That’s Ballina, Co Tipperary, on the Shannon, opposite Killaloe.
Looking upstream
The ramp
Looking downstream
From the railway footbridge
Photos taken on 1 January 2016.
The pontoon seems to be more severely affected than it was in the last big floods, on 22 November 2009.
From across the river
From the bridge
Abbey Bridge
Baal’s Bridge
Mathew Bridge
Current heading for Mathew Bridge
The weir
Lots of pumps running and equipment trundling about the place
Trouble at t’mill
T’millstream
Cots on the bank
The Black Bridge getting another hammering
I have been told that the Mulkear River rose very rapidly on Saturday night and that, at one time, it was feared that the (older) bridge would be swept away. I gather that folk working in other areas were called to Annacotty to deal with the emergency.
The old bridge at Annacotty (downstream face)
A tree in the water above the bridge
There’s a weir in there somewhere
The Mill Bar in Annacotty was closed today after being flooded.
The Mill Bar
This, from a small garden beside the bridge, suggests that the Mulkear may have carried and deposited a lot of silt
I gather that the Mulkear’s waters, added to those of the Shannon itself, raised the level of the Park Canal (the bottom section of the Limerick Navigation). A problem with opening the lock gates, to release the water, meant that a few houses in Corbally were flooded. A Sinn Féin councillor, whose party colleague has been responsible [with her southern counterpart] for slashing Waterways Ireland’s budget in recent years, is quoted as saying
I am in no doubt it was primarily caused by the ineptitude of Waterways Ireland.
Alas, the news story does not tell us the source of the councillor’s certainty.
The article also says that
[…] the force of this water meant it was not possible to open the lock gates by hand.
That is, I think, misleading: neither set of gates has gate beams, so they are not opened by hand.
The upper gates in 2004, shortly after installation. Note the absence of gate beams. Note also the two sluices or paddles on each gate
Control pedestal and gear
The upper gates open today
I see no sign of the paddles or sluices. Perhaps the level is so high that they’re underwater. I must try to check next time I’m at the canal harbour.
The upper gates in the floods of 2009
In the floods of 2009 the upper gates were held slightly open and all four sluices were discharging water. That would have lowered the level in the canal; it would also, I think, have made it easier to open the gates fully.
I am guessing, but I imagine that on Saturday night some sort of hydraulic machine was brought in this way …
Two bollards have been moved from the gateway and stacked beside it
… and used to push or pull open the near-side upper gate. There seems to be some slight damage to the stone and iron work.
Slight damage
One other possibility that struck me is that silt from the Mulkear might have built up behind the gates, making them difficult to open, but I have no evidence on the matter.
The lower gates
From the outside looking in
Posted in Built heritage, Canals, Charles Wye Williams, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Modern matters, Operations, Safety, Shannon, waterways, Waterways management, Weather
Tagged 2009, Annacotty, Anney River, Baal's Bridge, Black Bridge, bridge, cot, flood, gate, harbour, hydraulics, lock, Mulcair, Mulkear, Park Canal, Plassey, Shannon, silt, University of Limerick, water level
Here is the ESB’s Notifications page, with info on the rate of discharge from its hydroelectric dams and weirs. Today (14 December 2015) Parteen Villa Weir is discharging 440 cumecs (cubic metres per second or, roughly, ton[ne]s per second down the original course of the Shannon. That’s 44 times the 10 cumec usually discharged and more than replaces the 400 cumec diverted through the headrace to the Ardnacrusha power station. The Shannon is therefore running at its pre-Ardnacrusha levels and the Falls of Doonass have regained their power.
Of course if Ardnacrusha didn’t exist, its 400 cumec would be coming down the original course of the Shannon on top of the 440 cumec already there, which would make for interesting levels of flooding.
That ESB page has a link to this infographic, which shows the sort of information I was trying to get across here. I usually start from Leitrim [village]; the ESB starts slightly further upstream at Lough Allen. Note that the Shannon’s few locks are concentrated upstream of Lough Ree: between them and Killaloe are only two locks, at Athlone and Meelick, so the river’s fall is very slight.
Update 2018: the ESB has a new page with lots of interesting information here.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Modern matters, Operations, Safety, Shannon, waterways, Waterways management, Weather
Tagged Ardnacrusha, Athlone, cumec, ESB, Falls of Doonass, flood, Killaloe, Leitrim, lock, Lough Allen, Lough Ree, Meelick, Parteen Villa Weir, power station, river, Shannon
I don’t know, but here’s a picture of 415 of them flowing through Castleconnell. [Update 13 December: that may be only 405 cumec.]
415 cumecs on 12 December 2015
Actually, a cumec is one cubic metre of water per second, which is roughly one ton per second, which is a lot of water. And 415 cumec is the amount that, according to the blatts, the ESB is currently letting down the original course of the Shannon from Parteen Villa Weir; the minimum flow in that channel, as seen in summer, is 10 cumec.
Younger trees getting their feet wet
Who’d have guessed?
Below the bridge
Above the bridge
Stormont
Pump
Sandbags
Sandbag Central
Sandbags filled here for distribution
Army engineers
More equipment arriving
Ardnacrusha headrace, said to take 400 cumec
Errina bridge on the Plassey-Errina Canal
The stop planks seem to be quite effective …
… as there is little water getting down the canal to Clonlara bridge
Depth gauge at Park Lock
Lock chamber
Full canal upstream
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Modern matters, Operations, Roads, Shannon, waterways, Waterways management, Weather
Tagged 2015, Ardnacrusha, bridge, canal, Castleconnell, clonlara, cumec, depth, Errina, ESB, flood, flow, headrace, lock, Park Canal, Parteen, Parteen Villa, Plassey, Shannon, Stormont, weir
From the search terms used, it seems that many people are visiting this site with questions about Parteen Villa Weir, water levels, Shannon floods and so on. They are not this site’s primary focus, but some non-technical information might be of interest.
The best place to start is with this quotation from a former web page of the Shannon International River Basin District:
The Shannon International River Basin District is the largest in Ireland at more than 18,000 km2 in area. It covers the natural drainage basin of the Shannon river itself, stretching from the source of the River Shannon in the Cuilcagh mountains in Counties Cavan and Fermanagh to the tip of the Dingle peninsula in north Kerry. It also includes coastal parts of Kerry and Clare which drain to the sea. It flows through 18 local authority areas and is also an international RBD as a small portion of County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland drains underground to the Shannon Pot.
The district is about one fifth of the area of the island, one quarter the area of the state. Rain that falls on that area of land ends up in the Shannon (or in a few small rivers in Clare and Kerry that flow to the sea). Some goes to the Shannon estuary or its tributaries; most flows into the non-tidal Shannon, which means the river upstream of Limerick.
Ireland has been described as saucer-like, with a high rim and a low flat centre. It’s not entirely true, but there certainly is a very large central plain, and the Shannon flows down through the middle of that. And, because the land it flows through is flat, the river falls very little.
In 113 miles from Leitrim to Killaloe, the Shannon falls just over 30 feet; the navigation channel needs only five locks. [By way of contrast, the Thames has 45 locks over 135 miles; the Trent has 12 locks over 42 miles.] So extra rainwater allows the Shannon to spread out, covering a much wider area, and it takes time for that water to drain away downstream. But many of the rivers that flow into the Shannon have been subjected to drainage schemes, so they can get rid of their flood waters quickly … into the Shannon.
There are some weirs on the Shannon, designed to keep a minimum depth in the river for navigation; there are also some natural obstacles that hold water back. But once the level has risen high enough, water simply flows over the top of the weir, and there is nothing useful anybody can do — apart, of course, from farmers’ representatives and politicians, who can always make use of a photo opportunity.
Almost all the water that enters the non-tidal Shannon will eventually flow through Killaloe, the town at the southern end of Lough Derg [it’s on the west bank, in Co Clare; the east bank is Ballina, in Co Tipperary].
As James Robinson Kilroe wrote in 1907,
[…] we have the formidable barrier at Killaloe, naturally damming up a considerable depth of water in Lough Derg, and the river falling away southward by a series of rapids which correspond with drops in the canal, south of O’Briensbridge […], along an alternative course, possibly one used by a branch of the Shannon.
The diagrams with that article are worth a look.
In the twelve Irish (fifteen statute) miles between Killaloe and the tidewater at Limerick, the river falls about 100 feet: more than three times its fall from Leitrim to Killaloe. In the nineteenth century, the water level at Killaloe used to change by about eleven feet between summer and winter — even without storms. The old Limerick Navigation, including the canal Kilroe mentioned, could drain only a small amount of water (which could put the navigation out of action); the rest went down the river’s original course through the Falls of Doonass.
Nowadays, the Falls of Doonass are a shadow of their former selves, and the water level through O’Briensbridge, Castleconnell and Plassey is much below its previous levels. I suspect that the older, larger trees along the river show the original level, with the newer, smaller trees having grown since the 1920s.
The cause was the construction of a relief drainage channel in the 1920s. This channel is controlled by a weir at Parteen Villa [not to be confused with Parteen].
Actually, of course, it’s not a relief drainage channel. The weir [sometimes referred to as the Hydro Dam] controls the flow of water to the original course of the Shannon [the right-hand or eastern channel, which gets the first 10 cubic metres of water per second] and the headrace for the hydroelectric power station at Ardnacrusha [the left-hand or western channel, which gets the next 400 cubic metres of water per second, 100 for each of its turbines]. The power station was built to use that 100-foot fall of the Shannon, concentrated between Killaloe and Limerick, to generate electricity.
But one effect of the construction of Ardnacrusha was to provide a channel, the power station headrace, capable of taking [at least] 400 cubic metres of water per second away from the original river channel, thus reducing the likelihood of flooding.
Water experts talk about cumecs: a cumec is a flow of one cubic metre, or 1000 litres, of water per second. And a cubic metre of water weighs about one [metric] tonne, which is roughly the same as an imperial ton. So one cumec is one ton of water per second, which is a lot.
It was said, on 8 December 2015, that the ESB, using Parteen Villa Weir, had released 315 cumec down the original course of the Shannon on the previous day and had increased that to 375 cumec. If the Ardnacrusha headrace was getting 400 cumec, then the amount of water being discharged from Lough Derg and the upper Shannon had doubled.
As far as I can see, the Shannon has always flooded. The 2009 floods affected some nineteenth century houses, which I guess would have been flooded even worse before Ardnacrusha was constructed. However, I suspect that more houses have been built on the flood plain since then. But I don’t see that there is any way to prevent Shannon floods.
There is a good article in the Irish Times of 9 December 2015; it will no doubt disappear behind a paywall at some stage.
Here is an ESB infographic about the Shannon.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Modern matters, Operations, People, Politics, Safety, Shannon, shannon estuary, Sources, waterways, Waterways management, Weather
Tagged Ardnacrusha, Castleconnell, drainage, flood, Killaloe, Limerick, O'Briensbridge, Parteen, Parteen Villa, Plassey, Shannon, water level, weir
… even today:
The swivel bridges at Portumna and Banagher seem to have been badly situated with regard to the passage of vessels, both being placed in the concave bend of the river which makes it difficult, in blowing weather, and going down stream, to shoot the bridge safely.
That is from the Clare Journal, and Ennis Advertiser of 12 September 1850. The swivel bridges of yesterday are the navigation arches of today. The deficiencies of the Shannon Commissioners’ work were evident as soon as they had completed it.
However, although the article from which the sentence was taken is a condemnation of the Shannon Commissioners, the Journal was mistaken in blaming them for Portumna: that bridge was not built by the Shannon Commissioners.
Posted in Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Modern matters, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Safety, Shannon, Sources, Steamers, waterways, Waterways management, Weather
Tagged Banagher, bridge, navigation arch, Portumna, Shannon
At Garry Kennedy lead mines, County Tipperary, on last Tuesday, Thomas Doyle, a miner, had his leg broken by a portion of the mine falling in. He was conveyed to Killaloe, on Wednesday, and remained all night in the boat in great pain. He was brought to Limerick on Thursday, and is now in Barrington’s Hospital under the care of Surgeon Gore.
Clare Journal, and Ennis Advertiser 22 January 1849
25 November 2015 will be the 170th anniversary of the sinking of the Royal Canal passage-boat Longford and the deaths of fifteen people.
This was not (pace Ruth Delany in Ireland’s Royal Canal 1789–2009 Lilliput Press, Dublin 2010) “the worst accident ever to happen on the Irish waterways”: that melancholy distinction belongs to the drowning at Carrick-on-Suir of about 111 people in 1799 [see “The cries at the bridge” on this page], while the second-worst was the drowning of twenty people on Lough Corrib in 1828, the event commemorated by Antoine Ó Raifteiri in his poem Eanach Dhúin.
But the 1845 accident, between Porterstown and Clonsilla Bridges, was the worst to occur on an Irish canal. Evidence at the inquest and subsequent trial suggests great laxity in the management of the Royal Canal Company’s affairs, even if the immediate cause was an act of insane irresponsibility on the part of the boat’s temporary steerer.
I do not know whether any plaque or other artefact commemorates the event.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Safety, Sources, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged accident, Broadstone, Clonsilla, deep sinking, drowning, Longford, passage boat, Porterstown, Royal Canal, Royal Canal Company, Samuel Draper
On 6 November 2015 there was a meeting of the Inland Waterways flavour of the North South Ministerial Council, whereat the Minister for Fairytales (RoI) and the Minister for Marching Bands (NI), each with a sidekick, discussed waterways matters. The joint communiqué, artfully written to provide outsiders with as little information as possible, is available here [PDF], but here’s a summary:
LEGACY SCALE LINKAGES FOR NORTHERN BASED WATERWAYS IRELAND STAFF
The Council approved the determination made by Waterways Ireland regarding legacy scale linkages for northern based staff.
I knew you’d want to know about that. Whatever it means.
On 17 November 2015 the latest attempt to get the boys and girls of the Northern Ireland Assembly to be nice to other reached some sort of conclusion, which you can read about in the Irish Times (until it disappears behind a paywall) and the Manchester Guardian. But of course the important question is whether we southron loons have to buy sweeties (sheugher candies) for our northern brethren to persuade them to be polite. For that, gentle reader, you must turn to the inspiringly-titled A fresh start — the Stormont Agreement and implementation plan, available here [PDF].
You will not, of course, want to bother reading most of it, so we can skip straight to Section E Irish Government Financial Support on page 30. New readers may wish to know that, many NI disagreements ago, the Irish government, led at the time by a group of leprechauns who believed they possessed a pot of gold, resolved to impress the poor benighted northerners with a display of southern wealth and power. Accordingly, it promised to pay for all sorts of transport infrastructure, provided that it could be claimed to have some sort of cross-borderality and preferably looked iconic. Whether there was any point to any of the schemes was a matter omitted from consideration.
The three main proposals, IIRC, were
Unfortunately the hardheaded northerners have long memories and they keep looking for their three sweeties long after the Free State realised that it couldn’t afford them. So has this latest throwing of their toys out of the pram forced the Free Staters to give in and buy them the A5, the iconic bridge and the Clones Sheugh?
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
The Irish government says it’s all in favour of, er, “investing” in infrastructure “to support North-South co-operation to help unlock the full potential of the island economy”, where no doubt eighteenth century transport methods will prove to as important as they were in the time of Grattan’s Parliament. But with that, and all the other waffle and irrelevancies shoved in at the start of the section, it is clear that the Irish government is trying to big up a small contribution. It drags in the European Union, the Dublin to Belfast railway, flood relief, energy, communications and health, which have nothing to do with the case, but which between them fill almost the whole of the first page.
From there, though, it has to get specific, or at least look as if it’s doing so. Accordingly, each of the three white elephants gets a subsection to itself, with numbered paragraphs, from which we learn that:
That’s almost it: there is something about a north-west thingie, senior officials will meet and there will be progress reports.
These documents are not necessarily constructed to provide information to outsiders, but my sense is that the Clones Sheugh danger to the southron taxpayer has receded for the moment, although the Narrow Water Bridge and the sail-training nitwittwery need to be blown out of the water (or into it). The A5 road is to go ahead: I don’t know much about it but it might be the least objectionable of the lot.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Modern matters, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Roads, Safety, Sea, Sources, Tourism, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged Clones, department of arts heritage and the gaeltacht, Erne, free state, HMG, Ireland, Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland Executive, Operations, sail training, Saunderson's, sheugh, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways Ireland
The River Groody flows into the Shannon downstream of Plassey, where the University of Limerick is located.
Groody and Plassey (OSI ~1840)
The river itself may be hard to see, but the green wriggly line follows the course of the Groody except just north of Groody Bridge, where the river takes a more direct course towards the Shannon.
The road crossing Groody Bridge was the main road from Dublin to Limerick and the route followed by the mail-coaches. And, just to the west of the bridge, the 6″ Ordnance Survey map (of about 1840) shows a Turnpike, presumably controlling access to the road to Dublin. The road between Naas and Limerick, in other words most of the way to Dublin, was controlled by the Bourne family, who also ran the Dublin to Limerick mail coaches (which were amongst the few in Ireland to achieve an average of eight miles an hour).
Groody bridge and turnpike (OSI ~1840)
I met a man who told me that his family owned this building, which is opposite the Aldi shop on the Dublin Road, Limerick.
The building 1
It had been a shop at some stage and had had an extra window inserted, but he said it was originally a toll cottage. I don’t think it was for collecting the Limerick tolls [I don’t know where they were collected on the “Groody approach”, but I suspect it may have been near Pennywell]; I think it was for collecting the turnpike charges. Its position seems to match that of the turnpike building shown on the map.
However, I haven’t been able to find evidence on the matter one way or the other. I can’t find the building on the Griffith Valuation, perhaps because its value was too low to be recorded. And the Land Registry’s information doesn’t go back beyond 1982.
The building 2
I would therefore be grateful to anyone who can provide evidence on whether this building was the turnpike cottage for the road to Naas.
Irish waterways history 