JOYCE, GEORGE

Engineer, active in the first decade of the nineteenth century. In 1800-1801 George Joyce proposed a scheme for a canal to run from the Queen's County Canal at Esker, Co. Kilkenny, past Kilkenny City and Thomastown to the tidal section of the River Nore below Inistioge.(1) His estimate of the cost of the canal was £99,748. The proposal was contained in a report he prepared for Walter, 18th Earl of Ormonde, who was the head of a group of subscribers which had been formed with a view to forwarding the completion of the River Nore navigation.(2) Nothing came of the scheme however. In the Office of Public Works papers in the National Archives there is a letter from George Joyce to William Richard, 3rd Earl Annesley, dated 12 October 1808, asking if there might be a vacant situation on the Howth harbour works.(3) He was the father of HENRY JOYCE. HENRY JOYCE.

(1) Map, profile and plan, signed and dated Nov 1800 to Mar 1801, in IAA, Ormonde Loan Collection, 77/9.84-86.
(2) V.T.H. & D.R. Delany, The Canals of the South of Ireland (1966), 142-143, citing William Tighe, Statistical Observations relative to the County of Kilkenny (1802), 143 and Appendix 3.
(3) OPW8/HOW/136.