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:
“In Haydn’s oratorios, the notes present to the imagination not only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but colors also; as the green grass.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“On the day that will always belong to you,
lunar clockwork had faltered
and I was certain. Walking
the streets of Manhattan I thought:
Remember this day. I felt already
like an urn, filling with wine.”
—Rita Dove (b. 1952)