Illustrations of early Irish inland waterways vessels are relatively scarce. The drawing below shows the sterns of two of them.
Portobello Harbour 1882
This is from The Graphic of May 13, 1882, and shows the lighting of tar-barrels in Portobello Harbour, on the Grand Canal in Dublin, to celebrate the release from prison of Charles Stewart Parnell and two colleagues.
The layout of the harbour in around 1900 can be seen on the OSI Historic 25″ map. Where were the vessels tied? What are the buildings in the background? What can be said about the vessels? Presumably wooden horse-drawn barges, but they look rather narrow to me. Comments welcome.
The harbour itself is, alas, no more.
Irish waterways history 