|
The Royal Canal ((アイルランド語:An Chanáil Ríoga)) is a canal originally built for freight and passenger transportation from the River Liffey in Dublin to Longford in Ireland. The canal fell into disrepair in the late 20th century, but much of the canal has since been restored for navigation. The length of the canal to the River Shannon was reopened on 1 October 2010, but the final spur branch of the canal to Longford Town remains closed. == History == In 1755 when Thomas Williams and John Cooley made a survey to find a suitable route for a man-made waterway across north Leinster from Dublin to the Shannon. Originally they planned to use a series of rivers and lakes, including the Boyne, Blackwater, Deel, Yellow, Camlin and Inny and Lough Derravaragh. A disgruntled director of the Grand Canal Company sought support to build a canal from Dublin to Tarmonbarry, on the Shannon in North county Longford. Work commenced in 1790 and lasted 27 years before finally reaching the Shannon in 1817, at a total cost of £1,421,954. Building was unexpectedly expensive and the project was riven with problems; in 1794 the Royal Canal Company was declared bankrupt. The Duke of Leinster, a board member, insisted that the new waterway take in his local town of Maynooth. The builders had to deviate from the planned route and necessitated the construction of a 'deep sinking' between Blanchardstown and Clonsilla. The diversion also called for the building of the Ryewater Aqueduct, at Leixlip.〔http://www.irishidentity.com/extras/places/stories/canal.htm〕 The original 1796 fare from Dublin to Kilcock was 1/1, much cheaper than the stagecoach. There have been a large number of drownings in the Grand Canal since it opened. In December 1792 a passenger boat from Dublin bound for Athy was forcibly boarded by 150 people, many of them drunk, in spite of the captain warning them that the boat would capsize if they did not leave. Near the eighth lock, sixteen people drowned when the boat capsized. 〔http://www.sip.ie/sip070/A%20History%20of%20the%20Grand%20Canal.html〕 The canal passes through Maynooth, Kilcock, Enfield, Mullingar and Ballymahon has a spur to Longford. The total length of the main navigation is , and the system has 46 locks. There is one main feeder (from Lough Owel), which enters the canal at Mullingar. In 200 years it has been maintained by eight successive agencies: the Royal Canal Company, the Commissioners of Inland Navigation, the New Royal Canal Company, Midland Great Western Railway Company, Great Southern Railways, CIE, and (from 1986) the Office of Public Works. During the Famine, “the missing 1,490” starving tenants of Denis Mahon in Strokestown House, Roscommon, set out on foot from the estate in May 1847. Major Mahon had offered them the choice of emigration through “assisted passage”, starvation on their blighted potato patch farms or a place in the terrifying local workhouse. These families weakened by starvation walked for days along the tow paths of the Royal Canal to Dublin, where they were put on boats to Liverpool, and from there to Quebec aboard four “coffin ships” – cargo ships, ironically loaded with grain from Ireland, and unsuitable for passengers. It is estimated that half died before reaching Grosse Île in Canada. It was the largest single disposal of inconvenient tenants during the Famine. Major Mahon was shot dead that November, after news had got back to Roscommon about the fate of his former tenants. An annual walk on the canal banks commemorates the events. By the 1830s the canal carried 80,000 tons of freight and 40,000 passengers a year. In 1845 the canal was bought by the Midland Great Western Railway Company. They considered draining the canal and building a new railway along its bed but decided instead to build the railway beside the canal. The two run side by side from Dublin to Mullingar. Competition from the railways gradually eroded the canal's business and by the 1880s annual tonnage was down to about 30,000 and the passenger traffic had all but disappeared. It had a brief resurgence during World War II, when horses and barges returned to the canal. CIE took over the canal in 1944. As rail and road traffic increased, the canal fell into desuetude. In 1974 volunteers from the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland formed the Royal Canal Amenity Group to save the canal. By 1990 they had 74 kilometres of canal, from the 12th lock in Blanchardstown to Mullingar, reopen for navigation. In 2000 the canal was taken over by Waterways Ireland, a cross-border body charged with administering Ireland's inland navigations. On 1 October 2010 the whole length of the canal was formally reopened. In 1843, while walking with his wife along the Royal Canal, Sir William Rowan Hamilton realised the formula for quaternions and carved his initial thoughts into a stone on the Brougham Bridge over the canal. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Royal Canal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|