This book is an account of the author's walk along the Grand Canal from Dublin to Shannon Harbour. The author is a volunteer worker with a group attempting to improve the lot of abandoned children in Romanian orphanages and the book interweaves his two parallel experiences of walking the canal and working as an electrician in Romanian orphanages. This can tend to give a somewhat disjointed feel to the book, as subsequent sections jump from the canal to the orphanages and back again.
Features along the canal are noted, however, his claim that the conservationists won out in relation to the Kildare town road bypass is open to question. He specifically notes the many memorial crosses along the canal, the danger of drowning being an ever present possibility.