Only in the midlands would you expect to hear about boats being raised to the surface of the Shannon and then sunk again in a different place.
This, believe it or not, has just happened in Clonmacnoise but the boats are not ordinary ones: they date back to the ninth century.
The dug-out boats, for that is what they are, were found years ago when an Archaeology Underwater team discovered them beside the remains of a bridge dating back to the same period.
However this summer, according to a report in the current edition of Archaeology Ireland, the team was back in the water and found that the dug-out boats which they had left on the river bed were being eroded.
The archaeologists decided they would lift them, record all details and return them to a safer place on the river bed. It is intended to restore them at a later stage but they will remain on the river bed until that can be accomplished.
During the summer, more surveys were carried out by a team led by Kevin Barton of NUI Galway and his fellow geophysicists. The programme involved non-intrusive remote sensing. Another aim was to find out more about the bridge, which has excited archaeologists worldwide; while this was going on, two more dug-out boats were uncovered.
The survey also uncovered further fragments of the bridge but there was no evidence of any more of the structure. The archaeologists believe the boats were probably used in the construction of the bridge from the mainland to the nearby Holy Island, which was then a major monastic centre of worship and learning.