Cobh Waterworks from the 1850s to the Present.

Incredible to imagine now, but the contentious issue of drinking water, just as it is today and its supply to the town of Cobh was a subject of great debate in the second half of the 20th Century.

So controversial was this issue that it took an ‘Act’, The Queenstown Waterworks Act of 1882 in the British House of Parliament, to regulate on the process of the supply of water to the town and to have this development transferred from a private company, The Queenstown Waterworks Company, into public ownership The Town Commissioners of Queenstown. The purpose of the act was to authorise the town commissioners to purchase the private company and take responsibility for the provision of water to the town and its hinterland. The Queenstown Waterworks Company had been in operation at this time for over 35 years.

Prior to this company being set up, water was sourced entirely from wells. Smalls Well which was situated near the present day car park at the top of West View was the primary supplier of water, producing up to 30,000 gallons a day all year round. Other wells in use were at Ticknock and at Ballynoe near Rushbrooke.

This transfer of ownership did not of course go smoothly. It took further clarification at a court of Arbitration in London in 1883 before The Town Commissioners could finally establish themselves as the supplier of this service. It set about bringing clean water to the inhabitants of the town, the ships in the harbour and the newly constructed naval dockyard at Haulbowline.

Prior to the 1880s water was supplied to the town, from a storage area near the present junction of Ballywilliam and the Tea Road. The town at this time had approximately 550 houses, connected to the supply. These storage tanks can be seen on historical maps and were fed from the streams running down the inclines from Ballyleary and Ballywilliam into the Scouncel (Ballyleary Stream).

This facility gave cause for concern to the health of the users and was responsible in bringing the matter to a head and enforcing the legislation. The water at Ballywilliam was filtered through a very basic filter system before being pumped to the higher ground and onwards to storage reservoirs in Carrignafoy, Spy Hill and the Old Street.

In 1888 Doctor Dowling of the Queenstown Sanitary Dispensary presented a report to the Town Commissioners. He outlined the serious issue of pollution to the water, which in his opinion was responsible for a lot of ill health in the town. The pollution was mainly from leakage from a slaughterhouse at Castleoliver, manure heaps at Ticknock and a cess pit and pig slurry seeping into the source from a nearby stream.The townspeople demanded urgent action from the Commissioners.

Arising out of Doctor Dowlings report the County Surveyor Mr Kirby gave a report to the Town Commissioners in which he outlined his proposal on a more secure supply for the town. This new proposal would be by a gravitation scheme and would source water at Tibbotstown, north of Carrigtwohill and over 13 miles from the reservoir at Carrignafoy. The topography of Tibbotstown was deemed to be 100 feet higher than Carrignafoy. Mr. Kirby estimated that the cost to produce 18 gallons of water per head of consumers, purchase the land,and install the piping would be approximately £7,900. Initially, this reservoir was supplied by a local stream but as demand increased a further 5 miles of piping was installed to tap into the Owenacurra River near Ballyedmund Bridge, north of Midleton.

Between 1890 and 1900 an impoundment was constructed at Tibbotstown to firstly supply the British Military at Haulbowline and Spike Island and also the town of Cobh. Interestingly the engineer in charge of the construction of the reservoir was none other than the Clerk of Works overseeing the construction of St Coleman’s Cathedral, Charles Guilfoyle Doran, who was also a leading figure in the Irish Republican Brotherhood and a member of the Fenian movement. The builders were E. & R. Lester of Plymouth England and the project cost £23,000. The water engineer, who had come to Cobh from Cornwall originally as an employee of the Queenstown Waterworks but whose service was retained by the Town Commissioners was Mr. Charles E. Amphlett. He oversaw much of the work in the laying of pipes, situation of valves into Cobh and other ancillary work. His son Derry was to follow in his footsteps as water curator in Cobh for many years.

The water at Tibbotstown is confined by an imposing dam over 80 meters long and 11 meters high. Constructed over a series of arches of concrete and steel, stone for the dam which is limestone was quarried in nearby Carrigtwohill. The catchment area encompasses 475 acres and can retain over 28,000,000 gallons of water. Initially the water, having being sand filtered was pumped through a 9 inch pipe to the reservoir at Carrignafoy, where two tanks with a capacity of 199,000 and 33,000 gallons supplied the town and the islands. At Tibbotstown the raw water is presently also treated with alum, fluoride and chlorine to remove any impurities.

This system continued until the 1950s when increased development in Cobh necessitated the upgrading of the scheme. This upgrade entailed the construction of an 80,000 gallon capacity water tower at Carrignafoy in 1956 and a pump house to pump the water to the top of the tower. A new 8 inch main from Tibbotstown to Cobh was also installed as part of this upgrade. Likewise at the time a new reservoir with a capacity of 99,000 gallons was constructed in the grounds of St. Joseph’s National School in Cobh. The mains from Tibbotstown were again upgraded in the 1970s when a new 12/15 inch main was installed from Tibbotstown to Cobh. In 1999 work commenced on the construction of the new water tower at Carrignafoy which has a capacity of 2,000 cubic meters. Work on the new tower was completed within 12 months. Over 1,100 meters of concrete and 288 tons of reinforced steel were used in the construction of the champagne glass shaped, 36 meter high tower. Cobh now has a total storage capacity of over 1.5 million. gallons.

Presently as we are all only too familiar with, the mains are once again being upgraded with work proceeding from Belvelly to Ticknock and the instillation of a new 125mm. barrier pipe. This barrier piping is a huge progressive step away from the troublesome old cast iron piping of the past. Hopefully this upgrade will suffice well into the future.

This article first appeared in the Cobh Edition on December 2019

References.
Irish Newspaper Archives Online.
https://archives.parliament.uk/