Canals - Ulster Earne

robd

Pope John 11 wrote: »

I often wonder too why the liffey is lifeless, and why there are not boat trips out to howth etc.

Liffey is a long river. Which part are you talking about?

There are various kayak/canoe clubs along it. One at Palmerstown, training centre at Strawberry Beds, and one on Leixlip Lake.

There are rowing clubs at Islandbridge and on Blessington Lake.

Have raced down it numerous times over the last two years alone and have trained twice a week most of the warmer half of the year.

The tidal part of the Liffey is not in great condition. This is a problem that most tidal rivers suffer from though. It's a hard one to solve as putting a weir further down would restrict any kind of river traffic and might slow river down to the point that it ends up stinking the city out more than it does already.

AngryLips

The problem with the Liffey is that there needs a barrier to protect it from tidal forces.

However, that said, there are companies making use of the Liffey; there's the Liffey River Cruise, Sea Safari and Viking Splash. I'd hardly call that lifeless.

Jim Martin

The time taken for the transport of freight is not always important (bulk minerals) but for perishables it obviously is.

robd

Jim Martin wrote: »

The time taken for the transport of freight is not always important (bulk minerals) but for perishables it obviously is.

Yes. I did saw that 7 or so posts ago

robd wrote:

You couldn't travel more than maybe 10 kph (slower when you take account of locks) on a canal, due to wake off boat, which would only suit a very small subset of goods types such as bulk aggregate say.

The reality is that Ireland isn't really a heavy industry economy. It's such a small part of our output, plus we're likely to continue to move away from it, so we're not going to build infrastructure specifically for it.

This thread is a complete farce IMO.

dogmatix

hi5 wrote: »

The rivers are the same,all the lough gates on the Barrow have been restored at great cost and no one seems to use them.

Not sure I would agree with you on that - I did a bit of walking around Graiguenamanagh during the summer and the Barrow seemed very busy to me. On one day I spotted 3 boats queueing at the locks and there was a bloke in a jeep travelling up and down between the locks to open them for the traffic - he seemed to be busy. Not sure what the picture is like in the Winter months of course.

corktina

3 boats isnt busy...

robd

dogmatix wrote: »

Not sure I would agree with you on that - I did a bit of walking around Graiguenamanagh during the summer and the Barrow seemed very busy to me. On one day I spotted 3 boats queueing at the locks and there was a bloke in a jeep travelling up and down between the locks to open them for the traffic - he seemed to be busy. Not sure what the picture is like in the Winter months of course.

I raced down this stretch last month and it wasn't busy at all. Were some boats moored but didn't see any moving. Only movement were kayaks. So not busy at all. Really nice stretch of river though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUdKDo-8gnY

swordofislam

Is there anyway to reduce the costs of building canals? The French have an aggressive system that controls land price inflation when CPd but the costs for the Seine Nord Europe Canal €4.2 Billion for 105 KM seem phenomenal.

How would that compare to either road or rail for example?

dubhthach

swordofislam wrote: »

Is there anyway to reduce the costs of building canals? The French have an aggressive system that controls land price inflation when CPd but the costs for the Seine Nord Europe Canal €4.2 Billion for 105 KM seem phenomenal.

How would that compare to either road or rail for example?

Question is why would you build canals in Ireland. In Europe canal system link into major rivers that are use for shippings goods. For example the Rhine is used for shipping goods from Switzerland down to Rotterdam etc. There just isn't the business case in Ireland, we are too small of a country, the only major navigable river is the Shannon and it's hinterland is basically Rural.

spacetweek

corktina wrote: »

the few canals that we have that are usable always amaze me by their emptiness. Canal holidays in the UK are BIG business.

Why? Hardly anyone lives in Ireland.

I'm with the rest of you. Thoroughly bizarre thread - canals are from the 1700s and were made obsolete centuries ago. Why on earth would you want to build more of them now? And how could the OP possibly have thought they'd be cheap to build? It's obviously the opposite.

spacetweek

swordofislam wrote: »

the costs for the Seine Nord Europe Canal €4.2 Billion for 105 KM seem phenomenal.
How would that compare to either road or rail for example?

That is €40/km which is 8 times the cost of a 4-lane motorway. 'Nuff said.

John_Rambo

corktina wrote: »

3 boats isnt busy...

There are one hundred berths in Poolbeg, loads of sailing and regattas there, both Stella Maris and St. Pats row on the lower river. There are a good few rowing clubs in Island bridge, Neptune, Trinity, Garda, Commercial to name a few and the river is dotted with canoe clubs from Strawberry beds upriver.

Judgement Day

John_Rambo wrote: »

There are one hundred berths in Poolbeg, loads of sailing and regattas there, both Stella Maris and St. Pats row on the lower river. There are a good few rowing clubs in Island bridge, Neptune, Trinity, Garda, Commercial to name a few and the river is dotted with canoe clubs from Strawberry beds upriver.

Canals!!

monument

I'm not suggesting anything for Ireland here, but the following is worth correcting...

spacetweek wrote: »

swordofislam wrote: »

the costs for the Seine Nord Europe Canal €4.2 Billion for 105 KM seem phenomenal.
How would that compare to either road or rail for example?

That is €40/km which is 8 times the cost of a 4-lane motorway. 'Nuff said.

'Nuff said?

You're thinking of canals of days gone by. The planned Seine Nord Europe Canal fits ships which can hold up to 4,400 ton.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Or more so peanuts to coconuts.

How much would the same route cost as a motorway, with the same tonnage capacity? How much would each cost over their life time? How would each affect the cost of transport? What are the environmental impacts of both?

spacetweek wrote: »

corktina wrote: »

the few canals that we have that are usable always amaze me by their emptiness. Canal holidays in the UK are BIG business.

Why? Hardly anyone lives in Ireland.

I'm with the rest of you. Thoroughly bizarre thread - canals are from the 1700s and were made obsolete centuries ago. Why on earth would you want to build more of them now? And how could the OP possibly have thought they'd be cheap to build? It's obviously the opposite.

Canals clearly are not obsolete give the tonnage they carry worldwide. And not obsolete for leasure too...

You can debate how practical building large, modern canals in Ireland is or is not until the cows come home, but your massive generalisations about canals in general are pure fiction when you look at the facts.

corktina

theres no need to even think about new canals. Ireland is relatively flat and blessed with quite a network of canals, many of which have been made navigable in recent years and yet there is little in the way of a leisure business on them.
Could it be that there are too few locks with associated pubs and places of interest left on them? I know from a canal holiday in the UK how much of interest there is along them and how pleasurable it is to call to a quaint pub for Lunch and then another for the evening,

pretty well all UK pubs are effectively restaurants with surprisingly good food at very reasonable prices. Here we just rip off tourists and they don't come again.

Wild Bill

Allah be praised!

Canals
Is there economic argument for a massive increase in Ireland's canal network.
Surely in the modern age canals are cheap to build and the cost of transport must be for nothing.

If we built a NETWORK of canals surely they would pay for themselves in jig time.

EDIT: Just looked up cost of Seine Nord Europe Canal €4.2 Billion for 105 KM.

Looks like Canals are massively expensive and inefficient.

This is an open and shut case if ever there was one! And Sword of Islam has so succinctly summarized the long debate that followed in his opening remarks

Yet still, this remains the only active infrastructure thread over the Christmas period.

I love canals, tbh. there is a lot of good work going on restoring them and we actually did build a new one in the early 1990s when we joined the Shannon to the Erne system.

But as for canals in Ireland for transport infrastructure...:pac::D:pac::D:pac:

Wild Bill

Apart from Sword of Islam I notice Pope John 11 and of course Judgement Day are all prominent on this thread.

If there something about canals that attract the attention of the more spiritually inclined?

ps I also note that Cardinal Richelieu is involved in the Dublin City Drainage debate....which is a form on canal work.
(OK, I'll stop now)

BowWow

we actually did build a new one in the early 1990s when we joined the Shannon to the Erne system.

Shannon-Erne is a new navigation along the line of the original canal which was never really completed in the first place - although boats had traveled the line.

Wild Bill

OK - so you think you know canals:



Question:
(1)What canal is this?
(2)What village was the pic taken in?
(3)What year was it taken?

Prize: a totally free copy of the pic :

L1011

Wild Bill wrote: »

I love canals, tbh. there is a lot of good work going on restoring them and we actually did build a new one in the early 1990s when we joined the Shannon to the Erne system.

And another - the Boyle Canal to restore navigation in to Boyle that would otherwise have been stopped by the Boyle Bypass.

dubhthach

Wild Bill wrote: »

I love canals, tbh. there is a lot of good work going on restoring them and we actually did build a new one in the early 1990s when we joined the Shannon to the Erne system.

But as for canals in Ireland for transport infrastructure...:pac::D:pac::D:pac:

"Shannon to Erne system" isn't new build. It's reopening of the Ballinmore-Ballyconnell Canal which was built between 1846 and 1860 and only stayed opened for 9 years before closing in 1869 (arrival or railways put paid to that)

Of course it's a combination of Canal, lake navigation and canalised river.

Wild Bill

dubhthach wrote: »

"Shannon to Erne system" isn't new build. It's reopening of the Ballinmore-Ballyconnell Canal which was built between 1846 and 1860 and only stayed opened for 9 years before closing in 1869 (arrival or railways put paid to that)

Of course it's a combination of Canal, lake navigation and canalised river.

I know that! I also read the Wikipedia article

But is was like building a paved road over a bridal path - I'm counting it as new

dubhthach

Wild Bill wrote: »

I know that! I also read the Wikipedia article

But is was like building a paved road over a bridal path - I'm counting it as new

It's even more fun when you've read the book on the topic published in 1972 when the idea of reopening it would have seemed far-fetched.



By and large the reopening consisted of new lock chambers which were to the same dimensions to the old ones. The were no new canal dug and the route wasn't altered. The same idea of course is proposed for the Ulster Canal with new wider locks, given how Ulster Canal had narrowest Locks on the island.

dubhthach

By the way I should point out that "Irish Waterways History" is a great site, he really lays into the proposals regarding the Ulster Canal and the amount of taxpayer money been looked for with regards to it's proposed restoration.

http://irishwaterwayshistory.com/

corktina

theres quite a bit on that canal in the famous Patterson book on the Cavan and Leitrim railway too

spacetweek

monument wrote: »

'Nuff said?

You're thinking of canals of days gone by. The planned Seine Nord Europe Canal fits ships which can hold up to 4,400 ton.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Or more so peanuts to coconuts.

How much would the same route cost as a motorway, with the same tonnage capacity? How much would each cost over their life time? How would each affect the cost of transport? What are the environmental impacts of

Canals clearly are not obsolete give the tonnage they carry worldwide. And not obsolete for leasure.

I stand corrected on the Seine-Nord. It's a much bigger canal than normal. However, apart from the Netherlands, Belgium and the Rhine-Ruhr area of Germany, their modal share is negligible - and would be so in Ireland too.

And they are only used for leisure activities because most of them no longer have any other practical use. They certainly were not built with leisure uses in mind. Railways made most of them obsolete centuries ago for freight.

Judgement Day

dubhthach wrote: »

By the way I should point out that "Irish Waterways History" is a great site, he really lays into the proposals regarding the Ulster Canal and the amount of taxpayer money been looked for with regards to it's proposed restoration.

http://irishwaterwayshistory.com/

Very interesting site and I thought that I was negative. However, I think that he is entirely wrong about the restoration of the Ulster Canal. There's no doubt that the usage of the Royal and Grand Canals is dismal but that could be put right with some innovation. UK expertise could should be brought in to jizz up things ASAP but won't be as long as Failte Ireland etc are planning the so-called tourism industry. I don't mean rubbish consultants but rather people involved in the day to day operation and promotion of Britain's waterways.

-Corkie-

corktina wrote: »

theres quite a bit on that canal in the famous Patterson book on the Cavan and Leitrim railway too

Have you ever looked at the disused canal on the N72 near Mallow.. I always ment to take a few pics and post them here actually.

dubhthach

Judgement Day wrote: »

Very interesting site and I thought that I was negative. However, I think that he is entirely wrong about the restoration of the Ulster Canal. There's no doubt that the usage of the Royal and Grand Canals is dismal but that could be put right with some innovation. UK expertise could should be brought in to jizz up things ASAP but won't be as long as Failte Ireland etc are planning the so-called tourism industry. I don't mean rubbish consultants but rather people involved in the day to day operation and promotion of Britain's waterways.

Well no doubt his main opposition to just the idea of opening the "Clones canal" eg. spending €35m just to get a connection between Clones and the Erne. If ye gonna spend money on canal restore the whole thing and you'd have a navigation from Coleraine to Limerick (now there's a combination!)

corktina

-Corkie- wrote: »

Have you ever looked at the disused canal on the N72 near Mallow.. I always ment to take a few pics and post them here actually.

yep. Well aware of that rarity...not many canals "down south"