Winter Quarters

At Leinster Mills, Naas Branch, new year's eve 2013

At Leinster Mills, Naas Branch, new year’s eve 2013

Ballylongford man’s posthumous honour

Herbert Kitchener, born in Ballylongford near Saleen in 1850, shortly after the Shannon Commissioners completed their work, is to appear on a new UK £2 coin.

Wind and eels

Interesting BBC story about a possible cause for the decline in the number of eels.

Lough Derg 27 December 2013

Water level

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The ramp to the pontoons in Dromineer is now sloping upwards

The water level at Banagher has risen about one metre in the past 35 days.

Wind

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Dromineer people need to drink more wine

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The ghost ship is back

Towers

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Dromineer sans ivy

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Garrykennedy

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Garrykennedy from a distance

Shelter

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Miranda in Dromineer

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Garrykennedy 1

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Fewer boats in WI berths this year, I think

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Garrykennedy 2

 

The grunts of Lough Neagh

In The Cookin’ Woman: Irish country recipes (Blackstaff Press, Belfast and Dover New Hampshire, facsimile edition 1986), Florence Irwin says of Lough Neagh:

This lake, 153 square miles, has always provided much sea-food. Eeels [sic], pollan, trout, grunts and their elderly relatives, perch, to mention the most common fish eaten by the loughsiders and sold by them.

No doubt that is true for certain values of “sea”.

She says that the (Irish) pollan is found only in Lough Neagh, but that does not seem to be true. I had not come across the grunt before: earlier, in her chapter on soups, Ms Irwin has a recipe, from Moortown, for grunt soup, which requires 1 dozen grunts; she explains that

Grunts are the young of perch.

Seamus Heaney says

Perch we called “grunts” …

which suggests that perch are grunts or vice versa. Wikipedia says

The grunts are a family, Haemulidae, of fishes in the order Perciformes.

The taxonomy set out on its page about Perciformes suggests a relationship between grunts and perch that is more complex than either Ms Irwin or Mr Heaney allows, but says

Classification is controversial.

I am left wondering whether there are still grunts in Lough Neagh and, if so, whether they are of the Haemulidae family or whether the name is simply used locally for perch, young or old.

Here is a page about the Lough Neagh fisheries.

Levels

Folk who have boats tied to fixed jetties on Lough Derg might like to check their ropes: the water level has risen quite a bit and some ropes are bar-taut.

Saving the nation part 97

Clip_resizeThat’s from the government’s Medium Term Economic Strategy 2010 [PDF]. Not a word about the Clones Sheugh, which would undoubtedly save the economies of both jurisdictions on this island, but perhaps it will qualify for one of the new models of infrastructure funding mentioned hither and yon in the document.

Maybe the Sunbeds Bill would be more interesting – or more important.

PS Folk who write “between both” should be flogged naked through the streets before being hanged in the marketplace.

WI lifting boats

Waterways Ireland removed boats from Charlotte Quay in the Grand Canal Dock at Ringsend today.

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Being lifted

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Getting ready

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Pumps on the quay

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Ready for the slings

Thanks to Paul Quinn for the information and photos.

Asking questions

It is always pleasing to learn that powerful folk take an interest in the humble pleasures of the proletariat. Thus, back in 2003, many a plebeian heart leapt with joy on learning that Tha Lord Laird o Artigarvan [as we say in Ulster Scots] was asking questions of Her Majesty’s Government in the House of Lords about Waterways Ireland developments on the River Shannon at Limerick, Boyle, Ballinasloe, Ballyleague, Shannonbridge and Scarriff.

Alas, it seems that Tha Lord Laird, who once had the highest expenses in Their Noble Lordships’ House, may not be asking questions in the House of Lords for some time. He resigned the Unionist whip in June; it appears that he may now be suspended from the House of Lords, whose members he esteems. It really take the biscuit.

Money from the bog

To a small extent reclamation is now going on in Ireland; Mr M’Nab, of Castle Connell, county Limerick, has reclaimed 80 acres of the worst red bog, devoid of vegetation and 20 feet deep. It was drained, then coated with the subsoil, and the land which was not worth 2s 6d per acre is now worth 30s per acre.

Thus Robert Montgomery Martin in his Ireland before and after the Union with Great Britain third edition with additions; J D Nichols and Son, London; James McGlashen, Dublin 1848.

I have written here about Mr Macnab (that was how the spelling settled down) and his talent for extracting money from the bog at Portcrusha, which is between Castleconnell and Montpelier, Co Limerick. It seems that his achievements are still remembered — and emulated.

Incidentally, in the same work, published in 1848, Mr Martin refers to the

… large practical mind, great experience,  and Christian philosophy …

of Sir Charles Trevelyan.