Series Overview
BUILDING IRELAND returns to explore and explain how Ireland’s great building and engineering achievements came to be, and their impact on the development of our towns and cities. In the company of an enthusiastic team of experts, the series marries local heritage with construction technology and engineering. Architecture, geography and engineering are the disciplines brought to bear; each programme focuses on a prime example of Ireland’s built heritage and recounts the fascinating story of its construction.
Episode 3
Our third episode explores the scheme that brought Ireland into the electric age – The Shannon Scheme and Ardnacrusha power station. Engineer Tim Joyce fulfills a life-long ambition to get up close and personal with Ardnacrusha power station and to explore the innovative engineering that made it the biggest hydroelectric project in the world when it opened in 1929.
“The River Shannon has been the lifeblood of Ireland for millennia. 360 Kilometres long, it slowly cleaves the island east/west, from Cavan in the north to Limerick in the south. If you could harness the force of this mighty river, you could power an entire state, and open the door to the future.” Tim Joyce
The Shannon is divided between the old river and a 12 and a half kilometre long, man-made canal. It can run at up to 400 tons a second. This torrent of water is turned into electricity by a vast structure which took 5,000 men four years to build, using up 20% of the young Irish Free State’s budget.
“You have to remember that Ardnacrusha was as much about nation-building as it was about engineering, and the fact that it was built by Siemens-Schuckert – a huge German company – is really significant. It was a symbol of the Free State emerging from the shadow of the British Empire, and reaching out to the wider world.” Tim Joyce
Tim meets with Plant Manager Alan Bane, who details how the scheme turns water into electricity.
“The water comes down from the intake building, through the penstocks, rotates the turbines themselves, which then, the power is then transferred up the shaft to the generators, and the generator then makes the electricity.” Alan Bane
By any standards, Ardnacrusha was a marvel of modern engineering. Within ten years of opening, it was generating 96% of the state’s electricity
Geographer Susan Hegarty sets out to investigate why the engineers chose the Ardnacrusha site and to examine the River Shannon – an almost completely flat, slow-moving river.
“The River Shannon is the longest in these islands, the only problem is – the terrain the Shannon runs through is, by and large, flat as a pancake. Over most of its course, there’s not nearly enough of a drop in the terrain to power the turbines and produce electricity. The basic idea is to dam the river where it drops and use the build-up of pressure of water to power the hydro station.” Susan Hegarty
Susan speaks to Tom Hayes, Civil Engineering Manager at Ardnacrusha, about the challenges of diverting the river to create enough of the drop and provide sufficient water for the hydroelectric power station to function. She met Tom at the Parteen Weir, where the River Shannon is essentially divided in two.
“They built the structure here 5 or 6 kilometres downstream of Killaloe. And then from this structure they constructed the head race canal which is 12km long almost, and that further extended the water level in Lough Derg right down to Ardnacrusha.”
Tom Hayes
Above the surface, Ardnacrusha is an impressive structure. Its weirs, sluice gates, and penstocks are instantly recognisable as icons of Irish engineering. However, the buildings themselves have their own unique character, as architect Orla Murphy explains.
“This is so much more than a functional, industrial building. It’s where technology and engineering are put on a pedestal to be worshipped and admired. This is the Generating Hall, where these huge vertical windows flood the space with natural daylight. It’s as if you are in a cathedral. And I suppose in a sense, you are; this is a cathedral of industry, built, not just to serve an engineering function, but also to celebrate it.” Orla Murphy
Orla meets with Jan Frohburg of the University of Limerick, to discuss the stylistic features of the building and the different cultures which inspired them.
“We’re looking at a time when German design tried to transport a craft sensibility into an era of mass production and to make sure that quality wasn’t lost and I recognise many details in things like door handles and the panelling in the lobby downstairs, and I think one can read that care and that level of attention in all those little, little things… Looking at the steeped pitched roof for instance, renders it a more classical building almost. It surely uses a recourse to classical language to tame the disorder of modernization, to make this new technology less threatening in a way, more homely.” Jan Frohburg
“When it was finished, Ardnacrusha was the biggest hydroelectric power station in the world. Ireland, as a new State, was positioning itself at the cutting edge of scientific progress, embracing both tradition and modernity.” Orla Murphy
Tim looks at the head race of the Shannon Scheme, which is a 100 metre wide and 12.5 kilometre long canal. It feeds water from the weir at Parteen to the turbines in the Ardnacrusha station. Tim speaks to Professor Tom Cosgrave to find out what it took to construct these huge man-made canals.
“16 million tonnes of clay and sand and rock had to be excavated and piled as embankments. So to do this all of the plant and machinery had to be brought in from Germany. The infrastructure even to get the plant and machinery from its point of delivery, Limerick docks for the most part, had to be put in place. An entire railway line had to be built, all the way from Limerick to Ardnacrusha, railway network had to be built all along the site…This is a gargantuan undertaking in a land that was completely lacking in infrastructure, skilled labour, power, industry of any kind.” Professor Tom Cosgrave
The scheme was formally completed on the 22nd of July, 1929. By that stage, 700 tonnes of explosives had been used to blast away 1.2 million cubic metres of rock – and Ireland had changed forever. Tim concludes the episode by describing the value of Ardnacrusha as a national institution.
“Dr. Thomas McLoughlin, the young engineer who gave Ireland a glimpse of what was possible under independence, went on to become the first Executive Director of the Electricity Supply Board. The greatest legacy of Ardnacrusha is that it reminds us of a time when an impoverished State sought radical, ambitious world-leading solutions to its infrastructural problems. Over the coming decades, the light of modernity would spread into every corner of every province.” Tim Joyce