I was sorry to learn that David St John Thomas had died. He was the David in the David & Charles [Charles was Charles Hadfield] publishing company, which published Ruth Delany’s The Grand Canal of Ireland, V T H & D R Delany’s The Canals of the South of Ireland, Patrick Flanagan’s The Ballinamore and Ballyconnell Canal, D B McNeill’s Irish Passenger Steamship Services (two volumes: north and south), P J G Ransom’s Holiday Cruising in Ireland: a guide to Irish inland waterways and W A McCutcheon’s The Canals of the North of Ireland.
That lot laid the foundations for the study of the history of Irish waterways, but Irish waterways were just one small part of a massive list.
There are obituaries online including one in The Scotsman and another in the The Daily Telegraph.
Irish waterways history 