The Killaloe Canal was the uppermost section of the Limerick Navigation, which provided a navigable waterway between Limerick and Killaloe, and thus with the rest of the Shannon up to Lough Allen. The navigation used two stretches of the River Shannon, but elsewhere rocks and rapids made it impossible for large boats to use the river. These rapids were bypassed by three sections of canal, the uppermost of which was at Killaloe.
Construction began at the Limerick end in 1755; the first boats from Lough Allen came downriver, through Killaloe, to Limerick in 1797.
The navigation was closed again from 1803 to 1814 but then remained open until July 1929, when most of the flow of the Shannon was diverted through a new canal leading to the hydroelectric power station at Ardnacrusha.
Killaloe-Ballina