Dick Warner, broadcaster, environmentalist and keen water enthusiast recently gave a running, or rather walking commentary on the history of the Grand Canal.

Assembling at Portobello Bridge, on a damp Saturday in April, Dick with loudspeaker in hand, treated 20 or so walkers to an entertaining and informative essay on the 166 mile long canal, which stretches from Ringsend right through to Ballinasloe in Co. Galway.

As a flock of adolescent mute swans listened in behind us, Dick explained that the first sod of the Grand Canal was laid in 1756 at Sallins, Co. Kildare. It was an extraordinary undertaking at the time, because of the almost biblical scale of the project involving 5,000 men diverting water from the nearby river, without the use of machinery.

The canal enjoyed over 200 years of commercial activity with barges taking cargo to and from the city on an almost daily basis. The Georgian buildings around Portobello were in fact, constructed from gravel and stone brought from quarries in the midlands by canal transport.

Guinness was probably the most well-known trafficker on the Grand Canal and dray horses pulling barges with barrels of the black stuff were a familiar sight to Dubliners in the 19th and 20th century. The last commercial cargo on the canal was, fittingly enough, a Guinness barge to Limerick in 1950.

Decades later, the Grand Canal has become a leisure amenity for boat people, fishermen and strollers, who can follow well-designed walkways from the city basin to the middle of the country.

And if you are looking to get a foothold on the property ladder and can’t afford exorbitant house prices in our capital city, perhaps you might consider a houseboat on the Grand Canal. You can sail home to your supper for just €20,000 or less. Start ordering those deck shoes now!