NEW Season 3, Waterways through Time with historian, Turtle Bunbury
By Turtle Bunbury Histories
In the NEW SEASON 3 of Waterways through Time, historian Turtle Bunbury further explores the rich history of Ireland’s waterways. With an instinct for quirky details, Turtle turns his attention to the creation of the Grand Canal and the Royal Canal, and how they affected the evolution of the Shannon and Barrow River systems. Full of fascinating and lesser-known facts, this Season includes interviews with Gwen Wilkinson, who named her homemade boat ‘Minnot’ before setting out on her 400 km journey; Patsy Cummins, retired lockkeeper of the Grand Canal’s 29th lock; Joe Gillespie on the rebuilding of the Shannon-Erne Waterway and County Fermanagh storyteller Seamas McAnnaidh, bringing insights to writers and their influences on the water.
Latest episode
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NEW Episode 8, Season 3, The Navvies
Turtle is joined by Ultan Cowley who shares his insights into the daily lives, motivations and semi-mythological reputations of the Irish navvies who built the canals, and how their successors built Britain’s railways, motorways and the Channel... -
NEW Episode 7, Season 3, The Royal Canal
Started on the eve of the French Revolution, the Royal Canal is Ireland’s longest manmade waterway running for 145 km (90 miles) from Dublin to the River Shannon. Here Turtle tells the colourful story of its founders Long John Binns and William... -
NEW Episode 6, Season 3: 30 Year Anniversary of the Shannon-Erne Waterway/
It is now 30 yrs since the completion of the Shannon-Erne waterway, linking the Shannon and Erne river systems. It was a pioneering project in many ways, not least as one of the first major collaborative efforts between Northern Ireland and the... -
NEW S3, Episode 5: Writers on the Erne
Irish language novelist and historian Séamas Mac Annaidh discusses his childhood on the island of Enniskillen, as well as the monks who compiled the Annals of Ulster on Belle Isle, the school where Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett studied, and a poem..… -
Genesis
Featuring cameos by James Joyce’s canal-building forbear and Black Tom Wentworth, we learn how the desire to drain and improve Ireland’s boglands led the industrious Georgians to slowly (very slowly) construct some of the island’s earliest... -
NEW Episode 4, S3, The Grand Canal
Turtle charts the twists and turns of the long-running project to connect Dublin to the River Shannon. -
Episode 3, S3 THE 29th LOCK
Patsy Cummins is the third generation of her family to work on the Grand Canal. Having been keeper of the 29th lock near Tullamore, she talks of the friendships she made along the way and explains how a tragedy at Shannon Bridge brought her family... -
NEW: Episode 1 S3: Paddling the Waterways’
Dive into this gorgeous interview with Gwen Wilkinson, who named her homemade boat ‘Minnot’ before setting out on her 400 km journey from the shores of Lough Erne to the tidal waters of the River Barrow in Ireland. -
Hidden Treasures of the Waterways
Turtle talks with marine archaeologist, Dr Connie Kelleher, about the exciting revelations of underwater archaeology on Irish waterways from Neolithic logboats to battle debris to the treasures of the modern age. -
Boating on the Barrow
Boating guru Cliff Reid of www.boatrips.ie discusses the glorious historical, geographical and natural elements of the River Barrow, the second-longest river in Ireland.
