shannon

Looks like Steamboat Quay, with St Mary's in the background. maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,557072,656884,7,9

Here's St Mary's from Sarsfield Bridge (the one you can see in the picture): maps.google.ie/maps?q=limerick&hl=en&ll=52.665348...

There's nobody still milling flour in Ireland. You might be able to date it from the fact that the Newtown Perry mill is still in business in this photo.

The Flying Huntsman of Limerick is described in Freeman's in 1899 as a 'steam tug'. The earliest mention I can find of a steam tug of that name is in 1869 when it arrived in Belfast for the purpose of taking two tanks to Glasgow to lift a screw steamer which had sunk ten days previously in the Clyde.

Sad Fatality at Limerick Regatta Freeman's July 19th 1897

Despite the title, this is not a canal lock, it's the lock at the weir on the Shannon at Athlone.

You can see the very same foreground stonework, water level (in that notch) and metal lock-gate-opening gizmo in my (relatively) recent photo, here:

Niall McAuley Thanks for saving our (my!) blushes there. Have changed description, and in return, can tell you that the gizmo is officially a gate winch... So is that the canal at all?

No, it's just that lock you can see in the photo above, there's no canal at all. See an aerial view from Google maps linked below, the lock is to the left of the weir: maps.google.ie/maps?hl=en&ll=53.422947,-7.939392&...

Niall McAuley Thanks! Obliterated all mention of canal from tags...

Here's one of the gate winches without it's coverings and a close up of a plate inscription from another. You can see the winch could have been operated by one or two people and it originally used chains. Thomas Rhodes was Chief Engineer on the harbour project, the technical guy in charge.

over/under.

John is using the calm fine conditions to hang shirts out on the washing line. I remember this fort from a visit many years ago. very casual leg over for the cox in the gondola ...

the NLI sleuths must be doing Xmas shopping, hopefully this pretty scene of Limerick won't go into the "less than five comments" folder !

Hello, Morning Mary! If you're still taking questions although it's afternoon, I'm intrigued by the Ganlow. Is that a local name for it?

Carol Maddock I was rushing out to a doctors appointment and did not get a chance to look things up until now! I never saw the name written until today and though all the boat users I know called it a "ganlow" apparently the correct spelling is "Gandalow" There were two boats peculiar to the Limerick waters, the Gandalow and the "Angling Cot". The latter was a narrow flat bottomed boat with a sharp end at bow and stern or even front and back which was mainly used in the calmer waters of the Abbey River and above the tide level. The Ganlow (Gandalow) was a much stronger flat bottomed clinker built wooden boat always with a bottom covered in black pitch. When I was a lass there was always several of them on the beach in front of the Strand Barracks below the Curragower. The fishermen lived mainly in nearby Thomondgate which is on the Clare (near) side of the bridge in today's image. They used nets for their fishing and they would go down river on the ebb tide and return on the flowing tide with their catch. As often as not there was a lot of rowing done and it was a really hard grind. I found this in the stream one of our occasional contributors