Cruising the River Shannon in Worldrover Travel Magazine

GENTLY DOWN THE SHANNON

At Leitram the main bustle was from the cows
as they clattered home along the street.

The village had a shop and three pubs and by
the bridge a poster advertised step dancing
and pig racing.

The SeaCat ferry had us swiftly flying over the waves from Scotland to Ireland.

The giant catamaran takes eighty cars and has room for four hundred and fifty passengers.

There was plenty of room to walk around and the journey took only ninety minutes from Stranraer and we were very soon across the seas to Ireland and moving up into Belfast Loch.

We drove ashore and later that day crossed the border from Northern Ireland into Eire where we and boarded a Shannon Erne Line hire cruiser.

In this seemingly green and peaceful place we took took off our wrist watches and felt time slow down as we began to cruise gently down the River Shannon to a world of sparkling water and lush fields.

We moored up at Leitrim and being as we were in Leitrim County, I was expecting it to be a sizeable place. As it turned out the main bustle was from cows clattering home along the main street. I was a pleasant village, with a shop and three pubs.

A poster advertised a fair whose attractions included step dancing and pig racing.
In the evening to the pub. The scent of the peat burning and the sound of music drew us across the bridge to Carthy’s Bar which pulsed with the beat of traditional music played on Irish pipes, and tabard.

Later down the road at the Leitrim Inn we sipped the Guinness as a young lady sang of
‘Lovely Leitrim’. lovely it was and it sits at the entrance to the Shannon-Erne Canal.

The waterways tend to go through what is the most economically deprived areas of the country, so activity and vitality is being brought back into these parts by the holiday cruisers and it makes a good target for European Community funds

After entering the winding River Boyle we steered our boat through it's meandering into Lough Rey which was peppered with Islands. There we moored at the well maintained piers of the Forest Park.

From across the water, a black raven perched on the castle on Drunman’s Island, welcomed us with a raucous call. At this point we became aware that many of the other boats were being hired by Germans who were very keen on fishing.

One thing is certain there is plenty of room for all and the international atmosphere can be fun. The Dutch couple that we teamed up with became great friends.

The next day it rained so we went ashore to stock up with food at Carrick on Shannon.
As we explored a car slowed up in the high street and the traffic came to a halt as the lady at the wheel shouted her order in to the butcher. Shopping was fun again, the butcher double wrapped our parcel and it tied up with string. He also told a joke that can’t be printed .

A shop next to the bridge was bristling with fishing rods and we were told that no fishing permit was needed, the constitution of Ireland declares that all fishing,(apart from the salmon and the trout,) is free.

We boarded our boat again and cruised south. A grey heron regarding our approach with a beady eye took to the air with a couple of flaps of his great wings, soared across the bows of our cruiser before landing on the other side next to cows that munched contentedly by the wet boggy banks.

The following morning we woke to find the mist that had been hanging on the water was being burned off by the early sun. Amid the trees there was luxuriant growth everywhere. After yesterdays rain, it almost seamed to be growing before our eyes.

At the Albert Lock a friendly keeper caught the lines and after relieving us of the modest toll, he considered that “yesterday was a fierce bad day” and that the crews of the seventy boats that he had to see though the lock in the rain,. could have better spent their time in the village, sampling the Guinness and enjoying the warm fire in the pub.
That was yesterday and today it might be Autumn but with the sun shone warm on our backs, it was glorious and a joy to be afloat.

As we steered our way down the River Shannon, it widened and narrowed as one Lough flowed into another. We followed the buoys that marked our route through Lough Boderg and Bofin and entered the little harbour of Dromod just as another hire cruiser was leaving.

Two girls were casting fishing lines from the bank and the lads on the boat called to them
“Are you doing any serious damage there”
and as an after-thought made the offer
“Would you be wantin to come on board?”
- but the girls seemed to be more interested in fish than fellas so the lads they left without any additional crew!

Report by- Allan Rogers

FACTFILE

Canal Hire Firms http://www.canals.com/hire.htm
Blakes Boating: http://www.blakes.co.uk/
Fast car ferry - SeaCat Scotland. 0345 523 523
Shannon Erne Line Cruisers - Blakes Boating 01603 782911
Leitrim County- North West Tourism, Ireland - 0035371 61201
Shannon-Erne Waterway 0035378 44855

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