Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/241

Derry and Limerick The old town was then the second city of Ireland in extent and population. The Shannon, navigable to that point, divided it into two distinct segments. The older, known as the English town, containing the cathedral and most of the principal buildings, occupied the southern and more elevated portion of an island some two miles in circumference, low lying in the Shannon. Thomond Bridge, a narrow stone structure some eighty yards long, linked this "King's Island" to the county Clare. It was connected by Ball's Bridge, spanning the narrower, eastern arm of the river, with the Irish town upon the county Limerick bank.

Both towns were fortified after a fashion, which the French officers, trained in the new school of Vauban, scoffed at, as they had at the walls of Derry. The English town was defended by a wall, strongest on the north-east face, which commanded the lower ground of the island, mostly a swampy tract, which was surrounded by a strong line of circumvallation. Just below Thomond Bridge King John's castle stood, on the island at the water's edge. The walls of the Irish town, being unprotected by the river, were stronger, being double, and containing five bastions and some towers. Beyond these, to the north-east, the Irish had erected some outworks, 229