Qualla: Coalisland Canal https://qualla.com/coalisland-canal en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/q/coalisland-canal-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Coalisland Canal https://qualla.com/coalisland-canal Coalisland Canal: Introduction https://qualla.com/coalisland-canal/ Photo credit Robert Ashby, CC BY-SA 2.0. It is hard to think of a more determined or more troubled piece of Irish infrastructure than the Coalisland Canal. Construction began in 1733 and the canal was not officially opened until 1787 - fifty-four years for 7.2 kilometres of channel and seven locks. By comparison the much longer Newry Canal took ten. Coal had been found in East Tyrone at the end of the seventeenth century. The pits at Drumglass could have supplied Dublin's entire fuel needs. All that was missing was a way to move the coal cheaply to market. The story of how the canal tried, and failed, and tried again - involving sand-built lock walls, peat-bog foundations, vertical shafts, inclined planes, and an exotic French-Italian architect called Davis Dukart - is one of the great epics of engineering optimism in Irish history.

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Image: Robert Ashby | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/q/coalisland-canal-wp/gceq-coalisland-canal-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Coalisland Canal: A Mountain of Coal, No Way Out https://qualla.com/coalisland-canal/ Photo credit Robert Ashby, CC BY-SA 2.0. By 1727, Dublin was importing 60,000 to 70,000 tons of coal a year from England and Scotland. The Tyrone coalfield at Drumglass, fifty miles inland, could have undercut every cargo on the Liffey - if only the coal could reach a navigable waterway. Thomas Knox, a colliery owner, h...

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Image: Robert Ashby | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/q/coalisland-canal-wp/gceq-coalisland-canal-a-mountain-of-coal-no-way-out.mp3 0:06 2 full Coalisland Canal: Built on Sand and Peat https://qualla.com/coalisland-canal/ Photo credit Robert Ashby, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Coalisland Canal needed seven locks to drop 51 feet from the Coalisland Basin down to the River Blackwater. The upper two locks were sunk into sand. The lower three were sunk into peat bog. Both environments required piles and paved lock floors, neither of which was done prop...

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Image: Robert Ashby | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/q/coalisland-canal-wp/gceq-coalisland-canal-built-on-sand-and-peat.mp3 0:06 3 full Coalisland Canal: Dukart's Folly https://qualla.com/coalisland-canal/ Photo credit Robert Ashby, CC BY-SA 2.0. If the main canal struggled, the extension to Drumglass became one of the most ambitious failures in eighteenth-century European engineering. In 1761 Parliament approved a plan for a three-mile canal from Coalisland up to the pits, rising through sixteen locks. Christopher Myers ...

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Image: Robert Ashby | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/q/coalisland-canal-wp/gceq-coalisland-canal-dukarts-folly.mp3 0:06 4 full Coalisland Canal: What the Canal Actually Carried https://qualla.com/coalisland-canal/ Photo credit Robert Ashby, CC BY-SA 2.0. By the time the canal opened, the world had moved on. The Act of Union in 1800 made imported English coal cheaper to Dublin than Tyrone coal hauled down a leaky inland channel. The colliery owners gave up on the Dublin market. But Coalisland itself flourished as an industrial cen...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/q/coalisland-canal-wp/gceq-coalisland-canal-what-the-canal-actually-carried.mp3 0:06 5 full Coalisland Canal: The Quiet Death https://qualla.com/coalisland-canal/ Photo credit Robert Ashby, CC BY-SA 2.0. The peak came in 1931 with 57,000 tons of grain, sand and coal moving along the canal and £650 of profit. Then road transport happened. By 1939 the company was making less than £50 a year. Wartime traffic was negligible. All traffic ceased in 1946. In April 1954 the Coalisland Ca...

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Image: Robert Ashby | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/q/coalisland-canal-wp/gceq-coalisland-canal-the-quiet-death.mp3 0:06 6 full Coalisland Canal: A Map Drawn in Quiet Water https://qualla.com/coalisland-canal/ Photo credit Robert Ashby, CC BY-SA 2.0. Walk the towpath today and the engineering follies are still legible in the landscape. The aqueduct fragment over the River Torrent. The traces of inclined planes where Davis Dukart's tub-boats once tried to roll uphill. The seven locks of the main canal, some still holding water...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/e/q/coalisland-canal-wp/gceq-coalisland-canal-a-map-drawn-in-quiet-water.mp3 0:06 7 full