Killaloe Coast Guard is rather more polite about them here. Well done the member of the public who made the call as well as the Gardaí and the Coast Guard for taking action.
Yes, I know there are sensible and sane folk who use jetskis; I am friendly with several of them and I’m not talking about them or other sane users.
Thomastown ~1840 (OSI)
Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, is offering a month-long programme of events from 1 June to 1 July 2012, including:
There will be exhibitions and other events during the month; download the brochure here [PDF]; read about the Thomastown Weir and the Thomastown Community River Trust here.
We recall that Samuel Lewis wrote of Thomastown in 1837:
A very considerable trade was formerly carried on, and the town was the commercial depot for the county of Kilkenny ; flat-bottomed boats of an aggregate burden of 11,000 tons were constantly employed in conveying goods from this town, besides many others which did not belong to it; but the river is now choked up with deposits of sand. Inistioge has become the head of the navigation of the Nore, and the boats employed on the river at this place do not exceed an aggregate burden of 150 tons; the goods are now conveyed on Scotch cars by land from Waterford to Kilkenny. The improvement of the navigation of the Nore would tend greatly to the revival and extension of the trade of the town, and to the development of the resources of the county, which is rich in marble, coal, culm, slate, and limestone, for which, in addition to its agricultural produce, it would afford facilities of conveyance to the neighbouring ports. It has been estimated that the clearing of the channel of the river, which would open the navigation from New Ross to this town for flat-bottomed steam-boats of 70 tons’ burden, might be accomplished at an expense of £15,000, and effect, by a reduction of the charges for freight and the discontinuance of land carriage, a saving of at least £10,000 per annum. There are several large flour-mills worked by water in the town and its vicinity, and also two breweries and a tan-yard.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, Suir, waterways
Tagged cot, Ireland, Kilkenny, mill, Nore, Suir, Thomastown, weir
Seol Sionna under construction
The reproduction 25′ Shannon estuary hooker Seol Sionna will be launched at Querrin, Co Clare, on Saturday 19 May 2012, with celebrations continuing at Carrigaholt (home of the sublime Long Dock pub and eatery) on the following day [h/t dbm].
Canoe at Querrin. The second syllable of “canoe” rhymes with “go”
The pier at Querrin was built by the Shannon Commissioners; one of their marker stones (there are four at Querrin) is shown above.
Whaddya mean, you don’t know where Querrin is?
Remember, if the turf boats had not established the tourist traffic to Kilrush and Kilkee, the Shannon estuary steamers might never have got going and there might never have been a P&O line.
Posted in Built heritage, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, shannon estuary, Sources, Steamers, The turf trade, Tourism, waterways
Tagged boats, estuary, Ireland, Kilkee, Kilrush, Querrin, Seol Sionna, Shannon, steamers, turf, turf boats, vessels, waterways
I am grateful to Liam Kelly for sending me this photo of a steamer on the Shannon. He says that the photo is believed to show a steamer belonging to Lord Granard (Bernard Forbes, 8th Earl of Granard) passing through Lanesborough Bridge in 1900.
Here is a map showing Lanesborough and Castle Forbes.
Lanesborough and Lough Forbes (OSI ~1840)
And here is Castle Forbes shown in relation to Lough Forbes.
Castle Forbes and Lough Forbes (OSI ~1900)
According to a programme reproduced on page 200 of Ruth Delany’s The Shannon Navigation (Lilliput Press, Dublin 2008), Lord Granard (Right Hon the Earl of Granard, KP, GCVO) was Commodore of the 1929 Lough Forbes Regatta, held under the auspices of the North Shannon Yacht Club Flag and the Motor Yacht Club of Ireland. Page 197 of the same work has a photo of a North Shannon Yacht Club regatta on Lough Boderg in 1903; it includes a large steam yacht, but with a white rather than a black hull.
Page 181 of the same work has a photo of a passenger steamer, the Fairy Queen, one of the six operated by the Shannon Development Company, which was set up in 1897: the Fairy Queen and the Shannon Queen worked the confined waters of the Shannon above Athlone. The same photo of the Fairy Queen can be seen here.
To my eye, the steamer in the Lanesborough photo looks rather like the Fairy Queen, although I don’t think I could go so far as to suggest that they are one and the same. They’re shown from different angles and, anyway, similarities between steamers of the same era are to be expected. The reason I comment on the matter is that, while looking into the history of the Fairy Queen, I found that the invaluable Clydebuilt Ships Database had a photo of the 1893 Fairy Queen that served on the Shannon (not to be confused with her 1897 replacement). And, again to my eye, the Fairy Queen in the Scottish photo does not seem to be the same as that in the Irish photo. I would welcome other people’s comments on the matter.
The story is here. There is more on the family’s collection of animals here.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Natural heritage, Operations, Shannon, Steamers, Tourism, waterways
Tagged boats, Castle Forbes, Clyde, Earl of Granard, fairy queen, Forbes, Ireland, Lanesboro, Lanesborough, Lord Granard, Lough Forbes, motor yacht, Newtownforbes, Shannon, squirrel, steam yacht, steamer, vessels, waterways
From the Freeman’s Journal of 5 December 1833:
The Broadstone, from The Tourist’s Illustrated Hand-Book for Ireland 3rd ed David Bryce, London 1854
UNPRECEDENTED SPEED ATTAINED IN TRAVELLING UPON THE ROYAL CANAL
The Court of Directors of the Royal Canal hereby give Notice, that the present Day-Boat will cease running on Friday, the 6th, and that an Iron-Boat, capable of conveying Seventy Passengers, will leave the Broadstone harbour, at Nine o’Clock, on the Morning of Saturday, the 7th inst, for Mullingar, where it will arrive at Five o’Clock in the Evening; and Notice is further given, that at Nine o’Clock upon each Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, a Boat will leave Dublin for Mullingar, and return from thence at the same hour upon Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. By the foregoing arrangement a saving of three hours and a half will be effected. The Night-Boat will, for the present, continue to leave Dublin for Longford, each day, at Two o’Clock, and a Boat will depart from thence, for Dublin, each Morning, at Eleven o’Clock.
By Order,
SAMUEL DRAPER, Secretary.
Royal Canal-house, 2d Dec., 1833.
Bunratty Gandalow 2008
Gandalows (there are several spellings) are boats of the upper reaches of the Shannon Estuary. They come in several shapes and sizes and have been covered in several books. There is an opportunity to see some of them on the water, in Limerick, on Saturday 19 May 2012, when the ILEN School & Network for Wooden Boat Building has organised a day of talks and races. Full details here.
Posted in Built heritage, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, shannon estuary, Water sports activities, waterways
Tagged a k ilen, boats, gandalow, gandelow, Ireland, Limerick, Shannon
Vlets upstream of Killaloe
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
I mentioned the other day that extensive searches of tinterweb had failed to find any data on the heights of overhead power lines above the Shannon and that I had been forced to resort to the telephone.
I am pleased to report that the ESB expert duly rang me back today, and further pleased to report that he had himself measured the height of every cable over the Shannon. Oh joy, oh happiness, I thought. But not for long.
The ESB, it seems, does not reveal the actual height of power lines above the water. This, if I understood the reasoning correctly, is because the water level varies and a boat-owner might not understand that, hit a line with a mast and then sue the ESB [where “ESB” means “electricity transmission or distribution operation”]. I have been told that a boat-owner in coastal water did just that (presumably between the mainland and an island) and that the lawyers have advised ESB to take no further risk; I would welcome information about the incident.
So, if you want to find the height of a power line, you’ll need to polish up your trigonometry (and then relate the height to Ordinary Summer Level). But the ESB does supply the information to one organisation that makes charts: the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office. That’s OK for coastal charts, but the UKHO (to the best of my knowledge) has not surveyed the inland Shannon since 1839, and I don’t think its inland charts have been updated since then. It is possible, of course, that the UKHO supplies the data to other (electronic or paper) chart-makers; I have emailed them to ask.
The quest continues again. More info when I get it.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Politics, Shannon, shannon estuary, Sources, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged boats, clearance, ESB, height, Ireland, Lough Derg, Operations, OSL, overhead power line, Shannon, transmission, vessels, water level, waterways
Irish waterways history 