Although relatively modern, this quay sits on the site of an ancient ford across the river Shannon. You can still see evidence of this crossing hidden in overgrowth and ivy today on the opposite bank in the form of Keelogue Battery, a Napoleonic garrison with 7 gun emplacements to protect Britain from a French invasion from the West which never materialised. Interestingly, the opposite bank is actually a large island in the middle of the Shannon called Incherky which runs from about 2km upstream of here to the Victoria Lock about 1km downstream. The original navigation, the Clonahenogue Canal, was dredged in the mid-1700's and ran on the other side of Incherky Island down through Hamilton lock to bypass the Meelick rapids. To provide a larger lock for the steam ships which started to arrive on the Shannon in the 1820's, the Victoria Lock was constructed and the current navigation dredged in the 1840's.
1.5km walk from here (or 1km downstream below the weir) sits another interesting site, St Francis' Church which just celebrated 600 years of continous services in 2014 -- making it the longest continuously serving church in Ireland. Miracuoulsy, its altar which had been dumped in the Shannon by Cromwell's forces around the time of the battle of Meelick Island here in 1650 (where Cromwell's forces faced and routed Ulick Burke's Connacht Irish Army in close-quarter clubbed musket hand-to-hand battle), was recovered and re-instated when it was found during the 2nd dredging in the 1840's.