Tag Archives: waterways

The Suir Navigation

News reaches us that the fisheries folk, who were threatening to block the Suir (Carrick to Clonmel) navigation with a weir so that they could count fish, have removed the material they had put on site without planning permission. Let joy be unconfined (but let not vigilance be relaxed).

Kildare Archaeological Society

The Kildare Archaeological Society’s programme for 2012 is available on the Co. Kildare Online Electronic History Journal website (which, incidentally, has a useful RSS feed). Its Heritage Week outing in August 2012 is waterway-based:

Sunday 26th August, 3.00 pm – Heritage Week Outing

Robertstown, the Grand Canal and Lowtown Lock

Guided walk by Karen Gorey.

Meet at the Holiday village Car Park, Robertstown. No Charge.

 

 

Lough Derg in winter

From Twomilegate December 2011

Grand Canal drowning near Shannonbridge

Irish Times report. I presume that this was at L’Estrange Bridge.

L'Estrange Bridge (2003)

 

The Upper Shannon Renewal Scheme

The next time some idiot politician curries favour by promising special tax breaks for some favoured area, just mention the Upper Shannon Renewal Scheme. I mentioned before that IrelandAfterNama had covered it; now NamaWineLake, one of the best sites covering the wreckage of the Irish property market, has pointed to the evidence provided by the returns of stamp duty on property sales in 2010. Counties Leitrim and Longford — both covered by the scheme — each paid only €600,000 in stamp duty in 2010:

Practically nothing was sold in Longford and Leitrim which recorded the lowest stamp duty receipts of €0.6m apiece. If the receipts were all for residential property and the average transaction price was €200,000 then that would mean about 100 homes were sold in 2010 in each county.

So as well as spoiling the scenery by cluttering the place with colonies of white houses for white settlers, the scheme has also ruined the property market for the natives. Anyone needing to sell a house, perhaps to move in pursuit of employment, will find it more difficult to sell.

 

Ulster Canal cost update, updated

Updated 1500 hrs 16 December 2011

Waterways Ireland tells me today that the latest estimate of the costs of building a canal to Clones is €38 million plus VAT. I asked for more details:

Can you give me a breakdown please? How much is land acquisition, how much the channel itself, how much building locks, how much on bridges or whatever?

And what VAT rate applies?

WI responded:

This information is commercial-in-confidence. For competition reasons prior to tendering we are unable to provide a breakdown.

As “prior to tendering” covers the period between now and the end of the world, I said:

Tendering? You mean WI can afford to hire contractors? I would be grateful if you could tell me the source of your finding and the expected dates of its arrival.

WI was unable to comment ….

 

 

What is missing?

Jimmy Deenihan TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, in the Dáil debate on Financial Resolution No. 13: General on 7 December 2011:

Turning to North-South co-operation, I am committed to developing such co-operation within the broader arts, heritage and commemorative activities of my Department, as well as through the funding of the North-South bodies that come under the aegis of my Department. Provision of €42.718 million has been made in 2012 to support the two North-South implementation bodies, An Foras Teanga, comprising Foras na Gaeilge and the Ulster Scots Agency, and Waterways Ireland. These budgets will be subject to the approval of the North-South Ministerial Council in due course. It is envisaged savings will be achieved through efficiencies and increased focus on front-line services. The Minister of State will speak about An Foras Teanga but for Waterways Ireland the proposed breakdown for the 2012 allocation for this area is a provision of €22.59 million in current funding and capital funding of €4.5 million. This allocation will facilitate the ongoing maintenance and restoration of Ireland’s inland waterways, thereby increasing recreational access along routes and waterways. This expenditure will also assist in attracting increased numbers of overseas visitors and in stimulating business and regeneration in these areas.

I wonder what “commemorative” means in this context.

Royal Canal steamers

According to Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary (1837),

The principal trade is in wool, for which this is the greatest mart in the county, its central situation and facility of communication with the Shannon and with Dublin having rendered it the commercial centre of a wide extent of country. The City of Dublin Steam Company commenced operations here in 1830: a steamer plies twice a week between this town and Shannon Harbour, where it meets the Limerick steamer and Grand Canal boat for Dublin.

It is interesting that the steamer went west and south (37 miles, 21 locks to the Shannon, then river, lake and river to Shannon Harbour), rather than directly eastward (52 miles, 25 locks) to Dublin, but its route would have enabled it to serve Longford, Tarmonbarry, Lanesborough and Athlone. Lewis, however, does not mention steamer services at any of those places other than Athlone.

More research required ….

Angling notes

Today’s Irish Times remembers the Guinness Liffey barges in the Angling Notes.

Getting the goat

What body is the “Inland Waterways” referred to in this story? I didn’t think that WI had operations in Co Mayo. Could it perhaps be “inland fisheries” that supplied the boat?