One of my favourite places in the world is the mouth of the harbour in Berehaven, with Ardnakinna lighthouse looking down on you from your port side and the Pipers Rocks standing tall and secure to starboard. Even more special are the Glas Lochs, a series of lakes in a scooped-out basin in the Caha
My nearest body of water is the Grand Canal. I lived at the 21st Lockhouse, Ballycommon for many years. My Grandad, James Fisher, is the lock keeper at this lock and I have many special memories of helping him open locks and put boats through. Locks are essential when the canal flows through territory which
Up at Belgard, the caged fox paced, confined for tomorrow’s foxhunt. Down at Clondalkin, the ancient Round Tower pointed at a cloudless sky as the Grand Canal’s waters glittered in Spring sunshine. Another lovely day in Clondalkin, what could go wrong? Lunchtime at the gunpowder mill near the Tower. Work was tough, fuelled by the
When I stand on the bridge in Ballytore and look into the river, I am taken back to childhood remembering happy times spent walking the banks, going to and from school in Crookstown, and paddling in the shallows below the bridge. The Greise river rises in Tubber Co. Wicklow and flows into the ‘Barrow, near
The gullet is a small stream of water that runs under the boreen where I live. It flows in to the Camogue River near the village of Emly. In winter it floods up so much it is barely able to get through the eye of the bridge. When I was a young lad it had
The author recollects the river Nore at John’s Quay, Kilkenny, over fifty years ago – the fishing for eel (now a conserved species), and brown trout, the brickeens brought home in bucketfuls, tadpoles in April, working artists by the waterside, pleasure boats in summer, the occasional otter, quayside houses flooded as winter rains blew in.
Growing up beside the Irish Sea in South County Dublin, it was not surprising that as a child I viewed the sea as something special. My mother brought us children down to Sandycove harbour every sunny morning of our childhood summers for a swim, she would bring a flask of coffee and we would play
Our river didn’t have a name. It still doesn’t. Though fed by a large spring and several farm drainage pipes, I suppose it wasn’t a river; more of a fast-flowing stream. But to me, as an undergrown child, it was a river. It was the obstacle I had to jump over on little legs. I
My memory of my summer holidays in France Puivert lake is in France. I go there every year. When I see Puivert lake, I see a huge lake, lots of trees behind it, I see gliders going around in the sky – and sometimes a plane pulling the glider. I also see the cafe –
This is about a river that flows through County Meath. It enters the sea at Drogheda, flowing through Slane at speed. Trinity is where it begins: from a well, a spring, a drain. Flows northeast past hilly heritage: Tara, Screen and Slane. I love to walk along its banks, starting off at the Bridge of
The Broadmeadow Estuary between Swords and Malahide is a natural amenity that attracts a lot of visitors daily. Growing up in Swords in the late fifties it was the place my parents often took me for a walk, to see and feed the swans, to meet my Uncle Denis, togged out in his waders as