page_title: Royal Canal
section_title: Usage
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Canal / History / Usage
caption_attribution_description: Ferns' Lock - about 3 Km west of Kilcock, Co. Kildare. A really fine example of a lock system on the Royal Canal. &quot;Fern's lock&quot; (local reference to the area) consists of the Canal lock station (pair of locks), left hand turn road bridge (to Summerhill) over the Royal canal and partially restored remains of the lock keeper's house. A bitterly cold February day makes the photographs look a little gloomy. Will return in summer to update this collectio, There is an automated railway level crossing adjacent to the Lock. The Lock (Number 17) marks the begining of &quot;The Long Level&quot; - the 32 kilometer stretch until the next lock gate at Thomastown, Killucan, Co. Westmeath. Walkers wishing to access Kilcock (from Enfield direction) must use the left bank. Walkers wishing to access Enfield from Kilcock must also use the left bank (switching sides further down at Cloncurry). Whils't the Canal Bank from Ferns' Lock to Kilcock is in good condition the bank to Enfield is more rugged. The bank cutting is very narrow in places making it difficult for machinery to maintain the bank grass etc. This is probably OK in summer but makes for wet and murky conditions in Winter. On Geograph File:Fern's Lock on the Royal Canal near Kilcock, Co. Kildare - geograph.org.uk - 1387796.jpg
context_page_description: The Royal Canal is a canal originally built for freight and passenger transportation from the River Liffey in Dublin to Longford in Ireland. The canal fell into disrepair in the late 20th century, but much of the canal has since been restored for navigation. The length of the canal to the River Shannon was reopened on 1 October 2010, but the final spur branch of the canal to Longford Town remains closed.
context_section_description: The original 1796 fare from Dublin to Kilcock was 1/1, much cheaper than the stagecoach.
  The canal passes through Maynooth, Kilcock, Enfield, Mullingar and Ballymahon has a spur to Longford. The total length of the main navigation is 145 kilometres (90 mi), and the system has 46 locks. There is one main feeder (from Lough Owel), which enters the canal at Mullingar.
  In 200 years it has been maintained by eight successive agencies: the Royal Canal Company, the Commissioners of Inland Navigation, the New Royal Canal Company, Midland Great Western Railway Company, Great Southern Railways, CIÉ, and (from 1986) the Office of Public Works.
  During the Famine, “the missing 1,490” starving tenants of Denis Mahon in Strokestown House, Roscommon, set out on foot from the estate in May 1847. Major Mahon had offered them the choice of emigration through “assisted passage”, starvation on their blighted potato patch farms or a place in the terrifying local workhouse. These families weakened by starvation walked for days along the towpaths of the Royal Canal to Dublin, where they were put on boats to Liverpool, and from there to Quebec aboard four “coffin ships” – cargo ships, ironically loaded with grain from Ireland, and unsuitable for passengers. It is estimated that half died before reaching Grosse Île in Canada. It was the largest single disposal of inconvenient tenants during the Famine. Major Mahon was shot dead that November after news had got back to Roscommon about the fate of his former tenants. An annual walk on the canal banks commemorates the events.
  
  By the 1830s the canal carried 80,000 tons of freight and 40,000 passengers a year.
   In 1843, while walking with his wife along the Royal Canal, Sir William Rowan Hamilton realised the formula for quaternions and carved his initial thoughts into a stone on the Broom Bridge over the canal.  The annual Hamilton Walk commemorates this event. In 1845 the canal was bought by the Midland Great Western Railway Company. They considered draining the canal and building a new railway along its bed but decided instead to build the railway beside the canal. The two run side by side from Dublin to Mullingar. Competition from the railways gradually eroded the canal's business and by the 1880s annual tonnage was down to about 30,000 and the passenger traffic had all but disappeared.
  It had a brief resurgence during World War II, when horses and barges returned to the canal. CIÉ took over the canal in 1944. As rail and road traffic increased, the canal fell into disuse. In 1974, volunteers from the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland formed the Royal Canal Amenity Group to save the canal. By 1990 they had 74 kilometres of canal, from the 12th lock in Blanchardstown to Mullingar, open again for navigation. In 2000, the canal was taken over by Waterways Ireland, a cross-border body charged with administering Ireland's inland navigations. On 1 October 2010, the whole length of the canal was formally reopened.
caption: Ferns' Lock
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