Sluice Day

At Limerick, where the River Shannon flows under O'Brien's Bridge. President William T. Cosgrave of the Irish Free State last week opened a sluice. The Bishop of Killaloe was there to bless the sluice, to murmur a Latin benediction. Soon muddy Shannon water was gurgling slowly into Ireland's biggest ditch, a huge canal-reservoir six miles long, deep enough to engulf a four-story home.

President and Bishop took care that the Shannon did not gurgle in too fast, did not erode and spoil the sides of the $20,000,000 ditch. All in good time it will have trickled full, probably by next October. Then President Cosgrave will open other sluices at the farther end of the ditch where a new $15,000,000 hydro-electric power plant is now almost complete. As ditch water gushes through turbines, enough electric power will be made to light every home and hut in the Irish Free State.

Because most Irish homes and nearly all Irish huts are now lit by candles and primitive flame lamps, the Shannon River Power Plant is only one phase of a bold, nationwide electrification program now being carried through by the mighty Berlin firm of Siemens-Schuckert.

Germans got the business because an Irish youth, T. A. McLaughlin. who graduated by Dublin University after the War, went job-hunting to Berlin, signed on with Siemens-Schuckert, dazzled his German bosses with talk of the profits they could make electrifying Ireland's Shannon. First in the field for his firm with ideas and plans, smart Dr. T. A. McLaughlin was able to sell the Free State Government his idea, is now actively in charge of the whole $35.000,000 development.