Tag Archives: Shannon

So you’re out in your sailing-boat, heading for Portumna, and you see that there’s an electricity cable crossing the waterway ahead of you, just downstream of the bridge. You think you’ll fit under it but it would be nice to know the clearance ….

Electricity is ESB, isn’t it? Well, perhaps not: it could be ESB Networks, which seems to mean distribution, or EirGrid, which means transmission. It could also be one of the other companies that sells volts, but I don’t think they run big wires.

Half an hour of searching the websites of the three bodies failed to produce anything about the heights of pylons or cables or overhead powerlines. Safety advice said not to go near them, but that’s what you are trying to do: it would help to know how near is near. Another half an hour of general googling; still no result.

So, as it’s a smallish line on wooden poles, rather than a large one on very tall steel pylons, you guess that it might be distribution rather than transmission, and thus ESB Networks rather than EirGrid.

I rang; someone will ring back within 48 working hours. The quest continues ….

What is the magic combination of search terms that will find the heights above water of all power lines over Irish waterways?