Irish Boating 2002

I recently read an item on Narrowboat World by Tony Haynes, where he mentioned that he had been boating in Ireland, and discovered that he has just started up a blog. Having had an Irish boating escapade in 2002, I looked up Tony's blog and discovered that this year he appears to have hired the same boat that we did almost seven years ago. Tony appears to have hired dutch barge Deirdre from Riversdale on the Balliconnell and Balinamore Canal (otherwise known as the Shannon-Erne Waterway).

Although the weather was "Irish", when we took out Deidre for week in the summer of 2002, we had a great time exploring the loughs, rivers, canals, towns and pubs. We went to Balinamore via Dublin with our friends Anne & Edward Winter. Boated to Lough Key, visited Boyle, and then went downstream to Carrick-on-Shannon. We then returned to Ballinamore, via a short detour up to Lough Allen, before going on to Garadice Lough and returning Deidre back to Riversdale. All-in-all it was a great trip.

I have added an album to our blog covering pictures of our trip, but below is a selection images that show why we can recommend boating on the Shannon and Erne.


The Crew and Deirdre



Automatic Lock on the Shannon-Erne Waterway


Lough Key, Rockingham Estate


Sunset over Haughton’s Shore Mooring, Garadice Lough