Cycling the Grand & Royal canals from Dublin to Mullingar via the western shore of Lough Ennell

A good bike packing for beginners route is this one or two night loop following the Grand canal out of Dublin as far as Ballycommon, then about 35lm north by quiet country roads running west of Lough Ennell to join the Royal canal at Ballinea. From. there there is a good quality cycleway through Mullingar and down the side of the canal all the way to Maynooth.
Both canals have multiple spots you can wild camp on and there are two public park areas on the southern and northern ends of the eastern shore of Lough Ennell. The route along the canals is flat with towns or villages where there are pubs, restaurants and shops at regular intervals. The route between the canals at the Mullingar end is hilly with only one significant settlement at Castletown Geoghegan so you'll want may want to stock up as I did at Daingean.
There are parts of the Grand Canal where you can't (easily) cycle along the banks and will need to detour on the road network but its easy to exit Dublin that way so it makes sense to use this for your outward leg and the more straightforward Royal for the return until you get to Lexlip station. In the next couple of years the route into the centre of Dublin should finally be completed but in the meantime I suggest you go as I show in the video and get back the the city via St Catherine's Park, the Strawberry beds and then the Phoenix Park.
I've a map of the route at cycle.travel/map/journey/487741 however as you'll see from my video there are a couple of additional sections of both canals now passable that I couldn't plot along that but are passable already with a bit of effort.

[@portpark]

Very enjoyable, thank you. Feels like a waste of a resource with such great potential. Happy cycling!

[@clodaghlennon2247]

Cycled the Grand Canal all the way from Dublin city centre to Shannon Harbour - no detours. The only difference was I didn't do it solo so my teenage sons were able to lift the bikes over the gates that were impassable. Also to note at the time - 2 years ago all but one of the hotels we stayed in had proper facilities for locking our bikes. At a push we were allowed keep the bikes in rooms in the hotels. It seemed crazy to be on a greenway and the hotels had no bicycle racks in the car parks etc. We came off the canal for accommodation at Sallins (stayed in Naas), Tullamore (stayed in towncentre) and Shannon Harbour. Lovely video!

[@Ebiketouringlife]

Ah that’s useful info - how straightforward was the Ballycommon to Shannon Harbour section (I came off at Ballycommon to head to the Royal)

[@declanoc]

Great vid

[@derekgorman7939]

How did you get on with the area before Castleknock station? Did you go that way?

[@Ebiketouringlife]

Not on that trip but as it happens this morning I cycled Fairview to Confey along the canal. That deep cutting section from Castleknock to Clonsilla is not at all safe to cycle but it’s grand to Castleknock and rough but passable from Clonsilla

[@derekgorman7939]

@@Ebiketouringlife Yeah, myself and two friends found that to be an absolute nightmare, when we got across the other side of it two little old dears were about to head that way on bikes, we kindly suggested they think another way. I told them I had come off the bike myself. I had a full rack bag on the back, a bloody tree root stick up sent me flying. Had to take a breather to chill out. But yeah its absolute treacherous. We contemplated just skipping that by boarding the train to Leixlip and hang out by the waterfall instead.

[@Ebiketouringlife]

@derekgorman7939 I’d suggest going out via the Strawberry beds and then connect to the canal at Comfrey