The area surrounding Liffey Falls was a meeting place for Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years prior to the colonisation of Australia.

The Liffey River was originally called Tellerpangger by the Panninher clan who occupied the area.

In 1827 a significant massacre of up to sixty of the Pallittorre clan by European colonists took place during the Black War.

[5] The massacre with sixty dead or wounded is reported in The Sydney Morning Herald as happening at Liffey Falls.

Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser reporting on 6 July 1827 (page 4, The Natives) on a dispatch from Launceston does not explicitly mention Liffey Falls and refers to Quamby's Bluff when it notes: "They were surrounded whilst sitting round their fires, when the soldiers and others fired at them when about 30 yards distant.