Tag Archives: Ireland

Uncle Gaybo …

bigs it up for the Barrow, specifically a walk from Graiguenamanagh to St Mullins.

Forts, weirs, piers, power stations …

… just some of the things you can see from the Killimer to Tarbert ferry.

Actually, I lied about the weirs, but they were there once. As were the salmon.

The Colleen Bawn …

… is buried at Killimer.

Championing waterways heritage

O’Briensbridge, covered here on this site, makes the front page of the Clare Champion this week.

Ulster Canal abandoned …

… says The Meath Chronicle, looking at events of 1931.

Refried

The Irish Times of 25 August 2011 has news of the Fry Model Railway.

A la recherche …

… and the episode of the Madelen. Heavy lifting from the slipway at Cappa Pier, Kilrush, to Hog Island.

The drowning of the Celtic Tiger

Valerie Anex’s photos of ghost estates, many on the Upper Shannon and the Shannon–Erne Waterway, are worth a look. Flash is required. Some more of them here, where you can see them in high resolution.

The Blocks in the Docks

Waterways Ireland’s visitor centre in Dublin, known as the Box in the Docks, has been closed for some time. I don’t know whether it has yet been reopened, but it has a new website.

If you are pained by greengrocers’ apostrophes, don’t go there. The main problem, though, is that the website says nothing about what is in the Box. Why “Plan a visit” if you don’t know what you’ll see when you get there?

Perhaps it’s a work in progress, with more to be added later, but I’d welcome information about what’s in the centre from anyone who has visited it recently.

Buried at the crossroads …

… but without a stake through its heart. The Ulster Canal is dead, but it’s spinning in its grave. Its parent department has admitted some of the truth about its funding, but Waterways Ireland will be applying for planning permission for the scheme: there’s enough money for that, but not for digging. Nonetheless, Fine Gael TDs have managed to distract attention from the absence of funding by pointing to the planning application, while Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil have not realised that a scheme’s benefits should outweigh its costs. Return of the Son of the Ghost of the Bride of the Ulster Canal on view here.