Irish Whitewater Forum

Having recently talked to the landowner at the Tuam hole (Mr. Mannion), we have realised that the usual way that people access the Tuam play feature is causing a lot of problems for the landowner. Mr. Mannion is a very nice man, but he is very frustrated with paddlers climbing over the wall along the road to get in. He has no problems with kayakers using the feature, but just has issues with how we access it. He was telling us that local youths see us climbing the wall and they do the same late at night. Mr. Mannion was telling us that he has often had groups of young locals drinking there and lighting fires. When he asks them to leave they won't and say that he allows kayakers in so why not them (so he wanted to stop everyone accessing the site)... When you consider that this is right beside his house and he is living alone, it is easy to see why this is both frustrating and frightening for him and why we should honour his request.

He said that he doesn't mind if we want to access the feature another way. Either by walking into the field to the RIGHT hand side of the shop and then walking around behind the shop (put on above the feature and paddle down to it), putting on below the bridge on river left and paddling upstream to the feature, or else accessing the site from river right (A small road runs near the feature, and the landowner there has no issues with paddlers). Get off is below the bridge on river left. Where ever people access the feature from it is important to close all gates and leave no litter etc.

Mr. Mannion is a nice man as I said, so if he does try to tell you to leave the site (he may think you have climbed the wall), DON'T be aggressive or cheeky, but just explain to him that you have accessed the feature in the way that he asked us. Apologise if any of the group have climbed the wall or if there is any sort of confrontation (One of our group went to his front door to do this after we were paddling). It is important to establish good relations with Mr. Mannion so that competitions may be held there in the future as it is such a suitable feature for this. By talking to him regularly, acessing the site in a suitable way, apologising if needs be and showing him we are generally a nice bunch of people he will eventually get to know us and be friendly.

Thank you all very much

Just to re-iterate what John was saying, i was talking to both landowners re installing the guage, both had no problems but Mr. Dillion (His name is actually Mr Dillion that owns the house there not Mr. Mannion) did say he didn't like people crossing the wall for the reasons mentioned above.

I usually park in the shop car-park and cross the field to the rear of the shop, getting on above the feature as mentioned above, Mr. Dillion also owns this field and as mentioned above he has no problems with this.

Getting out below the bridge i think is easy enough and there should be no problem crossing the land (on river left) as its part of the industrial estate.

For spectactors and video etc theres just as good a view from right bank by the feature.

Whoops! I'm very bad with names... sorry!

hi folks,
A group of friends and I paddled the feature at Tuam last week without any hassle.
We acccesed the river by walking through the field at the back of the shop and exited by climbing the wall on river left.
Nobody spoke to us at all during our trip.