Category Archives: Operations

Nothing to do with waterways …

Posted on Friday 31 May 2013 | Leave a comment

… but I was struck by George Monbiot‘s

[…] we pay billions to service a national obsession with sheep […].

George lives in Wales.

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Foreign parts, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Scenery, Sources

Tagged George Monbiot, sheep, Wales

Red diesel

Posted on Thursday 30 May 2013 | Leave a comment

[European Commission] May infringements package: main decisions

Reference: MEMO/13/470 Event Date: 30/05/2013

In its monthly package of infringement decisions, the European Commission is pursuing legal action against Member States for failing to comply properly with their obligations under EU law. These decisions covering many sectors aim at ensuring proper application of EU law for the benefit of citizens and businesses.

The Commission has taken today 143 decisions, including 15 reasoned opinions and 5 referrals to the European Union’s Court of Justice. Below is a summary of the main decisions. For more information on infringements procedure, see MEMO/12/12. […]

3. Reasoned opinions […]

Taxation: Commission requests United Kingdom to ensure private boats do not use lower taxed fuel

The European Commission has formally requested the United Kingdom to amend its legislation to ensure that private pleasure boats such as luxury yachts can no longer buy lower taxed fuel intended for fishing boats. Under EU rules on fiscal marking for fuels, fuel that can benefit from a reduced tax rate has to be marked by coloured dye. Fishing vessels for example are allowed to benefit from fuel subject to a lower tax rate but private boats must use fuel subject to a standard rate.

Currently the UK law does not impose fuel distributors to have two separate fuel tanks, one with marked fuel subject to a lower tax rate and the other with regular fuel subject to a standard tax rate. As a consequence, private leisure boats can not only use fuel intended for fishing vessels but also risk heavy penalties if they travel to another Member State and the ship is controlled by the local authorities.

The Commission’s request takes the form of a reasoned opinion. In the absence of a satisfactory response within two months, the Commission may refer the United Kingdom to the EU’s Court of Justice.

(for more information: E. Traynor – Tel. +32 229 21548 – Mobile +32 498 98 3871)

h/t Michael Clarke

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Politics, Sources, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways

Tagged boats, green diesel, Ireland, marked gas oil, Operations, Shannon, waterways, Waterways Ireland

Limerick slavers

Posted on Thursday 30 May 2013 | Leave a comment

A passing reference in a splendid article [“Ireland and the Black Atlantic in the eighteenth century” in Irish Historical Studies vol xxxii no 126, November 2000, which you may be able to read online] by Nini Rodgers alerted me to a proposed Limerick enterprise of which I was previously unaware. Dr Rodgers’s source was Faulkner’s Dublin Journal of 27–30 November 1784, to which I don’t have access, but it was probably the source for stories in the Derby Mercury of 2 December 1784 and the Chelmsford Chronicle of 10 December 1784, both of which are in the British Newspaper Archive.

The Derby Mercury put it thus:

Extract of a Letter from Dublin, Nov 27

There is at last some Probability that a vigorous Effort will soon be made for the Establishment of a West-India Trade, that may become a national Object in this Kingdom; an African Company is now projecting to be established in Limerick, where six Vessels will sail annually for the Guinea and Slave Coast, and from thence to the West-India Islands, whose Produce they will bring Home. They will at their own Out-Fit in Limerick take on board Linens and Cottons, plain and printed, Tallow, Horns, &c. The Out-Fit of these Vessels will not exceed 3,500 l. There is nothing against this Project but the Explanation of the Act of Navigation, which our Parliament alone has it in its Power to rectify.

Apart from minor points of punctuation and capitalisation, the Chelmsford Chronicle story is the same.

Limerick was, Nini Rodgers says, the first Irish port to promote a slaving enterprise. The African Company would have traded its linens, cottons, tallow and horns for slaves, sold them in the West Indies and bought sugar with the proceeds. I don’t know whether it ever got off the ground.

In general, though, Irish merchants profited from the slave trade not by buying and selling slaves but by supplying provisions to feed the slaves on the islands, allowing the plantation owners to devote their land entirely to growing sugar.

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Sea, Shannon

Tagged Africa, Ireland, Limerick, slave, West Indies

Delays at Robertstown

Posted on Thursday 30 May 2013 | 5 comments

Some barges have found it slow going past Robertstown on the Grand Canal this week, with low water on the summit level between Locks 18 and 19. But they’re not the only ones moving slowly at Robertstown, to judge from the written answer [thanks, KildareStreet.com] to Bernard Durkan [FG, Kildare North] in the Dáil on 28 May 2013. He asked …

[…] if consideration will be given to offering grant aid towards the holding of the annual Canal Festival at Robertstown, Naas, County Kildare; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

The minister, Jimmy Deenihan [FG, Kerry North/West Limerick], said:

I am advised by Waterways Ireland that it supports events taking place along the navigations throughout the year through the Waterways Ireland Sponsorship Programme. Applications open in October each year for the following year to maximise opportunities for promotion. Following an evaluation process, financial, operational or promotional support, or a combination of these, may be offered to events meeting the criteria.

If the festival organisers wish to seek sponsorship from Waterways Ireland they should apply for 2014 programme when it is advertised later this year. I am informed that Waterways Ireland did not receive an application for sponsorship from representatives of the 2013 Canal Festival at Robertstown and wish to advise that Waterways Ireland is unable to offer support to events outside the Sponsorship Programme process.

The festival website is here and there are some pics of a 1981 festival here.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged barge, boats, bridge, canal, canalfest, Grand Canal, Ireland, Lowtown, Operations, Robertstown, summit level, waterways, Waterways Ireland

Clare and Mary Rose

Posted on Thursday 30 May 2013 | 5 comments

A new museum dedicated to the Tudor warship Mary Rose will be opened in Portsmouth on 31 May 2013. Despite what the UK Independent says, the warship did not lie “undiscovered in the Solent until its exposed timbers were seen by divers in 1971”: the rather longer Guardian story points out that the Deane brothers dived on the wreck in the mid-nineteenth century. Charles Deane also worked on the recovery of the cargo of the Intrinsic, off the coast of Clare; he allowed Thomas Steele to wear his apparatus to descend on the wreck.

In September 1840, in the same issue that reported Mr Brunel’s rash wager of £1,000 that, when his Great Western Railway was finished, he could travel from Bristol to London in two hours[i], the Mechanics’ Magazine also reported that:

Mr Steele, of the County Clare, in the prosecution of his new principle of submarine illumination of objects in dark and muddy water, has been this week down on the wreck in Mr Deane’s water-tight dress and diving helmet, making some observations and experiments[ii].

It may be, therefore, that it was a Clare man who cast the first light on the Mary Rose for almost three hundred years.

From The Mechanics’ Magazine, Museum, Register, Journal, and Gazette No 867 Saturday March 21 1840

[i] italics in the original

[ii] “Submarine Operations” in The Mechanics’ Magazine, Museum, Register, Journal, and Gazette No 893 Saturday September 19 1840

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, Sources, Tourism

Tagged boats, Charles Deane, Clare, Intrinsic, Ireland, Mary Rose, Operations, Portsmouth, Thomas Deane, Thomas Steele

Forward, forward let us range …

Posted on Tuesday 28 May 2013 | Leave a comment

… Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

Excitable chap, Tennyson. But there are no ringing grooves in the list of licensed traders in marked fuels along the Shannon.

Nonetheless, the excitement of reading 211 pages of traders’ names and addresses, at four to the page, never palls. I have to read them, alas, as the data entry is so inconsistent that searching could not be relied upon (Mullinger, anyone?). It would be nice if someone cleaned up the data.

The entries are arranged in order of county, or more specifically in alphabetical order by entry in the County field. Thus all the traders in Dublin postal districts come at the end. But the list is headed by two traders who have no entries in the county field. One is Tigh Phlunkett of Leitir Moir; the other is Homefuels Direct Ltd of Stockton on Tees, the only non-Irish licence-holder.

There. Wasn’t that interesting?

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Shannon, Sources, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged barge, boats, green diesel, Homefuels Direct, Ireland, licensed marked fuel traders, marked fuel trader's licence, Operations, Revenue, Shannon, Stockton on Tees, Tigh Phlunkett, vessels, waterways

Sinn Féin and the Heritage Boat Association

Posted on Friday 24 May 2013 | 2 comments

KildareStreet again: a Dáil written answer from Wednesday 22 May 2013.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh [SF, Dublin South Central]: 273. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if his attention has been drawn to the fact that Waterways Ireland has decided to suspend the much-needed dredging works on the Grand Canal with only one section left to be completed and that that section of canal is shallowest due to years of silt and years of dumping and that this impacts on barges trying to traverse the canal, the delay in recommencing the dredging could seriously impact on plans by Dublin City Council to install a cycle track from Bluebell to Harold’s Cross, due to heavy equipment for any future dredging works having to locate on the northside of the canal where the cycle track would be,as the LUAS is on the other side; if he will ensure that funding for the dredging project to recommence works urgently be made available for Waterways Ireland. [24714/13]

Alan Kelly [Labour, Tipperary North]: I am not aware of a decision by Waterways Ireland to suspend dredging works on the Grand Canal. As you know, Waterways Ireland are a state agency under the agency of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. However, responsibility for the management of funding programmes related to the development of cycling infrastructure in the Greater Dublin Area rests with the National Transport Authority (NTA). Accordingly, to be of assistance, I have referred this question to the NTA for direct reply to the Deputy. Please contact my private office if a reply has not been received within ten working days.

I have been told that Waterways Ireland has issued no new dredging tenders this year; perhaps it’s saving up for the Cavan and Monaghan sheughs. However, I can’t check: Waterways Ireland isn’t showing tenders on its new website, sending the curious instead to a Eurosite that I can’t persuade to tell me anything interesting. Any difficulty for barges should make itself apparent shortly.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged barge, boats, bridge, canal, dredging, Dublin, Grand Canal, Ireland, Operations, Sinn Fein, waterways, Waterways Ireland, workboat

Thon Cavan Sheugh

Posted on Friday 24 May 2013 | 4 comments

Thanks to Kildare Street for this, which came up in Dáil written answers on Wednesday 22 May 2013.

Brendan Smith [FF, Cavan-Monaghan]: To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the position regarding the feasibility study that has been underway for some time in relation to the proposed extension of the Erne Navigation from Belturbet to Killykeen and Killeshandra; when this study will be completed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24538/13]

Jimmy Deenihan [FG Kerry North/West Limerick]: I am informed by Waterways Ireland that the current position is that work is continuing on the collection of data relating to this project and Waterways Ireland is currently preparing draft options for the project. At that point consultants will then assess the environmental implications of the options. It is expected that the feasibility study will be completed as planned by the end of 2013.

That’s Lough Oughter they’re talking about. If thon Monaghan boys are getting a sheugh, Cavan boys need one too. And, of course, consultants are having a hard time so they could benefit by earning a few bob. The net benefit to the economy will be pretty well nil (any spending will simply be displaced from elsewhere).

I think that Killykeen is a forest park; it is not clear how the local economy would benefit from the arrival of a few boats. If the folk of the area want a unique water-based attraction that might bring foreign tourists, they would be better advised to have the lake made an engine-free zone, open only to boats rowed, paddled or sailed, and with safe places to camp on the banks.

You can read here about how to get a boat from Belturbet to Lough Oughter.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, Sources, Steamers, Tourism, Ulster Canal, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management