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CLONLARA

CO. CLARE · IE

Clonlara
Cluain Lára, Co. Clare

The Ireland's Hidden Heartlands
STOP 07 / 07

Cluain Lára · Co. Clare

An east Clare village wedged between two canals, eight kilometres from Limerick and a world away from it.

Clonlara - Cluain Lára, the meadow of the mare - is a village on the R463 in the south-east corner of County Clare, eight kilometres northeast of Limerick city. Seven hundred and twenty-four people at the last count, a church, a GAA club, an equestrian centre, and the long straight cut of the Shannon headrace running past the edge of it. From the village you are ten minutes from the Limerick suburbs and ten minutes from Killaloe, and somehow part of neither.

The place is defined by two canals built a century and a half apart. The Errina Canal came first, part of the 18th-century Limerick Navigation that linked Limerick toward the upper Shannon. Then in the late 1920s came the Shannon Scheme, and Clonlara found itself directly between Parteen Weir and the power station at Ardnacrusha. The headrace canal was cut straight through the parish. Farms and townlands were divided, rivers diverted, bridges built, new roads laid. Walk the towpath today and you are walking on the seam where two eras of Irish engineering meet.

There is older ground here too. A ring fort sits north of the village, and the Normans left tower houses across the parish, the best-preserved at Coolistigue. The Earl of Thomond leased the land to the Massy family, and gentrified demesnes went up along the scenic riverside - some seventeen big houses in all, ten of them strung along the banks of the Shannon.

Don't come for a checklist. Come for an hour on the canal walk in slanting evening light, a pint after, and the quiet of a working village that happens to sit on top of the thing the country built once and never built again. Clonlara is not a destination. It knows that, and it is the better for knowing it.

Population

~724 (2022)

Walk score

A church, a couple of pubs, and the canal towpath, all within a kilometre

Coords

52.7264° N, 8.5403° W

01 / 07

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The headrace

The canal that lit the country.

Clonlara sits on the headrace canal of the Shannon Scheme, dug in the late 1920s to carry water from Parteen Weir to the turbines at Ardnacrusha. The village was at the epicentre of the largest engineering project the young Free State ever attempted.

Stories & lore → 02 Two canals

A village between two centuries of engineering.

Clonlara lies between two canals built a century and a half apart - the 18th-century Errina Canal of the old Limerick Navigation, and the 1920s headrace. Farms were split, rivers diverted, roads rebuilt. The whole parish is shaped by water moved on purpose.

Walks & outings → 03 The real county

This is Clare, not Limerick.

Clonlara sits in the civil parish of Kiltonanlea, barony of Tulla Lower, in east County Clare - between the Shannon to the east and the Clare hills to the north and west. It is close enough to Limerick city to be mistaken for it, and it is not.

Getting there →

02 / 07

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

The Anchor Inn

Locals, GAA on the screen

Village pub

On the main street. A working village pub - pints, the match if there is one, the regulars who have been propping up the same bar for years.

The Rocky Bar

Quiet, regulars

Village pub

Smaller and quieter than the Anchor. The kind of place where the talk pauses a beat when a stranger comes in and then picks back up.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

A canal that lit a country

The Shannon Scheme

When the Free State was only a few years old it staked its first big budget on hydroelectricity. The German firm Siemens-Schuckert won the contract in 1925 and dug a headrace canal from Parteen Weir down through Clonlara to a new turbine hall at Ardnacrusha. Thousands of men worked on it, with a temporary railway and German foremen living in huts along the cut. The scheme opened in 1929 and within a decade was carrying most of the electricity in the country. The straight cut you walk along beside the village is that canal.

The 18th-century navigation underneath

The Errina Canal

Before the Shannon Scheme there was the Errina Canal, part of the old Limerick Navigation built in the late 1700s to let boats bypass the rapids on the Shannon. Hand-cut stone, a horse-drawn towpath, locks worked by hand. The 1920s scheme reordered the whole landscape around it - dividing farms, diverting rivers, building new bridges and roads. Clonlara ended up as the rare village that sits between two great canals, the work of two different centuries, a century and a half apart.

Thomond, the Massys, and the Normans before them

The big houses and the tower houses

Long before the canals, this was prime riverside land. The Normans built tower houses across the area, the best-preserved surviving at Coolistigue. Later the Earl of Thomond leased the parish to the Massy family, and a run of gentrified demesnes went up along the Shannon - around seventeen grand houses in total, ten of them on the river bank. A well-preserved ring fort north of the village marks far older settlement again. The layers are all here if you know where to look.

Hurlers, a Lion, and a minister

Clonlara people

For a small east Clare village, Clonlara has sent a few names out into the world. The hurlers Colm Honan and Darach Honan came from here. So did the rugby union prop Marcus Horan, capped many times for Ireland and a British and Irish Lion. And Jan O'Sullivan, the Labour TD who served as Minister for Education, has roots in the parish. Not bad for a village of a few hundred houses.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Headrace canal towpath toward Ardnacrusha Flat, straight, the full length of the 1920s cut. It runs down to the turbine hall and the famous Ardnacrusha drop. Best walked one-way with a lift back, or as an out-and-back to the next bridge.

10 km one-waydistance

2.5 hours one-waytime

Headrace towpath toward Parteen Weir The other direction, upstream toward the weir that feeds the whole scheme. Quieter than the Ardnacrusha side and brings you out near the surviving Errina locks.

5 km returndistance

1.5 hourstime

Clonlara Heritage Trail The local heritage group has mapped the parish landscape - the canals, the ring fort, the tower house, the riverside demesnes. A way to read the layers rather than just walk past them.

Short waymarked loopdistance

1 hourtime

Clonlara to Killaloe by road The R463 is narrow but quiet outside the rush. It runs up the Shannon to Killaloe and Brian Boru country. A reasonable bike ride rather than a walk.

10 kmdistance

Cycle, 30 mintime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The towpath dries out and the canal walk is at its best. Light along the cut in April is worth the trip on its own.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings on the canal. Killaloe is busy ten kilometres up the road; Clonlara stays quiet, which is the point.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The trees along the headrace turn and the canal becomes the reason to come. Soft light, low traffic. Probably the best season here.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

The towpath gets boggy after rain. The pubs stay open and that is most of what is on offer. Limerick is fifteen minutes away for anything more.

◐ Mind yourself

06 / 07

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Confusing this with a Limerick village

Clonlara is in County Clare - parish of Kiltonanlea, barony of Tulla Lower - even though it is closer to Limerick city than to most of Clare. The Shannon is the county line nearby. Cross the river and you are in Limerick; the village itself is not.

Expecting restaurants and cafes

Clonlara is a couple of pubs, a church, and a canal. It is not a dining destination. If you want choice, Limerick city is fifteen minutes south and Killaloe ten minutes north.

The headrace towpath in the wet months

November to March, after heavy rain, the towpath turns to mud. Spring and autumn are the walks that actually work.

Getting there.

By car

Limerick city to Clonlara is about 15 minutes on the R463. Killaloe is another 15 minutes north on the same road. From Shannon Airport allow roughly 35 minutes via the M7 and Parteen.

By bus

No regular village bus service. Local Link routes serve the area on limited days; a Limerick taxi will do the run.

By train

No station in the village. Limerick Colbert is the nearest, then about a 15-minute drive.

By air

Shannon (SNN) is around 30 km. Dublin and Cork are both a longer haul - Shannon is the obvious arrival point.