Irish Navvies

[Heartland]

Some people attribute the task of canal building to the Irish Navvy, but was this the case. When the canal contractor are examined the source of labour was often more localised. And so, in Ireland with their waterways local labour would be expected, but would they travel longer distances and could they afford it?

 

The Irish navvy found regular employment in the railway age, even before the famine, but then travel had improved on the routes from the ports in Ireland 

[Pluto]

Although there were a few Irish navvies employed during the canal age, it was the various Irish famines, together with landlords removing Catholics from their lands, which encouraged the Irish navvy to become established. There are several books on the railway navvy which suggest that Lancashire and Yorkshire men made the best navvies, followed by the Scots and Midlanders. The Irish were looked down on a little as they would send money back to their families. On canals, navvies often followed a specific engineer, such as Whitworth in the early 1790s bringing down Scottish navvies with him, after he had completed the F&CC, to work on the L&LC.

[Heartland]

A useful perspective Mike

 

Navvies following engineers is certainly a factor and with the Railways there were those that stayed loyal to specific contractors. 

[kevinl]

I always understood navvie was short for navigation or navigator.

K

[Derek R.]

2 hours ago, kevinl said:

I always understood navvie was short for navigation or navigator.

K

They got the name Navvies for the very reason they helped dig and build the Navigations, the canals. When the railways came along, and later major trunk roads and Motorways, the name carried on. Navvies, workmen who helped build transport systems but the origins of the name reaches back to the Navigations.

[Pluto]

The name 'Navvy' is a reminder of the importance of the canal age to the development of the civil engineering industry, and thus to the economic growth of the country. Without the engineering knowledge gained during the canal age, the railway age and the construction industry generally would have been much slower to become established.