Tag Archives: Operations

Additions

Posted on Tuesday 4 May 2010 | Leave a comment

Material has been added today to the pages on

  • non-WI workboats
  • traditional boats and replicas
  • Waterways Ireland workboats
  • Irish waterway bogs.

See links to the right.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, Scenery, shannon estuary, The fishing trade, Uncategorized

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Saleen Pier

Posted on Thursday 25 March 2010 | Leave a comment

It’s a long way from Trinity College, Dublin to the pier at Saleen on Ballylongford Creek, on the south side of the Shannon Estuary. But the college owned large amounts of land in the area, including bogs, and turf was one of the cargoes exported from Ballylongford. There was a battery on Carrig Island at the mouth of the creek and a Coast Guard Station at Saleen Pier, which was built by the Commissioners for the Improvement of the Navigation of the Shannon. Read more about Saleen here.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish waterways general, Scenery, shannon estuary, Steamers, The fishing trade, The turf trade, Water sports activities

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Sailing directions: Shannon Estuary and Loughs Derg (1838-9), Ree (1837) and Erne (1835-6)

Posted on Thursday 22 October 2009 | 3 comments

Here are the Sailing Directions for the Shannon Estuary (completed before 1848) and for Lough Erne (1835-6), Lough Ree (1837) and Lough Derg (1838-9). They were compiled by Commander James Wolfe RN, who was one of those who drew up the relevant Admiralty Charts. Like the Charts, these Directions have not been updated, so boaters should not rely on them for navigation.

The Google Books Team have kindly permitted me to extract these from a larger document, which was one of those they had scanned and placed online, and to make them available (free, of course) to visitors to this site. Note that I have omitted part of the description of the smaller Lough Derg, which is not part of the connected waterways system.

Shannon & Erne sailing directions

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Posted in Extant waterways, Industrial heritage, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations, Sources, Steamers, The turf trade

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Laying buoys

Posted on Sunday 6 September 2009 | Leave a comment

Here is a short page with a few photographs showing a Waterways Ireland crew at work in Athlone, where they were laying buoys to mark a course for the swimming element of a triathlon. Waterways Ireland is the main sponsor of the event and had evidently committed staff resources as well as cash.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations

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Some updates

Posted on Sunday 26 July 2009 | Leave a comment

I’ve added some extra photos of

– Waterways Ireland workboats (four photos down the bottom of the page)

– non-WI workboats (several photos in several categories)

– sailing boats (a single photo taken on Lough Ree)

– traditional boats (three photos of Nore cots).

If you don’t want to have to scroll through everything on each page, ask your browser to find “July 2008” (all pages except Traditional boats) or “June 2008” (Traditional boats).

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Posted in Irish inland waterways vessels, The fishing trade

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Moving a pump

Posted on Sunday 26 July 2009 | Leave a comment

Some years ago there was a scheme to install a hydroelectric generating plant at Tarmonbarry weir. The scheme was abandoned, and a Waterways Ireland team recently had to get a pump across the river to drain a bunded area. Here is how they moved the pump.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations

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Operating the sluices at Tarmonbarry

Posted on Thursday 23 July 2009 | Leave a comment

This new page has a series of photographs showing the operation of the sluices on the weir beside Tarmonbarry Lock on the River Shannon. The process involves a mysterious machine and two disappearances ….

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Posted in Extant waterways, Irish waterways general, Operations

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Carrickcraft rescue

Posted on Thursday 23 July 2009 | Leave a comment

We were at Dromod when a Carrickcraft hire cruiser went aground outside the harbour in poor weather. I was impressed by how quickly Carrickcraft got a rescue crew to the scene and how efficiently they got the boat off and into safety before a depression of 988 arrived. Here are photos of the rescue.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Irish inland waterways vessels, Irish waterways general, Operations

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The ESB lock at Ardnacrusha on the River Shannon

Posted on Wednesday 22 July 2009 | Leave a comment

The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) operates the lock that takes boats through the hydroelectric power station at Ardnacrusha, on the lower reaches of the River Shannon. The lock is, in Irish waterways terminology, a double: a staircase pair, which counts as one lock, with a combined drop in the two chambers of about 100 feet. It’s not the deepest lock in Europe by any means (although it is by far the deepest in These Islands: five times the depth of Tuel Lane) but it is relatively small, a fact that enhances the impressions created by a passage through the lock. I’ve put up a page of photos and information about the lock here.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Irish waterways general, Operations

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The tidal Barrow

Posted on Friday 26 June 2009 | Leave a comment

It’s not that the tidal section of the Irish River Barrow is lost or closed down or abandoned, but its current traffic is but a shadow of what it was. This page follows a journey upstream, from Cheekpoint and Barrow Bridge (where the Barrow joins the Suir) to St Mullins (where the Barrow Navigation begins). En route, it notices railway bridges, old quays and ferry routes, limekilns that were supplied by river, mills and sprat weirs.

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Posted in Extant waterways, Irish inland waterways vessels, Operations

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