A case can be made for declaring that the Grand Canal in Offaly is the county’s greatest building. No other structure has contributed so much to the economic development of so many of its towns and villages over the last 230 years. In addition, it has supported the recreational wellbeing of local citizens for a hundred years or more and seems set to do so exponentially in the decades ahead. It also preserves a relatively undisturbed wildlife corridor for many of our threatened flora and fauna species. The canal has its own rich cultural identity, much celebrated in literature and music. Its components, listed below, still combine to create an architectural entity that is almost fully operational although in a fashion undreamt of when it was first conceived in 1715, well over 300 years ago.
Combining the Shannon or Main Line (1793–1804) and the Kilbeggan Branch (1830–35), the stretches of the canal in Offaly and Westmeath took just over fifteen years to build. As it flows forty-four miles from Cloncannon, south-east of Edenderry, to Bunbrosna and Minus, downstream of Shannon Harbour, and eight miles along the Kilbeggan Line, its architectural components present a staggering list: it tumbles through sixteen locks; crosses five large aqueducts; supports and reflects forty or so ancient and modern bridges; funnels into its own channel an array of supplies or feeders, kept in control by a strategically placed system of overflows or overspills; conducts scores of unwanted streams, syphoned and otherwise, through scores of tunnels or culverts, under its non-porous bed to nearby rivers and gently glides along between a hundred miles of well-staunched towpaths and embankments to a seamless confluence with the brimming Brosna and the Lordly Shannon.
Other lesser parts were also once vital to the system working as a whole: stables, hotels, dry docks, milestones, bell stands and more elements which helped sustain the huge infrastructure. Allied to all of these the human participants – directors, landowners, engineers, agents, collectors, inspectors, officials, gatekeepers, watchmen, hoteliers, innkeepers, maids, servants, building contractors, navvies, bargemen, boat crews, bulkers, horse contractors, horse drivers, postilions, porters, barmaids, cooks, greasers, rangers, lock-keepers (male and female), storekeepers, brickmakers, turf cutters, swimmers, fishermen, cyclists, walkers, runners, rowers and many others. There is also the lore captured in the songs, stories, poems, plays and music associated with the line. The wildlife heritage of the waterway gives it a visual beauty and combines with the above to create the nec plus ultra of Offaly’s manmade and natural heritage spread over fifty miles right across the county.
SERIES OF PRESENTATIONS
Over the coming months it is the intention of this subscriber to submit a series of presentations on the various historic aspects of the Grand Canal in Offaly and Westmeath, viz:
The Five Large Aqueducts on the Grand Canal
Naming the Canal Bridges: Directors & Landlords, Families and Placenames
The Unique Canal Village of Shannon Harbour
The Lesser-spotted Infrastructure: Locks & Docks, Supplies & Overflows, Milestones et alia.
The Canal Company and Lady Charleville’s Precarious State of Health, February 1801
Travellers & Writers: the canal in Faction and Fiction
The Kilbeggan Branch of the Grand Canal
The Ballinasloe Branch of the Grand Canal in County Galway in memory of Brendan Corcoran, Kylemore, Lawrencetown (1934-2024)
Proposed Canals Not Realised in Offaly
The Grand Canal in Offaly and Westmeath: A Cultural Corridor
Crossing The Shannon: The Ferry Boat at Shannon Harbour 1828-49 and later
‘Shelter for man, beast and merchandise’: Hotels &Inns, Stables, Stores & Harbours
The Minute Books of the Grand Canal Company, (1772-1950), in the National Archives of Ireland, Dublin
Keepers of the Line: Lock keeping families in Offaly 1804-1924
FIVE GREAT AQUEDUCTS: PART ONE
This, the first in a series of presentations, looks at the five large aqueducts along the line, explaining their location and names and describing their current condition and heritage status.
The text from an inscribed stone on the north chamber wall of the 36th lock downstream of Shannon Harbour. Note the premature date given for the opening of the waterway.
WRITTEN IN STONE
A commemorative stone plaque on the north chamber wall of the 36th and final lock on the Grand Canal, downstream of Shannon Harbour, bears a historically informative if somewhat inaccurate text. The condensed wording tells us that the extension of the Grand Canal from Tullamore to Shannon Harbour commenced on the 1stJanuary 1802 and was opened complete for navigation on the 25thOctober 1803. Considering it had taken forty-two years to construct the line a little over fifty miles from Dolphin’s Barn in Dublin to Tullamore (1756–1798), this declaration in stone that seventeen Irish miles of canal, the equivalent of twenty-two statute miles, was to be open for navigation within two years was to prove a bit premature.
This was so not because the stretch had not been covered within that time frame, but rather because just twelve days before the minutely planned grand opening ceremony, the new line breached on the Ballycowan level because it was not fully staunched and extensive repairs were required, thereby causing a total cancellation of what would have been an historic opening. The project had started forty-eight years beforehand in 1756. With the allocation of half a million pounds for inland navigation as one of the last acts of the Irish Houses of Parliament in College Green, Dublin before it came to an end in 1801, funding was available to finish the job. To add further embarrassment, the date chosen for the celebratory opening, the 25th October 1803, was that of the forty-third anniversary of King George the Third’s accession to the throne.
Ultimately, the first boat to complete a full journey from the River Shannon to Dublin was Patrick Killeen’s The Ranger, six months later in 1804.
A note from the Grand Canal Company’s minute books recorded the inaugural trip made by Patrick Killeen of Keelogue, Meelick, from the River Shannon to James’s Street Harbour, in Dublin, on 4th April 1804 as follows: The Ranger, Patrick Killeen master, having this day arrived in Dublin laden with ash timber and hoops from Meelick on the River Shannon, within one mile and a half of Eyrecourt in the County of Galway. Ordered that Mr. Ross do provide jacket and trousers for said Patrick Killeen and John Egan and William Shee, his men, as a gratuity to them, the Ranger having been the first boat that came to Dublin by the River Shannon.
Happily, the other details listed on the stone plaque have proven to be accurate. The ten locks, three large aqueducts, fifteen small aqueducts and twenty bridges carefully enumerated, were all erected. Among the most impressive of these architectural components are the three large aqueducts between Ballycowan, west of Tullamore and Gallen, south of Ferbane, all within distance of twelve miles.
GREEN AND SILVER
Tom Rolt in his classic book Green & Silver, (George Allen and Unwin, 1949), describes a journey along the River Shannon, the Grand and Royal canals in 1946. While crossing the Silver River he remarked on the quality of the workmanship of the Macartney Aqueduct and the large proportions and enduring materials used in the construction of Irish waterways. His description of the building is worth repeating:
It was on such an embankment that we travelled for some distance, crossing over the Silver River by a stone-built aqueduct which, as we saw from the inscribed stone on the parapet, was called Macartny’s (sic). Without exception, all the Irish canal works are of stone and of truly massive proportions. Unlike our brick-built bridges and locks which tend to crumble with age, these works built on a monumental scale with great blocks of the hard, fine grained, marble-like grey limestone of the central plains, are as sound as the day they were made.
In this context Rolt’s opinions are worthy of great respect. In May 1946, just a few weeks before he commenced his iconic journey on the Irish waterways, he had inspired the foundation of the Inland Waterways Association, a group that became essential to the saving of many British canals. Rolt had also published Narrow Boat, (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1944), his first book on the waterways. Many more of his highly regarded publications on canals and railways and the lives of great engineers followed. He was also a joint founder of the Association for Industrial Archaeology in 1973, just a year before his death.
Plaque in honour of Tom Rolt, the great champion of Inland Waterways in Britain and Ireland, in Tooley’s boatyard on the Oxford canal where one of his pioneering trips on the waterways began.
FIVE LARGE AQUEDUCTS
Offaly is very fortunate to have five splendid aqueducts within its borders, or in one instance straddling the boundary with Westmeath. The first built was the Blundell Aqueduct, a mile south-east of Edenderry, dated to 1793 although the waterway that it was to carry there was not fully completed until almost a decade later. The Huband, Charleville and Macartney aqueducts carry the canal over the Tullamore, (formerly and more colourfully known as the Maiden River), Clodiagh and Silver rivers and were all built in 1803 as construction of the line proceeded west of Tullamore towards the Shannon. The fifth aqueduct, over another Silver River, was not built until thirty years later when the Kilbeggan Branch from Ballycommon was completed between 1830 and 1835.
REGIONAL AND NATIONAL ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
If further attestation of the architectural import of these five structures was needed, then no better can be found than the status assigned to each in part two of Fred Hammond’s monumental work The Bridges of County Offaly: An Industrial Heritage Review (2005). Four of the aqueducts are rated as of regional significance and that named after the influential director Sir John Macartney was given a national significance designation, the only structure on the line in Offaly to do so. One does not wish to quibble with Hammond’s splendid research, but the Blundell Aqueduct is also deserving of a national status if only for the gargantuan scale of its embankments which unfortunately caused much grief for engineers for almost two hundred years.
- THE BLUNDELL AQUEDUCT AND EMBANKMENT
Detail from a map by Richard Griffith Junior, (1784–1878), in the First Report of the Bog Commissioners, c.1810, showing the Blundell Aqueduct and the Edenderry branch of the Grand Canal. Note the close and thick lines in the hachuring to represent the steep slopes of the great canal embankment and the hill of Edenderry, (Éadan Doire). Also, another hill with a windmill, west of the town in Killane.
Walking the enormous embankment which carries the Grand Canal over the Edenderry to Rathangan road at the Blundell Aqueduct, it is difficult to envisage the enormity of the engineering challenge that building a navigation through the great tracts of bog south of Edenderry presented. The dimensions involved are hard to comprehend. The great embankment is almost four miles long, for the most part over 200 yards in width and stands over twenty feet above the adjacent fields. The description of this achievementby Ruth Delany and Jeremy Addis in their Guide to the Grand Canal of Ireland, (1999), acknowledges this magnificent accomplishment:
One tends to think of aqueducts and tunnels as the most impressive and difficult canal works but this stretch of canal across the bog was one of the most difficult engineering feats ever attempted before, or indeed, since. It took nearly ten years to complete and many times the engineers felt like abandoning it for another route. These engineers, including John Smeaton, did not anticipate the enormous subsidence. Smeaton advised that the canal should run through the bog at the original level, time was not allowed for subsidence and, once again, the engineers were faced with the task of securing high embankments.
In order to construct the canal a series of drains were opened, crossed by transverse drains, and the material excavated was dried in the squares created by the drains and was then wheeled to the canal to form the embankment. The channel along the top of the embankment was then lined with clay to hold the water in. The traveller today could well spare a thought for the men who laboured through ten winters to achieve this remarkable stretch of canal.
Fred Hammond’s survey of the aqueduct in 2005 more than 200 years after its construction bears testimony to the lasting quality of the workmanship involved:
Masonry arch bridge carries the Grand Canal over the Edenderry-Rathangan road. The abutments are of squared rubble limestone brought to courses and with dressed quoins. They have an overall length of 33.85m under the canal (which narrows to 4.92m wide at this point). The roadway is set slightly skew to the canal. Its arch is of segmental profile, has dressed limestone voussoirs, and spans 3.68m. The intrados does not slope with the bed of the canal but remains horizontal throughout. The spandrels are also of dressed blocks, regularly laid. The outside faces of the deep parapets are similarly detailed, but their inside elevations are of random rubble. The south parapet is coped with rubble stonework, and the north one with concrete. Dressed stone plaques on the parapets’ inside faces read: “Blundell Aqueduct 1793”. Finely dressed horizontal string course over crown. Rubble masonry wing walls at right angles at each end, brought to courses on south side, but random and more battered on north side. Drain at north-east corner to carry off water seepage (empties into a
culvert running beneath the road).
This substantial structure is unique in Co Offaly, being its only canal-over-road bridge. It is of historical interest in being associated with the Grand Canal, and a well-known feature of the landscape hereabouts. It is of regional heritage.
LORD DOWNSHIRE
The structure is known locally as The Tunnel but was officially named after the local landlord Wills Hill (1718–93) who became the first Viscount Hillsborough and later the 1st marquess of Downshire. The following extracts from the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography gives details of his successor after his death in 1793, the same date as the aqueduct:
Hillsborough’s second, but only surviving son, Arthur Hill (1753–1801), second marquess of Downshire and politician, was born on 23 February 1753 at Hanover Square, London. During his father’s lifetime he was styled successively Viscount Kilwarlin (1756–72), Viscount Fairford (1772–89), and earl of Hillsborough (1789–93).
Although it seems improbable that the 1790 election cost the £30,000 claimed at the time, Fairford’s marriage, in June 1786 at St Marylebone, London, to Mary Sandys (1764–1836), the daughter of Colonel Martin Sandys and the heiress to £60,000 in cash and estates at Edenderry in King’s County (Offaly), Dundrum in Co. Down, and Easthampsted Park in Berkshire (which increased the Downshire estates to over 100,000 acres) facilitated such extravagance. It also encouraged his political ambitions and, following his succession to the marquessate in 1793, he purchased the right to nominate to the borough of Fore, Co. Westmeath and half the borough of Carlingford, Co. Louth; added to the seats for Hillsborough and Blessington, one seat for Co. Down, and one for Newry, these acquisitions meant that he was in a position to command as many as nine seats in the Irish House of Commons during the 1790s.
The enactment of the Act of Union was a major personal defeat for Downshire since seven of the nine seats that constituted his Irish political interest were abolished at a stroke. His son, the third marquess, who succeeded to the title following Downshire’s suicide on 7 September 1801, received £52,500 in compensation, but it made only a modest dent in the large burden of debt he inherited.
Arthur Hill by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, c. 1785–1790, who became the second marquess of Downshire in 1793. (Wikipedia)
- HUBAND’S AQUEDUCT
John Killaly’s map of 1807 showing many canal features at Ballycowan, a few miles west of Tullamore: The Huband Aqueduct with Ballycowan Castle nearby; the 29th or Cummins’ Lock and the mouth of the supply or feeder which brought water from the Maiden or Tullamore River into the canal just downstream of the lock. The Fair Green of Ballycowan is also shown. In February 1802 the Reverend Dean Digby, a director of the company, informed the company that a Mrs. Armstrong was willing to relinquish the right for holding fairs at Ballycowan and to sell the lands there for the sum of £60. (Courtesy of Waterways Ireland)
JOSEPH HUBAND
The aqueduct dates to 1803 and gets its name from Joseph Huband, (c.1750–1835), a barrister and canal developer and then chairman of the Grand Canal Company. His involvement with the company is well summarised in C. J. Wood’s entry for him in the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography, (2009):
He first appeared as a director in 1777, by which time construction of the canal had been completed from its Dublin basin as far west as Sallins, Co. Kildare. When, in 1783, the construction of a link with the River Liffey in Dublin was discussed, Huband was opposed; but he came round to supporting the construction of the Circular line to connect the Main line with Dublin port (1790–96), ornamenting at his own expense the bridge connecting Upper Mount St. with Percy Place. This bridge, as well as a small harbour built at Dolphin’s Barn (1805), was named after him. He survived a shareholders’ revolt, a consequence of increasing debts (1810), and remained a director, except for a few years, until his death; he also served as chairman for four years (1797, 1803, 1807, 1812). Joseph Huband lived in Peter Street until about 1809 when he moved to Charlemont Mall. He died in 1835.
Fred Hammond’s survey of the edifice in 2004 is glowing and culminates in rating it of regional heritage importance:
Triple-span masonry bridge carries Grand Canal over Tullamore River. Abutments, piers and cutwaters are of dressed limestone blocks, regularly laid. The cutwaters are of triangular profile and rise to arch spring level at both ends of the piers. The arches are of segmental profile and each estimated to span 3.0-3.5m (precise measurement was not possible in this instance); their voussoirs are of also of dressed stone. Two finely dressed string courses, c.80cm apart, run across spandrels and parapets. The parapets are of random rubble and are spaced at 10.03m. They are coped with dressed masonry blocks and terminate in out-projecting dressed stone piers. In the middle of the canal face of both parapets is an inscribed stone plaque reading: “Huband/ Aqueduct/ 1803”.
END OF PART ONE. PART TWO WILL LOOK AT THE CHARLEVILLE, MACARTNEY AND SILVER RIVER AQUEDUCTS
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