WESTERN WATERWAYS

摘要

To mark this edition's report on the latest developments in the West region, our heritage correspondent, Paul Duffy turns the spotlight on the region's past with a look back at the history of its waterways. t can be argued, with considerable justification, that Ireland's canal age owes its origins to a petition from the Grand Jury of County Galway to the Irish Parliament in 1686. The Grand Jury called for the Shannon to be drained and made navigable. Whilst the latter aspiration has been achieved the former one has yet to be fully accomplished. It still gets trotted out in political catch-calls particularly at election time. The Galway petition resulted in the Dublin Parliament passing the first act relating to inland navigation in Ireland in 1715. Obviously political wheels ground just as slowly in the seventeenth century as they do today.