The Irish coal canals

Inland navigation systems were built in Ireland in the eighteenth century with the specific intention of transporting coal to Dublin from the recently discovered coal deposits in east County Tyrone. The two interlinked canal systems were the Newry navigation and the Tyrone navigation with Lough Neagh in between. The Newry navigation comprised four elements : the 29 km long canal from Portadown to Newry, the water supply for the summit length, the shipping basin at Newry and the 5·2 km long ship canal leading to Carlingford Lough and the open sea. The Tyrone navigation comprised three elements: the 7 km length of the Coalisland Canal from the River Bann to Coalisland, the Coalisland basin and Ducart's Canal beyond Coalisland to the principal coalfield. This paper gives an outline of the background, which showed the need for the canals, their construction, the commercial outcome and their ultimate decline, the current state of repair and future prospects.