Transport

The infrastructure for transport always affects the architecture of a country. When Ireland was netted by bridal paths but had no real roads the round towers of the early Christian monasteries must have been carried to the height they reach partly to act as sign posts, and to identify the location of the place in a featureless or unfamiliar landscape.

Docks and Canals

Irish Canals

This is taken from a map of the canals of Ireland in the year 1902. On it can clearly be seen the Grand canal stretching from Dublin to Ballinasloe (the lower of the two lines from Dublin). Work on the Grand Canal began in 1755 by the Commissioners of Inland Navigation. Their aim was to link Dublin with the rivers the Shannon and the Barrow. In 1765 Dublin Corporation took over the project to complete the section linking Dublin with the river Morrell in an effort to supply water to the city basin. In 1772, the project was taken over again by the Company of the Undertakers of the Grand Canal and the canal was opened to cargo boat traffic to Sallins in 1779. By 1791 the canal had reached Ringsend where the Grand Canal Docks were constructed and opened in 1796. In 1804, with the canal now complete to the river Shannon, the first trade boat passed along the canal to Dublin from the river Shannon. By 1835 all work on the main canal-way and its branches was complete.

Irish Canals

Irish Canals

This is taken from a map of the canals of Ireland in the year 1902. On it can clearly be seen the Grand canal stretching from Dublin to Ballinasloe (the lower of the two lines from Dublin). Work on the Grand Canal began in 1755 by the Commissioners of Inland Navigation. Their aim was to link Dublin with the rivers the Shannon and the Barrow. In 1765 Dublin Corporation took over the project to complete the section linking Dublin with the river Morrell in an effort to supply water to the city basin. In 1772, the project was taken over again by the Company of the Undertakers of the Grand Canal and the canal was opened to cargo boat traffic to Sallins in 1779. By 1791 the canal had reached Ringsend where the Grand Canal Docks were constructed and opened in 1796. In 1804, with the canal now complete to the river Shannon, the first trade boat passed along the canal to Dublin from the river Shannon. By 1835 all work on the main canal-way and its branches was complete.

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People arriving by ship in the middle ages had to put in where the coastline naturally provided a port of deep water. The medieval port of Dublin was therefore not among the shallow sand banks at the mouth of the Liffey but on the outcrop of granite at Dalkey. The Normans landed at Carrickfergus in Co. Antrim, not at Belfast, and Carlingford in Co. Louth was where King John built his castle, not at Newry or Dundalk.

Port architecture, in any period, is a matter of building breakwaters and stone jetties to provide a harbour or to limit the build-up of sand at a harbour mouth. In cities with navigable rivers, wide quays lined the riverbank with stone or steel bollards to tie ships up, and frequent steps built into the face of the quays that ran down to the water edge. Warehouses are always found at ports usually with a range of openings, set one above the other, to allow for the use of a hoist to lift the goods to the different floor level.

From the early eighteenth century canals were developed in Ireland. Locks, which permitted a boat or barge to be raised or dropped to a higher or lower level according to the lie of the ground, were common as are embankments to keep the route level and bridges to carry roads over the canals. At a number of places hotels were built to accommodate the travelling public overnight.

The Railways

The development of the steam engine by James Watt in the 1770's, and the creation of an Irish railway system from 1832, brought a new form of transport to the country, and with it new architectural forms. Canals could be made to step up and down through a system of locks: the railways could not. The gradient of the track had to be increased very gradually if an engine was to pull a long train. Embankments and viaducts to carry the line across a valley are a common feature of Victorian engineering, as are bridges to take a roadway over the line, often at an unexpected angle, which produces stone vaults of considerable complexity.

To publicise the enterprise of their undertaking, the Railway companies called for elaborate architecture at the principal termini. As the railway age became established, they needed permanent stations at stops on the line and specialist structures such as train sheds and water towers. In Britain and Ireland platforms were built to bring the passengers close to a level of the carriages of a train - a system which was never introduced in Europe or America. Metal bridges, or on occasions tunnels, were constructed to connect one platform with the other.