Brendan and the annual Barrow Paddle

Every year for more than two decades Brendan O’Connell of Kilcullen is one of the driving forces behind a week-long camping and canoeing trip down the Barrow for 16 young people.



“It all started when we moved to Kilcullen from Athy in 1978,” says the other prime mover, Athy man Aidan McHugh. “It happened that Brendan O’Connell was my new neighbour, and he introduced us to canoeing.”

Brendan, of course, was one of the early members of Kilcullen’s Canoe Club, which is 50 this year. An Irish Olympian canoeist on a number of occasions, it was inevitable that he would involve the McHugh family in his own sporting passion.

“Prior to that, I had been involved in the Gymnastics Club in Athy for many years,” says Aidan, who moved back there some years ago. “Every year we would have a Gym Camp, and one day I was asked if there was any chance of doing a bit of canoeing with some of the kids. So I asked Brendan if he could help. I had the youngsters, Kilcullen had the canoes.”

It was a good match, and Brendan O’Connell recalls that they ‘commandeered’ as many canoes as they could from Kilcullen owners and got them down to the Barrow banks in Athy.

Aidan and Brendan limit the number of the camping paddle to 16 young people, because, as Aidan says, “you can manage 16 kids around a campfire”.

Some of the older ones have become true adventurers as a result of their canoeing and camping, and are frequently to be found undertaking such hair-raising stuff as free-climbing on sea rocks.

The trip down the Barrow is 45 miles, with 23 weirs and six sets of rapids. In addition to the daily travel, the group get training in the evenings in different aspects of watercraft under the watchful eye of an Irish Canoe Union trainer.

In return for the help that they gave them to get going, the Athy group still maintains a very close relationship with the Kilcullen Canoe Club. Part of that is helping out with safety management when Kilcullen hosts its annual race from Ballymore.

Brian Byrne.

(A fuller account of this appeared in the Kilcullen Page of the Kildare Nationalist last week.)