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- Herausgeber: The O'Brien Press
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Stretching from Dublin right through the Midlands and west to the mighty Shannon, the Grand Canal was a stunning feat of engineering in the eighteenth century, vital for Ireland's trade and industry. Over two centuries later, the canal has a new life as a walking and cycling trail. Visitors can step back in time, enjoying the peace and quiet of yesteryear while discovering quirky humpbacked bridges and ivy-covered warehouses, in a landscape far removed from modern pressures. Jo Kerrigan examines the history, life and lore of the waterway over the centuries, while master photographer Richard Mills offers gorgeous images of its elegant locks and bridges, and the wildflowers, animals and birds found along its leafy banks.
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Seitenzahl: 151
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Dedicated to the un-named, unacknowledged, thousands who laboriously dug that great waterway from the Liffey to the Shannon and bequeathed to us such a great heritage.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Ireland’s Grand Canal is both an incredible inheritance and a priceless asset in our lives today. A long-distance walking and cycling way (132km, 82 miles), it stretches right across Ireland, connecting the capital city, Dublin, on the east coast, with the mighty Shannon and open access to the Atlantic on the west coast. It is there for all of us, at all seasons, either to stroll in sections as the mood takes us, or, for an adventurous challenge, to travel its entire length. Start at one end or the other, drop in to the towpath that is nearest to your home, or treat it as Ireland’s own camino, and walk it slowly, savouring its scenery, its wildlife, and its history.
Because, when you travel along the Grand Canal, you are travelling through history itself, past quiet countryside that saw mighty construction works, miracles of architecture, ever-moving camps of workers. Everywhere along these banks individuals and households depended on its traffic: the barges, the goods, the people on them, which passed by in each direction every day. Commerce expanded hugely. Grain was transported from far distant fields and mills to ever-hungry, ever-demanding Dublin, as was turf, cut laboriously by hand on the central boglands and sent up to fuel thousands of city fires. Dublin in return sent out those goods, foodstuffs, fabrics, hardware, farming tools, anxiously awaited by merchants 10and small shopkeepers in the countryside, as well as barrels of the black drink for which Ireland is famous. Young men and women who hitherto could see no opportunities beyond the fields around them, now grasped new chances to work with the canal boats, their associated industries, or their hotels.
Mount Street Bridge at the start of the Grand Canal in Dublin.
11Arthur Guinness wasn’t precisely responsible for the Grand Canal, but he was certainly aware of its incipient arrival when he founded his family business at St James’ Gate, and knew the use he could make of it. Landowners and merchants of towns some distance from the route of the canal used all their influence (and often their own money) to have links built to connect them to this new waterway that could make all the difference to their prosperity. And people from every county touched by the project began to travel themselves.
Before the coming of the canal in the late eighteenth century, travel was for the very few. The wealthy could journey to their country estates by horse and carriage, and there were stage coaches which connected major towns, but only for those who could afford the fare – and most couldn’t. Roads were still in a very basic state, far removed from the smooth motorways to which we are accustomed today. Often they were no more than rough, muddy trackways with deep trenches where a coach could easily be marooned for hours if not days. The majority of the population stayed, lived, worked in the place where they had been born.
Now, however, it was possible to travel from one side of the country to the other, or from a small settlement along the way to either east or west. A journey which, even for the wealthy, was pleasurable because it removed the rattling, shaking, dust 12and mud which were inevitable concomitants of carriage journeys. For the less well off, it was novelty, comfort, and adventure combined. To see places you had never seen before, travel through strange countryside, meet up with relatives living far away, and under safe protected conditions – this was rich experience. And it was more affordable, at 1d or 1½d per mile rather than the 3d per mile charged by coach companies. Travelling outside your own region was at last achievable.
For businesses and farming families, it made a momentous difference, since goods and produce could now be shipped easily for far further distances than before. Instead of relying on selling your crops or your wool clip, your beer or your whiskey at local markets, you could send these to Dublin where they were always in demand. Or even onward from Ringsend to the UK and further afield. It was a whole new world.
The Grand Canal changed lives (as it will change yours, no matter how slightly, when you travel along its storied length). Not only could people travel longer distances, get to far-off places, but in their own villages they also came into contact with those building the canal (the ‘navvies’ or navigators, as they were called), got to know those who operated the barges, met travellers pausing for a night,. The superb canal hotels, where a fine lady and gentleman might disembark to stay, also offered rich opportunities for new forms of employment among local residents, as did the busy quaysides themselves. Catering for the demands and whims of wealthy travellers meant the hotels had to maintain a large staff of cooks, waiters, chambermaids, laundresses, and boot boys, as well as arranging reliable sources of quality foodstuffs. On the quays, clerks were needed to sell tickets, register packages and parcels for onward transport, and record goods brought to be kept in the spacious storehouses alongside. Ostlers, farriers, stable-boys were required to care for the horses that drew the boats, since these were changed at regular distances along the canal’s route. And that meant supplies of hay, oats, straw too, to be purchased locally. Even small boys could earn pennies for carrying bags of hotel guests to and from their accommodation. Putting it in a nutshell, the coming of the Grand Canal made quite a difference to everyday life from the late eighteenth century onwards.13
Lock C3 on the Grand Canal in Dublin.
14Walking this great long-distance pathway, you are following in the footsteps of those who went before, and indeed the hoofprints of plodding horses patiently towing the barges from one stop to the next. Check the arches under every bridge that you come to, and see if you can find the deeply-etched grooves where tow ropes grated against the stone and wore it away over decades. Watch for the ruined storehouses where grain and turf and other desirable goods were kept under lock and key until the next boat for Dublin came along. See the lock-keepers’ cottages, sometimes renovated and brightly painted, sometimes in overgrown ruins. This was where a man and his family lived, employed to open and shut the lock gates, collect tolls where necessary, keep law and order if required (and it often was!). Look for the ivy-covered larger buildings near locks that once echoed to the clop of hooves and the soothing voices of ostlers leading in tired horses for a rest and bringing out fresh hoof-power to take the barge to its next stop. 15
Above all, walk through the serenely silent boglands that form the centre of Ireland. Here you will find that quietness and sense of unchanging time that is so rare in our lives these days. The wind blows over the grass and heather as it has always done, birds skim over the water, hares and rabbits dart out of sight. Wild flowers are as richly abundant as they were when the canal was first constructed, since the land has been undisturbed since.
Glance at the open skies above, see which way the clouds are blowing, assess what is indicated for the day ahead. It’s a sad fact that we don’t look at the skies for information any more, relying instead on bland forecasts relayed from a distant television studio under bright lights. It’s more than time we got back to the old ways, the slow ways, and renewed our contact with the land we live in. Time to walk the Grand Canal Way.
You don’t need instruction in the obvious: leave no litter, keep an eye out for local traffic, watch children and dogs near locks, which can have deep water. You would do that anyway, wouldn’t you? 16
Lock C1 at Ringsend in Dublin.
A Brief History of the Canal
They were talking about it as early as 1715, but it was the middle of the century before work actually got going on the Grand Canal. It soon began to be seen that this was going to be an expensive undertaking. A small section near Sallins was completed before money ran out in 1768 and the entire project was abandoned for a while.
In 1772, The Grand Canal Company was formed to make a new start and tackle, among other problems, the considerable challenge of crossing the Bog of Allen. St James’ Gate, the western boundary of the city, was chosen as the starting point. However, the actual work began at Clondalkin, some way outside, rather than in the city, as the ground was level there, whereas the descent towards St James’ Gate would require the building of several locks.
1779 saw the St James’ Gate to Sallins stretch finally opened. A twice-weekly passenger service was introduced on this section from 1780 and was well supported, people taking to this new and smooth mode of transport with evident pleasure. 18
By 1784, the canal had been extended to Robertstown, and a Grand Canal Hotel was opened here in 1806.
A branch to the south from Lowtown, just beyond Robertstown, to join with the Barrow river, was always part of the planning, since this would link the main line with the very important international port of Waterford. Work started on this in 1783; it had reached Monasterevin in 1785, and Athy in 1791, bringing barge traffic down to where it could merge with the river for its onward journey.
Originally the company had envisaged accessing the Liffey, and thus the open sea, close to St James’ Gate, but this proved impracticable, and it was decided to cut a large semicircular link right round the city boundaries to Ringsend. Here a large canal basin and graving docks would be constructed to deal with barges coming down and ships coming in. Work started on this in 1790, and it was completed the following year as far as Portobello, which became the new terminus for passenger traffic. Ringsend docks opened in 1796, completing the Circle Line.
Crossing the Bog of Allen was every bit as difficult as envisaged, and certainly more costly than thought. In all it took over five years to get the canal dug, lined with clay to prevent leakage embanked, and filled. Even then, breaches occurred regularly. But by 1798, the line of canal had been completed to Tullamore.
In 1804, Shannon Harbour was finally reached and the canal fully opened for traffic. Overall it had taken 47 years to build and cost somewhere in the region of £877,000. So long had it taken, indeed, that a tiny cloud had already appeared on 19the horizon: in February of that year, the first steam locomotive was run on a stretch of railway line in Wales.
The Leinster Aqueduct over the Liffey near Sallins.
20In 1807, a new passenger terminus and hotel opened at Portobello in Dublin.
By 1810, canal trade was reaching 200,000 tons a year, and revenues from passenger boats had increased to £90,000.
1826 saw the first steamer travel all the way from Dublin through Shannon Harbour to Limerick.
In 1834, the first fly boats came into use: they used three or four horses instead of two, and travelled at a trot rather than a walk, thus reducing the time of journeys.
The Grand Canal meets the Shannon at last.
211851 brought the railway age, as the Dublin to Galway line was opened. It had an almost instant effect on passenger traffic on the canal, dropping numbers sharply.
In 1852, the passenger boats were withdrawn. Speed had taken over from slow and peaceful.
In 1911, the Grand Canal Company decided to try engine-propelled barges. First they tried a four-cylinder Scott Sterling engine, but this was not a success. Bolinder engines were tried next, and proved satisfactory, although there are many stories from bargemen who complained of the difficulty in starting and maintaining them. By the start of WWI, 28 former horse barges had been converted.
However, WWII brought the horses back again, since fuel was scarce. They worked throughout the Emergency, hauling much-needed loads of turf across the country.
In 1950, the canal and all its branches were taken over by Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ), the national transport company. In view of the vast expansion of road traffic, commercial business on the canal was gradually withdrawn at the end of that decade. 51M, the last working barge from Dublin, carried Guinness to Limerick on 27 May 1960, and the final boat from Limerick arrived in the capital on 14 June the same year. It was the end of an era.
Soon after, Dublin Corporation announced plans to drain the canal and replace it with a 6-lane dual-carriageway, utilising the canal bed for sewage pipes. The plans were strongly opposed, and eventually abandoned, thus saving this heritage for future generations. 22
The old and the new: Bolands Mills at Ringsend.
Chapter I
All Around the City
You have to start the adventure down at Ringsend, where the Grand Canal meets the Liffey. Even if you only intend a short walk, a quick bicycle ride, this is where it all begins. On foot or wheel, get down to Sir John Rogerson’s Quay and round to where you can see that big sign saying Grand Canal, and the lock gates that gave access to ships coming from the open ocean into a calm water basin. Inside those lock gates are the old graving docks, where boats could be repaired or repainted, and along the edges of the basin, still surviving after more than 200 years, stand the great warehouses which stored grain brought in on barges from the fertile lands west of Dublin.
The water at the inner edge of Grand Canal Basin laps a wonderful old cobbled quayside that takes you right back to the late eighteenth century. Today it is a popular spot for 24paddle boarders to enjoy their sport, but back in the early days of the canal, it would have been buzzing with activity – boats being unloaded, men running up and down gangplanks, horses and carts clattering in and out, emptying their loads, perhaps taking a different cargo on, and clip clopping out again. Barges laden with goods for transport across the country slipped their moorings, the horse boy chirruped to his charge, the towrope tightened, and they were off, moving slowly out of the basin and up to the canal proper.
It’s a truly atmospheric place to visit, this cobbled quayside, a real glimpse back in time, but to continue the walk you need to follow Hanover Quay on the outer edge of the basin. Here high-profile companies occupy high-rise buildings, coffee shops abound, and there is always a busy, energetic ambience, which contrasts most effectively with the calm ripple of the 25water and the cobblestones on the other side. Grand Canal Quay runs past the Waterways Ireland building, which seems to float right on the water of Grand Canal Dock, surrounded by houseboats and converted barges. Stoop your head going under the extremely low bridge that carries the railway to Wicklow; cars can’t pass under this, but you can on bicycle or on foot. It’s a reminder that when the canal was built, railways hadn’t yet been invented, let alone cars. By water was the way to go.
The canal soon makes a curve, and the large extra turning space in the water that a lumbering barge needed for this action can still be discerned, although it has now been filled in. The site bears the name Grand Canal Plaza though, so that its origins won’t be forgotten.
There is a road to cross here (Grand Canal Street, unsurprisingly), and now you really are on to one of the most relaxing and charming stretches of this circular green route around the city. Opposite you, on the south side at Herbert Place, outside a commercial building, is a magnificent bronze statue of a barge horse and the boy who led him. Created by artist Maurice Harron, it is a tribute to those hard-working equines who toiled day after day, year after year, towing the barges up and down the canal from one side of the country to the other. It’s a wonderful sight to glimpse across the glimmering water, adding to the serenity and the sense of history in this area.
Everywhere else in our capital city are traffic jams and exhaust fumes, busy crowds and packed buses, laden lorries and slow-moving articulated trucks, but here on the canal, life is still and calming and very beautiful. Mature trees line the banks, 26their leaves reflected in the water. Ducks and moorhens scurry in and out of the reeds. And at Wilton Terrace, right on cue, there sits the poet Patrick Kavanagh on his bench, watching the canal and its life pass by, as he always loved to do. 27
Where it begins. The Grand Canal Docks and locks at Ringsend. 28
Oh, commemorate me where there is water
Canal water, preferably …
