Photographed 11 December 2010 from Noggus Bridge (N62) on the Grand Canal, south of Ferbane. As the Swiss Army Knife has been parked there for some time, I presume its function is to block boat access to Shannon Harbour while work is under way there. But wouldn’t some planks, or a couple of padlocks at Lock 32, have been cheaper?
Swiss Army stop plank
If it is parked there for some other reason, I would be glad to know of it.
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
Money to be paid by Dept of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs to Waterways Ireland in 2011:
Posted in Economic activities, Extant waterways, Irish waterways general
Tagged budget, funding, Ireland, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways Ireland
I’ve received a partial response (described as a full release, but actually ignoring several of my questions) from Waterways Ireland to some questions about the Ulster Canal. You can read about it here; it includes interesting information about the current valuation of sites in Dublin that might have raised money for the construction of the canal to Clones.
I’m writing this in advance of the Irish budget, due on 7 December 2010; it will be interesting to see whether Ajai Chopra gives the Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs enough capital to pay for the first year’s proposed work on the canal.
Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish waterways general, Non-waterway
Tagged Ajai Chopra, budget, canal, capital, Clones, DDDA, Department of Community Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs, Dublin, Erne, Grand Canal, Ireland, Lennox Street, lost, Lough Neagh, north-southery, North/South Ministerial Council, Northern Ireland, Percy Place, Plot 8, Ulster Canal, Unionist, waterways, Waterways Ireland
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
I have now completed an examination of the proposals for the reconstruction of a section of the Ulster Canal from Lough Erne to the town of Clones in Co Monaghan. My conclusions are linked from this page, which also contains a brief summary of my views.
Ulster Canal 0: overview presents the main points of the argument in about 3,600 words. It does not contain most of the quotations and omits the references; it also omits some sections of the argument. However, it’s about one fifth of the length of the whole thing.
Ulster Canal 1 to Ulster Canal 10 present the argument under ten headings, amounting to about 18,500 words in all. That may be too much for most people. There are no photos or other illustrations, and most of the argument is about economics or politics.
It will be clear that I do not have full information; I will be glad to have Comments from anyone who can fill the gaps or correct anything I’ve got wrong.
For anyone who can’t wait, here is a copy of the summary of my views.
The Irish government has been pushing, since the 1990s, for the restoration of the Ulster Canal. Several studies have been commissioned; all of them show that the project is uneconomic. At no stage has either the UK or the Northern Ireland administration shown any willingness to commit funding to the project. As a result, the Irish government has scaled back its ambitions, proposing to fund the construction of a canal from Lough Erne to Clones in Co Monaghan: it would cross the border several times, but it would pass through no significant conurbation on the northern side.
However, this scaled-back project makes even less sense than the proposal for full restoration, and there is no reason to believe that the canal will ever get any further than Clones. The Irish government might, I suppose, decide to dig on to Monaghan, as a form of famine relief work, but there is no evidence that the Northern Ireland Executive will ever put money into completing the route to Lough Neagh.
The costs of the proposal have not been reexamined for many years (or, if they have, the results have not been published), and the economic analyses may overstate the likely benefits. Even if they are accurate, though, the main benefits seem to come from casual visitors rather than from boaters. The benefits will go to service providers in the area, rather than to the waterways authority, but even if they went to Waterways Ireland they would not pay the running costs, never mind repaying the capital cost. The project has failed every economic test to which it has been subjected: it simply does not provide the sort of return that would justify the project.
There seems to be some doubt over the source of the proposed funding. The Irish government said that it canal to Clones would be paid for by the Irish Exchequer, but it later said that Waterways Ireland would sell surplus assets to pay some or all of the cost. It is not clear that Waterways Ireland’s surplus assets would, in current economic conditions, bring in enough money; nor is it clear that the Department of Finance is willing to make up any shortfall.
There might be something to be said for acquiring the land and creating a walking and cycling route, but the current proposal for a canal to Clones is utterly unjustifiable and should be dropped.
Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish waterways general, Operations
Tagged Assembly, Éamon Ó Cuív, Blackwater, boats, bridge, Caledon, canal, Clones, Dáil, Dublin Docklands Development Authority, Erne, Executive, Finn, Good Friday agreement, implementation body, Ireland, lock, lost, Lough Neagh, MLA, Monaghan, Nelson McCausland, North/South Ministerial Council, Northern Ireland Assembly, Operations, Plot 6, Seanad, TD, Ulster Canal, vessels, waterways, Waterways Ireland
Here is the latest (and almost the last) in this series of posts: an examination of the expected benefits of the canal to Clones. My conclusion is that the benefits cited are higher than those likely to arise in current conditions.
Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish inland waterways vessels, Non-waterway, Operations, Water sports activities
Tagged boats, bridge, British Waterways, canal, Clones, Erne, fungible boats, Ireland, lock, lost, Lough Allen, Lough Neagh, Operations, Quivvy, Shannon, Ulster Canal, vessels, waterways, Waterways Ireland
The figure of €35 million is widely quoted as the cost of the canal to Clones, but the basis for that figure is not clear. Here are some thoughts on the subject.
Posted in Ashore, Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish waterways general, Operations
Tagged boats, bridge, canal, Clones, Erne, Ireland, jetties, lock, lost, Lough Erne, Lough Neagh, Operations, Ulster Canal, vessels, water level, water supply, Waterways Ireland
The next page of the Ulster Canal series is now up. It is, I’m afraid, rather boring: an account of the various reports (“studies and appraisals”, in the jargon) commissioned since 1994. It may help in sorting out who said what where and when.
Waterways Ireland intends to build a canal to Clones at the instigation of the Irish government. I believe that this proposal is an unjustifiable waste of money, at a time when public expenditure (and especially capital expenditure) is being cut.
This page provides links to a series of pages about aspects of the proposal. At time of writing, there are four pages up; there will be more, concentrating on the economic and financial aspects.
I have had limited access to documents:
Neither the Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs nor Waterways Ireland has answered all the questions I asked them. Accordingly, I may have got some things wrong, and I would welcome correction. I would also welcome copies of confidential documents: this could become WikiLocks.
Posted in Economic activities, Extant waterways, Forgotten navigations, Industrial heritage, Irish waterways general, Non-waterway, Operations
Tagged Blackwater, boats, bridge, Caledon, canal, Clones, Erne, Ireland, Lough Neagh, Lower Bann, Monaghan, Northern Ireland Assembly, Ulster Canal, waterways, Waterways Ireland
Irish waterways history