It’s a grand canal but hard to navigate

THE Royal Canal has recently been re-opened, after more than half a century of dereliction, for through travel from the Liffey to the north Shannon.

That, at least, is the theory. In practice, the newly re-opened navigation is experiencing some teething problems.

I know about this, because I am currently travelling it in a very large boat, called the Rambler, to make a new series of Waterways programmes for television. We are making progress, but this is due to the fact that we had the foresight to bring a chain saw for pruning over-hanging trees, and a hand winch to pull us over underwater obstacles. We also had an issue with an Irish Rail lifting-bridge that failed to lift. If you want the full details of our heroic battle against the obstacles, you’ll have to wait until the series is broadcast on RTÉ television at the end of the year.