Ireland day 1507. Thursday 13 November 2025- Greenway

Today’s summary	Attended to some admin in Malahide in the morning then had some biscuits fruit and coffee instead of lunch. Took the train in to Dublin in the afternoon and walked from Connolly to the Botanics along the newly reopened section of the National Famine Trail that runs under Croke Park. Lunch at the Botanics then bus and Dart back after looking in the greenhouses. Light dinner only as lunch was huge. Finished off the Windsors on tv.
Today’s weather	Rain overnight then mostly dry and bright with a couple of showers later on. Almost no wind. Appx 11c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): New Royal Canal Towpath

Commentary

In the first few weeks after we moved to Ireland four years ago, I remember walking from Connolly almost as far as the Botanic Gardens, along the rather scrappy National Famine Trail, which runs on the Royal Canal towpath. But when I came to do it again the next year, I discovered that almost the whole section from Newcomen Bridge to Drumcondra had been closed for extensive repairs.

Anyway, the good news is that a couple of weeks ago, four years and €31million after the work started, the whole section has been completely reopened. So naturally Val and I needed to go and check it out. That was our objective for today.

But first, I had some errands to run in Malahide and Val wanted to get on with her knitting for a bit. So we did what we had to do, then had a cup of tea, some biscuits and a couple of satsumas for lunch, and set off.

For once it wasn’t raining and it wasn’t cold, so it was no hardship to wait a few minutes on the station platform for a train. Then by the time we got off in Connolly, the sun was actually shining.

We came out of Connolly station under the tunnel then walked east to the start of the Royal Canal, where it meets the Liffey near the International Convention Centre. We had wanted to go inland from the river but the bridge on Georges Dock is still closed for repairs after it was vandalised a few months ago.

Once we reached the lock at the Liffey terminus of the canal, we turned inland on the towpath, walking past the Luke Kelly (Dubliners) bust, and then all the way along as far as Drumcondra.

What a transformation from four years ago! No expense seems to have been spared, and now the path is a delight to follow. My only niggles might be that it’s tarmacked all the way, so it’s quite hard in your feet, and that it’s shared with bikes, so you have to have eyes in the back of your heads. It’s clean and fresh at the moment – let’s hope it stays that way and doesn’t get spoiled by litter and graffiti.

We both really enjoyed the short (6km) walk and particularly the interesting section which passes right under the shadow of Croke Park, the giant GAA stadium. So by the time we arrived at the botanic gardens, we were both quite hungry. Luckily, the café was still serving their delicious roast beef dinners, so we got one each and came away stuffed. In fact there was so much beef, we had to bring some back to Malahide with us.

After eating, we had a quick dose of the Mediterranean in the greenhouses, then caught a no 23 bus for the scenic if slow top deck journey back to Pearse. A Dart came along after only a couple of minutes and we were back in the flat by about 6pm.

In the evening, we skipped dinner having eaten so much at the Botanics, though did sustain ourselves with a couple of the deluxe liquorice allsorts that we’d got from Lotts yesterday. Finally, we finished off the last two episodes of the Windsors before calling time on the day and retiring satisfied to bed.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


At the start of the towpath – where the Royal Canal meets the Liffey at the Dublin Drawbridge on the North Wall	Luke Kelly – lead singer in the Dubliners group. A curious but quite attractive statue. He’s about 3 metres tall

Val checking out the lifting mechanism at Spencer Bridge, just behind Luke	Signage for the newly refurbished route

The Tolka river was in spate – I’ve never seen it so full. Mind you it has been exceptionally wet here lately	I love these Strelitzias – seemingly always in bloom in the curvilinear range

Lunch! Enough beef left over to make at least two more meals!