Troll on over to the National Library website and see what you think of this drawing. Click on the thumbnail to expand it; you may then need to click “PRINTABLE VERSION”.
The black object between the sailing boats and the church looks to me like a paddle steamer, but the image is quite blurred so I’m not certain.
If you can identify the location, I would be glad if you left a Comment below.
The Erne in the 1890s, from the Cruising Club Manual.
Posted in Built heritage, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Scenery, Sources, Tourism, Ulster Canal, Water sports activities, waterways
Tagged boats, bridge, canal, Clones, Cruising Club, Erne, Ireland, Prothero, vessels, waterways
I am attempting to establish the cost of the restoration of the Royal Canal. So far I have established that the government department currently responsible for waterways, the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, has no information on the matter, so I shall now ask Waterways Ireland.
It will be difficult to estimate the return on capital employed if we don’t know how much capital was employed.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged bridge, canal, department of arts heritage and the gaeltacht, restoration, Royal Canal, waterways, Waterways Ireland
From the website of the Dublin City Business Association:
Dublin City Business Association commissioned Jerome Casey and Felim O’Rourke to undertake a study of tourism in Dublin and to make least-cost recommendations for its rejuvenation. The World Tourism Organisation concluded (in relation to Ireland) that “there appears to be very little correlation between marketing spending by National Tourism Organisations and international arrivals”.
Within Ireland, there is a mismatch between the Irish tourism market and the public resources devoted to it.
33 existing tourist attractions in Dublin were reviewed, and low-cost initiatives suggested for their improvement.
From 2000 – 2010 Ireland’s share of world tourism visitors has fallen sharply. In 2004, Ireland changed from being a destination country for incoming tourists to an origin country for Irish, outgoing tourists.
Dublin must move from passive approval of tourist activities to an active development of tourism as a priority industry in regenerating the city’s economy.
As my piece on the Park Canal in Limerick shows, I’m all in favour of low-cost improvements, so I downloaded the full report (PDF: 949.7 kb). Folk interested in waterways might like to proceed directly to page 46, which reviews the Box in the Docks, the Waterways Ireland visitor centre in the Grand Canal Basin at Ringsend.
Some other water-based attractions get much better reviews.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Politics, Tourism, Uncategorized, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged boats, box in the docks, canal, department of arts heritage and the gaeltacht, Dublin, Grand Canal, Ireland, Liffey, Operations, Ringsend, vessels, waterways, Waterways Ireland, workboat
As part of the tourism-oriented improvements at Dromineer, a new water feature is being tested.
Dromineer water feature
That dreadful white elephant the Jeanie Johnston, currently owned by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (whose purchase of the wretched thing was almost as big a mistake as their involvement in the Irish Glass Bottle site), is sitting in the Liffey acting as a famine museum.
Now the Grauniad tells us of a project to rebuild a replica of HMS Beagle in order to do science. It is not clear why a replica of a small, wooden, early nineteenth century sailing vessel — presumably with high maintenance costs — would provide a better platform for doing science than a modern steel motor vessel, but the promoters have their hearts set (again) on using a barque.
And, as it happens, the Jeanie Johnston is a barque, as was HMS Beagle while Darwin was aboard. Admittedly, the Jeanie Johnston is rather larger, but it might also cost a lot less than building a new Beagle from scratch. In fact, we could perhaps pay the Beagle folk to take it away.
This morning, on the wireless, I heard two people opposing the use of fracking to find gas around Lough Allen in Co Leitrim. Neither of them was convincing. One started by objecting to big multinationals being given licences to investigate the resources available; it is not clear that there was any ban on small native companies or workers’ cooperatives (or soviets of workers, peasants and soldiers) applying for licences, and presumably they could use traditional Irish implements like sleans if they wanted to.
The general line of argument adopted by the objectors was that anything that could go wrong would go wrong, probably all at the same time, wiping out the whole of Irish agriculture (some of which is not in Leitrim) and, er, eco-tourism. There would, the objectors seemed to suggest, be no preventive or mitigating measures and no insurance and the full cost of every accident would be borne by the residents of the area.
Remains of a pier at the brickworks, Spencer Harbour, Lough Allen
But the bit that really annoyed me was the depiction of the area as one of rural seclusion. Yet Lough Allen had canals, railways, coal mines, dams, iron works and brick works.
Spencer Harbour on Lough Allen
The very canal linking Lough Allen to the
rest of the Shannon Navigation owes its very existence to the desire
to carry coal from around Lough Allen to Dublin. And one of the most best tourism initiatives in the area, the Arigna Mining Experience, recognises that heritage.
Part of a brick
Insist on proper assessment and management of risk by all means, but don’t exaggerate it — and don’t ignore Leitrim’s industrial heritage.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish waterways general, Natural heritage, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Rail, Scenery, Shannon, The turf trade, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management, Weather
Tagged Arigna, boats, bricks, canal, Clare, coal, dam, ESB, fracking, gas, industry, Ireland, iron, jetties, lock, Lough Allen, Operations, Shannon, Spencer Harbour, vessels, waterways, workboat
Irish waterways history 