River Shannon April 12th

We have now lived aboard The Puzzler for two years, and have been in Ireland for a whole week. We did not move yesterday, due to high winds, with even the satellite dish blowing over on the roof.


Lanesborough Power station is just across the bay here. It burns 400,000 tons of peat each year, which is mostly powdered.

We sailed up the River Shannon past Lanesborough. The road bridge here, like the town bridge in Athlone, has had an arch removed, to be replaced with a rectangular box section. This allows more headroom, but does nothing for the look of the bridge!

There are marker buoys up the river, to show where the channel is for navigation. It is extremely wide here and is rather like Tixall Wide all the way!
The railway bridge, a mile upstream, carries a narrow gauge railway, which transports peat to Lanesborough power station.

The lock at Tarmonbarry is our first Irish lock. It has very long old-fashioned lock beams, which are no longer in use as it is now hydraulic. Locks cost 1.5 euros to navigate.

Having moored above the lock, we walked back to see a new development, situated behind the lock. It is very smart, surrounding the new marina, but there are very few boats there.