Contents:
Events Calendar
Belturbet Town
Branch History
Ballinamore-Ballyconnell
Canal
Lough Erne
European Wanderings
Out and About
Overseas Tourist Information
1994 Cruising Guide
Photos |
The Ballinamore and Ballyconnell Navigation was built primarily to link
two of the more important Irish rivers- the Erne and the Shannon. By the late 1840's, when the final scheme for
the Ballinamore and Ballyconnell Canal was conceived, the development of the principal inland navigations of Ireland
was virtually complete. It only remained to complete this link of sixty kilometres to unify the waterway network.
The Ballinamore and Ballyconnell Canal comprises 8km of still water navigation, 13km through lakes, and the remaining
39km along the canalised course of the Woodford River. The region through which the canal flows is cahracterised
by a great number of small lakes and low hills, although there is some high ground to the noth of it's course.
The land is poor ,and Ballinamore and Ballyconnell are the only significant towns along the route.
This was hardly promising country for a canal and were it not for the benefits expected from a Shannon-Erne link
it would never have been built. Various factors contributed to the birth of the Ballinamore Canal, all of them
culminating in the proceedings of the mid-1840's. The year 1842 saw the passing pf the Act 5&6,c 89- the basic
act of the code of Irish arterial drainage law. It stimulated a vast programme of arterial drainage works undertaken
by the Office of Public Works
(OPW). Its relevance in the context of waterways is expressed in its title- "An Act to promote the Drainage
of Lands, and Improvement of Navigation and Water Power in Connection with such Drainage ,in Ireland". This
first act formed the base on which a very limited number of naviagtions, including the Ballinamore aand Ballyconnell
were made.
Conception and Construction
The first moves under the 1842 Act were for a drainage scheme to improve
lands between"the site of the old lock at Corquill", and onto Leitrim village; by then-late 1844-navigation
was included in all proposals. By May 1845 a drainage report from OPW engineer John MCMahon was ready. But a delay
then occurred before approval for drainage was given on 26th June 1846; work commenced on 30th June. The next OPW
dealt with the navigation proceedings. On 4th March 1847 McMahon gave his final estimated cost of £131,858,made
up as follows:
Drainage works-chargeable to proprietors. £27110
Drainage works-works of masonary in connection
Therewith, chargeable to counties. £4582
Navigation works-chargeable to Government grant
And to four counties. £100166
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Total £131,858
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Further procedural delays ensued but the final "all clear" was given on 19th November 1847 for the navigation
work to begin.
The following decade saw progress, much interrupted,especially on the drainage works the benefits of which were
soon apparent. But a combination of lack of funds, periods of abnormal rainfall, shortages of labour when harvest-time
weather was fine, and occassional technical difficulties meant that overall progress on the works was slow. A dark
shadow on the proceedings was cast by the financial position. For as time went on it became clear that, for whatever
reason, the estimates were hopelessly wrong. By the end of 1852, when a the works were nowhere near completion,
the expenditure was £173,969- a far cry from the estimated £131858. The position did not improve until
the passing on 14th August 1855 an Act which permitted the "Application
of certain sums granted by the Parliament for Drainage and other Works of Public Utility in Ireland, towards the
Completion of Certain Navigations undertaken in Connection with Drainages"
In 1856, the OPW referred ominously to the, "probable very limited amount of navigation",
although its engineer reported next year that "the prospects
of the value of the navigation to the country are becoming more apparent as the probability of opening it shortly
becomes more generally known".It was now thought that in
autumn 1857 the canal would be "finally opened for traffic to the public".
Under an Act of 1856, the navigation works would also be formally described in an award of the OPW, and from the
date of the award would…
"Vest in the trustees for the time being incorporated under
this Act for such navigation, for the use of the Counties, Baronies and Townlands chargeable under such award and
shall be held maintained and preserved by such Trustees."
An equally important purpose of the act was to provide for the maintenance of the navigation once the trustees
erer in control. Section 25 was quite explicit…
"All expenses of and incident to the maintenance and conservancy
of each of the (Navigations) shall (so far as the same may not be defrayed out of the income) be borne and paid
by such Counties, Baronies, and Townlands and parts therof respectively".
The OPW, had to make its award as soon as the navigation, "shall have been completed in such manner and to
such extent as shall be directed or approved of by the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury" (For the drainage
district the OPW would follow a similar procedure).
The Treasury had to instruct the OPW on the financial aspects of the award. It pointed out that…"the proportion of the expenditure for which the district set forth in the
declaration is legally responsible amounts to one half…(However), we have to submit that the charge (on the four
counties) should be limited to £30,000, and that… the period for …repayment be limited for five years".
On 10,th January 1860 the final award was made to the Navigation District of Ballinamore and Ballyconnell, and
the navigation was vested in the trustees. The financial details were clearly set out-the navigation had cost £228,651.5d
inclusive of interest, of which all but £30,000 would be deemed a free grant. The £30000 was to be
repaid by ten half-yearly installments.
Open For Traffic
On the very day J.B.Pratt, secretary and engineer to the trustees, took charge of the canal from the OPW-4th July
1860-he submitted a preliminary report on its condition to the board. While Pratt was aware at the outset that
the waterway was to say the least, rather less than perfect, he did not know just how bad the condition was. The
trustees made a seriuos error in not commissioning long before they took control of the canal. Pratt prepared a
detailed report in October and it was a fascinating document. It read in part:
"The works have been executed for a depth of only four and
a half feet, and this depth…has not been carried out, as there are parts of the navigation not more than three
feet deep, unless when the water is kept up by putting a board on the weir walls. The water in the lakes between
castlefore and Ballyconnell is kept two feet higher than the level proposed by Mr. McMahon in his original report
and plans, and this is done in order to keep four and a half feet of water on the shallows of these lakes, which
swallows…were to be removed. When there are six feet of water on the lock of Castlefore, the shallows in Lough
Scur, the summit level, vary, from four to five feet,and in dry weather, in summer,the supply to the summit level
is not sufficient to maintain the water at this height,the leakage through the lock and weir at Castlefore and
through the banks and lock No.9, at Kilclare,reduce the water about sixteen inches".
This was perhaps the most serious complaint but the thorough Pratt
continued with a catalogue of other defects-the banks were too steeply sloped and were giving way"and have caused a deposit of mud in some places two feet deep"; the fencing was "entirely
defective"; the towpath was badly made; some of the locks
were ill-made and most of them leaked considerably"through
the joints of the masonary". The locks at Skelan, Castlefore
and Kilclare, in particular, were very bad. Indeed, at Kilclare "the
leakage through the bank and lock No.9 is so considerable that the waste water is suffiicient to turn Kilclare
Mill the whole year".
The lock houses were built of "badly burnt and unsound brick" and were "crumbling down with the
weather". The "approaches to most of the bridges, as
at Newbrook, Kilclare and Aghoo" had subsided while all
the wooden bridges were badly made and "not safe for traffic". The old bridge at Derrygoan, made of stone had been replaced by a wooden structure,
which was now "in a dangerous state". Pratt also commented on the sluices erected at the weirs on the
eastern section of the waterway; they were not self-acting and we "very troublesome to attend to in floods",
a fact which in the case of Caroul at least had been realised before the handover.
The report along with a detailed estimate of the "expense
of finishing and repairing the several works above referred to, which estimate amounts on the whole to £1718", was sent to the OPW which made only the briefest reply, its secretary being
instructed…
"Inform Mr.Pratt that the board cannot undertake the repairs
which it is the duty of the trustees to perform at the cost of the district, of which the navigation is the property".
The trustees subsequently placed a series of newspaper advertisements which proclaimed the opening of the canal,
offered to lease the tolls (unsuccessfully), and announced the intention to lease the "water power and several
mill sites, on the canal (almost equally unsuccessfully) Tradition apparently based on a statement by OPW engineer
Robert Manning in 1881 holds that only 8 boats ever used the canal while it was officially open. This is definetely
an underestimate, as there are indications that tolls were paid on eight occasions giving a grand total of something
over £18 as the maximumsum received for the traffic. But whatever the precise number of boats it seems certain
that the total fo the years from 1860 onwards cannot have exceeded a pathetic fifteen.
And so it was upto the trustees themselves to do something about their woebegone navigation. While they could have
contented themselves with keeping the works in the precise state in which they received them,this would not have
improved their chances of earning anything from boats and so they they set out to carry out what repairs they could.
They first tackled the maintenance of the locks. Then they had the fences and bridges attended to. While the work
was commencing the advertisement was palced by the trustees was meeting with absolutely no reponse from boat owners,
who seemingly avoided the canal completely. For a few years,however, the trustees pressed on with their maintenance
but they then began to have doubts,or as Pratt later put it"they
began to think it was of no use".
They decided to make a final attempt to attract boats. A second, rather longer advertisement was placed in eleven
newspapers even more widely dispersed throughout the country in mid-1864. But again there was no response and from
then on thoughts of maintaining the waterway in a fit state for boats began to recede. However,there was no definite
decision to abandon the navigation as such and to concentrate solely on maintenance of the channel and works for
drainage purposes only. It has been stated quite authoritatively at times that such a decision was taken in 1865,but
repairs to the locks-sometimes as extensive as at Ballyduff and Skelan in 1867-were being carried on as late as
1871.
However from the early 1870's the navigation was being neglected and it deteriorated seriously. Maintenance work
was curtailed and efforts concentrated on keeping the main channel reasonably clear as a drainage artery. By the
1870's the OPW gave its final opinion on the waterway… "The
prospects of any trade on the navigation,or of any benefits to the surrounding districts there from,are not such
as would appear to warrant the expenditure estimated at £4.400(the
estimated cost of a restoration from Ballinamore to the Shannon).
Years of Decline
Thus ended all talk of restoring the waterway and the decline went on
uncontrolled, by now uninterrupted by any maintenance activity. For by 1876 the trustees had more or less decided
to cease operations. The last trustees' meeting known to have been held at this period took place on 26th April
1878 when presumably, they decided to call it a day. Certainly, there now began a period of inactivity during which
no maintenance was carried out, no rents were collected nor wages paid, and no meetings held, while along the canal
the works fell into disrepair.
The position regarding the Ballinamore Canal in the 1880's is very obscure indeed. No meetings are known to have
been held by the trustees between1878 and 1893,yet there must have been some trustees who took a minimal interest
in affairs. J.B.Pratt died on 1st February 1886 and soon afterwards John Joseph Benison took over as acting secretary.
But this was largely a nominal post and he did not make any attempt in the 1880's to collect any of the long overdue
rents from the spoil bank tenants.
No salaries were paid as most of the lock keepers had been "written
off" years before. Presumably, they continued to occupy
their tiny lock houses until decay made them uninhabitable. However, at Ballyconnell, with its mills, someone was
needed to regulate the levels and the house there remained occupied for the best part of a century. Also,because
of the necessity to maintain a level for the mills it was essential that both the works at the weir and the upper
gates at Ballyconnell lock be kept in repair.
For reasons now unknown a decision to revive the trustees was taken sometime in 1893.Who took the decision is also
a mystery;it may have been either the Grand Juries or some of the landowners,both of whom woild have been concerned
with problems of flooding which would certainly become more serious as the canal got ever more choked with silt
and decaying vegetation. At any rate, Benison was in contact with the Fermanagh Grand Jury early in 1894 and some
time later an appraoch was made to the Roscommon Jury, both with a view to having new trustees appointed. The moves
suggest that it was interested parties in Cavan and Leitrim who started things rolling.
Maintenance works were not undertaken immediately but a necessary preliminary step was soon made- a levy demand
was sent to the counties, three of which paid up promptly. The exception was Roscommon and the trustees had to
take proceedings against the grand jury to enforce payment. The matter was not resolved until mid-1898 when a judicial
decision in Dublin ordered the payment to be made. The principal cloud on the horizon was the lack of enthusiasm
on the part of the county authorities when it came to paying the maintenance levies.
But this was,in fact quite an important transition period.Under the local Government Act of 1898 the old grand
juries were replaced by county councils as from mid-1899. All the rights and obligations concerning navigations
passed to the councils but the change was non the less very significant. The grand juries were for the most part
prominent landowners who tended to be remote from the troubles which stemmed from the canal. True, they owned the
lands which suffered periodic damage from flooding and the bore some of the financial burden, but it was their
tenants who lost their crops or had to make lengthy detours to the markets when bridges collapsed.
The trustees they appointed were of the same caste. Thus the navigation board at any time up to around 1910 would
have consisted of some inactive members, some who were enthusiastic and some no more than a passing interest in
the duties involved. The net effect was that the board was decidely on the lethargic. Now under the new arrangement
the county councils, composed of democratically -elected members, would be sure to include some of the community
directly suffering from the vagaries of the canal. In turn, council-appointed trustees could be expected to take
a livelier interest in the problems caused by the navigation.
The next three decades were to prove relatively the busiest period in the history of the navigation since the award
and the one pity was that the effort was directed solely towards drainage, all thoughts of navigation having been
abandoned. A significant feature of the new era was the holding of regular board meetings. The trustees met on
average three times a year, normally in January, April and July. At the first meeting they would consider the estimates
for the half year just beginning and study the maintenance programme proposed by the engineer.
In April they would, award contracts for the various works and in July the business would again be largely financial.
The different contractors would have to be paid and there would be the task of drawing up the estimates and making
a levy demand for the second half-year.
In the selection of the maintenence works to be carried out the trustees were guided by their engineers, whose
recommendations in turn were based both on requests from farmers for specific improvements and on his own observations
made on inspection. The engineer would also draw up plans, specifications and estimates for the works which would
on approval be advertised and let on contract. This policy was by and large very successful, though at times the
going was rough enough for the navigation board. Over the years, it received a miltitude of complaints from aggrieved
people along the canal. But,there was no long history of legal action and the trustees were just about able to
keep the situation under control. This was no mean achievement, considering that the average of the 26 half-yearly
total levy demands made in the period 1913-35 was just under £125.
During this period, Ballyconnell continued to occupy an excessive amount of trustee's time. Around 1920 local resentment
at the periodic flooding which could still be caused by the set up there crystallised into action when the weir
sluice was maliciuosly damaged. And,another irony,the forcible removal of the obstruction at Ballyconnell,while
relieving flooding back towards Skelan,caused a greater flow down towards Corraquill where the channel was blocked
with debris and the net result was flooding around Cloncoohy instead.
The topic of maintenance was on the agenda for the januray 1924 meeting and a deputation from Fermanagh attented
to describe the flooding caused by obstructions at Corraquill lock. Many farmers were thinking of taking laegal
action,so bad was the position. The trustes were agreed that the work was necessary but they decided not to undetake
it until recent levy arrears were had been paid by Fermanagh County Council. To spend money levied off the other
counties on works in Fermanagh would, it was felt be unfair. That was the general policy adopted by the trustees.
As far as was practical money levied off a county was spent on maintenance in that county. This was all very well
but the unfortunate Roscommon rate payers was thus left with a levy which went towards the administration costs
of works which were of no concern to them,
For rate-payers of the other three counties however, the works were decidedly useful, especially as many of the
contracts now being awarded were for work on the actual channel. Any cleaning work carried out on it was bound
to have a beneficial effect on the neighbouring lands, and it also renedered more effective the work of the drainage
trustees, who regularly had the lateral drains under their contral cleaned. From time to time, the scope of the
navigation maintenance would be widened to include the replacement or reconstruction of accommodation bridges in
need of attention.
Problems caused by flooding came to a head in mid-1931 when there was such heavy rain that the people in Boeshill,
near Garadice, lost their entire hay crop;in places boats had to be used to rescue cattle.With commendable speed
it was agreed to have new sluices erected at Ballyconnell,and the work was shortly afterwards put in hand.This
was the last effort put in by the trustees on the Ballyconnell sluices which had occupied so much time and work.
It made a refreshing challenge change when, in the mid-1930s, they concerned themselves with Ballinamore. They
awarded contracts for claening work at the basin there in 1933 and later years. The last such contract was given
on September 1935,for the cleaning of the channel from lock No. 5 to the basin and of the old river course for
a short distsnce to Stradermot, a total length of about 250 statute perches. The work was duly executed and what
distinguishes it is that,although nobody knew it at the time,it was the last maintenance contract of any kind awarded
by the trustees of the navigation district.
Leitrim County Council terminated the appointments of it's trustees by resolution in 1936 and in the following
year the remaining trustees, representing Cavan and Fermanagh, resigned shortly after the last board meeting to
be held for a long time. For over three years nothing apparently happened. There was an unexpected development
in 1940 when Fermanagh County Council appointed three new trustees, the only nominal trustees in office for some
years, the sole persons in charge of the navigation district. One wonders what their reaction to being in control
of a navigation which for much the greater part of it's length lay outside Northern Ireland.
For some seven years there was no significant development s until, in May 1947, both the Leitrim and Cavan County
Councils appointed three new trustees' each. While this may have seemed a promising move there was no follow up
in the form of funds, and the position was not hopeful when the board met on 6 February 1948. This time decisive
action, in a sense, came from the trustees. Deciding that there was little point in maintaining an anomalous situation,
they ceased there activities, though these now consisted merely on meeting irregularly. This was the last mmeting
in the 91 year life of the Ballinamore and Ballyconnell Navigation trustees, and once the trustees left Ballyconnell
on that February afternoon, the administration of the canal went into a state of suspended animation, while the
waterway itself continued to decay quietly as it had done for so long previously. Shortly after the trustees ceased
to function, the bridge over the canal at Derrymacoffin collapsed- the event was something of a symbolic occurrence.
The Last Quarter-Century (1948-72)
While the pace of developments on the navigation was never hectic, the
20 -odd years after the last trustees meeting was very quiet indeed. The canal became a more or less accepted "nuisance"
though still one, which could cause great damage. There was periodic talk of great new drainage schemes for the
region. Periodic severe flooding persisted. Crops were lost. The waterway was ignored although the county councils
undertook repairs and if, necessary, replacement of the always inadequate accommodation bridges.
However the canal had its protagonists who, from about the mid 1960's became ever more articulate on its possible
restoration as a navigable waterway. Among them was Leitrim County Council which ahd been kkeping an eye on the
increasing number of pleasure boats on the River Shannon and, indeed,had fostered the growth by undertaking an
excellent development of facilities at Carrick-on-Shannon. Another demand for action came in 1969 when the Inland
Waterways Association of Ireland,which had established branches at both Ballinamore and Ballyconnell,called for
a survey by a competent firm,being supported by the county council.
In 1970. The latter pressed again for a survey by the OPW, which had dismayed some councillors by pointing out
that the Erne catchment was the tenth on the priority list of the arterial drainage programme and also that the
Erne as a whole was a very large catchment area which presented engineering problems of great complexity and was
furthermore complicated by the problem of the border.
The arguments did not impress the council one little bit, the county engineer commenting that the OPW engineers
were well capable of putting forward proposals for drainange and navigation that did not conflict. And as for the
border question, there would surely be no difficulty on that account, for previuos representatives of the Northern
Ireland Tourist Board, had indicated a willingness to co-operate and share in the cost of a survey of the canal.
The cannal was by then fairly well in the public eye. There was a groundswell of support from many quarters, which
led to the question of restoration as a leisure waterway in its own right and as a vital link in a countrywide
system of inland navigation being adddressed seriously. This led to the carrying out in 1972 of the intital surveys,
which became the acorn from which the massive oak tree of the 1990's reconstruction developed.
Patrick Flanagan
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