By the end of 1953, the excavation of the river diversion channel at Inniscarra was almost completed and the construction of the portion of the dam – Block D – it had been necessary to erect before the river could be diverted was in progress. Work had started on the excavation for the foundations of the dam and power station. Satisfactory progress was maintained on the concreting of the power station.

It was estimated that 250,000 cubic yards (190,000 cb. m) of aggregates was necessary for the construction work. The sand and gravel was transported by lorry and dumpers to the processing plant and discharged directly into the loading hopper at the batching plants. On the Lee scheme, direct control was achieved by placing a trained engineer in charge of a fully equipped laboratory with a number of experienced site inspectors. Their responsibility covered the production of good concrete at the mixers and the supervision of its placing, curing and sampling.

The Monzies cableway covered the site and was used mainly for dam concreting but also for the transport of shuttering, pre-cast concrete units, mechanical equipment and so on. The operator in the control cabin of the cableway could not see where to deposit the load of concrete at the working site, so a walkie-talkie apparatus, a big innovation on an Irish building site at the time, conveyed directions to him. Because of the exposed position of the site, the working of the cableway could be affected by winds of more than 40 mph. Before a pour of concrete could begin, the operators had to be supplied with a weather forecast to ensure no strong winds were on the way.

The cableway deposited the concrete where directed by the concrete foreman. The average rate of placing concrete in the dam was 35 cubic yards per hour. The batching plant in which the concrete was mixed had two 1.3 cubic yard (1 cb. m) mixers with a combined output of 40 cubic yards (30 cb. m) per hour. The other plant had a 1.3 cubic yard mixer, which was used to concrete the powerhouse, the stilling basin and other concrete works. The cement, which was of Irish manufacture, was delivered to the site in bags. The gravel came from the pit of John A. Woods eight miles away. River water, pumped to a storage tank and gravity-fed to the mixers, was used on both sites. To be continued…

Adapted from Kieran McCarthy & Seamus O'Donoghue, forthcoming, Generations, Memories of the Lee Hydroelectric Scheme, County Cork, Lilliput Press, Dublin, An ESB funded publication.

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