construction until 1741, working on a part-time basis. The work took longer than expected, and the canal finally opened in the spring of 1742. The of canal included 13 locks, and ran from Newry, where it connected to Carlingford Lough and the sea by a narrow channel, which was made into a ship canal in the 1760s. At its northern end it ran to Portadown where it joined the Upper Bann River to reach Lough Neagh. It was built to transport coal from the Tyrone collieries to Dublin. In order to build locks with a larger fall than was possible with conventional gate paddles, Steers built two of the locks with sluices and ground paddles, which fed water into the bottom of the lock through the side walls. Water supply for the summit level was taken from local streams, supplemented by water from Lough Shark, which was used as a reservoir. As a whole, the work was not well executed, and the innovative locks had to be rebuilt soon after 1750. Other activity Besides his work on docks and canals, Steers was involved with a wide range of other projects. Even the Mersey and Irwell Navigation and the Douglas Navigation were promoted not just to make carriage of existing trade easier, but to generate new trade which would contribute to the prosperity of the region. Jointly with Sir Cleave Moore and Sir Thomas Johnson, he promoted the Liverpool Waterworks in 1720. He set up a smithy making anchors near the Liverpool Docks, and was a partner in the Dove, a ship which traded between Liverpool and the West Indies. He appears to have been a keen amateur architect (before that term was in popular parlance) and as well as the work on Liverpool Old Dock, executed alongside chief mason Edward Litherland, is paid in the accounts of The Blue Coat School (1715) once again with Litherland, "a new Street, called Chorley Street or Squire's Garden" (1720), St. George's Church (1725) (Litherland cited as mason) and what would become Salt House Dock once again winning the contract along regular collaborator Litherland. Their working relationship ended with Litherland's death in 1739. His best known architectural work was that of "Seel's House" on Hanover Street, Liverpool which would later become a bank before making way for the Liverpool One Tesco supermarket. It is highly likely that he designed a number of other buildings