Harland and Wolff - Shipbuilding and Engineering Works

The Ballymurtagh was built as a hopper barge for Wicklow Mining Company.The Grand Canal Company [GCC] bought it in 1868 for £650.

By 1883 the Ballymurtagh needed new boilers and machinery, the work had been completed 1884.

Five years later came the proposal to convert the Ballymurtagh to a passenger steamer, but it is not clear whether anything ever came of it.

At the half-yearly meeting on 22 February 1890 the GGC chairman said:

With regard to passenger traffic on Lough Derg the directors decided to fit out their steamer, the Ballymurtagh, to ply from Killaloe to Banagher from July to the end of September. The project was warmly supported by many, but the slow speed of the steamer rendered it difficult to arrange a time-table. The project, however, would be carried out if possible.

Ballymurtagh continued in its humble role until it was scrapped in 1928