One Friday a few years ago — It must have been St. Patrick’s Day — I was having drinks with my friends at a pub, when Barry suggested that we all travel to Ireland and canoe down the Shannon River, making stops at villages along the way. We didn’t know if such a canoe trip in Ireland was possible, but because we had finished a few jugs of beer, we enthusiastically agreed. Although Barry’s trip never came to fruition, his suggestion eventually led to Michelle and me traveling to Ireland with our good friends, Dave and Leslie, and spending a day canoeing on an Irish river. It wasn’t as adventurous as Barry’s plan, but it was more adventurous than we expected.
Our two-week trip started in Dublin, and from there, we traveled by train to Galway, Killarney, and Kilkenny, before returning to Dublin to fly home. I found an outfitter near Kilkenny that rented canoes and offered various trips that promised views of old castles and churches, through remote, majestic forests. There was only one problem: the trips were down the Barrow River, not the Shannon River. I didn’t complain, though–it was the only outfitter I could find that rented canoes. Apparently, the Irish don’t love canoeing as much as we Canadians.
I booked a day trip starting at Goresbridge and ending at Graiguenamanagh, a short taxi ride from Kilkenny. The website said it takes on average five hours to canoe the approximately fifteen-kilometer trip. That should have been my first clue that canoeing in Ireland differed from canoeing in Canada because Michelle and I can paddle fifteen kilometers down the North Saskatchewan River in less than two hours.
On the morning of the canoe trip, the forecast called for rain in the afternoon, so we packed our rain jackets and traveled to Goresbridge to meet up with the outfitter and start the trip. To our dismay, we found the canoes were not remotely like the canoes we owned in Canada, which are designed to handle rivers with rapids. These canoes may have had two pointy ends, but they were wide flat-bottomed boats, with keels and seats that had beverage holders. They were also heavy, and the outfitter gave us plastic instead of wooden paddles. These boats were great for having a floating party, but not for shooting rapids. Just as we were launching our canoes, the outfitter mentioned that we would have to portage around weirs. I thought: what the hell is a weir? Much to our displeasure, we soon found out.
The Barrow River was slow and meandering at our launch point, so I felt smug, having canoed untamed Canadian rivers. We barely started paddling when we encountered the first weir and discovered that a weir is a low dam with a boat lock built across the river to raise the water level and regulate the water flow, allowing larger boats to travel up the river. This made it difficult to get small boats, like canoes, around them.
We tried portaging around the weir by lifting the canoe up the steep river bank and carrying it over a hundred meters to the end, but these canoes were so heavy, that two people were needed to accomplish the task. Once we reached the end, we still had one more problem: getting the canoes back into the river. We couldn’t use the stairs down to the boat lock because it was still too high above the water to safely launch. Instead, we attached a rope to the canoe and slowly dropped it back into the water, where there was a narrow cement shelf to launch.
We quickly abandoned that method because it was too exhausting, so at the next weir, we decided to just go down the rushing water along the weir. Dave and I stood in the rushing water, with Michelle and Leslie staying in the bow position of the boats while we guided the canoes down to the river. This method may have been easier and faster, but we got soaking wet and were taking our chances on slipping on the rocks and going for a swim in the river while our canoe either capsized or drifted downstream with our wives.
One weir was exceedingly difficult because of a long stretch of rapids along the bottom. Dave and Leslie went first, and Michelle and l cautiously followed, fearing for our lives, and once getting out of the canoe to guide it over some large rapids. Much to our relief, we made it safely to calmer waters. By this time, I wasn’t feeling as smug.
To make matters worse, it started raining. And it never stopped. Our rain jackets helped a little, but between standing in the rushing water and paddling in the rain, we all got soaking wet from the waist down.
Five hours later, exhausted and soaked, we made it to Graiguenamanagh. To our relief, there was a small restaurant next to the river where our journey ended. The owner brought us tea and let us use the washrooms to dry off. We stayed for a wonderful Irish meal, and she arranged a taxi ride for us back to Kilkenny. It was a fantastic ending to a miserable canoe trip. But as Dave likes to remind me, it’s always the challenging canoe trips you most fondly remember.
One Last Kick 