Hi Fiona, I do not know if I am on the right track with the canal cottage as there is only my late mothers stories to go on.Her father, Thomas Hughes, was born in Gifford Place, Dublin, a railway cottage near to where the O2 Point village venue is now, according to my mother her grandfather was both lock keeper and level crossing keeper and he was certainly listed as a railwayman on his death certificate and the royal canal joined the river liffey near to that railway yard, Gifford Place was certainly between both.Unfortunately my mothers recollections were that she visited her grandfather, James Hughes, at his canal-side cottage in a village near Dublin when she was three years old in 1935, this was impossible as James Hughes died in 1906 and his wife died before him around 1895. Their sons John Hughes and Patrick Hughes, mums uncles, were the only ones she could have visited but I have not been able to trace either of them although there are lots of mentions of the Hughes family in the Leixlip area. There is a cottage near Louisa Bridge, Leixlip, where the Hughes family did indeed live but I have not established a link between that Hughes family and mine, there is another cottage at Deey Bridge and Blakestown level crossing but again there is no link.There are only four places on the royal canal where the railway runs next to it and they are the two just mentioned, one at Reillys Bridge and one in the Dublin docks where my grandfather was born.There are photos of the first three of these cottages on the internet but the Dublin docks have long since gone. I hope you have more success than me in your quest and if I can be of any further help please get in touch. Best wishes Chris Woodcock