Wednesday 7 July 2021

New online archive explores 200 years of Ireland's inland waterways

A new, free-to-access online archive has been launched that will be of interest to those researchers whose ancestors lived in communities close to Ireland's rivers and canals, or were involved in building, maintaining or working on Irish inland waterways.

Launched by Malcolm Noonan TD, Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, the Waterways Ireland Digital Archive presents more than 7,800 items. They include engineering maps and drawings created by the early canal and navigation companies, an oral history collection, and the donated collections of Dr Ian Bath, Ruth Delany and Charlie Hayden.

The latter collections include slides, photos, videos and documents of the Royal Canal, the River Shannon and beyond.

Visitors to the Digital Archive can explore themed exhibitions, view illustrated timelines of individual waterways, listen to stories, watch videos from the last 60 years, and discover more than 200 years of waterway engineering history.