THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 Prom the collection of 
 
 James Collins, 
 Drumcondra, Ireland • 
 
 Purchased, 1918. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/historicalsketchOOmull 
 
TRANSACTIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS 
 
 OF IRELAND. 
 
 [November 8, 1859.*] 
 
 ADDRESS OF M. B. MULLINS, Esq. A.M, 
 
 PRESIDENT ; 
 
 BEMG A» HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ENGISEERIIG IK IRELAID. 
 
 The history of Civil Engineering in Ireland, as in every 
 other country, dates from the commencement of commercial 
 progress consequent on the yielding of the arts of war to 
 those of peace ; and as the former too long held precedence, we 
 are not enabled to trace back our subject beyond a com- 
 paratively recent period, nor do the publications of the time 
 furnish such memoirs as would enable us to form a pre- 
 cise judgment of the successive steps by which knowledge, 
 properly so called, was obtained -facts formulated by the 
 announcement of principles, and the profession raised to the 
 rank of a scientific pursuit; but without drawing on our 
 .magmations, those amongst us who have had an opportunity 
 of ascertaining the earliest efforts of the Engineers belonging 
 to the generation just passed away, are aware, that in 
 the absence of an established school, and a dearth of pro- 
 fessional books, a mathematical education, with a knowledge 
 of surveying, were principally relied on, and with these quali- 
 hcations, aided by natural constructive faculties of the mind, 
 
 I3,*ald M:;t2M"6a" ™^ - of March 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 and that power of comparison called judgment, much was 
 achieved through a laborious and costly experience; but in 
 this retrospect, with which our time favourably contrasts, we 
 cannot lose sight of the fact, that, although the science of 
 construction then forming but one profession, is now divided 
 into dilFerent branches, and great opportunities given for pro- 
 ficiency in each, we are still not exempt from the necessity of 
 learning by actual practice, for which little or no opportunity 
 in pupilage, at the time referred to, was afforded. 
 
 Seeing the great contrast in wealth and progressive im" 
 provement which England and Ireland — divided by a short 
 and hitherto somewhat neglected sea passage — presents, it 
 might, at first sight, be supposed, that the science of Civil 
 Engineering had a very much earlier origin in the more 
 advanced country, but it was not until after the termination 
 of the war with France, by the peace of Paris in 1763, that 
 a great impetus appears to have been given to the commerce 
 and manufactures of England, and responsive to the demand 
 then made for improved appliances, arose the genius of Smeaton 
 and of Watt, by whom, with Brindley, Jessop, Chapman, 
 Telford, Rennie, and others, was founded the school of Engi- 
 neering in England, France having been previously the source 
 to which recourse was obliged to be had for professional assist- 
 ance, for we find that Westminster bridge, the first large struc- 
 ture of that description in England, was commenced in 1740, 
 under Mr. Labelye, by whom Ramsgate harbour was also 
 designed in 1744, and Brindley did not begin the Bridgewater 
 canal until 1758, more than half a century after the com- 
 pletion of the great Languedoc canal, the mode of construction 
 of whose locks was borrowed from the design of Fran9ois 
 Andreossi, a native of Italy — that land of classic recollections, 
 where the seeds of an old civilisation, germinating with re- 
 newed cultivation, gave science, literature and art, to Europe, 
 in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and had no more dis- 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 3 
 
 tinguished masters than in the then united professions of 
 architecture, military and civil engineering. And looking still 
 farther back into the annals of the same gifted people, we find 
 the various branches of our profession practically united in the 
 best period of the Roman Empire. 
 
 Inland navigation appears, by the journals of the Irish 
 H-ause of Commons of the year 1697, to have been one of the 
 principal objects contemplated by the legislature of that period, 
 as a means of general improvement, but owing to their being 
 no fund appointed for the purpose, no immediate steps were 
 taken for its prosecution. It was not until a period com- 
 mencing in the year 1755, when there was a surplus revenue 
 in the treasury, that parliament became remarkable for its 
 munificence in promoting public works, although, as the sequel 
 will shew, considerable grants were made before that period. 
 The expenditure under the control of the Navigation Board, 
 which was established in the year 1730, having been found 
 often profuse, and sometimes abortive, that body was dis- 
 solved, and a system was adopted of granting aid to private 
 undertakers, proportioned to their subscriptions. 
 
 The depressed state of agriculture — the want of means of 
 access to markets for the sale of farming produce, and the 
 dependence of Dublin on importation for the supply of corn, 
 flour, and coal, were the urgent motives for the remedial 
 measures proposed, which, besides bounties on exportation, 
 consisted of the improvement of the port of Dublin ; the ren- 
 dering of the Shannon navigable through its whole course, 
 and connecting it, by means of a canal, with the sea at 
 Dublin — as also the opening of communications between 
 lough Neagh and the sea at Newry and Belfast, the former 
 with the view to the transport of native coal from Drumglass 
 collieries — these, with the formation of roads, were amongst 
 the most important of the earlier works offering themselves 
 for description. 
 
 435735 
 
4 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 The Ballast Office Corporation having been established in 
 1707, the first engineering efforts worthy of record may be 
 said to have commenced about that period, having for their 
 object the improvement of the harbour of Dublin ; and as the 
 subject is not devoid of either interest or instruction, I shall 
 enter into some detail of the numerous plans proposed as 
 well as of that executed, by way of contributing to the history 
 of the ancient port of Dublin, believed to be known to 
 Ptolemy, under the name of Eblana Civitas ; and that this 
 presumption does not rest on the usually slender grounds of 
 our pretensions to importance of an ancient date, the fact is 
 worth noticing, that Ptolemy described the city of Dublin as 
 being on the eastern coast of Ireland, between the rivers 
 Oboca and Bubinda, of the identity of which, with the Avoca 
 and the Boyne, there can be no doubt ; and Tacitus, in his 
 life of Agricola, states, that owing to more frequent com- 
 mercial intercourse, the ports of Ireland were better known 
 than those of Great Britain. 
 
 The shallow bay about three miles in extent, at the head 
 of which Dublin is situated, the entrance being between two 
 large sand banks, called the North and South Bulls, presented 
 great obstacles to the formation of a good harbour, and the 
 rivers Liffey and Dodder spreading over a large space with 
 but little depth at their confluence, not affording any effectual 
 scouring power, offered unpromising prospects; for remedying 
 those defects, however, with the view of deepening the water 
 on the bar, the principle acted on was, to lead the waters of 
 the two rivers and the ebbing and flowing tide in a straight 
 line to the bay, by embanking them on each side as far down 
 as Ringsend, and constructing a single line of works from 
 Ringsend to the easternmost spit of the South Bull. 
 
 In 1711, in accordance with a plan suggested by Mr. 
 Corneille (who was then employed at the harbour of Kinsale), 
 and approved by the Surveyor- General, Captain Burgh, a 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 5 
 
 new straight channel was made from the city, (then ter- 
 mifiating on the north side at Essex bridge,) as far as 
 Ringsend. A bank of kishes, filled with stones, was, in the 
 first instance, formed on the north side of the channel, to 
 prevent the freshes of the river running over in that direction. 
 In the same year the building of the south quay-wall was 
 commenced, and in 1729 the North Wall was undertaken. 
 Previous to the building of these walls the waters of the 
 LilFey, Dodder, and Tolka rivers, with the currents of the 
 tide, spread over a very large space, and, under the influence 
 of floods and storms, threw up such shoals as made the 
 navigation impracticable, rendering it necessary for vessels 
 to discharge their cargoes in the bay near Dalkey, 
 
 In the year 1713, while the quay walls were building, 
 Captain Perry proposed, for the improvement of the harbour, 
 to construct a low wharf or pier of drift work from Irishtown 
 to the outermost point of the South Bull, and to make a dam 
 from Ringsend to the high land on the north side to pen the 
 waters of the LifFey and Dodder above the high water of 
 spring tides, with a stone sluice in the embankment to admit 
 vessels into the basin. Before reaching the destined point 
 great difficulty was encountered, and the work, a portion of 
 which remained on the Sandymount strand in the year 1800, 
 had been long previously abandoned. 
 
 Soon after the commencement of the building of the south 
 quay-wall, a work of frames and piles, beginning at Ringsend, 
 was carried on the south side into deep water, and was backed 
 up by sand taken out of the channel by gabbards, but that 
 description of material being liable to be carried away by the 
 tide, a double stone wall, filled in with gravel, was substituted 
 in 1748, and continued for a length of 7,938 feet, to nearly 
 where the Pig eon House now stands, as recommended by the 
 Ballast Board, on the ground that the basin, within the bar, 
 being thereby made larger, and enabled to contain more 
 
6 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 water, there would be increased scope for the flux and reflux 
 of the tides to deepen the channel, which they feared had 
 been prejudiced by shutting the water out of the harbour, by 
 the taking in of Sir John Rogerson's ground, and the con- 
 struction of the North Wall. 
 
 From the site of the Pigeon-house to the eastern spit of 
 the South Bull, the frames and piles were carried to a distance 
 of 9,816 feet, but the maintenance of them having proved 
 very expensive, and not aff"ording sufficient shelter to the 
 channel, it was resolved to substitute a wall in their stead 
 also. This was begun at the eastern extremity in 1761, by 
 the construction of the lighthouse, and from thence the work 
 was carried to the site of the Pigeon-house, or, as it was then 
 called, the Block-house. 
 
 The determination to commence at the eastern extremity 
 was come to with the view of protecting, by the abutment, 
 the floating ship-light erected in 1735, which was subject to be 
 displaced in tempestuous weather, when it was most required. 
 
 The wall or pier commenced under the direction of 
 Mr. John Smith, as Engineer, is composed of two parallel 
 walls built in header and stretcher courses, with large blocks 
 of hewn granite without cement, up to the level of low water, 
 the intermediate space being filled with promiscuous rubble ; 
 over this a course of masonry was laid in tarras cement, and 
 the whole finished in courses of granite of large dimensions, 
 the coping having from 6 to 7 feet insertion. On the top 
 course of the portion of the pier extending into deep water 
 where the force of the sea was most apprehended, a frame- 
 work of timber was bolted down, but this having been found 
 a very inadequate protection in south-easterly gales, the 
 raising of the wall several feet in height towards the extremity, 
 proved to be the only effectual remedy. 
 
 The pier is 32 feet in breadth at bottom, battering to 28 
 feet at top, the height is nearly 7 feet above the high-water 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 7 
 
 line, and the whole is 17,754 feet, or nearly 3^ miles in 
 length, and must be considered one of the most remarkable, 
 and, taken with what was subsequently achieved in furtherance 
 of the object in view, one of the most successful efforts on 
 record in overcoming a great engineeing difficulty. 
 
 The lighthouse, is circular, with a considerable batter, 
 of the same material as the pier, and was designed 
 and superintended by Mr. John Smith, who was occupied 
 until 1768 in its construction. The abutment, as it was 
 called, or foundation, is a hexagon 36 feet in diameter, con- 
 sisting of large blocks laid in caissons, the bottom 
 being first carefully prepared to receive them. A mass of 
 promiscuous rubble was then thrown in all round and a 
 buttress of solid masonry, 25 feet wide at its base, was carried 
 up to the level of low water. The shaft consists of three 
 stories separated by groined arches. The lantern, in the 
 original structure, was accessible by a stone staircase winding 
 round the exterior and terminating in an iron gallery at the 
 level of the upper storey. The light is 68 feet above high- 
 water, and is visible about 12 miles. At half- tide, when 
 there was sufficient water for ships to come into the harbour, a 
 flag was hoisted at the top of the lighthouse, and at night a small 
 light was shewn, under the principal one, for a like indication. 
 
 The permanency of this structure, which has withstood the 
 force of south-easterly gales, in a very exposed situation, and 
 in deep water, testifies amply to the skilful mode of its con- 
 struction. 
 
 After the building of the lighthouse, the construction of 
 the South Wall made such tedious progress, that the piles 
 became decayed, the stone filling of the interspaces was carried 
 away by the sea, and the sand having become greatly 
 raised on the South Bull in consequence of the piling, was 
 filling up the channel; under these circumstances the 
 merchants petitioned to amend the laws relating to the 
 
8 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 conservation of the port, and an act was, in consequence, 
 passed in 1786, transferring all powers concerning the Liffey 
 and the harbour, together with the pilotage, to a new 
 corporation for preserving and improving the port of Dublin. 
 At this time there was built of the South Wall, according to 
 Whitlaw, from the lighthouse towards the Pigeon-house, 1,522 
 feet, the remainder was completed in 1796, and a basin 
 was constructed, 900 by 450 feet, near the fort, for the 
 safety of the packets exposed to the swell in the channel 
 in easterly winds. There being no fortress in Dublin, in 
 which the public archives could be kept, the Pigeon-house 
 fort w^as destined for that purpose, and with the view of 
 supplying the garrison with water within its precincts, a very 
 large sum was laid out, under the direction of Sir Hyde Page, 
 in sinking an artesian well, but it had to be abandoned, on 
 account of the admixture with salt water. 
 
 A survey of the bay and harbour, made by Collins, in 
 1693, shows that the bar extended, at a uniform level, across 
 the entrance, without any channel through it. There were 
 neither piles nor wall at that time, and Ringsend was repre- 
 sented like a fortress. 
 
 Soundings were taken in 1725, by Captains Burgh and 
 Perry, who stated in their report, dated 17 th September of 
 that year, that they found the channel generally deeper, and 
 several perches wider, than it was at the commencement of the 
 works. These soundings were laid down on a map of the 
 harbour, published by Mr. Gabriel Stokes, and showed that 
 the depths differed little from what they were in 1711, when 
 soundings were made by order of the Ballast Board, namely, 
 19 to 21 feet water on the bar, and 19 feet at the buoy of 
 the bar at high-water of spring tides, which rise from 12 to 
 14 feet. In 1 75 1 , M'Kenzie made a survey amounting to little 
 more than an outline of the bay. On it, the depths in the 
 bar-channel, at low water of springs, are marked as 8 feet, 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 9 
 
 and in the reach from the Pigeon-house to the quays, 2 
 feet. 
 
 According to a report and survey of the Harbour, made by 
 Captain Bligh, in the year 1801, by order of the Directors- 
 General of Inland Navigation, it appeared that the bar was 
 two miles in length, and half a mile in width, connected by a 
 broad base with the North Bull, and tapering towards the 
 south, where its nearest part was about 600 yards distant from 
 the Hghthouse. It consisted of small hard sand to the 
 depth of 16 feet, the limit of the soundings by Captain 
 Corneille, and was perfectly free from any admixture of the 
 city sewage, which was then deposited between the quay-walls 
 and on the Clontarf shore. There were from 5 to 5^ feet of 
 water on the shoalest part of the bar, at low- water of ordinary 
 spring tides, and from 19 to feet at the top of the tide. 
 It appeared also, that the south end of the bar had been to 
 some extent worn away. The Rev. Bernard MacMahon, 
 whose almanac was the received authority of the day, made 
 the greatest height of water on the bar to be 20 feet 10 inches. 
 
 Such was the limited extent of the deepening produced by 
 the building of the South Wall, at a cost of £200,000, but it 
 enabled the channel into the harbour to be made of a more 
 uniform depth — afforded to vessels the desired protection in 
 south-easterly winds — prevented the influx of sand with the 
 tide from the southward, and directed towards the bar the ebb 
 tide, much of which had theretofore run over the South Bull. 
 However, these results not having been found sufficiently 
 satisfactory, recourse was had to various professional advice, 
 in order to devise means of creating such a scour as would 
 further deepen or altogether remove the bar. 
 
 Mr. William Chapman, who had been early consulted on 
 the subject by the authorities, published an elaborate report 
 in the year 1786, (when the South Wall had been partly 
 constructed) on the effect of the Dodder on the harbour of 
 
10 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 Dublin, of which he made a survey, and recommended the 
 projection of a pier from the Clontarf shore towards the 
 lighthouse, and thence, with a bend westward, to a proper 
 distance from the North Wall, so as to confine all the tidal 
 water covering the vast space, and to make it pass down the 
 pool by the channel, instead of being permitted to flow inwards, 
 and outwards over the North Bull. 
 
 Captain Bligh in his report of the year 1800, already 
 referred to, proposed to confine the river by a wall on the 
 north side, extending nearly as far as the lighthouse, with the 
 view, as stated, of causing the water to rise higher, in order 
 that in its reflux it might produce a scour. 
 
 The Ballast Board having been aware that, in easterly and 
 southerly gales, a heavy swell running along the face of the 
 great wall created considerable agitation and danger to vessels 
 lying within as well as difficulty in passing the bar, suggested, 
 in the year 1801, to the Directors-General of Inland Naviga- 
 tion, as recommended by Chapman, the construction of a pier 
 or other work which should commence at or near the spot 
 where the buoy on the spit of the bar, nearly opposite the 
 lighthouse, was then placed, this pier or wall to commence 
 with a lighthouse nearly similar to that on the south side, 
 and to be continued to such part of the northern shore as 
 might appear most advisable, both with respect to the quan- 
 tity of water to be reserved within the harbour, the direction 
 to be given to that water in its flood and ebb, and also with 
 respect to the line where foundations might be most practicable 
 and safe. The advantages contemplated were of a like cha- 
 racter to those already attained on the south side, namely, 
 the sheltering of the harbour from all winds to the northward 
 of east, preventing the influx of sand with the tide from the 
 eastward, and directing the ebb altogether against the bar and 
 through the harbour mouth. It was also suggested, that a 
 question might arise in the progress of the work w^hether it 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 11 
 
 would be desirable to run the wall home to the north shore 
 or to stop some distance short of it. 
 
 A full appreciation of the value of the water flowing 
 into the harbour having been arrived at, and it having been 
 observed that the North Bull had greatly increased, both in 
 extent and height, since the completion of the works on the 
 south side, and that the tide took different directions on either 
 side of it, one branch running in by Sutton, the other by the 
 lighthouse, and that as the tide flowed, so it ebbed through 
 these two channels, consequently that the proposed wall, if 
 continued to the shore, would cut off" a considerable part of 
 the gut eastward of Clontarf, and that a valuable body of water 
 would thus be excluded from the harbour, it was therefore sub- 
 mitted by the Ballast Board for the consideration of the Directors- 
 General, whether benefit might not be derived by stopping 
 the proposed wall at some distance from the Clontarf shore. 
 
 Captain Corneille having been ordered, in the year 1801, by 
 the Directors- General, to make a special examination of the 
 harbour with reference to the proposition of the Ballast Board, 
 reported in favour of the wall, and recommended that it should 
 be carried from the point of land east of Clontarf Sheds in a 
 right line to the spit buoy, leaving an open space of half an 
 English mile between its termination and the lighthouse, by 
 which means the whole body of water required to fill the 
 harbour should come through the opening, and the tide would 
 be prevented flowing over the North Bull into the harbour. 
 
 Sir Thomas Hyde Page was in favour of a second wall or 
 bank, to commence from the North Lots, as suggested by the 
 Directors-General, in order to confine the course of the water 
 to one channel, and thereby to cause increased depth. This 
 wall, to enclose the Liff'ey and part of the North Bull, was 
 proposed to be 7,000 yards in length, and to be constructed at 
 a cost of £168,000. A further project of the same Engineer 
 was to raise part of the bar about half a mile in length above 
 
12 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 high water, by means of faeines and stones, so as to form an 
 island, with a view of confining the current to certain lines of 
 direction, and causing deeper water. The estimate for the 
 formation of the island was £72,000. 
 
 Mr. Rennie having been called on in the year 1802, to give 
 his opinion on the whole question, zealously enquired into by 
 the Directors- General. He commenced his report by stating 
 that the improvement of Dublin harbour was one of the most 
 difficult subjects which had perhaps ever come under the con- 
 sideration of the Civil Engineer, and therefore required to be 
 treated with great caution and judgment, 
 
 He observed, that from the limited extent of deepening 
 the water on the bar, produced by the extensive works 
 already executed, he had not any very sanguine hopes of much 
 good being accomplished by any works to be added at a 
 moderate expense, that the scouring away of bars was, at best, 
 but an uncertain operation, and could only be done by bringing 
 an additional quantity of water to act on them, or by confining 
 the action of whatever water there is to a narrower channel. 
 The plan, therefore, that occurred to him as best suited to this 
 purpose, was as follows : — 
 
 First — To build a pier from near the spit buoy, off the North 
 Bull, to the Clontarf shore, about half a mile east of the 
 Sheds, leaving an opening of about 550 yards between its 
 head and the south wall or pier. 
 
 Secondly — To embank the South Bull, so as to enclose about 
 1,300 English acres, and to make a large opening in the 
 South Wall, near Ringsend (arching it over for the road), to 
 admit the tide into this space as a reservoir. 
 
 Thirdly — To make low jetties on the flat shore, from the 
 channel towards the Clontarf shore, to direct the water, on the 
 south as well as on the north side of the ship channel, in one 
 course, both in the first quarter of flood and last quarter of 
 ebb, when its scouring power would be the greatest. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 13 
 
 The new proposed north pier or wall to the Clontarf shore, 
 enclosing about 2,500 statute acres, over which the tide 
 would flow to the average depth of from 7 to 8 feet in springs, 
 and the South Bull enclosure, containing about 1,300 acres, 
 with an average depth of from 5 to 6 feet in spring tides, 
 would cause about 36,000,000 tons of water to ebb and flow 
 through the mouth of the harbour in spring tides, and would 
 pretty nearly double its scouring power. 
 
 Great as this scouring power might appear, Rennie was 
 still doubtful whether it would produce much effect in deepen- 
 ing the bar, for, as the water had so much room to spread 
 after passing the pier heads, the distance of the nearest part 
 of the bar from the lighthouse being nearly 600 yards, and its 
 average breadth about half a mile, with from 5 to 7 feet of 
 water on it at low water, he was of opinion that with all the 
 assistance possible to be given to it by ploughing or dredging 
 the bar (composed of small hard sand), not more than a foot 
 of additional depth of water would be got by an outlay esti- 
 mated at £252,000. That the principal advantage would be 
 shelter, and that this would be gaining little at a great 
 expense. 
 
 Rennie came to the conclusion that if any considerable 
 depth were to be obtained on the bar, it should be by extend- 
 ing the present pier about 800 yards, and also building 
 another from the south head of the proposed pier, from the 
 North Lotts, for about 1,100 yards in length. These piers 
 placed, as shown on the plan, and splayed at the mouth, would 
 confine the water ebbing and flowing through the entrance 
 into the harbour, and that from the reservoir of the South 
 Bull, so as to act with much more efl'ect on the bar than by 
 being left at liberty to spread after it had passed the light- 
 house ; and if the bar were ballasted and dredged while the 
 works were under execution, he had no doubt that an addi- 
 tional depth of water of about 3 feet might be obtained. 
 
14 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 The direction given to the piers would admit of vessels 
 entering- the harbour easily, and there would be quiet water 
 within even in storms from the south-east. 
 
 The expense of these additions was estimated at £403,488, 
 making, with the works previously described, a total of 
 £655,872 for the further improvement of the harbour, by 
 which it was expected that 3 feet additional depth would 
 be got over the bar; that is to say, there would be from 
 8 to 9 feet at low water of spring tides, instead of from 5 to 6, 
 as there was then. 
 
 It must be admitted that no narrow spirit of economy 
 seemed to stand in the way of making adequate plans of works 
 in the times referred to. 
 
 In 1819, after much discussion, the bold measure of the north 
 pier or embankment, recommended by Chapman, having been 
 determined on, its position from the Clontarf shore to the spit 
 buoy, was planned by Mr. Giles and Mr. Halpin, who, in 
 their joint report, of May, 1819, refer to the propriety of its 
 construction " in the probable event of the South Wall being 
 extended from the lighthouse towards the bar, and the wall 
 or embankment on the north side being also carried to the 
 bar." The wall was formed by throwing in rough granite 
 blocks promiscuously. 
 
 In the autumn of 1822, Telford and Whidbey were con- 
 sulted by the Ballast Board as to the state of the works, the 
 effect produced by the pier, and what ulterior measures they 
 would recommend. These Engineers reported that they found 
 5,500 feet in length of the wall built to its full height, 1,500 
 feet to the level of high water of neaps, and 500 feet to the 
 level of half-flood. The effects they stated to be very evident, 
 for the sand-banks in the interior having been deprived of 
 their usual supply from the great north bank, were already 
 lowered more than three feet on an average, while the part of 
 the bar immediately opposite to the harbour mouth had been 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 15 
 
 lowered from 6 feet 6 inches to 8 and even 9 feet ; and the 
 western part of the bar, adjacent to the old channel, was 7 
 and 7 feet 6 inches, so that already a direct entrance was of 
 sufficient depth for most of the vessels frequenting the 
 port of Dublin. The conclusion come to was, that an ex- 
 tension of the wall, 500 feet in length, should be carried 
 forward as recommended by Mr. Halpin, the elfect of it to be 
 watched with caution and not to be raised in the first instance 
 above the level of half-tides. The whole was completed in 
 1823, at a level of 7 feet above high-water of spring tides. 
 
 When this well-considered work was finished, a systematic 
 course of dredging was commenced in the upper portion of 
 the river, and was attended with such satisfactory results that 
 vessels of a large class, instead of lightening their cargoes 
 twice, as formerly, at Poolbeg, and nearer the bar, can come 
 without interruption to the quays in Dublin at high water. 
 
 Giles's survey, made in 1818 and 1819, by order of the 
 Ballast Board, having been conducted with much care, affords 
 the means of comparison with previous and subsequent sound- 
 ings. On his map, as in Bligh's, the ridge of the bar is 
 shewn crossing the entrance to the Liffey, having on it from 
 
 5 to 6 feet at low water of spring tides, and in the southern 
 channel, then the principal one, narrow and winding as it was, 
 the depth was only 8 feet. At the Ford the greatest depth 
 was 7 feet, and that merely in a small passage next to the 
 northern bank, and, in the long reach from the Pigeon -house 
 to the quays, the general depths varied from 2 to 4 feet. 
 
 The admiralty chart, made by Captain Frazer, R. N., in 
 1838, compared with the surveys of Bligh and Giles, shows 
 that a great improvement had been effected. In the east or 
 direct channel of the bar, the least depth marked is 1 1 feet at 
 low water of spring tides, giving a depth of 25 feet at high 
 water. The depth in that channel was, in 1819, only 6 feet 
 
 6 inches, and in 1800 only 5 feet at low water, whereas it is 
 
16 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 now the main channel with a considerably increased breadth 
 as well as depth, and affords a direct passage seaward, through 
 what had formerly been part of the curved ridge of the bar. 
 From the bar to the lighthouse, depths of from 12 to 15 feet 
 are shev^^n, being from 25 to 28 feet at high water. In the 
 anchorage at Poolbeg, depths of from 13 to 15 feet. On the 
 Ford Bank depth? of 10 to 11 feet or 23 to 24 feet at high 
 water, where Giles found only a narrow passage of 7 feet depth, 
 and Bligh only 4 feet at low water, the channel being now 
 wide and direct. In the anchorage westward of the Ford, 
 from 14 to 17 feet, or 27 to 30 feet at high water, the channel 
 also being: wide and direct. Abreast the entrance of the 
 Pigeon-house basin, a depth of 9 feet same as in 1819 ; at the 
 western angle of that basin 10 feet, instead, as in that year, of 
 5 feet, and from thence to the quays of Dublin a channel from 
 8 to 10 feet, or 21 to 23 feet at high water, instead of the 
 extensive shoals crossing the channel, having not more 
 than from 2 to 4 feet upon them. The rise of spring tides 
 being from 12 to 14 feet, it will be manifest that the river 
 has been made navij^able at half-flood for a class of vessels 
 which formerly could not, when laden, have passed at high 
 water, a beneficial result brought about in a two-fold manner, 
 as pointed out by Mr. Halpin, in his valuable Reports 
 on the harbour, to which I am indebted for much information ; 
 the improvement of the outer entrance or bar channel having 
 been produced by the direction and force given to the ebbing 
 tide by the pier projected from the Clontarf shore, while the 
 deepening in the river between Poolbeg and the quays was 
 made chiefly by steam dredging^ aided by the increased 
 velocity of the current. There are only a few minutes' differ- 
 ence between high water at the bar and at the quays. The 
 first steam dredge was used in 1832. 
 
 Looking to the magnitude of the v^^orks completed for the 
 improvement of the port — the difliculty of attaining the object 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 17 
 
 in view — the value of the ground reclaimed forming the North 
 and South Lotts, the advantage to the drainage of the city by 
 the increased depth of the outfall, the whole must be considered 
 not only to have justified the large expenditure incurred, but 
 also to reflect much credit on the engineering skill brought 
 to bear upon it. 
 
 Speed's map, published in 1610, attached to Whitlaw's 
 History of Dublin, shows that there was only a small portion 
 of the Lilfey embanked on the south side, and the whole of 
 the present line of quays on the north side was overflowed 
 by the tide, except a small part at the King's Inns, then a 
 monastery. In a north-easterly direction the marshes existing 
 where the Custom-house now stands, were covered by the tide 
 up to the site of Annesley bridge and to the locality where 
 Aldborough House now stands, at the foot of Summer-hill. 
 The whole of the strand from Ballybough bridge to Baggot 
 Rath was also covered by the floods of the Tolka, Liff'ey, and 
 Dodder, until confined by the North and South Walls. 
 
 The conclusion having been early arrived at that the port 
 of Dublin was not likely to be rendered at best more than a 
 tidal harbour, with its inseparable delays and dangers, and that 
 an entrance harbour sea- ward of the bar was indispensable, 
 Dunleary was selected, after a great deal of deliberation, 
 as a proper place for a work of that description. In the 
 year 1755 a petition was presented to Parliament, subscribed 
 by the merchants of Dublin, praying for a grant towards 
 the erection of a pier at Dunleary; the estimate was stated 
 at £20,100. The project having been approved, a sum of 
 £5,000 was voted in that year to Trustees nominated for 
 carrying on the works, to be accounted for by them to Par- 
 liament. A grant for a similar amount was made in 1757 ; 
 and in 1759 a further application was made by the Trustees, 
 stating that 361 feet in length of the pier were then finished, 
 that a considerable quantity of materials had been provided for 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 its further extension, and that valuable ships laden with sugar 
 had been saved by it, when in great distress. £3,000 only 
 were then granted. In 1761, the Trustees having again applied 
 for aid, a Committee of the House reported that the money 
 granted had been laid out with economy, and that a sum of 
 £9,322, to make up the original estimate, was still necessary for 
 completing the work. On the testimony of Mr. George 
 Glover, Surveyor of Kingstown, it appeared that no less than 
 thirteen vessels had been saved by it, several of them richly 
 laden, and that fifty-eight vessels had discharged their loading 
 there within the last two years. A further sum of £3,000 was 
 then granted, and in 1763 £1,000. 
 
 The Trustees having experienced much opposition from 
 some members who were adverse to all Parliamentary grants, 
 determined to free themselves from further responsibility, and 
 applied for the sum of £1,500 only, which they were assured 
 by Major Valiancy of the Royal Engineers, would be suffi- 
 cient, and who undertook to complete the pier for that sum, 
 with the unexpended balance of the former grant, the work 
 was accordingly brought to a close in 1767, short of the 
 original design, for a sum of £18,500. 
 
 This record has been here transcribed as an example of a 
 questionable description of Parliamentary control, which has 
 survived to the present time, often leading to greatly increased 
 expense, and many other evils, by the protraction of the period 
 of completion, owing to the mistaken economy of pinched 
 annual grants. 
 
 The harbour was formed by a single pier 33 feet wide at 
 top, extending 423 feet in a north-westerly direction, enclosing 
 a convenient space with a good strand for beaching on the 
 land side, towards the south there is also a boat slip. The head 
 is a segment not very correctly built, having a radius of 30 
 feet, and batters from 4 to 6 inches to the foot. At the head 
 there is from three to four feet depth at low water. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 19 
 
 With reference to an asylum harbour. Sir Hyde Page, in 
 his Report of the year 1800, having, as therein stated, taken 
 into consideration the great difficulty of making the port of 
 Dublin a good one, under any circumstances, seeing that the 
 bar could not be passed except at certain times of tide, and 
 that a great number of vessels were wrecked in Dublin Bay, 
 for want of a port with deep water to run for at any time, pro- 
 posed that Dalkey Sound should be sheltered against the east, 
 and points of the compass from the south to south-east, by 
 uniting Dalkey Island, Lamb and Maiden Islands, by a rough 
 wall or breakwater, and by extending, from the south-west 
 point of Dalkey Island, a pier to a sufficient distance into 
 Killiney Bay, in a south-westerly direction, in order to alford 
 better shelter to the anchorage. 
 
 He also proposed to carry out a pier into deep water at the 
 south side of the Bay, at Sandycove point, from which a ship 
 canal might be made to communicate with the Grand Canal 
 new floating docks. A short pier was also to be constructed 
 from the rock of Sandycove point, to be extended about 400 
 yards into the bay, nearly parallel with the course of the tides. 
 The proposed level of the water in the ship canal to be the 
 same as that of the Grand Canal harbour. A basin for 
 ships to be constructed near the Grand Canal, and the same 
 level as that of the Canal harbour was to be carried by an 
 aqueduct over the river Dodder, near Milltown, and from 
 thence on the same level across Mount Merrion Avenue, pass- 
 ing near the Stillorgan Obelisk, and Monkstown Church, to 
 the falling ground near Sandycove point, where locks were to 
 be made to communicate with an entrance basin, and with the 
 deep water in the bay. From the ship basin, near the Grand 
 Canal, a branch was proposed to communicate by lock with 
 the new docks and the Liflfey. 
 
 Sir Hyde Page, at the same period, directed his attention 
 to Howth. He recommended it as a good site for a Packet 
 
20 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 station, and proposed that a harbour should be formed by con- 
 structing a pier to extend one-third of the breadth of the 
 sound, towards Ireland's Eye, and from the latter towards 
 Howth, to protect the entrance from the north ; deepening to 
 Baldoyle water was also a part of this project. The cost of 
 the piers was estimated at £86,400. 
 
 Sir Hyde Page took occasion, during his inspection, to con- 
 demn a project of the Grand Canal Company, proposed by 
 Mr. Jessop, and approved by their Engineers, Captain Evans, 
 and Mr. Kilally, to make a ship canal from their new 
 docks to Old Dunleary harbour; the objection having been, 
 that it could not be carried from deep water, as at Sandycove, 
 thus involving the necessity of deep sinking under low water 
 mark. He also disapproved of two other plans of ship 
 canals, which appear to have been a favourite project of the 
 day, one by Mr. Vavasour, from Dalkey Sound to the Grand 
 Canal Docks, the other by Mr. Thomas Rogers, from the 
 Liffey, at the North Wall, by the North Strand, to the west- 
 ern end of the North Bull, opposite Clontarf, and thence 
 through the Isthmus of Howth, to connect with a harbour 
 proposed by him between Ireland's Eye and Howth. A large 
 portion of the Bull was to be taken in by an embankment and 
 reclaimed, and that tract, with the land included within the 
 southern bank of the canal, amounting to 3,200 acres, was 
 estimated to be worth, after the lapse of three years, £3 per 
 acre, which at twenty years' purchase would give £102,000, 
 being £69,460 more than the canal and sea embankment 
 would be completed for. In this final notice of these often- 
 mentioned sand-banks it will not be out of place to observe as 
 to their designation, borrowed from the supposed resemblance 
 of the noise of the tide passing over them, to the roaring of 
 bulls, that whether due or not to native imagination, it has a 
 classic precedent in the Iliad, where a similar comparison is 
 made by Homer, with reference to the resounding of the sea. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 21 
 
 From the great expense of Mr. Rennie's project, before 
 referred to, for the improvement of the port, with the small 
 comparative advantages to be derived, he was induced, as 
 others who had preceded him had done, to consider whether 
 any more eligible and effectual plan could be devised, at a less 
 expense, than what he had already proposed. 
 
 For that purpose he stated in his Report that having care- 
 fully examined the north side of the Bay, and round the Green 
 Baily, to the entrance of the harbour of Baldoyle, and also the 
 south side, and round by Dalkey Island to Killiney Bay, there 
 appeared three situations worthy of attention, namely, Sutton 
 Creek on the north side, Dunleary and Sandy cove on the 
 south side, and as to a harbour at Howth, in the sound between 
 Ireland's Eye and the main land, with a canal to Dublin, it 
 did not seem to him sufficiently inviting to warrant a very 
 strict examination, as he was of opinion that the harbour could 
 not be made permanently deep, and that the canal would be 
 silted up. 
 
 The sound, he observed, was extremely useful. There was 
 deep water round the whole island, and if vessels could get to 
 it in stormy weather, they would always find shelter in the 
 wake of it. He was therefore of opinion that no money should 
 be expended on this situation, nor on the improvement of 
 Dalkey Sound, as it was dangerous for vessels to take shelter 
 there in the winds blowing from the east and southward, on 
 account of the proximity of the entrance to a rocky lee shore, 
 these points of the wind being the only ones in which the 
 harbour could be of any use to a vessel embayed, as in easy 
 weather they could ride in the Man-of-War Roads, until the 
 tide suited. 
 
 The consideration then came, which of the three situations 
 named within the bay would best answer. The plan of an 
 entrance harbour at Sutton Creek, proposed by Captain Perry 
 in 1725, was approved of by Mr. Rennie, with some modifica- 
 
22 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 tions. Perry's scheme was to construct a harbour on the 
 north-west side of the Hill of Howth, by building a pier from 
 the south point of the North Bull, of about one thousand two 
 hundred yards in length, parallel to the shore, where the 
 depth is about 13 feet at low water, and another pier from the 
 mainland opposite to its extremity, of about three hundred and 
 fifty yards in length, leaving an opening of one hundred and 
 fifty yards wide between this and the west pier, as an entrance 
 to the harbour so formed. At the head of this harbour he 
 proposed to construct a sluice, and from thence a canal within 
 the North Bull, along the Clontarf shore, for boats and gab- 
 bards to navigate to the Liffey at Ringsend, having a weir or 
 overfall from Ringsend to Clontarf Island, for the purpose of 
 discharging the floods of the rivers Liffey and Dodder and the 
 Ballybough stream. The whole of these works estimated at 
 only £36,606, were in substitution of a plan proposed by him 
 in 1713, and condemned, but not until its impracticability 
 had been actually tested, as already noticed. 
 
 Mr. Rennie recommended that the harbour of Sutton should 
 be made sufficiently large to contain about 260 sail of ships, 
 in a depth of water from 12 to 14 feet at the entrance at low 
 water of spring tides. At the head of this harbour he pro- 
 posed a basin of about 5 acres, to hold about 40 sail of ships, 
 having a sea and communication lock, and from thence a ship 
 canal, about 80 feet wide at bottom, 160 feet at water surface, 
 and 20 feet deep, to be made to the east wall of the North 
 Lotts at Dublin, and there to establish wet docks of such 
 extent as the trade might require, to be supplied with water 
 from the Royal Canal. 
 
 The expense of this harbour and canal was estimated at 
 £657,157, to which should be added £150,000 for the docks, 
 so that the whole expense of the plan amounted to £800,000. 
 
 The second situation referred to within the Bay was at 
 Dunleary, and for it a plan had been proposed by Mr= 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 23 
 
 Jessop. This plan consisted of a harbour to be constructed at 
 Old Dunleary, having from 12 to 14 feet depth at low water, 
 but capable of holding" only 100 sail of vessels, the situation 
 not admitting of being much enlarged, without a very con- 
 siderable additional expense ; at the head of this harbour a 
 basin of 5 acres capable of holding about 40 sail of ships, with 
 a sea and communication lock, was proposed, and from thence 
 a canal to be made to the Grand Canal Docks. 
 
 The whole expense of the canal basin and harbour, as esti- 
 mated by Mr. Jessop, and approved of by Mr. Rennie, with a 
 modification similar to that proposed by him for Sutton, 
 amounted to £489,734, not including the enlarging of the 
 Grand Canal Docks. 
 
 With reference to the third situation, Sandycove, lying 
 about a mile and a quarter eastward of Dunleary, and where 
 there is deeper water, Mr. Rennie considered its situation in 
 the bay peculiarly eligible for the entrance of vessels riding 
 either in the Man-of-War Roads, when storms came on, or for 
 inward-bound vessels from the channel ; he also considered 
 it equally convenient for vessels proceeding to sea. He 
 reported that the situation admitted of a harbour being con- 
 structed similar to that proposed for Dunleary. But the 
 ground from thence to Dunleary being high and rocky, the 
 making of a canal for so short a distance, to join with that 
 proposed to communicate with Dublin, would amount to 
 £100,104. The ends of the proposed piers being also in very 
 deep water, namely, four fathoms at low water, would render 
 them very expensive, so that the whole expense of the plan 
 would amount to £705,054, being £49,184 more than at 
 Sutton Creek, and £215,320 more than at Dunleary. 
 
 Captain Joseph Huddart having been consulted on the 
 nautical questions involved, admitted the eligibility of the 
 three situations above described, but concurred with Mr. 
 Rennie infgiving the decided preference to Dunleary, which, 
 
24 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 from the description, will be seen was a project distinct from 
 the present asylum harbour at Kingstown, in deeper water 
 than that constructed in 1765. 
 
 INLAND NAVIGATION. 
 
 The importance attached to the supplying of Dublin with 
 native coal gave rise to many extensive projects for the pro- 
 motion of that object. The communication between the 
 oUieries at Drumglass, near Dungannon, and lough Neagh, 
 was effected by the Tyrone navigation, or Coal Island Canal, 
 leading into the Blackwater river, and from thence by the 
 Maghery Cut into the lough from which the river Bann and 
 the Newry navigation conduct to Carlingford lough. 
 
 The Newry Canal extends 3J miles from the Victoria sea- 
 lock at Doyle's Hole to Newry, and from thence to the 
 navigable part of the Upper Bann river, the whole distance 
 to lough Neagh being 25^ miles Irish, 9 miles being in 
 the bed of the river. The summit is 65 feet above the 
 level of the sea, and 22 feet above lough Neagh, making a 
 total rise and fall of 87 feet in 24 miles, equal to 3f feet of 
 lockage. There are 13 inland locks, varying in size from 63 
 feet 10 inches by 15 feet 1 inch to 15 feet 3 inches in width, 
 5 feet to 5 feet 6 inches on sills, in the normal state of the 
 navigation; width of canal, 40 to 45 feet at water line. The 
 summit level is supplied by a feeder from the Cushe river, 
 taken at Tanderagee bridge ; there is also the reservoir of 
 lough Shark, about 75 acres area, which is, itself, fed by a 
 stream flowing from Loughbrickland ; this, however, is stored 
 up in summer for flax mills when it is most needed for the 
 purposes of the canal. The Bann seldom floods the neigh- 
 bouring lands since the completion of the lough Neagh 
 drainage. There is, at the entrance of the lough, a bar, 
 having over from 4 to 5 feet of water in summer, but as it 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 25 
 
 shifts with the varying impulses of the current, frequent 
 dredging would be required. 
 
 The adoption of different plans, and the rejection of them 
 when partly executed, led to great expense in the execution 
 of the works of this navigation ; some short details of the 
 difficulties of which, it is presumed will not be amiss in illus- 
 tration of the state of the engineering of the period, not 
 belonging to a native school though practised in Ireland. 
 The undertaking was commenced in 1732 between Newry 
 and the river Bann, under the direction of Mr. Richard 
 Cassel, a German Engineer, who was appointed by the 
 Commissioners of the Board of Navigation, and who built the 
 first stone lock erected in Ireland. Mr. Cassel, not having 
 given satisfaction, was replaced by Mr. Steers, a Liverpool 
 Engineer, under whom the canal from Newry to the deep 
 water of the Bann was finished in 1741. The portion between 
 Newry and Fathom Point was not completed until 30 years 
 later. 
 
 We learn from a report in 1750, of Mr. Acheson Johnston, 
 Undertaker and Engineer of the Newry Canal, positions then 
 not incompatible, that of the fifteen locks on the canal, twelve 
 were in good order, two of the remaining three were built 
 nine years previously on a French plan, with pipes in the 
 side walls instead of sluice tunnels ; these were subject to 
 burst and were out of order. The splays or fronts and tails 
 of the locks were built of brick and were mouldering away, 
 and the waste of water was such, that the levels, full over 
 night, were dry in the morning. The third lock was built of 
 common rough stone, and the water had pooled behind it in 
 several places. A mile and a half of the upper level, next 
 Poyntz Pass, was so narrow that two boats of burthen could 
 not pass each other. 
 
 As to the then state of the navigation from lough Neagh 
 through the county of Tyrone towards the coal pits, Mr. 
 
26 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 Johnston stated that the navigation was continued out of the 
 lough by the Maghery Cut for nearly three miles in the bed 
 of the Blackwater river, and that a canal was carried from 
 thence 3 miles 38 perches to the town of Coal Island, that it 
 had three locks upon it of stone, and that it should be carried 
 further towards the collieries of Drumglass and Stewartstown. 
 
 The Maghery Cut was made across the isthmus of that 
 name for the purpose of avoiding the bar at the mouth of the 
 Blackwater, having upon it 1 foot 10 inches of water in 
 summer. 
 
 The continuation of the canal, on Mr. Acheson Johnston's 
 plan, having presented some difficulties, Mr. Christoper Myers 
 was appointed to succeed him as director of the works, in 
 1762. He proposed to make a canal of sufficient size to 
 enable vessels of 100 tons to sail from Newry to the collieries. 
 He began at the colliery basin, but he had not made much 
 progress when he found that the expense would be so great, 
 that he recommended the giving of it up after having made 
 the experiment^ as he called it, of excavating a portion of the 
 line and building a lock 125 feet long and 22 feet wide. 
 The estimated cost of this canal, to extend 2^ miles, from the 
 termination of the old canal to the colliery, was £26,000. 
 The intention of making it having been abandoned, Mr. Davis 
 Duckart, an English Engineer, who had been long in the 
 Sardinian service, was appointed. He made a communication 
 between Drumglass and Coal Island, a distance of about three 
 miles, by the formation of four pools, or levels, at different 
 elevations, 4 feet deep and 24 feet wide, for vessels of 12 tons 
 burthen : between each level, was an inclined plane having 
 beams of timber laid down with castors fixed on them. These 
 contrivances, called dry hurries, were intended for small laden 
 vessels to go down with the help of a crane and rope to 
 prevent their running too fast, and also to draw up the empty 
 boats. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 27 
 
 This system of narrow canals, inclined planes, and wheeled 
 boats of about 4 feet in width, was recommended by Fulton, 
 as useful in facilitating the navigation of the great rivers and 
 lakes of America, and was intended as an improvement on the 
 plan of the Chinese, who, being ignorant of the contrivance 
 of a lock, use, at the present day, inclined planes, up which 
 their boats are pulled by a great expenditure of manual labour. 
 
 In the year 1774, Mr. Jessop was consulted as to the mode 
 of constructing the inclined planes between the different 
 reaches of the canal, and he having had some doubts as to 
 the mode of proceeding, had recourse to the advice of Smeaton, 
 who, in his reply, as given in the second volume of his 
 Reports, observes — " That, as the bulk of the expense had 
 been incurred in making the reaches of the canal, the 
 experiment of Duckart ought to be carried out in order to 
 test its applicability to other places." Smeaton adds — " If 
 the scheme does not, on trial, answer, a railroad of timber, 
 after the manner of those at Newcastle and Whitehaven, 
 would be preferable in such a situation, either to a canal 
 or a gravelled road, especially as it could be done with a 
 length of two miles, and most of the way down hill, so that 
 the loaded waggons would go down by their own gravity, and 
 the horses would have nothing to do but to draw the empty 
 ones back, which, in a rise of 192 feet in two miles, would be 
 easy work." We, at this time, cannot understand how a most 
 expensive and complicated system should be preferred to the 
 simple and effective contrivance of an inclined plane. 
 
 Mr. Duckart also proposed and partly executed a subter- 
 ranean navigable canal, with ventilating shafts to be made to 
 answer as a sough or drain for all the collieries, and to 
 communicate with the old navigation, at a cost of £26,900. 
 A Mr. Hamilton Bury, an Engineer, who had been contractor 
 on the works of the Nore, gave evidence before a Committee 
 of the House of Commons, as we do now-a-days, that the 
 
28 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 work could be executed for the estimate, but, as also sometimes 
 happens with us, it was not so done, and was, after the 
 expenditure of a considerable sum of money, abandoned about 
 the year 1775. 
 
 Mr. Richard Owen having been called on for his pro- 
 fessional advice in 1787, found the hurries constructed by Mr. 
 Duckart out of order : he recommended the gradient of the 
 inclines to be lessened, and the beams and rollers to be re- 
 placed by a road made of broken stone and gravel. In 
 this state matters remained as long as unchecked dilapidation 
 permitted. 
 
 With reference to that portion of the navigation from Newry 
 to Fathom, which, as before stated, was not finished until 
 thirty years after that between Newry and the Bann, a con- 
 tract was entered into in 1758, for its execution, with Mr. 
 John Golborne, Engineer, of Chester, who, after working at it 
 for a year, abandoned it, and returned to his own country. 
 After Golborne's departure, recourse was had to Mr. Chris- 
 topher Myers and Mr. Thomas Omer, in conjunction, by 
 whom, what was done by Golborne, was condemned, and 
 considerable sums were laid out by them up to 1763, without, 
 however, producing any desirable result; for, on inquiry 
 before a Committee of the House of Commons, in 1767, it 
 appeared that the work was wholly inoperative. 
 
 Mr. Christopher Myers, who, at that period, was architect 
 to His Majesty's Board of Works, having been examined, 
 stated that so much of the work as was carried on by him, in 
 1762 and 1763, was in accordance with the plan approved by 
 the House in 1759, that he had advised 6 feet depth instead 
 of 9 feet, as executed, and that he had offered in the first 
 instance to contract for the whole for £18,000, provided 
 half the amount was then granted, and the remainder in the 
 following session, but as £5,000 only was granted, he re- 
 fused to be responsible for its completion. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 29 
 
 Mr. Thomas Omer, who was a Dutch Engineer, having 
 been examined as to the insufficiency of his plans, excused 
 himself by stating that he knew they would not answer ; that 
 he had made them by order of the Navigation Board, and 
 that he proceeded while the money lasted. 
 
 As this was by no means a solitary instance of the mis- 
 application of public funds, the management of the Navigation 
 Board fell into disrepute ; and that body, which commenced 
 its functions in 1730, under the 3rd Geo. II., was dissolved 
 by the 27th Geo. III. in 1787, and a system of granting aids 
 to private undertakers, in proportion to their subscriptions, 
 was thenceforth adopted under the provisions of that act. 
 The navigations thus transferred were those of Newry, the 
 Boyne, the Barrow, the Shannon, and Tyrone. The com- 
 pany for carrying on the Limerick Navigation had been 
 already incorporated in the year 1767, and the Grand Canal 
 Company in 1772. To these undertakings grants in aid 
 were made from 1789 to 1800, and in the latter year a sum 
 of £500,000 was granted to be applied to the system of 
 navigation generally, and for the improvement of the Port of 
 Dublin in particular, under the supervision of a board of 
 five directors. 
 
 The management of a body so numerous and ill-constituted 
 as the old Navigation Board, consisting as it did of eighty -six 
 persons, twenty commissioners having been particularly named 
 for each of the four provinces, with the Chief Governor, the 
 four Archbishops, the Speaker for the time being, at their 
 head, carried with it from the begiiming the germ of its own 
 decadence, and in its failure could have suggested no other 
 feeling than that of surprise at its having been accorded an 
 existence of fifty-seven years, during which twenty-three dif- 
 ferent extensive projects were undertaken, but not a single one 
 brought to completion, with an aggregate expenditure of 
 £600,000. But bad as the administrative part of the manage- 
 
30 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 ment must have been, the executive was still worse, and its 
 details go far to show that there were other causes of failure 
 than that generally received, of a prevalent system of jobbing, 
 an imputation from which to relieve the country, even at this 
 distance of time, is a duty not too late to be performed; the 
 inference from the statement of facts being left to others to 
 draw, keeping in mind that the Engineers employed during 
 the period referred to were not Irish. 
 
 About the year 1780 the canal was extended three miles 
 further to Fathom, to accommodate the ordinary run of coasters 
 of about 120 tons, there being 9 feet depth of water on 
 the sill, and 21 feet breadth of lock. In 1789 Mr. Richard 
 Evans, Civil Engineer, reported on the state of the navigation, 
 and gave plans for its improvement, but without having been 
 attended with results, nor does any renewed attention appear 
 to have been given to the subject until the year 1800, on the 
 vesting of the Tyrone Navigation in the newly constituted 
 Board of Inland Navigation, when Sir Thomas Hyde Page 
 made a proposal to extend the canal from Fathom to Rice's 
 Bay, opposite Warren Point, at a cost of £136,000. On 
 entering into possession at the above period the Directors- 
 General found that the works, constructed at a cost of 
 £114,220, had been allowed to fall almost into a state 
 of ruin, and they were obliged to expend £20,730 on 
 the Tyrone Navigation which had been abandoned, and 
 £53,379 on the reconstruction of the Newry Navigation, in 
 deepening the levels and rebuilding most of the locks ; 
 £15,043 of the latter expenditure having been received from 
 tolls. Up to 1812 these works were executed under the 
 direction of Mr. Brownrigg, who was the first native Engineer 
 appointed. 
 
 The widening of the sea lock at Fathom, and the putting 
 in of a stone platform and sill — the first instance of that mode 
 of construction in Ireland, was subsequently executed at an 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 31 
 
 additional expense of £5,000, under the superintendence of 
 the same Engineer. 
 
 In 1828 Mr. Alexander Nimmo having been consulted, 
 reported in favour of deepening the natural channel of the 
 river, so as to secure 14 feet depth at neap tides all the way 
 up to Newry. For this his estimate was £98,568. In 1830 
 Rennie, Killaly, and Brownrigg agreed generally in their 
 Reports as to the propriety of making a canal from Fathom 
 to the deep water at Doyle's Hole, with a ship lock there, and 
 the deepening of the natural channel at Narrow Water, as 
 recommended by Rennie. 
 
 In the year 1831 the Newry Navigation Company was 
 incorporated by Act of Parliament, and they were authorised 
 to levy tolls on condition of their expending not less than 
 £80,000, in seven years, in keeping the works in repair, and 
 in the extension and improvemet of the Navigation, or in de- 
 fault, the works to revert to the Commissioners of Inland 
 Navigation, on payment of their value to the Company. It 
 appears that up to 1848 nearly £50,000 were expended by 
 the Company in deepening and widening the channel of the 
 river from Doyle's Hole to Narrow Water, and from thence to 
 Warren Point, that a steam dredge had been purchased for 
 that purpose, and that a contract had been entered into 
 amounting to £40,000 for extending the canal along the 
 western side of the river, from Fathom to Doyle's Hole, and 
 the erection of a ship lock, all of which have been since 
 executed. 
 
 The canal has been extended one mile and a-half from 
 Fathom — the old lock there taken up, and the Victoria lock 
 designed by Sir John Rennie, and superintended by Mr. John 
 Ramsay, Civil Engineer, was opened for traffic in the year 
 1850, at a point in the river three and a-half miles below 
 Newry, known as Doyle's Hole, where there is 76 feet sound- 
 ing, affording safe anchorage to vessels waiting for the opening 
 
32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 of the lock, which is 220 feet long and 50 feet wide, having 
 17 feet 9 inches of water on the upper sill into the canal, and 
 7 feet on the lower sill at low water of spring tides. The 
 masonry is of a very superior description, consisting of massive 
 granite blocks, with some limestone, from the neighbourhood 
 of Carlingford. The whole was erected at a cost of £25,000, 
 including two pair of gates made of mahogany and teak ; the 
 estimate of the latter was £3,500. 
 
 The new part of the canal is 140 feet wide at water surface, 
 and 80 feet wide for the remainder of the distance to the 
 entrance of the Albert Basin at Newry, which does not admit 
 vessels of more than 14 feet draught, rendering it necessary to 
 lighten them in the canal, where the depth is 17 feet. From 
 Victoria Lock to Warrenpoint Roads, a distance of two and 
 one-third miles, shoals of rock and sand have been removed 
 by blasting and dredging, and river walls constructed, con- 
 fining, and in some parts enlarging, the tidal scour. 
 
 The Belfast Railway competes with the Newry Canal to 
 Portadown, running close alongside in many places ; however, 
 the communication by means of lough Neagh with the Ulster, 
 Coal Island, and Lagan Canals, enables this navigation to 
 maintain the struggle. The tonnage register entered sea- 
 wards, on an average of the years 1858 and 1859, was 78,051 
 tons, and the receipts from ballast and tolls, both sea and 
 inland, amounted averagely to £6,074. 
 
 With reference to the attainment of the object which at the 
 outset prompted the undertaking of the Tyrone and Newry 
 Navigations, namely, the supplying of Dublin with coal, it 
 appears that in 1748 a company, consisting of a few wealthy 
 local proprietors, was formed, and a Mr. John Fletcher, an 
 English gentleman of great experience, was brought over, 
 who, on examination, was so convinced of the great capabili- 
 ties of the Drumglass and Stewartstown collieries that he 
 joined the partnership, and sent miners and artificers from 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 33 
 
 England. He put up a large water engine, worked by a 
 rivulet, and constructed a sough or underground drain, 1,200 
 yards in length, but these means of unwatering having proved 
 to be inadequate, a sum of £2,000 was granted by Parliament 
 in 1784 to John Staples and James Caulfield, Esquires, for 
 the purpose of erecting a steam engine, obtained from an 
 English manufacturer, who was delayed in fulfilling his agree- 
 ment by the drought of the season depriving him of mill power. 
 This was probably the first steam engine introduced into Ire- 
 land; and the fact of a factory of that description being wholly 
 dependent on water-power, shows the stage to which that 
 branch of manufacture had at the time arrived in England. 
 
 The catalogue of successive failures may be summed up by 
 the report of Mr. Francis Trench, Secretary to the Directors- 
 General in 1812. He informed that Board that the price of 
 coal at the pit was sixteen shillings per ton, and the lessee 
 expected to get them to Dublin for twenty-six or twenty-eight 
 shillings, including the bounty of two shillings per ton. Mr. 
 Trench did not consider it was the interest of the lessee to 
 send them there, as they were of a very indifferent quality, 
 small, swift, and without any of the bituminous quality to 
 make them adhere. He found from actual trial, at a house in 
 the neighbourhood, that a good fire could not be made of them 
 without the addition of turf; at another house they burned 
 English coal, at thirty shillings per ton, which he considered 
 was much cheaper, being better. Having been informed that 
 there was a superior description at Coal Island, he visited that 
 place ; the pit was about 60 feet deep, and the seam reported 
 to be six feet, but it could not be raised large ; on the whole 
 it was by far ihe worst coal he ever saw, and in his opinion 
 was not worth working. 
 
 At a later period the field was occupied by two companies, 
 and notably by the Hibernian Mining Company in 1829, but 
 as this branch of the subject has been taken up by Sir Richard 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 Griffith, in his Survey of the Tyrone Coal District, it would 
 be more than superfluous to pursue it further here. 
 
 More details may, at first sight, perhaps, appear to have 
 been entered into with reference to the Tyrone and Newry 
 Navigations than the immediate interest of the subject deserves, 
 but their chequered progress is so illustrative of the empirical 
 character of the engineering of the time, that in an historical 
 point of view a particular notice of the progress of these under- 
 takings, in connexion with the professional persons employed, 
 can not be considered out of place, the more so as it has been 
 customary to attribute the failure of every thing in Ireland to 
 native incompetency, or yet worse, to jobbing, whereas the 
 facts show that the unskilfulness was not theirs, and that the 
 spirit of enterprise was marred by the general want of profes- 
 sional knowledge. 
 
 CARLINGFORD LOUGH. 
 
 This lough is a natural inlet, extending eight miles from the 
 bar at its entrance to Warren Point, and affording upwards of 
 one thousand acres of good anchorage, but subject to a rapid 
 run of tide, and to heavy squalls from the Mourne mountains. 
 According to the nautical survey of Captain Mudge and 
 Lieutenant Frazer, made in 1831, the soundings at low water 
 of spring tides are but 9 feet on the bar, the rise of springs 18 
 feet, and of neaps 12 feet. Once, however, the bar is crossed 
 there are six miles in extent of the lough, having not less than 
 four fathoms depth, the remaining two miles to Warren Point 
 are navigable at tide time by vessels of 18 feet draught. The 
 entire of the navigation from lough Neagh to Carlingford 
 bar is about thirty-two miles in length. 
 
 Warren Point lies six and a half miles below Newry. A 
 tidal basin was constructed there, at the public expense, in 
 1767, but has since been enlarged, and quays built by the 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 35 
 
 owner of the soil, the Marquis of Anglesea, who levies dues 
 for their use. A patent slip has also been built, capable of 
 admitting vessels of 750 tons, being the tonnage of the largest 
 steamers of which Warren Point is the station. 
 
 Carlingford Bay in its position, half-way between Kings- 
 town and Belfast lough, distant from each other 100 miles, 
 offers great advantages for refuge in easterly winds, if its bar 
 were removed, the practicability of which, by dredging, has 
 been shown by the soundings made in 1835 by Mr. Ramsay, 
 Resident Engineer, who reported it to be an original forma- 
 tion, composed of blue clay, mixed with moderately-sized 
 boulders. Mr. Robert Tuthill, the present Engineer of the 
 Newry Navigation, states that a passage of about half a mile 
 in length, of easy access, and leading into four fathoms water, 
 could be readily made by dredging. A deep passage through 
 the bar was discovered when the Commissioners for inquiring 
 into Harbours of Refuge were examining it in 1859, but it is 
 tortuous, and a square-rigged vessel would find it difficult to 
 beat in, unless in a leading wind, nor could it be attempted, 
 under any circumstances, at night. 
 
 Captain Washington, R.N., has observed, in the second 
 Report of the Commissioners on Tidal Harbours, that the 
 rendering of this bay a harbour of refuge, by deepening the 
 bar to at least 18 feet at low water of springs, would be well 
 worth a large expenditure, on account of the very great 
 number of vessels navigating the Irish Sea, and having no 
 other harbour between Kingstown and Belfast Lough, unless, 
 perhaps, Strangford, that can be taken in an easterly gale, but 
 under such circumstances the latter would be difficult of access, 
 there are not, however, wanting available intermediate posi- 
 tions on the coast, as at Skerries, county Dublin, Ardglass 
 and Clogher Head ; the two former could be made of great 
 service, at a moderate cost, ; and Clogher Head, within eight 
 miles of the bar of Carlingford, possesses considerable capabili- 
 
36 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 ties for an asylum harbour, a large sum, however, would be 
 required to render it effective. 
 
 Judging from Norie's sailing directions for the Irish Sea, 
 the approach to Carlingford Bay, outside the bar, is beset with 
 danger ; it has, however, been again brought into notice as a 
 harbour of refuge by the Commissioners for inquiring into 
 harbours of that description in 1859. They recommend that 
 a channel, six hundred feet in width, should be dredged 
 through the bar, at a cost of £50,000. 
 
 LAGAN NAVIGATION. 
 
 This navigation extends twenty-eight miles, from lough 
 Neagh to the quays at Belfast, from whence, to the first lock, 
 there are two miles in the tide-way. The summit level, 
 eleven miles in length, is 112 feet 6 inches above the Belfast 
 lough, and 71 feet above lough Neagh. There are twenty- 
 seven locks in all, of which seventeen complete the rise 
 between Belfast and the summit, four of them, in close 
 proximity, called the Union locks, ascend at a distance of 
 thirteen miles from Belfast, from the river to the summit 
 whence the navigation to the lough is artificial, about three- 
 fourths of the whole length being similarly circumstanced. 
 The summit level is carried over the river Lagan six miles 
 three-quarters from the Union Locks, by an aqueduct of four 
 arches. The chambers of the locks are 65 feet 3 inches long, 
 and 15 feet 6 inches wide, with 6 feet 6 inches depth on 
 the sills in winter. The locks between Belfast and the summit 
 having been built of red sand-stone, became so dilapidated 
 that large pieces had to be cut out of the side walls, and 
 replaced with fire-brick, but basaltic stone having been used 
 at the lough Neagh side, no such reparation was found 
 necessary. The levels of the respective reaches are maintained 
 by pen weirs, and over-falls constructed on the usual principle. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 37 
 
 the former have from eight to fifteen sluices in each of them 
 respectively. The artificial cuts have a breadth at bottom of 
 30 feet, and 51 feet 6 inches at water surface, and, except in 
 very dry seasons, barges drawing from 5 to 6 feet pass freely, 
 carrying sixty to seventy tons burthen. 
 
 This is one of the many projects commenced under the 
 auspices of our native legislature, defective in design, and con- 
 sequently attended with ever-recurring impediments during 
 its construction, aggravated by the absence of sufficient means 
 for completion, under unfavourable circumstances. In the 
 year 1753 the Board of Inland Navigation was empowered by 
 the Act 27th Geo. II., c. 3, to make the river Lagan navi- 
 gable, and to open a passage by water between the town of 
 Belfast and lough Neagh. In order to carry out that object, 
 additional duties were levied by consent of the inhabitants, on 
 certain articles brought for consumption into the district 
 through which the navigation was to extend. The works 
 were commenced soon after the passing of the above-mentioned 
 Act, and were in the year 1 763 advanced in their construction 
 so far as to have allowed a boat of forty tons to pass from 
 Belfast to Lisburn, a distance of eleven English miles, open 
 from that period for public traffic. 
 
 The following, with reference to this subject, appears in 
 the Reports of the House of Commons for the year 1767. 
 Mr. Thomas Omer, Civil Engineer, having been examined, 
 stated, that between Belfast and Lisburn weir, there had 
 been built twelve locks and eight pen locks, upon which were 
 expended about £1,000 each ; that it would require one more 
 large pen lock in the tide-way near Belfast, in order to admit 
 of a passage for boats at neap tides, this would cost at least 
 £1,000, and would complete the number of locks necessary 
 between Belfast and Lisburn weir. That the digging yet to 
 be done on the trackways would require £500, so that £1,500 
 would complete the navigation from Belfast to Lisburn weir 
 
38 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 for vessels of from forty to fifty tons burthen. That from 
 Lisburn weir to Spencer's bridge, a distance of about six 
 miles, would afford sufficient work from that period to the 
 next session, and would require £3,000 to complete, supposing 
 it to be carried on in the bed of the river." 
 
 The Committee resolved that it was their opinion it would 
 require £4,500 to complete the navigation from Lisburn weir 
 to Spencer's bridge, and that the £4,000 granted in the last 
 session had been accounted for. 
 
 The works above referred to by Mr. Omer having been 
 completed at an expense of £43,304, arising from tolls and 
 grants, and there being no corporate funds at command, the 
 extension from Spencer's bridge to lough Neagh was carried 
 out under the direction of Mr. Owen, Civil Engineer, at an 
 expense of £60,000, by the munificence of the Donegal family, 
 to whom the navigation belonged until the early part of the 
 present century, when it was purchased by a company of 
 merchants, by whom several necessary improvements were 
 effected, amongst which may be enumerated the making of 
 the artificial cut between the fourth and fifth locks. From 
 this level, also, five tunnels were constructed, opening into 
 the river with valves acting only when the water in the 
 river is low. An additional lock was made in the tide-way 
 about a mile nearer to Belfast than the previous No. 1 lock, 
 in order to facilitate the passage of boats in neap tides ; and 
 the degrading effect of the river on some parts of the canal 
 was remedied by driving piles to support the banks. These 
 improvements were effected between the years 1809 and 1820. 
 
 Not less than eight acts of parliament, commencing with 
 the 27th Geo. II., in 1753, and ending with the 6th and 7th 
 Vic, in 1843, conferring powers to raise money to complete 
 this undertaking, were obtained ; and yet much that was felt 
 to be desirable remains undone. The money authorised to be 
 borrowed by the act of 1843, has not been raised for the 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 39 
 
 proposed extension of the canal to Belfast, and consequently 
 the difficulty of entering it when the wind blows from a 
 certain point remains unremedied, but lighters can pass freely 
 at all other times of high water at neap tides. The navigation, 
 t aken generally, is in fair working order, and the shareholders 
 have been receiving a small dividend for the last few years. 
 
 There were two great errors in the original plan of this 
 undertaking, the first being through an idea of economy, 
 making the river with a fall of 80 feet, part of the navigation 
 between Lisburn and Belfast, the rapidity of the current 
 having been a constantly recurring cause of injury to the 
 banks, and interruption to the trade ; the second error was the 
 insufficient supply of the head level. For remedying the 
 first, Mr. Robert Whitworth, having been in Ireland in the 
 year 1800, was consulted, and recommended the abandoning 
 of the river as a navigation, and turning it into the head level 
 for supply, but the valuable milling interests would have been 
 so much injured by the carrying out of his plan, that it was 
 abandoned and palliatives only resorted to. 
 
 Mr. Mullins, in his Treatise on Inland Navigation, pub- 
 lished in 1823, observes that — 
 
 " This navigation partakes of the defects of its time, both as to design 
 and cost of execution, Continuing in the beds of rivers, even when running 
 through flat countries little subject to floods, is found generally to be 
 inferior to parallel cuts ; but in those rivers subject to a sudden rise in 
 their waters, the idea of making them permanently navigable, at a remu- 
 nerative cost, is almost hopeless ; the tendency they have to raise their 
 beds, the constant shifting of their channels, the wear and casualties to 
 which they are so peculiarly liable, and the consequent cost of maintenance 
 are considerations of such weight, that, if duly appreciated, the improvement 
 of river navigations, except in few instances, would not be undertaken." 
 
 These theories, he continues — 
 
 "Applying almost universally, are realized in our rivers which have 
 been rendered partially navigable by an outlay far more than sufficient to 
 make parallel lines of canals through the districts in which they respectively 
 
40 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 run ; the river courses being in the latter case left free for the performance 
 of such necessary operations as deepening their channels, and the removal 
 of those obstacles which occasion the constant overflowing of their banks 
 for several months in each successive year, to the great deterioration, if 
 not destruction, of thousands of acres of what would otherwise be the best 
 land in the country." 
 
 Mr. William Chapman, with whom Mr. Mullins had the 
 advantage of frequent communication during his residence in 
 Ireland, makes observations of a somewhat similar nature in 
 his Report, dated 1795, on the proposed canal between New- 
 castle-on-Tyne and Solway Firth. He rejects the plan of 
 making the river navigable above the tide-way, on account of 
 its liability to floods, and the consequent formation of shoals, 
 owing to the nature of the bottom ; and he observes, that 
 flush weirs or any other means of keeping the channel open in 
 dry seasons, would be attended with great expense; that the 
 river could not be thrown into a succession of still pools, 
 except at an outlay, ior the construction of locks, exceed- 
 ing that of a canal cut through the land ; and as to forming 
 a navigation partly composed of a canal, cutting off the 
 sudden bends of the river, and partly of the river itself, it 
 would partake of the inconvenience of making the river the 
 chief line of communication, and would be subject to great 
 interruption and danger from floods. In consequence of this 
 the undertakers should either be content to have their works 
 occasionally overflowed, or they must, at the upstream entrance 
 of every part of the canal, where it leaves the river erect, a 
 guard lock of a height equal to that of the floods. The 
 expense of every such lock, with its accompanying weir, and 
 of the raised trackways along the navigable shore, would be 
 very great. Under these circumstances he decided on an 
 independent canal entirely across the dry land. 
 
 The conditions under which the improvement of river 
 navigations should be undertaken, shall be referred to when 
 we come to treat of arterial drainage operations 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 41 
 
 THE NAVIGATION OF THE NORE. 
 
 In this undertaking, commenced in 1755, another instance is 
 to be added to the list of failures, as well in the design and 
 construction of the work, as in the ill-considered efforts to 
 supply Dublin with coal, as if the spirit of the day were in 
 accordance with the advice of Dean Swift, to 
 
 " Burn everything English but their coal." 
 The navigation extending from the city of Kilkenny to 
 Ennisteague, a distance of sixteen miles, had been planned 
 by Mr. Omer, in the bed of the river, and estimated by him 
 at a sum of £10,000 ; but Mr. Ockenden's plan, in which 
 Mr. Omer concurred, for making a canal about four miles in 
 length, and carrying the navigation in the bed of the river 
 the remainder of the distance to Ennisteague, where there was 
 to be a tide-lock, was adopted at an estimated cost of £22,600. 
 Several locks were built 200 feet in length, 21 feet in breadth, 
 and with from 9 to 10 feet fall; also a rimer or flash lock, 
 intended, in time of flood, to preserve 12 feet head of water; 
 at the entrance of the canal into the river, there were platforms 
 of stone work as overfalls to carry off the waste water, and 
 several weirs built to turn the water into the canal. Mr. 
 Ockenden having died in 1761, Mr. George Smith was 
 appointed to direct the works ; he reported that boats had 
 passed through all the locks; that £14,000 had been ex- 
 pended, and that it would take £8,471 to carry the navigation 
 from Ballyredingford to Thomastown, within 4 miles of the 
 proposed termination at Ennisteague. After an expenditure 
 of £30,000, it was found that the plan was so ill-devised and 
 executed, that the works were unable to resist the force of the 
 floods, and what with the breaches and subsidence, the whole 
 became an irreparable ruin. 
 
42 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 LIMERICK NAVIGATION. 
 
 The navigation from Limerick to Killaloe, partly still water 
 and partly in the Shannon, is generally known by the above 
 designation ; it is twelve miles in length, and the rate of 
 lockage is 83 feet 6 inches in that distance, or nearly 7 feet per 
 mile. There are eleven locks, none of them alike as to di- 
 mensions, and that at Annabeg, although 80 feet long, is not 
 capable of passing a boat exceeding 70 feet in length, owing 
 to the table of the breast gates projecting 10 feet into the 
 chamber. Some of the locks are 16 feet wide, but no boat 
 exceeding 15 feet beam can pass through the whole of them. 
 
 The works having been commenced under the direction of Mr. 
 Omer in 1 755, were carried on simultaneously with those of the 
 Upper Shannon, between Lanesborough and Carrick, by the 
 Navigation Board, until 1767, when an Act of Parliament was 
 passed incorporating a company of undertakers for making the 
 Shannon navigable from the city of Limerick to lough Derg, 
 above the town of Killaloe; and Mr. William Chapman was 
 appointed their engineer ; the works of the Upper Shannon 
 having still remained under the same control as before. From 
 1767 to 1800 upwards of £25,000 were expended, of which 
 £16,000 were granted by parliament, and a further grant of 
 £6,000 having been applied for in that year as sufficient to 
 complete the works, the Limerick Company were referred by 
 the Government to the Directors- General, who agreed, in 1803, 
 to complete the navigation at the public expense, and to de- 
 liver it up to the company on condition of their lowering their 
 tolls as specified. The works were accordingly proceeded 
 with under the direction of Mr. Brown rigg, Principal Engineer 
 to the Board, and when nearly finished, an extraordinary flood, 
 in February, 1809, burst the banks at Erina, carried away 
 the bridge, destroyed the double lock at the same place, and 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 43 
 
 broke through many other parts of the navigation. The cost 
 of repairing these damages formed a considerable portion of 
 the expense incurred, which, up to January, 1812, amounted 
 to £53,609. The injuries done to the navigation having 
 been repaired, the Directors- General in December, 1810, 
 offered to deliver it up to the company, but they refused to 
 receive it, alleging that the works were insufficient, and great 
 differences of opinion having taken place between the Engineer 
 of the Directors-General and Mr. Donnell, who acted for the 
 company, Mr. John Killaly was called in as umpire. The 
 result was, that the company received £17,000 in consideration 
 of relinquishing their rights, and the navigation has since 
 become public property. 
 
 The cost of these twelve miles of navigation, of which five 
 and a-half are in the bed of the river, computed from 1767 to 
 1810, was £79,559, to this should be added £17,000 paid 
 for the purchase of the rights of the Limerick Company, 
 making in all £96,558. The sum of £27,000, stated in Mr. 
 Killaly's Report of 1812 to the Directors-General, as necessary 
 to perfect the works, was not laid out, and consequently the 
 navigation was left in a very imperfect state, particularly at 
 O'Brien's bridge and Parteen — the trackways incomplete, and 
 the whole liable to frequent damage from floods, and as to 
 the portion between Killaloe and Banagher, not within the 
 scope of the Act of Incorporation of the Company, large 
 boats could not ply, except in winter, on account of the shoals, 
 nor small boats in summer, for want of towing-paths. The 
 principal benefit derived from the undertaking, at that period, 
 appears to have been the supplying of Limerick with great 
 quantities of turf, English coal having been selling there at 
 fifty shillings per ton. 
 
44 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 THE UPPER SHANNON. 
 
 The original intention of Parliament was to make a commu- 
 nication between the Barrow, the Shannon, and the Boyne, 
 by means of the Grand Canal, as a main trunk, thereby 
 enabling the produce of twenty counties, ten of which lie along 
 the banks of the Shannon, to be carried to the city of Dublin, 
 and with that view the works of the Upper Shannon were 
 commenced simultaneously with those of the Limerick Navi- 
 gation, and the Grand Canal, in 1755, under the direction of 
 Mr. Thomas Omer, as Engineer. It appears by the evidence, 
 before a Committee of the House of Commons, of a Mr. Edgar, 
 who might have been an assistant to Omer, that in November, 
 1769, eighty miles of the Shannon had been made navigable 
 between Killaloe and Rooskey. Smeaton states in his Report, 
 dated 1773, that he saw a lock on the Shannon about three 
 miles and a-half below Banagher, which had been in use 
 eighteen years. It was built of hammered stone, and stood 
 very well ; he understood it was built by Mr. Omer. A Report 
 by Mr. Jessop in 1794, addressed to the Directors of the 
 Grand Canal, into whose hands the control of the Shannon 
 above Killaloe had passed, throws some light on the then 
 state of the navigation. Mr. Jessop referred to the Reports 
 of Mr. Chapman and Mr. Brownrigg, and to the accurate 
 plans in the possession of the Company, supplied by these 
 gentlemen, giving a minute description of the progress already 
 made, rendering it unnecessary for him to do more than to 
 describe the works appearing to be required to make the 
 river navigable as far as practicable to do so with certainty 
 and expedition. The two great objects that in his view called 
 for this improvement were the collieries, in the vicinity of 
 lough Allen, and the cultivation of an extensive country in 
 ten counties bordering on or near the banks of the Shannon. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 45 
 
 As the coal was found on both sides of lough Allen, and at 
 points widely extended from each other, the strata inclining 
 with a gentle dip, he considered the presumption reasonable 
 that there were many thousand acres embraced in the extent 
 of the mine. Experience had proved that it was easily worked, 
 and that, as much of it could be drained without steam engines, 
 it might be got at an easy expense, and was excellent for 
 smelting iron-stone, of which there were immense quantities 
 of the best quality. Here, then, we have the approval of one 
 of the first English Engineers of the day, of an enterprise 
 famous for its abortiveness, and generally attributed to a 
 want of foresight and knowledge, presumed to be peculiar to 
 this country. 
 
 The banks of the Shannon being low, and covered with 
 water many months of the winter, Mr. Jessop recommended 
 trackways to be raised two feet in height above floods, and as 
 these trackways should be made on dry land, it would be 
 necessary to cut a channel through the beds of reeds at the 
 verge of the river, wherever they were more than six perches 
 in width ; by this means he considered that forty-one miles 
 would have all the benefit of still-water navigation, the lakes, 
 except lough Forbes, being, of course, excepted. 
 
 Beginning at lough Allen, he proposed to get rid of the 
 Arigna river, and the immense quantity of detritus it brought 
 into the Shannon, by turning it into lough Allen, through 
 a cut, already made, and only requiring a weir to retain 
 the gravel. From lough Allen he recommended the navi- 
 gation to be carried, partly by the river, and partly by cuts, 
 to join the canal, a portion of which was made to Battle 
 bridge. From thence to Carrick, we learn from the same 
 document, that there was no material obstruction, except a 
 rocky shoal at Port. The river was from thence good to the 
 Jamestown Canal, which was very imperfect through some 
 deep rocky formation, and was, besides, very crooked; after 
 
46 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OP THE INSTITUTION 
 
 the improvement of this canal to near the lock, he recom- 
 mended the remainder to be deserted, as the river below passes 
 through a chain of "lakes very difficult to navigate, and on 
 these no trackway was practicable, but a canal might be made 
 seven miles in length, to join the Rooskey Canal above the 
 lock, which should be raised to the level of the Jamestown 
 Canal. 
 
 From the Rooskey Canal the bed of the Shannon to be 
 pursued to a point opposite the Camlin river, which was suffi- 
 ciently wide and deep, except where a small canal had been 
 cut. From the Camlin river the passage through the Clon- 
 dragh Canal wanted improvement. At Lanesborough there 
 was a shallow of 300 yards in length, with a fall of 12 inches, 
 partly owing to the obstruction of the eel weirs ; to avoid this 
 shallow, a cut was already made with a single pair of gates, 
 this to be converted into a lock. At Athlone the canal wanted 
 deepening and widening. The cut at Shannon bridge, and 
 the canals at Banagher and Cloneenogue required repairs. 
 Below lough Dergh, at Killaloe, there being a fall of 23 feet, 
 the river running over some rocky ground, but generally 
 through gravel, he considered it an object worth inquiring 
 whether this fall might not be wholly or so much reduced 
 as to lower the lake about 18 or 20 feet, thus probably, laying 
 dry from six to eight thousand acres of land, that would 
 more than repay the expense, and might possibly enable a 
 trackway to be made through the lake. 
 
 These details have been given to show that a general plan 
 of improvement of this important navigation had been carried 
 out at an early date, although in an imperfect manner, but 
 affording valuable examples whereby to profit in subsequent 
 efforts, by the adoption, amendment, or avoidance of what had 
 been already done. 
 
 Neither the trackways nor the departure from the line of the 
 Jamestown Canal were adopted, as recommended by the fore- 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 47 
 
 going Reports, but between the years 1800 and 1812 the 
 Directors- General expended £7,168 on the Upper Shannon, 
 in repairing the locks, canals, and other works originally con- 
 structed on the navigation from Lanesborough to Jamestown, 
 a distance of about twenty-six miles, together with a sum 
 of £23,000 in making the Lough Allen Canal, extending 
 three and a-half miles from the lough to Battle bridge, where 
 it joins the Shannon ; some minor works of general repairs 
 were included in this sum, laid out under the advice of 
 Mr. John Killaly, as Directing Engineer. In addition to 
 the above outlay, the Directors- General, between the years 
 1806 and 1812, gave the Grand Canal Company a sum of 
 £54,634, for making, completing, and preserving (but with- 
 out trackways), the navigation of that part of the river Shannon 
 between the northern extremity of lough Derg and the 
 northern extremity of the canal at Athlone, the same to have 
 six feet depth of water at the least, at all seasons of the year, 
 with such locks, bridges, and wharves as the Directors General 
 should think necessary. These works were completed to the 
 satisfaction of the authorities, but at an expense to the Grand 
 Canal Company of upwards of £30,000 beyond the sum 
 received. It thus appears that on the works extending from 
 Limerick to lough Allen, the outlay commencing from 1767 
 amounted to £211,350, to this should be added a sum of 
 £1 14,523 laid out in the previous twelve years by the Naviga- 
 tion Board, making in all £325,873, up to the year 1812. 
 The expenditure at a more recent date shall be given in its 
 proper place. 
 
 RIVER BARROW NAVIGATION. 
 
 The river forms the course of this navigation, except in a 
 few instances where short deviations were made. It extends 
 from Athy, in the county of Kildare, to the tide water below 
 
48 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 the rocks called the Scars, at Saint Mullins, in the county of 
 Carlow, a distance of thirty four miles, nearly five miles of 
 which are lateral cuts. The works were commenced in 1759, 
 according to the designs of Mr. Thomas Omer, who proposed 
 to make them suitable for vessels of seventy tons at all seasons, 
 the river in its then state not having been navigable at certain 
 times of the year, by vessels carrying more than two or three 
 tons. Seven locks, and the cuts leading to and from them, 
 had been completed up to 1790, under the immediate inspec- 
 tion of Mr. John Semple, as Deputy Engineer. In the above- 
 mentioned year, £22,500 having been previously spent under 
 the Navigation Board, the Company was incorporated, and 
 Mr. William Chapman was appointed to direct the works. 
 
 The proposal made by the Company to Parliament, was to 
 render the river navigable for boats of fifteen tons in summer, 
 and thirty tons in winter, with towing-paths for the whole 
 length, and to expend for that purpose £40,000 of their own 
 money, on receiving £20,000 from the public purse ; but what- 
 ever success might have attended the first proposal, it was 
 only partially proceeded with, for during the progress of the 
 works the Company were induced to enlarge their project, for 
 the purpose of enabling boats from Youghal and Dungarvan 
 to pass through the river Barrow and Grand Canal to Dublin, 
 without transhipping, and also to take in coal vessels from 
 British ports; with that view twenty-four new locks were 
 designed, 80 feet long, and 16 feet wide, with 5 feet water on 
 the sills, to admit boats of eighty tons burthen ; of these ten 
 were built, and four of the original locks, of various sizes and 
 of bad construction, were taken down and reconstructed on the 
 modified plan ; however, on the withdrawing of the canal 
 bounties on produce carried to Dublin, the progress of the 
 enlarged scheme was stopped, but only for a time, no import- 
 ance having been apparently attached to the fact that the locks 
 of the Grand Canal, which are not uniform in size, are in no 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 49 
 
 instance more than 70 feet in length, so that Dublin could not 
 be reached by eighty-ton boats without transhipping. 
 
 After having expended on the several works £62,881, 
 including the grant of £20,000, the navigation being still 
 incomplete on the enlarged scale proposed, the Company 
 applied for aid to the Directors-General, who agreed to give 
 them £20,000, on condition of their reducing the tolls, and to 
 give a further sum of £27,500, a moiety of £55,000, the 
 estimated cost of completing the navigation, with the necessary 
 locks and lateral cuts, weirs, towing-paths, &c., on the enlarged 
 scale before specified. Those several amounts, together with 
 a sum of £11,620, the half of which was likewise contributed 
 by the Directors- General, had been expended on the works 
 up to February, 1812, when a survey was made of their then 
 state, and an estimate of the cost of completion prepared, 
 amounting to £66,000. 
 
 The outlay from 1803 to 1812, including £78,891 granted 
 by the Directors-General, was £149,501, if to this we add 
 the sum of £23,500 expended by the Board of Navigation 
 previous to the incorporation of the Company, and the sum of 
 66,000, the amount of the estimate to finish, made in 1812, we 
 shall get a total of £239,001, equal to £7,029 8s. 9d. per mile, 
 at a rate of lockage in that distance of only 5 feet per mile ; a 
 considerable portion of which would be absorbed in the decli- 
 nation sufficient to give impetus to the discharge of the waters 
 of the river, and of its tributaries. 
 
 The profits in 1812, according to the report submitted to 
 Parliament, were £2,589, or £76 per mile per annum, not 
 including interest on capital subscribed by individuals, or on 
 grants obtained from the Government ; but had the peculiarly 
 favourable He of the country, for a canal the whole way, been 
 taken advantage of, the proprietors could not have failed to 
 obtain a far differefnt result, as well by the economy of con- 
 struction and maintenance as by the general improvement of 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 the surrounding districts, seeing that the Barrow navigation 
 passes through a country of great natural fertility and high 
 cultivation ; that it meets at its outfall the rivers Nore and 
 Suir, by which it communicates with the ports of New Ross and 
 Waterford, and that the towns of Carrick-on-Suir, Clonmel, 
 Ennisteague, and Thomastown, are also accessible to it from 
 one extremity, while the port of Dublin is open to its craft at 
 the other ; time alone having been necessary for the develop- 
 ment of highly remunerative traffic on a line so favourably 
 circumstanced, if cheaply and judiciously constructed. 
 
 Boats can not load more than two-thirds of their tonnage 
 in summer. 
 
 THE RIVER BOYNE NAVIGATION. 
 
 This navigation extends from Drogheda to near Navan, a 
 distance of fifteen and a half miles, and from Drogheda to the 
 sea, four and a half miles. The rise from the tide water to the 
 eighteenth lock is 91 feet 9 inches, being a rate of lockage of 
 5 feet 10 inches per mile. The undertaking was commenced 
 in 1759, under the direction of The Engineer of that day, Mr. 
 Thomas Omer, and was made navigable for nine miles, as far 
 as Slane. There were also several other works executed in 
 the extension to Trim, which were, however, allowed to fall 
 into ruin. Upon the whole of these a sum of £75,000 of 
 public money was expended up to the year 1789, when the 
 River Boyne Company was incorporated, and the navigation 
 was carried to Navan, under the direction of Mr. Daniel 
 Moncks as Engineer. The bed of the river is for the most 
 part navigable from Drogheda to Stackallen, a distance of 12 
 miles, the remainder from thence to Navan is a still-water 
 navigation, running parallel with the river by which it is sup- 
 plied at Navan. The continuation of the line to Trim, Kells, 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 51 
 
 and Athboy, a level of upwards of 22 miles of canal without 
 a lock was again commenced by Mr. Moncks, and again 
 abandoned from want of funds The intention having been to 
 proceed from Trim to Dublin, and from the same point, on the 
 other hand, by Kells, Athboy, Virginia, and so on to lough 
 Neagh. 
 
 The locks vary in their lengths from 80 to 104 feet, by 15 
 feet wide, and the breadths of the lateral cuts are as variable 
 as the locks are in their lengths, being from 16 to 25 feet at 
 bottom, and from 30 to 49 feet at top, having from 4 feet to 5 
 feet 6 inches depth of water, these discrepancies having arisen 
 by cutting through rock in some places, and in others by 
 embankments made in the river. The cost of the fifteen and 
 a half miles of navigation, from the date of incorporation, 
 independently of the before-mentioned large amount expended 
 up to 1759, was £115,677 lis, 5d., of which £85,800 was 
 contributed by the Government. The produce of the tolls 
 has been at no time adequate to the cost of maintenance and 
 establishment. 
 
 THE GRAND CANAL. 
 
 This canal, including the LifFey line and the branches to 
 Athy, Miltown, Blackwood (leading to the reservoir), Bally- 
 teague, and Edenderry, may be taken at one hundred Irish 
 miles in length. The rise from its communication with the 
 LifFey, near Ringsend, to the summit is 278 feet, the fall 
 from thence to the Barrow, at Athy, is 97 feet, and to the 
 Shannon, near Banagher, 162 feet, making of total rise and 
 fall 537 feet, which divided by the length will give 5^ feet 
 per mile for its lockage. 
 
 The works were commenced in 1755, under the direction of 
 Mr. Thomas Omer as Engineer. It ascends seventeen miles, 
 
52 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 by four double, and fourteen single locks, to the summit level, 
 from whence, at a distance of twenty-one and a-half Irish 
 miles from Dublin, it divides into two branches ; descending 
 by one 103 feet in twenty-two and a-quarter miles to the 
 Barrow, at Athy, and through two double and nine single 
 locks, with one ascending single lock of 8 feet 6 inches at 
 Monasterevan ; by the other descending 163 feet 11 inches in 
 forty-one miles to the Shannon, through one double and seven- 
 teen single locks. 
 
 Twelve miles in length, commencing two miles from Dublin, 
 were partly executed, and locks built for flat- bottomed barges 
 175 tons burthen, to be navigated by ten men and six 
 horses, after the Dutch fashion, and calculated to pass from 
 the city to the Shannon in eight days; the locks were 136 feet 
 long between the gates, the upper gates six feet high, and the 
 lower 19 feet, the breadth of the canal at water surface 3*2 feet, 
 with lye-bys at such distances as to be within sight from one 
 to the other. Mr. Omer, in his examination before a Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons in 1761, stated that as far as 
 he had gone he was within the estimate, except in the cost of 
 experiments made to ascertain with certainty the practicability 
 of the line, and that he was willing to contract for the finishing 
 of the whole. The cost of these experiments and surveys in 
 which Omer and his son, and Mr. Cooley (the designer of the 
 wings of the Four Courts), were engaged, amounted to 
 £48,106 4s. 9d., as appeared by the evidence of the Accountant 
 of the Navigation Board, before a Committee of the House 
 of Commons. 
 
 In 1763 Mr. Omer reported that four locks, several bridges, 
 tunnels, and lock-houses had been built, the excavation com- 
 pleted, except in the deep rock cuttings, and that he had 
 opened ten miles through the bog of Allen. 
 
 Doubts having arisen as to the practicability of making the 
 canal through the bog, which had subsided in some places 30 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 53 
 
 feet, and it having been reported that there were capital errors 
 in the levels, the works were stopped, and Major Vallancey and 
 Mr. Trail were called on to examine and report as to what 
 was proper to be done, the latter at the instance of the Corpo- 
 ration of Dublin, who had a considerable interest in the under- 
 taking, and had agreed with the Company for the supply of 
 the city with water. These Engineers differed widely in almost 
 every part of their respective surveys and reports, and as 
 observed by Philips, in his History of Inland Navigation, 
 Trail assigned good reasons for his opinions ; of this, however, 
 there is no opportunity of judging, neither of the documents 
 referred to being forthcoming, but Mr. Trail's Report to a 
 Committee of the House of Commons in 1769 is still extant, 
 in which he states that he had carefully surveyed the line pro- 
 posed and partly executed, from the city of Dublin to the 
 Blackwood river, a distance of twenty-one miles, present- 
 ing the greatest difficulties of the whole line, and that he 
 had no doubt, from what he had seen, of the practicability of 
 making a navigable canal for vessels of 170 tons burthen to 
 the Bog of Allen, and from thence to the river Shannon ; and 
 as to the mistakes in the levels of the locks and other works, 
 to which his attention had been drawn, he was of opinion they 
 would, in a great measure, turn out to the advantage of the 
 works, which could be finished for a sum of £34,513, as far as 
 the Blackwood river in the bog of Allen. 
 
 On the incorporation of the Company in 1772, the works 
 were modified, and the locks made for vessels of 40 tons 
 burthen, under the direction of Mr. Trail, who for a consider- 
 able time kept the execution in his own hands, without any 
 contract having been entered into, he receiving 5 per cent, on 
 the expenditure, a mode of proceeding which turned out so 
 unsatisfactory that the original capital was expended before 
 the canal was made navigable to the point of partition near 
 Robertstown, from which it was considered advisable to make 
 
54 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 the off branch in the first instance to the Barrow, as being the 
 district from whence a return was soonest to be expected. 
 With the view to economy, the Company entered into a con- 
 tract with Mr. Trail for the completion, by him, of the canal 
 between Dublin and Sallins, the direction of the other works 
 being still in his hands as Engineer. Upon the termination of 
 the period allowed for the completion of the contract entered 
 into with him, it was found that the banks had not been raised 
 to a sufficient height or breadth, and that the masonry had 
 been very badly executed. Mr. Trail (who was afterwards 
 knighted in connexion with the Corporation of Dublin), was 
 dismissed, and General Tarrant was appointed in his place. 
 The sides of the locks built by Sir John Trail, under his con- 
 tract, twelve in number, fell in on the water being suddenly 
 let off, in order to test them. The opening of the canal to 
 Sallins was by that means delayed for three years, and a very 
 large sum of money lost to the Company. 
 
 In 1773 Smeaton having been called on, made a personal 
 inspection of the line, and on that occasion introduced his 
 pupil, William Jessop, to make surveys in conjunction with 
 Trail, in order to ascertain whether a permanent canal could 
 be made through the bog of Allen, and to lay out the best 
 course for making junctions with the Barrow and the Shannon, 
 from the point of partition near Robertstown. Smeaton having 
 made a careful inspection, and taken more than a year to con- 
 sider the subject, gave his opinion in detail, as recorded in the 
 second volume of his Reports, not unfavourably to passing 
 through the bog, where the ground, as he states in this case, 
 could be selected, and deep cutting and banking avoided — an 
 expectation which was far from being realized. 
 
 Under General Tarrant's direction the large locks occu- 
 pying the sites of the 9th, 10th, 11th, and I2th, were taken 
 down, and others substituted throughout, to admit boats of 
 sixty tons burthen, and the canal was widened to 42 feet 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 55 
 
 breadth at water surface, and 18 feet bottom. On that scale 
 the navigation wa«; carried by that Engineer to TuUamore, in 
 the King's County, in the year 1800, and from thence to the 
 junction with the Shannon, within one mile of Banagher, was 
 completed in the year 1806, by Mr. John Kiilaly. 
 
 Jessop, in conjunction with William Chapman, laid out the 
 line between Robertstown and Tullamore about the year 1785, 
 but its completion was postponed, owing to the company having 
 directed their means to what was considered a more important 
 object, namely, the construction of the Ringsend docks, and 
 the canal of communication, both of which were planned by 
 Jessop, and approved of by Chapman. The dock was com- 
 menced in 1791 ; it occupies an area of 25 statute acres, 
 has 16 feet depth of water, and communicates with the LifTey 
 by three parallel locks, where one would have been sufficient. 
 There are also three excellent graving docks, of different 
 dimensions. The cost of this work was £122,148, of which 
 £20,000 was granted by Parliament. The semicircular canal 
 of communication is three miles in length, and was estimated 
 at £30,000, its actual cost, however, was £56,958, exclusive 
 of interest of money borrowed for its construction ; it enters 
 the Grand Canal immediately below the first lock, which, 
 with the lock next it, were built by Trail in a superior manner, 
 under an agreement of five per cent, on the expenditure, but 
 the cost having amounted to £5,000, the company were 
 induced to let the remainder to him by contract as far as 
 Sallins, with the results already described. 
 
 In 1788 it was proposed by Mr. John Brownrigg, Civil 
 Engineer, to unite the Grand Canal with the Lilfey by a 
 descent of locks immediately from the James's-street harbour. 
 The estimate, with graving docks for canal boats, was £22,000, 
 and, having been revised by Mr, John Kilally, was reduced to 
 £20,000, but this plan, which would have suited every purpose 
 of an inland navigation company, by enabling their boats to 
 
56 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 reach the shipping in the river, was rejected for the more 
 magnificent plan of Jessop, whose design was intended to 
 accommodate six hundred ships, the number of which, at any 
 one time, has never since, probably, amounted to more than 
 about a dozen, so true is it that facilities do not necessarily 
 create a trade. The harbour for packet boats, and the hotel at 
 Portobello, designed by Colbourne, were portions of the same 
 scheme, serving, long before the time of railway competition, 
 only as monuments of ill-considered outlay, 
 
 Brownrigg was subsequently appointed Engineer to the 
 Directors General of Inland Navigation, and Killaly to the 
 Grand Canal Company, both having been the first Irish 
 Engineers employed in their own country, of whom we have 
 any account. 
 
 The cost of construction of the Grand Canal, according to 
 an account taken from papers on the Inland Navigation of 
 Ireland, printed by order of the House of Commons, July 
 1812, amounted to £966,364, including a sum of £122,148, 
 the cost of the docks, and deducting that amount, gives £8,442 
 as the rate per mile in actual expenditure on the works ; 
 according to the above statement, without any other aid from 
 Parliament than a sum of £93,258, and not reckoning a sum 
 of £73,646, uselessly expended previous to the incorporation of 
 the Company, nor the large debt, amounting to not less than 
 £1 16,750, created in paying dividends out of loans, in antici- 
 pation of profits, and in working the Castlecomer and 
 Doonane Collieries at a loss, in accordance with the received 
 opinion of the day — that it was practicable to compete in the 
 Dublin market with English coal. 
 
 Amongst those who distinguished themselves in the pro- 
 motion of the best interests of the Company, in which they 
 were seconded with a strong patriotic feeling by the country 
 at large, may be mentioned the names of Lord Harberton, Sir 
 John Macartney, and Mr. Richard Griffith, who was Chair- 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 57 
 
 man of the Board of Directors, and a member of the Irish 
 Parliament. 
 
 The following observations, made by Philips, with reference 
 to the Grand Canal, in his work on Inland Navigation, is 
 worthy of quotation for its appositeness. In concluding the 
 notice of this undertaking, he observes: — "The failure of 
 this great work, which at first might have been so easily 
 completed at a moderate expense, may justly be attributed to 
 the want of an accurate and well digested plan and survey, 
 for it does not appear that there were any material difficulties 
 in the whole line, but what might have been overcome with 
 great ease had the work been properly conducted by an able 
 and experienced Engineer, since neither money nor a proper 
 attention to its being laid out judiciously was wanting, as 
 maybe seen by the ^resolves' of the Company of Proprietors," 
 which he subjoined, " to show how careful they were to be 
 properly supplied in time, and prevent the work standing still 
 for materials and utensils." 
 
 The often quoted opinion of an unprofessional English 
 tourist, Arthur Young, to the eflfect that this undertaking was, 
 from the beginning, a mere job, can not be allowed to w^eigh 
 against the testimony of Philips, whose judgment has been 
 confirmed by the facts here adduced, proving the incompetency 
 at least of some of the Engineers to whom the works were 
 at the outset intrusted, 
 
 ROYAL CANAL. 
 
 The Royal Canal extends from the river LilFey, at Dublin, 
 to the Shannon, at Tarmonbarry, a distance of seventy-two 
 Irish miles ; it has its summit at an elevation of 322 feet above 
 the former, and 191 feet above the latter, its rate of lockage 
 being 1^ feet per mile. The Company of undertakers, with 
 a capital of £20,000, was incorporated in 1789, and Mr. 
 
58 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 Richard Evans was appointed their Engineer. The works 
 having been carried out as far as Newcastle, tAventy-two miles 
 from Dublin, at an expense of £315,204 of which £70,556 
 had been granted by Parliament; the Company, in the year 
 1801, represented to the Directors- General their inability to 
 proceed unless assisted by part of the grant of £500,000 
 before referred to. In consequence of this application, they 
 obtained a sum of £95^866 in consideration of their completing 
 the Canal to Thomastown at their own expense, the cost 
 being estimated at £63,136, and from thence, by means 
 of the grant, to Coolnahay, a distance of forty-six miles from 
 Dublin, with a cut from Mullingar to lough Owel, also on 
 condition of their erecting a sea lock and turning bridge at 
 the Liffey, making docks adjoining thereto, and finishing an 
 aqueduct and boat harbour at the Broadstone, of v\hich Mr. 
 Millar was the Engineer, and in further consideration of 
 lowering their tolls to certain specified rates. The sum 
 granted being the cost estimated by the Company for 
 the construction of the works above enumerated, but 
 instead of that amount, together with the sum of £63,136 
 before mentioned, being sufficient for the proposed under- 
 takings, the expenditure in completing them amounted to 
 £304,920, as proved before the Directors-General, and 
 exceeding the estimates by £145,000, while the income 
 arising from the low scale of tolls on which they were 
 dependent to pay the interest on their debt, and finally to 
 liquidate it, did not amount to more than 4J per cent, on 
 the sum granted. 
 
 The canal having been carried to Coolnahay, within twenty- 
 five miles of the Shannon, it appears that in December, 1810, 
 the debt of the Company amounted to £862,000, the interest 
 and annuities to £49,824, two years of which were then in 
 arrear, and their permanent expenditure, including all charges, 
 exceeded their revenue by £45,693. To get out of this 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 59 
 
 difficulty anew Company was formed in 1812, leaving nothing 
 to the original proprietors, but hopeful calculations which 
 were never realized. The line was completed from Coolnahay 
 to the Shannon, in the year 1817, at the public expense for a 
 sum of £200,000, making in all £1,421,954, or £19,749 per 
 mile, the cost to the two proprietors and to the nation. The 
 rate of profit for many years after the completion, may be 
 taken averagely at £120 per mile, per annum, or | per cent, 
 on the capital expended; a result not to be wondered at, seeing 
 that at 35 miles distance from Dublin, — after having overcome 
 322 feet of lockage and other works of great difficulty, such 
 as the excavation through the quarries of Carpenterstown, 
 the embankment and acqueduct across the Ryewater, which 
 cost upwards of £30,000 and the cutting through the bog of 
 Cappagh, — the Royal Canal is but eight miles distant from 
 the Grand Canal, and at many intermediate places not more 
 than four miles, so that these two great canals for half their 
 length westward are performing little more than the work 
 of one, and hence the unproductiveness of both ; whereas had 
 the western branch of the Grand Canal entered the Shannon 
 at Athlone, equidistant with Banagher from Tullamore, it 
 would have commanded the trade of the middle, lower, and 
 upper Shannon, and thus have rendered the subsequent 
 project of the Royal Canal obviously hopeless, by taking a 
 great portion of its expected income. 
 
 The Grand Canal Company opposed this line with all the 
 influence they were able to bring to bear at the many oppor- 
 tunities which occurred during its faltering progress, but in 
 vain, and thus these two great undertakings have remained 
 to our day, as monuments of unsuccessful enterprise, rather 
 than as beacons to warn their successors; for on the same 
 ground we see the same error committed, with less injurious, 
 but still serious ill consequences, by the two great Railway 
 Companies; as if the genius loci still exercised a malign 
 
60 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 influence, and that needless sacrifices must continue to be 
 inconsiderately made ; and now that the two canals have 
 ceased to be a necessity for transit, and must be looked on as 
 principally useful in supplying the city with water, they are, 
 by a vicissitude of circumstances, about to be abandoned, and 
 a new source adopted, involving great difficulty and expense ; 
 upon what matured consideration of so important a matter, 
 I have not, as yet, had an opportunity of judging; but, if 
 time permit, I shall return to this subject, as one which 
 should not be passed over before concluding this paper. 
 
 There is throughout the whole of the navigations here 
 described, not only an entire want of uniformity in the size of 
 the locks of the same line, but, as might thence be expected, 
 between locks of dilFerent lines, though having a means of 
 connexion ; as for instance, the Royal Canal boats cannot 
 navigate the Grand Canal, nor those of the latter the Royal 
 Canal, nor could either, from their construction, navigate the 
 Shannon ; so that all goods forwarded by either Canal, from 
 Dublin to Limerick, and ince versa, and to Jamestown, and 
 the Arigna district, in the other direction, should be tran- 
 shipped into tShannon built boats, where the Canals join that 
 river ; or be transported by a class of vessels of inferior 
 tonnage, which was the practice adopted by traders on both 
 Canals previous to the introduction of steam tugs. The locks 
 of the Barrow as compared with those of the Grand Canal, 
 and the different portions of the inland communication 
 between Newry and Belfast, present the same anomalies. 
 Nor can England boast of exemption in this respect, for 
 whether we look to the navigation of the Thames, the 
 Severn, the Mersey, or the Kumber, we find similar incon- 
 gruities pervading the lines of canal and their ramifications, 
 by which these great commercial rivers are united ; as for 
 instance, the river Avon, which entering the Severn at Kings- 
 road, is navigated by vessels of forty to fifty tons burthen, 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 61 
 
 and fourteen feet on the beam, to Bath, and onwards by 
 the Kenneth and Avon Canal to Leamington, where it unites 
 with the Wilts and Berks Canal, which can only be navigated 
 by boats of twenty to twenty -five tons burthen, and but seven 
 feet on the beam. This canal is about fifty-two miles in 
 length, and falls into the Thames at Abington. The junction 
 of the Severn with the Mersey by the Elsemere and Chester 
 Canals, is similarly defective, and the junction of the latter 
 river with the Humber, by the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal, 
 the Grand Trunk Canal, and the river Trent navigation, are 
 in a like predicament. Nor were the English canals, either 
 as to cost of construction or manasfement of the affairs of the 
 companies, in a much better position generally, than those of 
 Ireland, except in situations where the peculiar advantages of 
 mineral traffic compensated for the prevalent errors of the day, 
 and, consequently, a large proportion of them were attended 
 with ill success in a commercial point of view, as was amply 
 testified by the low market value of the shares, long before 
 the depression caused by railway competition. It would be 
 here out of place, to enumerate the many instances of un- 
 favourable results, but for example sake, and similarity to 
 what took place amongst ourselves, the Clyde and Forth 
 Canal, commenced by Smeaton and finished by Whitworth, 
 maybe mentioned; of it Philips observes that, "it was a 
 series of blunders and unnecessary expense, in which the public 
 spirited proprietors were equally involved, with those whose 
 selfish views had been so very detrimental throughout ;" and 
 Mr. Thomas Gray, in his work advocating the Railway 
 System in 1825, says of the Caledonian Canal, which was not 
 excavated within six feet of its specified depth, that " the 
 waste of public money had been quite as great upon it, as on 
 those public works in Ireland, of which so much has been 
 said, although there has been less jobbing and abuse in the 
 outlay of the money." 
 
62 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 Up to the year 1755, the improvement of the natural 
 ^beds of rivers was the only inland mode of navigation 
 occupying public attention in England ; but in that year the 
 proprietors of the Sankey Navigation in Lancashire (who had 
 obtained an Act for making that river navigable from the 
 Mersey to near St. Flelen's) determined to make a separate 
 cut, which was effected in 1760 : and, in the same year, the 
 conversion of the Worsley Brook scheme, by James Brindley, 
 into the famed Bridgewater Canal, was attended with so much 
 success, that enterprises of that description occupied a large 
 share of public attention until the introduction of railways in 
 1829, at which time 2,471 miles of still water navigation had 
 been brought into operation in a period of 70 years, while 
 not more than 400 miles existed in Ireland, where the first 
 effort had been made, in 1755, in the commencement of the 
 Grand Canal. 
 
 To come to works of the same description, but of a more 
 modern date. The extension of the Royal Canal from Cool- 
 nahay to Tarmonbarry, on the Shannon, 32 miles in length, 
 was commenced in 1814, and completed at the latter end of 
 1817, at a cost of £6,280 per mile, towards which Parliament 
 granted a sum of £200,000. There are 21 locks, 47 bridges, 
 and a large aqueduct over the river Inny. 
 
 The rate of wages, owing to the war prices of food, was 
 then twice what it was in 1830, when Mr. Mullins stated in 
 his evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons in 
 that year, on the condition of the poor in Ireland, that the 
 works could have been then executed at half the cost, owing 
 to the fall in wages — namely, from 10s. or 12s. to 5s. or 
 6s. per week, for labourers. Timber, which, in 1830, could 
 be had for £4 15s., had risen during the war to £18, per ton ; 
 and many other articles of general consumption in a similar 
 proportion. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 63 
 
 • THE BALLINASLOE CANAL. 
 
 This undertaking, extending 15 statute miles, from the 
 Shannon to Ballinasloe, was commenced in 1825, and opened 
 in 1830, at a cost of £3,226 per mile. Its course lay through 
 flow or soft bog, of what might be considered the most difficult 
 kind to make a canal through, averaging from 26 feet to 
 46 feet in depth, and bounded by large rivers, the Shannon 
 and the Suck ; but, by a judicious mode of drainage, and 
 avoiding the dictum of Smeaton, "not to go deep into it," 
 the work was perfected in a cheap and permanent manner. 
 The bog subsided fully 20 feet, on an average ; in many 
 places 25 feet, and in some few places, where the bog 
 was very soft, to the actual level of bottom. The particulars 
 of the method adopted are given in detail in the 4th Vol. of 
 the Transactions of the Institution, in connection with the 
 paper on the origin and reclamation of peat-bog. 
 
 That portion of the Grand Canal which passes through the 
 town of Edenderry, in the King's County, furnishes a striking 
 instance of the ill consequences of not attending to deep 
 drainage, for that which was expected to be an unusually cheap 
 reach of canal in shallow cutting, ended — after several years of 
 unremitting labour, and enormous expense, — in the formation 
 of a bank on either side 45 feet in height, for a distance 
 of 80 perches ; so that the canal, with the carrying up of 
 its sides and bottom to the required level, containing 6 feet 
 of water, was in the centre of a high artificial embankment, 
 having a base of fully 400 feet. Indeed, the difficulties were 
 so great, that it was more than once contemplated to abandon 
 the line, and make a new cut. 
 
 THE ULSTER CANAL. 
 This canal connects lough Neagh and lough Erne. It 
 commences in the county of Armagh, near Charlemont, on 
 
64 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 the river Blackwater, which is navigable for a distance of 
 1 1 miles up to that point, and enters the south-eastern 
 extremity of upper lough Erne, at Edergul, in the county 
 of Fermanagh, vv^inding, in its course, along the fertile valleys 
 of the Blackwater and Finn rivers, and passing the towns of 
 Benburb, Caledon, Middleton, Monaghan, and Clones. The 
 length of the canal is 48 miles. There are 26 single 
 locks, each 56 feet long in the chamber, 12 feet wide, 
 and about 8J feet rise Nineteen of these locks are on the 
 eastern or lough Neagh side of the summit, and the 
 remainder on the western side, the difference between the 
 levels of the loughs being about 103 feet. The intended 
 depth of water on the lock sills was 5^ feet. 
 
 Although the advantages of this canal must have been 
 obvious at an early date, as an important link in the inland 
 navigation of the country, it does not appear that any practical 
 measures were adopted to carry out such a project, until 
 towards the close of the first quarter of the present century, 
 when Mr. John Killaly made the necessary surveys, and pre- 
 pared plans and estimates, upon which an application was 
 made to Parliament, in the year 1825, and an Act obtained, 
 namely "The 6th Geo. IV., cap. 193," incorporating the 
 Company. 
 
 The difficulty of raising the amount of the estimate, 
 £160,000, equal to £3,478 per mile, gave rise to great delay 
 in commencing the works, and the death of Mr. Killaly, in 
 1832, led to the seeking of other professional advice, when 
 Mr. Thomas Telford and Sir William Cubit were called in. 
 Under their direction, the works — previously designed on a 
 scale corresponding with the canals already in connexion with 
 lough Neagh and the river Shannon — were modified, and the 
 width and length of the locks reduced, so that the trade boats 
 commonly used in those navigations cannot pass ; and thus, 
 that which was intended to diminish the outlay, has proved to 
 
OF CIVIL KNGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 65 
 
 be very injurious to the prosperity of the undertaking, as, 
 indeed, ought to have been anticipated, for no considerations 
 of economy could have justiHed, on ordinarily intelligible 
 principles, such modifications of a canal so circumstanced, in 
 excluding boats entering lough Neagh from other quarters. 
 
 The summit level is supplied near the town of Monaghan 
 by the Quigg-lough reservoir, which is a natural lake, 
 rendered capable, by embankments, of ponding up about 14^ 
 feet depth of water, to be delivered into the canal by a 
 regulating sluice and feeder-channel ; but although this reser- 
 voir receives the surplus water from the river Blackwater 
 at Ballinode, when the mills in the neighbourhood do not 
 require it, the supply to the canal is far from being sufficient ; 
 and the consequence is, that during at least three months 
 of the dry season of each year, the summit level is impassible 
 for trade boats. In Mr. Killaly's design, the section of the 
 canal calculated to contain three feet in depth of water 
 beyond the standard navigable height, being intended as a 
 reservoir to draw upon when circumstances would require. 
 
 The Company, notwithstanding the sacrifices made of 
 efficiency to economy, had to contend with the usual financial 
 difficulties of such projects in this country, and having been 
 finally unable to raise the necessary funds, by subscription, 
 to complete the works, they were obliged to have recourse 
 to amendments of their acts, to borrow money for that purpose 
 from the Loan Commissioners, in whose hands the navigation 
 is now vested to repay the debt, the Company having failed 
 to meet their engagements 
 
 By the Act of Incorporation, the time of completion was 
 limited to July, 1829. By the 9th Geo. IV., c. 96, it 
 was extended to the 20th June, 1833; and by the 1st and 
 2nd Wm. IV., there was a further extension to the '24th 
 June, 1837. 
 
 Since the canal came under the control of the Loan Com- 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 missioners, it has been let on lease at an annual rent, and 
 is at present held by the Dundalk Steam Navigation Com- 
 pany, but owing to the uniform deficiency of water, at certain 
 seasons, the peculiar scale of the works, and railway compe- 
 tition, the traffic is at present very small indeed; if, however, 
 the water supply were improved — the works put into an efficient 
 state of repair, and the carrying trade conducted with care 
 and regularity, there is no reason to doubt that a sufficient 
 return would be realized to meet all current charges and 
 leave a fair profit on the expenditure required for improve- 
 ments and repairs. 
 
 Having brought the narrative down to our own time — in 
 giving an outline of the history of the canals which supplied 
 the first great schools of practical engineering in this country, 
 as well as in England — I trust that it may not be considered 
 irrelevant to state, that one of our own late Vice-Presidents, 
 Mr. Mullins, who was an Assistant Engineer to IVlr. Evans in 
 the execution of the Royal Canal, having found the field 
 preoccupied, almost to the exclusion of Irishmen, looked out 
 for a combination to enable him to embark extensively in the 
 execution of public works, and in the early part of the present 
 century commenced with his partners, Messrs. Henry and 
 M'Mahon, a career which, associated with engineering, will 
 lose nothing by comparison with the most successful period of 
 the profession in this or possibly in any other country. 
 
 Mr. M'Mahon, on the termination of the partnership, be- 
 came Engineer to the Drainage Department of the Board of 
 Works in the year 1843, and continued to fulfil the duties 
 of that office during the most active period of their extensive 
 operations. The drainages of lough Neagh, lough Corrib, 
 and the upper Brosna river were the principal works of 
 which he gave plans and specifications. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 67 
 
 HOWTH HARBOUR. 
 
 The various plans proposed for a harbour in this locality have 
 been already briefly referred to in treating of that of Dublin ; 
 but nothing was done until the year 1807, when the present 
 harbour was commenced under the direction of Mr. Rennie. 
 The works were sufficiently advanced in the year 1819 to 
 enable the Holyhead packets to sail from it instead of the 
 Pigeon-house harbour, and the whole was completed in 1825, 
 at an expense, including the removal of rocks, for the sum of 
 £346,607, granted by Parliament. 
 
 The harbour is formed by two piers running out from the 
 land, opposite to the town, at a distance of 2,000 feet from 
 each other, and approaching so as to render the space within 
 close, with an entrance 350 feet in width, guarded by jetties 
 to prevent disturbance within. The eastern pier is formed in 
 three kants bearing in northerly and north-westerly directions, 
 respectively, making 2,450 feet in length. The west pier is 
 carried in a north-easterly direction, and is 1,900 feet in length. 
 The roadways of both are 42 feet in width, and the parapet of 
 the eastern pier 14 feet above high water mark. The space 
 enclosed is upwards of 50 acres, the half of which is left dry at 
 low water of spring-tides, when the greatest depth is II feet. 
 
 The piers were formed of large blocks of rubble stone, 
 promiscuously thrown in, and the slope formed at the back 
 by the action of the sea, was carefully paved with large blocks 
 laid in cement, being the first instance in these countries 
 of a deviation from the horizontal wall in such a situation. 
 The inner faces of the piers are of masonry in regular courses, 
 the batter being one*fourth of the height. The pier-heads 
 were builf in the year 1812, with the diving-bell which had 
 been previously rendered perfectly effective by Mr. Rennie in 
 the construction of Ramsgate harbour. 
 
 It is not unworthy of record that the first attempt to descend 
 
68 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 in a diving bell in the vicinity of Dublin was about the year 
 1780, by Mr. Spalding, who had previously made several suc- 
 cessful experiments in other places. He twice descended to the 
 Kish Bank, at the entrance of Dublin Bay, in a bell of Halley's 
 construction, to view the wreck of the Imperial Indiaman ; 
 he was accompanied by an assistant, and returned in safety. 
 In June 1783 they went down a third time, and remained one 
 hour under water ; two barrels of air were sent down to them, 
 and no apprehensions were entertained for their security. 
 After some time, however, the signals from below were not 
 repeated as usual ; the bell was drawn up, and the unfortunate 
 experimenter and his companion were found dead. The next 
 attempt was made in 1799, a brig having foundered between 
 Dunleary and Howth, iMr. Healy, in concert with Captain 
 Lonsdale, proposed raising her by means of a bell supplied 
 with air, on Smeaton's principle. On the deck of a ship 
 moored above was lashed an air pump, to this was connected 
 five fathoms of an iron tube, and an equal length of leather, 
 which turned into the bell ; by these means a constant stream 
 was propelled down. In the summer of 1802 Mr. Healy 
 made the experiment, and descended on two different days. 
 On the first he remained down half an hour, and on the second 
 one hour and some minutes, in seven fathoms water. The 
 scheme, however, of raising the brig was abandoned, in 
 consequence of the vessel above, breaking from her moorings. 
 
 The diving bells employed at Howth in constructing the 
 pier were formed of cast iron, of the same shape and materials 
 as those employed by Smeaton, and were supplied with air 
 from above by forcing pumps on his principle, with the 
 most complete success ; the workmen remaining sometimes 
 four hours under water, and many persons, from motives of 
 science or curiosity, occasionally accompanying them ; the 
 contrivance, owing to its novelty, being a subject of much 
 general interest. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINI-ERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 69 
 
 The mails were carried in 13 hours on an average from 
 Howth to Holyhead, and from thence in 32 hours to London ; 
 but since Kingstown harbour was constructed, Ilowth has 
 ceased to be anything but a fishing station, and is not only 
 being partially silted up, but encumbered with the debris of the 
 piers, there being little expenditure allow^ed by the authorities 
 for the maintenance of the works, which are certainly most 
 useful in giving protection to boats employed in the fisheries. 
 
 It has been a subject of frequent observation, in which Sir 
 John Kennie has joined, that the placing of the harbour mouth 
 to the eastward of its present site would be a great improve- 
 ment, but the idea of making Ireland's Eye a breakwater to 
 the entrance — the practical efi'ect of which was to increase the 
 run of the sea in easterly winds — was the cause of the 
 adoption of the position for which Mr. Rennie was not answer- 
 able as he was not authorised to do more than to modify the 
 plans prepared by Major Taylor, and approved of by the 
 authorities who had selected the site. 
 
 The average time of passage of packets in 1818 was 13 
 hours from Howth to Holyhead, and from thence to London, 
 48 hours. Two steam packets, built by Manby, with oscil- 
 lating engines, made several trips across from Howth to 
 Holyhead in the Summer of 1823, but they received so much 
 damage in the winter that they were obliged to be layed up. 
 
 KINGSTOWN HARBOUR. 
 
 Old Dunleary harbour (referred to in the first portion of our 
 narrative, in connexion with the Bay of Dublin) having been 
 found inadequate as an asylum for the increasing shipping 
 trade of the port of Dublin, numerous petitions on the subject 
 were presented from time to time without effect, until 1809, 
 when the matter was warmly taken up by the Duke of 
 Richmond, then Lord Lieutenant, by whose influence, backed 
 
70 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 by local representations, an Act of Parliament was passed in 
 July 1815, for a refuge harbour, and five commissioners were 
 appointed, under whose directions surveys were made, and it 
 having been ascertained that the coast about Sandycove had a 
 rocky bottom, unfit for anchorage, a pier was decided on, to 
 be carried out at right angles from the shore, in the line 
 of separation of the rocky and sandy bottoms, with a view 
 to protect, in good anchorage ground, against winds from 
 northerly and easterly directions, which the pier, by its kants, 
 was calculated to accomplish — being the present eastern pier — 
 estimated at £505,000. Certain port duties, estimated to 
 amount to £17,000 a-year, were levied by an act of 1816, to 
 defray the expenses of construction, and the first stone was 
 laid in May 1817, by the then Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of 
 Whitworth. 
 
 Considerable progress had been made in this work, when it 
 was believed to be desirable to form a corresponding pier on 
 the west side, in order to give protection from winds in that 
 direction, and to prevent the influx of sand from the bay. 
 
 The two piers, consisting each of four kants, forming the 
 harbour, are carried out at right angles to the shore, at a 
 distance next the land of 3,700 feet from each other. The 
 western pier was intended to be 5,360 feet in length, and the 
 eastern pier 4,300, the outer arms converging towards each 
 other, intended to leave an entrance of 450 feet in width, 
 bearing N.E., with jetties projecting from the internal faces, 
 near the heads, to prevent the inrun of the sea. 
 
 Sir John Rennie, in his history of harbours, states that the 
 works continued under the direction of his father until his 
 decease in October, 1821, and that they were subsequently 
 carried on by himself, in conjunction with the Resident 
 Engineer, Mr. John Aird, on the original plan, as far as the 
 last arm, until 1836, when questions arose as to the best 
 mode of finishing the entrance. In order to decide that point 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 71 
 
 the most eminent Engineers and naval men were consulted by 
 the Government, amongst whom may be mentioned, Messrs. 
 Walker, Cubit, and Admiral Warren. The result of their 
 investigations was that the Commissioners of Public Works, 
 into whose hands the management of the harbour had passed, 
 decided on leaving the entrance 770 feet in width, and to 
 terminate the piers with circular heads of hewn-stone masonry, 
 in a depth of 26 feet at low water of spring tides. 
 
 The experience of many years has not settled the question 
 as to the propriety of altering the original plan, or set at rest 
 a belief of the necessity for further protection of the entrance, 
 for the agitation within the harbour has been found to be very 
 great in gales from a north-easterly direction. Sir William 
 Cubit, on being called on in 1836, recommended the entrance 
 to be 700 feet in width, but having at the same time seen the 
 necessity for protection, he proposed a detached breakwater, 
 which, however, was not adopted, as it would have created a 
 run into the harbour, and might have given rise to the forma- 
 tion of a sand bank. More recently, on the occasion of the 
 construction of the Packet Pier in 1855 for the accommodation 
 of a larger class of proposed vessels, Mr. Rendal having been 
 consulted, recommended a return to the late Mr. Rennie's 
 views, so far as was consistent with the piers as constructed ; 
 with that view he proposed to extend the west breakwater in 
 the same direction as its last kant, for a length of 325 feet, and 
 to run off from the inside of the head of the east breakwater in 
 a S.W. by W. direction, a spur for a length of 200 feet. 
 These works would have the effect of diminishing the width of 
 the entrance from 770 feet to 450 feet, and altering its aspect 
 from N.N.E. to N.E. by N. This plan was, however, 
 rejected, on the Report of a Commission of Enquiry, although 
 the evidence of Lieutenant Hutchinson, R.N., Harbour 
 Master, who had resided 32 years on the spot, was in 
 favour of diminishing the width of the entrance by the exten- 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 sion of the west breakwater, as proposed in the direction of its 
 last kant, by which means the sea propelled by easterly g-ales, 
 and turned inwards by the western pier head, would be diverted 
 outwards on the back of the slope, there to exhaust its force, 
 instead of creating disturbance and danger within. The 
 advantage of steam-power, not contemplated by Mr. Rennie 
 when he designed the harbour, was, as far as his authority 
 was concerned, a strong argument in favour of diminishing 
 the width of the entrance, on account of the greater facilities 
 subsequently afforded for entrance and departure. 
 
 The piers were constructed of rubble stone, of large and 
 small dimensions, thrown in promiscuously, as they turned out 
 from the quarries of Glasthule and Dalkey : the stone suited 
 for ashlar work being reserved. The inner slope is I to 1, and 
 the outer slope or glacis 5-|^ to 1, at which gradient it has suc- 
 cessfully withstood such a force of the sea as, in my opinion, 
 would have demolished an upright wall. 
 
 The eastern pier is 4,000 feet, and the western pier 4,900 
 feet in length, the low-water area enclosed being 233 acres, of 
 which 33 acres have less than fifteen feet in depth. 
 
 The old favourite project of a ship canal from Dunleary to 
 Dublin was revived by Mr. Rennie, from the new harbour. 
 The subject was subsequently taken up, and a survey made 
 by Mr. Killaly, but as such matters require a long time to 
 come to maturity in this country, a new mode of communica- 
 tion by railway, displaced all idea of the canal. 
 
 A pier was built in 1842, in the south-western angle of the 
 harbour, for colliers and merchant vessels, at an expense of 
 £30,000, and another pier for the accommodation and protec- 
 tion of steam packets, in the south-eastern angle, was under- 
 taken in the year 1853, and completed at a cost of £60,000. 
 
 These internal piers were designed by Mr. Barry D. Gibbons, 
 Harbour Engineer to the Board of Works ; and that called the 
 Traders' Wharf was built with upright casing walls, in con- 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 73 
 
 formity with the views of the then Chairman, Sir Harry D. 
 Jones ; a very short time, however, sufficed to show that such 
 a mode of construction, on a ;-andy foundation, was inexpedient, 
 as on the occurrence of a storm from the N.E., when the 
 work was partly constructed, a trench, into which the founda- 
 tion stones partly slipped, was made by the revulsion of the 
 waves, rendering it necessary to reconstruct the wall with a 
 broad toe course, and a proper batter. 
 
 The original intention of Rennie was to render the internal 
 piers unnecessary, on the supposition that the two inner sides 
 of the great breakwaters would be so sheltered as to serve for 
 wharves. 
 
 The building of the circular heads presented considerable 
 difficulty, particularly the western head, the position being 
 exposed to the violence of north-easterly gales. 
 
 The circular temporary framing, containing 250 tons of 
 timber, from which the diving bell was worked, was twice 
 carried away by the violence of the sea, and called for the 
 exercise of some ingenuity in the construction of a novel 
 contrivance for building the heads ; this, however, being a 
 matter of detail, will more properly form the subject of a 
 separate paper. 
 
 The entire cost of the works was upwards of one million, 
 and although the amount appears large, it contrasts most 
 favourably in that respect, as well as in permanency of execu- 
 tion, with structures of the same description in England. 
 
 HARBOUR OF DROGHEDA. 
 
 This is a bar harbour, formed by the estuary of the Boyne 
 situated oh the east coast, twenty-seven miles north of Dublin. 
 The channel to the town of Drogheda, four miles and a half 
 from the sea, is winding, and the navigation rendered still 
 more difficult by a strong run of tide. 
 
74 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 To remedy its defects very many unsuccessful attempts have 
 been made, the earliest on record appears to have com- 
 menced in 1729, when by the 3 Geo. II., c. 21, the Mayor 
 and Burgesses were constituted conservators of the port, and 
 empowered to levy dues, to be applied to improving and 
 cleansing the harbour. In 1759 the first Parliamentary grant 
 was made, and in 1761 some progress appears to have taken 
 place in the works, as we find that in the evidence given in 
 that year before a Committee of the Irish House of Commons, 
 with reference to what was called the Parliamentary Cut, at 
 Drogheda, Mr. Thomas Omer stated, that it was then 166 
 perches in length, and would take £2,000 to complete it. 
 
 By a modification of their Acts in 1797, the Commissioners 
 were authorised to enclose the strand, and to build quays. 
 The remains still exist of stone longitudinal dykes and trans- 
 verse jetties, constructed in 1783 by Baldwin, under the advice 
 of Golborne of Chester, who in his report refers to the success 
 of similar measures in the Clyde. There is also visible, at low 
 water, the framing of the hull of a vessel, sunk with the view 
 of closing the northern sailing course ; of this Golborne 
 observes, that the current having been suffered to make a 
 channel between the vessel and the river bank, much of the ebb 
 tide ran through it, to the great detriment of the navigation. 
 
 The transverse jetties or spur piers were about 2,000 feet 
 asunder, and from 200 feet to 250 feet in length, at right 
 angles to the banks of the river. Nothing further, worthy of 
 particular notice, appears to have been done until 1827, when 
 additional powers were obtained, and authority given, to raise 
 £15,000 on the security of the harbour tolls. In consequence 
 of this, a steam dredger — the first of the kind introduced into 
 Ireland — was procured under the advice of Mr. Alexander 
 Nimmo, and an embankment made from the North Crook to 
 a point opposite the Maiden Tower, to give protection in 
 gales from the north-east. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 75 
 
 In 1842, an amended Act was obtained, and powers given 
 to borrow £70,000, for the contemplated improvements. The 
 little amelioration produced by all that had been previously- 
 done was proved by the fact, that, in that year, a vessel, built 
 by the Drogheda Steam Company, drawing only 12 feet of 
 water, when fully laden, was unable to take in more than a 
 portion of her cargo at Drogheda, and the remainder at the 
 mouth of the river, where a wharf was erected for the purpose. 
 At that period, there were but 3 feet over the bar at low 
 water of spring tides, which rise 12 feet. 
 
 In 1844, Sir John Macneill, having been appointed Con- 
 sulting Engineer, recommended that the jetties should be 
 removed, as they obstructed the flow of the tide, and had 
 produced no beneficial effects on the bar, and that, with the 
 materials of them, a breakwater should be built along the 
 margin of the North Bull, to keep the sand from being washed 
 in by the sea. 
 
 The Harbour Board, being in want of means to proceed, 
 obtained a loan from the Lords of the Treasury, in 1844, and 
 since that period the works have been under the supervision 
 of Mr. Barry D. Gibbons, Harbour Engineer to the Board of 
 Works, by whose direction the jetties have been removed, and 
 the river course enclosed by walls built of dry rubble stone 
 backed with the coarse gravel lifted by the dredger in 
 deepening the river. The water being thus prevented over- 
 flowing the mud lands, the velocity of the ebb tide was so 
 considerably increased as to remove many of the sand banks 
 which had obstructed the navigation, and to bring the bottom of 
 the channel to a more uniform level, leaving from 5 feet 8 inches 
 to 6 feet depth at low water ; but as the walls were constructed 
 only as far as the river banks extended, and that a mile in 
 length of the mouth of the river was exposed to the open sea, 
 a most serious injury arose in times of storms, as, from want 
 of some protection, immense quantities of sand were driven 
 
76 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 into the river by E.N.E. and S.E. winds, and settling down 
 in the channel, had to be removed at considerable expense by 
 dredging. To remedy this evil, Mr. Gibbons had recourse to a 
 simple and inexpensive, but effectual, plan of driving into the 
 strand two rows of stakes or small piles, 2 feet 6 inches apart 
 iongitudiiially, and 1 foot 6 inches, transversely, on each side of 
 the river, extending as far seaward as practicable, and -woven 
 into hurdles, by interlacing them with wicker-work, a strong 
 backing of rubble-stone being deposited to give them pro- 
 tection. 
 
 In the first winter after the erection of the hurdles, the sea 
 made two breaches in them, which were repaired without 
 delay, and subsequently the accumulation of sand became so 
 considerable as effectually to resist the waves, which ascend 
 and descend freely at tlie inclination formed, and thus prevent 
 storms having any effect on the artificial beach. The angle 
 made by the line of wicker-work running along the river with 
 the line of high water on the shore, embraces more than 80 
 acres of the strand, and, judging from the rate at which the 
 space is being filled by the drifting sands, it is probable that 
 the whole will be raised above the influence of the tides before 
 the lapse of many years, several acres of it being already from 
 3 feet to 8 feet above the original level of the beach, and 
 growing bent grass where the tide flowed within the last eight 
 years. 
 
 After the wicker-work had been completed, as far seaward 
 as practicable, the sea walls were continued from it until they 
 had reached within 680 yards of the bar. The effect of these 
 operations has been, that, in the summer of the present year, 
 a vessel, drawing 15 feet 6 inches on a 13 feet tide, crossed the 
 bar, and reached the town, from which may be inferred the 
 improved state of the navigation. 
 
 The dredging of the accumulated sand out of the river, 
 usually occupying the summer months, at a cost of about 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 77 
 
 £700 a year, has not required the expenditure of more than 
 £60 in the same period during the last seven years, giving the 
 great additional advantage of leaving the dredger available for 
 deepening the shoals, so that the deepest water is now to be 
 found where the greatest impediments formerly existed. The 
 depth of water in the river at ordinary spring tides is from 
 17 feet to 18 feet, with 22 feet on the bar, the depth of 
 which has been permanently increased from 3 feet to 5 feet 
 6 inches. There is a difference of 4 feet 3 inches in the 
 level of the bottom of the channel, between the town and 
 the bar, and 3 feet 6 inches of this difference is in the 
 last mile and quarter. The current of tide runs rapidly at 
 about half ebb, the average velocity for the 3 miles next the 
 harbour being one mile three-eighths, and for the remaining 
 mile and a-half two and a-quarter miles per hour. The difference 
 in time of high water on the bar and at Drogheda i's about half an 
 hour at spring tides. The depth in the harbour varies occasion- 
 ally with the wind, a N. or N.E. wind lowering the tide from 10 
 inches to 15 inches, wliereas a S. or S.W. wind raises it from 
 1 foot to 2 feet. No shifting of the bar has taken place for 
 the last five years. 
 
 The results of the operations carried out under the direction 
 of the Board of Works must be considered successful, so far as 
 giving facilities for a small class of vessels, but it appears to 
 be very questionable whether the expenditure of upwards of 
 £1,000 a year — in cutting off,- by dredging, the sharp angles 
 of the river, as now being done, to give additional facilities in 
 sailing round the curves of the serpentine course of the river — 
 is judicious, seeing that the money might be better expended, 
 as recommended by the Resident Engineer (Mr. Donor), in 
 making a new channel on the south side of the river, 434 
 perches in length, commencing between the White and Black 
 Towers at Branagan's Point, from thence passing through the 
 slob land at Mornington, and entering the river again on the 
 
78 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 N.W. side of the Maiden Tower. This would do away with 
 the zigzag portion of the channel, and give a direct run to the 
 bar. The mouth of the river being well sheltered by the sea 
 walls, and being 800 feet wide, would afford perfect safety to 
 vessels running in there in bad weather. 
 
 As a very large proportion of the excavation for the new cut 
 would be free from water, it could be executed on reasonable 
 terms, and the quantity of valuable slob land reclaimed, 
 upwards of 900 acres, if sold, would nearly pay the cost 
 of construction, estimated at £47,000. This is believed to 
 be the only mode of improvement by which the port can 
 be made to admit a large class of vessels, and the benefit 
 obtained of the utmost results from the large expenditure 
 already made. 
 
 There are four plans of the port extant ; one by Sherrard, 
 made about 1786 ; that by Nimmo in 1826, accompanying his 
 report ; that by Bald in 1837, and an Admiralty Survey of 
 the Bay of Drogheda, and of the soundings of the coast, made 
 by Captain Frazer, R.N., in 1839. 
 
 ARDGLASS HARBOUR. 
 
 The bay of this name is situated on a prominent point of the 
 eastern coast, three miles north of the dangerous receding 
 portion of it, known as Dundrum Bay. There being no other 
 harbour accessible at all times of tide, in a northerly direction, 
 nearer than Belfast, 45 miles distant, and Kingstown on the 
 south, 61 miles ; much attention has been consequently 
 directed to this locality, possessing some natural advantages 
 of a limited nature, but capable of being extended by a judi- 
 cious and sufficient outlay. 
 
 In order to give protection to the fishing boats belonging to 
 the place, as well as to those frequenting the Irish Sea from 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 79 
 
 St. Ives and the Isle of Man, which lies opposite, at a distance 
 of 30 miles, the proprietor of Ardglass, Mr. Ogilvie (having 
 obtained an Act of Parliament in 1812 to enable him to levy 
 dues, and for the appointment of Harbour Commissioners) 
 commenced a pier and sea pavement based upon an inner ledge 
 of rocks, which formed the natural beaching cove of the little 
 bay. These works were subsequently completed by his heir, 
 Major Beauclerk. The shelter thus afforded to about half an 
 acre was found so useful that an extension of the pier 245 
 feet in length into 17 feet depth, at low water, parallel to 
 the sea aspect, and covering an additional area of an acre, was 
 determined on by the spirited proprietor, according to the 
 design of Sir John Rennie, adapted to afford shelter to vessels 
 of the coasting class, in 15 feet depth of water, at an estimated 
 cost of £22,000. Mr. Ogilvie continued to advance funds to 
 the amount of £16,000 for which the Harbour Commissioners 
 gave debentures to his heir. Major Beauclerk. 
 
 In 1822 Mr. Alexander Nimmo inspected the harbour and 
 advised, in order to get rid of the great run in S.W. winds, 
 to cut a passage across the rocky ledge separating the pre- 
 sent from the middle harbour, as far as the opening behind 
 Maggy's Rock, all of which is accessible at low water, and 
 to build with this a breakwater on the outer and broader part 
 of the ledge, behind the perch. The run, having then room 
 to pass into the middle harbour and out at its present entrance, 
 would be greatly diminished at the pier. 
 
 In the Spring of 1822 Sir John Rennie reported on the 
 progress made in the construction of the pier, and estimated 
 the amount necessary for its completion at £6,650; on this 
 report the Harbour Commissioners applied to the Board of 
 Works for a loan, which was granted to the above amount, and 
 in September 1832, according to a report and estimate made by 
 Mr. Hamilton Killaly, by order of the Board of Works 
 a sum of £2,150 was then required for the completion of the 
 
80 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 works. Towards the end of December of the above year the 
 pier was closed, but by that time the funds were exhausted; 
 the parapet, coping and pavement being- in an unfinished state ; 
 the original estimate having been exceeded by the addition of 
 52 feet to the pier, in order to give greater tranquility and 
 accommodation within the harbour. 
 
 The Harbour Commisioners applied for a further loan, but 
 were refused, and the works remained unfinished, while Major 
 Beauclerk in vain urged the Treasury either to make a loan or 
 to place the securing of the pier in the hands of the Board of 
 Works. 
 
 In 1837, the first year after the closing of the pier, shelter 
 was afforded to 210 vessel^, averaging 150 tons burthen, and 
 a fleet of nearly 500 small craft landed £20,000 worth of fish, 
 principally herrings, on the New Quay; these promising results 
 were not, however, of long duration, for in the second year the 
 pier became broached by an autumnal gale at S.S.E., and no 
 timely repairs having been attempted, the circular head was 
 undermined, and the lighthouse, wliich was founded upon it, 
 and erected by the Ballast Board, fell into 20 feet of water; 
 the materials of the pier were carried into the harbour, where 
 they stili remain visible above low water, destroying the only 
 quay for lying alongside at low water. 
 
 Mr. Vignolles reported on this disaster in 1839, and recom- 
 mended that the plan should be modified, and the works rebuilt 
 with large blocks from the Isle of Man or Donaghadee, mixed 
 with the stone of the locality ; he was of opinion that in the 
 construction, serious errors had been committed, amongst which 
 the following may be enumerated : — 1st. Great unnecessary 
 expense of labour and materials on the interior faces, and in 
 parts not exposed to the direct action and weight of the 
 waves. 2nd. The slope of the glacis, or sea pavement, was 
 too steep, being only 4 to 1 from the top of the bell work 
 to the top of the parapet. The parapet was also 3 feet too low 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 81 
 
 for the run of the sea. The exterior face of the parapet should 
 have been bonded into and formed part of the top of the glacis, 
 and the interior face and the general body of the wall should 
 have been strengthened with through bonds, and the foundation 
 laid lower than it was. 3rd. The re-entering angle, formed 
 by the junction of the circular head with the straight line 
 of the pier, offered a vulnerable point, and it was near this 
 angle that the first breach was made. The position of the 
 projection of the circular head should be reversed, keeping 
 the outer line of the pier straight, and making the re-entering 
 angle on the inner or harbour side instead of on the outer side 
 as constructed. 
 
 Memorials having been sent to the Lords of the Treasury 
 in 1845, from the Chamber of Commerce at Belfast, from the 
 bankers, merchants, and shipowners of Liverpool, from the 
 merchants and shipowners of Whitehaven, from 1,200 ship- 
 owners, masters, and mariners who had occasionally visited 
 the harbour of Ardglass, and the matter having been in con- 
 sequence referred by the Admiralty to Captain Beechy, of 
 H.M.S. Firefly he, by a very little effort of the pen, settled 
 the question in the following brief communication, dated 4th 
 May, 1845:— 
 
 " Ardglass is not, in my opinion, worth tlie money it would take to 
 repair the pier, either as a harbour of refuge or a place of resort for more 
 than one steamer in bad weather. The harbour is too confined, the water 
 at its entrance too deep, and within too shallow for it ever to become a 
 place of refuge with easterly gales, when alone it would be required as 
 such. 
 
 " As a snug little cove where a steamer might pass a night, or land her 
 passengers and be off (which I think she could do in an easterly gale), or 
 where fishing boats might resort and lie a-ground, it is all very well, and 
 a pier would render it more safe than it is at present ; but as regards the 
 navigation of the Irish sea, I do not think it worth the particular attention 
 of the Government." 
 
 In 1851 Captain Denham, R.N., and Mr. Rendal were 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 called on for their advice. The latter recommended the 
 restoration of the works and the construction of another pier 
 from the rocks, on the opposite side of the bay. He observed 
 that it is under the lee of the former pier with the debris of 
 the new pier acting somewhat as a backwater, that upwards 
 of one hundred and thirty vessels still take shelter, notwith- 
 standing that the harbour light is no longer in operation to 
 guide them up to the round of the pier-head, but merely 
 denotes when they are right off the mouth of the bay itself, 
 the light now exhibited being from a stable loft, which is the 
 only means of showing the fair way direction, so that a vessel 
 has been known to pass beyond the pier-haven upon the 
 strand at the head of the bay. Captain Denham observes, 
 that no stranger can avail himself of Ardglass harbour of a 
 dark night until the light is restored, and this he recommends 
 to be done on the extremity of the ruins of the pier, or by 
 rearing a light tower on the foundation of the late head which 
 bares two feet at low water of springs, and is in a fit state to 
 receive a superstructure. 
 
 The government steamer, Comet, having been taken in a 
 violent gale off Ardglass, in the winter of 1851, ran for this 
 harbour and rode out the gale in safety, with the protection 
 of the dilapidated pier. The commander. Captain Jelfries, in 
 reporting the circumstance to the Admiralty, recommended 
 the harbour as worthy of being rendered fit for refuge, so 
 much required in this part of the Irish sea. 
 
 Captain Denham remarks, that the harbour has been usually- 
 considered only with the view of rendering it suitable for 
 coasters and fishing craft, because the cost of projecting break- 
 waters from the head-lands, which form the mouth of the 
 bay, in order to extend it to the capabilities of a harbour of 
 refuge, would be an undertaking too great for private enterprize, 
 but certainly worthy of an appropriation of national funds. 
 
 Mr. Rendal reported of the capabilities of Ardglass as a 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 83 
 
 harbour of refuge; that it would be necessary for that purpose 
 to form break-waters from Coleman's Head on the west, and 
 from Phoenix Point on the east, enclosing a high-water area 
 of about 1 00 acres, the low-water area between the head-lands 
 not exceeding 55 acres. The distance between the two head- 
 lands, bearing east and west of each other from the low 
 water, is about 1,900 feet, within which is a funnel-shaped 
 creek about 2,400 feet in length, having 9 fathoms of water at 
 low water of spring tides in the deepest part. 
 
 The portion of the creek forming the old harbour having 
 10 feet of water and upwards at low water of spring tides, 
 would give a sheltered anchorage of 17 acres, exclusive of 
 Castle Cove, which forms a good inner harbour for coasters 
 and fishing craft. These seventeen acres of anchorage, for 
 vessels drawing from 9 to 17 feet, and Castle Cove, about six 
 acres, adapted to smaller vessels, maybe sufficiently protected by 
 the restoration of the fallen pier and lighthouse; but increased 
 accommodation can only be advantageously procured by the 
 proposed breakwaters; that from the west point to be 1,050 
 feet long, in from 3 to 9 fathoms at low water at spring tides; 
 and that from the east side to be 650 feet long, in from 3 to 8 
 fathoms. Mr. Kendal's estimate for these works amounted to 
 £240,000, including the cost of lighthouses and a breastwork 
 or parapet for the whole length of each breakwater. The 
 time of completion he computed at 5 years ; the stone of the 
 locality to be used up to low water, and from that level lime- 
 stone or granite. For the above expenditure there would be 
 a safe refuge-harbour of about 35 acres, having from 3 to 9 
 fathoms of water with excellent anchorage ground. The 
 estimate was based on the well-known exposure of the coast 
 and the heavy sea which the works would have to encounter. 
 
 In case it should be decided that costly works were not 
 desirable, Mr. Rendal strongly recommended the restoration 
 of the pier and lighthouse, washed down by the gale in the 
 
84 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 autumn of 1838. The cost of this, with the removal of the 
 detritus which now contracts and endangers the present harbour, 
 he estimated at £20,000. If the breakwaters were built the 
 expense of reconstructing the pier would be reduced £8,000, 
 and it could then be made an inner shelter, as well as a wharf, 
 for trading purposes. 
 
 With reference to the propriety of restoring the pier, the 
 Commissioners of Public Works make the following observa- 
 tion, addressed to the Lord Lieutenant, dated 11th March, 
 1848:— 
 
 " This Board is fully impressed with the value of Ardglass Harbour, and 
 still entertains the hope that means may be provided for its restoration 
 upon a permanent footing. The cost of effecting this is quite beyond the 
 reach of any fund at present connected with this department. It may be 
 added that in 1840 this Board, under the sanction of the Treasury, offered 
 to pay half the cost of restoring the harbour, provided the parties interested 
 supplied the other half, and also undertook the maintenance of the harbour, 
 which was declined." 
 
 Now that the railway is open from Belfast to Downpatrick, 
 seven miles distant from Ardglass, there is reason to hope that 
 the attention of the enterprising merchants of Belfast will 
 be turned to this locality, offering the only harbour without 
 a bar in a distance of upwards of 100 miles, between 
 Kingstown and Belfast. 
 
 The remains of ancient castles crowning the heights in the 
 neighbourhood of Ardglass, give some evidence of the im- 
 portance of the place in former times. 
 
 BELFAST HARBOUR. 
 
 Belfast is situated at the western extremity of the lough of 
 Belfast, at the confluence of the river Lagan with that estuary, 
 called also Carrickfergus Bay. It is 102 miles north of 
 Dublin, in the county of Antrim. The port is formed by the 
 mouth of the river Lagan, which falls into the head of the 
 
ON CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 85 
 
 Belfast lough, after a course of about 36 miles, without 
 becoming of any considerable breadth, except opposite the 
 town, where the depth ranged from 2 to 6 feet, and below the 
 town there is a line of mud banks, called flats, having on 
 them 8 feet water at low springs ; from these banks the 
 channel gradually increases until it enters into a depth of from 
 16 to 20 feet at the lowest water, in the safe roadstead of 
 Garmoyle; from thence, however, to Belfast, a distance of 
 three miles, the navigation was so bad that large vessels could 
 not reach the quays, except at high water of springs, and 
 it was necessary to carry goods in lighters from Garmoyle 
 Bay to Belfast. 
 
 In order to remedy this great hindrance to the trade of the 
 place, plans were obtained in the year 1814 from several 
 Engineers, amongst whom may be mentioned Mr. Bevan, Mr. 
 Rhodes, and Mr. Killaly, the latter of whom was then 
 Engineer to the Board of Customs, and who recommended the 
 construction of a dock, and a short canal to Mile Water Reach, 
 estimated at £122,600. The various plans were referred to 
 Mr. Rennie, who disapproved of them, and proposed instead 
 to make a deep water channel from the town to Garmoyle, and 
 to provide accommodation for all classes of vessels, so that they 
 might lie afloat in front of the quays at all times of tide, con- 
 verting the river into a floating dock of 26 acres area. The 
 communication with the roadstead of Garmoyle, he was of 
 opinion might either be by an open deep water tidal channel, 
 or a lock ship canal, the latter he recommended. The esti- 
 mate of the whole of the works proposed by him amounted 
 to £450,000. 
 
 A modification of this plan was also proposed by xMr. Rennie, 
 at about half the cost of the other, but neither came within 
 the means of the Corporation, and matters were allowed to 
 remain in the same unsatisfactory position. Plans were fur- 
 nished in 1826 by Sir John Rennie, and in 1829 by Mr. 
 
86 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 Telford. In 1831 Messrs. Walker and Burges having been 
 consulted, gave plans which v^-ere approved of ; these consisted 
 of an open tidal channel in a direct line from the town to what 
 is called the seal channel, with 12 feet water at low spring 
 tides, the bed of the river near the town to be deepened to the 
 same extent. At the end of the channel an outer harbour was 
 to be formed for vessels to lie afloat in, when the tide would 
 not allow of the opening of the gates of the wet dock, 
 to be formed in the Corporation grounds, covering a space 
 of eleven acres, with a lock communicating with the river, 180 
 feet long 48 feet wide, and 12 feet deep at low water of 
 springs. The estimated cost of these works was £180,000. 
 Further improvements of the existing harbour, with quayage 
 and other accommodation for steam boat traffic, was also 
 recommended, making a total of £311,000. The objections 
 raised to the plans of Messrs. Walker and Burges, were that 
 the scheme of an open cut was liable to accumulation of silt 
 from the waters of the Lagan, and that a bar would be formed 
 at Garmoyle, but this objection not being considered well 
 founded, an Act was obtained in June, 1837, to carry out Mr. 
 Walker's plan, giving powers to take lands, also to increase 
 dues, and directing the order in which any funds that might 
 arise should be applied. The money question, however, again 
 became an impediment, and Messrs. Halpin, Rhodes, Cubit, 
 and Woodhouse were severally called on, and made plans, but 
 it was not until 1839 that the new channel recommended by 
 Mr. Walker was commenced, when a loan of £25,000 was 
 obtained from the Board of Works, the depth having been 
 reduced to nine feet, instead of twelve, as originally proposed. 
 This was completed in 1841 for a sum of £42,464, the first 
 bend of the river being thus cut off. 
 
 In 1841 the Corporation, in order to carry out the objects 
 of their Act, applied to the Board of Works for an additional 
 loan of £185,000, which was refused, they thereupon obtained 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 87 
 
 an Act to enable them to raise the necessary amount. The 
 period for compulsory purchase having expired in 1843, an 
 extension of time was granted by the Act of that year, the 
 Corporation were also relieved from the condition of an order 
 of works, and since that period the construction of the new 
 quays, and the first section of the new cut, were carried on 
 with success. The merchants interested took bonds in part 
 payment of the site of the quays, and thus left a considerable 
 sum for immediate outlay. At the period of the investigation 
 of the Tidal Harbour Commissioners in 1845, nearly £200,000 
 had been expended, either in the construction of works, or the 
 purchase of land. 
 
 In 1849 the lower portion of the new channel was made, at 
 an expense of £42,791, thus cutting off the second bend ; this, 
 with the spoil bank operation, of forming out of the material 
 an island of 17 acres, and constructing about 3,000 feet of 
 quayage, were the only considerable works performed of the 
 many contemplated by the numerous designs submitted; there 
 have been, however, some timber ponds made, these, with the 
 dredging in front of the town, and purchasing the site of the 
 intended improvements, complete the enumeration of the 
 results obtained by an expenditure which from 1837 to 1851 
 amounted to £474,073. 
 
 The special advantage claimed by Mr. Walker for his plan 
 was that it could be carried into effect by degrees, each step 
 or measure being complete in itself, but at the same time a 
 part of a great connected whole ; such piece-meal improve- 
 ments, however, are often found to be most wasteful on 
 account of the protraction of the execution. 
 
 In the extensive range of professional advice taken, the 
 corporate authorities of Belfast certainly appear to have adopted 
 the maxim that there is wisdom in multitude of counsels, but 
 it must be admitted they have signally failed in giving it an 
 economic practical application. 
 
88 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 The importance of the port may be judged from the amount 
 of its exports and imports, which were £l 1,571,280 for the 
 year 1850, and the revenue of the year upwards of £27,000. 
 
 CARRICKFERGUS HARBOUR. 
 
 The seaport of Carrickfergus is situated on the western side 
 of the estuary or lough of Belfast, 110 miles north of Dublin, 
 and 9 miles north-east of Belfast, whose prosperity has left 
 little or no trade, or pecuniary means of providing accommoda- 
 tion for shipping at Carrickfergus. 
 
 The harbour is formed by a pier running out 460 feet in a 
 westerly direction from the old castle, built in the time 
 of Henry II., projecting into the sea. Within the pier 
 the depth at high water of springs is only from 8 to 9 feet, and 
 6 to 7 feet at neaps, and even these depths can not be preserved 
 without occasional removal of the silt to which the shore is 
 subject. 
 
 Sir John Rennie having been called on in 1832 to suggest 
 a plan for the improvement of the harbour, recommended a new 
 one outside the present, carried to a depth of 17 feet at low 
 water of springs, and in order to guard against the silt drifting 
 along the shore, he proposed an open causeway pier upon 
 arches, in a southerly direction, for a length of 850 yards. 
 Beyond, and on each side of that causeway pier, he proposed 
 to construct two detached breakwaters, that on the east side 
 being 1,500 feet, and that on the west side 800 feet long, 
 placed so as to correspond with the ebbing and flowing cur- 
 rents, and to give protection against easterly and westerly 
 winds, and leaving an entrance of about 80 yards between 
 them. The breakwaters were intended to give shelter, and 
 the causeway pier for loading and unloading. The estimate 
 of the plan, capable of being rendered more extensive, was 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 89 
 
 £55,000. Want of means, or of enterprise, or perhaps both 
 combined, prevented the proposed improvement of this port, 
 the situation of which is well suited for a coasting trade. 
 
 Carrickfergus is a fortress of a very ancient date, and early 
 in the seventeenth century the town was the most important 
 place of trade in Ulster, before the introduction of manu- 
 facturing industry had raised Belfast to an absorbing im- 
 portance in that quarter. 
 
 BALLYCASTLE HARBOUR. 
 
 The prevailing opinion of the practicability and benefit to be 
 derived from supplying the capital with native coal, induced 
 the construction of this work in connexion with the collieries 
 in the locality, which had been worked from a very remote 
 date, as noticed by the Rev. Dr. Hamilton, in his description 
 of the north coast of the county Antrim. 
 
 A grant of £10,000 was made in 1737 to Hugh Boyd, Esq., 
 of Ballycastle, in the county Antrim, to construct a harbour 
 of certain specified dimensions, within a period of four years 
 from its commencement, and to deliver at it, on ship board, for 
 a term of 21 years, 20,000 tons of coals yearly on demand, at 
 4s. 6d. per ton. 
 
 The works were commenced early in 1 738, under the direc- 
 tion of Mr. Steers of Liverpool, who gave the plans and 
 specification of the work, and Mr. William Needham was 
 employed as Executive Engineer. 
 
 The piers to enclose the harbour were founded by driving 
 treble rows of piles in the site of each pier, for a length of 560 
 feet, and 32 feet in breadth, in bays of 15 feet in length, filled 
 in with rubble. The piles were of oak, 29 feet long, and 12 
 inches square, procured from Neath, on the west side of the 
 Bristol channel. Towards the end of the piers, the bottom 
 being rock, the foundation was laid in caissons. 
 
90 
 
 PROCEEDIN'GS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 There was accommodation for 60 ships, of 120 tons burthen, 
 but a great influx of sand, requiring constant dredging-, showed 
 that the site was badly chosen, and the winter storms having 
 carried away portions of the ends of the piers, it became neces- 
 sary to secure them, and with that view Mr. Christopher 
 Myers was consulted in 1758. He built 150 feet in length of 
 the extreme end of each pier of hewn stone raised on the old 
 foundations, the stones were from five to ten tons weight, and 
 from six to ten feet in length, well bedded with their heads to 
 the sea. The construction of the harbour, for which Parlia- 
 ment had granted £22,800 was reported in 1762 to be com- 
 plete, and that the work could not be disturbed by any force 
 of the sea. How long that prediction held good there are no 
 means of ascertaining, but Sir R. Griffith, in his survey of the 
 Antrim District in 1829, states that the piers having given 
 way the harbour had become nearly useless, having filled with 
 sand. 
 
 The collieries were carried on with some success, but not so 
 as to be able to compete in price with English coal in Dublin. 
 The neighbourhood of Ballycastle had also the advantage of 
 very productive salt works. 
 
 CORK HARBOUR. 
 
 This may more properly be described as the harbour of Cove, 
 and from its great extent of sheltered deep water, with a good 
 channel, off'ering the requisite facilities for access and departure, 
 has not called for any engineering works for its protection. 
 The entrance of the harbour is about two miles in length, and 
 one mile in breadth. The harbour itself is three miles in 
 length, and two and a half in breadth, of this there is a well 
 protected space of two nautical miles in length, and one-third 
 of a mile in width, with a depth of from six to fifteen fathoms 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS Of IRELAND. 
 
 91 
 
 in ^ood holding ground. It contains Spike Island and Haul- 
 bowline. On the former, Fort Westmoreland is said to com- 
 mand the entrance, the latter island is a victualling depot for 
 the navy. No part of the United Kingdom is better suited 
 for a naval arsenal or dock yard ; while Woolwich and Dept- 
 ford had been condemned as long back as 1806, by the Board 
 of Naval Revision, and all the money that has since been 
 lavished on them has failed to remedy their defects. 
 
 The enterprise of an individual, Mr. William Brown, has 
 supplied a want much felt, namely, graving docks; on the 
 construction of these £150,000 have been laid out by 
 him at Passage, up to which there are twenty feet of water at 
 the lowest neaps. There are two graving docks, the larger 
 has from 21 to 24 feet water on the sill, with an entrance 
 80 feet 6 inches wide, and length for the largest ships or 
 steamers. Four of these can be accommodated at the same 
 time. It can be used as a dry or floating dock, and is closed 
 with a caisson. The Cork Steam Ship Company also, of 
 which Mr. Pike is Managing Director, have within the last 
 few years constructed and fitted with machinery, made upon 
 the spot, some of the largest and finest iron screw steamers 
 now in the channel trade. 
 
 Between the deep water at Passage and Cork, a distance of 
 five miles, the river Lee was so tortuous and encumbered with 
 shoals that vessels drawing more than ten feet could not reach 
 the city at high water of springs, and until very recently 
 vessels were obliged to unload at Passage. 
 
 From the year 1759 up to 1767 a sum of £21,500 was 
 granted by the Irish Parliament to remedy the defects of the 
 navigation, but from that period nothing appears to have been 
 done until the year 1820, when an Act was passed for the 
 improvement of the port and harbour, and Commissioners were 
 appointed, without, however, producing any beneficial result, 
 until 1826, when steam dredging was adopted, and by availing 
 
92 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 themselves of the subsequent improvements in appliances of 
 that description, the Commissioners have succeeded in making 
 a channel throughout, from the deep water at Passage to the 
 quays of Cork, having 21 feet at ordinary spring tides, and 17 
 feet at neaps. 
 
 Cork is situated at the head of the estuary of the river Lee, 
 which dividing into two branches about a mile above the city, 
 and uniting below it, forms several islands, constituting 
 the principal portion of the site of the town. The arching 
 over of the intermediate channels, in order to obtain space, as the 
 necessities of increasing population demanded, has gradually 
 combined the whole into one island, connected with the 
 main land by six bridges, leading to the extensive suburbs. 
 The bridges worthy of description shall be given under the 
 proper head. 
 
 WEXFORD HARBOUR. 
 
 This port, situated at the entrance of the Irish channel, from 
 its proximity to St. David's Head, South Wales, distant about 
 45 miles, has always been considered a desirable place for 
 postal communication with the southern districts of England, 
 as well as being otherwise of much commercial importance, 
 and has, consequently engaged the attention of almost all 
 the Engineers of eminence during the last half century, in 
 order to solve the difficulty of providing a remedy for the 
 shifting bar, with which the entrance is beset, and to regulate 
 and direct the tortuous internal channels. 
 
 The harbour of Wexford is formed by the extensive estuary 
 of the river Slaney, where it discharges itself on the east coast, 
 about seven miles distant from the Point of Greenore, and 
 twelve miles from the Tuskar light. The entrance into the 
 harbour between Roslaire and Raven points is less than half a 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 93 
 
 mile in width, and from five to eight fathoms deep, shoaling 
 again on the outside, and leaving no passage with more than 
 eight feet depth between the extensive sand banks inter- 
 cepting the sea from the harbour. These obstructions, of 
 which the Dogger Bank is the largest, extend about three 
 miles north, and the same distance south of the entrance, and 
 vary from one quarter to three quarters of a mile in breadth, 
 between high-water marks inside and outside. 
 
 In the channel within the harbour, the depth at low water 
 is from six to nine feet. The main channel, from the Wexford 
 bridge to the point of discharge at the fort of Roslaire, is 
 very winding, being nearly six miles in length, while in a 
 direct line the distance is less than four miles ; there are also 
 various other channels which join the main one. 
 
 From the quay at Wexford to PoUdarrig, a distance of nine 
 and a half miles up-stream, the depth of water is sufficient for 
 the largest class of vessels that can enter the port. The 
 remainder of the distance, seven miles to Enniscorthy, is so 
 obstructed by shoals as to be navigable only for flat-bottomed 
 boats at favourable states of tide. For the whole distance, 
 sixteen and a half miles, from Wexford to Enniscorthy, the 
 width is irregular, contracting suddenly and expanding into 
 basins, the scouring power being finally so diminished that 
 the material brought down by the stronger currents is de- 
 posited, and forms a barrier by which the present level of 
 the river bed is maintained. 
 
 The extent of the estuary parallel with the coast north and 
 south, is upwards of eight statute miles, and its average breadth 
 from Wexford to the mouth of the harbour nearly three miles, 
 giving a tidal surface of twenty-four square miles. 
 
 The catchment of the river Slaney is stated by Sir Robert 
 Kane, in the Industrial Resources of Ireland, to be eight 
 hundred and fifteen square miles, and the detritus carried from 
 that great extent, together with the soil forming the natural 
 
94 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 bed of the harbour, is alternately dislodged and deposited, until 
 banks are formed by cross currents outside the harbour mouth, 
 and these again are increased by sand thrown up from the sea 
 by storms. 
 
 According to Commander Frazer's chart of 1843, the depth 
 of water on the bar is not more than from 6 to 7 feet at low 
 water, whilst spring tides do not rise more than 5 feet, and 
 neap tides only from 2 to 3 feet. 
 
 Of the eighteen and a half square miles constituting the 
 area of the harbour, fifteen and a half are mud lands, over 
 which springtides do not rise more than three feet, causing great 
 obstruction to the flow of the tides in and out. The high 
 water of neap tides covers about one-half of the mud lands, to 
 a depth of one foot, adding but little to the power of the 
 ebb tide, and the passing in and out of the tidal waters, in a 
 direction almost at right angles to the main current outside,- 
 produces altogether a combination of circumstances most 
 favourable to deposit, and therefore constitutes the difficulty of 
 making and maintaining a good entrance to a harbour situated 
 on a flat sandy coast, in front of an eddy tide, with not more 
 than an average rise of four feet. 
 
 Sir John Rennie having been consulted in the year 1831, as 
 to the best means to be adopted for remedying the defects of 
 the harbour, was of opinion that the various currents running 
 counter to each other, within and without the bar, should 
 be collected together, and guided so as to act in one and the 
 same direction, and to prolong their effect beyond the entrance ; 
 with that view he advised that no further embankments for the 
 reclamation of land over which the tide flowed, should be per- 
 mitted, without making compensation by an adequate excava- 
 tion, or better still, by increasing the depth or width of the 
 space for the reception of the tidal water. He considered that 
 the prejudical effect of the embankment of 800 acres from the 
 coal channel in 1816, was quite obvious, the abstraction of 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEEIIS OF IRELAND. 
 
 95 
 
 the quantity of water being a great cause of the deterioration 
 of the bar, which began to take place about that time, there 
 having been, according to reliable authority, fourteen feet of 
 water on it at low water, previous to that operation. 
 
 Sir William Cubit, in his Report of 1838, observed that a 
 great deal of mud land might be enclosed by embankments, 
 and reclaimed, possibly, with advantage, but certainly with 
 doubtful eifect as to the harbour, where the rise of tide is so 
 small, because every cubic foot of water stopped off from the 
 slobs would be prevented from running twice over the bar, 
 therefore he would say that, in this case, not a single yard, 
 capable of being covered with the high water of a neap tide, 
 ought to be embanked olf from the harbour. 
 
 Mr. Robert M'Call, C.E., in the year 1837, suggested a 
 plan for making a new entrance to the harbour, stopping up 
 the present entrance, and making a cut 400 feet wide, and 20 
 feet deep, embanked on both sides from the quays at Wexford 
 to a point three miles south of the present entrance into the 
 south bay, where there is deep water, by these means all the 
 mud lands covered at low water would be enclosed. 
 
 This plan was rejected, owing to the circumstance that the 
 proposed new cut would make such an angle with the channel 
 which passes the quays at Wexford, that the scouring power 
 would be turned to the opposite side of the channel, and the 
 quays would consequently be blocked up with mud, besides 
 there was no security that a bar would not be formed at the 
 mouth of the new cut. 
 
 Captain Vetch, in his Report of the year 1840, while 
 refraining from all questions about altering the entrance of the 
 harbour, or interfering with the main channel, the effect of 
 which he considered most difficult to anticipate, observed that 
 the harbour being oblong in the opposite direction of the 
 entering and retiring tide, a surface of water was admitted less 
 useful as a scour than if the form were funnel shaped ; there 
 
96 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 being, therefore, a limit to which the admission of tidal water 
 was desirable, he selected spaces from the north and south wings 
 of the harbour, suitable for embankment, and recommended 
 that every facility and assistance should be given to direct the 
 tides up the main channel, past the quays at Wexford, through 
 the inner harbour^ and up the course of the Slaney to Ennis- 
 corthy. 
 
 Captain Frazer, Commander of H.M. Surveying vessel, 
 ''Lucifer," in his letter of June, 1845, addressed to Captain 
 Beaufort, came to the conclusion, from his long and close 
 observation of the tides, as well as the nature and character of 
 the sands which sweep round the entrance to Wexford harbour, 
 that any works thrown out from the entrance with the view to 
 scour a more direct channel inward, would prove unavailing, 
 and that they would only tend to remove the impediment some 
 little distance farther out. He recommended that means should 
 be adopted to assist in the improvement of the Hantoon 
 natural channel, by deepening and widening it to a limited 
 extent, by means of a steam dredger, and he did not concur in 
 the objection that it would be filled in again by the gales from 
 the East. He also considered there was an absolute necessity 
 for a steam dredger, for the improvement of the internal 
 harbour, but more particularly for the removal of Gull bar. 
 
 Mr. James B. Farrell, who was County Surveyor and Resi- 
 dent Engineer at Wexford, has given the result of his very 
 careful investigation of the difficult question of improving the 
 harbour, in an able Report, published in the Proceedings of 
 the Tidal Harbour Commissioners in 1845. Referring to that 
 Report, Captain Washington states, that it has established a 
 character for the writer second to none in this country, in the 
 theory of hydraulic engineering. 
 
 Mr. Farrell's plan was based on the principle of allowing 
 such a large and effective influx of water to enter as would, in 
 its return to the sea, be able to keep the entrance free from 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 97 
 
 obstructions, also directing and regulating that quantity, so 
 that it should produce no excessive velocity, as that excess 
 might be the cause of evils fully as injurious as those resulting 
 from too great diminution of what is called the scouring power. 
 
 In harbours receiving the waters of large rivers, such as the 
 Slaney, he was impressed with the belief that consistently with 
 the principles laid down, the more gently the current of the 
 river and ebbing tides flow to meet the ocean, the less reason 
 there will be to apprehend the formation of bars, provided 
 that by giving the waters a proper direction and depth, and 
 removing all injurious obstructions, a uniform momentum is 
 afforded, approaching as nearly as possible to that arising from 
 the propagation of the tidal wave outside. To attain that 
 object he made the following recommendations. The deepen- 
 ing and regulating the width of the river from Enniscorthy, 
 so that there should be the same rise and fall of tide there as 
 at Wexford. The erection of a jetty to direct the Slaney in a 
 gentle curve round the mud bank called the Point of Park, in 
 order to shut up the present channel of the rivers coming from 
 Castle bridge, and to lead their waters through a new cut into 
 the main channel, in the direction of its current of ebb, instead 
 of being, as now, opposed to each other. Dredging away the 
 whole of the Point of Park. Removing the bridge and cause- 
 way at Wexford, and opening the high-water channel to its 
 original dimensions. Contracting the high water of the tidal 
 basin below the bridge by embankments, so constructed as to 
 collect and lead the ebb and flood by the best direction, in and 
 out of the harbour, to and from the deep water of the north 
 bay. Dredging the whole of the new basin to a uniform 
 depth of eleven feet below low water of spring tides. Widen, 
 ing the mouth of the harbour to about three-fourths of a mile, 
 at high water, and dredging the bottom of the additional width 
 out into deep water. Encouraging, by piling, planting bent 
 grass, and other means, the growth of Dogger Bank into a 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 permanent island. Dredging Hantoon channel, and thus 
 obtaining the great advantage of two entrances, one from the 
 north, the other from the south. 
 
 If these works were done he had no doubt that the result 
 would be the reduction of high and low water at Enniscorthy 
 to one level with high and low water at Wexford. The whole 
 fall is nearly absorbed in the first eight miles of the river from 
 the former town. 
 
 An Act for the improvement of the harbour, in connexion 
 with the embanking of the slob lands, was obtained in 1846, 
 whereby the formation of a tidal reservoir, by the enlarging 
 of the channel up to Enniscorthy, was provided as an equiva- 
 lent for the reduction of the tidal basin, by the embanking ; 
 the estimated cost of the works was stated at £140,000, and 
 that was taken to be the capital of the Company, but instead 
 of attending to the conditions of the Act, so far as the improve- 
 ment of the harbour was concerned, the Company confined 
 their operations to the partial dredging of the sailing channel, 
 without increasing the tidal reservoir, which could only be 
 gained in the river, but they embanked and reclaimed 2,060 
 acres of slob land, valued by Mr. Griffith at £24,000, and 
 adding onp-third, according to the rule to ascertain the letting 
 value, would give £32,000 as the value of a property obtained 
 at a cost, in actual work (omitting parliamentary and other 
 expenses), of about £7 per acre. Here for a time the improve- 
 ments ceased. 
 
 In 1852 the Wexford Harbour Improvement Company 
 obtained an Act by which they became the Wexford Embank- 
 ment Company, and got relieved from the works of navigation 
 of the Slaney undertaken under the Act of 1846. By the 
 Act of 1852 the Lords of the Admiralty were empowered to 
 appoint Commissioners for the purpose of constructing works 
 for improving and deepening the harbour of Wexford, and 
 the Embankment Company were to pay the Commissioners 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND, 
 
 99 
 
 £20,000 towards the improvement of the harbour, in addition 
 to an annual charge in liquidation of the conditions imposed 
 upon them by the Act of 1846. Two instalments, of £5,000 
 each, were paid by the Company up to 1854, but these sums 
 being small, compared with what was required, it was deter- 
 mined by the Admiralty to wait until the funds had increased, 
 and not to attempt any works before a sufficient sum could be 
 made available; in 1858, however, the ship owners having 
 become importunate, the Admiralty were obliged to yield, and 
 purchased a steam dredger and barges, which worked for some 
 time with beneficial effect, but the Embankment Company 
 having ceased to pay their instalments, and the funds being 
 exhausted, further operations were stopped, and much of the 
 benefit conferred was lessened by storms acting on the shifting 
 sands, no attempt having been made to secure Roslaire Point, 
 or the Dogger Bank. 
 
 Although very little has been done since obtaining the Act 
 of 1852, except reclaiming another portion of the slob land, 
 containing about 2,400 acres, yet the correctness of the method 
 for the improvement of the harbour as laid down by Mr. 
 Farrell, in his Report of 1845, has been fully tested. The 
 effect of the embankment of the mud lands, so as to cut off the 
 north and south wings of the estuary, which allowed the tide 
 to spread, instead of being forced up the harbour and rivers, is 
 that there is an increase of six inches in the vertical range of 
 the tide, or nearly one-eight of its whole mean range, and the 
 progression of the tide wave has been so increased, that it is 
 high water at Wexford quays twenty-one minutes sooner than 
 in 1845. Thus, both the volume and height of the tide have 
 been increased. The velocity and momentum of both ebb and 
 flood, in the expanded portion of the basin, have been 
 augmented, and the duration of the enlarged volume of flood 
 tide has been prolonged at the mouth of the harbour, where it 
 is of so much greater importance that the period of deeper 
 water should be as great as possible. 
 
100 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 This success, though partial, leaves no reason to doubt if 
 the sailing channel were dredged up to the quays at Wexford, 
 the river deepened to Enniscorthy, and all impediments re- 
 moved, that the contemplated results would be attained, and a 
 very interesting- problem in harbour improvement solved. 
 
 In 1859 Captain Vetch, having been a second time called 
 on to report on the harbour, recommended that a cut connect- 
 ing the Town channel with the Coal channel, should be made, 
 but the cost of this was shown by Mr. Farrell in his Report of 
 June, 1859, to be greatly underestimated, and quite out of the 
 reach of the means of the local Commissioners, besides being 
 likely to have the effect of silting up Hantoon channel, 
 one of the most valuable entrances the harbour can have. 
 Captain Vetch also recommended the construction of groynes 
 or breakwaters, to be run out on either side of the channel 
 upwards of 1,700 yards in length. These were also disap- 
 proved of by Mr. Farrell, as tending only to increase the con- 
 flicting condition of the tidal streams, and thus add to the 
 extent of the bar. 
 
 To decide these questions, Mr. Coode, Engineer to the 
 Harbour Works of Portland, was called in, being the last of 
 fifteen eminent professional authorities who were consulted. 
 Mr. Coode, in his Report dated December, 1859, states that, 
 although the plan recommended by him for dealing with the 
 approach to the harbour is, to a great extent, similar to that 
 proposed by Mr. Farrell, yet he could not entirely concur with 
 him, and he proposed a line of works or dykes along the north 
 edge of the Dogger Bank, one thousand yards shorter than 
 that proposed by Mr. Farrell, to be faced, in the absence of 
 suitable material, with concrete blocks varying from four to 
 eight tons, and filled in with the rubble stone of the country. 
 He concurred in the recommendation to encourage the growth 
 of the Dogger Bank into a permanent island. No works were 
 undertaken in consequence of this advice, but in 1860 a new 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 101 
 
 Act was obtained to transfer from the Admiralty to a Special 
 Commission, consisting of five (of whom a member of the 
 Board of Works should be one), certain powers for the improve- 
 ment of the harbour. In this, as in many other cases, it 
 would almost seem, from the number of Acts of Parliament 
 obtained to little purpose, as if there were a belief that legisla- 
 tion could supply the place of judicious enterprise. 
 
 The Harbour Commissioners were originally incorporated 
 in 1794. Since that period they have received upwards of 
 £100,000, of which £10,000 has been laid out in building 
 quays and buoying the channel, the remainder having been 
 spent in bringing water into the town, and for various other 
 municipal purposes. 
 
 With this description of a very interesting engineering diffi- 
 culty, we shall, for the present, conclude our notice of the 
 subject of Harbours. 
 
 LIGHTHOUSES. 
 
 At what period lighthouses were first erected in Ireland, is 
 not certain. It is stated in Smith's History of Waterford^ 
 that at Hooktown entrance to Waterford, a tall circular beacon 
 tower was found standing by Strongbow when he landed near 
 that place in 1070. In the reign of Charles II., a duty was 
 first laid on vessels according to their tonnage, to maintain 6 
 lighthouses on the coast of Ireland ; and a patent was granted 
 to the Earl of Arran for that purpose. In the year 1703, the 
 Irish ParUament, having ascertained that 2 only of the 6 
 lighthouses were maintained, revoked the patent, and entrusted 
 them to the management of the Commissioners of Revenue, 
 from whom they were transferred to the Ballast Board, under 
 an act of the Legislature passed in 1810, empowering that 
 body to erect new ones, and all towers, beacons, and sea 
 marks necessary for the protection of shipping. 
 
102 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 Up to 1768, the period of the completion of the south-wall 
 lighthouse, which was first illuminated with candles, the 
 clumsy expedient of coal fires was had recourse to, and these, 
 as may be supposed, were liable to be extinguished in times 
 of storm when they were most needed. These beacon-towers, 
 as they should more properly be called, having been placed 
 in the highest situations afforded by the neighbourhood, were, 
 for that reason, often in the region of fogs, and to remedy 
 that defect, the Howth light was transferred from the top of 
 the hill to the lower position of the Little Bailey, where it 
 now stands. It is found generally inexpedient to exceed 
 heights of from 150 to 200 feet above high-water mark ; 
 however, in a few instances, that limit has been, of necessity, 
 exceeded, as, for instance, Wicklow Head, Upper, is 250 feet 
 above high water of spring tides ; Minehead, county of Water- 
 ford, 285 feet; and the Great Skellings, county of Kerry, 
 372 feet. 
 
 Fifteen lighthouses were in operation at the period of the 
 transfer to the Ballast Board, by whom they were either entirely 
 rebuilt or repaired, and a new apparatus added. Up to the 
 year 1818, when a return was made to parliament, 9 new 
 lighthouses had been constructed, of which the Tuscar, on 
 the east coast of the county of Wexford, was the most im- 
 portant. 
 
 The Tuscar lighthouse is situated on a rock, about 7 miles 
 from Greenore Point, the south-eastern extremity of the coast 
 of Wexford. The rock is about 300 feet in length, 150 in 
 breadth, and its highest point is 30 feet above the level of 
 high water mark. Preparatory to the building, beams were 
 laid horizontally and firmly bolted into the rock as a foun- 
 dation, on which a platform was laid, and huts built for 40 
 workmen. This preparation had not been long made, when, 
 in October, 1812, a storm carried away the huts with most 
 of the inmates, a few only having escaped by a timely retreat 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF lUELAND. 
 
 103 
 
 to the highest point. The experience gained by this catas- 
 trophe was not thrown away on the Ballast Board, who 
 adopted, as a guide, Smeaton's mode of construction of the 
 Edystone lighthouse, which had been just then finished. The 
 stone was procured from the granite quarries of the Dublin 
 mountains, and each course was fitted and numbered before 
 being transmitted to its destination. 
 
 The building, erected at a cost of £35,000, is circular, and 
 82 feet in height from low-water mark, at the level of which 
 it is founded. The light, a revolving one, was exhibited for 
 the first time in June, 1815. The Smalls lighthouse, near 
 the Lands end, was carried away by the storm above referred 
 to, rendering its reconstruction on a better principle necessary; 
 both have since withstood the force of the sea. 
 
 From 1818 to October, 1854, the date of the Merchant 
 Shipping Act, by which the control of the lighthouses was 
 transferred to the Trinity House and the board of Trade, 49 
 additional lighthouses were built, making, in all, 73, besides 
 5 floating lights in situations where towers could not be con- 
 structed. The first floating light was placed in November, 
 1811, on the great sand bank called the Kish, part of a line 
 of shoals extending, under various names, from the coast of 
 Wexford to within 9 miles south-east of Dublin bay. Previous 
 to the establishment of this light, vessels running for Dublin 
 could not venture to stand in at night. 
 
 The iron houses, on account of their comparative novelty, 
 are worthy of some notice. 
 
 The Fastnet Rock Light. — The site was selected as a sub- 
 stitute for the Cape Clear light, being four miles farther to 
 the westward and southward, and less liable to be obscured 
 by fogs. It was commenced in 1851, and completed (from 
 the design of Mr. Halpin) in 1853, when the light was first 
 exhibited. The Messrs. Mallet of Dublin were the contractors 
 for the outer casing of the tower of cast iron, which is lined 
 
104 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSriTUTlON 
 
 with a cone of masonry for the first story, and for the remain- 
 der with brickwork, independent of the outer iron casing. 
 
 The rock, said to be silurian slate, stands high above the 
 water, and the iron conical tower is based upon a bed levelled 
 for the lowermost ring, which is secured by leaded lewis bolts. 
 It is about 80 feet in altitude to the gallery, and 24 feet 
 diameter at the base, surmounted by a lantern of iron and 
 bronze, containing a revolving dioptric light, the upper and 
 lower portions being fitted with catadioptric zones. The 
 whole height from base to vane being 92 feet ; and from the 
 level of high water of springs 148 feet. The cast iron plates 
 of which the tower is formed externally, are each about 8 feet 
 by 3 feet in width, with flanged joints placed together, surface 
 to surface, for the whole breadth of the flange, the vertical 
 courses breaking joint with each other to the extent of half 
 the depth of a plate. The average thickness of the shell is 
 one inch and a quarter. 
 
 The gallery is carried out over the summit of the tower on 
 a bold caveto running all round with a projection of about 5 
 feet. The whole structure was first erected on a levelled base 
 in the foundry in Dublin, and, its parts being numbered, were 
 sent by sea to their destination. Although the best period of 
 the year was chosen, great difficulty arose in landing the 
 parts on account of the heavy ground-swell of the Atlantic 
 ocean, and the sheer dip of the rock on all sides to a great 
 depth, rendering it necessary to step a derrick nearly horizon- 
 tally out and suspended from the cliffs, by which means the 
 several castings and stores were lifted vertically from the 
 boats and swung to land. A storm having occurred during 
 the progress of the construction, the workmen were saved 
 from being washed off by taking refuge within the iron barrier 
 of the first ring of the tower, which fortunately had been 
 bolted down. 
 
 The whole constructed at a cost of £18,947 is a creditable 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IKELAND. 
 
 105 
 
 specimen of what can be done in Ireland, when opportunity 
 offers, in this difficult branch of engineering-, and will bear 
 comparison with the best and latest works of the kind executed 
 in England or France, where the construction of lighthouses 
 has, in latter years, received great attention. 
 
 Two sheet iron structures have been erected supported on 
 screw piles, patented by Mitchell, one on the Spit Bank, 
 in Cork harbour, in 1853, the other in Dundalk harbour in 
 1855. They are similar in construction, octagonal in form, 
 and each is borne on 9 wrought-iron screw piles, placed apart 
 in the angles and centre, leaving the space beneath open. 
 Height from base of screws to vane 72 feet, height from high 
 water to vane 33 feet. Cost of each, including lantern and 
 dioptric light apparatus, £6,412 9s. 3d. 
 
 One of the Carlingford lighthouses is a good example of 
 cut stone masonry, constructed under circumstances which 
 must be considered one of the best tests of engineering skill. 
 It is built on a rock which bares only at low water of spring 
 tides. The vane is 101 feet above high water. The light 
 was first exhibited in 1823, and is visible at a distance of 17 
 miles with the naked eye. There is also a half-tide light 
 placed below the other and shown at and after half-flood. 
 
 No separate external lightning conductor exists, but there 
 is the usual arrangement of an iron hand-rail to form a con- 
 tinuous conductor from the lantern to the base of the tower. 
 The cost, owing to the difficulty of the site, was £28,396 
 The average cost of construction of Irish lighthouses gene- 
 rally, including dwellings and illuminating apparatus, is about 
 £10,000. 
 
 Although much has been done in the last half-century in 
 marking and buoying, still the number of lights is admitted to 
 be insufficient, more particularly on the west coast of Ireland ; 
 the lighting apparatus is also, in many instances, of an 
 inferior description, and, comparing the proportion between 
 
106 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 the number of lighthouses and the extent of coast line in 
 England and Ireland, there is one for every 14 nautical miles 
 in the former, and only one in every 35*5 miles in the latter; 
 and yet upv/ards of three-fourths of the illuminating apparatus 
 in use on the Irish coast is of the catadioptric description, 
 and is not allowed to be replaced by the dioptric light when 
 required, unless the old apparatus be worn out, although 
 found insufficient, and affording a continuously diminished 
 light during the successive stages of the reflectors becoming 
 worse. 
 
 On the transfer of the controlling power to the Trinity 
 House and Board of Trade, a balance of £100,000 was 
 transferred to the latter, objections, however, tenable only by 
 the force of authority are raised against supplying admitted 
 deficiences on the Irish coast out of that sum, of which 
 £23,000 only have been since expended, not amounting in 
 the whole to the annual interest of the fund. The Board of 
 Trade state, as a general rule, that they have no objection to 
 lighting and marking bays, which may be considered, or may 
 serve as harbours of refuge, provided there is no port inside 
 them, but in the latter case they always refuse ; consequently 
 an important question has arisen as to what constitutes a 
 harbour of refuge, or, in other words, what serves for local 
 and what for general purposes, both being alike attained by 
 the same means. The scope for interpretation on that 
 point may be judged of by the following involved sentences 
 in the Report of the Commissioners on Harbours of Refuge, 
 1859, which, no doubt, serves as an appropriate text for 
 comentary from the highest authorities : — 
 
 " The Harbours to which our attention has been principally drawn are 
 those which are required upon such parts of the coast as, being much 
 frequented, are without any adequate place of safety into which vessels 
 can run, if overtaken by storm. In bad weather and contrary winds it 
 is, doubtless, desirable that all vessels, and especially that class by which 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 i07 
 
 the coast is chiefly frequented, should have harbours in which they can 
 take shelter, for the purpose of avoiding the risks and wear and tear 
 incurred by keeping the sea, and the loss of time occasioned by being 
 driven back. That such harbours are of great service is sufficiently 
 attested by the use, in that respect, made of the harbours of Holyhead, 
 Kingstown, and Portland, in which 200, 150, and 1 10 vessels respectively 
 have taken refuge at one time during the last few weeks — events of 
 common occurrrence — and, therefore, it cannot be denied that they con- 
 tribute very materially, even if indirectly, to save both lifeand property. 
 
 " But it is obvious that harbours of this description, however great 
 may be their utility, differ very widely in character from those rendered 
 necessary for the purpose of saving life by the entire want of other than 
 tidal and bar harbours on an extensive line of coast, much exposed to heavy 
 on-shore gales, and the most largely frequented by the class of shipping 
 least capable, under such circumstances, of keeping off a lee-shore ; and^ 
 as these would appear to have a more especial claim on our attention, we 
 shall distinguish them by the name of Life Harbours, leaving to those 
 first-mentioned that of Refuge Harbours, by which they are already 
 generally known. 
 
 " In weather such as has been described, ships being able to reach those 
 ports only which are under their lee, it is clear that on any line of coast 
 the greater the number of such ports the greater will be their safety ; and the 
 conclusion becomes inevitable, that the best system to adopt is the improve- 
 ment of the existing ports, if they are in sufficient number, and if such 
 a course is practicable. But, if otherwise, then, that the sites for Life 
 Harbours, of which facihty of access and sufficient shelter are the only 
 essential requisites, must be sought at that spot on the coast which is 
 most generally accessible from every part of it, evidently, if it be straight 
 at its central point, and if a bay at its head." 
 
 The case of the Copeland Light is worth notice, as being 
 illustrative of the question of interpretation ; strong repre- 
 sentations having been made to the Ballast Board and Board 
 of Trade that the light on Copeland Island, off the south-east 
 entrance to Belfast Lough, should be taken down and replaced 
 by one on Mew Island — which is a danger to be guarded 
 against— a mile farther out; a committee of the Ballast Board, 
 of which Lord Meath was Chairman, made an inspection of 
 the locality, and reported in favour of the change. A Com- 
 
108 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 mittee of the Trinity House made a subsequent inspection, 
 and concurred in the views of the Ballast Board ; but the 
 Board of Trade, on the ground that it was more a harbour 
 light than for general trade, refused to give their sanction unless 
 the Belfast people were willing to contribute to the expense 
 of construction by levying a tonnage on shipping, and yet 
 Belfast is, unquestionably, a Harbour of Refuge, and the 
 Copeland was selected by the Revenue Board, in 1796, as a 
 sea light required in the locality to guide vessels navigating 
 the east side of St. George^s Channel, or thence passing into 
 or out of Belfast lough, or Donaghadee sound. A bell was 
 also amongst the requirements sought, on account of the fogs 
 to which the coast is subject, arising, as supposed, from the 
 very extensive back-water of Strangford lough ; this, as well 
 as Carlingford lough, and the harbours resorted to on the 
 coast from Belfast to Dublin being tidal cannot be considered 
 harbours of refuge, but Carlingford lough has, notwithstand- 
 ing, been selected by the Commissioners of Harbours of 
 Refuge as suitable for that purpose. 
 
 The Report of the Commission on Lights, &c., in 1861, 
 in adverting to the complicated system of government, in- 
 volving reference to three separate boards, states that " the 
 Board of Trade has steadily kept economy rather than 
 progress in view, but the saving they have thus effected has 
 been represented sometimes as a false economy, and it has, 
 unquestionably, led to much unsatisfactory correspondence, 
 and, in some instances to prejudicial delay. Neither has the 
 control of the superior over the inferior boards been always 
 attended with a saving." The Commissioners further 
 observe that, '*four Special Committees of the Legislature 
 have recommended that the expense of erecting and main- 
 taining lighthouses, floating lights, buoys, and beacons, on the 
 coast of the United Kingdom, should be defrayed out of the 
 public revenue." 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 109 
 
 It is to be hoped that, independently of the large fund in 
 hand, derived from an Irish source, that a policy will be 
 adopted more humane as regards the taking of the necessary 
 precautions for the saving of human life, and, with reference 
 to the protection of property, more in accordance with the 
 interests of a great maritime people, who are slow to admit, in 
 any branch of their system of government, an inferiority 
 which here undoubtedly exists. 
 
 ROADS. 
 
 The comparatively early attention paid to the making of 
 public roads in Ireland, is generally attributed to the abolition 
 of the system of statute labour by the Act of 1763, giving to 
 Grand Juries the charge of making highways by presentment ; 
 but that the movement had an earlier date, is proved by the 
 Report of Colonel Roy, who was sent over in 1766, with a 
 view to military defences. He stated that " there was no 
 country whatever, where there were more, or, in general, 
 better roads than in Ireland ; that the Irish had been at great 
 pains in this respect as well as in the building of bridges, for 
 there were not only great roads leading from Dublin in all 
 directions to the most distant quarters of the Kingdom, but 
 likewise from every considerable town there were cross roads 
 leading to the next adjacent places, and that manner of com- 
 munication, he observed, was continued from town to town 
 almost through the whole extent of the Kingdom. Arthur 
 Young, who completed his tour in 1769, corroborates the 
 above statement, but fell into error as to the Act quoted by 
 him being the cause. He observed, " For a country so far 
 behind us as Ireland, to have got suddenly so much the start 
 of us in the article of roads, is a spectacle that cannot fail to 
 strike the British traveller.'* And in referring to the Act of 
 1763, Young states, "The original Act was passed but 
 
110 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 seventeen years ago, and the effect of it in all parts of the 
 Kingdom was so great, that, (to use his own words), he found 
 it perfectly practicable to travel upon wheels by a map. I 
 could, he says, trace a route upon paper, as fancy would 
 dictate, and everywhere I found beautiful roads without break 
 or hindrance to enable me to realize my design." Fie adds. 
 
 What a figure would a person make in England who should 
 attempt to move in that manner, where the roads are almost 
 in as bad a state as in the time of Philip and Mary." 
 
 The mode of making roads, as described by Young, was to 
 throw up a foundation of earth in the middle of the space 
 from the outside. On that they formed a layer of lime stones, 
 broken to the size of a turkey's egg; on that again, a thin 
 scattering of earth to bind the stones together, and over all a 
 coat of gravel. Considering the lightness of their carriages 
 and the loads, he continues, " no fault is to be found with this 
 mode, for the road is beautiful and perfectly durable under 
 carts and coaches, the load for cars, which work regularly for 
 mills in carrying flour to Dublin, being from six to ten 
 hundred weight, but eighteen hundred weight has been often 
 carried thither from Slane mills." 
 
 The next authority was Mr. Edgeworth, Civil Engineer, 
 who published an Essay on Roads and Carriages in 1813. 
 His method differed little from that described by Young, the 
 stones being broken smaller, no stone to be larger than an 
 inch and a half in diameter. According to his practice, a 
 perch of a road 33 feet wide, would require about 15 cubic 
 yards of broken stone, supposing the sides of the road to 
 be weaker than the middle ; the cost of repairs, as performed 
 under his inspection, he estimates at less than one shilling per 
 perch. He refers to a mode of breaking or pounding stones 
 in his day by machinery, but it was found to reduce a portion 
 of the material to dust ; he therefore gave the preference to 
 the long-handled small hammer. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 Ill 
 
 He made provision for drainage, and laid it down as a 
 principle, that the road need have no more curvature than 
 would prevent it from being worn hollow before it could be 
 conveniently repaired. 
 
 The improvement of carriages, as regards the principles of 
 traction, was also fully treated by Mr. Edgeworth, and many 
 errors of construction demonstrated by experiments. 
 
 In 1807, Mr. David Aher, in his capacity of Engineer to 
 the Castlecomer Collieries, belonging, at that time, to the 
 Ormond family, found great impediments to the supplying of 
 the country with coals, on account of the want of means of 
 communication with the markets, the mines being contained 
 within the great mineral basin of Leinster, and accessible only 
 over very high passes ; he consequently was obliged to turn 
 his attention to the construction of roads ; in the accomplish- 
 ment of this object, he laid out the line of road between 
 Castlecomer and Carlow, over the Great Tolerton pass, 
 which is 781 feet above the level of the sea; by this means he 
 opened the country to the east. He next constructed the line 
 from Castlecomer to Athy, passing through the centre of the 
 Collieries and over the pass of Corgee, 870 feet above the 
 level of the sea, thus opening the mines to the north and 
 south. He afterwards laid out the road from Castlecomer to 
 Kilkenny, also to Ballinakil, Ballyragget and the Clough 
 district, completing the communication with the Collieries 
 through mountainous districts, previously almost entirely 
 excluded from commerce with each other. He subsequently 
 laid out roads under the direction of the Post Masters- General, 
 by whom, from the passing of the Act for making new roads 
 in the year 1804, up to 1820, upwards of £40,000 were 
 expended in making surveys ; and during the same period, the 
 cost incurred by Grand Juries in carrying them out, amounted 
 to upwards of £300,000. The tolls payable by mail coaches 
 amounted in the latter period to about £10,000 a-year. 
 
11-2 
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 Telford, previously to his being employed in the construction 
 of the Caledonian Canal, was the first who gave his attention 
 in England to the formation of roads, the subject having been 
 considered, before his time, beneath the attention of an 
 Engineer. He was subsequently employed, in 1806, by the 
 Government to make new lines of road in the Highlands of 
 Scotland, and there gained experience by which he profited 
 in the construction of the Holyhead, Liverpool, and Great 
 North roads, required by the increased communication with 
 Ireland, after the year 1800. 
 
 Telford's method was to lay a foundation of large stones, 
 with interstices between them for drainage, the layers of 
 broken stone placed in the foundation, diminishing in size 
 towards the top, so as to form, by the action of carriage 
 wheels, a hard surface, having no greater convexity than was 
 necessary to cause the water to run ofi^ freely. I'his system 
 was much extended by Telford's assistant, Sir John Macneill. 
 
 In 1813, M'Adam gave evidence as to his system, before a 
 Committee of the House of Commons, which had been sitting 
 for ten years previously on the subject of roads without having 
 led to any general practical improvement up to that time ; for 
 Mr. Edgeworth states that since his Essay was written (in 
 1813), he had visited England, and had found, on a journey 
 of many hundred miles, scarcely twenty miles of well-made 
 roads. In many parts of the country, and specially near 
 London, he states that the roads were in a shameful condition, 
 and the pavement of London utterly unworthy of a great 
 Metropolis. About the year 1816, M'Adam, more as a profes- 
 sional road-maker than an Engineer, brought his method into 
 general use in the vicinity of Bristol; it differs from Telford's 
 method in omitting the foundation of large stones, and laying 
 only a layer, 10 or 12 inches thick, of stones broken into 
 pieces about 2 inches in diameter, and spread equally over the 
 road about to be formed. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 113 
 
 The remote and mountainous parts of the south and west 
 of Ireland are indebted to the famine of 1822 for the further 
 extension of good roads to those parts. In order to afford 
 employment to the starving poor at that period, Mr. Griffith 
 was appointed to the counties of Cork and Limerick, Mr. 
 Kilally to Clare and Galway, and Mr. Nimmo to Ennis and 
 Connemara. Very large sums were expended under the 
 direction of these Engineers, by whom districts, theretofore in- 
 accessible to the traveller, were opened up, the happy results 
 of which have been steadily developing themselves during the 
 time that has since elapsed. These extensions rendered the 
 means of communication so complete that little remained to 
 be done in that way when the employment of the people by 
 the government again became necessary in the famine con- 
 sequent on the potato failure of 1846, when the large sum of 
 £11,000,000, nobly contributed by Parliament, had no other 
 aim than the saving of the people, who were set to work at the 
 repairs of roads, the cutting down of hills, and filling up of 
 hollows, as a means of employment, and a labour test of 
 destitution, rather than the performance of a work actually 
 necessary to be done, seeing that the appointment of County 
 Surveyors in 1834 had provided for all that concerned the 
 construction and maintenance of roads and bridges, but, if a 
 well-devised plan of trunk railways had been then initiated, 
 and even partially carried out, a large expenditure would have 
 been represented by a lasting improvement, and much capital 
 saved to private individuals in the subsequent construction of 
 railways competing with each other, instead of forming portions 
 of a well-combined system, in which each part should con- 
 tribute to the completion and advantage of the whole. 
 
 Amongst the roads of more recent date worthy of notice 
 may be mentioned, that connecting the counties of Cork and 
 Kerry, between Kenmare and Glengariff, a distance of 20 
 miles. It was commenced in July, 1833, under the direction 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 of Sir Richard Griffith, after a careful and rather difficult 
 survey had been made through a mountainous district, the 
 communication through which was of the wildest and most 
 useless description, the principal road lying over the Eske pass, 
 at an angle of IS*'. The steepest gradient on the new road 
 is 2^ 30^\ The pass at Dreenadrohur, 1,067 feet over high- 
 water mark in Bantry bay, was chosen ; through that pass a 
 cut was made, upwards of 800 feet in its total length, the 
 central portion being tunnelled, and 582 feet covered. The 
 formation schist, traversed by veins of green stone and quartz, 
 owing to its highly indurated nature, was found, in many 
 instances, very difficult to be worked. The floor of the 
 tunnel is 1,000 feet over high-water mark. Three minor 
 tunnels were cut between the summit and Kenmare river. 
 The latter is crossed by a suspension bridge, for which the 
 site offered facilities. The Sound, as the part of the river 
 crossed by the bridge is called, is divided into two chan- 
 nels by a rock, on this the tower of suspension is erected, 
 with a half catenary on either side of it. The distance between 
 the points of suspension is 313 feet; the versed sine 27*75 
 feet ; angle of catenary 20^' ; length of platform 300 feet ; 
 vertical strength in tons per inch section, 8*21 91, assuming the 
 load it will sustain before it begins to stretch to be 12 tons per 
 inch section, as calculated from the original design, by Mr. 
 James B. Farrell. This road is quite Alpine in its character, 
 and opens scenery unsurpassed in picturesque beauty, to which 
 the views of Bantry bay and the Atlantic give the grandest 
 effect. 
 
 The name of Sir Henry Parnell ought not to be passed 
 over unnoticed. He published in 1833, a very excellent 
 and comprehensive treatise on the subject of roads, with 
 full details of the making of the Holyhead and Howth 
 roads, between the years 1815 and 1830, upon which, 
 including the Menai and Conway bridges, £759,718 were laid 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 115 
 
 out under Telford, being the great work of that day, under- 
 taken for facilitating the communication between the two 
 countries. 
 
 The principal improvement of modern times is the con- 
 tinuous maintenance of roads in the best possible condition, 
 instead of, as formerly, putting on stones when they were 
 allowed to get out of repair. The system, as laid down by 
 Sir John Burgoyne, in a paper published by him in 1843, is 
 that which is now generally followed. 
 
 The formation of tramways on public roads, to convey 
 passengers, for which a Bill has been introduced in the present 
 Session, is the revival of an old idea, as they were recommended 
 to a Committee of the House of Commons in the year 1808 ; 
 and had been some years previously actually in use at Milan. 
 
 * BRIDGES IN DUBLIN AND THE VICINITY. 
 
 From the western to the eastern extremity of the Liffey there 
 are 9 bridges, of these the most westwardly is Sarah, or 
 Island bridge; the first stone of which was laid by Sarah, 
 Countess of Westmoreland, in 1791; it consists of a single 
 elliptic arch, of 104 feet span, 30 feet rise, and 38 feet in 
 breadth, affording, with its abutments and side walls, a road- 
 way 256 feet in length. Its height gives it a bold and pic- 
 turesque appearance ; and its dimensions generally entitled it 
 to be considered one of the best specimens of bridge building 
 of the period ; being 7 feet greater span than the Rialto. The 
 designer of it was Mr. Stephens, a Scotch Architect. 
 
 The second, or King's bridge, was built by public subscrip- 
 tion, to commemorate the visit of George the IV. to Ireland, 
 in 1821. But however useful in facilitating communication, 
 it has very little of an ornamental or commemorative character 
 to recommend it, being a very plain metal structure of one 
 
116 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 arch, 102 feet span, and 11 feet 6 inches rise, composeci of 
 seven cast-iron ribs; the road- way is 30 feet between the 
 parapets. The cost of construction was £7,000. The 
 design was selected in preference to the handsome stone 
 bridge with a triumphal arch at the southern approach, the 
 plan of which is before the Institution, as submitted to public 
 competition, by Messrs. Henry Mullins, and M*Mahon, at 
 an estimated cost of 1 1,000. It would have formed a handsome 
 feature in connexion with the imposing Terminus of the Great 
 Southern and Western Railway, then not contemplated. There 
 is said to be £1,500 unexpended, and in bank, of the sum 
 subscribed for this testimonial. 
 
 The third bridge was constructed of wood, in the first 
 instance, in 1671, and was called Bloody bridge, in consequence 
 of some persons having been killed on it, in an affray, soon 
 after the opening. It was subsequently built of stone, and 
 took its name from the barracks in the vicinity. It was a 
 plain structure of four semicircular arches, and the sterlings, on 
 which the piers were built, in the usual fashion of the day, 
 having encroached greatly on the water way, caused such 
 under-cutting as rendered the whole unsafe. It is now being 
 replaced by a handsome cast-iron arch, 95 feet on its chord 
 line ; with versed sine of 9 feet 6 inches. The abutments of 
 masonry are 37 feet 8 inches in width, over the springing 
 level across the pilasters. The bridge is to measure 122 feet 
 10 inches, from quay line to quay line, at the level of the road- 
 way, which is 33 feet between the parapets. A contract has 
 been entered into for the construction, amounting to the sum 
 of £11,000. 
 
 The fourth, or Queen's bridge, formerly called Arran 
 bridge, built in 1684, having been carried away by a flood in 
 1763, was replaced in 1768, by the present bridge, which got 
 its name in honour of Queen Anne. It consists of three arches 
 of hewn stone, making a length of 140 feet, and, with its 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 117 
 
 balustrade and ornamentation, is creditable to its designer, 
 Colonel Valleney, whose name must always be honourably 
 associated with the arts and literature of Ireland. 
 
 The fifth, or Whitworth bridge, reckoning from the west, 
 consists of three arches, and much resembles Queen's bridge 
 in design, its name is derived from the Viceroy who laid the 
 first stone in 1816. 
 
 In sinking for a foundation for the south abutment it was 
 found that the old bridge stood upon the ruins of another still 
 more ancient, the materials resembling Portland stone. The 
 masonry was built in regular courses, connected by iron 
 cramps, and laid on a platform of oak timber, supported by 
 small piles shod with iron, which, being oxidized and incrusted 
 with sand, had preserved the timber as if petrified. 
 
 The sixth, or Richmond bridge, consists of three arches of 
 equal spans, forming a road-way of 220 feet in length, and 52 
 feet in breadth. Built of Golden Hill granite, the keystones 
 being ornamented with allegorical colossal heads, executed 
 by Edward Smith. It is opposite to Winetavern-street, and 
 occupies the site of the oldest, and for many years the only, 
 bridge in Dublin. The original structure, the date of the con- 
 struction of which is uncertain, having fallen in 1385, was re- 
 built in 1428, by the Dominican Friars, who levied toll for the 
 passage. Having again yielded to the hand of time ; its ruins, 
 long a discredit to the city, were carried away by a flood in 
 1802. The present bridge was commenced in 1813, and took 
 its name from the Duke of Richmond. The design was given 
 by Mr. James Savage, of London ; and Mr. George Knowles, 
 Civil Engineer, of Dublin, was the contractor, for the sum of 
 £25,800, including the metal balustrade, which extends along 
 the Quay in front of the Law Courts, and joins with that of 
 the Whitworth bridge. 
 
 Edward Smith, the carver of the colossal heads, whose 
 works of sculpture are numerous in Dublin, was the pupil of 
 
118 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 Charles Vierpyle, who was brought over to Ireland by that 
 distinguished patron of the fine arts, the patriotic Earl of 
 Charlemont. 
 
 The seventh, or Essex bridge, was built in 1676, during the 
 Viceroyalty of the Earl of Essex, from whom it received its 
 name. The foundations having been laid on oak frames, 
 resting on the natural bed of the river, became undercut, and 
 fissures having taken place in the piers, their removal was 
 determined on, and commenced in January, 1753. The pre- 
 sent bridge was completed towards the close of the year 1755, 
 at a cost of £20,661, under the direction of Mr. George 
 Semple, Westminster bridge having served him for a model, 
 every stone, as he stated in his description, being in exact 
 similitude and in respective proportions with that structure, 
 and the spans of the arches being to one another as three to 
 five. Although Semple copied M. Labelye's design of West- 
 minster bridge he did not adopt his mode of building the 
 foundations in caissons, for having ascertained, from carefully 
 made borings, the great inequalities in the rocky bottom of the 
 river, he had recourse to coffer dams, a description of that 
 contrivance having just then been published by Bellidor, and 
 by means of which the foundations on the north side were laid 
 27 feet under high water. 
 
 Semple was no ordinary man, as may be seen by his 
 Treatise on Building in Water ^ published in 1756 ^ but the 
 profession in his day having had a low standing in public 
 estimation, neither money nor distinction were to be gained by 
 talents such as he possessed, and after a useful and laborious 
 life, dedicated to the advancement of Engineering science, he 
 was obliged to apply to Parliament for a pension of £100 
 a-year, which he obtained, to maintain him in his old age. 
 
 The eighth is the iron bridge for foot passengers. It con- 
 sists of one arch of 140 feet span ; 12 feet wide; and 11 feet 
 9 inches rise, forming the segment of an ellipse, supported on 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 119 
 
 stone abutments. It was built as a toll bridge, on specula- 
 tion, by Alderman John Claudius Beresford, and William 
 Walsh, Esq., at a cost of £3,000, and was opened in the year 
 1816. 
 
 CARLISLE BRIDGE. 
 
 When the old Custom House was removed from the vicinity 
 of Essex bridge, not without much opposition from interested 
 parties, and a new one built in its present site, nearer the 
 mouth of the river, vessels were no longer obliged to pass to 
 any great distance upwards, and, consequently, Carlisle bridge 
 was constructed, during the Viceroyalty of the grand-father of 
 the present accomplished and popular Chief Governor, who 
 has proved himself not unmindful of the association of his name 
 with our earlier efforts at creditable and lasting improvement. 
 Designed, by Gandon, it consists of three semicircular 
 arches, the centre being the greatest span, and forming, 
 together, a road- way 210 feet in length, and 60 feet between 
 the parapets. The foundations were laid in caissons. The 
 building was begun in 1791, and was finished in 1794, at a 
 cost of 60,000. The allegorical heads forming the keystones 
 of the arches, and the other ornamental work, in Portland 
 stone, are by Edward Smith, in his best style. By the open- 
 ing of this bridge the extension of the city took a new direction, 
 and the most important improvements, such as the building of 
 Westmoreland and Sack vi lie-streets were amongst the results. 
 
 Mr, Gandon, who was a pupil of Sir William Chambers, 
 came to Ireland in 1781, under the patronage of a distinguished 
 lover of art, the Earl of Charlemont ; a nobleman who estab- 
 lished an additional claim to the gratitude of his country, by 
 introducing the designer of some of the most ornamental 
 public buildings of its chief city. Gandon was a man of great 
 
120 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 natural ability and extensive acquirement, as well in the con- 
 structive as in the artistic part of his profession, and has left 
 us, in the Custom House, the eastern portico of the Bank of 
 Ireland, the central portion of the Law Courts, and the King's 
 Inns, monuments, which need no inscription to perpetuate his 
 name. 
 
 In the letters published with the interesting memoirs, edited 
 by Mr. Thomas J. Mulvany, Gandon refers to the hurried 
 manner in which he was obliged to prepare the design and to 
 commence the building of the Custom House, through fear of 
 its being stopped by the threatened opposition, and in this 
 excuse he seems to have anticipated the objections to the 
 defective lighting of the building, to which it is undoubtedly 
 liable. 
 
 With reference to the site — a portion of a swamp, nearly 
 a square mile, extending from the Liffey to Annesley 
 bridge, always overflowed by floods, and by spring tides — 
 he became much alarmed at the difficulties it presented to 
 forming a solid foundation, but the supposed impracticability 
 of the undertaking had, on the other hand, the eff'ect of 
 abating the violence of the opposition, and of allowing the 
 work to be proceeded with in anticipation of failure, which 
 was, however, skilfully provided against. In sinking for the 
 foundations of the walls of the cupola, the hard gravel was 
 found 8 feet below the surface, and to test further the nature 
 of the strata, a pile 10 feet long and one foot square was 
 driven down 9 feet, beyond which the ram ceased to move it, 
 indicating, as was generally supposed, the propriety of a piled 
 foundation, but Gandon judged differently, for he observed a 
 small stream of water rising up close about the pile, as if it 
 had pierced a spring, he, therefore, had recourse to a strong 
 grating of Memel timber, the interstices of which were filled 
 in with stock bricks laid in mortar, composed of powdered roach 
 lime and mortar well-mixed, supposed to be equal toTarras, over 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 121 
 
 this was laid a strong flooring fastened down on the grating, 
 rendering the platform complete, on this the walls were 
 raised with rough blocks of mountain granite, in the first 
 course of which was sunk a chain bar of flat iron. I have 
 thought this instance of the skill and judgement of Gandon 
 not unworthy of notice, more particularly as on a compara- 
 tively recent occasion the stability of an important work on 
 the Shannon, to be referred to hereafter, was proposed to be 
 endangered by piling in a porous bottom. 
 
 Looking to the architectural and engineering works designed 
 and successfully carried out by Gandon, and his literary and 
 artistic performances in publishing a continuation of Camp- 
 bell's Vifruvius Britannicus, engraving many of the plates 
 with his own hands, and translating the descriptions into the 
 French language, he must be considered to have rivalled the 
 best men of the continental schools of his day; he was also 
 amongst the last who exercised with distinction the combined 
 professions of architecture and civil engineering, and having 
 adopted the scene of his professional triumphs for his residence, 
 and the investment of his savings in building a portion of 
 Beresford-place, he died in 1822, in the 82nd year of his 
 age, at the then fashionable resort, Lucan, in a villa of his 
 own design. 
 
 After the lapse of a little more than half a century from the 
 date of its construction, Carlisle bridge has become insuffi- 
 cient for the great thoroughfare over it, and a suggestion has 
 been, in consequence, made to take it down and build 
 another of greater breadth, at a cost of £40,000, but, seeing 
 that the structure shows no signs of instability or dilapidation, 
 an obvious and cheap remedy presents itself, in placing the 
 foot-paths on brackets outside the parapets, thus affording 7 
 carriage ways in a space of 60 feet, which would be ample for 
 the passage of vehicles over it. This course is the more to 
 be recommended, seeing that the line of traffic parallel to the 
 
122 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 river must always be a cause of obstruction, notwithstanding 
 any extraordinary breadth of the bridge, and that there can 
 be no effectual easement of a crowded passage so circum- 
 stanced, except by diverting a portion of the traffic to another 
 part of the river, a suitable place for that object appearing to 
 be above the Custom-house, leading to Gardiner-street at one 
 side, and to Brunswick-street at the other, thus opening another 
 communication with the north and south sides of the town, 
 rendered necessary by the increased population of the North 
 Lots, and the great transit trade carried on from the North 
 Wall. It should also be borne in mind that the very slight 
 rise of the crown of the centre arch of Carlisle bridge over 
 the level of Westmoreland-street leaves no means of effecting ' 
 any considerable lowering by a new structure. A bridge over 
 the Custom House might be so constructed as, at a future date, 
 to have a second storey, or high level for railway communi- 
 cation between Kingstown and the Midland and Drogheda 
 lines. 
 
 LUCAN BRIDGE. 
 
 This structure, consisting of a single arch of 1 1 1 feet span, 
 and 22 feet rise, like many of the same period, is of a far more 
 expensive character than the occasion called for. Its con- 
 struction was attended with no difficulty, a good foundation 
 having been easily obtained, with suitable materials imme- 
 diately at hand, and yet the cost of construction exceeded 
 £9,000. Mr. George Knowles was the architect and, pro- 
 bably, the contractor, an arrangement common in those days, 
 owing to the difficulty of obtaining the services of a suffi- 
 ciently competent person of the latter class, together with the 
 want of capital, there having been no banks to assist enter- 
 prise of that description. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 123 
 
 Drumcondra bridge, which was commenced in 1813, is 
 supposed to have been the work of the same architect. Its 
 cost was £3,000. 
 
 The description of other bridges worthy of notice shall be 
 given when time for collecting the materials can be afforded. 
 
 SURVEYS AND REPORTS ON 
 BOG IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 The first step towards a general system of land improvement 
 was taken by the Irish Parliament in 1715, by passing an Act 
 to encourage the drainage and improving of the bogs and 
 unprofitable low grounds, and for easing and despatching the 
 inland carriage and conveyance of goods from one part to 
 another within the kingdom. Under this Act Members of Par- 
 liament and others were appointed commissioners, with power 
 to nominate undertakers, and, although much was contem- 
 plated, little was done, more particularly as to drainage, the 
 works executed having been principally for navigation pur- 
 poses, and undertaken at a later period as already described. 
 There are, however, remains of works to be met with com- 
 menced with the view of opening up the outfalls of the 
 drainage of important districts, but no extensive or permanent 
 relief was afforded, owing to their having been left incomplete. 
 
 A systematic project was inaugurated in 1809, under the 
 Commissioners of Bog Improvement, when surveys were 
 undertaken, and maps made, of the principal bogs of the 
 country. The Engineers employed for that purpose were 
 Messrs. Griffith, Jones, Longfield, Townsend, Brassington, 
 Aher, Colbourne, Edgeworth, Bald, and Nimmo, with a staff 
 of forty native surveyors. This Commission lasted three years, 
 and has left us three volumes of reports and maps, containing 
 much valuable information on the features of the bog districts 
 
124 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 generally, the nature of the peculiar mosses of which they are 
 principally composed, and the means of their improvement. 
 
 The following conclusions were arrived at, aided by the 
 Ordnance Survey, executed by General Valiancy, who was 
 Chairman of the Commission: — 1st. — That the principal bogs, 
 not including mountain bog, nor those less in extent than 
 
 500 English acres, amounted to 1,013,358 acres; 2nd That 
 
 about six- sevenths of these are contained within a space of 
 little more than one-fourth of the entire superficial extent of the 
 country, included within a line drawn from Wicklow-head to 
 Galway, and another drawn from Howth-head to Sligo, forming 
 a broad belt acr oss the centre of the island, with its narrow end 
 towards the capital, and gradually extending in breadth as it 
 approaches the Western Ocean; ord. — That this tract, extend- 
 ing from east to west, is crossed by the Shannon from north to 
 south, dividing it into two parts, of which that to the west- 
 ward contains more than double the extent of bogs to the 
 eastward, the latter being in extent about 260,000 English 
 acres, most of this, occupying a large portion of the King's 
 county, and county Kildare, is known as the bog of Allen, 
 being, however, composed of a number of distinct bogs 
 bearing that name, although separated by elevated grounds; 
 it was computed that there were besides not less than 560,000 
 English acres of detached flat bogs, scattered through other 
 counties of Ireland, and that 1,255.000 acres of peat soil 
 form the covering of mountains in the counties of Wicklow, 
 Donegal, Tyrone, and Fermanagh, and the districts of Erris 
 and Connemara; making an aggregate of 2,828,358 statute 
 acres of peat soil in Ireland, caused by humidity and a 
 low state of temperature, aided by want of drainage ; the 
 peculiar moss of which bog is principally composed being so 
 retentive of moisture that it will grow to a depth of 20 or 30 
 feet on the sloping sides of steep hills, and of this fact some 
 remarkable instances are given. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 125 
 
 No works of drainage were undertaken under this Commis- 
 sion, the object of it appearing to have been the obtaining of 
 information to enable private individuals to make profitable 
 outlay in improvements of the nature described, great advan- 
 tages having been anticipated. The results, however, were 
 far from encouraging, as an erroneous system was adopted, the 
 efforts of the proprietors having been confined to superficial 
 drainage, and the application of manures as practised in the 
 attempted reclamation of Chatmoss, but in the absence of any 
 provision for opening the outfalls of the water courses com- 
 manding the drainage, the tendency of the soil to revert to its 
 natural state of aquatic moss rendered permanent improvement 
 hopeless, each successive application of manure getting buried 
 in the bog, and requiring constant renewal to obtain a crop 
 while it remained near the surface. 
 
 This subject has been treated of by the late Mr. Mullins 
 and myself in the second volume of the Transactions of the 
 Institution, wherein principles are laid down better suited to the 
 attainment of the object in view than those generally adopted. 
 
 The first efforts at bog improvement were made in 1760 
 by Mr. Trench, of Woodlawn, afterwards Lord Ashtown, 
 as described by Arthur Young. About 300 acres are said 
 to have been reclaimed by superficial drainage and the 
 various applications of clay, limestone, gravel, and stable 
 manure. This early example of alleged success does not 
 appear to have led to any extensive operations of a like 
 nature; nor did the labours of the Commissioners, however 
 creditable as surveys and reports, give rise to any improve- 
 ments deserving of record, the system of superficial drainage 
 being unsuited to the purpose of permanent reclamation. 
 
 The cost of the Commission, which existed from September, 
 1807, to December, 1813, was £37,221. 
 
126 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 SHANNON. 
 
 The river Shannon passing through 9 counties out of 32, and 
 affording 230 statute miles of continuous navigation ; 71 miles, 
 from its mouth to Limerick, being a tide-way, with a flood 20 
 feet in height at the city quays, offered such prospects to the 
 inhabitants on either side of the borders, 460 miles in length, 
 as to have created early attention to its improvement, which 
 has been already described, but that improvement, although 
 apparently adequate to the trade, not having produced the 
 desired effect, an idea was taken up that the drainage of the 
 flooded lands would be attended with more beneficial results 
 than any improvement of the navigation ; it was accordingly 
 proposed in 1821, to lower its waters, and with the view of 
 carrying out the project Mr. Rennie, who was directed by the 
 Government, in the year 1821, to have a survey made of the 
 river, appointed Mr. Grantham for that purpose. He pro- 
 duced a valuable report, with an accurate survey of the whole 
 river. The estimate of the work, by which 2,000,000 acres 
 were proposed to be drained, was £300,000. This scheme 
 was, however, abandoned at the death of Mr. Rennie, and the 
 river left in its previous condition. 
 
 Mr. Alexander Nimmo, in his evidence before a Committee 
 of the Lords, in 1824, stated that " the Shannon had been 
 made navigable into lough Allen, but there were no quays or 
 roads to the water at any part of the river, except at the 
 bridges, and that £4,000 or £5,000 would accomplish all that 
 was wanted, in making roads and landing-places." 
 
 The notion, too often acted on, that increased facilities will 
 produce trade, where little or none previously existed, was 
 again the cause of a very extensive plan of improvement. 
 
 A Commission, consisting of Colonel Burgoyne, Captain 
 Mudge, R.N., and Thomas Rhodes, Esq., C.E., was appointed 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 127 
 
 in 1831, for the purpose of taking into consideration the navi- 
 gation of the Shannon, as well as that of its tributaries, as also 
 the practicability of draining, in an effective manner, the lands 
 subject to winter and summer floods. Captain Mudge, R.N., 
 described the state of the lower Shannon from Limerick to the 
 sea, and of the river Fergus from Ennis and Clare, to its 
 junction with the Shannon. M. Rhodes reported on the state 
 of the river from Limerick to lough Allen, together with that 
 of its numerous and important tributaries. Sir John Burgoyne 
 gave such inspection and co-operation as his position of 
 Chairman of the Board of Works, then about to be formed, 
 would permit. 
 
 In 1833 the principle of the whole scheme of navigation and 
 drainage conjoined was laid down by M. Rhodes, as published 
 in the first Report of the Commission ; and in 1837, under the 
 Act of the 5th & 6th Wm. IV., cap. 67, Colonel J. F. Burgoyne, 
 Captain Jones, R.E., Richard Griffith, William Cubit, and 
 Thomas Rhodes, Esqrs. Civil Engineers, were appointed 
 Commissioners. In the same year the second Report, with the 
 plans and estimates, was published, comprising the special 
 consideration of the intended operations, from the mouth of the 
 river up to Tarmonbarry, where the Royal Canal enters. In 
 1839 authority was given to the Commissioners to proceed, 
 and in 1840 the works were commenced. 
 
 In the main portion of the Shannon, extending from the sea 
 up to Limerick, with the exception of the little harbour at 
 Foynes, nothing was contemplated but the erection of beacons 
 and buoys to mark the sailing course, and from the confluence 
 of the Fergus with the Shannon to the village of Clare, 2 
 miles below the town of Ennis, the improvement was confined 
 to works of accommodation, such as quays or piers, of which 
 one or other was constructed at Querrin Creek, Kilrush, 
 Bally longford, Kiltesey, Kildisart, and Clare on Fergus. 
 
 From Limerick to Killaloe, a distance of 15 miles, there is 
 
128 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 a rise, from the tide water to the surface of lough Dergh, of 
 97 feet, causing so rapid a current at both extremities, as 
 originally to have obliged recourse to be had to side canals, 
 of which there are 8^ miles, with 1 1 locks of various sizes, as 
 already described, and 6J miles of river navigation. Seven 
 locks had been formed at the Limerick end, terminating in a 
 harbour, with a lock communicating with the tide-way in the 
 city, and 3 locks at Killaloe, making the number above stated 
 completed up to the year 1812. 
 
 It having been considered impracticable to render this portion 
 of the river navigable for large steam vessels, the original plan 
 was not disturbed, but to guard against the rapidity of floods 
 in the river course, and to maintain a sufficient depth in dry 
 weather 2 extensive regulating weirs were constructed, 1 at 
 Corbally, and a second at Castleconnell. 
 
 The rapids at O'Briens bridge and Parteen were deepened, 
 many shoals removed, and embankments constructed, in order 
 to preserve the course of the navigable channel, and there 
 having been no means of underpining the piers of O'Brien's 
 bridge, owing to the original defectiveness of the construction, 
 5 new arches, each 27 feet span, were added at its eastern end, 
 in order to give a sufficiently rapid discharge in time of flood. 
 A bridge, 416 feet in length, and 8 feet wide, supported on 
 timber piles, was also erected at Plassy, for the passage of 
 track horses. 
 
 It is an old opinion among Engineers, and one participated 
 in by Smeaton, that side canals prove, eventually, to be more 
 eifective than making channels in the beds of rivers, and 
 that for the purposes of navigation, rivers should be used to 
 supply canals with water. The system formerly adopted for 
 the works of this river, in pursuance of that opinion, was to 
 avoid every rapid by a side canal, and to have a lock for a fall 
 of 1 or 2 feet only. The plan of the Shannon Commissioners, 
 as suggested by Mr. Rhodes, from Killaloe upwards , was the 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 129 
 
 erection of locks and regulating weirs at the great falls, the 
 extension of the levels to considerable lengths, and the 
 removal of the intervening shoals by excavating or steam 
 dredging. The middle and upper portions of the river, 
 extending 122 miles in a northerly direction, from Killaloe to 
 lough Allen, the whole fall being 46 feet 5 inches in that 
 distance, were subjected to the altered system, the peculiar 
 character of the Shannon, in these portions, consisting of lakes 
 connected by a broad sluggish river, of which the depth, except 
 at the shoals, varies from 10 to 20 feet, offering the most 
 favourable conditions for a combined plan of drainage and 
 navigation ; the 3 great lakes, or reservoirs, forming 50 miles 
 of the whole line, which, in Mr. Rhodes survey of 1833, were 
 reported to be sufficiently deep for navigable purposes at the 
 lowest summer water. 
 
 The principal works were the locks and weirs connected with 
 them at Killaloe, Meelick, Athlone, Tarmonbarry, Rooskey, 
 and Jamestown, constituting 5 reaches, into which the whole 
 scheme was divided, to regulate a fall of 46 feet 5 inches in 122 
 miles. 
 
 The object of the weirs was to pen up the waters, so as to 
 preserve in the driest seasons a depth of at least 6 feet 6 inches 
 in the shallowest parts, and, at the same time, by extending 
 their length considerbly beyond the direct breadth of the river, 
 and by removing all obstructions to the current from below the 
 falls, to produce such an increased rapidity in the discharge, in 
 wet seasons, as to prevent the flat meadow lands adjoining the 
 river banks being flooded, as they were during a great portion 
 of the year. 
 
 Killaloe having a shoal extending quite across the river, 
 and being at the southern end of lough Dergh, which has an 
 extent of 23 miles in length, and from 2 to 9 miles in breadth, 
 was the Jsey of the drainage. Mr. Rhodes observed that in 
 the winter of 1832 the water rose to the height of 15 feet 
 
 K 
 
130 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 above the upper sill of Killaloe lock, and as the canal was 
 constructed for 6 feet water, a depth ample for the class of 
 vessels trading on it, he inferred that the increase from summer 
 to winter water was 9 feet. To prevent that accumulation 
 was the great object in view, and in order to its accomplish- 
 ment he determined, besides excavating and widening a part 
 of the channel above Killaloe bridge, to construct a stone 
 weir of elipticform, and of solid masonry, 1,160 feet in length, 
 bedded into the rock, of which the bottom consists, the eliptic 
 curve having appeared most suitable for discharging the 
 greatest quantity of water in the least time ; this weir to be 
 made of such height as to retain, in the driest seasons, 6 feet 
 of water upon the sill of the Killaloe lock. It was calculated 
 that the weir would give much more than double the dis- 
 charging power of the old channel, and that not more than a 
 depth of 2 feet 6 inches could ever accumulate on its apex at 
 the maximum, and that the winter floods would thus be 
 lowered 6 feet 6 inches, a reduction considered to be abun- 
 dantly sufficient to keep the waters of lough Dergh and the 
 Shannon at all times within their banks. Extensive improve- 
 ments were also made in the waterway at Killaloe bridge, to 
 which three arches, each 30 feet span, were added, and the 
 whole of the piers of the bridge under-pinned to a depth of 
 5 feet below the original foundation. 
 
 Previous to the operations being commenced, the usual 
 difference between the level of summer and winter water at 
 Killaloe, and through lough Dergh, was from 10 to 12 feet. 
 
 The Middle Shannon, extending from Portumna, at the 
 northern end of lough Dergh, to Athlone, at the southern 
 end of lough Ree, comprises 36 miles of a broad, deep chan- 
 nel, the whole, as described by Mr. Rhodes, in his preliminary 
 survey, being generally of sufficient depth for the navigation 
 of the largest class of steam vessels, and for drainage- purposes 
 at low summer water, with the exception of 15 fords, of which 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 131 
 
 Meelick was the principal one. These shoals are described 
 as of small extent, and nearly all of them composed of the 
 same material as the other parts of the bed of the river, 
 forming natural ridges of mountain clay, limestone gravel, and 
 detached stones. The rise from the surface of lough Dergh 
 to lough Ree is 16 feet, and was formerly rendered navigable 
 by short lateral canals to avoid the falls, with 4 locks of 
 various lifts. Two of these locks were dispensed with, one 
 at Banagher and the other at Shannon bridge ; of the two 
 retained, one was placed in a new side cut of 1,000 yards in 
 length at Meelick, 9 miles above the northern extremity of 
 lough Dergh, and the other in the bed of the river at Athlone, 
 close to the southern extremity of lough Ree. The Meelick 
 weir, 1,100 feet in length, is built convex in form, of solid 
 masonry, between 2 rows of piles, 30 feet in breadth and 6 feet 
 9 inches in height, with retaining walls on either side 200 feet 
 in length. The lock is a fine hewn-stone structure, 170 feet 
 in length and 40 feet wide, with a rise of 8 feet. The lower 
 sills of this and the Athlone lock were laid so as to have 7 feet 
 water on them in case it should be found necessary to deepen 
 the river channel to the same extent at a future period. 
 
 At Shannon bridge the piers were under-pinned to the depth 
 of 6 feet below the old foundation. Between Banao^her and 
 Shannon bridge, about a mile from the former, the Grand 
 Canal enters on one side, distant from Dublin 79 miles, and 
 on the other side, from Ballinasloe, 13 miles distant. 
 
 The Athlone weir, like that at Meelick, is also convex, and 
 of solid masonry, built between 2 rows of piles, 38 feet in 
 breadth and 6 feet 9 inches in height. The lock, built of 
 . finely-dressed cut stone, is 155 feet long by 40 feet wide, with 
 a pier 284 feet long by 30 feet wide. There was also removed 
 from the bed of the river, between the weir and lough Ree, 
 a very considerable quantity of excavation, of which the foun- 
 dation of the old bridge formed part. 
 
132 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 Lough Ree, in a length of 18 miles, presented but three 
 unimportant obstructions ; one at Lanesborough, situated at the 
 northern extremity of the lake, gave a fall of about a foot, which 
 was formerly passed by a lock, from thence to Tarmonbarry, a 
 distance of 8 miles, there was no difference of level worth 
 notice, and the removal of the slight obstruction at Lanes- 
 borough, gave a continuous deep and wide channel, from 
 Killaloe to Tarmonbarry, of 85 miles in extent, with but two 
 locks as already described. This may be properly called the 
 main portion of the navigation, on which 3 bridges, deserv- 
 ing of notice, were built : one at Banagher, consisting of 
 6 eliptic arches, each of 60 feet span and 32 feet roadway, 
 with an iron swivel bridge for navigation, having an ope of 
 40 feet in breadth; one at Athlone of 3 arches, each 61 feet 
 in span, 32 feet roadway, having also an iron swivel bridge of 
 the same ope as that of Banagher, 22 feet 9 inches in width ; a 
 third at Lanesborough, having 5 arches of 30 feet span, with 
 a swivel bridge of the same ope and width. 
 
 From Tarmonbarry (where the Grand Canal enters) to the 
 town of Leitrim, a distance of 30 miles, the Shannon is gene- 
 rally broad and deep, widening at intervals into seven small 
 lakes, the aggregate length of which is llf miles, and the 
 largest of them, lough Forbes, 3 miles long and J mile wide. 
 In the whole distance the fall amounts to 18 feet, which was 
 formerly passed by lateral canals and 3 locks, namely, at 
 Clondragh, Rooskey, and Jamestown. 
 
 The works in this division are of similar character to those 
 already described, but were executed on a reduced scale ; the 
 3 locks constructed, namely, at Tarmonbarry, Rooskey, and 
 Jamestown, being each 110 feet in length and 30 feet in 
 breadth. There is also a pier to the Tarmonbarry lock 224 
 feet in length by 30 feet wide. Rise of lock 8 feet 7 inches. 
 
 Regulating weirs, convex in form, have also been constructed 
 in connexion with each of these locks, one at Tarmonbarry 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 133 
 
 520 feet in length ; two at Rooskey. whose aggregate length 
 is 744 feet ; and one at Jamestown, near the head of the side 
 canal, 750 feet in length. New bridges have likewise been 
 erected at Rooskey, Jamestown, and Carrick ; that at Rooskey 
 having a swivel of 30 feet ope. Wharves have also been built 
 at Tarmonbarry, Rooskey, Drumsna, and Carrick. 
 
 Between Rooskey and Drumsna, the Carnadoe river joins 
 the Shannon, and was made navigable for 6 miles through 
 the Gillstown lake, situated within 3 miles of Strokestown. 
 
 At Drumsna some deepening of the river and under-pinning 
 of the bridge took place ; and at Jamestown, in addition to 
 the weir, a new bridge was built of 5 segmental arches, each 
 30 feet span and 17 feet wide between the parapets. 
 
 At Carrick, 20 miles above Tarmonbarry, the Boyle water, 
 the first great tributary of the Shannon, enters, and has been 
 made navigable for a distance of 9 miles through lough Key 
 to within a mile of the town of Boyle. The works are on the 
 same scale as those of the division in their neisrhbourhood. 
 They consist principally of a lock and regulating weir at 
 Knockvicar, and a bridge of three 30 feet arches with an over 
 fall above it 244 feet in length. The lock is 112 feet by 30 
 feet, with a pier 200 feet by 25 feet. The rise of the lock 4 
 feet. The weir is constructed with a sluice. A bridge was 
 also built at Cootehall, and a large quantity of excavation 
 removed from the bed of the Boyle water. 
 
 From lough Forbes, near Tarmonbarry, to J^eitrim, 5 
 miles above Carrick, numerous shoals, consisting of rock and 
 gravel, were removed. 
 
 At Battle bridge, near Leitrim ; the lough Allen canal 
 enters the Shannon, extending 3 miles to Drumshambo, little 
 alteration was here made, the operations having been confined 
 to the deepening of the canal and the under-pinning of the 
 lock at Battle bridge to suit the altered levels. 
 
 The deviation of the course of the mountain river, the 
 
134 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 Arigna, so as to discharge its waters into lough Allen instead 
 of the Shannon, which was injuriously affected by the quan- 
 tity of debris carried into it, was the only improvement in this 
 quarter. 
 
 The Shannon takes its rise in the mountains of the counties 
 of Cavan and Leitrim, to the north of lough Allen, which is 
 the catchment basin of the surrounding district, and extends 
 10 miles in length from north to south, and 3 miles in breadth 
 from east to west; the average depth is 12 feet. It stands 
 160 feet above the level of the sea at low water of ordinary 
 spring tides. 
 
 The coal of the Arigna district not being obtainable in 
 sufficient quantities to smelt the iron ore, found there in 
 abundance, and of the best quality, the works have long since 
 ceased ; and of the coal raised for domestic use, but little finds 
 its way to the Shannon, the first impetus to the trade of which 
 is given at Carrick, no important addition to the tolls having 
 as yet arisen from the lough Erne Canal, opened in the year 
 1860. It enters the Shannon at the town of Leitrim, 5 miles 
 above Carrick. 
 
 In the execution of the works of the Shannon improvement, 
 the great and sudden rise of the floods caused much difficulty 
 and expense ; but little however, on that account, was added 
 to the original estimate, as the whole was judiciously let by 
 contract, and the result, as well in that respect as in the per- 
 manency of the construction, justified the mode of letting 
 adopted. 
 
 At Athlone, the coffer dam, within which the new lock was 
 built, enclosed an area of 36,160 square feet, the height of 
 flood water outside was about 24 feet, being 6 feet 6 inches 
 above summer level; and the additional pressure of this 
 increased height on the porous sandy bottom, extending to a 
 great depth, rendered it impracticable as well as unsafe, to 
 attempt the unwatering some time before the flood had 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 135 
 
 reached its maximum. Metal pumps, 15 inches in diameter, 
 worked by three water-wheels and a powerful steam-engine, 
 removed about 6,000 gallons of water per minute; but it was 
 found that the water rushed in so rapidly in flood time, as to 
 blow up the bottom and to endanger the safety of the coffer 
 dam ; and even at the ordinary level of the external river, the 
 bursting up of the water in excavating for the foundation 
 level, was so serious that it was contemplated to build on a 
 wooden platform, supported by piles, but on more experienced 
 advice, a bed of concrete, made with hydraulic lime, of excel- 
 lent quality, found in the neighbourhood, was adopted, and 
 what appeared to be a great difficulty, was easily and 
 effectually overcome. 
 
 The temporary diversion of the Shannon at Athlone into 
 the old canal, 50 feet in breadth, is not unworthy of a passing 
 notice. There having been a large quantity of excavation to 
 be removed from the bed of the river, consisting in great part 
 of the foundations and sterlings of the old bridge, and of old 
 walls and mill-dams, not removable by dredging, the unwatering 
 of a considerable space therefore became a serious question, 
 and it occurred to me that the making of a clay dam down- 
 stream of the old canal, through which the Shannon as it 
 leaves lough Ree might be turned, would afford an oppor- 
 tunity for a sufficient time to allow of the excavation being 
 removed ; with that view, the lock-gates of the canal having 
 been kept open for some weeks in order to lower the surface 
 of the lake, a dam was commenced immediately down-stream 
 of the old canal, which is 50 feet wide, at a part of the river 
 530 feet in breadth, and from 4 to 8 feet deep. A sort of 
 coffer was made, in the first instance, of hurdles, supported 
 by short piles to prevent the clay hearting being washed 
 away; this being done, a berm of stones was made on the 
 down-stream side of the dam to give support. By keeping 
 the lock-gates open, the surface of lough Ree was lowered 
 
136 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 12 inches below its ordinary level before the closing of the 
 dam, on the up-stream side of which, when closed, the water 
 rose steadily an inch every 24 hours, and as a rise of 2 feet 6 
 inches could take place before the lands on either side were 
 flooded, nearly 30 days freedom from water were obtained, 
 and during that time the excavation was removed. 
 
 The circumstance of allowing the waters of lough Ree to 
 run low in the dry season, as above described, exemplifies the 
 effect of lowering the surface of the lakes in a combined 
 system of drainage and navigation, supposing the river portion 
 of the channel to be made to correspond, thus giving more 
 capacity to the reservoirs, and more discharging power to the 
 conduits leading from them ; whereas, under present circum- 
 stances, the flooding is not prevented, although it is carried 
 off with much more rapidity than formerly, and, as might be 
 expected, the reach between Meelick and Athlone, 27 miles 
 in length, into which the Suck and Brosna rivers pour their 
 waters, is subject to the greatest rise of floods, the water 
 being backed up to Athlone, so that all trace of the weir at 
 that place disappears on the surface. 
 
 Such a result, under existing circumstances, is not to be 
 wondered at, when it is considered that the catchment basin 
 of the Shannon is about 4,000 square miles in extent, or 
 2,560,000 statute acres, of which 3,613 square miles are above 
 Killaloe, and 385 square miles below it; the discharge at 
 Killaloe weir, as ascertained by Mr. Mulvany, in February, 
 1849, at a period of high flood, was 1,108,660 cubic feet 
 per minute; and taking the discharge from the mountain 
 basin below Killaloe, 385 square miles in extent, at 369,300 
 cubic feet per minute, will give a maximum discharge at 
 Limerick of 1,478,960 cubic feet, or about 41,230 tons per 
 minute. It is, however, presumable if the channels had been 
 made more capacious, and means adopted of regulating the 
 discharge of the so-called regulating weirs, that no great 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 13T 
 
 accumulation of water would have taken place, and that any 
 approach to the former state of the river, which flooded for 
 months together the low levels on its borders, would thus have 
 been effectually prevented. 
 
 The successful navigation of the Shannon, with the 
 certainty and despatch required for commercial purposes, was 
 due to the introduction of steam vessels; for, although the 
 new locks admit of large craft being used, yet these were unfit 
 to encounter the dangers of the stormy lakes, and detentions, 
 for long periods at Lanesborough and Portumna, during south- 
 westerly winds, would have taken place as formerly, to the 
 great detriment of the trade. 
 
 The results of the modern improvements of the Shannon, in 
 a commercial point of view, have not, after some years of 
 trial, answered the expectations formed of the great benefits 
 to be derived from them, any more than the improvement of 
 an older date — shewing what seems manifest enough, that 
 facilities should rather wait on than precede development; 
 and although at some remote future date, and by the intro- 
 duction of new sources of industry, the commerce of the river 
 may, notwithstanding railway competition, grow by slow 
 degrees up to the accommodation provided for it; yet the 
 incurring of great expense, by anticipation, is wrong in prin- 
 ciple as well as unjust to those who have been taxed for the 
 benefit of a future generation, as the proprietors of the border 
 counties have been, to a large amount, by compulsory Grand 
 Jury presentments. But, looking to the nature of the soil, 
 and general character of the country as to productiveness, 
 from lough Allen to Killaloe, there are no strong grounds 
 to anticipate that, under ordinary circumstances, there will 
 be at any future time an adequate return made to the 
 counties for the outlay to which they were subject, although 
 half the cost of the works was contributed out of the public 
 purse. 
 
138 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 The total cost of the works was, . . £510,750 15 9 
 Paid for property, required for the purposes 
 
 of the improvement, .... 74,054 2 1 
 
 £584,804 17 10 
 
 The half of the above, with the exception of a small portion 
 paid out of the produce of the tolls, was levied off the neigh- 
 bouring counties. 
 
 The land relieved by the operations of the Commissioners 
 is stated in their 1 1th report ^to be 18,750 acres, which, it is 
 to be presumed, includes the portions subject to temporary 
 flooding during a period of from three to six weeks, instead of 
 as formerly for nearly as many months. 
 
 The fishery of the Shannon, placed under the control of the 
 Board of Works by the act of the 5th and 6th Vict., cap. 
 105, in 1842, is not the least productive trade of the river, 
 giving satisfactory proof that the contrivances for the passage 
 of fish (consisting of oblique steps, or a zigzag in the slopes 
 of the weirs) have perfectly answered the intended purpose. 
 
 Adding to the amount above stated, the sum of £325,873, 
 the cost of the improvements made between the years 1 755 
 and 1812, as already described under the heads of Limerick 
 and Upper Shannon navigations, there appears to have been 
 expended, at different times, within a period of 100 years, the 
 enormous sum of £910,677 on the improvement of this river, 
 which presents, with its series of extensive lakes or reservoirs, 
 connected by deep channels, conditions considered favourable 
 for a combined system of drainage and navigation. 
 
 ARTERIAL DRAINAGE. 
 
 That the drainage of the extensive tracts of flooded lands in 
 Ireland was an object of considerable interest at an earlier 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 139 
 
 period of the history of the country than the year 1715, when 
 the Drainage and Navigation Act referred to, in treating of the 
 Bog Survey, was passed, is proved by the fact that several 
 instances yet remain of works, of which there is no record, 
 executed for the purpose of opening up the outfalls of im- 
 portant districts. Twenty different extensive schemes of 
 navigation and drainage were contemplated at the period of 
 the passing of the above-mentioned act, but a few only of the 
 former, already described, were undertaken. It appears not 
 unlikely when the drainage of the great level of the Fens, 
 called the Bedford Level, was planned by Vermyden, a Dutch 
 Engineer, in 1640, that attention became directed to matters 
 of a like nature in this country also, where the resources for 
 carrying them out to any useful extent did not exist. 
 
 With the exception of the Bog Survey of 1809, no new 
 drainage measure but Rennie's project for lowering the waters 
 of the Shannon were contemplated until 1831, when a step of 
 intended importance was taken in passing the I & 2 Wm. IV., 
 cap. 57, commonly called More O'Ferrali's Act, amended and 
 extended by the 5 and 6 Vic, cap. 105, the principal of 
 which was to execute arterial drainage by local agency ; it was, 
 in fact, an extension to Ireland of the private drainage acts of 
 England, the difference being that the latter were strictly local, 
 whereas this was a general act on the same principle, enabling 
 individuals to combine for the execution of particular projects, 
 with consent of the Lord Lieutenant, and to form corpora- 
 tions for the specific object, with power to raise money on 
 debentures to execute the works, and, after completion, to 
 provide for keeping them in repair ; also for levying a rate for 
 that purpose from the proprietors interested. 
 
 This act was brought into very partial operation in two 
 instances, of which one only was by the foundation of a com- 
 pany for the drainage of lough Corrib, a scheme rendered 
 abortive by the subscription not filling ; the work was, how- 
 
140 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 ever, undertaken some years subsequently on a more compre- 
 hensive plan by the Board of Works. The other instance 
 refered to went no further than a preliminary survey of the 
 river Blackwater in connexion with Mr. More O'Ferrall's 
 property in the county of Kildare, he was, however unable to 
 induce his neighbours to combine with him, and the project 
 fell to the ground, but was afterwards carried into execution 
 under the provisions of the 5 and 6 Vic, cap. 89. There 
 were also one or two minor drainages executed by Grand Jury 
 presentment in the manner prescribed by the act of 1831, 
 which finally became inoperative from the unwillingness of 
 the parties interested to co-operate under its provisions in the 
 absence of compulsory powers. 
 
 The improvement of the Shannon, and the drainage of the 
 great tract of adjoining lands already described, were the next 
 projects undertaken, the primary object having been navigation 
 with a secondary view to drainage, the scheme was, therefore, 
 founded on a compromise between those two objects, not 
 altogether favourable in the execution to the latter, the com- 
 bination of both presenting a difficulty which was not provided 
 against by a sufficient capacity of channel, or a means of 
 regulating the discharge of the weirs ; the aim was, however, 
 in the right direction, so far as indicating the true principle — 
 namely, that the measure of the first importance should be the 
 opening of the channels of the rivers which are the main 
 outfalls of the drainage of the country. 
 
 The acts 1 and 2 Wm. IV., c. 59, amended by 5 and 6 Vic, 
 c 105, above referred to, having produced no practical result, 
 the 5 and 6 Vic, c. 89 became law in 1842, and the arterial 
 drainage was placed in the hands of the Board of Works. 
 Under this act any person interested in the drainage of lands, 
 and the opening of any navigation in connexion therewith, 
 might make application to the Commissioners to have its pro- 
 visions applied, upon his undertaking to pay the whole of the 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 141 
 
 preliminary expenses in case the project should not be approved 
 of, but if, on taking the necessary steps to enable a judgment 
 to be formed, the Board of Works decided on the propriety of 
 proceeding in the matter, the preliminary provisions of the 
 act were put in operation, and the expenses became part of the 
 charge upon the lands — reports, plans, surveys, and valuations 
 were lodged for inspection — a preliminary meeting was held in 
 order to afford an opportunity for discussion, and, on the 
 opinions of the proprietors appearing to be generally favourable, 
 forms of assent were issued, and, if the owners of two-thirds 
 of the land to be drained — subsequently altered to one-half of 
 the land — concurred, the Commissioners issued their declara- 
 tion accordingly, appending a schedule of the lands for which 
 the assents had been received. This declaration was lodged 
 for 21 days to afford an opportunity to parties interested to 
 enter objections, but, if no objections were made, or if made, 
 were found invalid, the Commissioners issued their final notice, 
 that all the requirements of the acts had been complied with, 
 and then the works were commenced. 
 
 It was originally contemplated to execute the works by 
 funds borrowed by the Board of Works from pivate parties on 
 debentures, or from the Government, the latter, however, with 
 very few exceptions, proved to be the only available resource. 
 On the completion of each undertaking, the valuation was 
 revised, and the expense apportioned on the lands drained, 
 according to the benefit conferred, after which the final award 
 of the Commissioners was made, the number of years fixed for 
 the repayment of the cost of the works by half-yearly instal- 
 ments, and Trustees appointed, to whom the district was 
 handed over for maintenance, whereupon the powers of the 
 Commissioners of Drainage ceased. 
 
 The works executed by the department, in the first instance, 
 having been deliberately entered into, and carefully carried 
 out, under ordinarily favourable circumstance, were attended 
 
142 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 with success, and gave much general satisfaction, but, under 
 the provisions of the 9 Vic, cap. 4, commonly known as the 
 Provision for Summary Proceedings, many of the require- 
 ments of the former act were dispensed with to enable works 
 to be more speedily commenced, to meet the demand for labour, 
 and to relieve the burthen of the poor rates during the 
 pressure of the famine of 1846 and 1847. 
 
 One of the serious difficulties met with at the commence- 
 ment of the works of drainage in Ireland, under the more 
 recent legislative enactments, was to ascertain with any degree 
 of accuracy the actual amount of flood or drainage water to be 
 dealt with. The quantity of water which falls on the surface 
 of the earth in the form of rain, and the proportion delivered 
 into the river channels to be conveyed to the sea are not 
 absolutely known in any country, and with us these inquiries 
 are in their infancy. It is but lately that observations of the 
 quantity of rain falling in Ireland have been made with regu- 
 larity at any considerable number of points. In the year 1844, 
 just about the time when the surveys and inquiries for the first 
 drainage district, under the late acts were being made. Sir 
 Robert Kane published his Industrial Resources of Ireland^ 
 in which he enumerates only five places where observations of 
 the rain-fall over a number of years had been made — namely, 
 at Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Castlecomer, and Derry. Four of 
 these places being situate on the eastern coast, and only one 
 in the interior of the country, but on the western coast, there 
 is no place mentioned where continued observations had been 
 made. To these, however, may be added Markree Observa- 
 tory, near Sligo, on the western coast, and Armagh and 
 Florence Court, near Enniskillen, in the interior of the 
 northern part of the country. 
 
 These registries may be sufficient for general philosophical 
 purposes, or for arriving at general conclusions, but they 
 furnish very imperfect data to the practical engineer in 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 143 
 
 designing works of drainage, for, however useful they may be 
 as guides to the quantity of rain falling within the basins in 
 which they are situated, they are of but little practical utility 
 in other catchments differently circumstanced as to physical 
 features, and meteorological influences, there being no reliable 
 means of judging by analogy from one basin to another. 
 
 The only allusion made to the subject in the Bog Reports 
 is the statement that the annual rain-fall may be taken at 
 30 inches, the evaporation from the surface of water, 36 
 inches, and from moist earth covered with grass, 25 inches ; 
 and, as it is not stated that these data are derived from actual 
 observation, there is reason to believe that the amount of 
 annual evaporation was copied from the experiments of Dr. 
 Dalton, at Manchester. It is stated by Mr. Nimmo, in the 
 Report dated the 27th December, 1811, that the quantity of 
 water delivered in moderate rains is about one cubic foot per 
 second for every 1 00 Irish acres, and that winter floods give 
 about three or four times that quantity. This latter statement 
 although vague is much more practical than the former, but 
 the data upon which he came to this conclusion are not given. 
 Rain gauges on the eastern sea-board would be bad indices of 
 the quantity of rain falling in Connemara, Mayo, and Sligo ; 
 as, for example, the rain registered at Ardee, county Louth, 
 was, in 1850, 2030 inches; at Maam, county Galway, 77*54 
 inches; at Castlebar, county Mayo, 37*55 inches; and at 
 Markree Observatory, county Sligo, 37*179 inches. Ireland 
 being exposed to the direct influence of the Atlantic Ocean, 
 a vast amount of moisture is carried to it by the prevailing 
 southerly and westerly winds, and, although there is probably 
 not more actual rain than in England, there is unquestionably 
 more humidity. On an average, half as much more rain falls 
 in these Islands than falls on the Continent of Europe, and 
 the humidity here being greatly in excess, no experiments made 
 on evaporation in continental countries can be properly made 
 
144 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 to apply. But, supposing, however, that reliable observa- 
 tions had been made on the rain-fall, absorbtion, and evapo- 
 ration in the several seasons of the year, in this country, such 
 information would be much too general, and by no means 
 adapted to furnish data for calculating the proper capacity of 
 the river channels with the available declivity for carrying off 
 the maximum floods at the proposed levels. 
 
 The foregoing brief remarks will give some idea of the 
 prevailing want of information, and the perplexities with 
 which the practical Engineer was beset when he entered 
 on an inquiry into the circumstances of a district, with a view 
 to devise plans for its drainage. In many instances the 
 surveys were made in the dry season, when the only means 
 for ascertaining the quantity of flood water to be discharged 
 in a given time, were certain local marks of the level to which 
 the water rose when the floods were at their greatest height. 
 On this subject Mr. Mulvany stated, in his examination 
 before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, in 
 1852, that the information then arrived at upon accumulated 
 facts was, that quantities of rain-fall, varying from half a 
 cubic foot per minute per acre of catchment basin to 13 cubic 
 feet per minute per acre, had to be discharged. 
 
 The total number of districts in which works have been 
 executed amounts to 121. They may be divided into three 
 classes — 1st, simple drainage districts ; 2nd, slob lands em- 
 banked from the sea; and 3rd, districts in which drainage 
 and navigation are combined. Of the whole number, 103 
 were undertaken under the provisions for summary proceedings, 
 of the Act 9 Vic, cap. 4. The number of districts coming 
 under the denomination of simple drainage cases, is 110, 
 ranging in extent from 88 statute acres of land, drained and 
 improved at an estimated cost of £244, to 29,597 acres, at a 
 cost of £158,423. The features generally presented were a 
 succession of flat lands, separated from each other by shoals 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 145 
 
 or barriers, forming the principal obstacles to successful 
 drainage and improvement. The river channels, which were 
 the main drains of these flats, were in the most neglected 
 state, but their partial improvement alone would have con- 
 ferred a very trifling benefit, unless the out-falls had been 
 opened up. This was the fundamental principle upon which 
 the legislative enactments were wisely based ; for, with but 
 few exceptions, the obstacles presented by these natural barriers 
 or shoals to the drainage and improvement of the lands, were 
 greatly increased by bridges, corn and flour mills, and a 
 variety of appliances for fishing erected upon them ; and 
 nothing but legislative enactments, conferring ample powers 
 to deal with such erections, could meet the circumstances of 
 the various cases. 
 
 When the quantity of flood or drainage water to be dealt 
 with was, as far as possible, ascertained, and plans fixed upon 
 for the remodelling or removal of the impeding erections 
 referred to, the capacity of the river channels or drains became 
 a mere matter of calculation. The principle upon which the 
 calculations relative to the capacity and form of the channels 
 were based, was that generally received and applied in 
 practice, namely, that the theoretic velocity of the water in a 
 channel of symetrical form is a mean proportional between the 
 hydraulic mean depth and twice the sine of the angle of 
 declivity or slope of the water's surface. 
 
 Whenever a sufficiency of time was available for reliable 
 observations being made of the quantity of surplus rain or 
 drainage water to be carried off*, and where the principle above 
 stated was strictly carried out, the works have been as suc- 
 cessful as could have been anticipated ; and where otherwise, 
 the cause must be looked for in some interference with that 
 principle, or in a deficiency of pecuniary means, not permitting 
 more than a partial measure of relief. 
 
 A great change of opinion took place in the department 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 after the works were commenced, respecting the depth to 
 which the drains should be sunk. When a considerable num- 
 ber of the first districts were undertaken, the plans were 
 formed on what is now called the shallow system, but ex- 
 tensive alterations became requisite to meet that which was 
 subsequently introduced, and is now known as the deep 
 system, adopted with the view, as far as practicable, of carry- 
 ing off the whole of the floods within the channels. This 
 departure from the plans made a most material increase in the 
 quantity of work to be done, with a disproportionate increase 
 in the cost, owing to the circumstance that much of the 
 increased depth of channel proved to be rock excavation. 
 There is still a difference of opinion relative to the merits of 
 the two systems, — the proprietors holding that works adequate 
 to protect against ordinary floods, would have been sufficient ; 
 while the Department maintained that it would not be possible 
 to fix the capacity of a channel which would just accomplish 
 the object of allowing the lands to be occasionally flooded in 
 the winter season, and prevent such an occurrence in summer, 
 when it would do harm. 
 
 These differences gave rise, in many instances, to the sus- 
 pension of the works, the proprietors having refused to give 
 their assents for further expenditure when the limit of £3 per 
 acre had been reached. Matters remained in this unsatis- 
 factory state for a considerable time, during which much 
 injury was sustained by the unfinished works, and the labour- 
 ing population became so reduced by emigration and death, 
 that wages had considerably increased. Under this altered 
 state of things, Commissioners were appointed in 1852, to 
 enquire into the operation of the Acts relating to Arterial 
 Drainage in Ireland ; and after minute investigation, they 
 reported that a subordinate Board, having had conferred upon 
 it, under the Summary Proceedings Act, powers which it was 
 called on to exercise under circumstances of extraordinary 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 147 
 
 emergency, ought not to be held responsible for results, and 
 should be relieved from the consequences by those who 
 imposed the duties upon them. The Commissioners were 
 also of opinion that too much had been aimed at, by the 
 Department, in embracing navigation and the embanking of 
 mud lands, and the improvement of mill power with drainage, 
 and that a four-feet clear drainage, at all seasons, might not 
 have been generally substituted in the low lands for the 
 original plans, which were principally designed with a view 
 of carrying off ordinary winter and autumn floods only. 
 
 Having taken the whole of the peculiar circumstances into 
 consideration, and seeing that the object of the proprietors 
 was as much to provide food for the starving population 
 around them as to increase the value of their property, — the 
 emergency having been such, that from May to October, 
 1846, no less than 101 districts were surveyed, plans and 
 estimates prepared, and the works commenced, — the Commis- 
 sioners came to the conclusion that the only just settlement 
 would be to limit the contributions of the landowners to the 
 original estimates of cost, with interest in each case, up to the 
 period when the works were suspended for second assents, and 
 to complete the undertakings at the charge of the public 
 exchequer. 
 
 This recommendation was carried into effect, and in many 
 cases in which the second assents had been given, and the 
 accounts closed, the awards were opened and readjusted on 
 the principle recommended by the Parliamentary Commis- 
 sioners. 
 
 Few of these drainage districts presented what may be called 
 engineering difficulties, and such as did occur were principally 
 connected with turloughs and bogs. Turloughs are tracts of 
 flat land which are converted into temporary lakes in flood 
 time, there being no sufficient outlet through the fissures of 
 the subjacent cavernous rock. 
 
148 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 The outfall of the Turloughmore drainage district, in the 
 county of Galway, is a channel cut through limestone rock, 
 about 25 feet deep, and a mile and a~quarter in length ; and 
 the out-fall of the Mantua turloughs, in the county of Ros- 
 common, was made through a very deep bog, principally by a 
 system of surface drainage and tapping. In some instances 
 deep cuttings through rock, to relieve valuable turloughs, as in 
 the Mask and Robe districts, were arched over, and the spoil 
 deposited thereon to reduce the cost of land purchased for 
 the purposes of the works. 
 
 The undertakings for the embankment of slob lands from 
 the sea were six in number, namely: — Ballyteigue, Kilman- 
 nick, Clonakilty, Youghall, Shandon, and Cork. The works 
 were not accompanied by any extraordinary difficulties. The 
 system adopted was simply to intercept the drainage-water of 
 the adjacent uplands, by contour catchwater drains discharging 
 beyond the extremities of the embankments formed for 
 enclosing the reclaimed lands ; and self-acting valve-sluices 
 were constructed in the embankments, at or below the level of 
 low water of spring tides, for the passage of the water. 
 
 The districts in which navigation was connected with 
 drainage were originally five in number, of these, however, 
 two only — namely, lough Neagh and Ballinamore, of which 
 Ballyconnell forms a part, were executed as designed. Loughs 
 Corrib, Mask, and Carra were partially executed as a joint 
 scheme, the navigation being completed from the sea to Cong ; 
 and from the latter place to Ballinrobe, for drainage purposes 
 only. The works of loughs Oughter, Gowna, and the river 
 Erne were confined to drainage purposes, as were also those of 
 the river Hind, in Roscommon. 
 
 Local circumstances afforded great facilities for the execution 
 of the combined works. The valleys, as already stated, in 
 which the rivers flow are generally divided into extensive 
 flats, separated by shoals, or hard barriers, affording very 
 
OF Civil. ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 149 
 
 desirable sites for navicjation locks, to overcome the ascents 
 with the existence of many extensive deep lakes, yielding an 
 ample supply of water for the efficient working of the naviga- 
 tion. It was long considered impracticable to combine 
 navigation and drainage in one measure, so as to arrive at 
 ultimate success in both, but, although difficult and expensive 
 of accomplishment, it ought not to be looked on as imprac- 
 ticable. No doubt, there have been failures, but in such 
 cases it might not be difficult to shew that undue prepon- 
 derance had been given to one over the other, or the efficiency 
 of the one sacrificed for the other, according to whichever 
 might be most popular, or apparently most promising at the 
 time ; but in a well-arranged design, where each has its due 
 share of attention, there is no incompatibility, and the two 
 objects may be made so as mutually to aid each other and 
 secure the success of both. Few countries afford so many 
 natural facilities for an extensive and highly beneficial system 
 of inland navigation and drainage as Ireland, and, no doubt, 
 if the subject had been better understood, advantage would have 
 been taken of them to a much greater extent, and in a more 
 effectual manner, than has yet been done. 
 
 The first drainage and navigation district in the order of 
 time is that of Ballinamore and Ballyconnell, extending from 
 the Shannon, at the town of Leitrim, to lough Erne, near 
 Crom Castle. 
 
 With reference to the history of this project, it appears from 
 the Journals of the House of Commons that, about the year 
 1780, the works of a proposed navigation from lough Erne 
 to Woodford lake were commenced. In iTSfi Mr. Richard 
 Evans, who had been originally employed to lay out the 
 course of the canal, and had agreed with contractors for its 
 execution, was called on by the Commissioners of Inland 
 Navigation to make an inspection with reference to the expen- 
 diture of a sum of £1,000, granted in the Session of 1783-4. 
 
150 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 He reported that he found a great part of the canal excavated 
 — one lot not touched — others not sunk to a proper depth — 
 the lock at Carrowl two-thirds built, and nearly as much cut 
 stone on the ground as would complete it — the lock-house 
 built, and the gates of the lock framed, and made of excellent 
 materials ; however, notwithstanding the progress made, the 
 undertaking was not prosecuted. 
 
 In 1778 Mr. Evans also gave plans and an estimate for 
 " the construction of locks, and cutting a complete canal from 
 the harbour at Ballyshannon (at Murray 's-quay), through 
 Ballinacarrick, Cherrymount and Crumlin, there to cross the 
 river Erne by an aqueduct-bridge of two arches, and through 
 the town of Belleek to the navigable part of lough Erne, 
 above the falls." 
 
 Of this project a portion of the canal between Belleek and 
 Ballyshannon was excavated, and the regulating or guard 
 lock at the the former place built ; but, although this under- 
 taking, as well as that of the Woodford river, were very 
 favourably reported on by Mr. William Chapman, both were 
 abandoned for the same reason — namely, want of funds — before 
 the year 1794, about which period that distinguished engineer 
 left Ireland for his native country. 
 
 Mr. Evans's estimate for the canal from Ballyshannon to 
 the lough Erne, above the falls, was £32,208 19s., and to 
 render the lake navigable from the falls and thence to Ennis- 
 killen and Belturbet, and from the upper lake to Ballyconnell, 
 £7,791 Is., making together a sum of £40,000 for a naviga- 
 tion of 61 miles. This was intended to form part of a great 
 national inland communication ; its proposed future extension 
 to be from Ballyconnell, by the Woodford river, to Ballymore 
 and lough Scurr, and to the Shannon, at Leitrim. 
 
 Attention having been again directed, in the year 1800, to 
 these projects, Mr. Evans was called on to submit to the Board 
 of Inland Navigation a revised estimate, to which he added a 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IIIELANO. 
 
 151 
 
 sum of £8,000 on account of the increased price of labour ; 
 but the sum of £500,000, granted by the English Parliament 
 for the completion of the unfinished works generally throughout 
 the country, having proved wholly inadequate for that purpose, 
 these, like many other undertakings, were put aside to make 
 way for more urgent claims upon the grant. 
 
 The proposal for effecting the junction of lough Erne 
 with the sea was renewed in 1812, when Mr. Kilally surveyed 
 a line of canal from the lough to Ballyshannon ; the estimate 
 of that work, independently of any improvement of the 
 harbour, amounted to £63,000. Mr. Kilally having been 
 again called on in 1831, confirmed his views of the expense; 
 the only line through which such a work was practicable 
 being through limestone rock, with a thin alluvial cover 
 very near the surface. 
 
 In 1832, Messrs. Robert and Allan Stephenson, having been 
 called on, considered that the deepening of the harbour of 
 Ballyshannon should take the lead of every other work, and 
 with that view they gave a plan and estimate for the removal 
 of the bar, consisting entirely of rock, and presenting much 
 difficulty, owing to the strength of the current, which runs on 
 the one hand from the basin of the harbour, and on the other 
 from the surge of the ocean. The amount of the estimate was 
 £5,561. These engineers, having seen that a canal could not 
 be made, except at a great expense, proposed, instead of it, 
 a road 5 miles in length, commencing at the harbour, and 
 passing, by means of a tunnel or bridge, under the principal 
 street of Ballyshannon, and terminating at the quay of Beleek, 
 on lough Erne ; this road being laid out on a very easy line 
 of draft could bo converted into a track for a railway. The 
 estimated cost of the road was £18,133, and, if afterwards 
 converted into a double line of railway, the additional cost 
 would be £10,641. 
 
 No further attention appears to have been directed to any 
 
152 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 of the projects in this locality until 1838, when the Shannon 
 Commissioners were called upon by the Lords of Her Ma- 
 jesty's Treasury to report on the practicability of making a 
 canal between the Shannon and lough Erne, and, accordingly, 
 a line of still water navigation was surveyed, and an outline of 
 the proposed plan laid before them, by Mr. W. T. Mulvany. 
 This survey led to no practical result at that period. How- 
 ever, on the passing of the Act 5 and 6 Vic, cap. 89, the 
 Ulster Canal Company, with the view of obtaining a con- 
 nexion between their navigation and the Shannon, applied to 
 the Commissioners, and agreed to meet the expenses of an 
 engineering enquiry, which was made in the years 1844 and 
 1845, and all the preliminary requirements of the Act having 
 been complied with, the works of the combined plan were 
 commenced in the summer of 1846. The length of the navi- 
 gation is 40 miles, passing the towns of Ballyconnell, in the 
 County of Cavan, and Ballinamore in the County of Leitrim. 
 In the whole distance there are 25 miles of the Woodford 
 river made navigable, 10 miles of lakes, and 5 miles of arti- 
 ficial cuts. The locks, of which there are 8, on each side of 
 the summit, are 82 feet long in the chamber, 16 feet 6 inches 
 wide between the uprights, with 5 feet 6 inches water on the 
 sills. The whole rise, from lough Erne to the summit level, 
 is 66 feet; and from the Shannon, in the ordinary state of the 
 summer water, to the same point about 77 feet. 
 
 The locks are built of first class rubble masonry, strengthened 
 with cut-stone bonds, the sills, breasts, hollow quoins, and 
 coping are of cut stone ; the gates are framed of red pine 
 timber, and opened and shut by swing beams in the usual 
 manner. The lifts of the locks are not uniform, varying from 
 5 to 12 feet to suit the inclinations of the ground. The levels 
 of the respective reaches are maintained by regulating weirs of 
 variable length, according to the quantity of water to be dis- 
 charged within a rise of two feet, except in one instance, at 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 153 
 
 the outfall of the lower assemblage of lakes, where the range 
 is 3 feet. The artificial cuts and those portions of the river 
 channel where the discharge of the drainage water could not 
 be effected with a less sectional area, have a 22 feet breadth 
 of bottom, 9 feet depth, and slopes from 1 to ^ to 1. 
 
 This navigation was considered of much importance, as it 
 forms the connecting link between the northern and all the 
 other inland navigations in Ireland, but having been opened 
 only in 1860, there has not yet been sufficient time for the 
 development of the expected traffic. The expenditure, not 
 including interest, was £167,578. 
 
 The next in order of time was the lough Neagh drainage 
 and navigation district, there are evidences still existing of the 
 attention of the landed proprietors having been directed at a 
 very early period to the drainage of the lough, so as to prevent 
 the recurrence of the injuries to which the lands, under its 
 influence, were exposed, from its annual overflowing ; but at 
 what time the navigation of the lower Bann, which flows out 
 of it, was proposed appears not to be now known. The first 
 recorded notice of such a project is in the Statistical Survey 
 of Armagh, by Sir Charles Coote, drawn up about the year 
 1802; two canals, or navigations, had been previously opened 
 into the lough, namely the Lagan Navigation, completed in 
 1793, and the Newry Navigation, opened in 1768, as already 
 noticed. 
 
 The first complete Engineering project, for making the 
 lower Bann navigable, was submitted to the Commissioners of 
 Bog Improvement by Thomas Townsend, and printed, by 
 order of the House of Commons, in 1814. Between that date 
 and 1844, various plans were put forward by the prominent 
 Engineers of the day, namely, by Alexander Nimmo in 1822 ; 
 Sir John Macneill, in 1836; Thomas Rhodes, in 1839; and 
 Francis Giles, of London, in 1843. 
 
 In the year 1844 the proprietors of the lands around the 
 
154 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 lake applied, by memorial, to the Commissioners appointed 
 under the 5 & 6 Vic., cap. 89, for an inquiry to be made, and 
 for a survey and plans, with a view to the improvement of 
 the drainage and navigation of the lough and the lower 
 Bann river. The survey was made in 1844 and 1845, the 
 report and plans were submitted to the Commissioners in 
 December of the latter year, and the preliminary proceedings 
 required under the Act, having been completed, the works 
 were commenced in May, 1847. 
 
 The lower Bann, as remarked by Mr. Townsend in his 
 report, is formed by nature for a navigable river, not being 
 one gradual descent, but in level reaches, the fords, or falls, 
 are short and few in number, so that with the aid of a few 
 locks at those places, the materials for which are on the spot, 
 the river immediately becomes navigable. A very serious 
 mistake was committed at the commencement of the inquiry, 
 the out-fall of the district was fixed at the Cutts near Coleraine, 
 by which the remaining portion of the river, from that place 
 to the sea, as well as the port of Coleraine were excluded 
 from the plan of improvement. What renders this the more 
 anomalous is that the locks and bridges are constructed for the 
 passage of masted coasting vessels, and yet the entrance to the 
 navigation is inaccessible to such craft, as there is no provision 
 for their passing the bridge at Coleraine. This portion of the 
 lower Bann formed the subject of a separate inquiry, but as 
 there were no flooded lands, and, consequently, no drainage, 
 the proposed works could not be undertaken under the pro- 
 visions of the 5th & 6th Vict., c. 89. 
 
 The distance from the out-fall at the Cutts, near Coleraine, 
 to the loui^h is 32 statute miles, and the rise from the level 
 of low water of spring tides to the regulated summer level 
 in the lough is 46 feet. That ascent is overcome by four 
 single and one double lock, with side cuts and regulating 
 weirs. The locks are 130 feet long in the chamber, 20 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 155 
 
 feet wide between the uprights, with 8 feet of water on the 
 sills. 
 
 The extent of the shores of the lough, gives ready access 
 to a large extent of surrounding country, and its connexion 
 with the Lagan, Newry, Coal Island, and Ulster Canals, 
 affords means of communication with all the inland navigations 
 of Ireland. 
 
 The area of the lands drained and improved was 29,597 
 statute acres, at a cost of £158,423. Of this, a sum of 
 £8,513 was presented to be paid by the counties of Antrim 
 and Londonderry, for certain works chargeable to these 
 counties, leaving the sum of £149,909; but under the pro- 
 visions of the Act, 17 Vic, the Lords of the Treasury 
 remitted the sum of £39,909, thus reducing the liability of 
 the landed proprietors to a sum of £110,000, payable in 44 
 equal half-yearly instalments of principal, and interest at 4 
 per cent. The original annual value of land drained and 
 improved was £25,635, and the increased annual value, 
 £9,879. 
 
 The lough Corrib drainage and navigation district was 
 surveyed in 1844 and 1845, and the Reports and Plans were 
 submitted to the Commissioners in March, 1846. This district, 
 originally included loughs Mask and Carra, but these were 
 subsequently carried into effect as drainage measures only, 
 and the navig^ation limited to loucrh Corrib and its connexion 
 with the sea at Galway, there having been a w^ant of funds to 
 complete the undertaking ; but there was a considerable sum 
 expended to no purpose in rock excavation and the erection of 
 locks between loughs Corrib and Mask. 
 
 It is on record, that an attempt was made, in the year 
 1498, to connect lough Corrib with the sea at lough 
 Athalia, by a canal following the course of the Terryland 
 river. The remains of this effort, which are still extant, show 
 that the project, though feasible, was not completed. 
 
156 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 In the year 1822, the late Mr. Alexander Nimmo, gave a 
 design for a canal to extend from lough Corrib, at the Wood 
 Quay, to a floating basin, proposed by him to be supplied 
 with fresh water, at a higher level than neap tides ; but as 
 injury would be done by that means to property in the lower 
 part of the town, the project was abandoned. In the year 
 1830, Mr. John Kilally, Engineer to the Directors- General 
 of Inland Navigation, having been called on, in conjunction 
 with his son, Mr. Hamilton Kilally, designs were given for 
 the floating dock, as now built, the water of neap tides only 
 being penned, and the sill of the lock-gates being placed 5 
 feet below the low water of ordinary spring tides. No con- 
 nexion was made between lough Corrib and this dock, which 
 was constructed for the accommodation of shipping, and was 
 unsuited for the reception of the very large number of sea- 
 going small craft engaged in fishing and agricultural traffic. 
 
 The canal, which has been constructed for the connexion of 
 lough Corrib with the sea, named the Eglinton Canal, leaves 
 the tideway of the river Corrib on the west side of the 
 entrance of the new floating dock. 
 
 A large tide basin has been constructed to facilitate the 
 ingress and egress of vessels. This basin is entered by a lock 
 with a lift of 7 feet, the lower sill being placed 5 feet 6 inches 
 under low water of neap tides, so that vessels drawing 6J feet 
 water can enter on the first quarter of flood, and rise to a 
 height of 13J feet over low water, being the level of the 
 floating basin, which communicates with a double lock, with 
 lifts equal to 13 feet 8^ inches, in order to raise boats to the 
 level of lough Corrib. The locks are 130 feet in length 
 from cove to cove, and 20 feet 6 inches in breadth between 
 the quoins. The canal sweeps round from this lock for more 
 than a quarter of a mile in length and enters the western 
 branch of the river, near the new College. 
 
 The principal thoroughfares are carried over the canal by 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 157 
 
 wrought iron turning bridges of a new construction, being in 
 one leaf, the design of Mr. Mallet. The navigation from the 
 new College to lough Corrib is by the river channel and 
 what is called the Friar's Cut. Wharves have been built for 
 the accommodation of the trade at several important points on 
 the shores of the lough, and beacons and buoys placed to point 
 out the deep sailing channel. 
 
 The whole expenditure on the different undertakings under 
 the Arterial Drainage Acts, including £70,201 for works 
 chargeable to counties, amounted, at the end of 1858, to 
 £2,342,746, with .interest; of this total, £1,099,001 was 
 expended on the completed districts, and £1,243,745 on 
 districts not then closed. The area of the flooded or injured 
 lands drained and improved in the completed districts, is 
 175,443 acres ; and of the above sum of £1,099,001, expended 
 for that purpose, £485,869 has been remitted, £47,781 2s. Id. 
 charged to counties for public works, and £565,977 charged 
 on lands ; making an average cost to the proprietors, including 
 interest, of £5 19s. lid. per acre, the increase of the annual 
 value being estimated at £49,060 lOs. 9d. Whether the 
 improvements are worth, on an average, an increased value of 
 six shillings per acre, the annual interest at 5 per cent, on the 
 expenditure, remains to be determined by the proprietors, who 
 have the power of raising the rents of the lands, or of turning 
 them to profitable account, if in their own possession. 
 
 Notwithstanding that a quantity of land, amounting to 
 about 330,000 acres, has been permanently relieved and 
 improved, under the Drainage Commission, and nearly 20,000 
 acres freed from all but temporary floods by the Shannon 
 improvement, there are yet numerous and extensive tracts 
 requiring to be drained, many of which were not undertaken 
 by the Department, and some abandoned from want of means 
 of carrying them out; and as successive Governments, un- 
 willing to continue the legislation intended for the emergency 
 
158 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 of the famine, have refused to enter into any new projects 
 under the existing Acts of Parliament, which are consequently 
 rendered a dead letter, there is a want of such well-considered 
 legislation as, with the ample experience of the past, would 
 enable proprietors to have works of that description performed 
 in a beneficial manner under their own control. And as this 
 leads us again to the consideration of the question of the 
 difference between the Department and the proprietors, as to 
 the principles on which drainages should be regulated, it ap- 
 pears sufficiently manifest that every district has physical 
 features peculiar to itself, that no perfectly uniform system 
 ought to be adopted — occasional sinking and embanking, with 
 such back drains as circumstances would point out, and taking 
 advantage of the readiest out-fall — being the only obvious 
 general rules for guidance which can be laid down, together 
 with provision for a previous apportionment of the cost to each 
 proprietor, founded on a careful estimate of the facilities or 
 difficulties of each particular locality, so that the smallest 
 effective cost of the benefit proposed to be conferred should be 
 known before hand, and assented to, it being understood that 
 an average of the cost per acre of the land to be drained 
 would, for obvious reasons, not be a proper basis of apportion- 
 ment; nor would a principle of complete isolation of each 
 district answer, for if the whole course of a river is to be 
 drained, considerable expense would be thrown on the basin 
 lands in providing against flooding by the more rapid flow of 
 water from the districts above them, where the quantity of land 
 drained would be comparatively small. Then, again, there 
 are low lying lands, requiring, for their relief, measures of an 
 extent not caused by the necessity of carrying oflf the waters 
 flowing from the districts above them. In such cases it is 
 clear that a different mode of apportionment should be applied. 
 It will thus be seen that there are a great variety of matters 
 to be considered in legislating anew on this important subject, 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 159 
 
 and the least difficulty will certainly not be the appointment 
 of a tribunal to value the improvements and apportion the 
 cost in a manner satisfactory to the landed proprietors, as well 
 as to provide for the proper maintenance of the works. 
 
 WATER-WHEELS. 
 
 We are indebted to the Romans for the introduction of the 
 water mill into the British Islands, the quern having been the 
 only contrivance for grinding previously in use. A specimen 
 of a very early water-wheel is preserved in the collection of 
 the Irish Royal Academy, it consists of a solid disk of timber 
 fixed on a vertical shaft, the edge of the disk having diagonal 
 floats morticed upon it ; the jet of water was delivered from 
 above by a shoot. This rude form of machine is in some rare 
 instances still in use amongst people of Celtic origin. Up to 
 1807 wood was exclusively used in Ireland for mill machinery, 
 but in that year metal gearing was applied in a large mill 
 erected by Mr. Wye Williams in Belfast, on the introduction 
 by him of a new process called beetling and finishing of linens. 
 
 A form of improved over-shot water-wheel, of which there 
 were two varieties, partly of iron and partly of wood, com- 
 menced to be pretty generally used in Ireland about the year 
 1820, of these, one description consisted of cast-iron shaft, 
 grasps and shrouds, all the rest being of timber ; the other 
 having in addition, plate-iron sole and buckets, and timber 
 arms. The earlier attempts at improved wheels had the shafts 
 only of cast-iron. Amongst the first and most successful 
 Engineers in the adaptation of wheels of the compound descrip- 
 tion were the Messrs. Mallet, who erected a very large number 
 of them in the counties of Dublin and Wicklow, varying in 
 size from 40 to 60 feet diameter, and 6 feet in the buckets, for 
 the various purposes of corn-milling, linen, cotton, and 
 
160 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 woollen works, flax scutching, and spinning-, paper-making-, 
 and raising water. The corn mills were furnished with 
 machinery for moving and distributing the grain, from its 
 entrance to its delivery as flour, into sacks, without manual 
 labour. Many excellent examples of the above class of 
 wheels were, also, about the same period, erected by Messrs. 
 Steel and Hopkins, of Cork ; Roberts, of Mountmellick, and 
 Murphy, of Wexford. 
 
 The largest, and one of the best examples of the compound 
 over-shot water-wheel is that of Mr. McDonnell's paper-mill 
 at Saggart, it is 80 feet in diameter, and 8 feet width in the 
 buckets, and was originally attempted to be constructed wholly 
 of iron, but having been miscalculated as to strength and 
 design was always troublesome to keep in order, and at length 
 it broke down in 1848, when the Messrs. Mallett were 
 employed to reconstruct it. They removed the whole interior 
 of the wheel, shoring up in true form the huge plate-iron ring, 
 and then inserting within it new shaft, grasps, and oak arms, 
 with circular staging connected with spur segments, taking • 
 off" the power and wrought-iron diagonals across the breadth. 
 The working has since been quite satisfactory. 
 
 The first water-wheel made completely of iron was brought 
 into the North of Ireland in the year 1829, for the Earl of 
 Caledon, by Fairbairn, the satisfactory character of whose 
 work procured him similar employment in different parts of 
 the country, but wheels wholly of iron have been considered 
 too costly, the compound over-shot wheel has, therefore, pre- 
 vailed, being more suited to the amount of capital usually 
 invested. 
 
 The turbine, or horizontal wheel, invented by M. Four- 
 neyron, was introduced into this country in 1846, by a mill- 
 wright of Armagh, named Gardiner, who erected some of 
 them in the North. Its true applicability is limited to very 
 high falls with small volume of water, or to very low falls 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 161 
 
 (under 8 feet), and liable to serious backwater, by which it is 
 very little effected ; in all other cases, the well-made over-shot 
 wheel gives as large a return in "work," is far more stable 
 and enduring, and is, on the whole, less costly. An instance 
 of the applicability of the former may be mentioned. On the 
 river Inny, near Ballymahon, Mr. Mallet constructed — some 
 10 years since, on a fall of 7 feet — a large turbine, which 
 receives a great volume of the river (nearly 500 cubic feet per 
 second). In winter the average fall is reduced to about 5 feet, 
 and in floods to 3 feet. It drives a flax steeping and scutching 
 establishment, with spare power for a corn mill ; it is peculiar 
 and original in some points of construction. The diameter of 
 the revolving ring of buckets is about 8 feet. The whole of 
 the moving parts, though held steadily by a bottom pivot, are 
 supported from above at the top of the vertical shaft by a ring 
 of revolving conical rollers, like the top leaf of a swivel-bridge, 
 so as to obviate the difficulty of access for oiling and cleaning 
 the bottom pivot, as well as the evil of excessive wear from 
 the enormous load usually imposed upon it, amounting to the 
 w^eight of the machine, with the whole water pressure upon 
 the revolving disk, being in this instance 7 feet head on a 
 circle of 8 feet diameter. This machine continues to work 
 well, and when put up shoAved on dynamometric trials a power 
 of about 76 per cent, of the fall in the highest backwater. 
 On the same river, at Ballymahon, Mr Mallet constructed a 
 corn-mill of six pair of stones on Poncelet's reactive system, as 
 far as timber buckets would admit. It has been found to work 
 well, and is, probably, the only one of that description in 
 Ireland. The water-wheel is a low breast one, the fall not 
 exceeding six or seven feet at most. 
 
 Mr. J. Thompson, C.E., of Belfast, the brother of the 
 Professor of the same name, is the inventor and patentee of 
 a form of turbine, which he designates the vortex wheel, 
 differing from most other turbines in receiving the water at 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 the periphery, and delivering it at the centre of the rev^olving 
 portion. He has erected several of these with successful results. 
 At Colooney, in the county of SHgo, the Messrs. Ran-dolph, of 
 Glasgow, erected, for Mr. Sims, a turbine on Whitelaw and 
 Stirrit's principle, the arms, however, are enclosed in a cast- 
 iron box. The wheel is 9 feet diameter, and 1 foot 4 inches 
 thick. The fall 30 feet, and the water is delivered beneath in 
 a cast-iron pipe 2 feet 6 inches diameter. There are 3 aper- 
 tures of issue, each 2^ inches wide. This wheel works 14 
 pairs of stones in a very satisfactory manner, and was calcu- 
 lated for 22 pair. 
 
 Much has been said and written on our great natural source 
 of wealth by means of water-power still remaining unappro- 
 priated, but it is not enough to prove that so many thousands 
 of horse-power are running to waste daily in various localities, 
 it being far more important to show how a market can be 
 procured for something that the power will make ; many cir- 
 cumstances besides the mere money question of cost of power 
 against carriage are opposed to the raw material being brought 
 to the cheap power, and the manufactured article from thence 
 to the distant market. Portlaw appears to be one example of 
 the contrary, but it is wholly exceptional. On the other hand, 
 the north of Ireland, and more especially the district of the 
 Upper Bann, present the true conditions for the fullest realiza- 
 tion of water-povver, where the manufacture, the market, and 
 the power are all on the spot. When these conditions are far 
 apart it will often be better to employ the dearer steam-power 
 near the market than the cheap water-power at a considerable 
 distance from it. What Ireland requires is, that some branch 
 of manufacture should be added to agricultural pursuits, as we 
 find to be done w^ith success in the north, where markets are 
 established for the sale of skutched flax and yarns from the 
 hands of the farmer, who thus gets his share of the profit at 
 an early stage of the manufacture^ and is thus repayed for 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 163 
 
 his flax crop, which, from its exhaustive nature, would not 
 otherwise be remunerative. 
 
 In connection with the history of a minor branch of 
 hydraulic Engineering in Ireland, it is right to notice the 
 introduction and improvement of the hydraulic-ram as an 
 instrument for raising water; up to the year 1827 it re- 
 mained much in the state described by its inventor, Mont- 
 golfier, and was principally known in England as an object for 
 philosophical lecturing, and, described in the Repertory of 
 Arts, a modification of it having been erected by Whitehurst, 
 the eminent clockmaker of Derby ; the extraordinary and 
 useless appendage proposed to it by its inventor for getting 
 air back into the air vessel, as it was supposed to be absorbed 
 by the water pumped through, having still remained a sup- 
 posed essential of its construction. 
 
 About the period above mentioned, Mr. Robert Mallet, 
 senior, commenced making the machine from the published 
 description of the inventor, and also on plans of his own, the 
 result of which was that he found the air restoring valve to be 
 quite unnecessary, and that the return in work of the con- 
 struction on Montgolfier's model was very small compared 
 with the modified plan. In 1831 Mr. R. Mallet, junior, 
 following in the track of his father, brought the construction 
 and proportions of the machine to a high state of permanence, 
 and obtained an efficiency quite as great as has been reached 
 by other methods of elevating water by water-power — say 60 
 to 70 per cent, on moderate lifts and good falls of 8 to 16 feet. 
 The first hydraulic ram erected in Ireland, was by Mr. Mallet 
 in the archepiscopal residence at Clogher, in the year 1828, 
 the fall is about 14 feet, and to the present time it works 
 efficiently, furnishing the town also with a constant supply, 
 elevated about 130 feet. The construction of the air vessel 
 valve, which is exposed to great concussion, has had complete 
 success, and was due to Mr. Mallet, senior. This machine 
 
164 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 is a very peculiar and curious one in its action and theory, and 
 much even yet remains to be done in its useful application. 
 Eytelwein has made experimental investigations of it but 
 without adding anything to its effective operation. 
 
 THE STEAM-ENGINE. 
 
 Ireland being little of a mining or manufacturing country, 
 and coal being comparatively dear at the centres of industry, 
 there has been but small demand for machinery, except that 
 worked by water-power, we, consequently, took little or no 
 part in the mechanical inventions and improvements of the last 
 and present centuries connected with steam-power, and this 
 is not to be wondered at, seeing the special character of steam- 
 engine making, the necessity for a great demand to encourage 
 and support it, and the excluding effect in the market of the 
 immense manufactories which had rapidly grown up in Eng- 
 land, devoted to it^ construction, monopolising the trade of its 
 extended application which belongs to modern times; while the 
 date of the great practical improvement in the steam-engine of 
 Savory, and the atmospheric-engine of Newcomen is not more 
 remote than the year 1774, when James Watt completed his 
 single-acting steam-engine, superseding the previous inventions 
 which were little employed, having been inferior in economy 
 and usefulness to most other mechanical agents in use as 
 prime movers. 
 
 The first steam-engine brought into Dublin was one made 
 by Bolton and Watt, and was erected in Meath-street brewery 
 in 1791. Others soon followed, these engines had wooden 
 working beams, connecting rods, sun and planet motion, and 
 hand-gear to the lifting valves, being Watt's earliest method. 
 The first engine of the independent construction by Bolton 
 and Watt was put up at James's-gate about the year 1810, 
 and the same engine with an enlarged cylinder put in by 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 165 
 
 the Messrs. Mallet, was in use recently, and it is believed 
 is working still. 
 
 A good description of small, high-pressure engine, with 
 horizontal cylinders working within spheroidal boilers of cast 
 iron, was made in Dublin between 1800 and 1820 by 
 Popplewell, who had his factory in the Liberty. The valve- 
 gear was peculiar, and, by an arrangement of tappets, the 
 full steam pressure was on the piston during the whole length 
 of the stroke. These were known as Trevethick's engines. 
 
 The successful practical application by Fulton of Watt's 
 engine to river navigation, to which alone it was considered 
 adapted, did not take place until 1807. 
 
 Dawson, an Irishman, has laid claim to having built, in the 
 year 1811, a steam-boat of 50 tons burthen, called the Comet, 
 worked by a high-pressure engine, what is certain, however, 
 is that the same individual in 1813 established a steam-boat 
 on the Thames to ply between Gravesend and London. 
 
 The first attempt made to apply steam propulsion to sea- 
 going vessels, appears to have been made by George Dodd, 
 who, in 1813, brought his vessel from the Clyde round to 
 London by steam and sails. The boat was 75 tons burthen, 
 15 horse-power, Avith paddle-wheels 9 feet diameter. In 
 1815 Cooke, of Glasgow, made a voyage from that city to 
 Dublin, and round the Land's End to London, his vessel was 
 propelled by a side lever engine, of 14 horse-power, and was 
 more perfect in construction than any that had preceded it. 
 The engines in general use at that period were on the bell- 
 crank principle. The bell-crank levers, having received the 
 motion directly from the piston, communicated it by a con- 
 necting rod and crank to the main shaft, by which the paddle 
 wheels were turned. The engine, there being but one, was 
 placed on one side of the vessel, and the boiler on the other. 
 The boiler, which was of the form proposed, by Smeaton in 
 1765, had an internal furnace and flue surrounded by the 
 
166 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 water. It was not until the year 1814 that Bolton and Watt 
 connected together two engines for navigating purposes. 
 About the time of Cooke's successful voyage Bolton and 
 Watt, Maudesley, Napier, and others, applied themselves to 
 the making of marine engines. 
 
 In the year 1818 David Napier may be said to have 
 established the first regular communication between two 
 distant ports, namely Greenock and Belfast, by placing a 
 vessel of 90 tons burthen, with an engine of 30 horse-power 
 on that station. In 1819 Napier built the Talbot, 150 tons, 
 with two engines of 30 horse-power each, which ran during 
 the summer months between Dublin and Holyhead, but was 
 obliged to be laid up in winter. In 1820 steam-packets built, 
 by Manby, with oscillating engines, were introduced on the 
 post office station, between Howth and Holyhead, these were 
 also unable to ply during the Winter. 
 
 In 1823 the St. George Company commenced a communi- 
 cation by steam, for passengers, between Liverpool and Dublin, 
 but the undertaking was not successful, owing to the imper- 
 fection of the mode of paddle-wheel propulsion. About the 
 same period Mr. Wye Williams, in conjunction with Mr. John 
 Oldham, patented a wheel invented by the latter for the pro- 
 pulsion of steamers, and having, with Mr. Francis Carleton and 
 a few enterprising individuals, subscribed a sum of £24,000, 
 established a steam-packet company to trade between Dublin 
 and Liverpool, being the first attempt of the kind to cross the 
 channel for trading purposes, or that succeeded in plying 
 during the winter. Mr. Williams, in his work on heat and 
 steam, observes that such was the infant state of steam navi- 
 gation in 1823, that, although a contract was made with the 
 most eminent engineer of the day for the engines, and an 
 equally eminent ship-builder for the hull, neither could be 
 induced to confer on the subject of securing the engines to the 
 timber framing of the ship, each disclaiming any knowledge 
 of, or responsibility for, the duties of the other. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 167 
 
 John Oldham, the patentee of the paddle-wheel on the 
 feathering principle, was possessed of very considerable 
 mechanical ability, and was the inventor of various ingenious 
 contrivances for printing the notes of the Bank of Ireland, 
 and of the system of mechanical consecutive numbering 
 adopted in the Bank of England, and subsequently in all 
 railway stations. 
 
 Grantham, whose survey of the Shannon has been already 
 mentioned, w^as the first who introduced steam navigation on 
 that river in the year 1827. He was, however, pushed out 
 of the field by the Inland Steam Navigation Company, 
 established in 1829 under the direction of Mr. Charles Wye 
 Williams, to whose intelligence and enterprise Ireland is 
 indebted for this and many other commercial benefits The 
 vessels of the company were duplicate or twin boats, the 
 paddle working between. This mode of construction, adopted 
 by Symington in 1787, was in use up to a recent period, 
 when the improvement of the Shannon admitted of a larger 
 class of vessels for passengers, and this traffic having been 
 unnaturally stimulated for some half-dozen years by the 
 opposition to the Great Southern Railway Company, carried 
 on by the Midland Railway Company as lessees of the Grand 
 Canal, gave rise to the introduction of a still larger class of 
 vessels plying between Killaloe and Athlone, but the opposi- 
 tion having been put an end to by an amicable arrangement, 
 after the opening of the Tullamore and Athlone Extension, 
 the passenger traffic on the Shannon, in great part, ceased in 
 the last year. 
 
 The first attempt to construct marine engines in Dublin was 
 in 1829, they were designed and executed by Mr. Joseph 
 Clarke, foreman of the Ringsend foundry, and were placed in 
 a vessel called the Marchioness Wellesley. Some marine 
 engines were subsequently made in the same establishment, 
 but the manufacture languished for want of support. 
 
168 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 About the year 1836, on the occasion of the wreck of one 
 of the Dublin and London Steam Company's vessels, the 
 Ro)''al Tar, on Arklow bank, her engines were rebuilt by 
 the Messrs. Mallet, the serviceable parts being used. They 
 were the largest engines constructed for marine purposes in 
 Dublin, and were remarkable for being nearly the first attempt 
 in Great Britain to adapt steam at high pressure. This was 
 due to Mr. Francis Humphreys, the marine engineer of the 
 Company. The boilers, which were peculiar (6 cylinders 
 superimposed, 2 and 2), were his design. The vessel was 
 worked many years on the Peninsular station. Humphreys 
 having considered himself inadequately remunerated by the 
 Company went to England, where he patented his trunk 
 marine engine with hollow piston rod containing the con- 
 necting rod. Several engines on this plan w^ere constructed 
 by him in England. He was also the inventor of the double 
 nossle valve for marine engines, now in common use, but his 
 invention was patented by a person to whom he unsuspect- 
 ingly described it. He died in 1842, leaving a brother who 
 possesses much of his talent, and is at the head of a well- 
 known firm of marine engineers. 
 
 Marine engine making has not made any progress in Dublin 
 since the break up of the Dublin and London Steam Com- 
 pany, for the practice of their successors, the City of i^-ublin 
 Company has always been to get their repairs (which feed 
 marine engine works) done in Liverpool, but the final blow 
 was given to the trade here by the establishment created 
 for repairs by the British and Irish Steam Company on the 
 North Wall, when they proferred to execute repairs for other 
 steam companies also. This latter interference, by a Company, 
 with the trade, while it destroyed private enterprise, entailed , 
 great loss upon themselves, and their concern was finally 
 broken up, leaving Dublin at the present time, with its large 
 fleet of steam traders, with but one establishment where even 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 169 
 
 repairs can be executed. Inhere are, happil}^ in other parts 
 of Ireland exceptions to this regretable state of the mechanical 
 engineering trade, as, for instance, in Drogheda, Cork, and 
 Belfast, where ship-building, and marine engine making are 
 carried on with success, and in the former place a locomotive 
 engine factory has existed for some time. In 1851 steam 
 tug-boats were introduced on the Grand Canal, they were 
 60 feet in length, and in width, 12 feet; boiler, 4 feet 6 inches 
 in diameter, containing 48 tubes of 2^ inches diameter, and 
 6 feet long ; cylinders, 7 inches diameter ; length of stroke, 
 18 inches; and calculated to make 120 strokes per minute; the 
 pressure being 50 lbs. The boat was propelled by two screws, 
 4 feet pitch, 3 feet in diameter, 2 feet long, placed at each 
 side of the stern post, worked with bevelled gear, and two- 
 fold multiplying power. The principle of construction of the 
 machinery answered well, and was found capable of being 
 stopped, and the motion reversed with great ease, steering 
 stern foremost almost as well as when running forward, advan- 
 tages essential for canal traffic, and not possessed by the 
 single screw. Loaded with 20 tons, these towed a boat of 
 50 tons at the rate of 3*26 miles per hour; pressure, 29 lbs. ; 
 average number of strokes, 101. The hulls were made at 
 the Ringsend works, and the engines and machinery by Mr. 
 Inshaw, of Birmingham. Sir John Macneill, in reporting on 
 this mode of propulsion, states that the merit of the plans and 
 arrangement of the machinery was due to the officers of the 
 Company, but more particularly to their very intelligent 
 Secretary, Mr. John M' Mullen, for whom the adaptation only 
 is claimed, the honour of the practical application of the 
 Archimedean screw-propeller, being due to the ingenious and 
 ill-requited Francis Petit Smith, who, in 1837, patented this 
 invention so peculiarly adapted to ships of war. 
 
 Looking back to the application of steam-power generally, 
 but more particularly to navigation, we find that, besides 
 
170 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 the practical difficulty of the invention, it had, like all great 
 innovations, to encounter a large share of prejudice and 
 hostility at the outset, but, although some of those who helped 
 to solve the problem suffered the hard fate which too often 
 waits on genius, yet others realized fortunes, and ample justice 
 has been done to the memories of all in the numerous works 
 in which their labours are recorded. Let us bear in mind 
 that the field of invention and enterprise yet lies open, and 
 fame and rewards are still to be obtained in this department 
 of practical science, for the steam-engine is still a very im- 
 perfect machine, as regards the thermic agency by which 
 mechanical effect is produced, not more than 45 per cent, of 
 the theoretical duty due to the fall in temperature between 
 boiler and condenser being realized in the best Cornish engines, 
 whereas in the best water-power machines from 80 to 85 per 
 cent, of the theoretic duty due to the whole fall is obtained. 
 
 In 1798 the duty of an engine, which is expressed by the 
 number of pounds raised one foot high by the consumption of 
 a bushel of coal, was, in an engine by Bolton and Watt, 
 found to be 27,000,000, this was declared by Watt himself to 
 be perfect, and that further improvement was not to be 
 expected ; in 20 years the average duty of the best engine 
 was 40,000,000, and in 20 years more it was upwards of 
 84,000,000. The combined improvements in the construction 
 of marine engines, and of vessels, has brought the speed 
 attainable, within a very few years, from 10 miles to 20 miles 
 an hour, there is, therefore, no room to doubt that this may 
 yet be exceeded. The mail packets which are to be on the 
 Kingstown and Holyhead station in the next autumn are 
 engaged to perform an average speed of 20 miles an hour in 
 all weathers. 
 
 The foregoing brief notice of a few facts connected with 
 the introduction of steam-power generally has been considered 
 not out of place in a paper of this description, as a useful 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 171 
 
 memento of the comparatively recent great results of practical 
 development in this department of the profession, and of the 
 rapid progress made in keeping pace with the demand, the 
 lapse of three-quarters of a century, after Dr. Watt had 
 displaced empiricism by the triumph of scientific research, 
 having shewn that the progress of mankind itself has followed 
 steadily in the track of his great invention. 
 
 M. Cousin has stated that if the geography of a country, its 
 climate, soil, and physical features be given, that the history 
 of the people who inhabit it may be told, not accidentally, 
 but necessarily. Whether this opinion, which estimates at 
 nothing the genius of a nation, be universally true or not, it 
 is certain that a country like ours, rich in its soil, must have 
 a destiny different from one whose wealth is beneath the 
 surface, and that the obvious policy of countries so circum- 
 stanced is, that each should take advantage of its position to 
 supply what the other wants. This principle, when extended, 
 tends to make the human race members, as it were, of one 
 great family, affording, by their dependence on each other, 
 the surest guarantees for the peace and progress of the world. 
 
 RAILWAYS. 
 
 The promoters of public roads in ancient times have been 
 handed down as great public benefactors, and justly so, as 
 without easy means of communication, improvement must 
 stand still, but how much more worthy of admiration are the 
 originators of the railway system, which, beyond all com- 
 parison, has done more, in a short period, towards general 
 amelioration than any invention by which it had been preceded 
 • — still realizing, and still promising, by its judicious develop- 
 ment, the most encouraging results. 
 
 Where there is no government interference, the genius and 
 enterprise of the nation, as in these countries, alone deserve 
 
172 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 the credit, as they, sometimes, also pay the penalty of that 
 want of due consideration and safe control which might be 
 exercised by a public board not personally interested in the 
 matters subjected to their decision. 
 
 A very few words with reference to the first steps taken 
 towards the introduction of the great agent of modern pro- 
 gress may here be admissible, although Ireland cannot claim 
 any credit, except for its early and successful adoption. 
 
 The wants of the mining districts of England, but more 
 particularly of the collieries, had early created the necesssity 
 of an easy mode of transport for heavy loads, and for that 
 purpose waggon roads, laid with cast-iron tram-plates, were 
 brought into use about the middle of the last century, by 
 Reynolds, of Colebrook Dale, and shortly after Edgeworth 
 introduced a train of waggons, with cast-iron wheels, drawn 
 by one horse. The ingenuity of Trevethick, whose fame ought 
 not to be allowed to be eclipsed by subsequent improvements 
 on his invention, succeeded in making the first locomotive- 
 engine, which worked on the Merthyr Tydvil Railway, in the 
 year 1804. It produced a volocity of 5 miles an hour, and 
 was capable of drawing a load of 15 tons at that speed, but 
 the unfitness of the cast-iron plate-rails of that period caused 
 it to be abandoned without further attempts at improvement. 
 
 The mechanical mind of Trevethick, seeing that adhesion 
 was the principle for producing locomotion, originated the 
 steam carriage on common roads, and he exhibited one in 
 motion in the year 1806, in the neighbourhood of London, 
 the difficulties, however, in the way of practical success, have 
 not been yet entirely overcome, although much attention has 
 been given to the subject, both in England and on the Con- 
 tinent. In this country, Sir James Anderson expended a 
 considerable fortune in abortive attempts at perfecting the 
 invention. Mr. Gurney, a medical doctor of much scientific 
 acquirement, residing in Cornwall, deserves the credit of 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND, 
 
 173 
 
 having brought this invention nearest to perfection, in 1822, 
 but, owing to the much greater resistance on a stone road, as 
 compared with a railway, and tlie consequent loss of power in 
 the former case, a general and well-founded opinion prevails 
 that horse -power applied to tramwa3^s would be more econo- 
 mical than steam on stone roads. The evidence necessary for 
 forming a judgment on this subject is to be found in the 
 Report of a Committee of the House of Commons, printed in 
 October, 1831. 
 
 Improvements in the locomotive engine followed each other 
 in tolerably quick succession from the date of Trevethick's 
 experiment. Most of them having been directed to the pre- 
 vention of slipping, without any very decided success, until 
 the year 1814, when George Stephenson's engines commenced 
 to be brought into general use on railways, instead of horses 
 for drawing coals, and, in 1816, the introduction of the cast- 
 iron edge rail, and flanged wheels, in place of tram- plates, 
 was soon followed by wrought-iron rails, formed of rolled bars. 
 Improvements were thus gradually worked out, principally 
 at Newcastle, until a speed of 8 miles an hour, with con- 
 siderable loads, was attained, and, in 1825, the use of locomo- 
 tive power was authorized by Parliament on the Stockton 
 and Darlington Railway, constructed under Stephenson's 
 direction. 
 
 When the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company had 
 obtained their Act, in the year 1826, it was not decided whether 
 the means of transport was to be by fixed or locomotive engines, 
 but in 1829, when the works were nearly completed, the latter 
 mode was determined on, after a very full investigation, as 
 being much less expensive than working by fixed engines. 
 
 Stephenson's success in producing, in the latter year, an 
 engine capable of travelling at an average rate of 14 miles an 
 hour, is too well-known to require any detail of the circum- 
 stances, besides being unsuited to the object of our narrative ; 
 
174 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 but the profession, having had an origin common to both 
 countries, and its members not being confined to practice 
 exclusively in either, I considered it of some interest to give 
 a brief notice of the small beginnings which have led to such 
 world-wide results; producing in no country more decided 
 ameliorating effects than in our own, and teaching us an 
 encouraging lesson by showing, that, while it was not per- 
 mitted to the inventors to foresee the results of their labours, 
 yet they have produced, in scarcely more than a quarter of a 
 century, an industrial revolution throughout the civilised world, 
 and that which was first intended solely for the transport of 
 heavy burthens, has derived its chief importance and remune- 
 rativeness from passenger traflfic. 
 
 The great success achieved in England, in 1829, was not 
 long in producing an effect with us, for, in the year 1831, the 
 Dublin and Kingstown Railway Company was incorporated, 
 and this effort at adopting the new mode of locomotion was 
 certainly more indebted to the special omnibus character of 
 the line for its having answered, in a remunerative point of 
 view, the expectations of its projectors, than to the economy 
 of its construction. 
 
 The whole length extending 6 miles, for the most part along 
 the sea-beach, from which it is protected by a pavement and 
 sea-wall, of hammered stone, presented no difficulty to be 
 surmounted; the cost, however, amounting to £70,000 per 
 mile, is somewhat startling to our present ideas, but when it 
 is recollected that, at the period of its formation, such works 
 were more of an experimental character than following any 
 settled mode of operation, and that the price paid as land 
 compensation was extravagant, we shall cease to be less sur- 
 prised at the cost than at the fact that its passenger traffic is 
 highly remunerative, and that the Dublin and Wexford Com- 
 pany, who have extended the coast line to Wicklow, and who 
 rent the Kingstown Railway, are realizing a profit, after 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 175 
 
 handing over to the proprietors of that line 8 per cent, on the 
 capital expended. So little was such a state of things antici- 
 pated at the outset, that it was the goods traffic which was 
 looked to for profit, and for that purpose it was proposed that 
 there should be a custom-house at Kingstown, where ships 
 were to unload their cargoes, to be thence carried by railway- 
 to Dublin. 
 
 In fact, greater ignorance than might be supposed prevailed 
 with respect to everything connected with the new system. It 
 appears from evidence taken before Parliament on the South- 
 ampton and the Great Western Railways, in 1835, that the 
 removal of excavation was calculated to be done at 4d., Hd., 
 and 5d. per cubic yard, at an average lead of a mile, and that 
 an additional lead of two miles would only make a difference 
 of Id. per yard. The inclination through the box tunnel, I 
 in 107, was proposed to be worked by a stationary engine, on 
 account of the supposed noxious effects of the fames from a 
 locomotive engine, and the learned Dr. Dionysius Lardner, 
 having been asked if such a tunnel, in the middle of a line, 
 could be considered as practicable, replied, that, from the 
 general want of experience on the subject, he hesitated in 
 answering the question, but he would be very apprehensive of 
 it, and, at all events, that the ordinary mode of ventilation by 
 shafts would not answer. 
 
 A number of rival schemes having been set on foot after 
 the completion of the Kingstown Railway, the Government, 
 acting on the advice of Mr. Drummond, R.E., who had been 
 previously engaged on the Trigonometrical Survey, appointed 
 a Commission, in 1837, consisting of that gentleman, Colonel 
 Burgoyne, Peter Barlow, and Richard Griffith, Esqrs., in 
 order to lay down a system of Railways in Ireland, with a 
 view to the gaining of the greatest advantage by the smallest 
 outlay, so as to guide the legislature in the projects that might 
 be laid before it, and to prevent the waste of capital by an 
 
176 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 accumulation of operations towards the same object, which 
 was producing so injurious an effect in England. Under this 
 Commission, surveys were made, and lines laid down towards 
 the south-west, by Mr. Charles VignoUes, connecting Dublin 
 with Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and Kilkenny, the latter by 
 a branch from the trunk, at Viaryborough, and another branch 
 from Holycross, round the Keeper Mountains, through the 
 Golden Vale, to Limerick. To Mr. John Macneill was 
 entrusted the Survey towards the north, connecting Dublin 
 with Armagh, from which to Belfast a railway was then under 
 execution, and from Dublin to Enniskillen, the line as far as 
 Navan being common to both. 
 
 The atlas accompanying the Second Report is an admirable 
 example of the manner in which the preliminaries of a general 
 railway system, adapted to the wants of a whole country, 
 should be laid down. That portion of the labours of the 
 Commission, prepared under the direction of Lieutenant 
 Harness, R.E., consists of 6 maps : — L Showing the lines laid 
 down under the direction of the Commissioners, and those 
 proposed by private parties. 2. The comparative density of 
 the population. 3. The relative traffic in different directions. 
 
 4. The relative number of passengers in different directions. 
 
 5. The geological map of Ireland. 6. A map of England 
 and Ireland relative to the communication between London 
 and Dublin. The outline of the geological structure of the 
 country was written by Mr. Griffith, and a great variety of 
 information was obtained which must always render , this 
 Report a valuable record, although it was not followed by the 
 desired results, as the death of Mr. Drummond, and the 
 passing of the Government into the hands of a minister who 
 held that enterprise should regulate itself, caused a well- 
 devised system to give way to a principle which pre-supposes 
 that speculators should know the best means of attaining what 
 they want, in matters with which they are unacquainted. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IHELAND. 
 
 177 
 
 and that professional advisers are the most skilful and disin- 
 terested guides that can be found ; whereas, all experience in 
 cases of rival schemes goes to prove the contrary. We have, 
 however, in this country, principally owing to our want of 
 wealth, escaped much of the evil of competing lines ; but the 
 defeat, by small local interests, of the great system laid down 
 for the general benefit has not been without its manifest ill 
 consequence, and, with the exception of a large portion of the 
 main trunk of the Great Southern and Western Railway, 
 lines — for the most part, rejected by the Commissioners, and 
 for some of which Acts of Parliament had been previously 
 obtained — have been carried out in situations not calculated 
 to give the best returns ; whilst in others, the effect of the 
 competition of more judiciously selected lines, subsequently 
 executed, must produce injurious effects. The connected 
 lines, under different managements, betweeen Dublin and the 
 North, furnish a strong example of the necessity of a syste- 
 matized plan of communication being laid down in the first 
 instance under proper control, for the conflict of separate 
 interests is there found to be, not only injurious to the com- 
 panies themselves, but a source of inconvenience to the public, 
 nor does there appear to be any reasonable prospect of such 
 a reconcilement of objects that ought to be common to all of 
 them, as would lead to an amalgamation to solve the diflSculty. 
 
 The Dublin and Drogheda Railway Company obtained 
 their Act of Incorporation in 1836, but the line not having 
 been approved of by the Railway Commissioners, owing to 
 its running along the coast, difficulties impeded its commence- 
 ment until the year 1840, when the first general impetus was 
 given to railways in Ireland. It was opened to Drogheda in 
 1844, and has been since extended to Navan and Kells, with 
 a branch to Howth, making a total length of 63^ miles, con- 
 structed at an average cost of about £15,000 per mile. The 
 cost of the main line being about £22,000 per mile. It is to 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 be regretted that the embankment by which this railway is 
 carried across the Clontarf strand was not made the means of 
 reclaiming a considerable extent of mud-land, by excluding 
 the tide, and altering the course of the Tolka river, in a line 
 parallel with the high-road, and discharging it sea-ward of the 
 pier at Crab lake. 
 
 The generally champagne character of Ireland has not 
 presented much opportunity for engineering works of such 
 importance or difficulty as to entitle them to special notice, 
 there are, however, a few exceptions, amongst which the 
 connecting link between the Drogheda Railway and the 
 Belfast Junction may be here noticed, although out of place 
 as to time, having been erected long subsequently by the 
 latter Company. The Boyne viaduct, constructed under Sir 
 John Macneill, as Engineer-in- Chief, with the assistance of 
 Mr. Barton, crosses the river, from which it takes its name, a 
 short distance below the town of Drogheda. It has three 
 openings spanned by lattice girders. The centre opening is 
 264 feet in the clear between the piers, and the side openings 
 have each a width of 138 feet; giving a length of 540 feet 
 for the lattice beam, the depth of which is 22 feet 6 inches, 
 and being connected over the supports, forms one continuous 
 beam throughout. Fifteen semicircular cut-stone arches, 61 
 feet span each, of which 12 are at the south side and 3 at the 
 north, complete the sustainment of the roadway, the whole 
 length of the viaduct being one-third of a mile. The height 
 from high v/ater to the underside of the lattice beam is 
 90 feet, so required, no doubt, for navigation purposes, and 
 giving a very imposing and hardy effect to the whole, which 
 reflects the utmost credit on the skill brought to bear on its 
 design and construction. 
 
 The Great Southern and Western Railway, extending 
 between Dublin and Cork, was the first line of any con- 
 siderable extent executed, and deserves to be ranked amongst 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 179 
 
 the most important and successful undertakings of this nature 
 in the United Kingdom. It was commenced in the year 
 1844, under Mr. (now Sir John) Macneil), and, having pre- 
 sented no work of difficulty but the Rathmore tunnel (within 
 a short distance of Cork), was opened to that point in October, 
 1849. 
 
 The permanent way of the Irish or 5 feet 3 inch gauge, 
 is laid with a bridge-rail, weighing 90 lbs. to the yard, 
 supported on transverse sleepers, which were introduced by 
 Sir John Macneill, the same description of rail having been 
 first used by Brunei on longitudinal timbers. A heavy rail of 
 this description, well sustained, and easily adjusted, affords 
 facilities for adopting the pricnciple of taxing powerful 
 engines instead of the public, and by thus extending cheap 
 accommodation to all classes, giving encouragement to the 
 sources of remuneration. The main line is 166 miles in 
 length, and, with branches to Carlow, Athlone, Parsonstown, 
 Fermoy, Killarney and Tralee, whose united length is 163 
 miles, gives a total of 329 miles, constructed at an average 
 rate of about £16,400 per mile. The much cheaper con- 
 struction of the branches diminishing the apparent cost of the 
 main line, which amounted to about £'20,000 per mile. The 
 cost of the Rathmore tunnel, included in the rate per mile, was 
 £100,000. It is 1,366 yards in length, 28 feet in breadth, 
 and 24 feet in height, excavated through old red sand stone 
 rock, of a not very solid kind, a small portion of it only in 
 the centre being considered safe without lining ; the gradient 
 through it is 1 in 70, 
 
 The Midland Railway Company having been incorporated " 
 in the year 1845, became the purchasers of the Royal Canal 
 for the purpose of constructing their line in connexion with it, 
 deviations had to be made in some instances on account of the 
 impracticability of the curvesj and there is, throughout its 
 course, in connexion with the Canal, as far as Mullingar, such 
 
180 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 continuous winding as to prevent any very high speed being 
 attained ; the saving made, however, in the purchase of land, 
 and in neutralising the opposition of the Canal, were considered 
 to counterbalance the drawback in speed; the repetition of the 
 old error, as to the proximity of the two great railways, like 
 that of the canals, not having been taken into account — a 
 mistake properly referable to the Directory rather than to Mr. 
 G. W. Hemans, the Engineer, under whose skilful manage- 
 ment the works were completed. 
 
 The line from Dublin by Mullingar to Athlone was 
 executed at a cost of about £14,000 per mile. From Athlone 
 to Galway, a distance of 48 miles, the railway was constructed 
 for a sum of £500,000, lent by the Government, at 3 per cent., 
 to the Midland Company, the interest being guaranteed by 
 the County of Galway. The traffic on this extension was for 
 some years unable to pay the working expenses and interest, 
 but latterly there has been, with some exceptions, a small 
 annual surplus. The Viaduct across the Shannon, supported 
 on iron cylinders, and the bridge at lough Athalia, near Galway, 
 are the only works out of the ordinary facile character. There 
 are, with the Cavan and Longford branches, 192 miles in 
 operation; and, although a large portion runs through districts 
 not remarkable for their productiveness, yet the traffic enables 
 the proprietors to receive a dividend of 5 per cent., free of 
 income tax. 
 
 The railway cormexion of Galway with Belfast, by the link 
 about being completed from Clones to Cavan, between the 
 west and north of Ireland, promises important results if the 
 transatlantic communication be successfully carried out. It 
 is quite true that a packet station does not necessarily of itself 
 enrich a port, but if the raw cotton of America were brought 
 to the water-power of Galway, and returned in fabrics of a 
 coarse description as back loading, it would create a remunera- 
 tive trade, having for its encouragement the saving of 300 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 181 
 
 miles of sea carriage upon the raw material imported, and as 
 much on the cloth exported — the saving of the Liverpool port 
 dues, and of the railway freight into the Lancashire cotton 
 districts— the saving of time and interest of capital between 
 the period of the raw material leaving America and returning 
 as cloth, and finally, the saving of water-power as against 
 steam, which, allowing for capital sunk in machinery propelled 
 by water in the one locality, and by steam in the other, may 
 be taken at £5 per diem for every 100 horse-power. This 
 trade would lead in time to higher branches of cotton manu- 
 facture, and an European market would thus be, for the first 
 time, established in Ireland, wiih the important adjunct of a 
 highly-subsidised mail packet service, forming so favourable 
 a combination of circumstances as, judging from the results 
 of much less promising beginnings, would justify sanguine 
 expectations of great results. The passage from Gal way to 
 Newfoundland having been made, during the last year, in 5 
 days, by one of the vessels of the Transatlantic Mail Com- 
 pany, has been a great step towards settling the question 
 submitted to the Railway Commission of 1838, as to the port 
 on the west or south coast of Ireland from whence navigation 
 to America might best be carried on ; but that success cannot 
 be taken as conclusive against other rival ports, as, for 
 instance, Bearhaven, Valentia, Tarbert, or Cork, which latter 
 offers advantages as a port of call. 
 
 A notable result of the construction of railways has been 
 the development of the contract system, which, while on the 
 one hand it has had a beneficial effect in aiding engineers, by 
 dividing the labour with practical and responsible subordinates, 
 has on the other hand, by means of liberal banking accom- 
 modation, afforded to the holders of large contracts, tended to 
 create a monopoly of the execution of works in the hands of 
 a few, who having eventually become influential capitalists, 
 were in a position to make combinations unfavourable to 
 
182 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 economical construction, more particularly in cases where part 
 payment was agreed to be received in shares by the con- 
 tractor ; but with an engineer of skill and integrity, and 
 sufficient funds at the command of the company, the com- 
 petitive contract system, based on detailed quantities and 
 prices, has been found a safe course to pursue. 
 
 This subject could hardly be referred to without noticing 
 the name of Mr. William Dargan, who was the contractor for 
 the greater portion of our principal railways ; and having, by 
 that means, amassed a large fortune, he undertook, at his own 
 risk and cost, the Great Industrial Exhibition of 1853, which 
 was honoured by the presence of the Queen as a mark of Her 
 Majesty's high appreciation of successful enterprise and public 
 spirit. A baronetcy, offered as a further proof of royal favor, 
 was declined. The receipts of the Exhibition are said to have 
 fallen short, by £20,000 of the expenditure, which was about 
 £80,000. 
 
 Although railways, as commercial speculations, might have 
 been rendered far more profitable than they are, yet their 
 construction and management in Ireland, when we look to 
 what has occurred with our neighbours, must be considered 
 to be attended with considerable success. The average cost 
 of construction in England has been £38,779 per mile; in 
 Scotland, £-27,532; and in Ireland, £15,061 per mile; and 
 taking the lines constructed since 1848 only, the average cost 
 per mile in England, was £12,600; in Scotland, £8,700; and 
 in Ireland, £6,600 per mile. The difference in the price of 
 land and labour in the two countries will undoubtedly make 
 up some of the difference of cost, but will not account for the 
 whole of it; and that there is a good deal due to management 
 is proved by the fact, that the proportion which the working 
 expenses have borne to the receipts has been, for the year 
 1858, in England, 50 per cent.; in Scotland, 44 per cent; 
 and in Ireland, 40 per cent. 
 
OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF IRELAND. 
 
 183 
 
 We have now 1,188 miles of railway, in Ireland, in actual 
 operation, in a period of scarcely more than 20 years, con- 
 structed at a gross cost of seventeen millions and a-half, 
 establishing communication between almost all the important 
 towns of the country and Dublin, which is itself about to be 
 brought, by a new postal arrangement, within eleven hours of 
 London — an achievement considered impracticable at the time 
 of the Irish Railway Commission of 1838, in the Second 
 Report of which it was anticipated, as a great result, that the 
 two Capitals would be brought within 20 hours of each 
 other ! 
 
 The application of atmospheric pressure to locomotion was 
 first proposed, in 1834, by Vallance, of Brighton, for the 
 transmission of letters. The contrivance of which a ;nodel 
 was exhibited, consisted of a tunnel to receive a carriage at 
 one end, and the air being exhausted by a steam engine at the 
 other, rapid propulsion was obtained. Ten years later, Pinkus 
 brought forward a plan for making the carriages travel outside 
 the tube; and in 1839, Clegg and Samuda patenteed their 
 improved method, and exhibited it in 1840, working on 
 Wormholt scrubs, on a length of about a mile. The success 
 of that experiment induced the proprietors of the Kingstown 
 railway to adopt the system on the extension of their line to 
 Dalkey, a distance of 3,050 yards. The line was single, of 
 the ordinary kind, and in the centre, between the rails a tube 
 of 15 inches in diameter was laid, having a longitudinal 
 opening at the top, closed by an elastic valve, and an entrance 
 and exit valve at either extremity; a piston, fitted to the 
 leading carriage of the train, was inserted into the tube at one 
 end of it, the other extremity being connected with a con- 
 densing expansive steam-engine of 100 horse-power, by which 
 the air was exhausted, and the piston being forced forward by 
 the pressure of the atmosphere, the train was drawn with a 
 velocity proportioned to the degree of vacuum produced. As 
 
184 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 the piston advanced the valve in the slit of the tube was 
 opened, and closed again after the piston had passed. A com- 
 position, principally consisting of grease, placed in the groove 
 into which the valve, lined with leather, fell, rendered the tube 
 impervious to air. The gradients were very steep, being in 
 some places 1 in 50, enabling the trains to return from Dalkey 
 by gravity alone. The system was tried on a more extensive 
 scale on the Croydon, South Devon, and Orleans Railways, 
 where a speed of 60 miles an hour was experimentally 
 attained ; and in the regular course of traffic on the Dalkey 
 line, a train of 10 carriages, weighing 50 tons was propelled 
 at the rate of 35 miles per hour, the barometer indicating a 
 vacuum of from 25 to 28 inches. From the date of the 
 opening in 1843 to 1856, when a further extension was made 
 to Wicklow, the pneumatic action appeared to Avork, as far as 
 the public were aware, in a satisfactory manner, and without 
 interruption ; but in the latter year the gradients of the 
 Dalkey line were altered to suit locomotive engines, and the 
 atmospheric system was given up, being found less sure and 
 effective as a mode of propulsion. 
 
 In looking back to the period of the canals, already de- 
 scribed, and comparing it with that of the introduction of 
 railways, we see that, although more than half a century had 
 intervened, during which the United Kingdom had made 
 great advancement, as well in general knowledge as in material 
 wealth, yet there was no more exemption from errors of a 
 grave description at on period than at the other. The peculiar 
 advantages attendant on rapid communication being the prin- 
 cipal element of success of the new system, in a commercial 
 point of view, while it afforded great opportunities for deve- 
 loping professional skill, eventually equal to the occasion, 
 although too often with results obtained without sufficient 
 regard to the profitable employment of the capital invested. 
 
 The construction of railways, although of a routine charac- 
 
OF CIVIL 
 
 ENGINEERS 
 
 OF IRELAND. 
 
 185 
 
 ter generally, has, undoubtedly, by their magnitude and 
 importance, raised the profession to a position it had not pre- 
 viously occupied in public estimation ; and, looking to the 
 general outline that has been traced, it is not without interest 
 to observe the steps by which advances were made in profes- 
 sional attainments, during a period of not more than a century 
 since the founders of the school of engineering arose in these 
 countries. We see that, from want of a well-established com- 
 bination of scientific and practical training, knowledge pro- 
 gressed not steadily and uniformly as in the exact sciences, 
 but according as opportunities were afforded for practice, 
 leading finally, by increased demand, to a division of labour, 
 by which our profession, properly embracing all that concerns 
 mechanical construction, having left architecture to its natural 
 alliance with the fine arts, has been divided into three distinct 
 brances, the first comprising structures in masonry, timber, 
 iron, and earth work; the second, mechanical engineering; and 
 the third, mining engineering. These divisions are now 
 tolerably well recognised, but there are individuals who exer- 
 cise all with success, as well as those again who devote them- 
 selves to a special sub-division, thus elaborating each part, 
 and leading farther from the field of empiricism into the sphere 
 of systematised knowledge, for which ample opportunities 
 have been afforded, without having produced a corresponding 
 advance in high scientific attainments; for, in this latter 
 respect, notwithstanding the great practical superiority of 
 the English school, there can be little doubt that it has not 
 kept pace with those either of Germany or France, as their 
 publications abundantly testify ; the English Institution, how- 
 ever, has made great advances in the exposition of the prin- 
 ciples of applied science since its establishment in 1818, and 
 many of its members may contemplate with just pride the 
 results of their labours in the monuments of commercial 
 greatness with which their country abounds. 
 
186 
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 The foundation of this Institution in 1835, under the 
 Presidency of Sir John Fox Burgoyne, Chairman of the 
 Board of Public Works, was, in itself, a proof of the improved 
 position assumed by the profession in Ireland, in calling for 
 the means of recording and discussing practical results, as 
 well as forming a rallying point, without which the body could 
 have no joint action or cohesion. Be it our duty, by a zealous 
 fellowship, to elevate and perpetuate its career, leaving profes- 
 sional rewards to follow in the wake of knowledge thoroughly 
 acquired, and exercised with a judgment and spirit which 
 scientific training can alone impart. 
 
 I am now obliged to bring to a premature close this im- 
 perfect and, somewhat disjointed narrative, with the intention, 
 however, of supplying the deficiencies at a future period, when 
 more leisure shall permit. I became aware as I proceeded, that 
 the limits of an address, and the time afforded for the reading 
 of it, were ill-suited to the number of subjects, and the variety 
 of details to be treated of, presenting many difficulties to the 
 explorer in an untrodden field, I must, therefore, throw 
 myself on the indulgence of the Institution for the many 
 omissions which have unavoidably occurred, there being no 
 possibility of embracing the whole subject in the form at first 
 proposed, except by a compilation of mere annals — a difficulty 
 in itself where no regular record existed — and in avoiding that 
 uninteresting task, I have been obliged to postpone many 
 subjects essential to the history of the profession, of w^iich I 
 intended this sketch to be the basis, in order to provide for a 
 want always becoming, by lapse of time, more difficult to 
 be supplied.