October 11 1923
Belfast magistrates hold that the SS Greyhound was within and under the jurisdiction of the Northern government while she sailed the waters of Belfast Lough, laden with passengers who merrily consumed the alcoholic liquors dispensed… It was a “leading case” – in some respects. Belfast Lough lies between the coasts of Antrim and Down – two of the Six Counties. The effect of the magistrate’s decision was that the Lough of Belfast and Lough Neagh are, legally considered, on the same level, though the Belfast sheet of water is an “arm of the sea”.
…An entirely different situation arose in the north-west when four hardy fishers living on the Tirconnail shore of Lough Foyle were summoned before a Court of Local Jurisdiction to answer a series of charges which may be summarily defined as poaching on the waters of the Lough… Lough Foyle is very nearly an inland lake; “Northern” Ireland and “Southern” Ireland join each other at Derry City… If Tirconnail was not Free State territory on the west and if Derry county was not “Northern Ireland” territory on the east, the precedent set in Belfast would have held at Moville. But Tirconnail and Derry are portions of separate territorial entities.
Disputes relating to territorial claims over waterways in and around Northern Ireland, particularly over Lough Foyle, have persisted since the partition of Ireland. Demonstrating the haphazard way in which the border was drawn up, no boundary was delimited at any point for either Lough Foyle or Lough Carlingford. Nobody knew where the border line was on various waterways straddling the border as a result.
Belfast Great New Water Scheme – 'First Sod' Turned in the Silent Valley
A historic and important event in the life of Belfast took place yesterday when Lord Carson of Duncairn cut the first sod in connection with the Silent Valley Reservoir, erected by the Belfast City and District Water Commissioners, on the Mourne Mountains, at Kilkeel.
…The new storage reservoir will be formed by the construction of an earthen embankment across the Kilkeel River, in the Silent Valley, about 1,550 yards north from the Commissioners’ main entrance gates at the public road, near the Colligan Bridge. It will have a direct catchment area of 5,500 acres, and when completed and filled with water to top-water level, at 500 feet over ordnance datum, will store 3,000 million gallons, which will form a lake almost two miles long, one-third of a mile wide, and have a water area of 240 acres.
As well as being constructed to supply water to Belfast residents, the building of the water reservoir in the Silent Valley before the Boundary Commission convened was used as an argument to retain all of County Down in Northern Ireland once the commission finally did meet from late 1924.
