Several ports on the Shannon Navigation have old cranes (or parts thereof), most of them nicely painted. Their age may not be apparent, but it is possible that they date back to the days of the Shannon Commissioners in the 1840s; at least one of them may be even older than that.
This page shows photographs of those cranes I know of, and discusses their possible ages. But there is much that remains unknown, and readers may be able to cast light on some of the mysteries.
Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Irish waterways general, Operations, shannon estuary, Sources, Steamers, The turf trade
Tagged Ballylongford, Banagher, Bath Street Foundry, Board of Public Works, Board of Works, boats, bridge, canal, Carrick-on-Shannon, Clare, Clarke, Connacht Harbour, Connaught Harbour, Courtney & Stephens, Cow Island, foundry, Grand Canal Company, Haughtons Mills, Ireland, John Grantham, Kerry, Kilgarvan, Killaloe, Kirkland, Leitrim, Limerick, Liverpool, lock, Lough Derg, Mather Dixon, Offaly, Operations, Pete Brown, Portumna, quay, Ringsend, Saleen, Scarriff, Shannon, Shannon Commissioners, Shannon Navigation, Shannonbridge, Tipperary, turf, vessels, waterways, Waterways Ireland, Williamstown
Let joy be unconfined. The OSI has further improvements to its online maps, with a beta of a street map application and the return (I think) of the 25″ 1900s maps. Start from here.
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Here are the Sailing Directions for the Shannon Estuary (completed before 1848) and for Lough Erne (1835-6), Lough Ree (1837) and Lough Derg (1838-9). They were compiled by Commander James Wolfe RN, who was one of those who drew up the relevant Admiralty Charts. Like the Charts, these Directions have not been updated, so boaters should not rely on them for navigation.
The Google Books Team have kindly permitted me to extract these from a larger document, which was one of those they had scanned and placed online, and to make them available (free, of course) to visitors to this site. Note that I have omitted part of the description of the smaller Lough Derg, which is not part of the connected waterways system.
Much of what I’ve learned about old Irish waterways has come from studying the Irish Ordnance Survey maps of the ~1830s and ~1900s (the tilde shows that the dates are approximate: individual sheets were surveyed and published on different dates). However, I had to pay a subscription to get access to them online, so I couldn’t refer visitors of this site to them. Instead, I suggested that visitors consult the free Google Maps and the Griffiths Valuation online maps.
Now, however, the Ordnance Survey maps are available, free of charge, online. “Historic” is the ~1830s maps in colour and “Historic 25i” is the ~1900s maps. Contemporary orthophotographic maps are also available and, best of all, you can overlay a modern map on an old one. Hours of innocent enjoyment and highly recommended.
Irish waterways history