Irish Canoe Classics

Well, we’re back, we’ve been to Ireland, paddled the Cork Blackwater (and a lot more) and survived it!

It’s interesting that in 17 days in Ireland (north and south), travelling 2,000 miles, and having been in 26 counties out of the 32, we saw no open canoes on cars, and only 2 vehicles with sea kayaks on.

I wanted to get the Blackwater experience down quickly so that anybody might make comments on it.

The start of the story was in early April when I went up from Waterford for a day to see if there were any obvious difficulties. I had paddled the river as a teenager in either 1964 or 65, on a family holiday when my younger brother and I joined an organised holiday party, run by an Irish company. The Blackwater was obviously at that time both a major river, and a very likely contender for the most popular in Ireland – so what happened? I had tried internet sites during the last year, but found only fishing sites – ominous? I had also spoken to paddlers, e-mailed the ICU, and on this visit gone and spoken to both local people, and also tourist information offices, who had neither information, or knowledge.

(A note here – if we had been told that we couldn’t do something, according to Irish law, we would have respected it – i.e. ‘when in Rome…’ )

At Lismore I met two Guards who were looking into a theft from a car the night before. We chatted for a bit, and they soon told me, not that one could not paddle on the river, but that the area was heavily ‘preserved’, and that camping on the banks was not on – they said that people at night had been removed by them if the landowners (mainly Lismore Estate) accused them of poaching (this being by either people from Cork City, or travellers).

They looked a little bemused about canoeing on the river, but their advice was that it was vehicle parking, plus walking on the land without permission that caused problems. They advised paddling straight through, and only stopping on public land.

So, on Monday June 16^th, I met with both Tony, my Irish companion, and three friends from Scotland, at the cottage they had rented for the week at Ballyhooly, between Mallow and Fermoy. Our plan was to do a day above Mallow (this turned out to be right – the river was at a June low, and only possible from Banteer at the highest, (24 km, 16 miles), a day from Mallow to Fermoy, both easy towns to launch from, (33 km, 20.5 miles), and then a long day to go down from Fermoy to Cappoquin (35 km, 22 miles), as I had already determined that both Ballyduff Bridge, and Lismore bridge, on this stretch were impossible to reach the river from.

So, how did we get on? Well, before my moans, let’s recount the good points;

• All the local people we met were very friendly and helpful, and interested in these strange craft (very few had ever seen an open canoe).
• The only people we met who were actually angling (four in all!) were OK.
• There were no ‘No Canoeing’ signs.
• We called in at the campsite at Fermoy, the only one on the river, and the owner was both helpful, and very interested in having more canoeists – he said he had a small trickle of people paddling calling at his site.
• Tourist information at Fermoy (closed when I called in April) is run from a fishing tackle shop by an English woman! She was asking for more trade in the valley, and hinted that the area was a bit backward in many ways – the outdoor activities brochure she had for Kerry and Cork has a white water kayaker on the cover!
• The only points on the river where there is fly fishing (you can see by the strimmed banks) are very limited (out of 92 km!) – 400m at Ballymaquirk bridge at the start, about 800m. between Killavullen and Ballyhooly, and then a few km (2 or 3?), around Ballyduff.

However, we met a real jobsworth at Ballymaquirk Bridge at the start, and all of us were disgusted that this guy, from Yorkshire, kept talking about ‘my river’, ‘my country’ etc. He was a disgrace. Basically, he told us to bugger off, and kept harassing us. (We ended up ignoring him, and refused to talk after a few exchanges).

Amongst the things he said, either to us directly, when three of us were waiting for the other two to do the car shuttle, or to my wife, who luckily had driven them back, and was not leaving a car there (she stayed on the bridge to take photos) were;

• This was a private river, and he ran that part for the landowner.
• We would disturb fishing for the whole day (no one was fishing).
• He got rid of canoeists by persecuting them, and eventually they got the message.
• It wasn’t an idea to leave vehicles there – they got damaged (we knew already).
• We were disturbing the gravel in the river (no, we did not), and there were salmon eggs there (no, there wasn’t, this was June!), and this was an offence.
• ‘Strangers’ were not welcome in these parts - they wanted no visitors (apart from anglers paying to fish, presumably).
• Canoeing is an extremely environmentally unfriendly activity.

Apparently, as we set off, he used his mobile phone to contact two mates downriver – we met no one (in fact, in three days on the river, we met no one!).

So, it appears for a few measly kilometres of river, if that, one person can frighten off part of the tourist trade, in an area that is palpably poorer than many parts of Ireland, and get away with it!

The river is absolutely beautiful, well worth it, not built up at all.

So, what do you think?