Many individuals who contributed to the development of these pages are unaware of their contribution. Those contributions were made long before the Internet was established and the idea of writing these pages came to mind. Of these I will single out one - Syd Shine, skipper of the M.V. Fox. Syd introduced me and many others to the joys of the Shannon. I was one of the crew that manned the Fox on the first Shannon Boat Rally. On Saturday, 5th August 1961, fourteen of us "awoke at 0430hrs, to prepare for the early start scheduled for 0600hrs" (Note 1). That was a magical day. We experienced many more fascinating days on that rally and on other trips on the Shannon. So it is no wonder that over the years I have been tempted back to the waterways again and again, have had the pleasure of passing on the Shannon bug to my family and friends, and now in retirement, look forward to exploring it further as I develop these pages. 

Over the years we have enjoyed reading many books about the waterways. One author, Ruth Delany, stands out amongst the rest in contributing to our enjoyment. Her book By Shannon Shores has provided us with more clues and ideas for interesting days than any other. If you see a copy - buy it. Other excellent sources of information are listed on the Waterway Walks References page and on the IWAI Publications page.

Most of the walks described on these pages were discovered by reading books and pamphlets and by studying maps. Since letting it be known that I was developing these pages individuals have contributed descriptions of walks they enjoy:

• Gerry Burke who pointed me towards publications about the East Clare Way. Thanks are due to Stasia Moroney for her assistance in the project to include East Clare walks in the IWAI Walks pages, Frank Reid for providing the original walk descriptions and advising on their adaptation to the Web, and to the East Clare Way Limited for permission to publish extracts from their pamphlets.
• Brian Cassells provided descriptions of two charming walks by Ulster's Lagan Canal and one by the Newry Canal. His descriptions include interesting background information about each walk.
• Noel Donagh who provided an excellent map of Portlick. His map provides much more detail than the standard Waterway Walks maps. It is linked to from the Portlick walk page.
• Brian and Anne Goggin for suggesting a number of walks around Lough Derg and along the Barrow. These are mentioned on the Barrow Navigation and Lough Derg pages. I plan to provide more details.
• Paddy Mackey for suggesting the Sli Eala walk by Dromineer and the Sli Eala Walk Committee for permission to publish their material. Paddy wrote the pamphlet. The designer is Anne Lawlor.
• The Maguire, whose ancestral home is Enniskillen Castle, kindly wrote a brief history and note on life in the castle. The note is published in the Heritage section.
• Alan Mullally for suggesting four walks in the North Shannon region. These are mentioned on the Lough Key and Boyle River and Carrick to Lanesboro pages. I plan to provide more details.
• Jim Murray has made a number of contributions. These include:
  • His description of a walk near Dromineer that was published previously in Inland Waterways News. 
  • A suggested walk near Ballinasloe. 
  • A description of O'Carolan Walk by Keshcarrigan. 
• Tim O'Brien, wrote an article about Portumna Castle for the Irish Times. He kindly agreed to having it reproduced in the Heritage section.
• Michael Savage provided the photographs to complement Brian Cassels' description of the walk along the Lagan Canal from Sprucefield to Hilden.
• Others who have asked to remain anonymous. Those individuals will know that their contributions are greatly valued and will provide many hours of enjoyable walking for boating folk.

Thanks are due to Syd Shine for permission to use his picture of M.V. Fox.

My appreciation is also due to the IWAI Web Development Group:

• Brian Goggin who bravely entrusted this project to me
• Ewan McDonnell who helped constrain me when I showed signs of running amok on the IWAI Web server. Ewan also introduced me to a number of techie facilities of which I was unaware and which proved to be most useful for this project
• Colin Becker and Des Leyden both of whom contributed ideas when I looked like getting lost.

I am also indebted to those who provided technical help and ideas. These include:

• My former colleagues in the Department of Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin who introduced me to the Web when I joined them in 1992.
• David Siegel whose book (Note 2) provided me with the idea for the Picture Gallery. The actual implementation of the Gallery is based on Doug Popeney's Image Gallery With Description. This is quite different to David Siegel's suggested approach but the gallery idea was prompted by David. His Web Wonk pages provided me with my first set of guidelines on the topic of Web page design.
• Dough Popeney whose library of Javascript examples at Javascript Made Easy generated a number of ideas that have been adapted and incorporated into the techie bits of these pages.

Finally I want to acknowledge the major contributions made by my wife Heather to the development of these pages. These include having the faith to embark upon our first Shannon holiday many years ago one cool and damp April week in a small and not very well equipped boat. In subsequent years we have had many happy family holidays on the river. More recently we spent a number of years exploring the waterways in our own boat. Heather's good company and culinary skills added greatly to the enjoyment of those trips. And now she has encouraged me to embark on this project, put up with many lonely evenings as I struggle with the keyboard and slow Internet connections, and encouraged me to return to the waterways for a few more years so that we may work on these pages together.

My thanks are due to all of these and many more for introducing me to the wonders of Ireland's inland waterways and for helping me develop these pages. Hopefully you will also enjoy researching the shores of our waterways and exploring the myriad of fascinating places that are to be found there.

David Algeo
(walker@iwai.ie)

Notes:

1. IWAI. 1985. Silver River Page 35
2. Siegel, David. 1996. Creating Killer Web Sites Chapter 10.