A new, short book, on aspects of the history of the Royal Canal, published by the Railway and Canal Historical Society, will be launched at the Clinker Lecture on 18 October 2014. The title is The Royal under the Railway: Ireland’s Royal Canal 1830–1899 and it covers a number of topics, mostly about the canal after it was bought by the Midland Great Western Railway. From the Introduction:
The accounts of the Midland Great Western Railway for the half year ending 31 December 1849, four years after it bought the Royal Canal, showed its gross income from the railway as £23,773 and its income from the canal as £7,677, roughly a quarter of the total. By 1899, though, income from the railway was £264,393 and that from the canal £2,220, less than one per cent of the total. The Royal Canal, never particularly successful, had declined into utter irrelevance.
It may seem perverse, therefore, to offer even a short book on the canal’s history in that period, especially as there exist two full histories, by Peter Clarke and by Ruth Delany (with Ian Bath in the most recent edition). This, though, is not a full history, even of the limited period, roughly 1830–1899, from just before the railway took over until the end of the nineteenth century. This is rather a complement to those histories, providing just enough background information to enable the book to stand alone while covering some new topics and providing new or extra information on others. The topics include:
- the 120-foot steam-powered narrowboat
- the Midland Great Western Railway’s early attempts at running canal boats
- the ingenious Mr Mallet’s moveable bridge
- the whore who held the mortgage on the canal
- the competition between the roads of Roscommon and the Royal Canal
- the reconstruction of Dublin bridges over the canal
- the horses who slept on board their boat.
[…] this book is not intended to be the last word on any of those topics. I hope that it might encourage others – those researching local, family, social, industrial, transport, economic or technological history – to record and transmit anything they might learn about the history of the Royal Canal. To take just three topics, we know very little about canal employees, the operations of canal traders or the management of the horse-drawn canal boats. On any one of those, useful information could just as easily be found by a local or family historian as by a canal specialist.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Sea, Shannon, Sources, Steamers, The cattle trade, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged boats, bridge, canal, Dublin, Grand Canal, Ireland, Limerick, lock, Lough Derg, Midland Great Western Railway, Operations, Royal Canal, Shannon, vessels, waterways
I am grateful to Waterways Ireland for letting me have the Shannon traffic figures for July 2014. All the usual caveats apply:
On the other hand, the figures do include the Shannon’s most significant tourism activity, the cruiser hire business. And they are our only consistent long-term indicator of usage of the inland waterways.
Total (private + hired) traffic for the first seven months of each year
Traffic in 2013 was up a bit on 2012; 2014 is down slightly below the 2012 level. It’s the lowest seven-month figure in the series (ie since 2003), which is a bit of a surprise: I thought that the good weather would encourage more boating.
The changes are small, so their importance must not be exaggerated, but they’re not cause for celebration. Let’s see whether the drop was amongst private or hired boats (or both).
Private-boat traffic for the first seven months of each year
Private traffic is up a bit on 2012 but down on 2013.
Hire-boat traffic for the first seven months of each year
Hire-boat traffic is down on both previous years, but the pace of decline seems to have slowed.
Changes since 2003: private and hired boats
Hire-boat traffic seems to be levelling off at 40% of its 2003 figure: a massive loss of business. I do not know whether anyone is trying to, or could, recover that amount of business. I am not aware of any new Shannon-based tourism business that could compensate for the losses in the cruising (hire-boat) business, but I would be glad to hear from anyone who knows of such projects. Something with high growth potential is required.
Private traffic is wobbling either side of its 2003 figure: the increases during the Celtic Tiger years have been lost.
Still roughly 50/50
In the year to July 2014, hire-boat traffic was just above private traffic, but there is very little in it. Private traffic is now comparatively more important to Waterways Ireland [which may be why it is now trying to establish its economic importance] but it does not bring in much money from outside the two jurisdictions, so the case for public spending on waterways becomes much weaker.
And, quite clearly, opening more waterways doesn’t work: as this chart showed last month, the branches off the main lines of the Shannon, Erne and SEW are little used. The Lough Allen Canal, the Suck and the navigation to Limerick are very little used and I see no sign that the reopened Royal Canal has attracted many visitors to Ireland. What is needed is more intensive usage of the main waterways, not further dilution by the opening of more branches [to Clones or anywhere else].
High and low usage
Finally, I thought it might be interesting to see whether the monthly pattern of usage has changed since 2003. To avoid an over-cluttered chart, I included only four years: 2003, 2003 +5, 2003 + 10 and 2014. The chart is for all boats, private and hired.
Monthly traffic, selected years
The season seems to have got going earlier in 2003 and even in 2008. Was the weather better in those years?
Posted in Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, Shannon, Sources, Tourism, Ulster Canal, Unbuilt canals, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management, Weather
Tagged boats, bridge, canal, Clones, cruising, Erne, hire boats, IBRA, Ireland, Limerick, lock, Lough Allen, Operations, passages, private boats, Royal Canal, Shannon, Shannon-Erne Waterway, Suck, traffic, Ulster Canal, vessels, Waterways Ireland
Irish waterways history 