Building for Transport I: Canals

A Kilkenny Canal

Rob Goodbody

Proposals for new canals were legion in eighteenth-century Ireland, though implementation was often lacking. The capacity of canals to transport goods was a very tempting proposition in this period as substantially greater loads could be carried with greater ease along canals than by roads, opening up new opportunities for trade and manufacturing (7.1). Cost, however, were a major disadvantage. To address these, the Irish parliament gave grants towards the construction of canals and from 1755 these sums could be significant.(1)

With the benefit of this funding, a canal was proposed in the 1750s to connect Kilkenny city with tidal waters at Inistioge, Co. Kilkenny, and work was commenced at the city end.(2) Work came to a halt a little to the south of Bennettsbridge, Co. Kilkenny, and never recommenced, ensuring that the section that had been built was of little use as the area beyond it to Inistioge was not navigable. This short canal was not in use for long, though much of it is still traceable on the ground.

Undeterred by this failure, the Earl of Ormond engaged canal engineer William Chapman to carry out surveys with a view to the construction of a canal from Kilkenny to Thomastown.(3) His report, with detailed costings, was produced in 1787 and was the basis of an application to parliament for the legislation necessary to construct the canal.(4) However, the necessary procedures were not undertaken and the bill was withdrawn.(5)

Spurred by this proposal for a canal reaching the northern part of county Kilkenny, the gentlemen of that county once again looked at the potential for a canal and engaged engineer George Joyce to survey alternative routes. In January 1801 he produced his report with a map, examining three potential lines for a canal (7.3).(11)

The first route examined was to connect the proposed Colliery Canal, which Joyce called the Queen’s County Canal, to the Nore at Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny. The alignment ran southward to the eastern suburbs of Kilkenny, before turning eastward, well away from the Nore to reach Thomastown, following which the canal was to continue down the eastern side of the river to Inistioge.

The second route followed the same line from the north as far as the Nore at Kilkenny, beyond which it was to run alongside the Nore, entering the river at some locations where it was navigable.

The third route was a potential branch line running eastward past Gowran to join the river Barrow at Goresbridge, which Joyce called Newbridge.

In his report, Joyce goes into great detail on the eastern route to be followed from the northern end where it would join the Colliery Canal, through the city suburbs, onward to Thomastown, and then downriver to Inistioge. He mentions every cutting and embankment and each of the proposed canal locks, though few bridges or aqueducts are noted. The precise alignment is difficult to follow without detailed knowledge of the history of the area, as many of the landmarks he provides along the route are simply houses named for their then occupiers, such as ‘leaving Mr. Lawlor’s house to the left’.

The information he provides for the route alongside the Nore is not as detailed, while the route to connect with the Barrow is a single sentence – ‘I have also taken the levels from Abbeygrove to the river Barrow, by Gowran and Newbridge, &c.’ This lack of detail on the Barrow route is explained by his dismissal of this as a viable proposition: ‘The plan and section will, I trust, explain the impracticality of this branch, with the enormous expense of carrying it into execution’.

An important element that Joyce does not clarify is the connection between the eastern route of the canal and the Nore at Kilkenny. The small-scale map of the proposed routes shows a link which would have been necessary if the canal was to continue southward alongside the Nore rather than by the eastern route. Whether this link would have been provided if the option to the east had been followed is unclear and there is no mention of it in his report. Either way, the connection to the Nore would have required locks to lower the canal down to the level of the river and these are not shown on either the small-scale plan or the profile drawing and the cost of building them is not included in his estimates.

Joyce depicted long sections of his three suggested canal routes on a single profile drawing.(12) The route from the proposed Colliery Canal to Inistioge is shown on the upper part of the sheet and the route alongside the Nore from Kilkenny to Thomastown and the route connecting to the Barrow are on the lower part. The profile drawings are summaries of the proposals, indicating the locations where the canal levels rise or fall. One of the locks needed to achieve these changes is detailed by Joyce on a separate drawing (7.4).