Tag Archives: Monaghan

Scrubbing the Sheugh

Posted on Friday 1 November 2019 | Leave a comment

Monaghan Town meanwhile got €57,600 to clean a section of the Ulster canal, and carry out appropriate planting and turn this section of Ulster Canal Greenway into a haven for wildlife […].

From The Anglo-Celt 31 October 2019

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Natural heritage, Restoration and rebuilding, Ulster Canal

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Bloody Fianna Fáil …

Posted on Tuesday 26 May 2015 | 1 comment

… obviously didn’t get the memo. [They didn’t get the marriage equality memo either, thus losing one of their better people — who needs to update the banner under her photos.] But a nos moutons ….

According to Northern Sound, Monaghan County Council wants the Monaghan Minister for Fairytales, Heather Humphreys, to meet her Northern Ireland counterpart, the Minister for Marching Bands [and boxing clubs, football stadiums and various other things about which MLAs ask questions: they’re as bad as TDs], to do something about the Clones Sheugh.

I suspect this means that FF, and perhaps the citizens of Monaghan, have realised that, despite the Momentous Day on the Ulster Canal [oops: sorry; not that one, this one], the Clones Sheugh has been hijacked by Co Cavan and is not actually going to reach Co Monaghan in the foreseeable future [which means until the next round of election promises].

As far as I can see, the deal was that Sinn Féin would shut up about the Sheugh provided that they got photos of activity before the UKoGB&NI general election. By nicking the money from other navigations in WI’s budget, the Minister for Fairytales was able to deliver the photos. And, as far as Google Alerts can tell, there hasn’t been a word about the Sheugh from the Shinners, north or south, since then. Of course I could be wrong about the deal and, if both departments will send me their full files on the subject, I’ll be happy to use that evidence to correct the story.

Now, though, a Fianna Fáil councillor in Monaghan has

… put forward the motion requesting the Ministers to meet to advance the project and asking Sinn Féin and Fine Gael members of the council to arrange the meeting urgently.

I don’t suppose he’d be trying to embarrass the parties that made the deal, would he? [If they did make a deal, of course, which they may not have, but we won’t know until the departments send on their files.]

SF has 7 members on Monaghan County Council, FG 5, FF 4 and there are two non-party members.

Speaking of parties, or their aftermath, a thought struck me:

Ulster Canal 01 whole_resize

Fianna Fáil’s original conception for the Sheugh: bold, upstanding, thrusting …

Ulster Canal 04 whole_resize

The current plan: brewer’s droop

 

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Posted in Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Tourism, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management

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Interesting information about the Ulster Canal …

Posted on Tuesday 28 April 2015 | Leave a comment

… as distinct from ministerial reelection photo opportunities.

By the way, some folk get confused about the location of the Ulster Canal; this map may help:

Saunderson's Sheugh -v- the Ulster Canal (OSI ~1840)

Saunderson’s Sheugh -v- the Ulster Canal (OSI ~1840)

Anyway, for folk who are interested in weightier matters than ministers talking through portions of their anatomies that they can’t distinguish from their elbows, here is some speculation about opening bridges on the Ulster Canal.

That’s the Ulster Canal Ulster Canal, not the Saunderson’s Sheugh “Ulster Canal”, by the way.

My OSI logo and permit number for website

 

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Are the Sheughers …

Posted on Friday 20 March 2015 | 8 comments

… seeing sense?

A cynic (not that there are any of them around here) might say that DAHG feels that it has done as much as it’s going to do (admittedly at Waterways Ireland’s expense) by dredging the River Finn and that it has told Monaghan Council that, if it wants any more Sheughery for Clones, it will have to pay for it itself. The Council might like a canal, but only if someone else pays for it, so it will have to be content with a greenway.

And rightly so.

 

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Buy a pub; fund a sheugh

Posted on Friday 13 March 2015 | 8 comments

Waterways Ireland is being forced to pay €2 million to dredge the River Finn to Castle Saunderson. This new sheugh is to be called the Ulster Canal.

Waterways Ireland’s wicked stepmother, the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, has failed to convince the government to come up with any money to fund this insane project. It has therefore decided to force Waterways Ireland to pay for it, at a time when WI’s budget has been cut by 31% over the past six years. That suggests to me that the parent departments, DAHG and the Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, are prepared to let the other waterways go hang in favour of a pointless extension of the Erne navigation.

DAHG said:

As the project will be funded from Waterways Ireland’s own resources, additional Exchequer funding will not be required.

Not that Waterways Ireland has any spare money, and it has very few surplus assets. Some years ago DAHG’s predecessor proposed to sell Plot 8, in the Grand Canal Docks at Ringsend, to fund the Clones Sheugh, but the property collapse put a stop to that. It’s still the most valuable saleable asset and it was never clear to me how the property of Waterways Ireland could be seized by its wicked stepmother.

Waterways Ireland has to come up with €1.4 million of the €2 million cost of Saunderson’s Sheugh this year. It hopes to get €900,000 of that from the sale of property. Apart from Plot 8, it has only three surplus assets:

  • Percy Place, valued at €650,000 in WI’s 2012 accounts
  • 47 Lennox Street, valued at €195,000
  • the Hatch Bar, which I presume to be the one at Hazelhatch [is there another?], valued at €45,000.

And that lot adds to €890,000. Add a few quid from the recent sale of old barges and you’ve got €900,000.

Given the details of the Hatch Bar in this Lisney PDF, I presume that what Waterways Ireland is selling is the freehold [but I’m not sure about this: if, Gentle Reader, you know more about it, please leave a Comment below]. Whoever buys it will have the satisfaction of knowing that they are helping to dig a ditch in Co Cavan.

 

 

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Operations, Politics, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management

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Good news for Sheughers

Posted on Thursday 12 March 2015 | Leave a comment

I noted recently that, according to the Department of Arts Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Waterways Ireland’s budget for the Clones Sheugh assumed a cost of land [including legal costs] of just over €52,500 per acre, when “the majority of [the land] is poor quality agricultural land”. I have asked Waterways Ireland for more information about this.

But today [as I am sure all regular readers will be aware] the Irish Farmers Journal Agricultural Land Price report 2014 has been published. It says that the average price of Co Monaghan land (based on 25 completed transactions) was only €9384 per acre, with a range from €1049 (for a 43-acre lot of which 12 acres were bog) to €40000 for land with development potential near Carrickmacross. A 25-acre “holding of prime agricultural land overlooking the lake at Emyvale” went for €14800 per acre and the county’s weighted average was €8103 per acre.

In Fermanagh, in Northern Ireland, the average price was £7493 (€10126) per acre, but “Lots of poor, rocky and heather land sold for around £1700/acre”.

 

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They’re taking the [bodily fluid]

Posted on Monday 2 March 2015 | Leave a comment

Of the cost of land to be acquired for a canal to Clones:

We understand that the costs of land acquisition are based on the purchase of 46 hectares of land (equivalent to approx. 114 acres), the majority of which is poor quality agricultural land for a total estimated cost of €6m. This is equivalent to an average price for acquisition of just over €52,500 per acre, although the total acquisition costs would also include legal costs associated with the process.

Nevertheless, an average price of €52,500 would appear to be very high compared with the average price at which agricultural land is currently sold in the area. If an average price of €25,000 per acre (including legal costs) was applied, then total land acquisition costs would be reduced to €2.85m. This is still a generous assumption. The average RoI price of agricultural land in 2014 was less than €10,000. [Irish Farmers’ Journal Agricultural Land Price Report 2013 January 2014]

That’s from Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Restoring the Ulster Canal from Lough Erne to Clones: Updated Business Case February 2015. Hats off to Fitzpatrick Associates for checking and for leaving the information in the final report. I have written to Waterways Ireland to ask for more information:

I would be grateful if you could let me have a list of

  • the names and addresses of the owners of the land you propose to buy to build a canal to Clones

  • map references or maps showing the location of that land

  • the size and nature of each plot of land you propose to acquire

  • the amount you propose to pay for each plot

  • the justification for each such amount.

Actually, I have the list of landowners in Co Monaghan, because it’s in the planning application. I can’t find the equivalent on the NI Planning Service’s website because I can’t work out how to search by applicant.

The stony grey soil of Monaghan must be worth more than one might think. Either that or this proposal is a steaming dunghill.

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Posted in Ashore, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Operations, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, Tourism, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management

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Minister talks through her hat

Posted on Tuesday 24 February 2015 | 1 comment

I originally had a rather more rude heading …. The Minister for Waterways and Other Stuff has decided to have the River Finn dredged to aid her reelection campaign shut up the Shinners promote peace and prosperity. The “shutting up the Shinners” bit means pretending that this is a restoration of the Ulster Canal, whereas it avoids the canal altogether in favour of dredging the river as far as Castle Saunderson, in Co Cavan, instead of going to Clones, in Co Monaghan. According to NorthernSound

Minister Heather Humphreys says the project will provide a wonderful recreational facility for local communities and will act as a significant draw for tourists.

That, minister, is a load of old bollocks: the locals have plenty of waterway already and the tourists are not going to be drawn by another bit of river. Still, Saunderson’s Sheugh is better than the Clones Sheugh, but it is worrying that

The project is expected to cost in the region of €2 million euro and will be funded by Waterways Ireland.

According to its Business Plan 2015, approved by the North South Ministerial Council on 18 December 2014, Waterways Ireland’s budget for sheughery in 2015 is €1000. So, if it is to spend €2 million on Saunderson’s Sheugh, and if the Treasure-Seekers have failed to find any money, will this mean that WI’s budget for maintaining and repairing the existing navigations will be cut?

I see that

The Minister says construction should begin in the final quarter of 2015.

I wonder when the next election is.

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Posted in Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Natural heritage, Operations, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, Tourism, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management

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Saunderson’s Sheugh and the border problem

Posted on Thursday 19 February 2015 | 3 comments
Castle Saunderson and the border

Castle Saunderson and the border

Saunderson’s Sheugh, the latest manifestation of the proposed reconstruction of the Ulster Canal, would run along a border for much of its length. That’s the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, but there is one important border it does not seem to cross [as far as I can see]: that between counties Cavan and Monaghan.

Has Cavan stolen the sheugh from its northern neighbour? I’m sure that folk in the Monaghan part of the Dáil constituency of Cavan-Monaghan won’t mind, but I wonder whether the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, who is a TD from the Monaghan end and is in charge of Sheughery, is concerned that her Monaghan colleague Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin [Sinn Féin] might turn the situation to his party’s advantage. On the other hand, from Sinn Féin’s viewpoint, the question might be whether any sheugh is better than none.

Of course, as soon as a coalition of Sinn Féin and the Éamon Ó Cuív wing of Fianna Fáil takes power, we’ll have the entire Ulster Canal built immediately. And there will be grants for growing flax, carrying corn to Dublin and draining the Shannon [which might mean that there are no southern boats to visit the Ulster Canal].

I should say, though, that Davy, in two reports out today, is not very worried about what Sinn Féin might do: Finfacts story here; Davy here; the two reports here and here [each of which should open as a PDF; if that doesn’t work, use the links on the Davy or the Finfacts page].

Map: OpenStreetMap; copyright explained here.

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Non-waterway, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management

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Euroloot for the Clones Sheugh?

Posted on Wednesday 4 June 2014 | Leave a comment

According to today’s Irish Times [which will disappear behind a paywall at some stage]

EU seeks feedback on plans to invest €500m in North and Border counties.

For full information, go to the SEUPB website. The Consultation Information Document [PDF may open or download as soon as you click] is the more useful and most readable document, but there are several others, including drafts of the PEACE and INTERREG Cooperation Programmes.

I have not myself been initiated into the Mystical Brotherhood of Euroloot Interpreters, so I can’t be sure, but I don’t think that either of these programmes contains, or could contain, anything that could fund the Clones Sheugh. It is difficult to see how a Sheugh-related action could be made to fit any of the objectives of either programme. But who knows what Fine Gael’s desperation might drive it to do? It faces the threat, in Monaghan, that the Shinners might arrive from Stormont bearing money from Her Majesty’s Treasury [NI branch office].

 

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Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Foreign parts, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Non-waterway, Operations, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, Tourism, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management

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