An article in the Irish Times about railway restoration has prompted me to set out my views on waterways restoration. Essentially, I don’t believe public funds should be spent on projects that won’t provide a decent return, but I do favour small-scale conservation, opening up walking and cycling routes along waterways and marketing them to industrial heritage enthusiasts (and others).
Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish waterways general, Non-waterway, Rail
Tagged Ardnacrusha, artefacts, Athenry, boats, Brendan Quinn, bridge, Burma Road, Bus Eireann, canal, Castleconnell, CIE, Clones, conservation, Department of Community Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs, Department of Finance, Enda Kenny, Ennis, Erne, ESB, Galway, Grand Canal, greenway, Iarnrod Eireann, industrial heritage, Ireland, Killaloe, lakelands and inland waterways, Limerick, Limerick Navigation, lock, lost, Lough Allen Canal, Lough Derg, Lough Neagh, Montpelier, N18, O'Briensbridge, Operations, Parteen Villa Weir, Plassey, Plassey-Errina Canal, Royal Canal, Shannon, Shannon-Erne Waterway, Ulster Canal, Waterford Limerick & Western Railway, waterways, Waterways Ireland, Western Rail Corridor, Western Railway Corridor
Join the ex-Grand Canal Company motor-barge 68M on its trip from Killaloe to Limerick Docks, carrying barrels of stout for Dolan’s Pub. The trip marked two occasions: Arthur’s Day, the annual Guinness marketing opportunity, and the fiftieth anniversary of the last commercial cargo on the Grand Canal and the Shannon, which was a shipment of stout to Limerick.
This page provides a slide-show of 300 photos taken from 68M on its journey. If you can’t make the trip in person, do it this way.
Note that the page takes some time to load. And, even clicking through pretty fast, the show is likely to take at least ten minutes.
Click on the first photo to bring up the controls. If you have any problems with it, leave a Comment to let me know. I haven’t done this before. I may not be able to fix any problems, but I can at least look into them.
Posted in Ashore, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, Scenery, shannon estuary, Steamers, The turf trade, Weather
Tagged Ardnacrusha, bic, boats, bridge, canal, Castleconnell, Clare, Coonagh, Curraghgour, Curragour, docks, ESB, floods, flow, Grand Canal, Guinness, Ireland, jetties, Killaloe, Limerick, lock, Lough Derg, Montpelier, O'Briensbridge, Operations, Parteen Villa Weir, Plassey, Sarsfield Lock, Shannon, vessels, water level, waterways, Waterways Ireland, weir, workboat
O’Briensbridge is a village in Co Clare, islanded between the headrace of the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric power station and the River Shannon. Up to 1929 the river was the navigation between Limerick and Lough Derg (and eventually Dublin), and the bridge itself was something of an obstacle to navigation.
In 1832 the engineer Thomas Rhodes drew a sketch of the bridge with 14 arches, whereas nowadays it has only 12. We know when the seven arches on the Co Limerick side were reduced to six, but it has not been clear when an arch was removed from the Clare side. I think I know the answer; you can read it here.
Posted in Ashore, Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, Scenery, Sources, Steamers
Tagged anchor, arch, boats, bridge, Brownrigg, cable, canal, capstan, Castleconnell, Charles Wye Williams, Clare, cot, delany, Emerson Tennant, ESB, floods, Hodges, Inglis, Inland Steam Navigation Company, Ireland, JK, Kierse, Killaloe, Limerick, lost, Lough Derg, Montpelier, O'Briensbridge, Operations, Parteen Villa Weir, quay, Rhodes, Shannon, Shannon Commissioners, steam, towing-path, towpath, trackway, vessels, water level, waterways
On my old photographic website I had a page of photos of an abandoned barge at Plassey, on the River Shannon. I have now moved those photos to here and added some text.
I am hoping that someone expert in old iron barges might be able to make a guess at the age, and perhaps even the origin, of the barge. I will, in the meantime, be trying to pin down the date of its abandonment.
Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, Sources, Steamers
Tagged Annabeg, Annaghbed, boats, bridge, canal, Clare, docks, ferry, floods, Gilloge, Gillogue, Gully, Hannan, Ireland, John Laird, Killaloe, Limerick, lock, lost, Montpelier, O'Briensbridge, Operations, Plassey, quarry, Rainsford, Shannon, Sheehy, stone, University of Limerick, vessels, waterways
Last Saturday, I had just checked that the nineteen members of the Inland Waterways Protection Society, and accompanying walkers from O’Briensbridge Community Group, IWAI Lough Derg Branch and elsewhere, had successfully crossed the Shannon at Plassey, using the University of Limerick’s road-bridge instead of the Black Bridge, which is still closed after last year’s floods.
I was walking back to my car, so that I could drive to meet the group at Gillogue and ensure that they were getting their sandwiches at the Lame Duck, when I was accosted by a woman in a car. It was pouring rain and my dogs were getting impatient, but I listened politely while she asked if I would participate in a survey. “For whom?” I asked. “For Waterways Ireland,” she said. So I thought I’d better play along.
The survey was conducted as she sat in her car, dry, but obstructing the traffic, while I stood outside in the rain, keeping an anxious eye on the dogs. I was not inclined to prolong the time spent answering questions.
Now, I was told recently (after submitting an FOI request) that the towing-path and bridge at Plassey were leased by the Department of Finance to Limerick County Council, so it’s not entirely clear what Waterways Ireland has to do with the current management of that stretch or why it wanted user views. Did the interviewer choose that stretch as a bit of Limerick in which she could see water while staying in her car?
I was asked what I thought of the facilities “toilets and so forth”, and pointed out that there weren’t any. I struggled to convey the fact that, although I was walking before I was accosted, I disliked the activity intensely (especially in the rain) and that, although I visit Plassey several times a year, it is because I am interested in industrial archaeology, not because I want exercise. And there didn’t seem to be a way of conveying that I had organised for about twenty-five other people to walk the towing-path, but that I wasn’t myself participating.
Then I was asked if I had heard of Waterways Ireland and if I knew what they did ….
The 2004 survey is available from WI’s website here. But I wonder whether WI commissioned any surveys between 2004 and 2010 and, if so, where they are to be found.
Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish waterways general, Operations, Weather
Tagged Black Bridge, bridge, canal, Clare, dogs, floods, Gillogue, Inland Waterways Protection Society, Ireland, IWPS, Lame Duck, Limerick County Council, O'Briensbridge, Operations, Plassey, rain, Shannon, survey, towing-path, walking, water level, waterways, Waterways Ireland
This photo shows an eel spear from the National Folklife Collection‘s overflow material, stored in the former “reformatory” at Daingean, on the Grand Canal in Co Offaly. There were many spears there, with different designs from different rivers. This one, to judge from the label underneath it, came from the extraordinarily prolific and observant Dr A E J Went.
If you look at pretty well any Irish river on the 1840s Ordnance Survey map (here’s the Shannon at Killaloe; switch to Historic 6″ if necessary), or indeed on the 1900s map (same URL but switch to Historic 25″), you’ll find evidence of eel weirs. Ireland’s shortest canal was built to allow the eel-boats of Anthony Mackey’s fleet to reach the trains at Banagher.
But the European eel is a “critically endangered species” and all eel fishing has been banned in Ireland. As far as I know, though, the Lough Neagh fishery, in Northern Ireland, continues.
The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) is in charge of the eel fishery on the River Shannon. It has nets and a storage unit (packing station) at Killaloe and, until recently, it also had nets at Clonlara on the headrace supplying the power station at Ardnacrusha; the Clonlara nets have just been removed. This page is about the Clonlara and Killaloe operations, but includes a look at an eel survey conducted for the ESB in 2008, before eel fishing was banned in Ireland. The aim now is to make it easy for eels to reach the sea to reproduce, and that sometimes involves “trap and transport”: catching the eels and moving them past obstacles, whether on their way to the sea or, for the young glass eels, on their way upriver.
The photos on this page are a tribute to what was an important activity on the Shannon. I hope that the European eel stocks can recover.
Posted in Economic activities, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, The fishing trade
Tagged anguilla anguilla, Ballina, boats, bridge, canal, Castleconnell, Clare, clonlara, eel weir, eels, ESB, floods, flow, Ireland, Killaloe, Limerick, Montpelier, net, O'Briensbridge, Operations, packing station, Shannon, trap and transfer, vessels, walkway
Material has been added today to the pages on
See links to the right.
Posted in Extant waterways, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, Scenery, shannon estuary, The fishing trade, Uncategorized
Tagged Barrow, boats, canal, Cashen, Castleconnell, gandalow, Inishee, Ireland, Killaloe, Limerick, loo, O'Briensbridge, Operations, Shannon, Spirit of Lough Derg, Suir, turf, waterways, Waterways Ireland, workboat
Here is a page for photos in which the main interest is the light. More photos will be added in time.
Posted in Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Irish waterways general, Scenery, Uncategorized, Weather
Tagged Ballina, boats, Ireland, Killaloe, Lanesborough, light, Meelick, O'Briensbridge, Portrunny, Shannon, Tarmonbarry, waterways
Here is a page about John’s Canal, which was used to extract turf from Macnab’s Bog at Mona Lodge, Portcrusha, between Castleconnell and Montpelier in Limerick (Montpelier is at the other end of the bridge at O’Briensbridge).
The bog seems to have been opened by John Brown (or Browne) of the Stein Brown(e) Distillery at Thomondgate in Limerick. Turf was carried by water from the bog to the distillery, where it was used to fuel the first steam engine in Limerick. The bog was managed by James Macnab, who took over the lease in 1841; after his death his son Alexander Allen Macnab took over. The bog was an early operation of a managed industrial extraction and production enterprise, operating throughout most of the year and drying the material to produce “stone turf”. About 5000 tons were produced each year.
The canal system had a wooden bridge (now vanished), several branches (some still visible), a lock gate (gone) and a stone pier/quay (still visible).
Posted in Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, The turf trade
Tagged boats, canal, Castleconnell, distillery, Ireland, Limerick, lost, Macnab, Montpelier, O'Briensbridge, Operations, Portcrusha, Shannon, Stein Brown, turf, vessels, waterways
Irish waterways history