Athlone

Athlone guards a crossing of the Shannon near the southern end of Lough Ree. A bridge was built in the twelfth century, and in 1129 Turlough Mór Ó Conor raised a fort on the western bank to protect it. The Anglo-Normans later replaced an earthwork with a stone castle, whose twelve-sided tower dates from 1210. The crossing remained important during the wars of the seventeenth century. Jacobite troops repelled an attack in 1690, but the following year a larger Williamite army captured Athlone after a siege, forcing its defenders westward toward the River Suck.