I’ve put up some photos of this short river navigation, one of the earliest to be tackled in Ireland. It may still be navigable, certainly by small boats and perhaps by something larger. I understand however that the entrance from the Shannon Estuary is tricky and requires local knowledge.
There is a bit of a mystery about the quay in Adare. A stretch of canal has disappeared and the bridge at Ferrybridge has lost its opening arch. But there are still things to see ….
I’ve added two items to my page about Monasterevan. One is about the ban on Sunday traffic and the other is about how boats got across the Barrow before the aqueduct was built. I’m afraid the items are in the middle of the text ….
I have considerably expanded my page on the Johnstown (Co Kilkenny) navigation with photos of Johnstown itself and of what seems to have been a bridge over the canal. I have failed to find any written account of this navigation and I would be grateful for any information on it or on any member of the Hely family who may have been an early engineer.
Posted in Forgotten navigations, Irish waterways general
I’ve added some photos of Moscow to my page South of Moscow, north of Geneva about the Grand Canal Company’s collieries.
Posted in Forgotten navigations, Irish waterways general, Operations
Tagged canal, coal, Grand Canal, Ireland, lost, Monasterevan, Monastereven, Monasterevin, Mountmellick, Operations, waterways
I’m sure you know what I mean: long hours, often at night, spent in the garret, poring over dusty tomes, searching for tiny fragments of information that, placed in the right context and interpreted with the skill of the trained scholar, provide a clue that leads to yet more tomes …. The search, extending over many months, that finally results in a small nugget of information, something that nobody else has noticed ….
I was trying to work out a route from one side of the island to the other. One possibility was a route through Johnstown, Co Kilkenny. I looked at a map. The R502, the road from Johnstown to Templemore, is called, at the Johnstown end, Canal Road.
Could this be a CLUE?
Johnstown historian Susan Garrett very kindly confirmed that there was indeed a canal there, and I’ve since found it on the 1839 OS map. She has kindly promised to send me some more information; in the meantime, I have put a holding page under Lost Irish waterways.
Posted in Forgotten navigations, Uncategorized
Here’s a new page about some canals that were never built: several proposals for canals to the Grand Canal Company’s collieries in Co Laois.
Posted in Forgotten navigations, Irish waterways general, Operations
Tagged Barrow, canal, coal, Grand Canal, Ireland, Monasterevan, Mountmellick, Operations, waterways
New page up, linked off the Lost Irish Waterways page.
Posted in Forgotten navigations, Irish waterways general
Tagged canal, coal, Ireland, Lombardstown, Longueville, lost, Mallow, Ockenden, Pallas, waterways
This is a considerably expanded and updated version of an article I wrote years ago, with lots of photos. There are traces of three lost waterways to be seen in Monasterevan (my favoured spelling) and lots of other interesting waterways artefacts as well. There is even an operational puzzle: in the days when boats locked down from the canal to the Barrow, and locked back up on the far side, how were they propelled (and controlled) when crossing the river?
Dukart’s inclined planes, on the canal from Coalisland to the Drumglass colliery, are known as dry hurries. It may be that the term derives from coal-mining; I’ve published some extracts from Richard Griffin’s 1814 report on the Leinster coalfield.
Posted in Forgotten navigations, Operations
Tagged canal, coal, coalisland, dukart, Ireland, lost, tyrone, waterways
Another neglected navigation: the River Finnery in Co Kildare.
Irish waterways history