Things to do
5-
Clonmacnoise
A monastery founded by Saint Ciarán in 544 at the crossing of the Shannon and the Esker Riada, holding two round towers, three high crosses and the largest collection of early Christian grave slabs in western Europe. The crosses in the field are replicas and the originals are indoors.
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Athlone Castle
A Norman castle of 1210 guarding the bridge, rebuilt as an artillery fort and battered through the sieges of 1690 and 1691, with a museum inside that tells the second siege from both sides. It stands beside the church on the west bank.
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Birr Castle Demesne
The Parsons estate holding the Leviathan of Parsonstown, a seventy-two-inch reflecting telescope built in 1845 that was the largest in the world for seventy years and has been restored to working order. The gardens hold the tallest box hedges in the world.
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Lough Ree
The second of the three great Shannon lakes, thirty kilometres long with wooded islands holding early church sites, and a monster reported since the Annals. Cruisers are hired at the town marina and the water is open enough to get rough.
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Sean's Bar
A pub behind the castle with wattle walls dated to about 900 found during renovation, and a Guinness World Records certificate for the oldest pub in Ireland and a claim of its own to be the oldest in the world. The floor still slopes towards the river to drain a flood.