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Monuments to eighteenth-century confidence in Irish trade, the Royal and Grand canals flow from Dublin through County Kildare and on into the Irish heartland. While Ireland had experienced a minor industrial revolution in the mid- to late-eighteenth century, when mines, mills, workshops and canals were created, the Act of Union precluded further development. By walking along the towpaths, or cruising on the Grand Canal, you can see how industrialization affected - and failed to affect - the eighteenth-century landscape. The Grand Canal was a monumentally ambitious project, running from Dublin to Robertstown, where it forks. The southern branch joins the River Barrow at Athy, effectively extending the waterway as far south as Waterford, while the western branch runs up to Tullamore in County Offaly and on to join the great natural waterway of the Shannon at Shannon Harbour. As late as 1837 the Grand Canal was carrying over 100,000 passengers a year; it continued to be used for freight right up to 1960. These days narrow boats can be hired in Tullamore (contact Celtic Canal Cruisers tel 0506/21861); from where you can explore the Grand Canal west to meet the River Shannon, or east and then south to join the River Barrow. The Royal Canal runs past Maynooth and Mullingar before joining the Shannon, many tortuous meanderings later, at Cloondara, north of Lough Rea, for access to the northwest. With the recent reopening of the Shannon-Erne Waterway , these southern waterways are linked once more with the Fermanagh Lakes in the North, as they were in the nineteenth century.
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