Guinness barges on the Suir - Inland Waterways News - The Inland ...

Volume 31 Number 2 Spring 2004
Inland Waterways News
Table of Contents
http://iwn.iwai.ie/v31i2/
What better way to spend a cold and blustery February day than in clambering around sunken
boats in a muddy tidal creek
Back before Christmas, Iris na Mara, the Journal of the Sea, published by the Maritime
Institute of Ireland, had an article by its editor Tim Magennis about the <strong>Guinness</strong> Liffey boats.
He asked that anyone who had more information about them should get in touch.
Separately, two IWAI members had been looking into the fate of <strong>Guinness</strong> boats in two areas.
Michael Savage knew the locations and fates of those that had gone to Lough Neagh and
Rosaleen Miller had been investigating rumours that two were abandoned in the mouth of the
Kilkenny Blackwater, which flows into the Suir just above Waterford, while one was still afloat.
However, there was little information about their identities: none about the two sunken ones,
while the name given locally to the floating one could not, we thought, be correct as that boat
was on Lough Neagh. Even the identification of the floating vessel as a <strong>Guinness</strong> boat was
questioned as her engine-room had only three portholes and she was equipped with a
wheelhouse that would not have fitted under the Liffey bridges.
We got in touch with Tim and exchanged information, then decided the only thing to do was to
go and have a look at the boats in Waterford. Tim contacted Martin O'Hanlon of Fastnet
Shipping Ltd, the owner of the floating vessel, and he kindly agreed to allow us on board and
even to supply a boat and accompany us himself. Mike and Rosaleen Miller had a contact at
Grannagh (Granny) Boat Club, where we could launch dinghies or board the owner's boat.
Michael Savage agreed to drive all the way from Lough Neagh, with his file and his laptop, to
discuss the fates of the <strong>Guinness</strong> boats with Tim Magennis. And no eccentric expedition is
complete without Niall Galway, steamboat owner and Royal Canal enthusiast.
We met for breakfast on Saturday 21 February 2004,
looking at photos of <strong>Guinness</strong> <strong>barges</strong>, Ram's Island and
other delights. Then down to Granny/Grannagh, where
the wind was much stronger than it had been inland, and
there was quite a chop where wind met outgoing tide.
However, the launch slipway was sheltered and we got
under way in two inflatables and a big aluminium
workboat with a 30hp outboard driven by Martin's son
Ken.
We sped downriver, under the old railway bridge, to the
floating <strong>Guinness</strong> barge. It has been much converted:
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old engineroom shortened (which explains why there are only three portholes), bows built up,
wheelhouse added and, most recently, a Rolls Royce engine installed. The hull has been
concreted.
Martin's firm includes tugs, dredgers, shipbroking and a boatyard. When he was Ken's age, he
used to work the <strong>Guinness</strong> boat singlehanded, with a Hymac on a platform over the hold,
extracting sand from further up the Suir. It was most interesting to hear him talking to Michael
about different sand-extraction techniques, and Michael was able to show him photos of some
of the huge modern sand-boats on Lough Neagh.
The <strong>Guinness</strong> boat has not been used for years, and Martin reckons he will have to move her in
off the river — where she is moored bow and stern — fairly soon. We confirmed that she is a
<strong>Guinness</strong> vessel, and we took many photos, but we could not find her name, despite chipping
away at the bows.
We went back upriver and turned into the Blackwater. The
tide was lower so we could now see the sunken boats.
Martin does not own them, but had towed them there for
someone who wanted to persuade <strong>Guinness</strong> to restore
them years ago. No more has been heard of the scheme,
and they are full of mud, lying there with the wreck of a
trawler that was someone's Project for conversion.
Again, we confirmed that these were <strong>Guinness</strong> vessels.
They are full of mud and covered with seaweed and rust
and whatnot: their condition is, Michael said, much worse
than that of those in Lough Neagh's fresh water. One has its
full original engineroom, but the other seems to have had
half of it cut away. (They were used as dumb <strong>barges</strong> for carrying scrap in Cork Harbour, towed
by the floating one.)
Unfortunately, once again we could not make out the
names and, as Martin had to get back, we returned to the
boat club. It was a great way to spend a February
Saturday: out on the river, companionable lunatics and a
sense of mission to justify the outing. The mission failed, in
that we were unable to ascertain the vessels' names, and
we'll have to try to find them in some other way. But
maybe there's another day out in prospect ....
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