Jump to content

Narrowboat in Northern Ireland


Neil Coker

Featured Posts

The Tuesday Night club had a boat over there for several years  http://www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/Tour_13/Tour_13_Index.html

 

This may be a more useful link http://www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/Tour_07/April_07/index.html

Edited by ditchcrawler
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lough Erne is a massive lake. I am not sure if I would be comfortable on it in a narrowboat. But the Balinamore-Ballyconnel (Shannon/Erne) canal would be a good place for a canal boat. Though given Britain's mighty political upheaval it will soon have an international border across it. 

Edited by WJM
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A short break on Lough Erne in a cruiser showed me that Irish cruising is significantly different to English canal cruising. We had weather about a quarter of the strength we've had over the last 2 weeks, and the lower lough was as rough as any strong coastal water, with easily 3ft waves. This combined with the necessity to navigate strictly to marked channels (a large pair of binoculars and an A3 book of charts was issued to us on picking up the boat) makes for a totally different experience. Also navigating the waterway between the loughs, and the River Erne, is not. IMHO a suitable waterway for a 53ft boat. Again it is necessary to observe strict channel markers, as running aground is not like landing on silt, but hitting rocks. The river is very meandering, and the handling of a long narrow boat is not best suited. The manoeuvrability of a cruiser is much better. I feel that the limit of range would become very claustrophobic, especially as moorings are quite limited in comparison with our stop where you like canals, and even on those moorings, there are very few that give access to villages/towns. It is good to experience it but I don't think I'd like to be permanent there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, WJM said:

Lough Erne is a massive lake. I am not sure if I would be comfortable on it in a narrowboat. But the Balinamore-Ballyconnel (Shannon/Erne) canal would be a good place for a canal boat. Though given Britain's mighty political upheaval it will soon have an international border across it. 

Do keep up, Boris lied and sold the dupers down the river, the border will be Stranraer. As per the Good Friday day  agreement. Before long they will hold a proper referendum, knowing exactly what they are voting for and NI will be subsumed in Eire and the EU once more. 

Cue smelly ranter... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why just Northern Ireland? The system spans the whole island and is run as one (Waterways Ireland is one of the Good Friday Agreement cross-border institutions.) The Shannon, the two canals to Dublin and the Barrow line all look like interesting boating too.

 

MP.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did this in 1998 for 2 years. Took the boat over from Calcut to Salins near Dublin and the first year went up the Shannon and across into L Erne and during the second year after leaving the boat in Shannonharbour went south on the Shannon to L. Derg and then down the R. Barrow to Graigenmanagh where we got involved with the local pub scene and had a job to leave. Narrow boats are not ideal but with care and watching the weather can be ok. The wind comes up quickly and on the big lakes the waves can soon get up.

 

9BD1F716-2EC1-4462-AC1E-911E4D234415.jpeg

Edited by Dav and Pen
Spelling
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.