RE O95 Canal Heritage - Key Opportunities. 

The oldest piece of the Eastern Canals is in Kildare.  Between 1756 and 1759, Thomas Omer and thousands of men designed and dug out a navigation channel using stone from Golierstown Quarry.  It stretched two miles west and eight miles east of Sallins through some bog and with six bridges and three locks, it was complete by 1763.  It was some years later when work started on the Dublin end of the Grand, and not until 1779 that it was joined up with the Sallins stretch.