The Café
The award winning Goodly Barrow Café and Waterways Museum sits on the border between Carlow and Kilkenny on the magnificent River Barrow. With indoor and outdoor seating, the dog friendly café specialises in unique soups, pies, salad bowls and sausage and vegan rolls, all made on the premises, with an extensive range of vegan and gluten-free options available, both sweet and savoury.
Scrumptious sweet treats for afterwards, a friendly team and the stunning location make the Goodly Barrow a must-visit destination. A detailed history of the waterways of Ireland surrounds you in the sympathetically restored Canal Store building, as a reminder of the central role they played in the lives of our forebearers.
Museum of Commercial Navigation
Come to the restored canal store on the banks of the River Barrow in Goresbridge. Step into the lives, hardships and joys, of the people who worked the waterways. In the museum, we have ancient maps, artefacts and panel displays about the history of inland water navigation from the time our earliest ancestors dared the Barrow. Watch video interviews with elders whose lives were entwined with the commercial waterways. See the records of goods arriving by boat. Watch movie footage from when the waterways were still providing one of the main transport systems in the country.
The museum aims to be a gathering point for research on the history, commerce and people of the waterways, rather than a finished story. For the history students, we present a number of open questions that might be meat and potatoes for your next thesis!
Easy Access to the Stunning Barrow
Every newcomer is stunned at the timelessness and tranquillity of a Barrow walk. Just a few minutes out in either direction from Goodly Barrow and you realise that there is no place like it in Ireland. The geography of it is still largely untamed as our earliest ancestors would have seen it. Yet, it’s easy for all. The ‘line’ was a towpath built for horses pulling boats between St. Mullins and Athy. So, a Barrow walk has the ease of a level canal-side walk with the wild beauty of Ireland’s most spectacular river valley.
Goodly Barrow is the perfect place to start your walk, kayak or gentle cycle on the Barrow line. Goresbridge is easy to get to from the M9, a short hop from Carlow or Kilkenny. There are lovely short and long walks in both directions. An easy 5km South takes you to Ballytiglea bridge, just outside Borris. 9km north and you’re in Bagenalstown, for a handy distance guide click here
(See our website for the distances chart.) Goresbridge is also a good base for a multi-day visit with other historic sites, good accommodation and pubs nearby.
The course and game fishing on this stretch of river is well-known, with some of the best specimen pike landed just in front of the Goodly Barrow.
Opening Times: Wednesday to Sunday – 9.30 am to 5.00 pm
Services:
- Dine in
- Outdoor seating
