dry dock

Former graving dock, built 1796, infilled and used as boat slipway, c.1850. Cut limestone retaining walls. Recent concrete paving and slip ramp. Rubble limestone enclosing wall to south, having recent concrete to upper level. Gate opening to south side with coursed calp limestone rubble wall on east side of opening with recent concrete piers and metal gates. Former gate opening to east side having brown brick surrounds with castellated limestone capping stones, now infilled with concrete block, within calp limestone rubble wall. Situated on east side of Grand Canal Basin and north end of South Docks Road.

Grand Canal Dock was built to designs by William Jessop, and opened in 1796. It marked the completion of the Grand Canal from the Shannon to the Liffey, terminating in deep water docks next to the mouth of the River Dodder. Three ‘graving docks’ were constructed for ship repair and construction. However, this southernmost dock was closed in 1851 and used as a coal yard, while a lease was taken out on the two smaller docks to the north by the Dublin Dockyard Company. Due to the insufficient size of the sea locks and silting at the entrance caused by the Dodder, it was not always possible for ships to enter the docks and they often continued to berth on the Liffey quaysides. With the decline in the use of the canal, the basin became largely redundant. This dock is noted as disused on historic maps from the early twentieth century. No longer in use, historic fabric remains in the dock retaining walls and surrounding enclosing walls. It is an interesting reminder of the former industrial use of the basin.