Killaloe

On the Shannon where it leaves Lough Derg, facing Ballina across the bridge. Brian Boru's seat of Kincora was here, and the town was the centre of the Dál gCais before they took Cashel and the high kingship with it.

Killaloe grew from a 6th-century monastery founded by St Molua on an island in the Shannon. In the 10th century it was Brian Boru's base, commanding the crossing above Viking Limerick; his palace, Kincora, stood where the Catholic church now is, so between 1002 and 1014 Killaloe was in effect the capital of Ireland. His fort, Béal Bórumha, stood on an Iron Age ringfort two kilometres north, and the tribute (bóramha) paid at the ford is thought to be the origin of his name. The first bridge here is mentioned in 1013.

St Flannan's Cathedral was built between 1185 and 1225. When Ennis became the county town under Elizabeth I, Killaloe declined. Cromwell spent ten days across the river in 1650 looking for a crossing, and forty years later Sarsfield's Jacobites harried the Williamites here. St Lua's oratory was moved from Friar's Island when the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric scheme was built in the 1920s.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Killaloe ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Inish Cealtra · round tower · 13 km
• Castle Connell · castle · 10 km
• Castlebawn · castle · 11 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Treaty Stone, Limerick · The block on which the 1691 Treaty was supposedly signed — its promises to Catholics broken so fast that Limerick is still 'the city of the violated treaty'.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.