Must be a good idea if it involves barges …
… or maybe not.
A few months ago I mentioned Paul Whittle’s history of the UK marine aggregate dredging industry, which includes a chapter on the Lough Neagh sand dredging industry.
I did not realise at the time that the industry was the subject of legal action by Friends of the Earth. Their objections are outlined here; there are several news reports of the progress of their case, eg here and here; this is an account, from June 2017, of the appeal court case; here is the BBC report of the decision and this is FOE’s reaction, which includes this:
Yesterday the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal ruled that the Northern Ireland government acted unlawfully by not stopping dredging for sand at one of Europe’s most important wetlands.
The only legal option now open to the government is to stop the sand dredging.
Dredging has been taking place on a huge scale at Lough Neagh without planning permission and other authorisations.
Friends of the Earth brought the legal challenge over the Northern Ireland government’s failure to stop the extraction.
Up to 2 million tons of sand is suction dredged from the bed of the lough every year. This is the biggest unauthorised development in the history of Northern Ireland. Yet this vitally important wildlife site is supposed to be protected under local and international law. In fact there is no bigger unlawful mine anywhere in Europe in a Special Protection Area.
Lough Neagh is Europe’s biggest wild eel fishery […].
I suspect that the decision will increase the DUP’s enthusiasm for Brexit.
Posted in Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Irish inland waterways vessels, Modern matters, Natural heritage, Operations, Politics, Scenery, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged birds directive, brexit, DUP, eels, Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland, sand dredging
Brian Lucey suggests that we should consider [note: not that we should definitely decide on] sealing the border with Northern Ireland. That would mean running a wall down the middle of the Woodford River section of the Shannon–Erne Waterway and would put paid to this business idea. We could of course cover it with solar panels, but I hope Prof Brian isn’t suggesting the Mexicans should pay for it.
Posted in Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Non-waterway, Operations, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged border, brexit, Erne, Northern Ireland, SEW, Shannon–Erne Waterway, UK
While running trip-boats has not always been the way to wealth on Irish waterways, we must always be alert to new business opportunities arising from changing circumstances. Brexit, the impending departure of HM Realm from the European Union may offer one such opportunity for a tourism-related business on the Shannon–Erne Waterway, perhaps around Aghalane.
Here, scenic boat trips could be provided. Of course not everybody likes long boat trips, so there could be a market for short trips, perhaps from one side of the Woodford River (which here constitutes the Shannon–Erne Waterway) to the other.
Such trips could feature in package tours, including flights into Ireland, accommodation and leisure activities. But the Irish tourism board (whatever it’s called nowadays) needs to open up new markets: these tours might be attractive to our fellow-EU citizens from Eastern Europe.
There is another possibility for development here, combining economic growth with humanitarianism. Ireland could offer to open refugee camps in the area, thus sharing the burden with Calais, Greece, Italy and other places currently accommodating these unfortunates. This would not be entirely selfless: there would be a stimulus to the local economy from the construction and operation of the camps. Should demand for camps along waterways exceed supply, the re-opening of the Clones Sheugh could be considered.
I regret that the north side of the river is blank on the modern OSI map; that area is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Historical matters, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Modern matters, Non-waterway, Operations, Passenger traffic, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Sea, Tourism, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged Aghalane, brexit, bridge, Clones sheugh, Northern Ireland, OSI, refugee, Shannon–Erne Waterway, tourism, Woodford River
The March 2015 edition of The Ulster Scot [PDF] is now available for downloading from the Ulster Scots Agency website (or wabsteid, as they say in Scots Scots).
I do miss the old days, when the Chief Executive of Waterways Ireland was known in Ulster Scots as the Heid Fector. Parity of esteem for the hamely tongue, that’s what I say.
I think my favourite word is bumfly.
Posted in Foreign parts, People, Politics
Tagged Hamely, Heid Fector, Ireland, Lallans, Northern Ireland, Scots, Ullans, Ulster Scots
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.
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
Tagged Éamon Ó Cuív, bridge, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, Castle Saunderson, Cavan, Clones, Clones sheugh, dcal, department of arts heritage and the gaeltacht, department of culture arts and leisure, Erne, flax, Heather Humphreys, Ireland, lock, Lough Neagh, Monaghan, Northern Ireland, Saunderson's Sheugh, Shannon, Sinn Fein, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways Ireland
Sammy Wilson [DUP]: Looking through the list of capital projects, I see lock gates on the Shannon, bridge repairs on the Grand canal, enhancements of the Grand canal towpath, the Shannon Blueway and the multi-activity trail at Carrick-on-Shannon. Nearly every one of these projects is in the Irish Republic. Does the Minister see her role as fighting for projects in Northern Ireland or simply sitting there, handing over our money for projects in the Irish Republic?
Mr Wilson might not have noticed, during his terms in ministerial office, that waterways capital projects in each jurisdiction are paid for by the government of that jurisdiction. So NI money is not spent on capital projects in the republic; if NI politicians want more money spent on waterways improvements [as opposed to running costs] in Northern Ireland, it will have to come from the NI budget.
Unfortunately Mr Wilson’s party colleague, and successor as Minister of Finance and Personnel, Simon Hamilton, does not share Mr Wilson’s enthusiasm for erecting lock gates or towing-paths on the Erne [or whatever it was he wanted], for he has cut DCAL’s Budget [157-page NI budget and 28-page statement, both PDFs] and, in consequence, the amounts to be allocated to Waterways Ireland.
DCAL is wondering how to apply the chopper and is seeking views; a 190-page consultation document can be downloaded here [MS Word *.doc]. Neither DFP nor DCAL makes it easy to find the change from last year’s allocations, but DCAL says that the “savings” to be made by Waterways Ireland will be £468,000. As of today, that’s €630,727.
The Word document points out that
The budgets for the North/South Bodies are agreed by the North South Ministerial Council and are dealt with under different arrangements. They are therefore outside the scope of this exercise.
So the document can’t say what the “front-line impact” of the cuts to Waterways Ireland’s allocation will be.
15% of WI’s current budget is paid by Northern Ireland and 85% by the republic. If the savings shown above are all to the current budget [which is not clear, though WI’s NI capital budget was pretty small anyway], then the total cut in WI’s current spending will be €5,204,847.
Note again that, without spending a lot more time on this than I currently have available, I cannot say from what base figure the cuts or savings are to be made.
Respondents to DCAL’s November 2014 consultation on the draft budget included only one who discussed waterways:
There was one response who stated that other sectors should be cut and funding to Waterways Ireland should be increased.
That was from an individual; it appears that no organisations commented on waterways issues and I cannot see any inland waterways-related voluntary body listed amongst those who submitted their views. As in the republic, arts folk seem to have been well organised.
The DCAL page contains a link to a surveymonkey page seeking responses.
Posted in Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Foreign parts, Ireland, Operations, People, Politics, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged budget, cuts, dcal, department of culture arts and leisure, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Operations, waterways, Waterways Ireland
… not.
If you’re feeling the need of something to depress you, troll on over to the website of the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council and download the six PDF sections of the third Peace Monitoring Report. Written by Dr Paul Nolan, it is an extremely impressive piece of work — and a welcome counter to the witterings of the peaceprocess feelgoodistas who are so prominent on 2RN these days.
If you would prefer a summary, here is Liam Clarke’s account in the Belfast Telegraph, and here is his commentary; Tomboktu and others pointed to some problems with the headline on the first piece, but I’m more concerned that the focus on education in the headline on Clarke’s account may distort perceptions of what the report and, indeed, the rest of Clarke’s article are really about.
The report uses indicators grouped into four domains:
I didn’t find much that was cheering in any of them. Nolan lists ten key points:
Only the fifth and ninth offer any good news. But, from a waterways perspective, I was struck by the complete irrelevance of the proposed reconstruction of the Ulster Canal, the Clones Sheugh, to solving any of these problems. Yet Waterways Ireland, around whose neck this dead albatross has been hung, is the largest of the cross-border bodies and the sheugh is the largest capital project proposed to be undertaken by any of them. If the Irish government wants to do something to solve the real and continuing problems of Northern Ireland, as outlined in the Peace Monitoring Report, couldn’t it find something more useful to do?
Incidentally, I have not been able to find coverage of the report on the websites of the Irish Times, Irish Independent or Irish Examiner, although that may reflect poor searching on my part rather than any lack of interest on theirs.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Canals, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Foreign parts, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Non-waterway, People, Politics, Restoration and rebuilding, Sources, Tourism, Ulster Canal, waterways
Tagged Belfast Telegraph, boats, canal, Clones, Community relations Council, department of arts heritage and the gaeltacht, Erne, Liam Clarke, Limerick, lock, lost, Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland, Paul Nolan, Peace Monitoring Report, sheugh, Ulster Canal, Waterways Ireland