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The Avoca () is a
R.O.I. Rivers Table 3.10 P.38
(PDF) {{coord, 52, 52, 59, N, 6, 13, 47, W, region:IE_type:river_source:kolossus-nlwiki, display=title Avoca Arklow
The Avoca () is a river
A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...
in County Wicklow
County Wicklow ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606 in Ireland, 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the Provinces ...
, Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
. It is contained completely within the county. Its length is 35 miles (56.3 km).
The Avoca starts life as two rivers, the Avonmore () and the Avonbeg (). These join at a spot called the ''Meeting of the Waters'' (''Cumar an dá Uisce'') in the ''Vale of Avoca'', which is considered a local beauty spot, and was celebrated by Thomas Moore in his song of the same name.
The village of Avoca is situated on the river.
The Avoca flows into the Irish Sea
The Irish Sea is a body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel and to the Inner Seas off the West Coast of Scotland in the north by the North Ch ...
at Arklow where it widens into a large estuary, giving Arklow its Irish language name ''an t-Inbhear Mór'' (the big inlet).
The catchment area of the Avoca is 652 km2.
The long term average flow rate of the Avoca is 20.2 cubic metres per second (m3/s)
Name
The Avoca was originally called Abhainn Mhór / Abhainn Dé (great river/God's river); the present name was derived from ''Oboka'' (), the name of a river inPtolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...
's ''Geography
Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...
'', which was thought to correspond to the Avoca (Ovoca). However, ''Oboka'' more likely refers to the Liffey.
Industry
The valley of the Avoca has a large copper mine, and further downstream was the NET fertiliser factory (closed since 2002). These are said to have contributed greatly to pollution in the lower reaches of the river.Transport
The railway line fromDublin
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
to Rosslare also passes along the Vale of Avoca, cutting inland from its mainly coastal route and the R752 road tightly follows the west bank of the Avoca from ''The Meetings'' to Arklow.
See also
* Rivers of IrelandNotes
*External links
R.O.I. Rivers Table 3.10 P.38
(PDF) {{coord, 52, 52, 59, N, 6, 13, 47, W, region:IE_type:river_source:kolossus-nlwiki, display=title Avoca Arklow