L.T.C. ROLT

The pioneering travel or tour guide on the canal was Green and Silver (London 1949) by L.T.C. Rolt. Tom Rolt made his voyage of discovery in 1946 along the course of the Grand Canal, the Royal Canal (fully open from Mullingar to the Shannon, until 1955), and the Shannon navigation from Boyne to Limerick (happily now navigable up to Lough Erne).

When Rolt was planning the journey he wrote that he knew of no friends in Ireland who could help with the hire of a boat until eventually he made contact with John Beahan of Athlone who had, Le Coq, a 28f x 8f converted ship's lifeboat. Rolt found Athlone to be the most river-minded town on the Shannon if not in the whole of southern Ireland.

A visit to Clonmacnoise
Rolt in making the voyage from Athlone to Shannon Harbour wrote of Clonmacnoise:
"After we had some tea we rowed off in the dinghy, landing directly at the foot of the slope that led up to the ruins. As notices informed us, Clonmacnoise is now under the charge of the Irish equivalent of our Board of Works whose care of our historical monuments is usually exemplary. My first impression was that the Irish Board could profit by a study of our example in this respect. [The OPW took charge of the site in the 1950s]. To reach the interior of the churches we had to beat our way through the nettles. As a result of the desire for burial within the precincts, the ruins, including the famous High Cross, were almost submerged beneath a sea of unsightly tombstones of marble of polished granite. [The original cross is now indoors in the Visitors' Centre] Furthermore, the demand for burial space had quite outrun the limited area available and in consequence the more recent dead displayed no reverence or respect for their predecessors in their anxiety to find room for themselves. Many of the older tombstones had been uprooted and broken by newcomers while newly turned earth was strewn with fragments of human bones. The fact that one's bones will, in all probability, be uprooted and flung aside by the next generation seems to me to make nonsense of the desire for burial at Clonmacnoise; only the belief that they will lie undisturbed in this quiet place until they rise with St. Ciaran when the last trumpet sounds makes it understandable. It seems to me that the only way of reconciling the dignity of Clonmacnoise with its continued use as a place of burial would be to do three things; firstly, to consecrate additional ground; secondly, for those that desire such memorials, to forbid the erection of unsightly tombstones and to insist instead upon some simple form of recumbent slab; thirdly, to keep the precincts properly mown and tended. I would add one further point. At one corner of the churchyard we came upon a shack-like wooden structure which we at first took to be a refreshment hut. But instead of a counter for the sale of fizzy lemonade it contained a jerry-built altar. It was, we understood, used on the occasion of organised pilgrimages to Clonmacnoise. What, I wondered, would St. Ciaran make of this latter-day product of the faith which once reared the great High Cross and these tall towers? To remove it would be a more fitting act of piety than a dozen pilgrimages.

From the point of view of the sightseer the most noteworthy features of Clonmacnoise are the aforementioned High Cross, or the Cross of the Scriptures as it is called, to distinguish it from the other crosses within the precincts, and the beautiful doorway and chancel arch of the Nuns Church and a quarter of a mile distant along an old causeway. The Celtic Cross is said to have been erected in the year 914 by Abbot Colman over the grave of King Flann Sinna, the Ard Ri. Between them, these two had founded the cathedral church at Clonmacnoise where, beneath the chancel, Rory O'Connor the last king of Ireland lies buried. The Cross, of elaborate Hiberno-Romanesque workmanship and displaying upon its shaft a number of symbolical groups of figures, is in a wonderful state of preservation. The doorway and arch at the Nuns Church belong to the twelfth century and are said to have been erected by Dervorgilla, wife of Tiernan O'Rourke who, because her faithlessness led to the Norman invasion, has been called the Helen of Ireland. With these exceptions there is nothing at Clonmacnoise to compare in glory of architecture with our mediaeval monuments. Yet, with the possible exception of Glastonbury we have nothing to compare with these ruins in their historical importance. It is for this reason that I have felt moved to speak so strongly about their present state. Clonmacnoise is a monument not of national but of European significance. Long before our great abbeys were thought of, this silent place beside the Shannon was a great seat of learning, culture and Christian faith, a lighthouse of the arts of living in the long night of chaos and barbarism which fell upon Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire, an influence which transcended national boundaries. To-day, when Europe bids fair to fall into a similar state, there are those who believe that it will once again be Ireland's destiny to become a citadel of Christianity and the humanities. This may well prove to be true, but not until she is more mindful of these monuments of her past greatness, and erects beside them some more worthy symbol of her faith than a wooden shack, for by works are these things judged.

Despite recurrent plunderings and burnings by Dane, Munsterman and Norman, the great institution founded by Ciairin in A.D. 549 lived for a thousand years. As late as the twelfth century it flourished under the patronage of the kings of Connaught, a town surrounded the monastery and a bridge spanned the Shannon. But in 1178, the place was plundered by Norman Hugo Constable, and throughout the next century Clonmacnoise continued to decline as a result of successive raids by the English. In 1214, a castle was built to the order of John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich, which dominated the monastery. But it was not until the sixteenth century that the end came. A Papal Commissary in 1515 found the monastery in great poverty, while in 1547 a terrific storm ruined the cathedral. Five years later the English garrison at Athlone completed the work of destruction leaving 'not a bell, large or small, an image or an altar, or a book or a gem, or even a glass window'.

The ruined keep of John de Gray's castle now leans at a drunken angle having been, it is said, blown up by Cromwell. Surely no man in history has, rightly or wrongly, more ruins to his credit; they outnumber by far the beds where Queen Elizabeth reputedly slept or hiding places of fugitive Stuarts. We clambered up the ruined stairs of the castle that evening and sat upon the battlements looking out over the ruins and the river. The wind had fallen completely with the sun, the sky was overcast and it was very still. There was no sound at all but the distant pipe of the curlew crying over the darkening bogs. No landscape can have changed so little in a thousand years. In these days of chaos, arrogance, and confused thinking it is a pity, I thought, that more men cannot contemplate in quietness such immutable solitudes. Their influence is salutory and chastening. They make men aware of his creaturehood, of the brevity of a life 'bounded by a sleep', and of the vanity of ambition. But while it thus humbles him, the natural world enlarges man's humanity by enabling him to perceive the potential greatness of the human spirit with its unique creative capacity. It is a paradox that this perception should be born of humility and perish with pride, but it is so. I believe that it was for this reason that the Celtic saints sought solitude and built their churches in the loneliness of the bogs or upon the crags and islands of a wild coast. St. Ciaran was no exception, and he seems to have loved especially the Shannon. After studying under St Finian of Clonard he became for a time a pilgrim, visiting St. Ninned of Lough Erne, St. Enda of Aran and St. Senan of Inis Scattery, a small island at the mouth of the river. He then stayed for a time with two brethren at Isel near Lough Ree before he founded his first settlement of Inis Aingin (Hare Island) on the lake itself. It was from here that he moved to Clonmacnoise, then called Ard Tiprait, or the Height of the Spring Well. Did he come as we had done, sailing down the river in a hide curragh?
This set me thinking of another more practical problem. The Danes are reputed to have sailed up the Shannon in their fighting ships to plunder Clonmacnoise just as they came up Severn to sack Worcester. But if this is true how did they ascend these rivers? The fall of the Severn between Worcester and the sea is not very great, but the Shannon falls swiftly 120 feet below Killaloe. Their long boats were surely too heavy to portage. Did they throw temporary dams across the river behind their boats, breaking them down one by one as they returned?

It was nearly dark by the time we rowed back to our boat. Not a breath of wind or eddy of current flawed the surface of the great river; silent it was, and so dark and still that but for the splash of our oars it might have been a sheet of black glass."

SHANNONBRIDGE
Moving off to Shannon Harbour Rolt got sight of the many arched bridges at Shannon Bridge and passed beneath the swinging span.
"Just below, was the Grand Canal depot with a canal boat lying alongside the quay. Opposite, and commanding the bridge was a gloomy fortress backed by a defensive wall of formidable proportions which extended westward like a grey comb along the crest of yet another of the green esker ridges. It was a symbol of the more peaceful times that have now come to the Shannon that, according to the signs displayed, part of the fortress had now become a village shop and bar."

After spending some time at Clonfert now greatly neglected

He wrote of Banagher:

The usual fortifications stand on the west bank of the river commanding Banagher Bridge. Opposite was the Grand Canal depot and the Maltings which are the town's staple industry, supplying malt to Guinness's Brewery at Dublin via the Grand Canal. [This continues at Midland Maltings, Garrycastle. The riverside Waller maltings are derelict and partly demolished.] Behind them, the little town wanders up a gentle slope in a single wide main street. The roadway was ill made, the houses looked seedy and drab, and an occasional derelict property gave the dingy façade of the street a gap-toothed appearance. The town seemed to have resigned itself to slow decay. In short, we thought it the most depressing small town we saw in Ireland. In fairness to the champions of Banagher, however, I should add that this time we were both tired and hungry, that it was raining steadily, and that it was early closing day.

One August day in 1841 a carriage (or more probably a cart or a sidecar) drew up before the hotel in the main street and there descended a shy, rather untidy young man of twenty-six. He had arrived to take up the post of clerk to the distant surveyor, and his name was Anthony Trollope. I hope his first impression was more favourable than mine.

The Canal was originally opened for traffic from James' Street Harbour, and the line from Tullamore to the Shannon is a subsequent extension. Its completion is commemorated by an inscribed stone set in the wall of the first of the two locks leading from the river to Shannon Harbour. Unfortunately, it had so weathered that I could not decipher the lettering. These locks were built with larger chambers than the other locks on the canal to enable the steamers which once plied on the Shannon to come up into the harbour. It is manifestly only possible for self- propelled craft to navigate the Shannon, so that in the days when traffic through the canal was horse-drawn, goods destined for places on the river were transhipped into streamers at Shannon Harbour. It was this necessity which created the ranges of stone warehouses and the single short street which is Shannon Harbour in the midst of the bleak windswept waste of the Shannon callows. Since nearby Banagher has its own quay on the river, Shannon Harbour serves no purpose except as a place of transhipment . Consequently when the diesel-engined boats ousted the horse-drawn craft and began to ply direct between Dublin and the Shannon quays, Shannon Harbour suffered eclipse and became little more than a toll office and refuelling point. Yet at the time of our visit, as we soon discovered, this originally activity was just about to be resumed. For the canal boats are not capable of weathering the violent storms which whip up the Shannon lakes into raging seas. The consequence delays, particularly in winter, are sometimes so great that, in the opinion of the company, they justify the labour of transhipment cargos destined for the Shannon into larger craft capable of making the passage through Loughs Derg or Ree under any conditions of weather. To admit those bigger boats to Shannon Harbour, the two entrance locks from the river were to be still further enlarged, and it was this decision which had enforced our rapid change of plan. When we passed through that morning, baulks of timber, heaps of gravel, sheer-legs, portable air-compressors and pulps had already been assembled on the lock side ready for the work that was due to begin in two days' time. I asked how traffic would be handled while the work was in progress. A certain number of boats would remain on the river, and through traffic would be transhipped by road from Shannon Harbour to be re-loaded at Banagher Quay.

When we had got through the locks we tied up to the quay at the harbour for I had to pay my toll through to Ringsend Docks. We also wanted to make one or two purchases from the little shops and procure some stamps from the sleepy post office. I also decided to make some adjustments to the carburettor of our engine before we travelled any further. On her run from Clonmacnoise I had discovered that Le Coq had displayed and appetite for petrol which soon threatened to disposed of her slender ration. I had hoped we should reach Dublin on our first month's allocation, but we certainly should not do so if we continued to consume it at the present rate.

After the customary gossip, I paid my toll, £3 17s. or, in other words, 1s. 9d. per lock for the forty-four locks. We then walked across to the post office and in doing so passed the doorway of the most notable building at Shannon Harbour. This is an enormous stone house of three storeys with a front portico approached by an imposing flight of steps. A semi-derelict tenement, with the steps to the door cracked and broken, this was once an hotel built by the company in the days of the passenger 'packet' boat traffic; one of five, the others being at James' Street harbour, Portobello, Robertstown and Tullamore.

Passenger traffic once formed a very considerable part of the Grand Canal Company's revenue. The service was inaugurated on June 9, 1788, when the Lord Lieutenant made a state progress through part of the canal in the new packet boat Buckingham. He took luncheon on board, and was further regaled by the stains of a band of musicians who had installed themselves in a second boat the Mercury. The imagination revels in the contemplation of this wondrous spectacle. Thereafter, the boats plied regularly and traffic increased steadily until, in the year 1837, a total of 100,695 passengers travelled over the canal. For a few years more the figure remained practically constant and them traffic began to fall off. The great famine seriously affected trade; in 1853, passenger traffic ceased entirely, and the coming of railways precluded any revival. Athy, Tullamore, Shannon Harbour and Ballinasloe were the most important stages, and boats left Dublin for these destinations in the morning and afternoon from James' Street Harbour and from Portobello. There was first- and second-class accommodation, First-class passengers being allowed eighty-four pounds of luggage and second-class forty-two pounds. First-class fare from Dublin to Tullamore was 9s. 2d., and second-class 4s. 9d. 'Second-class' was the equivalent of 'outside' travel on a stage coach, although it is said that they had the advantage of a roof over their heads. Engravings of the period, however, would appear to suggest that they merely sat on the open cabin roof in imminent peril of having their heads knocked off when passing under bridges. The traffic was certainly organised on precisely similar lines to the stage coaches and the company's hotels were simply the posting houses of this water-road. Like the stage coaches, the 'express' of the water were the narrow 'fly' passage boats by which the first- and second-class passengers travelled. By means of four horses travelling at the gallop, and by frequent changes, they managed to average eight miles per hour including the passage of locks. They travelled only by day. No doubt in winter the morning boat from Dublin rested at Tullamore, and the afternoon boat at Robertstown, meanwhile the impecunious travelled in the equivalent of the road wagon, a slower and heavier craft which carried which carried parcels as well as passengers and which travelled night and day.

In those days there was considerable interchange of passenger as well as goods traffic at Shannon Harbour. Travellers changed here from the Dublin passage boats into Bianconi's 'long cars' which operated between Birr, Shannon Harbour and Athlone in connection with the boats. Alternatively they might board the paddle streamers The Lady Lansdowne or The Lady Burgoyne which plied between Killaloe pier head and Athlone, calling at a jetty on the river near the mouth of the canal. Smaller craft sailed from Killaloe pier head to the transatlantic port of Limerick, and so the Grand Canal became a link in the route between Dublin and America. Shannon Harbour became celebrated for its oaten bread which passengers purchased in large quantities to take with them on their long voyage across the Atlantic. The departure of a passage boat from Shannon Harbour was heralded by the ringing of a large bell in the now empty cote over the stables. This was tolled three times, once for the horses to be harnessed, twice for the passengers to board, and thirdly as a signal for departure.

To-day, all that remains to tell of this once extensive traffic, apart from the gaunt hotels, are the early records and a few relics, such as an old menu card of a blunderbuss once carried by a postillion, which are preserved at the offices of the company. Yet the passage boats have left their mark in contemporary literature. Charles Lever in his novel Jack Hinton sends his hero on a passage boat from Portobello to Shannon Harbour where he attempts to find accommodation at the hotel, then already in decay. I am fortunate in possessing a copy of this forgotten novel, and am tempted to quote a considerable length from the fascinating though derogatory chapter which describes this journey. I will confine myself to a brief passage depicting the arrival at Shannon Harbour. He describes:
'...the sedgy banks whose tall flaggers bow their heads beneath the ripple that eddies from the bow...the loud bray of the horn...the far-off tinkle of a bell. We near Shannon Harbour, and all its bustle and excitement. The large bell at the stern of the boat is thundering away...the banks are crowded...the track rope is cast off, the weary posters trot away to their stables, and the stately barge floats on to its destined haven without the aid of any visible influence. A prospect more bleak, more desolate, more barren it would be impossible to conceive - a wide river with low and reedy banks, moving sluggishly on its yellow current between broad tracks of bog or callow meadow-land; no trace of cultivation, not even a tree to be seen. Such is Shannon Harbour.'
Trollope, too, in the Kellys and the O'Kellys sends Martin Kelly from Portobello to Ballinasloe. His description of the journey, which is as derogatory as Lever's, may well be autobiographical for it is possible that he travelled through the canal as a young man to take up that first post at Banagher. Mr. Kelly, he tells us, travelled continuously for twenty hours, arriving at Ballinasloe at 10 a.m. whence he caught a Bianconi car to Tuam. He complains of the tedium. He complains of the tedium of canal travel:

'I hardly know why a journey in one of these boats should be much more intolerable than travelling either outside or inside a coach; for, either in or on the coach, one has less room for motion, and less opportunity for employment. I believe the misery of the canal-boat chiefly consists in a pre-conceived and erroneous idea of its capabilities. One prepares oneself for the occupation - an attempt is made to achieve actual comfort - and both end in disappointment; the limbs become weary with endeavouring to fix themselves in a position of repose, and the mind is fatigued more by the search after, than the want of, occupation.'

Trollope's opinion of Grand Canal catering abilities also appears to have been low:

'He [Martin Kelly] made great play at the eternal half-boiled leg of mutton, floating in a bloody sea of grease and gravy, which always comes on the table three hours after the departure from Porto Bello. He, and others equally gifted with the dura ilia messorum, swallowed hugh collops of the raw animal, and vast heaps of yellow turnips, till the pity with which a stranger would at first be inclined to contemplate the consumer of such unsavoury food, is transferred to the victim who has to provide the meal at two shillings a head. Neither love nor drink - and Martin had, on the previous day, been troubled with both - had affected his appetite; and he ate out his money with the true preserving prudence of a Connaught man, who firmly determines not to be done.'

James Johnson, M.D., in his A Tour in Ireland (1844), describes a departure from Portobello in less disparaging and more informative terms:

'At Portobello... the head of the Grand Canal... there was bustle enough. Passengers of all descriptions with their diversified luggage were tumbling into the fly-boat on the quay. This same boat is curiously constructed, and a very slight inspection of it would prove its Hibernian origin. In all other boats - even canal boats - in England, the best cabin is in the stern; but here it is on, not under, the forecastle. The Captain's cabin is amidships and the cabin of the crew, with caboose and all kinds of stinkables and filth, is in the stern. The cabin of the passengers, although rather small, is far from uncomfortable, and in fine weather you may sit outside on the small forecastle of platform. When passing the locks, however, which are numerous, or, rather, innumerable, all hands are crammed into the cabin, and the door is closed to prevent the spray coming in, while a regular cascade tumbles headlong down close to the head of the boat and splashing over the forecastle.

'The horses were put to, and away they went at full gallop exactly at 7 o' clock. But the locks in the first ten or fifteen miles are very numerous, though it must be confessed they passed through them with wonderful rapidity. They will get through a double lock even on the ascent in five minutes, and on the descent to the Shannon in three minutes or less. The dress of the postilions, the measured canter or gallop of the horses, the vibration of the rope, the swell that precedes the boat, and the dexterity with which the men and horses dive under the arches of the bridges without for a moment slackening their pace, all produce a very curious and picturesque scene such as I have never seen equalled in Holland or any of its canals.'

After and early lunch, we cast off and began our eighty-mile journey to Ringsend. The canal climbs up the valley of the River Brosna which joins the Shannon at the same point. The first lock at Colony Bridge came soon and was equally soon negotiated. Not so the next lock at Bellmount, two miles further on. This was what is called in Ireland a double lock. To anyone not accustomed to the waterways, the description is misleading, for here a double lock does not imply a pair of locks side by side such as are found on the Trent and Mersey Canal on the Cheshire side of Harecastle Tunnel or in the Oxford Canal at Hillmorton. The Irish double lock is the equivalent of our 'staircase' or 'riser' that is to say it consists of two successive lock chambers having an intermediate pair of gates. It is thus, in effect, two locks although for toll purposes it counts as one. Towards the upper end of the lower chamber, the lock walls rise to the level of the upper chamber so that it will be appreciated that at this point the lock is very deep. But even in the lower portion it is difficult to scramble on the lockside from the desk of a small boat when the lock is empty. Added to this, for some unknown reason, no Irish lock is provided with a landing platform and steps at the lock tail such as is found on almost every English lock and which enables a member of the crew to step ashore and set the lock as the boat comes in. Instead, he must jump as best he may from the boat to the bank when nearing a lock. Boats travelling by night on the Grand Canal are only permitted to carry a red light for'ard on the grounds that a white headlight would dazzle oncoming craft. Imagine, then, the hazard of these deep locks and this hit-and-miss leap from the boat. It is said that at least one man is lost in this way on the Grand Canal every year, and that there is scarcely a lock on the main line which has not within living memory claimed a victim either by drowning or by being crushed to death between steel boat side and lock wall. This tragic toll could easily be reduced. At many, if not all, of the locks, landing places could readily be built, while a lesson could be learnt from our own Grand Union Canal where night 'fly boats' operated perfectly satisfactorily with electric headlights before the war, and where bridge-holes, steps and locksides were outlined with whitewash so that they could be distinguished at night. But to return to Bellmount lock. This was made particularly awkward by an overbridge, the arch of which spanned the lower chamber, springing sheer from the lock walls on either side. This made the lock extremely difficult for a crew of two to work, and almost impossible, with a boat the size of ours, to get bow and stern lines ashore and make fast while the lock was filling. A boat that filled the lock chamber, on the other hand, could easily put out lines above and below the bridge respectively. Just to add to our difficulties the lock keeper was out, while a following wind, blowing in through the open bottom gates, swung the dingy round till it jammed broadside between the walls. The dinghy was just the most awkward length in this respect and proved to be little more than a nuisance on the canal section of our voyage. But since it was absolutely essential on the Shannon, and as we should be rejoining the river at a different point, we could not leave it behind. Angela, who had got ashore, closed the bottom gates while I managed to right the dinghy with a boathook. By this time a volunteer from a neighbouring cottage had appeared and drew the paddles while we kept the boat as steady as possible. As soon as the lower chamber was full, the intermediate gate could be opened, and we could move into the upper lock, our difficulties were over. Bellmount, as we had been told at Shannon Harbour, is the only double lock on the canal's western descent to the Shannon. There were a number of double locks on the Dublin side of the summit, but by this time we should have a crew of four. Moreover, we never encountered another lock, either on the Grand Canal or on the Royal which had such another awkward bridge.

When I said that our assistant at Bellmount 'drew the paddles' I used the English term for the rack-operated sluices which let the water in or out of the lock. If these are mounted on the bank beside the lock, admitting water through a brick culvert they are called 'ground paddles' in England. If they are mounted on the lock gates they re called 'fly-paddles' or 'flashes'. But in Ireland, we learned, the equivalent terms are 'land racks' and 'breast racks' respectively. By comparison with some of our English locks, those on the Irish canals were well provided with large sluices and were therefore capable of being filled or emptied remarkable quickly. There were two 'breast racks' on each of the four gates and two 'land racks' beside the top gates. But if, when we were locking up, as now, we had lifted all six top racks together, for a few moments the lock chamber would have become a mill in which our small craft would have been dashed about uncontrollably. A canal boat which is built to fit the locks cannot swing more than a few inches and can therefore draw faster. We found by experience that the best technique when ascending these locks was as follows. We would lie against the lock wall with fore and aft lines ashore as near the lower gates as possible; only so far in, in fact, that the stern of the dinghy would clear the bottom gates. We would then lift the land rack on the side opposite that on which we were lying, opening it half way at first and then fully. Next we would lift the other land rack and only begin to rise the four breast racks when the water in the lock had made up considerably.

In just under a mile from Bellmount we came to the single lock at Glyn's Bridge after which we knew that we had a level pound of ten miles ahead of us. For a time we travelled through sheltered waters, but presently emerged onto a desolate expanse of bogland. The morning had been bright and sunny with a stiff breeze, but now the wind had dropped and the sky was overcast, threatening rain. The canal constructors deliberately chose to carry their waterway across the bog wherever practicable with the idea of saving the cost of earthworks. But this proved to be false economy. Subsequent draining, and the turf cutting which was stimulated by the canal itself have between them lowered the level of the bogs. This has meant costly maintenance work which has resulted in the canal being carried on an embankment high above the surrounding county. It was on such an embankment that we travelled for some distance, crossing over the Silver River by a stone built aqueduct which, as we saw from the inscribed stone on the parapet, was called Macartny's. Without exception, all the Irish works are of stone and of truly massive proportions. Unlike our brick-built bridges and locks which tend to crumble with age, these works, built on a monumental scale with great blocks of the hard, fine grained, marble-like grey limestone of the central plains, are as sound as the day they were made. They are enduring tributes to the craft of stone masonry. Nearly all the over bridges bear the name and the date of their construction carved in a square block over the keystone."