Tunnels and sewers in Dublin

paulm17781

On a thread on the BB forum

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=56434809&postcount=14

Someone mentions that the tunnels and old sewers under Dublin are filled with fibre optic cables. Does anyone have any info on these old sewers and tunnels?

paulm17781

Anyone know anything about this? Are any of these on maps? What were the tunnels for?

gabigeist

Roddy Doyle seems to know a bit about them. They're mentioned (and used) a bit is his book "a star called HEnry" set in Dublin at start of 20th century.
It years since I read it but the ones he mentioned were coverered streams that drained into the liffey. Used as sewers I assume

zynaps

There's an episode of Cities of the Underworld (shown on Discovery Channel) called "Viking Underground" focusing mostly on Dublin and mostly-nearbyish. They get a corpo maintenance guy (whose strong Dublin accent needs to have subtitles apparently so Americans can understand him :rolleyes:) to let them into the locked Poddle river underground tunnel, which they follow for 2km or so until it drains through a grille into the liffey. The same grille which I used to stare at as I passed on the 69/68A buses years ago as we crawled into town, wondering what lay beyond!
It's a bit over-dramatic but worth watching (and there exists a torrent of said episode, hinty hint).

Some more info here, which links to this low quality youtube vid.

paulm17781

Thanks Guys, zynaps. I'll see if er, discovery are showing that again... I actually used to (and slightly still do) wonder what's beyond the Poddle entrance, I often want to get in and follow it. This might save me a messy trip / death.

zynaps

Yeah, the auld death can be a downer. The corpo guy was suggesting that it might fill up with water and drown them so they shouldn't hang around... reassuring!

IIMII

Anyone remember when about 20 front gardens in Harolds Cross disappeared into the poddle which runs beneath them?

I'd say the residents had to cross from their garden gates to their hall doors over wooden planks for the best part of two years

zynaps

IIMII wrote: »

I'd say the residents had to cross from their garden gates to their hall doors over wooden planks for the best part of two years

A celebration of the old days when Dublin was practically planks over bog!

paulm17781

IIMII wrote: »

Anyone remember when about 20 front gardens in Harolds Cross disappeared into the poddle which runs beneath them?

I don't remember it but it shows it in that video. That was probably a scary thing to wake up to.

a1dinger

Does anyone know the location of the house in Harold's Cross that the gardens collapsed into the underground Poddle? and where I can find maps of the underground rivers? Thanks guys.

Scipio76

Sewers are used for data cables in some countries but not in Ireland to my knowledge.

dubhthach

Regarding Fibre in Dublin, Dublin City council have laid a tonne of it connecting all their cameras/traffic lights/parking meters. I recall when they were installing the "Dublin Bike" stand in Fitzwilliam square (when i use work down there) that you could see them hooking it up to Fibre.

Sponge Bob posted a good article about it in the "Fibre/Broadband infrastructure thread", from what I recall Dublin City Council are able to do uncompressed video from their traffic cams as they've got so much bandwidth!

BrianD

There's also a large tunnel running under the liffey at the East Link Bridge called the Liffey Service Tunnel (completed 2007). I also read elsewhere that there's an older tunnel running somewhat parallel to this tunnel dating from 1928ish. Not sure if the older one is still operational?

adrian hyde

I don't think any of the old sewers are being used for cables.