Sallins

Posted on Friday 23 May 2014 | Leave a comment

Houseboat facility starts again.

Leave a comment

Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Not the end of the Tralee Ship Canal [updated]

Posted on Tuesday 20 May 2014 | 24 comments

I am grateful to Holger Lorenz of Tralee for alerting me to the removal of one of the gates of the Tralee Ship Canal. Holger’s photos of the lock and gate are here:

Photo 1    Photo 2    Photo 3    Photo 4    Photo 5    Photo 6

According to a Radio Kerry story, the gate had to be removed for maintenance and Tralee Town Council had “no time frame” for replacing it.

It seems to me, from Holger’s photos, that only one gate of the upper pair was removed. If the lower gates were working properly, surely they should be able to keep the canal in water.

It is some years since I visited Tralee. At the time, there was a largeish barge moored on the canal at the bridge. If it hasn’t been moved, I presume that its occupants are now unhappy.

I do not know what Tralee Town Council, or whoever it was, hoped to achieve by restoring the canal (or, for that matter, why whoever it was built the Jeanie Johnston, which was a huge waste of money). But whatever they hoped to achieve, I suspect that the canal failed to meet expectations. I do not know whether there has ever been a formal review of the project but I cannot imagine that it provided a reasonable return on investment.

The best thing to do with it now would be to seal up the seaward end with a fixed wall, forget about opening the bridge, maintain some flow through the canal to keep the water from becoming overly offensive and let the rowers take over the canal.

Addendum February 2015

This story from The Kerryman in November 2014 escaped my notice; it says that the damaged gates were replaced. It also says that the gates “now have a new motorised opening system that replaces the old crank mechanism”, which may reflect some confusion on the Kerryman‘s part as the gates were hydraulically operated.

I still don’t understand why the lower gates, or stop planks, could not have been used to maintain the level in the canal.

Addendum March 2015

Kerry County Council confirms that the lock has been restored and that the canal is fully operational.

See also comments below.

24 Comments

Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Charles Wye Williams, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Natural heritage, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Sea, Sources, Steamers, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged , , ,

Grand Canal bridge problems [updated]

Posted on Sunday 18 May 2014 | Leave a comment

Read about them here.

That’s not the Irish Grand Canal: it’s the one in Venice, the Monasterevan of the south.

There is a list of Santiago Calatrava’s bridges here, but information about his Irish bridges is lacking. Perhaps someone could send info about the James Joyce bridge and the Samuel Beckett bridge to The Full Calatrava.

Another iconic Calatrava achievement is described here [h/t Don Quijones].

Nothing in this post is intended to be insulting or degrading.

PS here’s a piece about another bridge being built in Foreign Parts, using a floating crane that even Bindon Blood Stoney might have been proud of.

Leave a comment

Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, People, Sea, Sources, waterways

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Yes we can

Posted on Sunday 18 May 2014 | Leave a comment

Folk who travel on English waterways are familiar with the Buckby can, through the handle of which that of the mop must, by law [I gather], be threaded. But soon there will be a new relationship between mops and cans, with the former used to clean up after the latter. Yes: hail the Buckie can, the latest Benedictine blessing to be showered on the land.

Leave a comment

Posted in Canals, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Operations

Tagged , , , , ,

Erne eels

Posted on Saturday 17 May 2014 | Leave a comment

Dr William O’Connor has been checking on eels on the Erne too.

Leave a comment

Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Sea, Sources, The fishing trade, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged , , ,

CandAway (Euro version)

Posted on Friday 16 May 2014 | 2 comments

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the vast majority of election posters are information-free zones. You get a candidate’s name, a photo, a background and, sometimes, a party name. In a very few cases you get a vacuous slogan. What you don’t get is any information about policies.

I don’t know whether that means that candidates have no policies or that they have some but don’t want to tell you what they are, but either way it doesn’t provide much reason to vote for any of them. Accordingly, you may wish to avoid being detained by any of these candidates, whether they accost you in a public space or call to your door.

Gavin Daly, writing on IrelandAfterNAMA, has developed an anti-candidate spray for use against candidates in the European Parliament elections. All you have to do is read his post, then download and read the PDFs linked here and here and look at this. You don’t need to read them all, of course: just mug up a few choice sections and then ask your friendly eurocandidate some suitable question: for instance

Given the European Commission staff’s view of Irish progress on the S2 indicator under the No-change policy scenario, do you think that the Draft National Risk Assessment takes sufficient account of the long-term CoA?

That should have them waving goodbye almost immediately. But we need something similar for local election candidates.

 

2 Comments

Posted in Ireland, Politics

And I’m like wow …

Posted on Friday 16 May 2014 | 1 comment

… as the young folk say nowadays. Searching the National Library catalogue for prints and drawings of the Royal Canal before 1900 brought up the usual suspects but also a very interesting map and this stunning view of Dublin in 1853. Viaducts! Railways! Steamers! Barges being propelled by sweeps!

I couldn’t find the Royal Canal, though.

1 Comment

Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Non-waterway, Operations, Rail, Scenery, Sea, Sources, Steamers, The cattle trade, The turf trade, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Construction

Posted on Wednesday 14 May 2014 | 1 comment

The government’s new election manifesto construction strategy has just been published and can be downloaded here. I wouldn’t bother, though: there’s nothing in it about the Clones Sheugh and it’s written in the sort of turgid prose that won’t fry your brain: it will instead submerge your brain in a slurry pit and hold it under, providing a slow, choking, unpleasant death.

Anyway, the doughty Rob Kitchin has waded through it on our behalf and gives his conclusions here. I don’t share his enthusiasm for National Spatial Strategies and National Development Plans, but I have some sympathy for him when he says

I would have preferred something a bit more holistic, rather than trying to frame a whole bunch of stuff as a coordinated plan.

Michael Hennigan uses the B word.

1 Comment

Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Safety, Shannon, Sources, Ulster Canal, waterways, Weather

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Spring is sprung …

Posted on Wednesday 14 May 2014 | 1 comment

… the grass is riz.
I wonder where the brand new fleet of aircraft is.

I would welcome news of sightings of the fleet of (presumably) floatplanes/seaplanes/amphibians that Harbour Flights is to have operating “early in the new year … from [sic] destinations nationwide”.

There is some discussion on Boards.ie here, by folk who appear to know one end of an aeroplane from the other; the later posts on the second page discuss suitable types of craft.

 

1 Comment

Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Natural heritage, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Safety, Scenery, Shannon, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Green diesel: reasoned opinion [updated]

Posted on Monday 12 May 2014 | 3 comments

Some news on one of our favourite topics.

The European Commission has formally requested Ireland to amend its legislation to ensure that private pleasure boats can no longer buy lower taxed fuel intended for fishing boats. Under EU rules on fiscal marking for fuels, fuel that can benefit from a reduced tax rate has to be marked by coloured dye. Fishing vessels for example are allowed to benefit from fuel subject to a lower tax rate but private boats must use fuel subject to a standard rate. Currently, Ireland breaches EU law by allowing the use of marked fuel for the purposes of propelling private pleasure craft. As a consequence, private leisure boats can not only use fuel intended for fishing vessels, subject to a lower taxation, but also risk heavy penalties if they travel to another Member State and the ship is checked by the local authorities. The Commission’s request takes the form of a reasoned opinion. In the absence of a satisfactory response within two months, the Commission may refer Ireland to the EU’s Court of Justice.

European Commission press release dated 16 April 2014, about three quarters of the way down the page.

Update: I see that the Irish Examiner noticed the EC statement. And NESC believes (sensibly) that green diesel should be scrapped altogether. Which won’t happen, because if you didn’t have unnecessary or ridiculous regulations Irish politicians wouldn’t be able to pretend to be doing something useful by playing with them.

 

3 Comments

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

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,