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Matt and his boat, photos Steve O’Connor We’re ki
nda thriving in the internet space. The rats are inheriting the overworld. Matt and his mother’s liveaboard is an openhood seafaring boat, which moors on the shaded side of the dock. “The boat was built in 1945,” Matt says. “It served in the last year of the war for the UK as a supply ship, so it ran in and out of the harbour to the larger destroyer ships.” Life on the waters was always something It became a lot more interesting because of the cost of living and exorbitant rent. that attracted Matt. He took to boating at the age of nine. “I started sailing on dinghies, racing larger boats through my teens and then had a few small sailboats on Lough Derg.” Then, as a student in Dublin during the mid 2000s, he began exploring the idea of buying a liveaboard. “It became a lot more interesting because of the cost of living and exorbitant rents,” he recalls. “There weren’t many people doing it then. It wasn’t as normal as it is now, even if it’s not normal compared to other European cities.” Later, in 2012, a newspaper article caught his attention. “Waterways Ireland were being really positive about people starting to live in the Grand Canal Basin.” Deciding with his mother to couple together their savings, they bought a boat on Lough Neagh. “The boat was lived on by a family for fourteen years. It was fully functioning. We sailed it up the River Bann, through the canals, out to sea, by the coast and to Dublin.” For the first three years, Matt lived fulltime on the boat. His mother would stay there occasionally, using it as an alternative to renting in the capital as she commuted weekly from the south-west. “Then it just changed for me and became more for her,” he says explaining that when he and his partner had a child, they decided the boat no longer fit their needs. Its staircases were too steep and the situation surrounding permits was far too precarious. Presently, his mother lives on the boat, while he, as its owner, visits to do regular maintenance; a task, which his mother describes as being “constant, constant, constant.” “Like a vintage car, it takes constant care to maintain it to a standard,” Matt says. “I found that very easy full time, but now it’s not so easy, and it’s part of the reason that I want to find a newer boat which doesn’t require as much maintenance.” Although he and his family are now on land, his sights are still set on returning to the water. “I don’t think I’m meant to be on land. I feel more comfortable in a boat. The motion of being on a boat is something you get used to, and I slept really well like that. But also, the sense of nature, being right in the middle of Dublin, seeing otters, swans and fish literally at your window as you make a cup of coffee… It’s a relaxing sensation.” “More people are moving in and seeing this as a great way to live,” he says when asked about how the future looks for people eyeing up the canals as a potential place of residence. “There needs to be a long term plan and short term solution so that you don’t come home from work to find your boat being impounded, because that anxiety this has caused people is untold.” When contacted, a Waterways Ireland representative said they are working “to ensure maximum access to moorings – in line with with licensing provisions – for canal vessel owners”, with an aim to hold a public consultation on developing inland waterways nationwide in late 2020. “It is an inevitability at this stage,” Matt says. “I feel much more optimistic than I did a month ago.” Beyond permits, the main reason offered in support of regularising the canals is that liveaboards revivify areas of Dublin that fell into disuse, with the go-to example being 20