Category Archives: Restoration and rebuilding

A slight delay

Posted on Tuesday 24 January 2012 | 1 comment

Keeping up with Waterways Ireland’s corporate publications is a bit of a chore: there doesn’t seem to be any system allowing interested citizens to sign up for alerts, so you have to troll on over to the relevant web page and check for new stuff (I’ll see whether Page2RSS works).

Anyway, I don’t know when the WI Corporate Plan 2011–2013 [PDF] was uploaded, so it may be that everybody has already read it, although it wasn’t approved until October 2011:

This Corporate Plan 2011 – 2013 was approved by the North/South Ministerial Council on 12th October 2011 subject to budgetary considerations by the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Houses of the Oireachtas.

Naturally, I had a look for mentions of the Ulster Canal. It’s still there in Business Objective 2, which includes this:

Progress restoration of the Ulster canal from Upper Lough Erne to Clones.

But what isn’t there is any money (other than small change). Annex B shows these amounts of expenditure:

2011: €390,000
2012: €140,000
2013: €390,000

With an expected total cost of €45,000,000, it seems that there won’t be much progress in the next few years.

Thank goodness.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Operations, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged boats, bridge, canal, Clones, department of arts heritage and the gaeltacht, Erne, Ireland, Lough Neagh, North/South Ministerial Council, Northern Ireland Assembly, Oireachtas, Ulster Canal, Waterways Ireland

Prothero on the Armagh Blackwater and the Ulster Canal

Posted on Tuesday 24 January 2012 | Leave a comment

Another extract from F E Prothero and W A Clark eds A New Oarsman’s Guide to the Rivers and Canals of Great Britain and Ireland: Cruising Club Manual, George Philip & Son, London 1896. The lack of detail suggests to me that Prothero did not travel this route himself.

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Posted in Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, People, Restoration and rebuilding, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged Armagh, Benburb, Blackwater, boats, bridge, canal, canoe, Clones, department of arts heritage and the gaeltacht, Erne, Ireland, lock, lost, Prothero, Ulster Canal, waterways

River Suir showcase seminar

Posted on Tuesday 24 January 2012 | 2 comments

Information from South Tipperary County Council

River Suir Showcase Seminar

Tuesday 31st January, Carrig Hotel, Carrick-on-Suir. Time: 3-7pm

Do you have an interest in or love for the River Suir? If so, you are invited to come along to this first River Suir Showcase seminar in Carrick-on-Suir. As well as short talks on a range of river-related topics, there will be specialists from the various bodies that have responsibility for different aspects of the river on hand to answer any queries. Topics include inland waterways, boating on the Suir, fisheries, water quality, water safety, wildlife, the river navigation, invasive species, community and voluntary activities, and heritage survey projects on the Suir and the Nore.

Everyone is welcome to attend the entire seminar or to drop in for a short time. So come along and meet other river people and find out what activities are going on along the river.

This event is a follow up to requests from local people during the Suir River Cafe during Clonmel Junction Festival and community workshops in Ardfinnan, Cahir, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir over the summer undertaken as part of the Waterways Forward project.

It is an opportunity to share river information or just to hear about all the projects that are underway.

To book a free place: please contact: Margo Hayes, Tel: 051 642109 or margo.hayes@southtippcoco.ie

For further details on River Suir projects see [the website]: http://www.southtippheritage.ie/riversuir or contact Labhaoise McKenna, Heritage Officer, South Tipperary County Council heritage@southtippcoco.ie

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, 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, Suir, The fishing trade, waterways

Tagged boats, bridge, canal, Carrick-on-Suir, Clonmel, Ireland, Suir, Tipperary, waterways

Canal parties

Posted on Friday 20 January 2012 | 3 comments

I wondered recently whether the proposed canal to Clones was really a Sinn Féin canal. And I have also wondered whether the proposed restoration of the Lagan Navigation was a Unionist riposte, to be undertaken without the involvement of cross-border implementation bodies. With Michael McGimpsey having supported it, I thought of it as an Ulster Unionist project: although there seems to have been some DUP interest in at least some aspects, I’d have thought the Upper Bann was more DUP territory, with at least part of the Lower Bann staunchly supporting Ulster Scots heritage.

Now (h/t Industrial Heritage Ireland) comes news that the SDLP has got itself a canal: it wants the Newry Canal to be handed over to Waterways Ireland by the four local authorities that currently own it. This would extend the influence of the cross-border body into another area of Northern Ireland and bring it even into Portadown.

The Newry and Portadown Branch of the IWAI wants the thing restored and no doubt the local authorities (who have maintained it as a popular walking and cycling route) would be glad to get it off their budgets. Waterways Ireland, alas, remains deaf to my blandishments and is determined to have the Ulster Canal made navigable instead of setting up a walking and cycling route, and no doubt it would welcome having the good folk of Newry and Portadown lobby for it to get United Kingdom taxpayers’ money (if there ever is any to spare) to restore the Newry Canal.

But the major question that nobody has answered is this: what is the Alliance Party doing? What canal does it want restored?

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Ulster Canal, Waterways management

Tagged Alliance, Bann, belfast, canal, DUP, Ireland, Lagan, Lough Neagh, Newry, Portadown, SDLP, Sinn Fein, Ulster Canal, UUP, Waterways Ireland

Portarlington and Mountmellick

Posted on Thursday 19 January 2012 | Leave a comment

I have added some photos and maps to the page about the Mountmellick Line of the Grand Canal. Thanks to Martin O’Shea for two of the photos.

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Posted in Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Non-waterway, People, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, waterways

Tagged boats, bridge, canal, Grand Canal, Ireland, lock, lost, Mountmellick, Portarlington, quay, waterways

The cost of royalty

Posted on Thursday 19 January 2012 | 1 comment

I am attempting to establish the cost of the restoration of the Royal Canal. So far I have established that the government department currently responsible for waterways, the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, has no information on the matter, so I shall now ask Waterways Ireland.

It will be difficult to estimate the return on capital employed if we don’t know how much capital was employed.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged bridge, canal, department of arts heritage and the gaeltacht, restoration, Royal Canal, waterways, Waterways Ireland

Killaloe bridge

Posted on Thursday 19 January 2012 | 5 comments

The Irish Times tells us that the proposed new bridge at Killaloe will be built. The preferred route would cross the canal at Moys, below the breach in the wall, and, on the Tipperary side, feed into the existing roundabout at the junction of the R494 and R496.

The Preliminary Design Report for the project said:

There is an existing canal alongside the river on the west side, which served a navigational function up to the time of the construction of the Parteen Weir and the raising of the water level in the river. The canal is now inundated by the river as a result of the raising of the water level, and now merely forms a parallel channel alongside the river. A strip of land some 25m wide separates the river from the canal, which is approximately 10m to 12m wide at the bridge site. As the river is now fully navigable, the canal serves no navigational function except that recreational vessels wishing to access properties on the western shore can only do so by entering the canal through certain access points, and travelling along the canal to their desired destination on the shore.

It seems that Waterways Ireland (god bless ’em) insisted that the canal remain navigable:

[…] Waterways Ireland have now requested that passage along the canal be retained, and have advised that they intend to refurbish the canal as a recreational amenity.

A culvert is therefore to be built over the canal, but not a low-level culvert:

[…] Waterways Ireland require that the structure provide a minimum of an 8 metre wide waterway with a 4 metre wide towpath for vehicle and pedestrian access. They require the provision of a minimum headroom of 3.86 metres above normal water level, and a bed level not higher than the downstream cill of the canal lock at Killaloe/Ballina Bridge.

The section of canal will be dewatered during construction work.

These quotations are from Shannon Bridge Crossing Preliminary Design Report Rev F01 by RPS Consulting Engineers in October 2006. I am unable to find, on the Clare County Council website, any later documents that might assure me that the canal crossing provisions still apply. That’s not to say that they don’t; it may just be that the Council doesn’t think citizens need up-to-date information on the matter.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, Steamers, The cattle trade, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management