The Munster Blackwater …

… from water level: an account of a swim down the river.

Royal Canal traffic in 1844

Royal Canal traffic in 1844 (Salt)

That table is extracted from Samuel Salt’s Statistics and Calculations essentially necessary to persons connected with railways or canals; containing a variety of information not to be found elsewhere 2nd ed Effingham Wilson and Bradshaw & Blacklock, London 1846, available from Messrs Google here.

The interesting point is how little of the Royal’s traffic travelled the whole way from the Shannon to Dublin or vice versa: only about 5% of the Dublin-bound traffic and less than 3% of the traffic westward.

Another point of interest is that traffic to Dublin was three times the traffic from Dublin.

Amongst the livestock, pigs were the dominant animals: they lost too much condition if they were walked long distances, which was the only alternative to canal transport before the railways came. Even there, I suspect that much of the tonnage described as “from Longford and the Shannon” was actually from west of the river, in Counties Mayo and Roscommon.

Portadown Foundry Ltd

I am grateful for a copy of Portadown Foundry Ltd: a history of the foundry 1844–1983, by Cardwell McClure and Wilson Steen, published by the authors in October 2012. It is available from five shops in the Edenderry (Portadown) area; the Edenderry Cultural and Historical Society may be able to assist.

The book’s breadth of coverage is very impressive. It may be thought of as having three main sections. The first provides five chapters covering the five main eras of control of the foundry. The second has four chapters covering employees, surviving artefacts, sporting history and Foundry Street, where many employees lived. The final section has six chapters providing the essential contest that is often omitted in local history books. These six chapters cover:

  • Portadown and the economy of Ulster
  • Foundry-built barges and lighters (of particular interest on this site)
  • The evolution of flax and linen processing in Ulster
  • The evolution of engineering in Ulster
  • The evolution of power plant in Ulster
  • The evolution of transport in Ulster.

It is richly illustrated throughout and is well worth a fiver (sterling) of anyone’s money.

 

All sheugh up

Thinking about the exciting news from the North South Ministerial Council plenary session about the Clones Sheugh, I was reminded of the even more exciting news of the first meeting of the North/South Inter-parliamentary Association.

Strangely, its meeting received little publicity in the great world. I asked Messrs Google to search for it but to omit links from the Oireachtas and the Northern Ireland Assembly, as well as those from politicus.org and flickr.com. It found only 42 hits, of which the first seven were links to the site of a Labour senator called Mary Moran. (I won’t provide a link to her site as she’s obviously perfectly capable of generating all the links she wants.)

Anyway, the first meeting of the North/South Inter-parliamentary Association seems to have passed almost unnoticed. You can read about it on InsideIreland.ie, which seems to be a news site run by an advertising agency.

From Ciarán Hanna’s account, I deduce that the North/South Inter-parliamentary Association is an entirely pointless body. I note that it won’t meet again until April 2013. And perhaps the Irish government’s support for the Clones Sheugh is because it gives this pointless body something to discuss, thus keeping it from commenting on anything important.

Grand trumps Royal

A victory today for St James’s Hospital, close to the former harbour of the Grand Canal, over the Mater Hospital, close to the former harbour of the Royal Canal at the Broadstone.

Perhaps, if St James’s needs space to expand, it could take over the former canal harbour; work on its latest development seems to have ceased.

Northsouthery and the Clones Sheugh

The minutes of the latest North South Ministerial Council plenary meeting, held on 2 November 2012, are now on the NSMC website. Of the Clones Sheugh:

The Council also welcomed the following key developments: […]

the restoration of the Ulster Canal from Clones to Upper Lough Erne is progressing through the planning application process in both jurisdictions. An inter-agency group has been set up to examine all possible options to advance the project.

Perhaps Mr Noonan will have an early christmas present for the promoters.

Boating off piste

Coast Guard rescue between O’Briensbridge and Clonlara.

Political parties: update

I said that I had asked many political parties whether they had asked the Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs [now the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht] for costings for the Clones Sheugh (aka the Ulster Canal). Those I asked were:

Christian Solidarity Party
Fianna Fáil
Fine Gael
Fís Nua
Green Party
Labour
People before Profit
Sinn Féin
Socialist Party
South Kerry Independent
Workers and Unemployed Action Group [WUAG]
Workers’ Party

I have so far had responses from Fís Nua, the Green Party and Labour; it seems that none of them made the request. I have emailed a reminder to the others and I await their responses.

Conserving heritage

The Irish Times suggests that the vigorous campaign conducted by the Heritage Council has been successful: its abolition has been cancelled.

What’s really going on

A useful post on the perils of relying on insider briefings when you want to find out about something (or at least to pretend that you know something about it).