Here is an article, perhaps by Philip Dixon Hardy himself, from his Dublin Penny Journal of 1835. It is about the Bog of Allen, and the turfcutters living thereon, seen from the Grand Canal in 1835.
He visited a turfcutter’s hovel in the bog while stopped at a double lock about twenty miles from Dublin. What lock could that have been?
Note that Kildare is not among the counties mentioned in the article.
Posted in Ashore, Drainage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Natural heritage, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Scenery, Sources, The turf trade, Tourism, waterways
Tagged boats, bog, Bog of Allen, canal, Dublin, Dublin Penny Journal, Galway. Roscommon, gorse, Grand Canal, hovel, Ireland, King's County, landlord, landshark, lock, Longford, Meath, Operations, Philip Dixon Hardy, Queen's County, reclamation, Royal Canal, Shannon, Tipperary, Tullamore, turf, vessels, Westmeath, Wicklow
In today’s Sunday Business Post Jasper Winn, the paper’s Hardy Outdoor Correspondent, describes a five-day walk along the Grand Canal, from Harold’s Cross to Shannon Harbour. He did it in winter, camping out on the bank overnight despite its being so cold that the canal froze over, and finishing some of his days’ walks in the dark.
The SBP operates a paywall so you may not be able to see the page, but this is the link in case you want to try.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Natural heritage, People, Scenery, Shannon, Tourism, Water sports activities, waterways, Weather
Tagged canal, Daingean, Dublin, frost, Grand Canal, ice, Ireland, Jasper Winn, lock, Operations, Sallins, Shannon, Shannon Harbour, Sunday Business Post, walk, waterways, Waterways Ireland
The Limerick Leader article about a proposed Limerick river bus has some statements that do not accord with my understanding.
The venture will see the river bus depart Guinness Pier – across from Athlunkard Boat Club at O’Dwyer Bridge – every two hours, bound for the power station […].
As far as I know, the pier in question was the Ranks jetty and was not used by Messrs Guinness. The Eclipse Flower, and other vessels owned by Ranks and their predecessors, sailed up the Shannon from there rather than attempt the stretch from Baal’s Bridge to Custom House Quay.
The boat will follow the route taken by barges of old – both passenger and commercial – some of which historically transported Guinness to the city up until the mid-1960s.
“It is a tried and tested route,” said Mr Flynn, stressing the viability and safety of the route, which passes Long Pavement – the edges of which have been repaired and grassed over – and finishes at the hydro-electric plant.
“Every passenger and commercial barge that came to Limerick for 50 years used that stretch of water. It is very safe. It was navigated by all the barges,” he said.
The route to Limerick through Ardnacrusha came into use only after the construction of the power station in the 1920s and was used for a little over thirty years. To the best of my knowledge, there were no passenger services in those years: passenger carrying stopped in the first half of the nineteenth century, when traffic was still using the old Limerick Navigation. There have been some trip-boats in recent years, but they did not (and do not) use “barges of old”. Some old barges, now converted and with more powerful engines, have safely navigated that stretch, but they do it when conditions are right.
During the final phases of Ardnacrusha’s construction, both old and new navigations were closed; the Grand Canal Company (GCC), the main commercial carrying company, ran to Killaloe and had its cargoes carried onward by rail to Limerick. When the new route through Ardnacrusha was opened, the GCC thought it was so dangerous that it refused to use it for about a year. It resumed operations only when a boom was put across the river above Baal’s Bridge and posts were provided upstream of O’Dwyer Bridge to which barges could tie while waiting for suitable states of the tide.
I accept that the proposed river bus will not be going downstream as far as Baal’s Bridge, but it will still be navigating on a stretch of water where Waterways Ireland advises that boats should not navigate when more than one turbine is running at Ardnacrusha. The ESB can run up to four turbines, each of which is said to add a knot to the current, and it can switch them on immediately, with no warning to any boat using the river.
Other pages on this site make it clear that I share the promoters’ enthusiasm for Ardnacrusha and the canal and river thence to Limerick. I do not say that the difficulties of that stretch cannot be overcome, but I do not think that they should be dismissed.
Posted in Ashore, Built heritage, Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Scenery, Shannon, Sources, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged Ardnacrusha, Baal's Bridge, boats, bridge, canal, Clare, Eclipse Flower, ESB, floods, flow, Grand Canal Company, Guinness, Ireland, jetties, Killaloe, Limerick, Limerick Leader, lock, Lough Derg, O'Dwyer Bridge, Operations, Park Bridge, Ranks, river bus, Shannon, vessels, water level, waterways, Waterways Ireland
… from the (presumably artificially created) photograph in the Limerick Leader seems to be the Cailín Turána, formerly part of the Aran Islands Fast Ferries fleet at Doolin and seen here out of the water at Cork Dockyard in 2004. The vessel has not been on the Dept of Transport’s List of Certified Passenger Ships since 2007 (and may have come off the list before that: I have not kept copies of the lists earlier than 2007). It could of course have been used in Ireland for purposes other than carrying fare-paying passengers, or outside Ireland for any purpose, after 2004.
And it may be that the vessel shown in the photo is not that which is to be used in Limerick.
Posted in Economic activities, Engineering and construction, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, People, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, Sources, Tourism, waterways, Waterways management
Tagged Ardnacrusha, Athlunkard, boats, canal, Clare, ESB, estuary, flow, Ireland, Limerick, lock, Operations, Ranks, Shannon, vessels, water level, waterways, Waterways Ireland, workboat
Royal Canal traffic in 1844 (Salt)
That table is extracted from Samuel Salt’s Statistics and Calculations essentially necessary to persons connected with railways or canals; containing a variety of information not to be found elsewhere 2nd ed Effingham Wilson and Bradshaw & Blacklock, London 1846, available from Messrs Google here.
The interesting point is how little of the Royal’s traffic travelled the whole way from the Shannon to Dublin or vice versa: only about 5% of the Dublin-bound traffic and less than 3% of the traffic westward.
Another point of interest is that traffic to Dublin was three times the traffic from Dublin.
Amongst the livestock, pigs were the dominant animals: they lost too much condition if they were walked long distances, which was the only alternative to canal transport before the railways came. Even there, I suspect that much of the tonnage described as “from Longford and the Shannon” was actually from west of the river, in Counties Mayo and Roscommon.
Posted in Charles Wye Williams, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Ireland, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, People, Rail, Restoration and rebuilding, Shannon, Sources, The cattle trade, waterways
Tagged boats, cattle, Dublin, Ireland, Longford, Operations, pigs, Royal Canal, Samuel Salt, Shannon, sheep, Tarmonbarry
Irish waterways history 