Category Archives: Roads

Killaloe

Posted on Thursday 13 August 2020 | Leave a comment

There is a new video about Killaloe’s waterside heritage on the Heritage Week website here. The video was made in July 2020 by Joe O Dughghaill of Pine Valley Productions, Killaloe.

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Posted in Ashore, boats, Built heritage, Canals, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Modern matters, Operations, Passenger traffic, People, Politics, Roads, Safety, Scenery, Shannon, Sources, Steamers, The grain trade, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

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Before there was Effin

Posted on Saturday 8 August 2020 | 2 comments

The name Effin Bridge has been given, in jest, to the lifting railway-bridge that crosses the Royal Canal just below Newcomen Bridge in Dublin. Here is an article about the bridges that preceded Effin Bridge at that site.

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Posted in Ashore, boats, Built heritage, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Modern matters, Operations, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Roads, Safety, waterways, Waterways management

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Shinners to the right of them …

Posted on Wednesday 12 February 2020 | 5 comments

… Shinners to the left of them. The local resident Shinners, having done well in a recent election, may end up forming part of a government while, across the water, the British Shinners (formerly known as the Conservative Party) are well ensconced and about to start dispensing benefits to their supporters.

No, no, not those ex-Labour idiots who voted for them: how much did any of those voters contribute to party funds? Very little, I imagine, so they can’t expect to be rewarded with anything other than the drippings from the pan.

One of the things uniting Irish and British Shinners is a devotion to useless vanity projects, usually costing the public purse a fortune in return for little or no benefit. The Irish Shinners have been pushing the Clones Sheugh for years and they also support the Narrow Water Bridge, which would be built in the middle of nowhere and be far less useful than the Newry Bypass. The British Shinners, however, have an even more idiotic bridge in mind, to be built across a munitions dump.

Her Majesty’s Chief Nitwit, the appalling Johnson, has a string of idiotic proposals behind him, some of which even got built. And now he’s at it again, proposing both a railway line and a bridge to distract attention from his cluelessness, ignorance and stupidity. But there is probably more to it than that, as the admirable Richard Murphy points out today. The bridge (and, I suggest, the railway) will benefit the modern courtiers who finance such projects.

 

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Modern matters, Politics, Roads, Sea

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New header pic February 2020

Posted on Tuesday 4 February 2020 | Leave a comment

The Liffey in 1846, cropped from a panorama published in the Illustrated London News on 6 June 1846.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Operations, Rail, Roads, Sea, Sources

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Limerick Navigation

Posted on Monday 20 January 2020 | Leave a comment

Last week’s talk at the Killaloe Ballina Local History Society, on the subject of the Limerick Navigation, was recorded by Scariff Bay Community Radio; a podcast (1 hr 13 min 11 sec) is available here.

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Posted in Built heritage, Canals, Charles Wye Williams, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Operations, Passenger traffic, People, Politics, Rail, Roads, Scenery, Shannon, Sources, Steamers, The grain trade, The turf trade, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management, Weather

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Kilglass

Posted on Monday 9 December 2019 | 1 comment

The Marquis of Westmeath presented a Petition, from certain landholders of the county of Tipperary and another from the inhabitants of Navan, in the county of Meath, against the Grand Jury Laws of Ireland, and praying for their repeal. He trusted, their Lordships would permit him to make a few observations on the matter of these petitions, and the subject to which they related. […]

He had to call their Lordships’ particular attention to some anecdotes, which he could relate respecting the manner in which this system worked, odious as it was, and deservedly so to the people of Ireland. He would begin with one occurring in the county of Roscommon — with which he was connected. In the year 1817, a presentment was made with his knowledge from the parish of Kilglass, for a road to connect it with the river Shannon, which washes its shores.

The population of that parish was immense, and it contained upwards of 5,000 Irish acres. It had no road whereupon any farmer could convey a loaded cart; and the case then was, as it now remains, that, though in a county groaning under crops of oats, the produce was brought out piecemeal, to be consigned to the river Shannon as it might; and, although within twelve miles of the great market of Longford, no loaded conveyance could travel into or out of it, nor could then, or can now, any farmer transport manure, or any other load, in that county, except upon horses’ backs.

Their Lordships would learn, with astonishment, that this county was all heavily taxed by the Grand Jury, to the amount of from 2s[hillings] to 3s annually per acre; concurrently, indeed, with those parts of the county where the Gentlemen who compose the Grand Jury disport themselves and reside; but, while one part of the county had not a single passable carriage road, its wealth was extracted to form easy communications and gravel-walks in another part of the county with which it had neither sympathy nor interest. Was it to be supposed that such a system could be endured? He himself, in 1817, had been examined before that Grand Jury, as to the oppressed and neglected state of this part of the county; and from that hour to this, it had remained precisely in the same state. […]

Irish Grand Jury Presentments in
House of Lords Debate 5 July 1831

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Posted in Historical matters, Ireland, Politics, Roads, Shannon, The grain trade

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The new header photo 20191102

Posted on Saturday 2 November 2019 | Leave a comment

Lanesborough bridge

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Roads, Shannon

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Speedy communication

Posted on Tuesday 9 April 2019 | Leave a comment

New Post Office Steam Packet

By the arrival of the Packet we received yesterday, at the early hour of three o’clock, pm, the London Mail of Tuesday. Had we stated a few years ago the probability of such an occurrence, we should have been reckoned wild and visionary enthusiasts.

But now the period has arrived, when, by the astonishing improvement of the roads from London to Holyhead, and the establishment of those noble vessels, the Post Office Steam Packets [inaccurate article here], the public may almost invariably calculate on the arrival in Dublin of the London Mail, within 44 hours after it is despatched from the British Capital. It is needless to point out the great advantage which the mercantile world must derive from the expeditious conveyance of the English Mail, and the consequent postponement of the departure of the Mail for London, from 10 o’clock pm to eight o’clock am.

While we bestow our warmest panegyric on the Post Masters General, for the strenuous exertions they have made to effectuate this desirable object, we must also pronounce, that Sir Henry Parnell amply merits the grateful thanks of every Irishman, for his unceasing and successful efforts to facilitate the communication, improve, and shorten the distance between the capital of the Sister Kingdom.

Considerable anxiety was evinced yesterday to witness the arrival of the Government Steam Packet; a number of the first characters, among whom were several Ladies, were on the Pier at Howth about one o’clock, at which hour the Meteor, commanded by Captain Davis, and also the Talbot [private sector] Steam vessel, were in view — both ploughed the ocean in grand style, the Meteor being first at the Quay by a quarter of an hour, and the Mail was landed from her at 10 minutes past two, 42 hours only having elapsed from its leaving London. The Lightning, which is to arrive to-day, is a larger vessel, being 80 horse power — the Meteor is only 60.

Saunders’s News-Letter 1 June 1821

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Posted in Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Historical matters, Ireland, Operations, Passenger traffic, People, Roads, Sea, Steamers

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A sign of the times

Posted on Monday 11 March 2019 | 2 comments

Driving through the village of Castleconnell [Co Limerick] recently, I found that it had acquired one — nay, two — of those stupid signs.

Road closed display 1

They’re stupid because, with the information spread over several displays, you can’t take it all in quickly. Unless, of course, you’re prepared to focus entirely on reading the sign, ignoring everything else on and around the road. Which in this case is passing a primary school.

I suppose you could stop and photograph it ….

Road closed display 2

The information on the first two displays could have been compressed and put on one:

8AM 13th – 6PM 14th

That still leaves two displays, but on the last one, the important one, compression has been taken too far:

Road closed display 3

 

 

Road closed at X, eh? Well, there’s a useful piece of information … or it might be, if we had Long John Silver’s map, with X marking the spot.

X is, of course, the unknown quantity, so this sign is telling us that the road will be closed at a specified time but at an unspecified place.

What dictionary are road-users to consult to find the meaning of X?

And why can’t the powers-that-be communicate clearly in English?

 

 

 

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Posted in Ashore, Engineering and construction, Modern matters, Rail, Roads

Ennis to Dublin 1838

Posted on Wednesday 6 March 2019 | Leave a comment

The public car from Ennis to Williamstown was quite a treat in the way of public travelling; a leather strap, and afterwards a branch of a tree, sufficed for a whip, until an innocent country lad was coaxed into an exchange pro tempore — that is to say, he very good-naturedly lent our driver his whip on a simple promise to return it, and took the branch instead. Although half an hour too late at starting, our loquacious conductor assured us that we would arrive in due time at Williamstown to meet the packet, ‘barring accidents’ — which was well put in, for the wheels were once or twice so hot and the horses so lazy that a stoppage at one time seemed inevitable.

A voyage in a large steamboat of one hundred horse power was quite a novelty to be enjoyed in an inland piece of water, and I greatly enjoyed both this and the voyage up the Shannon, in a less steamboat of twenty four horse power. I had never in my life travelled in a canal passage-boat, and the voyage therein from Shannon Harbour to Dublin was described by a Limerick attorney as a nuisance, horrible beyond endurance. I have never, however, been disposed to rely so much on the opinion of others as on my own experience, and therefore I resolved to try the voyage.

Never was I more agreeably surprised that to find, after sailing in it eighteen hours, I arrived at Dublin too soon, so far as the pleasantness of the journey was concerned. I heard the best Irish songs and recitations, and had a most interesting account of Irish scenery and superstitions from Mr Dennis Leonard, of Kilrush; besides this, I had a very comfortable night’s rest and was altogether much interested and pleased with my first journey on a canal.

From Chapter XV Ireland and the Irish 1838 of Benjamin Ward Richardson Thomas Sopwith MA CE FRS, with excerpts from his diary of fifty-seven years Longmans, Green & Co, London 1891

 

 

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Posted in Ashore, Canals, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Passenger traffic, People, Roads, Shannon, waterways

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