Present Day
By the 1970s, the canal was falling into total disrepair and became a dumping ground for old cars and rubbish. Proposals that the inner Dublin part of the canal be converted to a motorway led to the local community forming an action group to encourage the Dublin City Council to clean and maintain the canal.
Today Waterways Ireland is responsible for the canal. The full canal between the Liffey in Dublin and the Shannon in Co. Longford reopened on 2 October 2010. Access points currently exist near Leixlip and at Maynooth, Enfield, Thomastown, Mullingar, Ballinea Bridge and Ballynacargy.
In 2006 a commemoration marker was erected at Piper's Boreen, Mullingar, to mark the 200 years since the canal reached Mullingar in 1806.
Read more about this topic: Royal Canal
Famous quotes containing the words present and/or day:
“You were born into a different world that will present you with different gifts and challenges. A new vision of manhood will be called for that does not tie so closely into the more aggressive and competitive residues of our male character. You will need to search out new ways of expressing strength, showing mastery, and exhibiting courage—ways that do not depend upon confronting the world before you as an adversary.”
—Kent Nerburn (20th century)
“I am worn out with dreams;
A weather-worn, marble triton
Among the streams;
And all day long I look
Upon this lady’s beauty
As though I had found in a book”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)