The First Cargo of Coal
The Newry Canal finally opened in 1742, and it was widely reported that on 28th March the first cargo of Tyrone coal reached Dublin, carried on two small vessels, the Cope and the Boulter, named after two of the Inland Navigation commissioners. The Cope was recorded as carrying 50 tons of coal.
This is a little odd – canal lighters are broad, shallow-draught flat-bottomed boats with no raised prow, no keel and very little freeboard. Both the lack of a prow and a low freeboard makes them very prone to being swamped by waves, and the lack of a keel makes them vulnerable to being beached or wrecked by a strong onshore wind.
The nearest comparison vessel is probably the Thames barge. Designed specifically for coastal trade in the relatively sheltered waters of the Thames estuary, these flat-bottomed cargo boats have much more freeboard than lighters, have a raised prow, and cope with lack of keel by having two large ‘leeboards’ which can be lowered once offshore. They are also several times the tonnage of a Newry canal lighter.
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These basic facts of boat design are at odds with the implied narrative that the Cope and the Boulter carried coal down the canal and then undertook a sea voyage to Dublin. It is much more likely that the coal still had to be transhipped from the inland lighters at or near Newry, and that both vessels were proper coasters. However, inconvenient facts like these would have spoiled the ‘from the coalfield straight to Dublin’ promise behind the creation of the canal!
‘Goods Carried Inland’ Replaces ‘Coal To Dublin’
Nevil’s initial 1703 estimate of the cost of such a canal had been £20,000; by the time it opened 40 years later, £52,000 had been spent. However, it carried much larger lighters than envisaged by Nevil.
However, the trade in coal from Tyrone was very slow to develop; no coal could be carried directly from the Tyrone coalfields without laborious and expensive transhipment until the completion of the Tyrone Canal to Coalisland in 1787 – nearly half a century after the Newry Canal had opened!
By contrast, trade heading inland from the port of Newry into the heart of Ulster quickly became just as important; as we saw earlier, the canal quickly proved its worth when huge quantities of grain for famine relief were transported northwards into the heart of Ulster during 1745, in lighters carrying up to 70 tons at a time. Richard Barton, writing in 1751, asserted that but for this grain, some fifty thousand people in the Lough Neagh basin would have died from starvation.
The canal subsequently also carried north the bulk materials needed for linen manufacturing processes, such as dried kelp[1] which was burnt to produce the soda ash used in bleaching.
Newry Grows
The opening of the canal was the spur for a period of rapid growth in Newry, which soon came close to rivalling Belfast in volume of trade. In time, it became the principal port in Ireland for linen exports. According to Paterson (Newriensis……) in the year ending 1st November 1767, linen worth over £300,000 was exported via Newry.
Better Access To The Sea Is Needed
It soon became clear that the continued growth and prosperity of Newry depended on its inland port having direct access to the sea. So, in 1759, work started to extend the canal to the sea, so that coal could be transported all the way to Dublin without transhipment at Newry, and other goods could be imported into the heart of the town. But the initial cut was only 40 ft wide and 4ft deep – not even deep enough to cope with even existing lighters! – and it was soon abandoned. Indeed, it is hard to see why such a scheme was ever even considered!
However, by 1769 a new cut, 60 ft wide and 12 ft deep, had been completed and Newry was finally linked directly to the sea at Upper Fathom. Ships of up to 120 tons could now sail into the heart of Newry; larger ships docked at Warrenpoint, and goods still had to be transhipped.
In 1778, the Hibernian Journal reported that the merchants of Newry had passed a resolution to petition Parliament for convicts to be made to work on maintaining and improving the canal!
Arthur Young (1779) said of Newry, the canal, and its new inland port:
“Breakfasted at Newry, the Globe, another good inn. This town appears exceedingly flourishing and is very well built; yet 40 years ago, I was told there were nothing but mud cabbins in it: this great rise has been much owing to the canal to Loch-Neagh. I crossed it twice — it is indeed a noble work. I was amazed to see ships of 150 tons and more[1] lying in it, like barges in an English canal. Here is a considerable trade.”
Also in 1779, Thomas Hyndman of Ballyronan placed an advert in the Belfast News Letter:
“[He] Begs Leave to Inform his Friends and the Publick that he has recently laid in from the best Markets, the following Articles, viz.
Pomerania and Memel square Timber, red and white Deals, Oak and Beech Logs, Pipe and Barrel Staves, Spanish Reeds, Crown and Quarry Glass, Drinking Glasses, English Earthen Crocks, Tobacco Pipes, a Variety of Writing and Lapping Papers, Bar Lead, Shot, Bar and Nail-rod iron, …. Tin Plates, Nails of all sorts, Pots, Gridles, Frying Pans,…
The advert goes on to list dozens of other items of hardware and consumables, and finishes with:
“… and a general assortment of groceries. Any person that is near Lochneagh, or on the Newry Navigation, may be readily supplied with any of the above Goods (by his Boats) giving timely orders; Such will be executed with the greatest care and dispatch.”
Ballyronan is at the northwest end of Lough Neagh, not far from Toomebridge, so Hyndman was probably importing this wide variety of goods via Coleraine and distributing them to lakeside and canal-side communities – a very early form of mail order! As well as simply delivering orders, were, perhaps “his Boats” also an early form of aquatic mobile shop?
Emigration to America
Direct passenger services ran from Warrenpoint to North America, particularly Philadelphia, from at least as early as 1772, a few years before the American Revolution, and facilitated emigration from this part of Ireland. Some of the best-known pioneers of the every-expanding western frontier of the new country were of Ulster-Scots descent, including Daniel Boone, Sam Houston, Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie.
This advert appeared in the Belfast News Letter in August 1772. A redemptioner was an immigrant who travelled to the colonies by agreeing to work as an indentured servant for a set number of years to pay off the cost of their transatlantic passage. They typically negotiated their terms of servitude only after arriving in America, often after a difficult voyage and with little bargaining power. This system was especially prevalent in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
By the end of the 1700s, trade on the canal was thriving. McCutcheon (1965) summarises:
“The main downstream traffic on the Newry canal during the final years of the 18th century comprised coal from Lough Neagh and east Tyrone, linen goods from the early mills of the Upper Bann and Lagan valleys, quarried material from mid and south Down, mainly slates, road metal and granite, grass seed and general farm produce, including meat, pork, dairy produce, and roots.
Cargoes moving inland from Newry to the small market towns on or near the waterway, Portadown, the Lough Neagh ports and the Lagan and Tyrone navigations, included grain, miscellaneous foodstuffs, tools and machinery, foreign timber, tallow, chemicals and dried fish. By the end of the century, trade on the inland canal was yielding tolls of over £7,000 per annum and there were a dozen or more lighters plying regularly between Newry and Portadown.”
Shoddy Construction
But while trade prospered, the canal itself was rapidly deteriorating. Indeed, many defects in construction became very apparent as early as during its first decade when some sections of the banks started to fail. By 1800, 60 years after opening, it was in a near-ruinous state.
Responsibility for managing and maintaining the canal had changed several times in earlier decades; in 1800 it became the responsibility of the newly-created Directors General of Inland Navigation. After falling out with their own engineer, Henry Walker, over bad workmanship at Poyntzpass lock, they appointed John Brownrigg to survey the state of the canal. Brownrigg reported:
“All the nine locks from Newry to Poyntzpass are little better than ruined makeshifts, pieced and patched from time to time these 60 years past; they were never right good, having been originally finished with brick and, as they failed, replaced with ill-cut or punched, ill-jointed mountain stone and filled up with bad rubble work behind, except in the lower parts underwater where some of them are of rubble stone of as good work as any in Ireland, the floors were of deal planks and the breasts and sills of oak, the gates and sluices are bad and of an ill construction, most of them now crazy and shaking, without coping or upper heelstones to retain the iron ties of the gates, the ironwork of a most wretched kind is generally naked above ground rather than being bedded under the greatest stones that could be had.”
Over the next decade, Brownrigg largely reconstructed the canal, fixing crumbling banks and locks, building new bridges, and widening and deepening the summit level between Poyntzpass and Terryhoogan. In March 1806, an advert appeared soliciting proposals to build a new stone bridge across the canal near Drumbanagher. “…the bridge must be coped with stone, have a Track-way underneath[2], and be built in the best manner.” This hump-backed bridge was replaced by the current flat bridge in the early 1950s after the formal abandonment of the canal. Another bridge near Jerrettspass was also built by Brownrigg.
While the repairs and improvements were under way, traffic was severely restricted and toll revenues plummeted. So, when the canal was fully operational once more in 1810, strenuous efforts were made to attract traffic back to the waterway as quickly as possible, but they were not particularly successful.
Coote (1804) commented on how trade on the canal had become almost completely the reverse of the purposes for which it had been built:
“I should however remark the wonderful change of the constitution…from what it possessed when this navigation was first made at the expence of the nation; the intention having been…for the benefit of agriculture, and to convey coals from the Tyrone collieries to Newry, from whence it might be shipped for the different ports of Ireland. The reverse is now actually the purpose…and proves how little it is occupied in assisting agriculture, and how entirely it has been devoted to the furtherance of manufacture.
This is exemplified in the privilege the public enjoy, of conveying manure, lime, or limestone on this navigation toll-free; and it will serve as a strong proof of the decrease of trade on this line, as well as of the ignorance of the neighbouring farmers of their privileges, when I inform my readers, that at this time they draw their lime in cars on the road, which runs close to the canal, and parallel to it for several miles distance, both for the purposes of manure and of building, at ten times more expense then they might convey it by water; and so far from this line being employed in the conveyance of coals from the Tyrone collieries to Newry, perhaps a greater quantity of sea-coal is sent from Newry on this navigation to the numerous bleach greens in the interior, as well as the great abundance, which is consumed in this populous district for culinary purposes[3].”
Canalside Facilities At Scarva & Poyntzpass
Although John Reilly had started to construct warehouses and a coal yard at Scarva very soon after the canal opened, local exploitation of its potential at Poyntzpass was much slower to take off. We can assume that ‘Poyntzpass harbour’ – the small basin immediately upstream of the lock – existed from the creation of the canal; after all, there was a good network or roads fanning out from this point and it would have been a good transhipment point[4].
But warehousing came much later; the best date we have for the construction of the large group of commercial canal-side buildings later known as the Railway Hotel is ca. 1795. As Coote (1804) said “Mr. Hanna…built a capital malt-house and stores on the banks”. It had its own small wharf, and a coal yard. This image, taken in the early 2000s, gives some idea of the scale and construction of the warehouse buildings (now demolished).
A Passenger Service!
Traffic was not confined to transporting goods. On 13th February 1813 the Newry Telegraph reported that:
“The respectable Quakers of Moyallen have established a Canal Passage Boat…It will enable passengers to go to Newry, transact their business and return home the same day”. A week later the same paper carried an advert for “A person to…draw the Canal Passage Boat with two horses between Knockbridge and Poyntzpass also between Poyntzpass and Newry.”
The inaugural voyage took place on 8th May. A newspaper reported:
“Yesterday the Newry Canal Passage Boat arrived here [Newry] about one o’clock having on board the Marquis and Marchioness of Downshire, John Moore of Drumbanagher, Arthur Innes of Drumentine and John Reilly of Scarva, Esquires with their Ladies.”
According to McCutcheon (1965) the packet boat…
“…was scheduled to take four hours, and the advertised single fares were 2s 11d (first-class cabin) and 1s 3d (second-class cabin). Cheap day returns were issued on Saturdays at 3s 4d (first) and 2s 1d (second)…On the opening of the Ulster Railway to Portadown in 1842, the morning train from Belfast made a connection with the boat at Portadown on three days a week”.
It would undoubtedly have been a much more pleasant and comfortable journey than by road. One can imagine on-board picnics or even a buffet service! It was later advertised as running in one direction on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and in the other direction on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The service continued for about 30 years, and according to the information board at Poyntzpass lock was run by one William Dawson.
The website www.newry.ie states:
“The most successful period of the Newry Canal was during the 1840’s when a variety of goods such as linen, butter, meat, coal, bricks and tiles were sent downstream to Newry, with a reverse traffic of grain, flour, flax seed, imported foodstuffs, whiskey, timber, oil and tobacco carried into mid-Ulster.”
This was immediately prior to the coming of the railways, which were, of course, to be the main cause of the canal’s decline, as an old technology was succeeded by a much more advanced one. The total traffic on the canal in 1846 was a huge 120,000 tons.
[1] A major import into the port of Newry was barilla, which was used for the same purpose.
[1] This cannot have been in the inland section of the canal as the vessels described by Young are too large for it.
[2] To carry the towpath under the bridge, so that the horse did not have to be un-hitched and re-hitched.
[3] Cooking.
[4] It was also necessary as a place where traffic in opposite directions could pass, given the original restricted width of the summit section between Poyntzpass and Terryhoogan.