Harbour in Kilbeggan

Grand Canal harbour and dock complex, built c.1833, comprising rubble limestone retaining walls with ashlar limestone coping over to harbour sides. Harbour now out of use and drained. Extensive canal stores and warehouses (15403817) to the south side of harbour. Original formed the terminus of The Grand Canal (Kilbeggan Branch). Canal runs away to the east.

This former canal harbour is of considerable historical and social importance having been constructed to help promote the expansion of commercial enterprise in south Co. Westmeath during the early-to-mid nineteenth-century. The construction of the harbour walls attests to the high quality of stone masonry employed during the construction of the canal network in Ireland in the late eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. This canal harbour forms part of an important group of canal-related structures with the canal warehouses and stores to the south (15403817). It was built as part of The Grand Canal (Kilbeggan Branch), which was constructed between 1830-36 by the engineer William Dargan. This canal was officially closed in 1961 but had been out of use from the end of the nineteenth century due to competition from the railway and road transport networks.