Discover Killaloe

Two counties and a High King

Killaloe takes its name from St Molua, Cill Dalua, whose church stood on Friar's Island in the Shannon until the island was drowned for the Ardnacrusha power station in the 1930s; the church was moved up the hill, where it stands now beside St Flannan's Catholic church. Brian Ború made the town his seat. Discover Ireland gives his headquarters as Kincora, in Killaloe, and credits the folklorist Dáithí Ó hÓgáin with the view that he was born or reared at Béal Ború, the ringfort just upriver whose name it gives as the port of the cattle tribute.

The river is the county line. Killaloe is in Co. Clare; Ballina, across the bridge, is in Co. Tipperary and is not the Ballina in Co. Mayo. On the Clare bank, St Flannan's Cathedral was built between 1195 and 1225 in yellow and purple sandstone, and keeps a Romanesque doorway and the Thorgrim stone, inscribed in ogham and Norse runes about 1000 AD. On the Tipperary bank are the quay, the cruise boat and the road up Tountinna to the Graves of the Leinstermen.