The Ulster Canal Greenway
The short version, because it is the thing people want to know before they drive here: the only continuous piece of Ulster Canal Greenway you can walk today is the four kilometre stretch through Monaghan town, which opened in 2013. Everything west towards Smithborough and Clones, and everything east towards the border and Middletown, is still a plan. Some of it has planning permission. One section went out to tender in the summer of 2026. None of it is open.
That is worth saying plainly because a lot of what is written about this project online describes it in the future tense of whatever year it was written in, and those years are now a decade or more back.
What the Ulster Canal was
The canal was authorised in 1825, built by William Dargan to designs approved by Thomas Telford and then carried on by William Cubitt, and opened in the early 1840s. It ran seventy four kilometres from Charlemont on the Blackwater in Co. Armagh to Wattlebridge near Upper Lough Erne in Co. Fermanagh, with twenty six locks, passing through Monaghan and Clones on the way.
It was a failure almost immediately. The locks were built about twelve feet wide, narrower than the rest of the Irish network, so boats coming off the Lagan and the Newry canals could not work through, and there was never enough water at the summit to keep it reliably open. The last trading boat went through in 1929 and the canal was formally abandoned in 1931. What is left of it around Monaghan is a line of water, hedge and stonework across the fields, and the towpath that the greenway now uses.
The Monaghan Town Greenway
This is the built section, about four point two kilometres, running along the old towpath from one side of the town to the other. It is flat, with a total climb of around thirty metres over its whole length. The surface is compacted gravel out of town and tarmac or concrete in the built up parts. It is graded easy and much of it is usable with a wheelchair or a buggy.
You pass two locks, a lock house and three bridges. A short section through the middle of the town is on the road, with traffic, so it is not a route to let children run ahead on the whole way. Ordinary shoes are fine. At the western end you can carry on along the Threemilehouse road footpath towards Rossmore Forest Park if you want to make a longer day of it.
What is planned, and where it stands
Phase 2 is the twenty two kilometre run from Smithborough east through Monaghan to Middletown in Co. Armagh, plus a short spur along the N2 bypass. It has been in progress since the late 2010s.
- The section from Monaghan town to the border, a little over seven kilometres, got planning approval from Monaghan County Council in 2021. The council published a construction tender for it in June 2026, with a programme of about nine months once a contractor starts.
- The two point two kilometre section from the border to Middletown was approved by Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council in 2022.
- The section west from Monaghan to Smithborough had a preferred route selected in 2021 and has not, as far as we can establish, gone to construction.
Phase 3 of the greenway, Smithborough to Clones, went through public consultation on route options in 2021. We could not find a firm current programme for it, so treat it as intended rather than scheduled.
The canal restoration, which is a different thing
Running alongside the greenway is Waterways Ireland’s project to make the canal navigable again between Lough Erne and Clones. These are separate pieces of work with separate phase numbers, and confusing the two is the main reason online reporting on this is such a mess.
Phase 1 took the navigation from the Erne to Castle Saunderson. Phase 2, completed in 2024, restored the canal and towpath into Clones and built a marina basin there, with a looped walk and an amenity area that you can use now. Phase 3 is the long piece, about ten kilometres of new and refurbished canal linking Clonfad to Castle Saunderson and joining Clones to the Erne and the Shannon. It was allocated Shared Island funding in 2026 for delivery over 2027 to 2029, and it includes a further nine kilometres of greenway from Clones towards Gortnacarrow.
Before you go
If you are coming to walk or cycle, come for the town greenway and treat everything else as a bonus if you find it open. The official project site carries the trail information, though its news page has not been the fastest to update. There is more on other routes in the area under walks near Monaghan, and the greenway sits alongside the rest of the things to do in and around the town.
Details on this page last checked . If something here is out of date, it probably is our fault rather than yours.