Ebb and tide of history on the Grand Canal

BERTIE Conroy’s eyes twinkle with delight when you ask him to outline the trials and tribulations of his boating years on the River Shannon and the Grand Canal.

At his home in Newtown, Killaloe, the 81-year-old recalls the times he took a host of film stars’ pleasure cruisers along the River Shannon.
They included people such actors, Richard Harris and Gene Kelly; politicians, George Birmingham and Brian Lenihan and Prince Margaret.
However, Bertie, affectionately known as Todd, wasn’t overly excited about meeting legends of the screen and stage. It was all part of his job and he was just as happy loading and securing cargo as taking cruises up and down the inland waterways.
Working on water was simply a labour of love lasting 47 years. His father, Jimmy, worked for years on boats on the Grand Canal, using their home in Robertstown, County Kildare, as their base. When Bertie retired as skipper of Waterways Ireland’s ship Coill-an-Eo in 1991 his son, PJ, took over this post until he was forced to give up due to a building accident in 2003.
Growing up in Robertstown, a small village situated on the banks of the Grand Canal, bordering the Bog of Allen, Bertie quickly became immersed with working on the inland waterways with his father, who was skipper of one of the large cargo boats.
He played Gaelic football with Robertstown, lining out at left corner-forward with his brother, Mick, taking up the other corner. Mick was a talented forward who played for Kildare minors and he subsequently moved to Ballina, Killaloe.
The village grew in importance with the arrival of the Grand Canal in 1784. Lowtown marks the summit of the Grand Canal standing 279ft above sea level.
The Grand Canal carried about 100,000 passengers a year up to the mid-1800s and was used by freight barges up to the late 1960s. With the extension of the canal to Robertstown in 1785, the economic development of the village started.
Although the waterways no longer have a commercial purpose, they still provide recreation and tourism-related activities with coarse fishermen and pleasure boats using Robertstown as a base.
Bertie was just 16 when he started working on boats in 1944 drawing all types of cargo including Guinness and sugar from Carlow to Dublin.
“When I was a young lad, I grew up along the Grand Canal and spent a lot of time on boats with my father. My father had to earn money on the cargo boats while my mother looked after the land and three or four cows.
“Even as a young lad, you would learn how to steer a boat. It was a labour of love for me. We never stayed in the one place. We slept and ate on the boat.
“There was a great crowd of men working on the boats. Every three weeks, you would be working with different crew members doing all sorts of jobs, cooking, cleaning, loading and unloading cargo.
“There were no big lorries back in the ’40s and the boat was like a lorry when it came to transport,” he explained.
Bertie met a local woman, Eileen Coonan in Ryan’s Hall – a local dance hall in Killaloe and they got married in 1952. Her late father, Patrick, worked as skipper on the Ranks boats, which transported flour from Limerick to places like Lanesboro, Portumna, Banagher, Athlone and Carrick-on-Shannon.
Bertie worked for the Grand Canal Company from 1944 to 1959 and then worked for Tim Hanlon who had a number of cruisers moored in the marina at the Lakeside Hotel, Ballina, including one called the Victoria H, which Bertie operated on numerous occasions.
Bertie also took up employment with CIÉ working on two pleasure boats – the St Kieran and St Brendan during the summer time taking tourists and visitors on day trips on the River Shannon. These boats were based in Killaloe, Banagher or Portumna depending on the demand for trips.
The late Kevin Madigan, from the Board of Works, Limerick, the predecessor of the Office of Public Works, asked him to go to work on the Coill-an-Eo for the company.
The Coill-an-Eo, which is still operational, was one of Waterways Ireland’s key vessels and Bertie spent from 1971 and 1991 with his crew at work, creating, maintaining and repairing the waterways infrastructure throughout the year.
This ship, Wood of the Yew, was built in 1969 in the Liffey Dockyard and was designed specifically for the Shannon as she fitted the locks and was shallow enough to cope with low water levels.
The workshop, which is located forward of the cabins, allowed her crew to carry out any electrical and mechanical work, including oxyacetylene cutting and welding at any location.
It was roofed with wooden beams and canvas resting on removable cross pieces, which enabled this area to be used as a cargo hold if necessary. The ship also had a small tug, which was powerful enough to pull it out of trouble and carried a working platform with a 60 hp Lister.
It covered the Shannon as far up as Leitrim and Lough Key but not Lough Allen or the Shannon-Erne Waterway. Able to stand up to serious weather on the big lakes, she was also able to get down to Limerick with her wheelhouse roof folded down and did a lot of work on the navigation before its reopening in the late nineties.
Bertie and Mick Conroy were just two of the young boatmen from Kildare who settled in Killaloe in the 1940s. Tom Nolan, Anthony O’Donoghue, Connie Winkle, Michael Addley, Michael Connolly, Frank Neary, Tom Bowers and Andy Moloney were also among the group.
Bertie Conroy and Tom Bowers are the only surviving members of the group.
On May 27, 1960, the trade boat, 51M with a large cargo of Guinness, left the Grand Canal Harbour at James’ Street in Dublin on its final journey to Limerick.
Engine driver, Ned Doyle; engineman, John Doyle and skipper, Tommy McCormack, all from Allenwood, County Kildare arrived at the Pier Head in Killaloe on June 2 and completed the last leg of their journey the following day.
A few months ago, Killaloe was the fitting venue for the 25th reunion of the boatmen of the trading boats on the Grand Canal, the Shannon and the Barrow.
Former boatmen, their wives, family members and friends attended a special mass in St Flannan’s Church in Killaloe at which was celebrated by Rev Fr Liam Merrigan PP, Monasterevan. Mass was followed by a function and presentations at the Lakeside Hotel, Killaloe.