Plans to reopen a derelict cross-Border navigation inspired Tim O'Brien and Mary Carolan of The Irish Times and photographer Stephen O'Brien to go in search of the Ulster Canal. This is their account:

In July 1987, three Irish Times journalists pushed and pulled canoes along the derelict Ballinamore- Ballyconnell canal, seven years before its reopening as part of what is now the hugely successful Shannon-Erne Waterway.

That waterway currently pours about €10 million a year into a once economically devastated rural Border area. Towns and villages such as Leitrim, Keshcarrigan, Ballinamore, Ballyconnell and Belturbet, which were familiar with peeling paint and boarded up windows, are now festooned with hanging flower-baskets, cobblelock pavements, and brightly coloured shops as well as the marinas of boat hire companies. Given that the cost of the reopening of the canal was about €40m, it was a good investment in regional development and paid for itself in about four years.

Now, in the 10th anniversary of the reopening of the Shannon-Erne link - a year which is also the 50th anniversary of the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland (IWAI) as well as the 200th anniversary of the Grand Canal

The British and Irish governments are studying plans to reopen the Ulster Canal, a 93 km stretch of canal, rivers and a few lakes, which could emulate the Shannon-Erne Waterway and become an economic corridor working its magic through the rural areas of Fermanagh, Cavan, Monaghan and Armagh. It is the final link in an all-Ireland waterway which would make navigation possible between Coleraine on the north Antrim coast and Limerick or Waterford via the Shannon and the Barrow.

To hurry them along, the IWAI, in conjunction with the Ulster Waterways Group, has applied for EU Interreg funding to reopen the western end of the canal, linking the western environs of Clones in Co Monaghan with the river Finn, which drains into Lough Erne in Fermanagh.

So this time the challenge was to trace the route of the Ulster Canal from the first lock at Charlemont, on the Blackwater in Co Armagh, to Lock 26, where the canal meets the river Finn, near Wattlebridge. Bicycles replaced the canoes, there was no jeep, and mobile phones replaced walkie-talkies.

We set off from Moy on the Tyrone side of the Blackwater, and found the first lock at Charlemont, about 500 yards from Charlemont Bridge and 100 yards from the river. A few cut stones lead to what was once a dry dock but the distinctive lock-keepers cottage designed by the engineer Thomas Telford in the mid 19th century is in remarkably habitable shape.

A feasibility study carried out for both governments does not recommend reopening this lock but suggests utilising the Blackwater as far as Blackwatertown, a few miles upstream. Between Charlemont and Blackwatertown, the canal is little more than a line of reeds in a depression through fields. But it is at Benburb, about four miles away, that the spectacular Benburb gorge is revealed.

Deep in the gorge, the canal is overgrown and shaded by mature trees high overhead but it is still possible - just - to cycle along the towpath up through four locks.

At the top of gorge is the Benburb Heritage Centre where members of the Ulster Waterways Group and the IWAI, who facilitated our tour, turned out in force to offer maps and advice.

Erskine Holmes, in whose care the former mill has been transformed into a heritage centre, is also the co-chair of the Ulster Waterways Group, which has organised several conferences on reopening of the canal. Among the canal enthusiasts was author Michael Savage; Shane Belford of the Ulster Waterways Group; Brian Cassells, vice-president of the IWAI; and Michael and Rosaleen Miller of the IWAI's heritage committee.

The various interests are confident that the £1 million sterling they have raised will be matched four-to-one with EU funding for cross-border projects. "It is the one project in which everybody wins - there are only benefits," says Mr Belford, while Michael Savage talks of huge numbers of boaters who would come down from the Bann and Lough Neagh navigations and cross over to Lough Erne. Brian Cassells talks of the endless potential of uniting the waterways.

We are late leaving Benburb - it is early afternoon and Monaghan Town about 20 miles away is the billet for the night so we content ourselves with cycling country lanes, pausing where the odd cut-stone bridge takes the road over the line of the canal. Unfortunately, the dry canal is often full of rubbish. A spectacular aqueduct is still in place in Middletown, where Tarca King - who is connected to the Leslie family in Glaslough just across the Border in Co Monaghan - has been active in the campaign to reopen the canal.

"It maddens me that the economists' green-book evaluation does not take in the civic pride a canal like this can engender," Mr King says, before citing the example of the number of newly replanted waterside gardens on the Shannon-Erne. His interest, he confesses, is in Castle Leslie, where he has artists' studios in some of the former stables and like those in Benburb he sees no downside to the canal's reopening.

A total of 19 locks took the navigation up to summit level at Monaghan, where part of the canal has been filled in and where the following morning, a woman in the local tourist office is delighted to show us where the canal passed. The route is under Old Cross Square, and alongside Canal Street where a stores and a petrol station have been built and would need to be demolished.

At Clones, the original Canal Stores have been reopened as a heritage centre and the canal follows the Clones-to-Cavan road passing in and out of the border with Co Fermanagh, partly on another aqueduct, before arriving at Lock 26, the holy grail, the link with the Finn river which feeds into Lough Erne.

The lock itself is derelict. A local farmer explains that the cut stone was removed to Enniskillen some years ago. The new route connecting the Finn River and Canal will not use this route. Instead, it will pass through Lough Sarah and Drummully Lough further upstream on the Finn.

A decision on Interreg funding is due this autumn. The last word should, however, go to the Rev Ian Paisley of the DUP. He reportedly said the project would be a good way of getting the southern Government to pay half the cost of a canal from one part of Northern Ireland to another.