L.T.C. Rolt, a writer and engineer who lived from 1910 to 1974, played a significant role in bringing attention to the value of canals in Britain as a means of transportation and a source of pleasure. These canals were essential for commerce in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but by the 1940s, they had been neglected and almost forgotten, putting them in danger of disappearing entirely. In 1944, Tom Rolt published a seminal book called Narrow Boat, which inspired a group of enthusiasts to establish the Inland Waterways Association in 1946. They aimed to restore and revive Britain’s canals.
They travelled over the broad Shannon, down Lough Derg, across the great Bog of Allen to the docks of Dublin, and returned to the Shannon via the lonely and almost defunct Royal Canal. Angela Rolt took photographs during the trip, specifically for the book.
Green & Silver, now in its fifth edition since it was first published in 1949, presents a wonderful and evocative picture of the Irish waterways as they were and a vanished way of life just after the end of the Second World War.
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