Category Archives: Foreign parts

Lagan Navigation: Ballyskeagh High Bridge

Posted on Tuesday 12 June 2012 | Leave a comment

A brief account here, with some photographs and some thoughts on the design of the locks of the Lagan Navigation.

Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Natural heritage, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, waterways

Tagged Ballyskeagh, belfast, bleach, boats, bridge, canal, Ireland, Lagan, Lambeg, Lisburn, lock, May Blair, McLaughlin & Harvey, mills, Richard Owen, Thomas Omer, waterways

WI’s brand identity

Posted on Tuesday 29 May 2012 | Leave a comment

According to this website it …

[…] had to represent an All-Island body, reflect its unique authority and represent its core values of Strength, Distinctive, Independent, Caring, Environmental and Connecting.

I can see that.

I wonder why only one of the values is a noun.

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Posted in Economic activities, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged baseline, brand identity, Ireland, Waterways Ireland

Government stimulus

Posted on Monday 14 May 2012 | 3 comments

According to the Irish Times:

Ahead of the summit later this month, Government departments have been told to draw up lists of capital projects with potential to create thousands of jobs for which funding would be sought if EU leaders agree on the package at the meeting to be held a week before polling day here.

Will DAHG be able to resist the temptation of suggesting the Clones canal? I’m sure that, since it discovered the project was going to cost almost one third more than it had originally believed, it has had teams of economists busily reassessing its, er, viability (and I’m expecting a visit from the easter bunny at any moment) so it will have its “business case” ready.

Still, there’s a slightly more cheering take on the matter here, where Michael Taft suggests that the government won’t be able to get much money for “stimulus”. I like the idea of using project bonds for the Clones Canal, though it might be hard to show that it qualified as “key strategic EU infrastructure in transport, energy and broadband” despite the Irish state’s delusions.

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Posted in Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Irish waterways general, Operations, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged canal, Clones, department of arts heritage and the gaeltacht, Erne, Ireland, Lough Neagh, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways Ireland

Vlets

Posted on Sunday 6 May 2012 | Leave a comment

Vlets upstream of Killaloe

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Posted in Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Scenery, Shannon, waterways

Tagged boats, Killaloe, Lough Derg, sailing, scouts, Shannon, vlets, waterways

Victoria’s secrets

Posted on Tuesday 1 May 2012 | Leave a comment

Her Late Majesty Victoria, by the grace of god of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, had at least two locks named after her on this island: one at Meelick on the Shannon and the other at Upper Fathom on the Newry Ship Canal. This page gives a brief account of the canal’s history; it has links at the bottom to six pages (made up almost entirely of photographs) on aspects of the lock and its operation. Several of those aspects are not clear to me and I would welcome enlightenment about both the former manual operations and the current hydraulic operations.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, Sources, Waterways management

Tagged Albert, basin, Carlingford, Ireland, lock, Newry, Northern Ireland, ship canal, upper fathom, Victoria

Drum on the Lagan

Posted on Monday 23 April 2012 | Leave a comment

I was introduced to two places on the Lagan Navigation last weekend. The first was Drum Bridge; here is a page about it.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Sources, waterways

Tagged belfast, block, boats, bollard, brick, bridge, canal, Drum, Drumbeg, Drumbridge, hauler, horse, Ireland, Lagan, lighter, Lisburn, lock, Lough Neagh, mystery, Operations, pulley, ramp, stone, wall, waterways

Skew arch bridges

Posted on Monday 23 April 2012 | 1 comment

The IHAI AGM at the weekend, in Newtownabbey Borough Council’s splendidly restored Mossley Mill, included a tour of the premises and its museum. Then Professor Adrian Long of Queen’s University Belfast gave a short talk about the FlexiArch bridge, which his team have been developing since the 1990s.

Professor Adrian Long with a wooden model of the FlexiArch bridge

He said that their work started by asking why nobody built arched bridges any more; they developed a system that used pre-cast voussoirs (the wedge-shaped blocks) linked by a polymeric flexible membrane. The voussoirs for any bridge are cast to give the correct taper for the span and rise required for that bridge.

Arch rings arrive on site stowed flat on the back of a truck; when they are lifted off, they fall into the correct shape and are lowered into position on previously-installed footings. Each arch ring is 1m wide; several of them can be placed side by side to give whatever width is required. The end walls are added and the structure is filled and given the appropriate surface (eg tarmac).

FlexiArch is manufactured by Macrete of Toomebridge (beside Lough Neagh); their website shows several examples of installation including one at a name familiar on Irish waterways. There is a brochure [PDF] and there is a video showing the installation of a 15-metre bridge.

Wooden model as a skew arch

No, I haven’t any shares in it. I just thought it was interesting, for three reasons: first, the speed of construction is very impressive; second, there is a link to Lough Neagh; third, it might encourage the construction of more skew arch bridges over canals.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged Adrian Long, arch, bridge, canal, flexiarch, Grand Canal, IHAI, Ireland, Lough Neagh, macrete, QUB, Royal Canal, skew, span, Ulster Canal, waterways

Lough Neagh

Posted on Wednesday 18 April 2012 | 11 comments

On 17 April 2012 the Northern Ireland Assembly held an enlightening debate about Lough Neagh and its future and ended by resolving

That this Assembly calls on the Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development to convene a working group to explore and pursue actively the potential for a cross-departmental approach to bring Lough Neagh back into public ownership.

The report is here. It is well worth reading by anyone wanting an understanding of the management of the largest lake in These Islands.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Politics, Scenery, Tourism, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management