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A drive in the heart of the Shannon Valley - Self Drive
Oct 12 2011 08:08 AM | Bhushan in Self Drive Tours
A drive in the heart of the Shannon Valley
+353 (0)57 9120110
TourismInfo@shannondev.ie
This tour sees us dip in and out of the Shannon Region, but no visitor should miss the beauties of this ‘ quiet watered land ’, where the River Shannon flows placidly between its great lakes, Ree and Derg. The route begins and ends in the town of Birr, which we visited in the course of our tour of County Offaly.
Follow the castle wall at Birr northwards and take the road to the river port of Banagher, a place of great strategic importance because the Shannon and its lowlands were a barrier between the provinces of Connaught and Leinster. An army which wanted to cross the river had very few choices besides Banagher, only Athlone, Shannonbridge and Portumna between the two great lakes, Lough Ree and Lough Derg and in times of peace, the Shannon itself was a highway where goods and people could be carried by boat, so that the harbour towns grew up in the few places where the roads could reach the riverbank.
A bridge over the Shannon was built at Banagher as early as 1049 AD. In the 18th Century a small canal with a lock was built so that shipping could safely pass by the rapids. Nowadays the town is a very busy place, a favourite stop over for people cruising the river and offering at least two excellent restaurants. The old hotel with the bow window, close to the river, has a particular claim to fame in literary history.
In 1841, the young Anthony Trollope was appointed a post office surveyor’s clerk to be based at Banagher. This was his home for some years and the place where he wrote his first two novels. In 1844, he brought his newly married wife, Rose, to share his hotel room but the same year was transferred to the south. His experiences of the three years in Banagher were used in many of his later novels and he lived and worked in Ireland for fifteen years more. In 1854 Charlotte Brontë spent part of her honeymoon at a house nearby.
From Banagher take the road northwards for Cloghan and then the N62 in the direction of Athlone. This makes its way across the lowlands of County Offaly, a great expanse of peat bog, interrupted by low hills. The hills were created during the ice age, a time when this part of Ireland was covered by an immense glacier. Streams, flowing beneath the ice, scattered huge quantities of gravel to produce a land form now known as ‘ eskers ’. The eskers provide excellent soil and have been farmed for thousands of years. But in between were lakes and fens and in the course of time, peat grew up and smothered them.
What makes the region particularly interesting is that the peat is now being harvested on a grand scale. Huge expanses of level brown bog extend in all directions, relieved only by the big yellow machines which crawl across its surface to extract it. While much of the bog is thus being removed, large tracts have been set aside so that future generations may see how it was. The road goes through Ferbane, its concrete cooling towers marking the spot where the peat is burned to generate electric power. To the north is Doon Crossroads where you may visit a transport museum. Turn left at Doon and divert along the little road 4 miles to the west, which leads to the tiny village of Clonfinlough.
Five minutes walk, between hedges of hawthorn and elder, takes you to the Clonfinlough Stone, an enigmatic slab of rock near the top of a hill. A heavy growth of lichen hides most of the carvings made on it by bronze age people, three thousand years ago. Cup shaped and shoe shaped hollows, however, can still be seen. Nobody knows what the carvings signify, but there is a fine view from the stone down over the peatland and pasture and the spot would have been a good one for a king to stand and gaze out over his realm.
A little farther to the west is Clonmacnoise, to this day one of the great places of pilgrimage in Ireland. A helicopter pad and a modern altar mark the spot where Pope John Paul II visited it in 1979. Most of the modern pilgrims go in search of culture rather than for religious observance and they travel in cars and buses along a good road, rather than taking the Pilgrims Way, which lies a little to the north. The 19th Century poet, T. W. Rolleston summoned up the magic of the land in some of his finest lines: In a quiet water'd land, a land of roses Stands St Kieran's city fair And the warriors of Erin in their famous generations slumber there. The great St Ciaran founded a monastery there in 548.
Religious life flourished for one thousand and four years until 1552, when the entire site was plundered by the army. The monastic city grew on a hillside overlooking the Shannon which flows gently by. The great treasures include the 10th Century Cross of the Scriptures and tombstones going back to the 8th Century. There is a round tower and the ruins of many ancient churches. But above all is the tranquillity of the old settlement in a bend of the Shannon and its fifteen centuries of sanctity. Because the crosses were being severely damaged by the weather, they were moved inside and can be seen, together with a selection of the tombstones, in the visitor centre. Replicas of the crosses now stand in the open so that the appearance of the monastery, as it had been for a century or two, remains unchanged.
The road from Shannonbridge to Banagher, goes past the Clonmacnoise and West Offaly Railway, a very remarkable tourist train that runs across the peatlands. The tour takes in both the current grand scale work of mining the peat and also the conservation of wetlands and untouched bog where nature is left to herself. As part of the trip, they supply a slane and let you cut a few sods of turf yourself in the old style. Back in Banagher you may cross the Shannon and head in the direction of Eyrecourt. Stolid stone fortifications stand in the fields on the right bank of the river. They date from Napoleonic times when an invasion by the French from the west was expected. The invasion took place in 1798, but was too small to be very effective and never got anywhere near the Shannon.
A signpost for Clonfert shows the way to the beautiful little cathedral there, a building which retains its romanesque doorway, brilliantly decorated with sculptured portraits of some of the worshippers of the 12th Century. It stands on the site of a monastery, founded in 558 by St Brendan the Navigator, the redoubtable traveller who may have sailed to America and was certainly a great folk hero in medieval times. The church was rebuilt in the 15th Century and contains some later sculpture, including a mermaid. From Clonfert, the road runs southwards to Portumna, with its forest park and castle, which we visited on our tour of Lough Derg ( see below ). The journey ends by crossing the Shannon at Portumna and following the main road back to Birr.
Distances : Birr to Banagher 13km, Banagher to Doon 23km, Doon to Clonmacnoise 13km, Clonmacnoise to Banagher 27km, Banagher to Clonfert 8km, Clonfert to Portumna 23km and Portumna to Birr 26km. Total drive length, 132km.
+353 (0)57 9120110
TourismInfo@shannondev.ie
This tour sees us dip in and out of the Shannon Region, but no visitor should miss the beauties of this ‘ quiet watered land ’, where the River Shannon flows placidly between its great lakes, Ree and Derg. The route begins and ends in the town of Birr, which we visited in the course of our tour of County Offaly.
Follow the castle wall at Birr northwards and take the road to the river port of Banagher, a place of great strategic importance because the Shannon and its lowlands were a barrier between the provinces of Connaught and Leinster. An army which wanted to cross the river had very few choices besides Banagher, only Athlone, Shannonbridge and Portumna between the two great lakes, Lough Ree and Lough Derg and in times of peace, the Shannon itself was a highway where goods and people could be carried by boat, so that the harbour towns grew up in the few places where the roads could reach the riverbank.
A bridge over the Shannon was built at Banagher as early as 1049 AD. In the 18th Century a small canal with a lock was built so that shipping could safely pass by the rapids. Nowadays the town is a very busy place, a favourite stop over for people cruising the river and offering at least two excellent restaurants. The old hotel with the bow window, close to the river, has a particular claim to fame in literary history.
In 1841, the young Anthony Trollope was appointed a post office surveyor’s clerk to be based at Banagher. This was his home for some years and the place where he wrote his first two novels. In 1844, he brought his newly married wife, Rose, to share his hotel room but the same year was transferred to the south. His experiences of the three years in Banagher were used in many of his later novels and he lived and worked in Ireland for fifteen years more. In 1854 Charlotte Brontë spent part of her honeymoon at a house nearby.
From Banagher take the road northwards for Cloghan and then the N62 in the direction of Athlone. This makes its way across the lowlands of County Offaly, a great expanse of peat bog, interrupted by low hills. The hills were created during the ice age, a time when this part of Ireland was covered by an immense glacier. Streams, flowing beneath the ice, scattered huge quantities of gravel to produce a land form now known as ‘ eskers ’. The eskers provide excellent soil and have been farmed for thousands of years. But in between were lakes and fens and in the course of time, peat grew up and smothered them.
What makes the region particularly interesting is that the peat is now being harvested on a grand scale. Huge expanses of level brown bog extend in all directions, relieved only by the big yellow machines which crawl across its surface to extract it. While much of the bog is thus being removed, large tracts have been set aside so that future generations may see how it was. The road goes through Ferbane, its concrete cooling towers marking the spot where the peat is burned to generate electric power. To the north is Doon Crossroads where you may visit a transport museum. Turn left at Doon and divert along the little road 4 miles to the west, which leads to the tiny village of Clonfinlough.
Five minutes walk, between hedges of hawthorn and elder, takes you to the Clonfinlough Stone, an enigmatic slab of rock near the top of a hill. A heavy growth of lichen hides most of the carvings made on it by bronze age people, three thousand years ago. Cup shaped and shoe shaped hollows, however, can still be seen. Nobody knows what the carvings signify, but there is a fine view from the stone down over the peatland and pasture and the spot would have been a good one for a king to stand and gaze out over his realm.
A little farther to the west is Clonmacnoise, to this day one of the great places of pilgrimage in Ireland. A helicopter pad and a modern altar mark the spot where Pope John Paul II visited it in 1979. Most of the modern pilgrims go in search of culture rather than for religious observance and they travel in cars and buses along a good road, rather than taking the Pilgrims Way, which lies a little to the north. The 19th Century poet, T. W. Rolleston summoned up the magic of the land in some of his finest lines: In a quiet water'd land, a land of roses Stands St Kieran's city fair And the warriors of Erin in their famous generations slumber there. The great St Ciaran founded a monastery there in 548.
Religious life flourished for one thousand and four years until 1552, when the entire site was plundered by the army. The monastic city grew on a hillside overlooking the Shannon which flows gently by. The great treasures include the 10th Century Cross of the Scriptures and tombstones going back to the 8th Century. There is a round tower and the ruins of many ancient churches. But above all is the tranquillity of the old settlement in a bend of the Shannon and its fifteen centuries of sanctity. Because the crosses were being severely damaged by the weather, they were moved inside and can be seen, together with a selection of the tombstones, in the visitor centre. Replicas of the crosses now stand in the open so that the appearance of the monastery, as it had been for a century or two, remains unchanged.
The road from Shannonbridge to Banagher, goes past the Clonmacnoise and West Offaly Railway, a very remarkable tourist train that runs across the peatlands. The tour takes in both the current grand scale work of mining the peat and also the conservation of wetlands and untouched bog where nature is left to herself. As part of the trip, they supply a slane and let you cut a few sods of turf yourself in the old style. Back in Banagher you may cross the Shannon and head in the direction of Eyrecourt. Stolid stone fortifications stand in the fields on the right bank of the river. They date from Napoleonic times when an invasion by the French from the west was expected. The invasion took place in 1798, but was too small to be very effective and never got anywhere near the Shannon.
A signpost for Clonfert shows the way to the beautiful little cathedral there, a building which retains its romanesque doorway, brilliantly decorated with sculptured portraits of some of the worshippers of the 12th Century. It stands on the site of a monastery, founded in 558 by St Brendan the Navigator, the redoubtable traveller who may have sailed to America and was certainly a great folk hero in medieval times. The church was rebuilt in the 15th Century and contains some later sculpture, including a mermaid. From Clonfert, the road runs southwards to Portumna, with its forest park and castle, which we visited on our tour of Lough Derg ( see below ). The journey ends by crossing the Shannon at Portumna and following the main road back to Birr.
Distances : Birr to Banagher 13km, Banagher to Doon 23km, Doon to Clonmacnoise 13km, Clonmacnoise to Banagher 27km, Banagher to Clonfert 8km, Clonfert to Portumna 23km and Portumna to Birr 26km. Total drive length, 132km.
