See the Irish Times and the Guardian.
Download your copy of Kerry County Council’s road safety calendar here [PDF].
Not that this piece of idiocy will ever be passed but, if it is, tourists should avoid Co Kerry, lest they be mangled by a Kerry farmer, pissed as a newt, wobbling around the roads in his tractor.
What qualities — apart from being a publican — do you need to be elected in Co Kerry?
Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Ireland, Non-waterway, People, Politics, Tourism
… but you can’t hide. Harbour hoggers, and folk not meeting the new canals requirements, should watch out.
WI’s eye in the sky
[h/t & © JC]
[yes, I know]
Posted in Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Shannon, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged Barrow, Erne, floatplane, Grand Canal, Royal Canal, seaplane, Shannon, Shannon-Erne Waterway, Sligo, Ulster Canal, vessels, waterways, Waterways Ireland, workboat
Pat Sweeney, in Liffey Ships & Shipbuilding [Mercier Press, Cork 2010], tells us that in December 1960 Cork Harbour Commissioners got permission to raise a loan of £250,000 to build two diesel-powered tenders to carry passengers to and from transatlantic liners moored in Cobh. The tenders were built by the Liffey Dockyard in Dublin; the MV Blarna was launched in May 1961 and her sister MV Cill Airne in February 1962.
After a varied career, the MV Cill Airne is now back on the Liffey as a floating restaurant. Her website says that she and her sister were the last rivetted ships built in Europe; they were the third-last and second-last ships to be built at the Alexandra Basin, the last being the Shannon Navigation’s Coill-an-Eo.
MV Blarna spent much of her life in Bermuda as a party boat named Canimabut then spent ten years in Canada waiting vainly for restoration or conversion and coming to be regarded as an eyesore. That period is now over: the “Millbank eyesore“, the Canima, sank in December 2012 and “salvage may not be an option“.
h/t Niall Galway
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, Tourism
Tagged Bermuda, Blarna, boats, Canada, Canima, Cill Airne, Cobh, Coill-an-Eo, Cork, dockyard, Dublin, Ireland, Liffey, New Brunswick, vessels, Waterways Ireland, workboat
What with all those nasty chaps [PDF] doing whatever it is they do to diesel, thereby cheating the citizenry and polluting the countryside, it seems that the Revenue Commissioners, whom god bless and preserve, came up with a new scheme last year that might be made to look like a solution. (The real solution, of course, is to abolish green diesel, charge everyone full whack, and — if you really must, although personally I think they get too much subsidy as it is — give farmers back some money to shut them up … for a while.)
The new scheme is outlined here. As far as I can make out (but IANAL), anyone selling marked fuel oil (which I guess would include marinas selling it for private pleasure navigation, the category I’m interested in) has to pay €250 to get a Marked Fuel Trader’s Licence.
Actually, I may be simplifying it unduly: first they have to apply to be allowed to apply.
If this Application is approved the National Excise Licence Office will issue you with an Application Notice to apply for the Licence.
If the marina counts as a “forecourt retailer”, it also has to make a monthly electronic return of “oil movements”.
These requirements came into effect on 1 October 2012 and the Revenue website provides a 147-page PDF list of licence-holders as at 31 December 2012. I’ve had a quick look for a few Shannon marinas; I found none of them, although I confess I haven’t read the whole thing.
I haven’t been to any of the seminars (although I’ve looked at some of the PDFs available on that page) and I haven’t contacted the official sources of information (although I have emailed the Revenue press office). I have read the FAQ, though. There is no reference to boats or marinas or private pleasure navigation, so I assume that the scheme does apply to marinas. As far as I can see (again, IANAL), all traders in marked fuel must have licences, even if they sell only small quantities. However, for those selling under 2000 litres per customer per month, there is a simpler monthly return:
However, if you supply less than 2,000 litres per month per customer, you only need to notify Revenue of the number of customers you supplied during the month as well as the aggregate quantity of fuel supplied.
That would cover most marinas, I imagine, although the ROM1 procedure still has to be used.
The first return, in respect of oil movements during January 2013, must be submitted by 25 February 2013.
So does this apply to marinas? I’ve asked Revenue but I don’t expect to hear for a few days. If it does apply, what will the effect be? Is the increased cost (time to compile the application and meet any Revenue demands; €250; whatever the ROM1 system costs) likely to be significant? How are the marinas (and other waterways fuel retailers) responding?
Posted in Economic activities, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, Politics, Shannon, Sources, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged boats, fuel, green diesel, Ireland, marina, marked fuel trader's licence, Operations, pump, Revenue, Shannon, tank, waterways
Paul Gauci’s 1831 drawing of a Shannon steamer
This drawing of a steamer is from an 1831 book called Select Views of Lough Derg and the River Shannon by Paul Gauci. I haven’t seen the book myself, but this illustration is used in a couple of places, including Ruth Delany’s book The Shannon Navigation [The Lilliput Press Ltd, Dublin 2008]. Andrew Bowcock, in his article “Early iron ships on the River Shannon” in The Mariner’s Mirror Vol 92 No 3 August 2006, says of the steamer shown that
The funnel looks to be almost over the paddle shaft, which is artistic license.
But my question is not about the vessel but about the house in the background. If it is drawn without artistic licence, where is it?
It is a very large house, seven bays by three storeys, quite close to the water. Using the Historic 6″ Ordnance Survey map [~1840], I have followed the banks of the Shannon from Shannon Harbour down Lough Derg to Killaloe, then from Limerick down the estuary as far as Tarbert, across the estuary to Doonaha and back up on the Clare side to Limerick, then from Killaloe up the Clare and Galway shores back to Shannon Harbour. Anywhere I found a large house within what seemed the right distance of the shore, I looked it up in the Landed Estates Database and in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, with some supplementary googling.
I haven’t been able to find images of all the houses marked on the OSI map, but I found enough to show that houses of the size shown by Gauci were very rare. Within those few, I ruled out some (like Tervoe) because they didn’t seem to match Gauci’s drawing (although alterations could have accounted for that). I ended up with only one house that looked at all like Gauci’s, but the background may not match.
If you can identify the house, I would be glad if you could leave a Comment below.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Scenery, Shannon, shannon estuary, Sources, Steamers, The cattle trade, Tourism, waterways
Tagged Banagher, boats, canal, Clare, estuary, Fergus, Galway, Gauci, Grand Canal, Ireland, Kerry, Killaloe, Kilrush, Limerick, Lough Derg, Offaly, Operations, Shannon, Shannon Harbour, steamer, Tipperary, vessels, waterways
Irish waterways history 