The Great Siege of Athlone 1691
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Remains of the Elizabethan Bridge
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River Shannon and Navigation

The Great Siege of Athlone 1691, also, Remains of the Elizabethan Bridge, also, River Shannon and Navigation. . , THE GREAT SIEGE OF ATHLONE 1691 , In 1691 the 20,000-strong Williamite army besieged Athlone. Seizing the east town, they were confronted by a broken bridge and determined Jacobite defenders across the river in the castle and on the west bank., The Williamite artillery flattened the west town, but the courage and determination of the Irish defenders prevented them crossing the bridge. Eventually an assault across the old ford caught the defenders by surprise and the town fell., The ford across the Shannon from which Athlone takes its name was located about 150 meters south of the present bridge. It was removed in the 1840s as a part of the Shannon Commissioners' scheme to open up navigation through the town., REMAINS OF THE ELIZABETHAN BRIDGE , In 1567 Sir Henry Sidney, chief governor of Ireland, built a 10-arch stone bridge, which survived until the 1840s. This was the bridge that featured so prominently in the great siege of Athlone in 1691. Look across the river and see if you can find the surviving, ivy-clad stone work., RIVER NAVIGATION AND NAVIGATION WORKS , Ireland's greatest river flows through the heart of the island from north to south before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean at Limerick. The navigation works, including the lock, dam, quays and bridge at Athlone, were built by the Shannon Commissioners in the mid-19th century., Athlone owes its existence to its location at a convenient crossing point on the mid-Shannon, south of Lough Ree where the river was easily forded. The castle was built to guard the river crossing.