- Lower Division—General Description.
- From Ballynunnery Mill to Ballycurragh.
This distance is about three-quarters of a mile, and the fall is 35
feet.
The river bed is rocky, and abounds with very large detached stones,
which I consider useful in checking the violence with which the flood
waters would otherwise descend upon the flat lands in the next reach
below.
The banks of this portion are high, and very little injury is done to
the land, which, moreover, is of an inferior description.
There is a parish boundary stream dividing the townlands of Bendenstown
and Gilbertstown, which comes in on the eastern side of the river
between Ballynunnery and Ballycurragh, and along this stream there is a
good deal of injured land which could be relieved independently of any
improvement in the Burren itself, as it is table land many feet above
the Burren valley; nevertheless, as it is a tributary, it properly
belongs to it, and we shall include it, as well as others similarly
circumstanced throughout the district.
Ballynunnery bridge offers no injurious obstruction to the discharge,
further than might arise from back water being occasionally thrown upon
the mill wheel; to obviate that, it would be necessary to lower the bed
and underpin the bridge, which expense would be chargeable to those
interested in the mill, as the effective power of the mill would be
improved.
Ballycurragh to Rathtoe.
This distance is also under three-quarters of a mile, but the declivity
is much less than that of the length last described, being only 7 feet
instead of 35 feet. Ballycurragh bridge may therefore be taken as the
foot of the Ballynunnery falls.
There is some flooded land between Ballycurragh and Rathtoe on the west
side, and the river is very irregular in depth. The principal
impediments are shoals and stepping-stones, and an imperfect bridge at
Rathtoe. This length of river is moreover much obstructed by shoals
which are immediately below Rathtoe. There is no tributary uniting with
the Burren in this portion of its length.
Rathtoe to Staplestown.
These bridges are 4¾ miles apart, a distance inconveniently long as
regards public accommodation; there is but one crossing place
intervening, called Cartney’s ford, which, in summer only, is available
for the passage of wheeled carriages, and where a wooden lintel is
thrown across for the convenience of foot passengers. Here and at other
places similarly circumstanced, and where stepping-stones exist, bridges
will of necessity be provided, as such obstructions will not be
permitted if the measure of improvement be carried out under the
provisions of the Drainage Acts.
The great obstacles to free discharge between Rathtoe and Staplestown
consist more particularly in:
1st. A shoal three-quarters of a mile long, the river bed rising in that
length to within 18 inches of the surface of the lands between the
bridge of Rathtoe and Cartney’s ford.
2nd. A shoal immediately opposite to Kellistown glebe, a point one mile
from the foot of Cartney’s ford, in which length the difference in level
of the river bed does not amount to 12 inches.
3rd. An extensive bank, which is situate at and closely adjoining
Staplestown bridge, and upon one point of which that bridge is placed.
4th. The Staplestown mills, whereby a head of water has been kept up, to
the destruction of a vast extent of land of the finest quality, the
level to which the water has been penned, for the purposes of the mill
when it was working, being nearly as high as the winter floods.
In conjunction with the above causes, it is to be observed that the
quantity of water to be discharged is importantly added to, by the
tributary streams which fall into this portion of the Burren.
It will thus be seen, on reference to the list of bridges and catchments
before alluded to, that between Rathtoe and Staplestown there is an
increase in the probable flood water to be discharged, of 17,000 cubic
feet per minute.
The total fall in the 4¾ miles is 25 feet, which is all we could desire,
if it were equally distributed, which it is not.
The lands in this portion of the valley are completely saturated with
water at all times of the year; even in the month of June, 1846, (a
particularly dry season,) it was impossible to walk them without being
over the ankles in water; and the surface of the stream, which is most
tortuous and sluggish, stood at the level of the land even in the
remarkably dry season I have named. Parts of the river above Staplestown
are deep, but its course there is so crooked that no portion of it will
be available for an effective channel.
There is no visible head weir of masonry belonging to the Staplestown
mill, but advantage seems to have been taken of the bridge for that
purpose. It consists of six 10 feet arches; four of these have been
rendered inoperative, and the water all sent through the other two for
the purpose of the mill—waste gates being provided on the downstream
side of the bridge, to let it pass when not required to turn the wheel,
as was the case when I was there, and it had been so I was informed for
some years previously, the mill being untenanted, or at least not
worked.
The Staplestown mill is the property of Colonel Bruen, and had been set
on lease to Mr. Henry Watters, who resides near to it. It has, I am
informed, been very recently taken in a temporary way by Mr. Benjamin
Haughton of Carlow, who now occupies it; and two pair of stones have
latterly been worked.
The site is a bad one as regards the power, and eminently so as regards
the lands above it, which have been thereby reduced to a kind of marsh.
The effective head does not under the most favourable circumstances
exceed 6 feet, and in time of flood it is much impeded by back water,
whilst in summer its supply of water is too scant. The fact of the mill
being so long idle, in the vicinity of such an important and improving
town as Carlow is, affords sufficient proof that its value to the public
is by no means commensurate with the injury it inflicts upon the lands.
It is in short an artificial site where no natural facilities exist for
the establishment of useful mill power, while the injury occasioned by
the attempt has hitherto rendered comparatively valueless a vast extent
of callow land which would otherwise be most productive.
The several collateral streams which add so importantly to the supply of
water between Rathtoe and Staplestown, occur for the most part on the
east side. There is the parish boundary stream between Ardristan and
Gilbertstown, nearly three miles long, which passes through Aghmoragh
bridge, and joins the Burren at Cartney’s ford. The stream between the
parishes of Ardristan and Fennagh also comes in at the same point.
Further down, the boundary drain between Glenoge and Inchisland brings
in a supply, as also the White stream, and others of minor importance,
whose improvement, as before remarked, must in every instance be
provided for, as being the media for extending the benefits to be
derived from this project to the inland districts which naturally belong
to it, and contribute their surplus waters to swell the current of the
Burren, whose channel must be made sufficient to receive and carry it
away, and at a level very much lower than it heretofore has done at any
period of the year.
I have also examined the stream uniting a little above Staplestown, on
the west, which I call M‘Donnell’s midstream. It traverses a
considerable extent of country, and the drainage can be improved without
injury to the mill which is situate near Rathcrogue.
It is a small com mill, with overshot wheel, 11 feet 9 inches in
diameter, and in summer time it is without water. The stream above the
mill is productive of injury, but of a nature easy to be remedied
without interference with the water power.
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