archaeological & built heritage assessment - The Heritage Council

4 Industrial Development
Structures and buildings relating to water, road and rail transportation, manufacturing and mining are the
dominant industrial features that developed during the post medieval period pertaining to the study area.
Navigations and Canals
Inland waterways scattered throughout Ireland, whether in the form of slow-moving rivers or large lakes,
provided an important means of transport and communication dating back to prehistoric times, while
fording and crossing points were to become areas of strategic importance for defence purposes. In
addition, rivers and lakes represented a significant food resource and there is evidence of fish weirs having
been constructed since the early medieval period.
By the beginning of the late medieval period, during the 1600s, a definite scheme for the development of
Irish waterways was put forward when Lord Deputy Strafford suggested inter-linking the major rivers.
Given the varied but often poor quality of roads and the corresponding difficulty and expense of
transporting bulky goods, Ireland was easily influenced by the contemporary English trend for the
development of waterways and canal building. After the Restoration in 1664, the Duke of Ormonde
intended in ‘making rivers navigable’, but it was not until the early eighteenth century that more serious
attempts were made to carry out proper surveys and lodge plans before the Irish parliament. Eventually in
1715, an Act was passed ‘To Encourage the Draining and Improving of the Bogs and Unprofitable Low Grounds,
and for the easing and despatching the Inland Carriage and Conveyance of Goods from one part to another within
this Kingdom’ (Delaney 1988). The completed navigations, it was hoped, would simultaneously improve
agriculture by draining bogland. Eighteen different schemes were authorised to be carried out, however a
lack of finances in the years following the Act meant a slow start to the development of canals and inland
navigation in Ireland.
An important contrast between road maintenance and the construction and development of waterways
and canals is that central government was responsible for the earliest inland navigations. In 1771-2, an act
was passed which enabled private individuals to become involved in such schemes. Given the well
publicised profits generated by some English canals, such investments seemed attractive and significant
amounts were subscribed. The major canal schemes were initiated during the second half of the
eighteenth century. By 1907, there had been a total expenditure of almost five million pounds on the
completion and upkeep of 1140km of inland navigations in Ireland, of which over half had come from
private funds (Aalen, Whelan & Stout 1997).
In Ireland, the main rivers do not correspond to the principal trade routes, which traditionally have been
from the interior to the east and south coasts and onwards to Britain and Europe. The longest river, the
Shannon, flows in a south-west direction from county Cavan to reach the sea on the west coast and the
Shannon navigation has always been hindered by the presence of falls at Ardnacrusha. As such, the system
of inland waterways which evolved in Ireland favoured east-west routes linking Dublin and Belfast with the
Shannon and serving the midlands en route. Three such waterways were created: the Grand Canal which
eventually reached the Shannon in 1805 and also provided a link to the river Barrow, the Royal Canal
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