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MONTPELIER

CO. LIMERICK · IE

Montpelier, Co. Limerick

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 07 / 07

Montpelier · Co. Limerick

The Limerick half of O'Briensbridge-Montpelier - the east bank of the Shannon, an ancient ford, and Mick Mackey's hurling parish.

Montpelier is the Limerick side of a settlement the census refuses to split. On the map it shares a hyphen with O'Briensbridge - O'Briensbridge-Montpelier, 451 people at the 2022 count - but the river runs between them and so does a county line. O'Briensbridge is in Clare on the west bank. Montpelier is in Limerick on the east bank. Montpelier on its own was 172 people in 2022.

The bridge is the reason both names exist. A 14-arch stone crossing carries the road over the Shannon between the two, and the ford it replaced is old enough to be named in the Triads of Ireland as one of the three great fords of the country. Turlough O'Brien, first Earl of Thomond, threw a bridge across here in 1506; it was burned, rebuilt, fought over, and finally settled into the stone arches you cross today, the eastern half rebuilt by the Shannon Commissioners in 1842.

Practically, the services sit on the Clare side - the pub, the bridge, the village green are all O'Briensbridge. Montpelier is the surrounding parish on the Limerick bank: scattered houses, the small oratory of St Theresa, and a hurling pitch that once produced one of the greatest players the game has seen. If you are navigating, O'Briensbridge is the address that brings you to the bridge; Montpelier is the fields on the far side of it.

Population

172 (2022 census); 451 with O'Briensbridge as a combined settlement

Founded

River crossing recorded from 1506; the ford predates it by millennia

Coords

52.7500° N, 8.5000° 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 bank

Montpelier is Limerick. O'Briensbridge is Clare. One bridge between them.

The 14-arch stone bridge over the Shannon links the two halves. The village proper - pub, shop, the useful address - is on the Clare side at O'Briensbridge. Montpelier is the east-bank townland and the name on the census.

Stories & lore → 02 The ford

An ancient crossing - one of the three fords of Ireland.

The crossing here is identified with Ath Caille, the Ford of the Wood, named in the medieval Triads of Ireland alongside Ath Cliath (Dublin) and Ath Luain (Athlone). People have been getting across the Shannon at this exact spot for a very long time.

Stories & lore →

02 / 07

The pubs.

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

O'Briensbridge (across the river)

Clare side

Where the pub actually is

Montpelier itself has no pub worth pointing you to. The drinking, the shop and the village life are across the bridge in O'Briensbridge on the Clare bank - a two-minute walk over the Shannon. See the O'Briensbridge entry; that is where you go for a pint.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

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

O'Brien, 1506, and four centuries of repairs

The bridge and the burning of it

Turlough O'Brien, first Earl of Thomond, and his brother the Bishop of Killaloe built the first bridge across the Shannon here in 1506. It was timber, and Gearoid Mor FitzGerald, eighth Earl of Kildare, burned it in 1510. The O'Briens rebuilt it with two castles, walls twelve feet thick, and a raised wooden span - and in 1537 Leonard Grey, Henry VIII's Lord Deputy, destroyed that one too after a long fight against the rebelling O'Briens. What stands now is mostly the rebuild of around 1750, with the six eastern arches replaced by the Shannon Commissioners in 1842 and a navigation arch cut during the Ardnacrusha works of the late 1920s. The village name on the Clare side - O'Briensbridge - is the family's, stamped on the river permanently.

Ath Caille, the Ford of the Wood

One of the three fords of Ireland

Long before the stone arches, this was a fording point - and not a minor one. The medieval Triads of Ireland name three great fords of the country: Ath Cliath at Dublin, Ath Luain at Athlone, and Ath Caille, the Ford of the Wood, which scholars place at this crossing of the Shannon. It put Montpelier and O'Briensbridge on one of the old routes across the midline of Ireland. The bridge simply made permanent a crossing that mattered for a thousand years before anyone laid a stone.

Ahane GAA - Ahane, Castleconnell and Montpelier

Mick Mackey country

Ahane GAA, founded in 1926, draws its players from Ahane, Castleconnell and Montpelier on the Limerick bank. Between 1931 and 1948 the club won nineteen Limerick Senior Hurling Championships and fed most of the Limerick side that took the All-Ireland in 1934, 1936 and 1940. Its greatest son was Mick Mackey (1912-1982), centre-forward, the inaugural All-Time All-Star and a fixture on every Team of the Century and Team of the Millennium hurling fans have ever picked. The Munster hurling cup now carries his name. This quiet stretch of the Shannon produced one of the two or three best hurlers who ever lived.

On the old school site, opened 1989

St Theresa's Oratory

Montpelier's small place of worship is St Theresa's Oratory, built on the site of the old national school and opened and dedicated by Bishop Michael Harty in May 1989. It belongs to Castleconnell and Ahane parish in the Diocese of Killaloe. It is a modern oratory, not a heritage ruin - a working local church rather than a sight to photograph - but it is the village's own, on the Limerick side of the river.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

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

The bridge and both banks Cross the 14-arch bridge from the Limerick bank to O'Briensbridge in Clare and back. You change county halfway across. The Shannon is wide and slow here below Lough Derg; the riverbank on the O'Briensbridge side is the more developed walk.

1-2 kmdistance

30-45 minutestime

O'Briensbridge and Errinagh Bridge Loop A waymarked loop on the Clare side taking in the river, the canal cut and the smaller Errinagh Bridge. Starts from O'Briensbridge village across the bridge. Quiet, flat, and good for an undemanding couple of hours by the water.

About 8 km loopdistance

2 hourstime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The Shannon is full and the riverbank walks dry out. Quiet, green, and the light on the water below the bridge is at its best before the summer haze.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings on the river. Anglers and a few cruisers about. The bridge and the loop walk are pleasant; just do not expect a crowd or much in the way of services on the Montpelier side.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The hurling championship is decided in these weeks - Ahane country takes it seriously. Cool, clear river-walking weather and almost nobody about.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days and a swollen Shannon. The bridge is fine; the lower riverside paths can flood. Not a place to build a trip around in midwinter.

◐ 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.

Expecting a village on the Montpelier side

There isn't one in the usual sense. Montpelier is a townland and a parish name on the Limerick bank - houses, fields, an oratory, a GAA pitch. The pub, the shop and the bridge are all O'Briensbridge on the Clare side. Cross over.

Treating the census name as one place

O'Briensbridge-Montpelier looks like a single village on paper. It is two, in two counties, with a river between them. Worth knowing which bank you are standing on - it decides which county you are in.

Getting there.

By car

On the Limerick (east) bank of the Shannon opposite O'Briensbridge, roughly 13 km northeast of Limerick city. The bridge carries the road across to Clare. Castleconnell is about 5 km south on the Limerick side; Killaloe is up the river to the north.

By bus

No useful direct village service. Castleconnell, a few kilometres south, is the nearest place on the Limerick commuter bus network; Local Link covers the rural roads thinly. A car is the realistic way in.

By train

The nearest station is Castleconnell, about 5 km south on the Limerick-Ballybrophy line (Limerick to Nenagh commuter service). Services are infrequent - two trains each way most weekdays plus the commuter run - so check the timetable before relying on it.

By air

Shannon Airport (SNN) is about 30 minutes by car. Limerick city is the staging point for everything.

Next on the tour

Co. Clare

O'Briensbridge

The other half of the settlement, two minutes across the bridge. The pub, the shop and the village green are all over here on the Clare bank.

Co. Limerick

Castleconnell

About 5 km south on the Limerick bank. The Victorian spa and salmon-fishing village, the nearest railway station, and the next real cluster of services.

Co. Clare

Killaloe

Up the Shannon to the north at the foot of Lough Derg. Brian Boru's town, the cathedral, and the proper day out on this stretch of river.

Co. Limerick

Clonlara

Four kilometres north-east along the Shannon's Clare bank, tucked between the two canals.