SWIMMING IN THE LOCKS
by Marianne Murphy
We rented a narrow boat,to travel down the Barrow river from Canalways in Rathangan, County Kildare. Our boat was 50ft long by 10ft wide. It had all the comforts of home. We were headed downstream and had to navigate through 300 year old locks which were an amazing feat of engineering. In the beggining of the trip my son Rory(named after irish guitarist, Rory Gallagher), made the comment, "It sure would be a bummer if someone dropped the lock key in the locks". Well as Murphys' law would have it as we were going out of Athy we were in the locks filling the water tanks when,CLANG,BOOM, SLPOOSH,@#$%^&!!!.You guessed it he dropped the lock key into the lock.Rory was very upset and I could not stop laughing. I told him to knock on the lock keepers house and he should have a key. Well this one had been out sick for 2 years and didn't have a lock key so he called our old friend Joe Moore fourth generation lock keeper who we met at the beggining of our adventure and he came down, laughing.He said he would drain the lock and Rory would have to go swimming and diving for the key. I told Joe "I bet the whole town is going to gather to see this". He said laughing,"Oh Marianne, were not like that here", as a crowd gathered on the sides of the locks. Rory was saying, "I am probably going to get e.barrow coli," and jumped in. After several diving attempts coming up with various objects he finally broke triumphantly through the murky surface of the water holding the lock key. The crowd cheered, it was as my Mother used to say "Another Murphy moment". |