Tag Archives: Dublin

GCD update

Posted on Tuesday 23 April 2013 | Leave a comment

Paul Quinn has very kindly sent on some recent photos of the work in progress at the Grand Canal Dock in Dublin. Two of the photos show the strengthening of Hanover Quay and the third shows the new slipway, which is now complete and in use. I’ve added the photos towards the end of the existing GCD page here.

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

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Raising the Royal

Posted on Wednesday 3 April 2013 | Leave a comment

I have remarked before that …

Ewan Duffy of IndustrialHeritageIreland and I have both, in recent times, uncovered new information about the history of the Royal Canal after it was taken over by the Midland Great Western Railway in 1845: a period that, because (I think) of the absence of company archives, is not well covered in published histories of the Royal.

Ewan has now published a splendid piece of research showing that the Dublin end of the Royal Canal, from Newcomen Bridge (Lock 1) to Cross Guns Bridge (Lock 5), was extensively rebuilt during the second half of the nineteenth century. This is, as far as I know, entirely new information. It gains further interest from the interaction between different concerns — canal, railway, tramway, drainage — all contending for the same small space in Dublin.

I have no doubt that there is yet more to be discovered about the Royal’s lost century.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Politics, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, The cattle trade, waterways, Waterways management

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No blue guitar

Posted on Tuesday 2 April 2013 | Leave a comment

The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said ‘You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.’
The man replied ‘Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.’

Wallace Stevens The Man with the Blue Guitar [1937]

The guitarist has not been active on the Shannon, where there has been no change in the list of holders of marked fuel trader’s licences [.xls].

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Shannon, waterways, Waterways management

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The Charles Wye Williams bridge campaign

Posted on Friday 22 March 2013 | 1 comment

Dublin City Council has published its call for proposals for naming the new bridge across the Liffey. According to RTE, various bolshies and literary types have been suggested, as though we didn’t have enough of them (and of politicians too). Accordingly, I have submitted an application suggesting that the bridge be named after a successful entrepreneur who understood technology and created employment: Charles Wye Williams, the Father of the Shannon, whose fleet of nine steamers and fifty-two barges gave us the Shannon as we know it today.

I will be happy to send a copy (PDF) of my application to anyone who is willing to support it.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations, People, Politics, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, shannon estuary, Sources, Steamers, The cattle trade, waterways, Waterways management

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Sailing in the Lowtown high

Posted on Friday 8 March 2013 | Leave a comment

WI & L&MK at Lowtown, with pics and map, here.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Charles Wye Williams, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Operations, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, Steamers, The cattle trade, The turf trade, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

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On wires and worked with steam*

Posted on Monday 4 March 2013 | 2 comments

Thanks again to Paul Quinn for another set of photographs, this time of the newly-installed wakeboarding system thingie in Grand Canal Dock, Dublin, which is to be opened on 9 March 2013.

Wakeboarding, as I understand it, involves dressing up in brightly coloured plastics, standing on a plank and being towed around behind a boat. I don’t myself see the appeal, being more the sedentary sort, but chacun a son gout, as the French don’t say, apparently, although why they’re supposed to know anything about it I don’t … but I digress. The wakeboarding system thingie seems to allow wakeboarding without a boat; it might also require less sea room.

A system was installed temporarily last year; there is information about it here. I don’t know whether that is the same system as has now been installed. You can read the environmental report here [PDF]. Waterways Ireland tells me that

Waterways Ireland has entered into a three year commercial operating licence agreement with Colin Harris T/A Wakedock Ltd., to place and operate a mobile wakeboarding system in Grand Canal Dock.

There seems to be an association between Wakedock and the Surfdock business in the Naomh Éanna, although Wakedock also has its own website.

I asked Waterways Ireland how much it was earning from this; it refused to tell me:

Waterways Ireland do not release license fees charged to individual commercial licence holders as this would be detrimental to our business interest in future license fee valuations.

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A tower tower

from grand canal theatre.

Looking from Grand Canal Theatre: note the white ramps

from hanover quay.

Seen from Hanover Quay

looking east towards ringsend

The ramps (looking east towards Ringsend)

looking south from hanover quay at ramps.

A close-up from Hanover Quay

looking south from hanover quay.approx.25 meters

The Naomh Éanna in the background

looking south from sea locks.aprox 50 meters

About 50m from the sea locks

looking west to gallery quay.

Looking west to Gallery Quay

ramp with dredger at charlotte quay.

Ramp in the foreground; excavator at Charlotte Quay in the background

ramps and far line support

Ramps and western line support

ramps and new position of naomh eanna.

Naomh Éanne in its new position

Waterways Ireland tells me that:

When agreeing the location, consideration was given to maintaining access to the pump-out on Hanover Quay and also access to vessels wishing to enter via the lock gates. No detrimental impact on navigation for other users is anticipated.

WI kindly provided this map.

GCD wakeboarding map

GCD wakeboarding map

Semper aliquid novi Africam adferre, as my old grandmother used to say.

 

* see The Third Policeman

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Operations, Water sports activities, waterways, Waterways management

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CWW bridge

Posted on Monday 4 March 2013 | Leave a comment

Paul Quinn’s photos showed the new Marlborough Street Bridge being constructed across the Liffey. Last Saturday’s Irish Times reported that Dublin City Council would soon be advertising to seek suggestions for naming the bridge; it said that a body called Labour Youth [whose members may be socialists, I fear] wanted it named after one Rosie Hackett, who went on strike  many years ago. It did not report that there is another campaign to have the bridge named after E T S Walton, a physicist.

The north-eastern corner of the bridge features the site of the offices of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, whose crest still adorns the walls. I suggest that the bridge be named after the company’s founder, the remarkable Irish entrepreneur Charles Wye Williams: the father of the Shannon, the master of scheduled steam shipping, the founder of the CoDSPCo and a founder director of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, godparent of the Irish livestock industry, innovator in marine safety, promoter of the turf industry, writer and experimenter on steam technology, tireless campaigner ….

Apart from his company’s crest on Eden Quay, and his name on a bridge he caused to be built in Limerick, there is no monument to this remarkable man. Name the bridge after him and move the plaque to it (and protect it adequately).

 

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Crossing the Liffey

Posted on Thursday 28 February 2013 | 2 comments

Thanks to Paul Quinn for pics of the construction of the new LUAS bridge across the River Liffey in Dublin.

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The Powers That Be

Dublin City Council tells us that “Construction on the bridge is due to commence in Autumn 2011”, which is nice to know, although an update would be nicer. Its PDF has a diagram of the bridge. If you can find anything about the bridge on the website of the National Transport Authority (which is paying for it), do please let me know. Incidentally, I hadn’t realised that the NTA’s reach had extended to passengers on ships, including those on inland waterways.

graham projects

The contractors

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Drilling contractor

The contractor is Graham Projects Ltd; Quinn Piling were working there a few weeks ago, but seem to have finished their end of things by now; I can’t find a website for Hilliard & Hilltwister Ltd of Listowel, Co Kerry.

from o'connell brg.

Looking east from O’Connell Bridge

from butt bridge looking west

Looking west from Butt Bridge

looking north

Looking north from Burgh Quay

looking north from burgh quay

Looking north to the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company offices

looking south from eden quay

Looking south from Eden Quay

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Operations, People, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Steamers, Uncategorized, waterways, Waterways management

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The Dublin to Galway ship canal

Posted on Friday 22 February 2013 | Leave a comment

Another h/t to Ewan Duffy for the link to this Galway Independent article about the proposed Dublin to Galway ship canal. I was impressed to note that it covers Edward Watkin‘s late nineteenth century for a Dublin to Galway ship canal, which would save transatlantic steamers from having to go north or south of Ireland when travelling between Britain and America. It was, of course, a completely insane proposal; as some folk pointed out at the time, only Liverpool steamers found Ireland an obstacle and, being capable of 20 knots or so, might actually lose time by having to travel at 3 knots and through locks on a canal instead of steaming north or south about.

Incidentally, the article mentions the Panama Canal, which joins the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. So which ocean is at its western end?

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Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Rail, Shannon, Sources, Steamers, waterways

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Revising the Royal

Posted on Friday 22 February 2013 | 1 comment

Ewan Duffy of IndustrialHeritageIreland and I have both, in recent times, uncovered new information about the history of the Royal Canal after it was taken over by the Midland Great Western Railway in 1845: a period that, because (I think) of the absence of company archives, is not well covered in published histories of the Royal. Ewan today said that he will be posting new material about the stretch from Lock 1 to Lock 5 on 30 March 2013, so watch that space.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Non-waterway, Operations, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Steamers, waterways, Waterways management

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