Category Archives: Waterways management

WI mooring locations batch 5

Posted on Monday 21 January 2013 | Leave a comment

A press release today says:

The fifth set of areas to offer the E.M.P includes locations in Dublin on the Royal Canal at Blanchardstown as well as Thomastown, Co Westmeath.  On the Grand Canal Ballycowan, Derries and Gallen in Co Offaly will open. In addition Athy and Ballyteigue both in Co Kildare and St Mullins in Co Carlow which are all on the Barrow will also open for applications on the 21st January.

As far as I can see, the rest of the text of the press release is standard information that we already knew.

To see exactly what locations will be covered in batch 5, you’ll have to check the WI website on 21 January 2013.

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Posted in Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, waterways, Waterways management

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Dredgers

Posted on Monday 21 January 2013 | Leave a comment

I’ve moved my pics of dredgers to a new page and added a few more.

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Posted in Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Shannon, shannon estuary, Suir, waterways, Waterways management

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Rescue boats on Irish inland waterways

Posted on Sunday 20 January 2013 | Leave a comment

I’ve moved my photos of rescue boats to a new page and added photos of some more services. Still a lot missing, though.

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Shannon, shannon estuary, Suir, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

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Dublin

Posted on Sunday 20 January 2013 | Leave a comment

Dublin City Public Libraries have some nice photos available online. The section on the Port of Dublin includes 1926 aerial photos of the Guinness wharf and of Spencer Dock (not busy) and Grand Canal Dock (including the section beyond the railway line, now filled in). There is also a photo of a steam barge at the Guinness wharf. In the Commercial Dublin section, I saw two businesses beside the Grand Canal, Ever Ready Batteries at Portobello and Gordon’s Fuels at Harold’s Cross.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Sources, Steamers, waterways, Waterways management

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Locaboat licences

Posted on Tuesday 15 January 2013 | Leave a comment

Locaboat tells us that

All the countries of Europe have agreed to facilitate access to hire-boats which are duly equipped and certified, and operate in tourist areas where there is little commercial shopping [presumably “shipping”].

In France, Germany [list of areas], Ireland, Holland, Poland and the Venice Lagoon Locaboat has received permission from the local authorities for their boats to be hired without licence. Initial instruction, both theoretical and practical, is given at the point of embarkation, enabling you to quickly master your boat and grasp the essential rules of navigation. You will then be given a licence that is valid for the duration of your stay.

When you’re starting from Ketzin in Germany, however, a boating licence is obligatory. This is not valid for citizens from countries that don’t have a boating license (e.g. Great Britain or Denmark).

This suggests that Ireland does have a boating licence, which is the first I’ve heard of it.

On its English-language front page, incidentally, Locaboat bigs up the fact that licences are not required in Poland:

Licence free hiring now also in Poland

Good news: Due to a new regulation, since 1st August 2010 a boating license is no longer required for our boats in Poland! Now a barge trip in the natural paradise of the Masurian Lake District becomes even more attractive.

And very nice it looks too. I wonder whether the Polish lakes have provided extra competition for the Irish.

 

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Posted in Economic activities, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, Sources, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management

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Fuel shortage continues

Posted on Monday 14 January 2013 | 1 comment

As far as I can see, from the new list published by Revenue today. there is still only one trader along the Shannon who is licensed to sell marked fuel (green diesel).

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Posted in Economic activities, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Shannon, waterways, Waterways management

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One for the Phizzers

Posted on Friday 11 January 2013 | 2 comments

Quite a few visitors to this site come to read about the Broadstone. Here is a piece about the pontoon bridge used at the Broadstone between (AFAIK) 1847 and 1877. It was designed by Robert Mallet and it is interesting to see how an inventive engineer solved the peculiar problems of the Broadstone site.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, The cattle trade, The turf trade, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management, Weather

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For anoraks

Posted on Wednesday 9 January 2013 | Leave a comment

I have added a few more photos at the bottom of this page of pics of Waterways Ireland vehicles.

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, waterways, Waterways management

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The diesel monopoly

Posted on Wednesday 9 January 2013 | 1 comment

I wrote here about the Revenue Commissioners’ new Marked Fuel Trader’s Licence. In brief, anyone selling marked fuel oil [green diesel] has to pay €250 to get a Marked Fuel Trader’s Licence and must also make monthly returns to Revenue of all “oil movements”. I thought, but I wasn’t sure, that this applied to marinas and others selling fuel for private pleasure navigation; as far as I could see at the time, none of those selling fuel along the Irish inland waterways had registered.

I have two pieces of news about that.

First, the Revenue Commissioners have confirmed that the new scheme does apply to sales of marked fuel for private pleasure navigation: in other words, those selling green diesel for boats along the inland waterways should all be registered under the scheme.

Second, I am happy to say that there is now at least one registered seller: Ciaran Fallon of Rooskey Craft & Tackle at Rooskey Quay. (There may be others that I haven’t spotted; you can check the latest list of Licensed Marked Fuel Traders here.) For the moment, then, Rooskey Craft & Tackle seems to have a monopoly of the legal supply of marked fuel on the Irish inland waterways.

Finally, on a somewhat related matter, here is the form [PDF] for making mineral oil tax returns for 2012. The numbers of returns received so far have been 38 in 2009, 41 in 2010 and 22 in 2011.

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Posted in Economic activities, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Politics, Shannon, Sources, Suir, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

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The Fergus estuary

Posted on Tuesday 8 January 2013 | Leave a comment

I have a page about the Fergus estuary here with links from that page to others about places on the estuary (including Paradise).

Mediaeval fishweir at the Boarland Rock in the Fergus Estuary © Dr Aidan O’Sullivan, UCD 2008

Mediaeval fishweir at the Boarland Rock in the Fergus Estuary © Dr Aidan O’Sullivan, UCD 2008

The UCD School of Archaeology has, for many years, been investigating the Fergus estuary and has found remarkable evidence of settlement and activities on the estuary stretching back to the Iron Age (about 100 BCE) and the Bronze Age (almost 800 BCE). Read about the project here and see more photos of mediaeval fishweirs and earlier artefacts here.

The photo above is used in accordance with the terms set out here.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Scenery, shannon estuary, Sources, The cattle trade, The fishing trade, waterways, Waterways management, Weather

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