Our big thing is to link the Galway Dublin cycleway into Kilbeggan and along the stretch of the old canal to Ballycommon. That’s around a million euro project and the biggest thing in our Vision for Kilbeggan plan.
Thus Dan Scally of Renew Kilbeggan in the Westmeath Examiner.
Irish waterways history 
So is the implication that they are not just going to use the former towpath for their cycle track, but the actual canal bed?
I wouldn’t have thought the two were mutually exclusive – for instance, as you are doubtless aware, the towpath of the oldest summit-level canal in these islands, the Newry Canal, has been made into a cycle track. Likewise the towpath for much of the former Lagan Navigation. Neither of these have precluded the aspiration to re-open the navigations themselves should the magic funding faeries ever show their beneficence.
I haven’t seen the detailed plans, so I have not drawn that implication. No doubt more will be revealed on 7 March. In the meantime, the important point is that the way can be used without the water. bjg
I see! Well in England, securing a public right-of-way on the former towpath, and resurfacing it into a state that’s viable for walkers and cyclists is often a ‘first step’ for canal restoration societies – a more readily achievable goal that nonetheless prevents further development that might block the line of the canal and raises its profile amoungst those with pots of money to give out. So you may yet have hordes of German boaters sailing merrily to Kilbeggan on their holidays :)