. The inconclusive meeting was eventually adjourned until 14 December, to allow proprietors [shareholders] to examine the accounts.
Amongst the critics of the directors was Mr H Bruce, who was unhappy with several aspects of the management of the company, one of them the extravagance of the directors. He said
He had taken the trouble of comparing the Grand Canal with the Royal Canal Company for two consecutive years, and he would give the meeting the result of that comparison.
Here are the elements of that comparison in tabular format.
Those with a keen interest in the Royal Canal Company will no doubt have been surprised to find its management being complimented for anything, but the comparison is interesting even if, as Sir John Kingston James pointed out, the Royal Canal Company had fewer [passenger-carrying] boats “and consequently they had to pay less for horse power”: it would have been fairer to compare the costs per mile.
On repairs, Mr Bruce said that
Every one knew that the Royal Canal was a much more perishable canal than the Grand Canal, for instead of being excavated, a great part of it was built. No canal was more liable to the danger of an outbreak on the country, and of being bored through, than the Royal Canal, consequently it required more money to keep it in repair than the Grand Canal […]. Yet, what was the amount charged for repairing the Royal Canal in 1844, though in that year a serious breach took place in it? — why, only £1869.
Note that salaries cost considerably more than did the boat crews and that horse contracts, for hauling the boats, were about four times the cost of masters and crew on the Grand and aboout six times that cost on the Royal.
Dublin Evening Post 26 November 1844
Posted in Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Passenger traffic, People, Sources, Waterways management
Tagged Grand Canal, half-yearly meeting, Royal Canal, Sir John Kingston James
Jamestown [Co Leitrim] Heritage Festival starts on Friday 25 May and runs until Sunday 3 June 2018. The programme is here.
Apart from the presence of numerous barges and other vessels, the festival will feature these events of historical interest:
Posted in Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Shannon, Sources, Suir, The cattle trade, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged Jamestown, Longford, passage-boats, Royal Canal, Shannon
Ewan Duffy’s chapter “Royal Canal bridges in Dublin”, in The Royal under the Railway: Ireland’s Royal Canal 1830–1899 [Railway & Canal Historical Society, Derby 2014], drew attention to the hitherto neglected effects of the Midland Great Western Railway’s ownership on the physical structures along the Royal Canal in Dublin.
Ewan’s latest venture is a Railway Archaeology of Ireland, which he is publishing online, at the rate of one chapter per week. The introduction and Chapter 1 are now available. The focus is on “railway-related architectural and engineering structures”, not on trains or rolling stock.
It is possible to sign up to an RSS feed and thus get notified automatically when new chapters appear.
People who read this will hardly believe that such a state of things, as it details, can exist in any portion of the British dominions; and yet, in the year 1842, undoubtedly in Ireland, and in Ireland only, can we find such facts — positive facts.
It is still more surprising to find that this extraordinary state of things should exist on a river on which a very considerable export and import trade passes — and yet so it is.
A fair challenge to the Chambers of Commerce of Clonmel and Waterford is now given. Let them deny the following data, if they can, seriatim, honestly and plainly:—
Can it then be matter of surprise that, under such circumstances, Ireland is so much behind hand as she is?
Dublin Evening Mail 28 March 1842
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Suir, The grain trade, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged boatmen, Caher, Cahir, Carrick-on-Suir, Clonmel, quay, Suir, Tipperary, towing-path, trackway, Waterford
Irish waterways history 