Vartry Reservoir
Major water supply scheme for Dublin city, Ireland
Vartry Reservoir (Irish: Taiscumar Fheartraí) is a reservoir at Roundwood in County Wicklow, Ireland. The water is piped from Vartry to a large covered reservoir in Stillorgan in the southern suburbs of Dublin. The reservoir is operated by Irish Water.
The original (lower) reservoir was completed in 1863 and has a capacity of 11.3 billion litres and a maximum depth of 18.3 metres. A second embankment, 3.5 km upstream, was completed in 1923 to form the upper reservoir. This has a capacity of 5.6 billion litres and a maximum depth of 13.4 metres.
History
The Vartry Reservoir scheme involved the partial redirection and damming of the Vartry River, the building of a series of water piping and filtering systems (and related public works) to carry freshwater to the city.
Between 1862 and 1868 the lower reservoir was formed by constructing an earthen dam across the valley of the River Vartry after a Dublin Water Works Committee was established to develop a new water supply to Dublin and suburbs. The committee was chaired by Dr. John Gray who actively promoted what would become the "Vartry scheme".
The public source identifies “Vartry Reservoir” as major water supply scheme for Dublin city, Ireland. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Vartry, Reservoir and Major.
Why this record matters
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3079116. Authority coordinates are 53.050, -6.200. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1863, 1923, 1862 and 1868.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vartry Reservoir” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.