Here is an article, perhaps by Philip Dixon Hardy himself, from his Dublin Penny Journal of 1835. It is about the Bog of Allen, and the turfcutters living thereon, seen from the Grand Canal in 1835.
He visited a turfcutter’s hovel in the bog while stopped at a double lock about twenty miles from Dublin. What lock could that have been?
Note that Kildare is not among the counties mentioned in the article.
Posted in Ashore, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Natural heritage, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Scenery, Sources, The turf trade, Tourism, waterways
Tagged boats, bog, Bog of Allen, canal, Dublin, Dublin Penny Journal, Galway. Roscommon, gorse, Grand Canal, hovel, Ireland, King's County, landlord, landshark, lock, Longford, Meath, Operations, Philip Dixon Hardy, Queen's County, reclamation, Royal Canal, Shannon, Tipperary, Tullamore, turf, vessels, Westmeath, Wicklow
The Limerick Leader article about a proposed Limerick river bus has some statements that do not accord with my understanding.
The venture will see the river bus depart Guinness Pier – across from Athlunkard Boat Club at O’Dwyer Bridge – every two hours, bound for the power station […].
As far as I know, the pier in question was the Ranks jetty and was not used by Messrs Guinness. The Eclipse Flower, and other vessels owned by Ranks and their predecessors, sailed up the Shannon from there rather than attempt the stretch from Baal’s Bridge to Custom House Quay.
The boat will follow the route taken by barges of old – both passenger and commercial – some of which historically transported Guinness to the city up until the mid-1960s.
“It is a tried and tested route,” said Mr Flynn, stressing the viability and safety of the route, which passes Long Pavement – the edges of which have been repaired and grassed over – and finishes at the hydro-electric plant.
“Every passenger and commercial barge that came to Limerick for 50 years used that stretch of water. It is very safe. It was navigated by all the barges,” he said.
The route to Limerick through Ardnacrusha came into use only after the construction of the power station in the 1920s and was used for a little over thirty years. To the best of my knowledge, there were no passenger services in those years: passenger carrying stopped in the first half of the nineteenth century, when traffic was still using the old Limerick Navigation. There have been some trip-boats in recent years, but they did not (and do not) use “barges of old”. Some old barges, now converted and with more powerful engines, have safely navigated that stretch, but they do it when conditions are right.
During the final phases of Ardnacrusha’s construction, both old and new navigations were closed; the Grand Canal Company (GCC), the main commercial carrying company, ran to Killaloe and had its cargoes carried onward by rail to Limerick. When the new route through Ardnacrusha was opened, the GCC thought it was so dangerous that it refused to use it for about a year. It resumed operations only when a boom was put across the river above Baal’s Bridge and posts were provided upstream of O’Dwyer Bridge to which barges could tie while waiting for suitable states of the tide.
I accept that the proposed river bus will not be going downstream as far as Baal’s Bridge, but it will still be navigating on a stretch of water where Waterways Ireland advises that boats should not navigate when more than one turbine is running at Ardnacrusha. The ESB can run up to four turbines, each of which is said to add a knot to the current, and it can switch them on immediately, with no warning to any boat using the river.
Other pages on this site make it clear that I share the promoters’ enthusiasm for Ardnacrusha and the canal and river thence to Limerick. I do not say that the difficulties of that stretch cannot be overcome, but I do not think that they should be dismissed.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, Shannon, Sources, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged Ardnacrusha, Baal's Bridge, boats, bridge, canal, Clare, Eclipse Flower, ESB, floods, flow, Grand Canal Company, Guinness, Ireland, jetties, Killaloe, Limerick, Limerick Leader, lock, Lough Derg, O'Dwyer Bridge, Operations, Park Bridge, Ranks, river bus, Shannon, vessels, water level, waterways, Waterways Ireland
… from the (presumably artificially created) photograph in the Limerick Leader seems to be the Cailín Turána, formerly part of the Aran Islands Fast Ferries fleet at Doolin and seen here out of the water at Cork Dockyard in 2004. The vessel has not been on the Dept of Transport’s List of Certified Passenger Ships since 2007 (and may have come off the list before that: I have not kept copies of the lists earlier than 2007). It could of course have been used in Ireland for purposes other than carrying fare-paying passengers, or outside Ireland for any purpose, after 2004.
And it may be that the vessel shown in the photo is not that which is to be used in Limerick.
Posted in Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, Sources, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged Ardnacrusha, Athlunkard, boats, canal, Clare, ESB, estuary, flow, Ireland, Limerick, lock, Operations, Ranks, Shannon, vessels, water level, waterways, Waterways Ireland, workboat
In the UK, the Statute Law Repeals Bill is working its way through the House of Lords. You can download a PDF list of the bills being repealed. In amongst the turnpikes, Indian railways, benevolent institutions and lotteries, we find Part 4: Ireland (Dublin City). Within that, Group 1 sees the repeal of these statutes:
In a Consultation Paper published in 2008, the Law Commission explained:
The City of Dublin Steam Packet Company was founded by Charles Wye Williams in 1822. From 24 January 1839, the Post Office contracted the company to run the mail service from Dublin to Holyhead. This service was later extended such that the company ran both the day and night service.
During the First World War the company suffered heavy losses, including the sinking of its ship the R.M.S. Leinster by a German submarine on 10 October 1918, resulting in a loss of over 500 lives. A further two ships were sunk during this period. The company never fully recovered from its wartime losses and, in 1924, an order for the winding-up of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company
was petitioned for and granted by the High Court at Dublin Castle.
In Ireland, the Statute Law Revision Act 2009 repealed the 1833 and 1836 Acts and the Statute Law Revision Act 2012 repealed all the rest — except the 1895 Act. I don’t know where to get a copy of that Act, so I don’t know why it was specifically retained. But, with that exception, it seems that the ghost of the CoDSPCo has been laid to rest.
Posted in Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Shannon, shannon estuary, Sources, Steamers, The cattle trade, waterways
Tagged City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, Clare, Dublin, estuary, Ireland, Killaloe, legislation, Limerick, Lough Derg, Shannon, steamer, waterways
Royal Canal traffic in 1844 (Salt)
That table is extracted from Samuel Salt’s Statistics and Calculations essentially necessary to persons connected with railways or canals; containing a variety of information not to be found elsewhere 2nd ed Effingham Wilson and Bradshaw & Blacklock, London 1846, available from Messrs Google here.
The interesting point is how little of the Royal’s traffic travelled the whole way from the Shannon to Dublin or vice versa: only about 5% of the Dublin-bound traffic and less than 3% of the traffic westward.
Another point of interest is that traffic to Dublin was three times the traffic from Dublin.
Amongst the livestock, pigs were the dominant animals: they lost too much condition if they were walked long distances, which was the only alternative to canal transport before the railways came. Even there, I suspect that much of the tonnage described as “from Longford and the Shannon” was actually from west of the river, in Counties Mayo and Roscommon.
Posted in Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, People, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, Sources, The cattle trade, waterways
Tagged boats, cattle, Dublin, Ireland, Longford, Operations, pigs, Royal Canal, Samuel Salt, Shannon, sheep, Tarmonbarry
A useful post on the perils of relying on insider briefings when you want to find out about something (or at least to pretend that you know something about it).
Piloti’s “Nooks and Corners” column in the latest issue of Private Eye [No 1325] reports [brief extract available to non-subscribers here] that a London pub is threatened with demolition. On the Google satellite view with photos, press the button to the bottom right of the building to see a pic headed “Derelict pub”.
Piloti says that the pub was built in the 1840s [Diamond Geezer says 1839] and at that time the Marquis (or Marquess) was Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, KG, PC, FRS. The family’s main base was in Britain but they owned large estates in Ireland, notably in Counties Limerick and Kerry; certain roads in Dublin are also named after the family.
The late Marquis has two claims on the attention of Irish waterways enthusiasts. First, the best-known of the early River Shannon steamers, the Lady Lansdowne, was named after his wife. Second, he was Lord President of the Council [the current holder of the post is Nick Clegg] when the government of Her Late Majesty Queen Victoria decided, in 1839, to spend about half a million pounds improving the Shannon Navigation.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, Sources, Steamers, The cattle trade, Waterways management
Tagged boats, bridge, canal, Clare, Dublin, Geffrye, Ireland, Kerry, Killaloe, Lady Lansdowne, Limerick, Lough Derg, Marquis of Lansdowne, Operations, Petty-Fitzmaurice, Piloti, Shannon, steamer, vessels, waterways
Ordnance Survey Ireland piece on Waterways Ireland’s use of OSI data.
Irish waterways history 