tarboat's photos with the keyword: leitrim

Water tank at Dromod shed on the Cavan & Leitrim Railway. Although the line closed in 1959, this end has seen a revival by preservationists and the tank is now back in use for watering their steam locomotive.

Terminal station of the Cavan and Leitrim Railway at Dromod.

Steelile, on a building at Keshcarrigan, Leitrim. The Irish Steel Company Ltd was based at Haulbowline, Cork and traded from 1939 to 2001. Steelile was registered as a trademark by the company in 1960.

Jefferson and Niamh take a keen interest as the barge rises in a lock on the Shannon Erne Waterway.

Coal mining may have ended in this corner of Ireland, but the Arigna Fuels smokeless fuel plant continues to operate using imported materials.

In the second half of the nineteenth century a coke-fired ironworks was established at Creevelea in Leitrim. Operations began in 1852 with two large and one smaller blast furnace. Ironstone was obtained locally and coal for coking on site was brought from the Arigna coalfield a few miles away.The cost of transporting the coal is thought to have led to the closure of the works in the mid-1850s. This was followed by a number of attempts to work the furnaces using charcoal made from compressed peat. Intermittent activity using coke continued from the mid-1860s and at the final closure in 1896 there was just one furnace remaining on the site. Although most of the structures at this remote site have been demolished, the last blast furnace remains as a reminder of nineteenth century ironworks practice.

Unusual 'frog-free' lettered brick. On the shores of Lough Allen in the area between Tarmon and Drumkerran was a place called the “Jetty”. The jetty was a wooden harbor used by the Limerick Steamship Company for distributing goods transported by boat from Limerick. Close by, stands the chimneystack of “ Lough Allen Brick Works ” a factory set up in the early 19th century by the Limerick Steamship Company. The raw material, clay and shale which were used in the brick making were mined a short distance from the jetty, and coal used in the baking of the brick was taken from nearby coal pits. Fire bricks, pipes and tiles were manufactured here until closure in the 1920s.

The Lough Allen Brickworks at Spencer Harbour on Lough Allen was established in the early nineteenth century and operated until the 1920s. Today all that remains are a number of derelict cottages and timber loading jetties with a single chimney. The works was supplied with coal from the nearby Arigna mines and bricks were shipped out across the lock and then the Lough Allen Canal to the Shannon. An example of the bricks produced at this works can be seen here .

A warning to the locals that tourism is a necessary evil in Leitrim and that no action should be taken that might reduce the profits to be made from it.