A tough ride on the Royal Canal Greenway
There was a slight drizzle as I sat on a bench in the playground with my daughter Gwyneth, aged 11. Finding accommodation for the next day in Maynooth was proving to be a challenge, and we faced a tough ride one the Royal Canal Greenway after leaving Dublin. Gwyneth was delighted when all I could find was the swanky Glenroyal Hotel. The next morning, determined to squeeze every ounce of luxury out of the place, she and her brother insisted on a spot of bathing in the opulent pool. It was midday before we set off, with 50 kilometres ahead of us and heavy luggage. A slight headwind, the possibility of rain and a steady incline as the canal rose lock by lock. Moorhens and herons fished and dabbled among the rushes and water lilies. Our passage was marked by the arched stone bridges, immaculate locks and lock keepers’ cottages.
An idyllic route
The Waterways Ireland webpage of the Royal Canal Greenway packages it as a comfortable and enjoyable holiday destination. The saturated green of the grass and trees enfolds two cyclists in their silver years on a sunny day as they round a corner and rejoin the canal in the hero image of the page. They appear to be enjoying the conversation and have little baggage on their bicycles. The woman’s gaze is on the man, a common motif in advertising images (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2020), while the man is focussed on the road ahead. On one side of the pristine tarmac cycle path, an array of signs reassuringly impart directions and distances. On the other side, a young woman in summer clothes has her bicycle leaning on a picnic bench while she reads an information board that is set against an attractive stone building. The eye is drawn by the man’s gaze to where they will be next. Available amenities such as toilets and bike hire form a caption below the image.
(Waterways Ireland – Explore the Royal Canal Greenway: Kilcock, no date)
The picture of relaxed, holiday spirit is continued in the text that follows. There is ‘flat towpath, offering an ideal route for walkers, runners and cyclists of all ages and abilities. Noun phrases such as ‘vibrant towns’, ‘historic 200-year-old Royal Canal’, ‘rolling fields’ and ‘quaint waterside villages’ frame the route as an idealised rural holiday. Gentle, informal imperatives such as ‘cross historic bridges’, ‘spot herons, foxes and badgers’ or even ‘enjoy a spot of angling’ give the page the discourse of travel guidebooks.
One story among many
Critical discourse analysis and ecolinguistics focus the embedded ideologies of texts. Ideologies, like stories, are ‘a version, perspective or description of the world which is not necessarily false but is one possibility among many others’ (Stibbe, 2020). The story embedded in this text tells of cycling as a comfortable, packaged experience.
A tough ride on the Royal Canal Greenway gets tougher
A tough ride on the Royal Canal Greenway became more challenging as we continued. The tarmac turned into hardpack, slowing the bikes. Open fields, forests and beds of rushes whispered under a heavy sky. Stops for Lucozade and snacks kept spirits up but finding toilet spots presented challenges. We reached Enfield in time for a picnic on the bench.
Later, as the sun lowered, the miles passed with a stubborn, churlish pace. In the copper tints of evening, the signposts gave a harsh reminder of how far we still had to go. While Gwyneth and her older brother Philip cycled ahead happily together, my wife Krissy was struggling, and rightly worried. We agreed that I’d ride ahead with the children to get the camp set up.
“A short hop (2 km) west to Riverstown Bridge, you’ll find Cunningham’s pub, a popular spot for locals. Both are ideal locations to enjoy a drink after a long day of walking, cycling or running on the Royal Canal Greenway.”
We trundled past reed beds and marshes, through copses and silent villages in the dusk. Gwyneth is exhausted and giving me hell. We finally get to the pub and campsite, and the landlady comes out and presents Gwyneth with an ice-cream. It works magic. As we set up camp the torchlight reveals pinhead-size, mobile black shapes in rapid motion. “I don’t want to sleep with hoppity bite bite,” exclaims Philip. I plead with him not to tell the others of the fleas just yet. Krissy arrives and goes straight to bed.
Stories of “tough rides”
Writing this I am reminded of an autoethnography of cycling (Larsen, 2014) describing the researcher’s terror as he tries commuter cycling in London after leaving his home city, the cycling paradise of Copenhagen. He is forced to build affective capacity (Jones, 2012; Larsen, 2014), the ability to face the emotional and physical demands of cycling. He questions the accepted view that to make cycling more popular, we just need to reduce its demands on the body and emotions. He argues that it is a case of increasing our affective capacity and makes a case for accounts of cycling that highlight how riding a bicycle involves “tough rides” to help people adapt to the realities of cycling (ibid, p.69).
Another story among many
Reading about cycling the Royal Canal Greenway on the Waterways Ireland website created one version of this place, while reading the Royal Canal Greenway on this tough ride recreated the place in a fascinating way.
References
Jones, P. (2005) “Performing the city: A body and a bicycle take on Birmingham, UK,” Social and Cultural Geography, 6(6), pp. 813–830. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360500353046.
Jones, P. (2012) “Sensory indiscipline and affect: a study of commuter cycling,” Social and Cultural Geography, 13(6), pp. 645–658. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2012.713505.
Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2020) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Routledge. Available at: https://www.routledge.com/Reading-Images-The-Grammar-of-Visual-Design/Kress-Leeuwen/p/book/9780415672573 (Accessed: September 23, 2026).
Larsen, J. (2014) “(Auto)Ethnography and cycling,” International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 17(1), pp. 59–71. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2014.854015.
Stibbe, A. (2020) “Ecolinguistics : Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By,” Ecolinguistics [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367855512.
Waterways Ireland – Explore the Royal Canal Greenway: Kilcock (no date). Available at: https://www.waterwaysireland.org/our-waterways/royal-canal/royal-canal-greenway/kilcock (Accessed: September 23, 2026).
[…] took place in Dublin so it was with some trepidation that I made the final preparations for our family holiday, a cycling tour which would take us into the very heart of the Irish […]