In 2018, Carlow County Development Partnership established a multi-stakeholder working group to focus on the challenge and identify a proposal which would reduce, if not eliminate, uncertainty around the walking experience on the River Barrow. It wasn’t long before the group reached consensus on what needed to be done – to focus on clarifying uncertainties around the key criterion for walkers of distance and time. The working group agreed that if walkers could get the answer to the two very important questions of ‘how far?’ and ‘how long will it take?’ from their kitchen table, or no later than at the trailhead, then there was a greater chance that more walkers would identify the River Barrow Valley as a walking destination of choice.

Providing the answers to a walkers questions of ‘how far’ and ‘how long’ were designed around a suite of strategic actions which secured €68,000 under the Outdoor Rural Infrastructure Scheme (ORIS) including;

• Audit identified signage requirements for drivers from each village centre to the River Barrow walk
• Audit identified signage and interpretation requirements for walkers on the towpath
• Erect new or use existing poles for road directional signage from each village centre
• Erect new or use existing waymarker posts for directional signage on the towpath
• Erect multi lingual map boards at key access points to the River Barrow
• Establish Carlowoutdoors.ie as source of information for walkers and visitors to the valley.