KILLALOE  , a

town of county Clare, Ireland, in the east parliamentary division, at the lower extremity of Lough Derg on the river Shannon, at the Not of the Slieve Bernagh mountains . Pop . (19o1), 885 . It is connected, so as to form one town, with Ballina (county Tipperary) by a bridge of 13 arches . Ballina is the terminus of a branch of the Great Southern and Western railway, 15 M . N.E. of Limerick . Slate is quarried in the vicinity, and there were formerly woollen manufactures . The cathedral of St Flannan occupies the site of a church founded by St Dalua in the 6th century . The present building is mainly of the 12th century, a good cruciform example of the period, preserving, however, a magnificent Romanesque doorway . It was probably completed by Donall O'Brien, king of Munster, but part of the fabric dates from a century before his time . In the churchyard is an ancient oratory said to date from the period of St Dalua . Near Killaloe stood Brian Boru's palace of Kincora, celebrated in verse by Moore; for this was the capital of the kings of Munster .

Killaloe is frequented by anglers for the Shannon

salmon-fishing and for trout-fishing in Lough Derg . Killaloe gives name to Protestant and Roman Catholic dioceses .