Tourism has supplanted this to a certain extent with a modern marina providing support for river cruisers and watersports facilities and the town is an angling centre, with particular attraction for pike anglers.

An army that wanted to cross the river in the area of the Shannon Callows had few choices; apart from Banagher, the only other suitable places were Athlone, Shannonbridge and Portumna.

[17] The importance of Banagher as a military position on the Shannon and the highway from Leinster and Munster to Connacht was early appreciated by the English, whose forces seized it about the middle of the 16th century, coming up the river to do so.

Neat two and three-storey houses were built on each side of the road in Banagher to provide shops and dwellings for the merchants and other people who came to live there for the canal business.

At dusk the whole river reflects the varied sunsets as the days draw in – effects of palest pink, for instance, striped by cloudy lines of green, or an horizon aflame with scarlet and orange light.

[27] In autumn and winter, the extensive flood plain of the Shannon Callows supports a large number of waders, swans, wildfowl and other bird life.

[34] During the late 1960s to the early 1980s, several German, Dutch and Swiss settlers were attracted to Banagher, mainly because of its proximity to the River Shannon and associated lifestyle.

The most notable of these was Bord na Móna, a semi-state company founded in 1946 to manage the harvesting of peat from Ireland's bogs, the most extensive of which are located in the midlands.

However, the advancement of mechanised harvesting, the exhaustion of the bogs and the closure of a number of peat-fired power stations, means that this is no longer a significant employer in the region.

Pope-Hennessy described the granting of the charter by Charles I which "empowered them to hold the famous Banagher Great Fair, at which everything from cattle and sheep to boots and basket chairs was on sale.

The line of horses tethered on each side of Banagher Main Street stretched from the Shannon river bridge to the crossroads two and a half miles outside the town known as Tailor's Cross.

Their work included replacing massive stone parapets on either side of the bridge with aluminium railings, and the removal of a swivel arch which had allowed passage for masted boats.

Irregular in plan and now in ruins, it comprises a partially roughcast rendered rubble limestone enclosing wall with a cut stone segmental-headed entrance to the east and is situated to the south of the River Shannon, adjacent to the bridge.

[52] After the British garrison left the town in 1863, the barracks was used by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and was looted and burned shortly after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.

Similar to the Martello Tower that stands opposite it, on the same bank of the river, Cromwell's Castle was largely reconstructed as a defensive position to repel any invading fleet coming upstream towards Banagher.

[57] In his biography of Anthony Trollope, James Pope-Hennessy describes Cuba Court as "a fine example of an Irish country-house of the mid-eighteenth century in the manner of the Dublin architect, Pierce (sic).

The executions caused a public outcry in Britain and internationally as the men had admitted to constructing the bomb, which was intended to be used to destroy a power station, but claimed not to be involved in planting it.

[66][67] The cross was erected in 1963 by The Barnes & McCormack Memorial Committee in association with The National Graves Committee and bears an inscription in both Irish and English: "In commemoration of Staff Captain James McCormack and Company Captain Peter Barnes, Irish Republican Army, who for love of country, were executed by the British Government at Winson Green Prison, Birmingham on the 7th February 1940."

The surviving sandstone shaft of the cross was found in the churchyard by a Birr antiquarian named Thomas Cooke in the 1840s and was in reasonable condition then as he described it in great detail in an article in the Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society in 1853.

The stone that he found appears to have been part of a sepulchral or commemorative cross, set up at Banagher well to record the death of Bishop William O'Duffy, who was killed by a fall from his horse in 1297.

[73] An appraisal by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage describes the later addition of a bell tower with an elaborate door surround and finely-carved belfry openings as adding to the otherwise modest church.

The appraisal also describe the tall stained glass lancet windows and a mandorla called The Madonna and Child carved in 1974 by German sculptor Imogen Stuart, as giving an artistic quality to the building.

Although very much smaller than the town of Birr, which is only eight miles away, Banagher had been chosen as the base of a Postal Surveyorship, probably because its position on the Shannon offered easy access by can boat to Dublin and Limerick.

Mr Nicholls remained with Brontë's father for a further six years before returning to Banagher in 1861, taking with him his wife's portrait, her wedding dress (of which a copy has been made), some of Charlotte's letters and other mementoes.

Pope-Hennessy had published his first book, London Fabric in 1939, for which he was awarded the Hawthornden Prize and was a well-established biographer and travel writer by the time he arrived in Banagher.

It is thought that he was induced to delay the second volume – the English government shrinking from the exposure of their conduct in carrying the Act of Union, and it was understood that to purchase his silence he was permitted to reside in France from about 1815.

"[75] An alternative explanation is suggested, whereby there was an Irish minstrel called Bannagher, who was famous for telling wonderful stories; and a line from W. B. Yeats gives this theory some credence: "'Well', says he, 'to gratify them I will.

The origins of this are more difficult to trace but it does feature in a work by the Irish writer Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne, Messer Marco Polo (1925), p. 25, and it is in common usage in Ireland.

[68] St Rynagh's CC, originally known as Banagher Vocational School, opened in 1953 with 40 students enrolling under the guidance of the first principal, Ms Elsie Naughton.

Three St Rynagh's players have captained the Offaly county hurling team to All-Ireland success, Padraig Horan in 1981, Martin Hanamy in 1994 and Hubert Rigney in 1998.