Shannon tourist plan gathers pace

SLOWLY, but ever so surely, moves are being put together to develop the 368km River Shannon as one of the country’s greatest natural amenities.

Projects costing €15 million have been identified for Lough Derg alone, but the big picture is to have a plan for the entire length of the great river which rises on the slopes of the Cuilcagh Mountains, in Co Cavan. It is expected to obtain funding from the National Tourism Development Plan.

Key player is the Lakelands and Inland Waterways group, a North/South body which links Beleek, in Co Fermanagh, to Limerick and which has the support of tourism and State agencies on both sides of the border.

Any development will, of course, have to be careful not to damage the river itself, its wildlife and surrounding lands. Concerns have already been raised that too much water-based activity is having an adverse effect on the general environment.

Also, a soon-to-be-published scientific study of Lough Derg, conducted by environmental scientists at Dublin City University (DCU) and Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT), has indicated the Nenagh River entering Lough Derg, at Dromineer Bay, may be contributing significantly to levels of agricultural waste in the lake.

Regarding leisure uses of the Shannon, people nowadays are looking for much more than just a trip on a boat — a more enriching experience is sought.

The Lough Derg proposals envisage a lot more activity and is part of a new plan to attract thousands of extra visitors.

The group is co-operating with local authorities in the region to develop a new tourism brochure for Ballina and Killaloe. Some new events, including a marathon swim in Lough Derg and a cycling challenge around the lake, are due to take place this year.

Long-term, the ambition is to make Lough Derg a top destination for activity-seeking tourists. In recent years, more than €6 million has been spent on tourism developments along the Shannon, all the way from Limerick up to south Offaly.

At present, the Lough Derg working group is co-operating with local authorities in completing an overview on what infrastructure and products are available along the shoreline and what improvements can be made in the coming years.

The group has produced a marketing brochure on canoeing from Limerick city to south Offaly and will now be working with the Lakelands project to publish a brochure for the entire stretch of the Shannon.

For the past three years, Shannon Development has worked with Tourism Ireland and Waterways Ireland to produce a plan for the Lakelands and Inland Waterways region. The idea is to have a well-orchestrated and co-ordinated approach to tourism on the Shannon and Erne catchments.

Lough Derg will be a centrepiece and there are future plans for toilet blocks and showers and a new canoe trail around the lake to exploit to huge market for this sport in Britain. It is also intended to earmark locations for campsites around the lake that would enhance existing walking and cycling routes.

According to Eanna Rowe, Waterways Ireland marketing chief, tourism programmes would also work on niche markets around historic houses, castles and gardens and historic Christian heritage sites, including Holy Island and Clonmacnoise.

Meanwhile, the study of Lough Derg, conducted in 2008/’09 over a 15-month period, sampled several areas from Portumna, Co Galway, to Ballina/Killaloe, Co Clare. The research investigated the influence of the lake’s surroundings on its dissolved organic carbon levels, arising from human activities such as urbanisation, farming and forestry.

The study, part of a larger investigation involving research groups in the US and Canada hopes to contribute to the climate change debate. Dr David Sutton, Limerick Institute of Technology, said dissolved organic matter sampled at the point at which the Nenagh River enters the lake indicated pollution from farming.

“However, the lager study which encompasses all of the lake shows that the influence of natural organic matter to be much greater and of considerable interest to our wider investigation,” he added.

The influence of the Nenagh River may be a seasonal anomaly linked to spring/summer time agricultural practices or a one off pollution incident which the sampler happened to pick up at that particular time, he pointed out.

The study, which will be published early in the new year in an international environmental journal, goes on to suggest that the presence of zebra mussels may be influencing the delicate ecosystem of Lough Derg to a point that new trends in the natural cycles are beginning to be established.