In 1715 Sir Arthur Shaen, an English landlord in Erris, began building a small town on a wet and marshy area near ‘The Mullet’ peninsula. To drain this marshy area and to form a passageway from Blacksod Bay into Broadhaven Bay, Shaen had a canal excavated which would allow small boats to pass from one bay to the other. Development of the town, later to be Belmullet, proved to be a slow process, and the canal was blocked and unusable by the mid-18th century. In 1845 the Government sanctioned a grant of £5,000 to match the total of £4,000 raised locally to re-open the canal which would unite Broadhaven and Blacksod Bays. Work on the canal began in 1845, but due to the Irish Famine which devastated the area, it was not completed until 1851. A report in 1851 states that the canal was being used extensively, and also states that the canal could be crossed by a swivel bridge.