Athlone

The crossing of the Shannon at the very centre of Ireland, and therefore the hinge of every campaign: whoever held Athlone held the road between Leinster and Connacht. Its castle was besieged twice in the Williamite war. Sean's Bar claims to be the oldest pub in Ireland, and possibly in Europe.

• Corlea Trackway · An 18-metre stretch of the great oak road of 148 BC, preserved in a climate-controlled hall exactly where the bog swallowed it.
• Clonmacnoise · The monastic city at the crossroads of Ireland, Shannon and Esker Riada, where kings were buried and Vikings, Irish and Normans all came to plunder.
• Clonmacnoise — the ship in the air · An anchor came down out of the sky during Mass and caught in the church door; a sailor climbed down the rope to free it and began to drown in our thicker air. Watch the story grow: the annals of the 740s say only that ships were seen in the air. A dart at a salmon over Teltown comes later, the anchor and Clonmacnoise later still. By the 13th century the Norse were telling it as their own.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.