Royal Canal Walk in the Royal County

The Royal Canal

Work began on the construction of the Royal Canal, to connect Dublin, with the River Shannon in 1790. The original plan for the canal was to run from Dublin to Moyglare where it would divide, one section running to Trim and onto Kells and from Trim another branch to Athboy and Delvin and the second section running to the Shannon. The route of the Royal Canal was not precisely planned, the project amassed huge debts, and the founding company was ultimately dissolved. Plans by John Brownrigg suggested the canal go south of its present course and pass though Clonard or Kilwarden to Kinnegad.  Richard Evans was the engineer in charge of initial construction but he spent most of his time on the Boyne canal from Navan to Drogheda.  In 1801 the canal company asked the newly elected Directors General of Inland Navigation for financial aid. A grant was given to the company with a proviso that the canal must be completed to Mullingar without further aid and that docks should be constructed at the junction with the River Liffey in Dublin. The Royal Canal finally met the Shannon in 1817. It operated in competition with the Grand Canal which ran an almost parallel route to the south and a few decades later both were superseded by the introduction of the railways.

Boats travelled at a speed of up to 7 miles an hour pulled by teams of horses. The journey between Dublin and Mullingar took twelve hours but the introduction of new “fly” boats reduced that to eight hours in 1833. Corn, meal, malt, flour, potatoes, lime, sand, turf, live pigs, fuel and manure were the main products transported by the trade boats. In 1845 the canal was sold for £300,000 to the Midland Great Railway Company. The railway bought it as a strategic move to subsume the transportation business of the canal and planned to drain it and lay tracks over its route. This did not occur, partly because the line of the canal had too many unsuitable bends. Canal transport continued into the middle of the twentieth century but at a gradually reducing rate.

CIÉ closed the Royal Canal in 1961 and it rapidly fell into disrepair. There were even plans to build a motorway on the Dublin city section. In 1974 the Royal Canal Amenity Group came into existence and set about redeveloping the disused waterway as a public amenity. Branches of the Royal Canal Amenity Group came into existence in Enfield and Longwood.  Campaigners fought to save the canal and in 2010 the full canal reopened. Waterways Ireland, together with local councils have developed the towpath as a long-distance walking trail, the Royal Canal Way, running from Dublin to the Shannon.

Started in Dublin, the work on constructing the canal was completed in 1817 when it reached Richmond Harbour in Clondara. By the 1950’s the canal had fallen into disrepair and was officially closed in 1961. Following extensive restoration work the Royal Canal was opened to navigation in 2010 reigniting enthusiasm for the triangular route from Dublin to the Shannon via the Royal and Grand Canals.​ As with all of Ireland’s waterways the canal passes through some of Europe’s most beautiful countryside and, whether you are on a boat, or simply on foot, you’ll have ample opportunity to enjoy it all. The towpath that has been so lovingly cleared has now been designated The Royal Canal Way (a National Way Marked Way). The Royal Canal is truly a snapshot of the past. There are bridges dating back over 200 years and buildings in Abbeyshrule that can be traced back to 1200 A.D. As with old buildings some superstitions have thrived, like Deey Bridge at the 13th Lock, which is reputed to be haunted; the old boatmen would never moor there overnight. Angling is another popular activity, with roach proving to be one of the most popular fish, along with pike, tench and bream. Canal bream rarely exceed 4lbs, but pike can offer a real challenge, weighing in at 20lbs, and anglers of all levels of experience will find excellent conditions along the Royal Canal.

The National Famine Way

The National Famine Way commences at the National Famine Museum at Strokestown Park and finishes at the Jeanie Johnston Famine Ship and EPIC Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin. Commemorating the poignant ill-fated journey of 1,490 famine emigrants in 1847 this 165 km cross country trail follows the Royal Canal. Nearly 1500 tenants from Strokestown Park estate in May 1847 were forced off their lands and were escorted on foot by Bailiff Robison along the length of the Royal Canal to Dublin. They travelled on open deck packet steamers to Liverpool where they waited to board their ships to Canada. The four ships, which took the group across the Atlantic, were badly fitted out and poorly provisioned. Almost half of those who embarked died aboard ship or in the ‘fever sheds’ at Grosse Isle when they arrived in Quebec.

The trail is way marked with thirty plinths and pairs of nineteenth century bronze shoe sculptures and a story has been written for each of these sculptures. There are bronze shoes along this portion of the Royal Canal at Hill of Down Harbour, Longwood Harbour, Enfield Harbour and arbour, Moyvalley Bridge and stories associated with each pair can be found on www.nationalfamineway.ie.

In his book Irish Popular Superstitions, William Wilde described the departing journey of Longford emigrants on Royal Canal packet-boats: “Their friends followed for a considerable distance, many, brimful of whisky as well as grief, crowding upon the bridges, and sometimes pulling the boat to the brink by the tow-rope, for the purpose of sending a message to one of their transatlantic friends. All gradually fell back, except one very old woman, who, with her grey elf-locks streaming in the wind . . . ran after the vessel which contained her only son.”

Railway

The Midland Great Western Railway Act received the Royal Assent in July 1845, authorising it to raise one million pounds in capital and to build a railway from Dublin to Mullingar and Longford and to buy the Royal Canal.Construction of the main line began from Dublin in January 1846 and proceeded westwards in stages. It opened from Dublin Broadstone as far as Enfield in May 1847, to Hill of Down in December 1847 and to Mullingar in October 1848. The Misses Waterstone vacated the canal house and store at Enfield in 1849 as they were no longer needed with the arrival of the railway.  The MGWR was first railway to reach Galway, going via Athlone and reaching Galway in August 1851. In the twentieth century road transport took over from rail. In 1925 all railway companies wholly within the Irish Free State grouped into Great Southern Railways. Following nationalisation of CIÉ (the State transport company in the Republic) in 1950, many unremunerative lines were closed, and others reduced to freight only status. A number of smaller stations were closed during this period.

Fern’s Lock

Ferns Lock is where the Royal Canal crosses from County Kildare into County Meath. The name, Ferrans, Ferns or Fearns, is taken from the Irish Fearna, meaning elder trees. The Royal Canal crosses back and forth across this county line several times as the canal makes its way west. The 17th Lock is the last double-chambered lock on the Royal Canal coming from Dublin and marks the start of The Long Level which is a 32 kilometre stretch before the 18th Lock at Thomastown. The canal lock station, consisting of pair of locks, bridge over the canal and remains of lock keeper’s house, was constructed about 1797. The pair of timber and steel lock gates is set in a channel with limestone embankment walls. The limestone bridge, dated 1797, has partly been rebuilt with concrete blocks. The plaque is inscribed: “1797 Mc Loghlin Lock & Bridge Engineer”. Fern’s Lock is also known as “McLoughlin’s” or “The 17^th Lock.”

The bridge coming into the lock no longer has an arch and now has a low concrete plinth which may catch the top of wheelhouses of boats passing under it. The canal bridge has no abutment to a railway bridge and instead is level with the level crossing.

Immediately below the 17th Lock an important feeder enters the canal drawn from the upper reaches of the Ryewater which runs alongside the canal here for some distance. The river Rye or Ryewater rises in Agher to the north of the canal and runs alongside of the canal at Ferns Lock. The river forms the border between Meath and Kildare. After a course of about twenty five kilometres the Rye Water joins the Liffey at Leixlip.

Ferns Lock railway station was located adjacent to the canal. Serving a sparsely populated area, the wayside station opened in August 1848, shut to passenger and goods in 1947 and closed permanently in 1963. The platforms remained intact until the mid 1990s, when they were demolished to allow the track to be relayed and re-aligned. Today, only part of the up platform remains, buried under gravel.

Ferns Lock railway station 1963

Elizabeth, ‘Sissi’, Empress of Austria, leased nearby Summerhill House as a hunting lodge in 1879 and 1880.  Elizabeth arrived by train to Ferns Lock station. The Empress managed to hunt nearly every day. She presented a gift of a three foot high statue of St George slaying the dragon to Maynooth Seminary where she had sheltered from some bad weather during a hunt. She was unaware that St George was the patron saint of England and when she was told of its significance she ordered a fresh present, shamrock covered vestments from Dublin.

In 1892 Fr. John Fay, parish priest of Summerhill and Coole, was arrested by a force of fifty and taken to the railway at Ferns Lock and onto Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. He took such a strong anti-Parnellite position during the political crisis of the 1890s that he spent a month in prison for contempt of court. On his release, Fr. Fay was brought home in triumph.

A ringfort or rath is situated just to the north of the canal path at Oldtown, a short distance from Ferns Lock. A ringfort is a defensive feature and they were used as family homes and farmsteads from the Bronze Age up until 1000 AD. This ringfort is barely visible through a gap in the trees and is separated from the path by the Ryewater river. It consists of a circular grass-covered raised area that slopes down slightly to the south surrounded by two banks. In 1905 Thomas Byrne of Agher, Enfield was operating a boat on the Royal Canal.

On the land sloping away from the south bank of the canal can be seen the stone wall which surrounds Killeighter churchyard. The graveyard also contains a ruined church which was referred to as “Capella Sti Patritii de Killieghyery” – Chapel of St. Patrick of Killeighter in 1640 but the foundation of the church may go back to the time of Patrick. Its remains survive at the north end of a graveyard. Also located at the northern end of the graveyard is a holy well dedicated to St. Patrick Above it stands a mature ash tree which held votive offerings such as rosary beads, holy medals, scapulars and small crosses. Near the centre of the graveyard is a children’s burial ground.

From the north bank you can pick out the original 23 Mile Marker for the canal on the opposite bank. This measures the distance not from the River Liffey but rather from Broadstone. The path on the south bank was used up until 2019 but it was partly overgrown.

Across the canal is the townland of Kilbrook and ‘The Old Bog Road.’ Teresa Brayton, who was born in Kilbrook in 1868, wrote the poem ‘The Old Bog Road’ which is one of the sad tales of the Irish emigrant, so far from home when his mother has died. Today the traditional Irish music Comhaltas group in Enfield is named in her honour. Brayton died in 1943 and is buried in Cloncurry graveyard where a seven foot high Celtic cross was erected over her grave.

The path now passes through a wood in the townland of Ardrums Great. The canal here passes through Cappagh Bog and construction of this part of the canal proved a laborious and expensive undertaking with problems caused by the sides slipping and the bottom swelling up. Turf was harvested on Cappagh Bog and transported by canal to Dublin. In 1839 C.W. Williams used Cappagh Bog as a source of turf for his own patented fuel. The turf was mixed with coal slack to produce the fuel which was transported to Dublin using the canal.  Williams also produced a compressed turf product. Not long after the wood the path returns to a public roadway along the canal.

Cloncurry

Near Cloncurry Bridge stands a large motte and bailey, a medieval church and graveyard and the site of a deserted medieval village. A motte is flat-topped, steep-sided, earthen mound which supported a wooden tower. These castles were constructed by the Anglo-Normans in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century. The site was the nucleus of the original Manor of Cloncurry, granted to Adam de Hereford before 1176. It was described in an extent of 1304 as, “a moat on which is situated a one roomed building with a wooden roof, which is not vaulted as no one is interested to rent”. It is said the tree that grows on the motte were planted in celebration of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo. The exact site of the medieval village is unknown but it was burned by the Irish in 1405. The manor became the property of the Aylmer family who later sold it to Sir Nicholas Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurry.

Adam de Hereford granted the church of Cloncurry to St. Thomas’ Abbey, Dublin. In a later grant the church was named as SS Mary and Martin, but was referred to as St. Ninian’s in 1491. A Carmelite friary, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, was founded here by John Roche, in 1347. At the centre of the graveyard are the remains of a 15th century church comprising a nave and rebuilt chancel. The chancel was rebuilt as an Aylmer mausoleum in the eighteenth century. A watch-house stands at the left handside of the entrance to the graveyard. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries this allowed relatives to keep watch on loved one’s graves to protect against grave robbers.

Cloncurry to Enfield

Remaining on the north bank we must cross over the road at Cloncurry Bridge to continue towards Enfield, a distance of three kilometres. The first kilometre of this is on a public road by the canal.

The trees on the right as you come into Enfield are part of the Baynefield Millenium Wood project. This project was instigated and carried out by Enfield Environment Group/Tidy Towns to mark the occasion of the New Millennium in the year 2000. Approximately 1500 saplings of native Irish species were planted along a four hundred metre stretch of the Royal Canal.

Arriving into Enfield, the railway station and a variety of connected buildings originally opened by the Midlands Great Western Railway company in the late 1840’s can be seen on the opposite bank. The Signal Box was erected about 1930 while the two water towers date from 1850 and 1910. A railway warehouse, erected around 1850, a stationmasters house from about 1890 and two workers houses complete the station complex of buildings. When the railway opened, canal boats ceased all passenger traffic between Dublin and Enfield. The Mullingar railway line was opened for public traffic as far as Enfield on 2 July 1847. Business at the stations at Hill of Down and Enfield was boosted by the cattle trade. In 1877 the railways in Meath reached their fullest extent when a branch line from Enfield to Edenderry was completed. Enfield station closed in 1963 but passenger services were resumed in 1988.

From the early eighteenth century Ireland experienced a series of communications and transport developments that provided new opportunities to move around the island. The earliest initiative was the construction of turnpike roads—Ireland’s first system of planned long-distance routes. Travellers on these long routes needed somewhere to eat and rest, and horses had to be refreshed and changed. This resulted in the growth of the inn system. Along the Great Connaught Road, inns can be identified at five to ten mile intervals. The need for an inn between Kilcock and Clonard/ Kinnegad was the opportunity for the emergence of Innfield—now Enfield—as a vital staging point on a hitherto rather village-poor section of road.

Enfield to Moyvalley

Crossing the main road into Enfield go right to see the Enfield Harbour area  which includes a car park, picnic area, mooring and slipway facilities. This work was undertaken by the Royal Canal Amenity Group in association with the Enfield Community Council, Enfield Development Association and Enfield Environmental Group/Tidy Towns. The old canal houses which housed people up until the 1960s were demolished as they were in poor condition. In June 1987 the Enfield Royal Canal Leisure Park was officially opened. It is possible to walk some distance on this side of the canal but the main pathway is on the other side of the canal.

Viewing the harbour from the other side of the canal the route we passes under the R148 which was the old N4 ring road around Enfield before the M4 was built.

The Blackwater Aqueduct carries the canal about fifteen metres above the Enfield Blackwater river. Just before the aqueduct itself there is a solid stone chamber in the canal which can be used for stop gates to prevent the loss of water if there is ever a breach on the long level of the canal. By crossing the aqueduct you are crossing from County Meath into County Kildare. This section ends at Kilmore bridge which was erected in 1793. A wire fence was erected separating the Greenway from the railway from Kilmore Bridge to Moyvalley. In 1811 locals made breaches in the canal as they feared a local potato scarcity as a result of the amounts being transported to Dublin on the canal.

At Moyvalley there is a single-arch rubble stone road bridge over the canal dating to about 1810 and a railway bridge nearby which dates to about 1850. Moyvalley was a larger village at the time with a post office and a hotel. Moyvalley had a train station from 1848 until 1963. Boats can regularly been seen tied up at Moyvalley.

Just across the bridge Furey’s bar and restaurant is an unusual early twentieth-century building of timber frame construction. Dating to about 1920 the building uses interesting materials throughout, sometimes to decorative effect, and the survival of these is a rare quality. The use of corrugated-iron throughout the building is important as it is likely this material arrived by train.

In 1807 the Royal Canal Hotel was opened at Moyvalley and was reported to have been “the best of its kind and one of the best kept of any in Ireland.” It cost 1s 1d for a bed for a servant and 4s 4d for one of the four premium bed chambers. Like the canal itself the hotel found it hard to remain viable. Various tenants operated the hotel for a period and even a canal police force occupied it for a while. John Wright Switzer purchased it in 1848 and converted it to a hydropathic business with a bath-house containing “a large swimming or plunge bath, four steam or vapour baths, seven vertical douches, and hot and cold horizontal douches — all fitted up in the most complete manner.” No alcohol or tobacco was allowed. The Hydro remained in operation for some time and following its closure, Switzer continued to live there until his death in 1891. His grandson used the house as a family home until 1912, when he sold it to a man named Ross. Ross sold the premises to Dr. Carey in 1922 and he in turn sold in 1929 to a local man named Mulvany who found the upkeep of the large house too expensive and moved to a smaller house in the yard, leaving the old building exposed to the elements. The ivy-covered ruin was eventually demolished to make way for the realigned road in 1974.

Nearby is Balyna House now part of the Moyvalley Hotel and Golf Resort. Balyna Estate was granted in 1574 by Queen Elizabeth I to Calogh O’Moore because their lands in Laois had been confiscated. Calogh’s father, Rory Og O’More, had led a rebellion against the queen in the 1560s and 1570s. In 1577, the government invited the O’Mores to a peace conference at Mullaghmast near Ballitore, Co. Kildare. When the forty O’Mores arrived the English opened fire with their muskets and killed them all. Rory O’More is said to have fled into the woods at Balyna when Cromwell’s soldiers approached. To ensure that he found his path to the woods he plunged his walking stick into the ground. Managing to elude his enemies he exited the wood where he had placed his walking stick only to find it had begun to grow. It grew into a tall Scots pine and a legend grew in that family that as long as the tree was healthy the Mores would stay at Balyna. In 1957 the tree declined and died and shortly afterwards the family left Balyna.  In1779 Balyna passed to Letitia O’Moore who was married to Richard O’Ferrall. As Catholics a number of the O’Ferralls of Balyna served in foreign armies on the Continent. The estate was a refuge for bishops and priests for centuries and Dr. Forstall, Bishop of Kildare, ordained priests here in the year 1678-1680. Major Ambrose O’Ferrall commenced construction of a new house at Balyna in 1815, which survived until 1878 when it was destroyed by fire and replaced by the current house.  His daughter, Letitia, a nun in the Sisters of Charity, gave £3,000 for the purchase of a house in St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, which grew to be one of Dublin’s largest hospitals, St Vincent’s. His eldest son, Richard More O’Ferrall, was appointed Governor of Malta in 1847. Richard More O’Ferrall is reputed for having been responsible for the erection of the Celtic cross which now stands to the rear of the house. It is said that this Cross, along with another was transported from Europe, the two being encased in wooden crates and towed behind the ship on a barge. Legend has it that one was lost at sea, but the second survives to this day. Balyna was sold in 1960 and was owned by Bewley’s Oriental Cafes Ltd until 1983. The    milk and cream in the Cafes came from the pedigree  Jersey herd at Balyna. In 1984 the estate was sold to Justin   Keating; it was sold again in 1990-1991 to George Grant. Moyvalley was developed into a Hotel and Golf Resort in 2007.

Ribbontial Bridge and Longwood Dock Bridge

Ribbontail Footbridge was constructed for Mass goers to cross the canal to the church in Longwood. There was a road which continued on the far side of the canal originally but these two lanes faded out of use when the canal made them cul de sacs. The path to Longwood has been resurfaced and gives the walker or cyclist the option of visiting the village. There is also a set of stop gates located at the bridge which can be closed to help stem the loss of water should there be a breach on the Long Level.

Ribbontail Bridge was named after the ribbonmen who breached parts of the canal as it was constructed. The Ribbon Society was principally an agrarian secret society, whose members consisted of rural Irish Catholics. The society was formed in response to the miserable conditions in which the vast majority of tenant farmers and rural workers lived in the early nineteenth century in Ireland. Its objective was to prevent landlords from changing or evicting their tenants. Anti-canal feeling ran high in the early days, amid fears that the canal would bring in thieving, undesirables and carry away locals and their livelihoods. Ribbonmen would pelt the bargees from the bridges with stones and filth. Some clever Ribbonmen breached the canal walls to let the water out, and then offered themselves as handymen for the repair job at 14 shillings a week. That scam only stopped when the company put a ban on hiring local labour. In 1807 a Canal Hotel was opened at Moyvalley, between Enfield and Kinnegad. In the 1820s a local policeman was billeted there due in an effort to counteract local Ribbonmen who were regularly attacking boats.

There is parking available at the Dock Bridge on the Clonard Road out of Longwood.

Longwood Harbour is home to Ribbontail Paddlers Canoe Club. The club have canoe polo goals erected over the canal and they have restored the old canal worker’s cottage at the harbour to use as their clubhouse. The detached three-bay single-storey former canal workers house, built about 1795, was derelict. There is an outbuilding to the side which would have been used to store goods. Both these have been completely restored by Ribbontail Paddlers. The Ribbontail Paddlers Canoe Club was formed in the summer of 2010 by a group of families within the communities of Longwood and Enfield to promote and encourage participation by all ages and abilities in canoeing.

Dock Bridge to Blackshade Bridge

Immediately after the harbour there are two aqueducts. The first is a Longwood Road Viaduct carrying the canal over the road below. Longwood Road Aqueduct is also known as Boynedock Bridge or Dock Bridge. A single-arch limestone bridge carrying the canal over the road was constructed about 1795.

The railway bridge over the road is just a few yards over from the aqueduct. It consists of a single-arch limestone bridge carrying the railway over the road, built about 1850, with high quality masonry.

A short way along the canal is the Boyne Aqueduct which is a triple-arch limestone bridge, carrying the canal over a river. The Boyne Aqueduct was completed in 1804 and carries the canal over the River Boyne. The river at this point is about thirteen metres wide and flows through the central arch of the aqueduct. This multiple-arch aqueduct, designed by Richard Evans, is an interesting feat of late eighteenth-century engineering in Ireland.

A major breach of the embankment, east of the Longwood Road Viaduct, occurred in June 1993. Its repair over the following months by the OPW was the biggest restoration project on the canal in any single location.

.Blackshade to Hill of Down

On the south bank of the canal after Blackshade Bridge is Molerick Bog which is a designated Natural Heritage Area. It is only one of four remaining raised bogs to be found in Ireland. Raised bogs are dome-shaped masses of peat occupying former lakes or shallow depressions in the landscape. Raised bogs are characterised by low-growing, open vegetation dominated by mosses, sedges and heathers. Raised bogs generally contain deep peat deposits, typically between 4 and 8 metres.

The next stop is after two and half kilometres: the small village of Hill of Down with a post office, small shop and Moran’s Pub on the south bank.

Hill of Down railway station opened in 1847 and finally closed one hundred years later in 1947. Both platforms and tall signal cabin were still extant in the early 1990s, but these, along with the station buildings have all be demolished. Only the up platform with its raised section, and goods platform to the east of the station remains.

The railway ran through the lands of the Magan family of Killyon. One of the conditions on which the land was transferred to the railway company was that the Magans should have the right to stop any train, express or otherwise, at the Hill-of-Down station, for their own convenience, either to board it or alight from it. This right was exercised by the family.

In 1801 the canal company decided to abandon plans to bring the canal to Kinnegad and abandoned works on that line. Portions of these abandoned works can be seen between Blackshade Bridge and Hill of Down. A portion is shown on the 1836 OSI maps.

Hill of Down to Ballasport Bridge

From the Hill of Down the greenway continues west to Ballasport Bridge which carries a minor rural road. The path crosses over to the south bank. The walk continues with pasture, hedgerow and bog to the south of the canal. Mount Hevey bog comprises a raised bog that includes both areas of high bog and cutover bog. The Dublin-Sligo railway severs the bog and the northern section is adjacent to the Royal Canal. Active raised bog comprises areas of high bog that are wet and actively peat forming. Between the path and the canal there are occasional reed and large sedge swamp, transition mire and quaking bog.

After two and a half kilometres west of Ballasport Bridge the path leaves County Meath and moves in to County Westmeath. The next stop is D’Arcy’s Bridge and the path crosses back over to the north bank and then further on is Thomastown where the Long Level finishes.

Use of the Greenway

The Royal Canal Greenway consists of footpaths along the canal but also some public roads so beware of traffic.

The following are a few guidelines to consider when using the greenway…

• Do not enter adjoining farmland
• Respect the habitat that is the Greenway and its flora & fauna
• Do not litter the trail – take home your litter
• Keep Dogs on leads (scoop the poop)
• Cyclists should wear a helmet
• High-viz jacket/top is recommended – “be safe be seen”
• Take special care at junctions
• Cyclists should give clear hand signals and use bell.
• Walkers be aware that cyclists may be approaching from behind.
• In case of emergency dial 999 or 112.

For further information consult:

Peter Clarke The Royal Canal: the complete story (Dublin, 1992)

Ruth Delany Ireland’s Royal Canal 1789–1992 (Dublin, 1992)

Ruth Delany Ireland’s Inland Waterways (Belfast, 1986)

V.T. H. & D.R. Delany The Canals of the South of Ireland (Devon, 1966)

Ruth Delany and Ian Bath Guide to the Royal Canal of Ireland (Dublin 1994)

Micheal Shea Along the Banks: Cycling Ireland’s Royal Canal  (Dublin 2018)