Bad planning may bury ancient water course

Bad planning may bury ancient water course

25 Jul 1972

THE 700-YEAR- OLD City Water Course — once a complex of the little Dublin rivers and canals flowing through old Dublin and now out of sight underground—has left behind a piece of tangible history.

Is it to be covered up and lost in building development?

This reference to it—the small canal flowing between the growth tentacles of Tallaght, Templeogue, Cyprus Grove, and _hitehall Road East—may be in the nature of a farewell, as it is doomed to go.

BRILLIANT CONCEPTION

The water course is the ,work of 13th century engineers, described in a Corporation report as “a brilliant engineering conception”, and came about by the needs of medieval Dublin which depended on ‘the under-nourished Poddle for its drinking water.

As the city grew more thirsty, engineers solved the difficulty by inducing the Dodder to feed excess water into the Poddle flowing parallel about a mile away. It solved the problem for about 500 years, not only for drinking water, but for the ‘power for mills. There were 40 mills on the Dodder and the Water Course in its heyday. Twenty-four of these were still operating in 1844 twelve of them on the Water Course, so that when the-city changed to the Vartry supply in 1867, the rights of mill owners were still there to stay the Corporation’s hand. The law said that the Course would have to be maintained.

Now, because part of its course has been acquired for housing development at Wellington Lane, that little canal first dug out in the year 1245 has to be diverted, and culverted. The first move in 727 years . . .

While Dublin seems to be apathetic about the fate of this historic Water Course, one lone fighter is trying to awaken the citizens to the need to preserve it, and save it from the fate of so many other Dublin rivers. Sister Ann Dominica Fitzgerald, O.P., Muckross Park, Donnybrook, has drawn attention to the danger of the Water Course disappearing. She believes, that side by side with the building development, it can be preserved as a public amenity. Sister Ann Dominica has been engaged in making a series of photographs of the water course, in case it should, disappear without trace or record. Among those who/have been attracted by her appeal has been Mr. John Gleeson, of “Journey down the Barrow”, the prize-winning film soon to be shown on RTE, who is now engaged in filming the old Ballyconnell Ballinamore canal which originally linked the Erne and Shannon systems.

WRITE NARRATIVE

Mr. Gleeson is making a 16mm film, of the water course, and has completed that part near Wellington Lane now being diverted. Sister Ann Dominica will write the. narrative for the film. Welcome interest and support has also come from Mr. Sean Rothery, chairman of An Taisce.

Where . . is this ancient water _counse?

On the ordnance map a thin blue line, marked Mill Race, is “seen to join the Dodder to the Poddle. The head is at the weir at Balrothery. The course passes under the Tallaght road near Spawell House, and on towards Templeogue.

“Not sufficient attention has- been paid to the amenity value of our ‘small rivers,” Sister Ann Dominica said to me. “The result.’ is that Dublin’s small rivers have vanished. At whose door the blame should be laid varies with the period of history but developers, Co. Council, Corporation, and an apathetic acquiescent public all nave something to do with it.

The Draft Development Plan and maps are already out of date, as developers who acquired the land years ago have been straining at the leash—-die leash appears to have been the . Dodder Valley drainage works and provision for flood plans for the unpredictable Poddle. “You can say good-bye to the water course anyday now. As soon as the plan for re-routing is completed, the builders will be off the leash.”

MORE COMPLICATED “Of course, it is easy to blame the Corporation, but to save a thing like this is more complicated than it looks. It is not a case of waving a magic wand—an immense amount of coordination and co-operation is needed from everybody”, she said. “One might wonder, though, why this should not have been kept as an amenity if rows and rows of new houses are to go there.”- She added: “The interesting thing is that this is the first move in 727 years, and officially, to touch the man-made part of the water course. There were many unofficial and private courses taken off the main channel, but the full force of the law was brought to bear on the offenders, by the Corporation, so that the main supply reached the city.

Can we hope to keep the remaining little rivers? It will not be long now before the spaces in between will be built on. Butterfield Road residents, Dundrum Heights and others have seen the net closing in, and protested. One river at least cannot be touched, fortunately included in the Hermitage grounds when Margaret Pearse left Scoil Eanna to the nation. But what if it should be used as a drain further up? Would the Whitechurch river and its pretty glen be polluted?

WORSE PLANNING “The Poddle, now chastened and drained, should not be despised. If it behaved badly it was due to bad planning, and if it is buried now it is due to worse planning.” Incidentally the water course has had many names. Some of the following are in ancient documents: The Dother (Dodder) Water,’ the City Water Course, the Glib, the Pirnlico River, Coleman’s Brook, the River of Thomas Street, the City Water, the Swan, the Earl of Meath’s Water Course, the High Pype, the Mill Race, and the Poddle.

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