Moby and I missed out on the walk yesterday when brother Jim took Maureen his wife and our cousin Kaye on a trip to The Cut which is the name for the small canal a mile downstream from the bridge.The easiest way of getting to it is by crossing the stile at the old jetty and follow the river crossing three other stiles on the way.The first field contains the ruins of Rachra Castle which according to The Four Masters was demolished by O'Melaghlin and the English soldiers from Athlone barracks in 1557.After which a war broke out between Mac Coghlan, who owned the castle and O Melaghlin.Michael Reddy told us that some of the stones from the castle were used in the building of the walls for the Magazine. This field is known as The Magazine Field. The field also contains a fieldworks which was built as a defence against Napoleon c1806 to hide cannon guns.Note the little hill near the river came about when the river was deepened for navigation.The sewage works is fenced in and gives a discharge of water into the river which is attracted to fish.Through the stile into Borranagh which is a meadow of about 55 acres divided by marking stones.One two acre lot has been fenced off as required by REPS the agricultural regulator.This is an area favoured by the Corncrake and our walkers got a pleasant surprize when they got to The Cut as a Corncrake called out Crek-Crek about thirty feet from where they were standing. When taking this walk consider taking a bag for rubbish as birds are inclined to remove items from the bin as well as careless humans.