On 3 October 1906 Mr Hugh Delaney of Borrisokane, Co Tipperary, gave evidence to the Royal Commission appointed to enquire into and to report on the canals and inland navigations of the United Kingdom. Tipperary (North Riding) County Council had asked him “to give evidence on behalf of the quay at Kilgarvan.”
His evidence became rather confused, as he and his interlocutors misunderstood each other. The source of the problem seems to have been his using the term “the canal” to refer both to the Grand Canal Company and to the canal itself. The main points of his evidence were these:
- Kilgarvan Quay was “only of recent date: it was only opened in [October] 1891 and it has had an extraordinary effect on the traffic of the district and brought down the railway rates [from Cloughjordan] very considerably”
- there had been no quay at Kilgarvan before that; there was deep water at the quay
- the grand jury of the North Riding of Tipperary gave £230 towards the cost and the Grand Canal Company paid the rest, about £579
- although it was only 104 miles from Kilgarvan Quay to James Street harbour, it took five or six days for barley to reach Dublin
- he felt that the trip should be done in two days, using steam launches
- he thought that transhipment at Shannon Harbour caused undue delay
- people at Terryglass had built a quay and it made a port of call for the Grand Canal Company.
The present quay at Kilgarvan is not on the ~1840 OSI map (though there is a smaller quay near the bend in the road) but it is on the ~1900. I have a photo of the crane on my page about Shannon cranes; I’m no expert, but I wonder whether the crane might be older than the quay.
Irish waterways history 