Before the age of steam, the Shannon was rarely used for carrying goods or passengers.
Boats designed for canals fared poorly on the lakes, which they could cross only with favourable winds. In 1827 John Grantham placed the first steam-boat on Lough Derg; it towed barges, carrying goods and livestock, from Killaloe to Shannon Harbour, whence they were hauled by horse on the Grand Canal to Dublin.
In the 1830s and 1840s the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company was the main operator. This was its base, from which it operated five steamers and fifty barges on the Shannon and the canals.
It also ran steamers on the Shannon Estuary and the Irish Sea; it could carry goods from the west of Ireland to Liverpool. It carried passengers too.
During the Great Famine of the 1840s many people left here by steamer en route to Liverpool and a new life.
From the 1860s the Grand Canal Company was the main carrier and Guinness was one of its principal cargoes.
Killaloe-Ballina