Lock Yard
Local landowner Lord Cloncurry (1773–1853) was a canal enthusiast, constructing the Lyons mill and lockyard village complex in the 1820s and serving as chairman of the Grand Canal Company five times during his lifetime. The canal was an important, if slow, passenger thoroughfare feeding passenger’s to John Barry’s hotel at Lyons.
| Historical population | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Pop. | ±% |
| 1821 | 536 | — |
| 1831 | 158 | −70.5% |
| 1841 | 379 | +139.9% |
| 1851 | 308 | −18.7% |
| 1861 | 310 | +0.6% |
| 1871 | 288 | −7.1% |
| 1881 | 286 | −0.7% |
| 1891 | 222 | −22.4% |
| 1901 | 172 | −22.5% |
| 1911 | 163 | −5.2% |
When in 1834 Flyboats increased the average speed for passenger boats from 3 mph (4.8 km/h) to 9 mph (14 km/h) Ireland’s first railway was already under construction. The canal peaked at 120,615 passengers in 1846, the year construction started on the Dublin-Cork railway line. When a Dublin-Galway railway line was opened in 1850 the closure of the rarely-profitable passenger service followed in 1852.
Cargo traffic continued to use the canal for another 108 years, peaking at 379.045 tons in 1865 when an average of 90 barges a day passed through Ardclough. The canal was motorised 1911-24 and closed to cargo in 1960, but is still a popular thoroughfare for leisure boats. The tracks of the ropes of the horse drawn barges can still be traced at Ardclough canal bridge.
Read more about this topic: Lyons Hill
Famous quotes containing the words lock and/or yard:
“and wife or husband
who does not lock the door of the marriage
against you, finds you
not as unwelcome third in the room, but as
the light of the moon on flesh and hair.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“You must come down with me after the show to the lumber yard and ride piggy-back on the buzz saws.”
—W.C. Fields, U.S. screenwriter, George Marshall, and Eddie Cline. Larsen E. Whipsnade (W.C. Fields)