Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [282]
Bikes can be hired at Emerald Alpine ( 061-416 983; www.irelandrentabike.com; Roches St; per day/week €20/80). The company will also retrieve or deliver a bike from anywhere in Ireland for €25.
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AROUND LIMERICK CITY
To the south of the city there’s a clutch of outstanding historic sites that reward a day visit by car or a couple of days by bike. Only the larger villages are served by bus.
Lough Gur
The area around this horseshoe-shaped lake has dozens of intriguing archaeological sites. Grange Stone Circle, known as the Lios, is a superb 4000-year-old circular enclosure made up of 113 embanked uprights. It is the largest prehistoric circle of its kind in Ireland. There’s roadside parking and access to the site is free. To get there, leave Limerick on the N24 road south towards Waterford. Look for a sign to Lough Gur indicating a right turn at the roundabout outside town. This takes you onto the R512. In about 16km you reach the stone circle.
Around 1km further south along the R512, at Holycross garage and post office, a left turn takes you towards Lough Gur, past a ruined 15th-century church, and a wedge tomb on the other side of the road.
Another 2km leads to a car park by Lough Gur and the thatched replica of a Neolithic hut containing the Lough Gur Stone Age Centre ( 061-360 788; www.shannonheritage.com; adult/child €5/3; 10am-5pm early May-Sep). The centre has a good exhibit on prehistoric Irish farms (meaning pre–potato era) and a small museum displaying Neolithic artefacts and a replica of the Lough Gur shield that’s now in the National Museum in Dublin. Other displays explain recent emigration from the area, which included a number of future American mobsters.
Short walks along the lake’s edge lead to burial mounds, standing stones, ancient enclosures and other points of interest. Admission to these sites is free. The whole area is ideal for picnics.
Kilmallock
pop 1400
Ireland’s third-largest town during the Middle Ages (after Dublin and Kilkenny) still has a smattering of medieval buildings that are well worth a visit.
Kilmallock developed around a 7th-century abbey, and from the 14th to the 17th centuries was the seat of the Earls of Desmond. The village lies beside the River Lubach, 26km south of Limerick and a world away from the city’s urban racket.
Coming into Kilmallock from Limerick, the first thing you’ll see (to your left) is a medieval stone mansion – one of 30 or so that housed the town’s prosperous merchants and landowners. Further along, the street dodges around the four-storey King’s Castle, a 15th-century tower house with a ground-floor archway through which the pavement now runs. Across the road, a lane leads down to the tiny Kilmallock Museum ( 063-91300; Sheares St; admission free; 11am-3pm). It houses a random collection of historical artefacts and, more fun, a model of the town in 1597 so you can get an idea of what you missed (besides the smells, diseases etc). The museum is the base for the history trail, which has stops around town for info and context.
Beyond the museum and across the River Lubach are the moody and extensive ruins of a 13th-century Dominican priory, which boasts a splendid five-light window in the choir.
Returning to the main street, head back towards Limerick city, then turn left into Orr St, which runs down to the 13th-century Collegiate Church. This has a round tower dating probably to an earlier, pre-Norman monastery on the site.
Further south along the main street, turn left (on foot, the road is one-way against you) into Wolfe Tone St. On the right, just before the bridge, you’ll see a plaque marking the house where the Irish poet Aindrias Mac Craith died in 1795. Across the road, one of the pretty, single-storey cottages (the fifth one from the bridge) preserves a 19th-century interior. Obtain the key from next door.
Off the other side of the main street, in Emmet St, is Blossom Gate, the one surviving gate of the original medieval town wall.
Kilmallock has an excellent facility in its Friars’ Gate