King John’s Castle, on the banks of the River Shannon, built in 1212 by the Normans.
The town bore the brunt of English oppression, and after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690,
the defeated Jacobite army withdrew here. The town was besieged and ultimately surrendered,
resulting in the Treaty of Limerick in 1691. The stone on which the treaty was signed is at
the end of the Thomond Bridge, opposite the castle. The English reneged on most of the terms
of the treaty, and resentments about this treachery still simmer to this day.