Borris

Borris Lock sits in a side cut below the tall woods of Borris Demesne, and the village itself lies up the hill from the river. It is worth the climb: a Georgian main street of granite houses and Victorian shopfronts runs up beside the demesne wall of Borris House, the Tudor-style home of the MacMurrough Kavanagh family, once kings of Leinster. Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh, born without arms or legs, revived the village in the 1800s with a sawmill and lace-making and had the sixteen-arch viaduct built for the railway; a walk now loops around it. The Step House Hotel has a brasserie and a cellar restaurant, and Go With The Flow runs canoe trips and hire from the village. Mount Leinster and the Blackstairs Mountains rise to the east. Back on the river, Clashganny Lock and its swimming spot are about 5 km downstream.