Category Archives: Extant waterways

Lough Derg 1839

Drawings now uploaded. Much more activity in these than in the Lough Ree equivalents, with steamers towing barges, turf boats, the surveyors’ cutter and other excitements.

 

 

Plot 8 has been NAMAed

The development of the Plot 8 site at the Grand Canal Docks, Ringsend, was to be the most valuable of three sites to be sold by Waterways Ireland, with Craggy Island hoping to use the proceeds to fund the Ulster Canal. The DDDA’s interest in Plot 8 has now passed to NAMA.

I provided background information from the Oireachtas Committee of Public Accounts here; the DDDA announcement is here but NAMA, alas, has no information at the moment.

DDDA had withdrawn permission for IWAI Dublin Branch to work on the graving docks at the site.

Round towers on islands …

their true origins revealed (up to a point, Lord Copper).

Lough Ree 1837

Here is a page showing eight of the drawings made by Commander Wolfe RN and Lieutenant Beechey RN while surveying Lough Ree in 1837.

NI Programme for Government

The Northern Ireland Executive’s Programme for Government (PDF) is available for download here. The accompanying statement to the Northern Ireland Assembly by the First Minister and deputy First Minister (MW Word .docx) is downloadable here and can also be read on the Assembly’s website here.

There is no mention of waterways or canals in either document.

What’s my number?

Grass-cutting team's van at Ballyconnell ...

... and van at Riversdale

Notice that both vehicles have the same number on their sides:

WCPDC-08-1153

What is it?

It’s Waterways Ireland’s Waste Collection Permit number, issued by Dublin City Council to Waterways Ireland at its Enniskillen address, but handled by the Environment Officer in WI’s Scarriff office. The permit allows WI staff to pick up rubbish along their waterways in counties Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Fingal, Galway, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Meath, Monaghan, North Tipperary, Offaly, Roscommon, South Dublin and Westmeath and in Dublin and Limerick cities. It will expire on 17 June 2014, so the link above may stop working after that.

Note that WI is not permitted to pick up dogshit (if that’s what “animal by-products” are) or batteries.

WI has 92 vehicles authorised to pick up waste.

Isn’t that interesting? What a lot of stuff WI staff have to know about and what a lot of regulations they have to comply with.

 

 

 

 

Dredging in Limerick

The Limerick Leader has a story here.

Triangular quaternions

The indefatigable Mary Mulvihill has produced a podcast guide to a Royal Canal walk, from Dunsink to Broombridge. The podcast is free to download as an MP3 file.

Its production was supported by Maths Week Ireland and the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering & Technology (IRCSET); it follows the annual walk to commemorate the achievement of Sir William Rowan Hamilton, who in 1843 invented a new type of algebra, quaternions, and wrote the equation on the bridge.

bjg

The Suir

South Tipperary County Council participated in the EU Waterways Forward project, with a focus on the River Suir. Here is a brief report on the Suir River Café project.

The other Irish participant was Waterways Ireland, whose project (PDF) was about the implementation of the Water Framework Directive on canals.

The far end of the Shannon

Apologies to folk who have left Comments or otherwise communicated in recent weeks: I’ve been away, most recently at the far end of the Shannon and at Greenwich. I am now beginning to tackle my correspondence.

De Wadden

De Wadden formerly traded to the (Munster) Blackwater and is now displayed in a dry dock at Liverpool. I knew she was there, but I hadn’t known that the Kathleen & May, now on sale, was there too.

Kathleen & May

In Greenwich, I saw a bust of George Biddell Airy, late Astronomer Royal, whose work on the tides of the Shannon Estuary is of such great interest.

George Biddell Airy