Royal Canal 2nd Lock (OSI 6″ ~1840)
Inland Navigation from Connaught,
A Large quantity of POTATOES, selling as follows, at the Canal Bridge, Lower Dorset-street, engaged good and Dry, at 7d per Stone. One Hundred Weight sent home to any part of the City, on the North Side of the River Liffey, for 4s 8d, carriage Free.
Encouragement to wholesale Dealers, by Grant, at the Coal and Turf Stores, Second Lock, Royal Canal.
Saunders’s News-Letter 30 June 1830
At the Police-office on this day, 64 boys, inmates of Mountkennett workhouse, were brought up for effecting an entrance into the stores of the Dublin Steam Packet Company, which are underneath the workhouse, and converting to their own use 432 bottles of porter [6¾ bottles each], the property of Mr Hurley.
Tralee Chronicle 3 August 1850 citing Limerick Chronicle 31 July 1850
I’ve been asked what it is. Its principal claim to fame is that it is not Holyhead.
Which is just as well. You can’t drive there, unless you’re a resident: you have to walk, which will give you an appetite for a pint or two in Ty Coch.
But the inability to drive there would have made it difficult to operate car ferries.
Posted in Charles Wye Williams, Foreign parts, Modern matters, Natural heritage, Passenger traffic, Sea
Tagged Holyhead, Porth Dinllaen, Ty Coch
Driving through the village of Castleconnell [Co Limerick] recently, I found that it had acquired one — nay, two — of those stupid signs.
Road closed display 1
They’re stupid because, with the information spread over several displays, you can’t take it all in quickly. Unless, of course, you’re prepared to focus entirely on reading the sign, ignoring everything else on and around the road. Which in this case is passing a primary school.
I suppose you could stop and photograph it ….
Road closed display 2
The information on the first two displays could have been compressed and put on one:
8AM 13th – 6PM 14th
That still leaves two displays, but on the last one, the important one, compression has been taken too far:
Road closed display 3
Road closed at X, eh? Well, there’s a useful piece of information … or it might be, if we had Long John Silver’s map, with X marking the spot.
X is, of course, the unknown quantity, so this sign is telling us that the road will be closed at a specified time but at an unspecified place.
What dictionary are road-users to consult to find the meaning of X?
And why can’t the powers-that-be communicate clearly in English?
Posted in Ashore, Engineering and construction, Modern matters, Rail, Roads
The public car from Ennis to Williamstown was quite a treat in the way of public travelling; a leather strap, and afterwards a branch of a tree, sufficed for a whip, until an innocent country lad was coaxed into an exchange pro tempore — that is to say, he very good-naturedly lent our driver his whip on a simple promise to return it, and took the branch instead. Although half an hour too late at starting, our loquacious conductor assured us that we would arrive in due time at Williamstown to meet the packet, ‘barring accidents’ — which was well put in, for the wheels were once or twice so hot and the horses so lazy that a stoppage at one time seemed inevitable.
A voyage in a large steamboat of one hundred horse power was quite a novelty to be enjoyed in an inland piece of water, and I greatly enjoyed both this and the voyage up the Shannon, in a less steamboat of twenty four horse power. I had never in my life travelled in a canal passage-boat, and the voyage therein from Shannon Harbour to Dublin was described by a Limerick attorney as a nuisance, horrible beyond endurance. I have never, however, been disposed to rely so much on the opinion of others as on my own experience, and therefore I resolved to try the voyage.
Never was I more agreeably surprised that to find, after sailing in it eighteen hours, I arrived at Dublin too soon, so far as the pleasantness of the journey was concerned. I heard the best Irish songs and recitations, and had a most interesting account of Irish scenery and superstitions from Mr Dennis Leonard, of Kilrush; besides this, I had a very comfortable night’s rest and was altogether much interested and pleased with my first journey on a canal.
From Chapter XV Ireland and the Irish 1838 of Benjamin Ward Richardson Thomas Sopwith MA CE FRS, with excerpts from his diary of fifty-seven years Longmans, Green & Co, London 1891
Posted in Ashore, Canals, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Passenger traffic, People, Roads, Shannon, waterways
Tagged 1838, canal, Dublin, Ennis, Shannon, Shannon Harbour, Williamstown
Actually, the original version seems to be
From Hull, from Halifax, from hell, ’tis thus,
From all these three, good Lord deliver us.
That’s from “A Merry-Wherry-Ferry Voyage” by John Taylor, the Water Poet, in 1622, collected in Early Prose and Poetical Works of John Taylor, The Water Poet (1580–1653) Hamilton, Adams & Co, London 1888.
I’ve been to (a few bits of) Halifax. The Piece Hall is stunning and the Calderdale Industrial Museum [Saturdays, 10.00am to 4.00pm] has not only a wonderful collection of machines but also a wonderful collection of knowledgeable volunteers who can tell you all about them: well worth a visit if you have any interest in industrial history, but allow plenty of time.
So that’s Halifax, and now I find [thanks to Caught by the River] that Hull is full of interesting stuff too, at least on the Open Bridges website, with lots of stuff about the river and barges.
So there is much to be said for visiting Hull and Halifax.
I wouldn’t bother about Hell, though: it’s full of Brexiteers, all thinking up magical solutions for getting out.
Irish waterways history 