Plassey & the Black Bridge

Plassey, east of the city, owes its name to an East India Company officer who bought the land in 1762 after serving at the battle of Plassey; his house is now the University of Limerick’s administrative centre. This was a key junction on the old Limerick Navigation. Boats came up from the city by the Park Canal and the river, then had to cross the Shannon to the Plassey–Errina Canal on the Clare bank, with the towing horses at first ferried over by boat. The Black Bridge was later built to carry the towing path across. It has been closed for safety since the floods of 2009, and reopening it depends on funding. Since 1929 this has been the bypassed old course, with little flow and no cruising: a place to walk, by the river and the old canal paths, not to moor.