Making an Irish Free State City – The Shannon Hydroelectric Scheme

Prevalent across all Irish newspapers across 1926 are the reports of progress on the Shannon Hydroelectric Scheme at Ardnacrusha, county Limerick.

Constructed between 1925 and 1926 by the German firm Siemens-Schuckertwerke, the scheme was designed by Irish engineer Thomas McLaughlin. The project cost circa £5m and was a massive portion of the Irish Free State’s budget. It briefly held the title of the world’s largest hydroelectric plant.

As the work was symbolic of industrial progress in the Irish Free State, all corners of Ireland were interested in the scheme’s developing story. In particular it gave employment at its peak for over 5,200 people, many of whom were labourers from Cork.

In May 1926, a Cork Examiner reporter first visited in order to give some impressions of the magnitude of the operations. The scheme was then more or less in the stage of infancy and the reporter noted that it was “paving the way for bigger things”. The reporter further detailed that it was occupying the “brain and muscle of the respective ranks engaged in the task of harnessing the Shannon”.

The reporter returned on 24 August 1925 where he had a meeting in the concrete hut office of senior engineer Herr Stolberg. The engineer observed that there was a partial mapping of the future programme of works. A great deal of work had been pursued in the forming of the upstream canal banks and its weirs through an embankment constructor or soil elevator.

The big task of preparing the site for the permanent power station was well in hand. In the pit of the proposed structure they had now excavated to rock level, but their plans required that they go fifty feet deeper still. To accomplish these borings had to be made. Hence the rock had to be blasted and compressed.

A 100 feet high meshed steel tower, worked by one person in a small compartment, was also just in place to assist at the excavating of the rock. According to the engineer, the deeper the excavation went the more difficult the decline in the gradient to work was becoming. The cable crane was intended to overcome the difficulty by lifting out broken stone and to connect with the laying of the concrete work for the power station.

The engineer pointed to a “peculiarly fashioned” timber structure in course of erection. When finished, it would be the mechanism for sending the excavated rock for crushing.

Loaded wagons of rock were to be brought up an inclined railway to a height of 60 feet by powerful winches, to where the crushers were situated. The loads were to be tipped into the crushers and a process ensued in which the stone can be converted into sand and gravel, as required for the concrete. Neither sand nor gravel necessary could be got near the place, so the cement had to be manufactured on site in concrete mixers from the excavated gravel.

The journalist describes a temporary engine power station which had been completed. It was responsible for working all the machinery. There were nine diesel engines, capable of generating kilowatts. The difficulty presented itself of not being able to get sufficient flow of water to cool these engines from the River Blackwater.

The power station was surmounted by erecting a timber tower and installing apparatus whereby the water was taken back from the engines to this tower and fell slowly down, being cooled again in the process. In addition, connected with the power house, there were machines for the manufacture of oxyhydrogen gas for welding etc. There was also a plant for the making of artificial ice for the canteens.

Since the journalist’s last visit, the repair workshop had been completed. It was equipped with the most modern machinery for carrying out repairs to the plant in the shortest possible time. The overall heavy work on the scheme necessarily entailed many demands on the department, especially in connection with trucks and locomotives.

The reporter records a 24/7 busyness.

“The workshop is going day and night; so expeditiously are things done that a railroad engine, disabled the previous night is ready again for work next morning. A wood workshop and sawmill in the premises have also day and night shifts, who are continuously employed.”

Herr Stolberg detailed that there were 2,300 men employed on the whole scheme in August 1926 – the majority of whom were Irish labourers with 355 Germans. Not all the workers stayed on the site to sleep. Three workmen had been in serious death accidents, one German labourer and the other two Irish labourers.

Debate ensued in the heart of the construction project on wages for the labours, with strikes and debates being a common place.

The Cork Examiner reporter also interviewed the camp commandant, Mr Stapleton, who detailed that each of the camp huts contained three rooms with 30 men allocated to each room.

An entertainment hall was in full flow. There a cinema was popularly patronised. Two films were shown two nights each week. For the other evenings, there was a wireless complete with loud speaker with a variety of broadcasting stations nightly. In the hall there was a licenced bar club.

In addition, attached to the hall was a library, with a reading room, opened every evening, and where the men had both the daily and weekly newspapers at their disposal, in addition to table games of various kinds.

A new stage had been erected and it was anticipated that there would be regular concerts on it. An amateur boxing tournament was to fill the bill in early September 1926.

Gaelic football and hurling teams were well established.

A hurling league was formed under the title of Ardnacrusha League comprising of workers and surrounding members of GAA parochial teams.

The German workers had a school house erected for their children of whom 40 or 50 were attending. There was a German teacher for those children and lessons in English were given to the German workers.