According to Waterways Ireland’s website, there is to be a half Marathon [a marathon is an old chocolate bar, my advisors tell me] in Clontarf on 1 June 2017. No doubt some politician will be on hand to emulate the miracle of the loaves and the fishes; otherwise most of those attending are likely to go hungry.
But what interests me is Waterways Ireland’s assertion that the location of this chocolate bar is the Grand Canal.
Now, when ah wur a lad, it was generally understood that Clontarf was on the north side of the Liffey, where the natives ate their babies, whereas the Grand Canal was on the south side, where the better element of the population resided. We don’t, of course, talk about that sort of thing nowadays, but I am still surprised to find that the Grand Canal, or any part of it, has been relocated to the north side of the Liffey. Where, I ask myself, is the aqueduct on which it crosses the Liffey?
Irish waterways history 