The Cliffs of Moher Ireland's most unusual landscape is to be found in the Burren and the Hunt Museum in Limerick houses one of the country's most important art collections. History is revealed in the mills and thatched cottages of Limerick's towns while the artists and craft workers of County Clare blend modern design with older skills. And, of course, the River Shannon exerts its quiet influence through the region.
The Shannon Region consists of counties Clare and Limerick. Clare has an abundance of visual riches from the famous river Shannon and Lough Derg which form its eastern boundary and west towards its rugged Atlantic coastline with towering cliffs and golden beaches. Limerick is a county of quiet beauty and rural charm. Its gentle undulating landscape is pleasing to the eye from the beautiful Golden Vale in the east to the tidal estuary Shannon Estuary in the west.
Limerick City is the hub and capital of the Shannon Region and the 3rd largest city in the Republic of Ireland. Its colourful and fascinating history is evident everywhere and proudly maintained.
From the times more than a thousand years ago, when the Vikings first developed it, to the present day, Limerick has been the greatest seaport of the west of Ireland. Its magnificent river, the lordly Shannon, has been part of one of Ireland's oldest routes. In early medieval times hermits, heroes, soldiers, raiders, students and pilgrims, all travelled along this 'water highway' from the Atlantic Ocean through to the Irish midlands and beyond.
Buildings ancient and historical, middle-aged and stately, modern and exciting now mingle with each other on either side of the broad and beautiful river. Although small enough to offer a sense of intimacy, Limerick, with its university, museums, citadel and cathedral is undoubtedly a metropolis.
All traces of the Viking had disappeared until archaeologists revealed the foundations of their homesteads and collected some of their domestic goods. More tangible remains of past inhabitants go back 800 years to the building of the King Johns Castle, whose towers still gaze out over a ford on the river, and which remains the dominant feature of King's Island. Nearby is the medieval St. Marys Cathedral. Take a leap of five hundred years to the Treaty Stone, preserved on the opposite bank of the river. Then move to the 18th century with broad streets and splendid Georgian town houses. Finally come into the later decades of the 20th century when crumbling old buildings were sensitively modernised to form delightful urban centres. This decade also saw the great collection of archaeological material and works of art, which were assembled by John Hunt, housed in the renovated Customs House - The Hunt Museum - and the new University of Limerick was built, upstream, also on the banks of the River Shannon.
And, of course, a city that contains all this must also provide a generous selection of the best shops, great restaurants, hotels, pubs, theatre and everything else a visitor might wish to enjoy. And that is just what the city offers.
Beyond its bounds, within an hour's drive, are lakes great and small, stone-age homesteads and medieval banquets, castles ruined and restored, a world-class international airport and delightful little harbours. Limerick is in the middle of everything that makes Ireland a haven.
The Vikings founded the seaport of Limerick in 922 AD on an island beside a ford, a strategic point on the River Shannon. Within fifty years it had become so important that the native chieftains saw it as a rich prize and King Mahon of Thomond, together with his brother Brian Boru, displaced the Vikings in 967 and, a century later, their descendants made it their capital. Thereafter a succession of invaders attacked and sometimes controlled the city. The Anglo-Normans, like the Vikings before them, established a colony in the same place in the 12th century, giving it the name of King's Island. The English Prince John ordered the building of castle that stands to this day - King John's Castle-  and he gave the town its Royal Charter in 1197. Its charter is older than that of London.
The settlers occupied a part of the city called the English Town. The native chieftains controlled an Irish Town beside it and both parties enjoyed long periods of prosperity. The 17th century saw appalling battles and destruction, first in Cromwellian times when the city was besieged for three months and later under King William III when there were more sieges, ending with a treaty in 1691. The treaty, according to tradition, was signed on a great Treaty Stone which stands on a pedestal on the opposite bank of the Shannon from the Castle.
The city continued to be something of a fortress until 1760 when the old city walls were dismantled and a splendid new town developed towards the south. King Johns Castle and St. Mary's Cathedral nearby, in the mediaeval quarters, remain at the core of the old city - King's Island - but the expansion that began in the 18th century never really ceased. The new town was planned with broad streets and squares and the superb town houses that line them were built. The 19th century saw major churches and public buildings and in the final decades of the 20th century museums, theatres, shopping centres, restaurants and a brand new university made their appearance.