Henrik Ibsen 2017-18

In 2017 the Henrik Ibsen travelled the Shannon, the Grand, the Barrow and the Royal for four months. At the end of this page is a summary from IWN. We did not return to the Shannon before may 2018.

Here is some information about the 2017 tour on the Irish rivers Shannon, the Barrow and the Grand and Royal Canal.

As some will know, we did not make it down the Barrow due to low water level on the river, we had to turn back at Leighlinbridge after several groundings and warnings from local boaters. Furthermore, we had trouble navigating the east part of the Grand Canal due to flooding of the locks. We were not welcomed in the Grand Canal Dock, as the person who "owned" the spot where we moored asked us to go somewhere else, as this had been her spot for the last 4 years. After a very successfull crossing of the Liffey and start on the Royal Canal, the summit level around Mullingar turned out nearly dry. The canal was not accessible, even for Waterways Ireland's harvesters. We had to stop at a nice place (Furey's Pub in Moyvally) to wait for the rainy season, which meant a good few months.

Finally, mid-October we moved on, but only as far as Mary Lynch's. The waterlevel had been up for a few days, but was now down again, and we picked up lots of plastic from the bottom of the canal. We tried to reach Mullingar, but in vain. Scraped the bottom all the time, and could not get rid of the plastic on the propeller. Eventually we gave up, hired a big crane, lorry and low-loader to pick the boat up and bring it back to the Shannon.