Strabane Canal

The Strabane Canal is a short canal in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It connected the market town of Strabane to the navigable River Foyle and from there to the port of Foyle Port on the north coast of Ireland. The canal opened in 1796 and closed in 1962.

The Strabane Canal was conceived by The 1st Marquess of Abercorn as a way of encouraging industrial and commercial development in Strabane and its immediate surroundings, most of which was within his estates.
An Act of Parliament was obtained to authorise the construction of the 6.4-kilometre canal, although the land required for the canal was bought by the Marquess's agents by agreement with the owners, and the project, which cost £11,858, was privately funded by the Marquess, assisted by a loan of £3,703 from the Irish Parliament. The canal ran from the tidal waters of Lough Foyle at Leck, some 16 kilometres upstream from Derry, to Strabane. It left the Foyle just above its junction with the Burndennet River, to enter Crampsie's Lock. The main water supply was from a burn which entered the canal above Devine's Lock, the only other lock built.

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