Opening the Eglington Canal & getting the Corrib region opened

I’m not advocating for or against, but I was walking along it recently & it struck me that it wouldn’t take much work to lower the water level enough to allow passage of boats through again. You’d need a new lock upstream of the university road bridge, but beyond that I don’t see any issues with getting boats down to the basin once the river flows are sluiced off.

The question is, would boaters want the Corrib accessible from the bay? Or would that bring more harm than good?

deaglan1

Interesting idea to lower the water level - it would need quite a lowering though, imo. How many craft would want to go from seawater to freshwater and vice versa could be a bigger obstacle - the days of transporting goods by water are long gone. From a leisure perspective, I would love to see an effort made to link the Corrib, Mask & Carra via canal. Is the defunct canal between Mask & Corrib rescuable? If it was lined to become waterproof using modern techniques would that not be a worthy project? An alternative inland water body of these three lakes could offer a new destination for those who are used to the Shannon/Erne system. Infact, pie in the sky, why not also build a new canal from Ballinasloe across East Galway and into the Corrib - then this Western waterbody could be linked into the Shannon/Erne and bring a new type of tourism to Galway & Mayo. Building new canals is commonplace in England. One final thought, there is a set of abandoned canals between Lough Corrib and Ross lake, passing through Ballyquirke lough & Moycullen en route - maybe not suitable for cruisers but certainly for lake boats & kayakers.

BarryD2

I don't think we near the same tradition of inland water travel here as in England or mainland Europe. Given the bruhaha over building railways or even greenways, can't see the tax payer here extending to building navigable canals!

deaglan1

Agree with you there Barry... apparently even trying to create a greenway on the old Athenry-Tuam-Claremorris line, even a temporary one, seems to be impossible...you never know, someday some major heavy engineering industries will relocate to the region and that is why the railway track should remain as a grass overgrown railway track forevermore. East Galway needs to reinvent itself - it cannot compete with Connemara for tourists and it cannot compete with Galway city for tourists.