The Grand Canal joins the Shannon about halfway between Shannonbridge and Banagher. There was a plan to link the canal to Ballinasloe by extending the canal west of the Shannon - the town is linked to the Shannon via the river Suck, but the river may not have been navigable for barges at the time.
In 1825, workmen digging the canal discovered a tóchar - an ancient roadway across the bog, constructed from logs and perhaps thousands of years old, and leading to the Shannon (perhaps towards Clonmacnoise, though it probably predated the Christian settlement there). It had been buried about a metre below the surface of the bog, and was about 2 metres wide. Spelissey quotes Samuel Lewis who noted, in 1837, that the uncovered roadway had 'crumbled to dust'.
The plan for the canal also crumbled, a victim of the emergence of the railroad industry. Ironically, the bed of the canal was used to lay rail lines by Bord Na Mona, to transport milled peat to the peat-burning powerstation on the Shannon's bank at Shannonbridge.
All that remains now is a set of lock gates and a narrow canal bridge at the end of the road in the townsland of Kylemore, near Clonfert cathedral.
These photos were taken on Monday June 14, 2004.
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