In 2019, Gwen Wilkinson set herself the challenge of building a canoe and paddling it the length of Ireland, along a network of inland waterways. She set out from the shores of Lough Erne and navigated a 400 km journey to the tidal waters of the River Barrow in Ireland. More than just a travelogue, her new book, The Waters and the Wild explores the interwoven histories of the people and wildlife that shaped Gwen’s journey. This is an extract from the book…

THE PLAN WAS simple: build a canoe and paddle it the length of Ireland along a network of rivers and canals.

In modern English, the word ‘odyssey’ describes a long journey or spiritual quest marked by many changes of fortune. Such voyages are elemental in the ancient Celtic tradition of immrama and echtrae – the Gaelic word ioramh meaning ‘to row about’.

These early Irish folk stories recount navigational journeys in which the hero sets out in search of the Otherworld or the Promised Land. Springing from an oral heritage, these epic tales have been passed down through generations, adapted and refined over the course of time.

The voyage

I have a weakness for voyage tales. Growing up, I consumed countless books about the sea and the many great oceanic adventures, from Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki voyage to Dame Naomi James’s triumphant tale as the first female to sail solo around the world via Cape Horn.

I allowed myself to be seduced by stories of mythical islands, such as Tír na nÓg, Hy Brasil and Jonathan Swift’s Lilliput. I was enthralled and terrified by descriptions of Lasconius, Moby Dick and Jaws, mythical leviathans of the deep.

I ran away with a sailor when I had just finished a degree at university. Hungry for adventure and impatient to escape the confines of life on a small island, I set off to travel the length and breadth of the world’s great oceans.

For most of my twenties, I worked and lived on racing yachts. Sailing on the high seas was an addictive way of life – exotic and exciting, with a whiff of danger.

Ocean-crossing on a boat powered by sail alone is physically and mentally challenging. Concepts of space and time took on a new import. The longest voyage I ever made at sea beyond the sight of land was 38 days. The experience was immersive in the extreme. On those journeys, I realised how possible it was to experience remoteness and wildness.

Then, after several years, I turned my back on the nomadic lifestyle of a sea gypsy. I hankered instead for a more stable, settled and routine existence, until what should have been a perfectly benign experience triggered an old familiar yearning.

Repetitive strain injury was causing serious pain in my right arm. Fifteen years moulding steel to form objects of sculpture had taken its toll on the tendons in my wrist.

I was presented with two options: have surgery or stop what I was doing. As I wavered at the crossroads, some friends came to my rescue. One fine day they bundled me into their car and took me down to my local river – the Barrow, which flows for almost 200 kilometres through the southeast of Ireland.

Recently, a company started offering self-guided canoe trips along its length. Three of us piled into a heavy open canoe and set off downstream for the day.

My crewmates did the paddling, while I sat like Cleopatra in the middle of the canoe. Arcadian views of river, mountain and sky unfolded.

We passed through ancient wooded landscapes that appeared to be devoid of any human presence. The low perspective and silent passage of the canoe immersed us in the river’s habitat. We became absorbed in the waterscape, listening, watching and savouring the environment around us. Gently paced and physically undemanding, the voyage was the essence of slow travel. 

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The simplicity of the adventure and the sense of escapism it invoked were revelatory. Freed from the noise and stench of diesel-engine power and the complexity of ropes, winches and bossy skippers, I was transfixed by the experience and craved more.

Follow the waters

Returning from the day’s paddling, I rummaged out some maps and examined the Barrow’s course. Like most rivers, it can be navigated only so far upstream until it becomes too shallow even for a canoe.

But near the river’s headwaters I noted a short, man-made waterway that would allow me to navigate all the way to the Grand Canal.

Once on that waterway, I would be able to follow its course westwards across the middle of the country and arrive on the banks of the mighty River Shannon. And the journey did not need to end there. As my finger traced the river’s course upstream, I encountered a junction with yet another canal: the Shannon–Erne Waterway.

This restored semi-artificial waterway allowed boats to pass, as the name suggests, from the Shannon to the River Erne, arriving ultimately at the Atlantic Ocean on the island’s northwest coast. In theory, a vessel could navigate a 400-kilometre journey on this inland waterway network. The desire to attempt such a voyage by canoe became irresistible.

Since early childhood, Gwen Wilkinson has been exploring waterways, from canal and river journeys onboard her parents’ barge to transatlantic crossings on ocean racing yachts. An award-winning professional artist and ecologist, she lives in the foothills of the Blackstairs Mountains in South Country Carlow. The Waters and the Wild is her first book, published now.