The Riasc, trading as La Peniche, is a familiar floating landmark at the fourth lock of the Grand Canal on Mespil Road in Dublin 4.
Moored on the south bank of the canal, the lipstick-red vessel commands a prime location, with footfall from office workers at the European headquarters of both LinkedIn and Irish-founded fintech Stripe at Iput’s newly developed Wilton Park across the water.
This corner of the city has been a cultural hub since poet Patrick Kavanagh and novelist and playwright Brendan Behan traded insults, in between sipping pints of stout and balls of malt. A bronze of Kavanagh sits on his favourite park bench here, where he drew inspiration for the poem entitled Lines Written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin.
The Dutch barge, whose mooring location is protected, was designed by Captain Sam Field Corbett, a businessman who owns 12 craft and who got his sea legs sailing the waterway with his father on a 60-footer on trips west to the Shannon as a child.
“I had it built at a shipyard in the UK,” he explains. It was 1998. Dublin was beginning to boom. His sister Clodagh was coming home from San Francisco and wanted to open a cafe. He suggested she set up business on the barge. She was soon turning out about 130 meals a day from its compact galley, which Field Corbett estimates measures about 12sq m (130sq ft). The physical space the chef has to work in amounts to about 26sq ft, less than 2.5sq m.
About a decade later he set up La Peniche, partnering with Eric Tydgadt of Belgian restaurant La Mer Zou, which at the time was located on St Stephen’s Green.
“I build and design the boats and work closely with the operators. I don’t run the businesses but have a shareholding in each,” says Field Corbett.
The barge sets sail from Mespil Road up the canal to below Ranelagh bridge, offering diners a moving tableau of vistas as guests work their way through their courses.
The business operates successfully; Field Corbett says turnover was about €400,380 in 2024 and €360,000 in 2023.
A cafe element is currently occupied and trading under a tenant who pays €26,000 per annum. The lease has expired, but the tenant has expressed willingness to renew under agreeable terms.
Field Corbett studied at Cork Maritime College and trained aboard the MV Cill Airne, a 1960s vessel that he now owns; moored on the river Liffey at North Wall Quay, it operates as a boat bar and bistro. Another of his fleet is the canal-boat restaurant Cadhla, a 1922 Guinness brewery barge.
He feels there is scope to develop the daytime business of the MV Riasc: “It could become a co-working space or a coffee shop.”
There is high footfall and a thriving lunchtime market in the immediate area.
“People are looking for experiences, for something different,” says selling agent Dave McCarthy of Drinks Advisor Ltd, which is seeking offers in excess of €350,000. “The barge is very Instragrammable.”
The vessel extends to about 148sq m (1,600sq ft). The saloon-like diningroom on its lower deck can accommodate up to 40 people. Its furniture comprises built-in seating with drop-leaf tables and affixed lamps. The tables can be moved to accommodate different-sized parties and then resecured in place. About the same number of diners can be seated under a canvas awning on the upper deck.
The boat operates under all necessary safety, food hygiene and waterways regulations and is moored via a long-standing arrangement which will transfer to the new owner, subject to approval.
After 26 years in business, Field Corbett is weighing anchor and setting sail in a new direction. Ever an adventurous spirit, he is expanding his escapeboats.ie business, in which escape rooms are installed on vessels of varying sizes in Dublin’s docklands and on the quays in Galway, where he bought a dock in 2009. His Sea Stay Galway enterprise, meanwhile, rents out boats as tourist accommodation.
