Category Archives: Steamers

Killaloe to Limerick Docks via Ardnacrusha

Posted on Wednesday 8 December 2010 | Leave a comment

Join the ex-Grand Canal Company motor-barge 68M on its trip from Killaloe to Limerick Docks, carrying barrels of stout for Dolan’s Pub. The trip marked two occasions: Arthur’s Day, the annual Guinness marketing opportunity, and the fiftieth anniversary of the last commercial cargo on the Grand Canal and the Shannon, which was a shipment of stout to Limerick.

This page provides a slide-show of 300 photos taken from 68M on its journey. If you can’t make the trip in person, do it this way.

Note that the page takes some time to load. And, even clicking through pretty fast, the show is likely to take at least ten minutes.

Click on the first photo to bring up the controls. If you have any problems with it, leave a Comment to let me know. I haven’t done this before. I may not be able to fix any problems, but I can at least look into them.

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Posted in Ashore, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, Scenery, shannon estuary, Steamers, The turf trade, Weather

Tagged Ardnacrusha, bic, boats, bridge, canal, Castleconnell, Clare, Coonagh, Curraghgour, Curragour, docks, ESB, floods, flow, Grand Canal, Guinness, Ireland, jetties, Killaloe, Limerick, lock, Lough Derg, Montpelier, O'Briensbridge, Operations, Parteen Villa Weir, Plassey, Sarsfield Lock, Shannon, vessels, water level, waterways, Waterways Ireland, weir, workboat

Who took the arch? A Shannon whodunnit

Posted on Wednesday 20 October 2010 | Leave a comment

O’Briensbridge is a village in Co Clare, islanded between the headrace of the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric power station and the River Shannon. Up to 1929 the river was the navigation between Limerick and Lough Derg (and eventually Dublin), and the bridge itself was something of an obstacle to navigation.

In 1832 the engineer Thomas Rhodes drew a sketch of the bridge with 14 arches, whereas nowadays it has only 12. We know when the seven arches on the Co Limerick side were reduced to six, but it has not been clear when an arch was removed from the Clare side. I think I know the answer; you can read it here.

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Tagged anchor, arch, boats, bridge, Brownrigg, cable, canal, capstan, Castleconnell, Charles Wye Williams, Clare, cot, delany, Emerson Tennant, ESB, floods, Hodges, Inglis, Inland Steam Navigation Company, Ireland, JK, Kierse, Killaloe, Limerick, lost, Lough Derg, Montpelier, O'Briensbridge, Operations, Parteen Villa Weir, quay, Rhodes, Shannon, Shannon Commissioners, steam, towing-path, towpath, trackway, vessels, water level, waterways

The barge at Plassey: seeking experts on iron

Posted on Saturday 16 October 2010 | Leave a comment

On my old photographic website I had a page of photos of an abandoned barge at Plassey, on the River Shannon. I have now moved those photos to here and added some text.

I am hoping that someone expert in old iron barges might be able to make a guess at the age, and perhaps even the origin, of the barge. I will, in the meantime, be trying to pin down the date of its abandonment.

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, Sources, Steamers

Tagged Annabeg, Annaghbed, boats, bridge, canal, Clare, docks, ferry, floods, Gilloge, Gillogue, Gully, Hannan, Ireland, John Laird, Killaloe, Limerick, lock, lost, Montpelier, O'Briensbridge, Operations, Plassey, quarry, Rainsford, Shannon, Sheehy, stone, University of Limerick, vessels, waterways

Shotts wha hae …

Posted on Thursday 7 October 2010 | Leave a comment

On my page about Shannon cranes I showed part of the remains of a crane at Kilgarvan on Lough Derg (it’s a little over half way down the page). I said:

Unfortunately I can’t read the first line […].

I have since had another go, and I think that the first line says

Shotts Iron Works

There was an iron works at Shotts from 1802. The town is in North Lanarkshire, about half way between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

If, gentle reader, you can supply any information about cranes manufactured at Shotts, do please leave a Comment.

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Operations, Steamers

Tagged 25 cwt, crane, Ireland, iron works, Kilgarvan, Lough Derg, Operations, quay, Scotland, Shannon, Shotts, waterways

From the hearts of cranes

Posted on Wednesday 11 August 2010 | Leave a comment

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.

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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

Saleen Pier

Posted on Thursday 25 March 2010 | Leave a comment

It’s a long way from Trinity College, Dublin to the pier at Saleen on Ballylongford Creek, on the south side of the Shannon Estuary. But the college owned large amounts of land in the area, including bogs, and turf was one of the cargoes exported from Ballylongford. There was a battery on Carrig Island at the mouth of the creek and a Coast Guard Station at Saleen Pier, which was built by the Commissioners for the Improvement of the Navigation of the Shannon. Read more about Saleen here.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish waterways general, Scenery, shannon estuary, Steamers, The fishing trade, The turf trade, Water sports activities

Tagged Ballylongford, battery, boats, bog, bollard, Carrig Island, Coast Guard, Commissioners, Front Square, goat, Ireland, jetties, Kerry, Kilrush, Limerick, lost, Operations, potatoes, Saleen, Saleen Pier, Shannon, slipway, Tarbert, TCD, tide, Trinity College Dublin, turf, vessels, water level, withy

Sailing directions: Shannon Estuary and Loughs Derg (1838-9), Ree (1837) and Erne (1835-6)

Posted on Thursday 22 October 2009 | 3 comments

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.

Shannon & Erne sailing directions

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Posted in Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, Sources, Steamers, The turf trade

Tagged Ireland, Killaloe, Kilrush, Limerick, Operations, Shannon, turf, vessels, waterways

Online maps

Posted on Thursday 22 October 2009 | Leave a comment

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.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish waterways general, Non-waterway, Operations, Scenery, Sources, Steamers, The fishing trade, The turf trade

Tagged heritage, historic, history, Ireland, maps, ordnance survey. orthophotography, Sources, waterways

The sector lock at Kilrush

Posted on Friday 19 June 2009 | Leave a comment

I’ve already written about a Shannon lock at Athlone and a Grand Canal lock at Belmont. Now here’s a page about the sector lock leading into Kilrush marina on the Shannon estuary. Sector locks are relatively rare, but sector gates are being installed as flood defences at Spencer Dock, where the Royal Canal meets the River Liffey in Dublin, and are used at Limehouse lock on the Thames in London.

Interestingly, the Kilrush lock and the associated embankment solved problems that were identified by Commander William Mudge RN, Admiralty surveyor, in 1831: he was one of the three members of the Commission for the Improvement of the Navigation of the Shannon, and at that time the Shannon estuary steamers had to use Cappagh pier, outside Kilrush, because at low tide Kilrush had only a small creek running through it.

Nowadays, inland waterways boats going to sea often head for Kilrush, which is also one of the bases from which dolphin-watching trips are provided. There is a resident school of bottlenose dolphins in the estuary.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Irish waterways general, Operations, Steamers

Tagged boats, Charles Wye Williams, dolphins, ferry, Garryowen, Ireland, Kilrush, Limerick, lock, marina, Mudge, Operations, Poulnasherry, Scattery, sector gates, Shannon, steamer, turf, vessels, waterways, West Clare Railway

Category Archives: Steamers

Killaloe to Limerick Docks via Ardnacrusha

Who took the arch? A Shannon whodunnit

The barge at Plassey: seeking experts on iron

Shotts wha hae …

From the hearts of cranes

Saleen Pier

Sailing directions: Shannon Estuary and Loughs Derg (1838-9), Ree (1837) and Erne (1835-6)

Online maps

The sector lock at Kilrush

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