Limerick and the Shannon
The fourth largest city in Ireland dates from about the ninth century as a Norse settlement. Its name in Irish means 'The Bare Spot'. It is situated on the lovely Shannon river at the mouth of its huge estuary, which stretches over 6o miles from Limerick city westward into the Atlantic Ocean between the extreme heads of Kerry and of Clare. The city is 15 miles from Shannon International Airport, which lies on the North Bank of the estuary.
The largest river in Ireland, the Shannon is over 170 miles in length from its source in the County of Cavan to Limerick. A vast, slow moving river it drains an area almost one fifth of the total extent of Ireland, some 6,000 square miles in which there are over i ,000 miles of tributaries. Just before the river enters Limerick from the vast limestone plains it drops over ioo feet and at this point the first hydro-electric works harnesses the waters to give the whole of Ireland its major source of electrical power.
In the thirteenth century the Normans built King John's Castle at Thornond Bridge to dominate the river. Originally it was a massive, many-sided fortress with four circular towers and complete with a twinturretted drawbridge and portcullis. Later, in the age of artillery, the castle design was modified to take heavy guns. It was stoutly defended for King John against all corners and was briefly occupied by the MacNamara clan of County Clare in 1369. General Ireton, who was married to Cromwell's daughter, successfully laid siege to the castle in 1641 and, one more, in the Williamite wars of 1691 it fell to the opponents of the Jacobite cause. It was following this defeat that the native Irish officers and men known as the 'Wild Geese' sailed away to take up service in the armies of France and Spain, and to seek their fortunes with other armies of Europe, notably in Austria, in Poland and in the service of the Empress of Russia.
While Limerick is not a city noted for the arts, it was the birthplace of the famous modern Irish painter Sean Keating, and was associated with the Irish novelist and writer Kate O'Brien. In the early nineteenth century Gerald Griffin, a young Lirierick newspaper man, wrote his famous novel The Collegians which inspired Benedict's opera The Lily of Killarney and Boucicault's melodrama The Colleen Bawn.