The Royal Canal: the quieter northern waterway
The locks out of the city, the back of Croke Park, and the restored towpath past the old mills. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Newcomen Bridge, North Strand
Start where the canal meets the city, by the locks near the North Strand Road. The railway runs alongside from here — the line into Connolly shares the corridor, so trains and water keep company the whole walk. Look back south for the spire of the city behind you.

2. Lock No. 1 and the Royal Canal Linear Park
The first lock and the start of the restored towpath, reopened as a linear park after decades of dereliction. The black gates still work; volunteers run boats through on occasion. The path is hard-surfaced and easy from here on — a former industrial scar turned into the city's quietest green line.

3. Croke Park backdrop
The canal runs right behind the great GAA stadium — on a match day the roar carries clean across the water, and the stands rise over the towpath like a cliff. Even empty it's a striking backdrop. The Croke Park stadium tour and the GAA Museum are a short hop up the bank if you want them.

4. Binns Bridge, Drumcondra
A handsome stone bridge where the canal crosses under the Drumcondra Road. The old mill buildings and a coal store survive nearby — the working bones of the waterway, when it carried turf and grain into the city before the railway killed the trade.

5. Royal Canal Way and the lock flight
West of Binns Bridge the canal climbs through a flight of locks, the towpath running tree-lined and almost rural between the backs of the redbrick terraces. This is the stretch that rewards the walk — water on one side, gardens on the other, the city's noise gone.

6. Cross Guns Bridge and out to Drumcondra
End at Cross Guns Bridge by Phibsborough, where the canal bends north-west toward Maynooth and beyond. Climb the bank to the Drumcondra commuter station for the train back, or carry on along the towpath another day — it runs, in theory, all the way to the Shannon.

The Royal Canal: the quieter northern waterway