FORTRESS STUDY GROUP

Casemate 72

Bill Clements.

Photographs by the Author.

In March 2004 I took the opportunity to spend a week in Ireland travelling down the west coast to Bere Island in Bantry Bay. On the way I stopped to inspect the remains of Fort Shannon, the only coast defence battery position constructed by the Irish Army during WWII.
Fort Shannon is situated on Ardmore Point on the south bank of the river Shannon near Tarbert and about 15 miles from the mouth of the river. The Shannon had been fortified during the Napoleonic Wars when a number of batteries and defensible guard houses were built on each bank, two being quite close to Fort Shannon at Corran Point and Tarbert itself. However, the Shannon was not deep enough to provide a suitable base for modern warships and so it was not fortified prior to the First World War as were Berehaven and Lough Swilly. So it may be asked, why did the Irish decide to build a battery at Ardmore Point in 1942? The answer seems to be found in the importance to the British of nearby Foynes which acted as a flying boat station and a meteorological station at that time. Indeed, prior to the invasion of Normandy Foynes was the only safe staging post for civilian air traffic flying between the United Kingdom and the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Far East.


The Treaty ports of Cork, Berehaven and Lough Swilly retained their pre-war British armament but in 1941 the Irish Department of Defence decided, perhaps at the urging of the British, that it was important to defend the mouth of the Shannon and Foynes flying boat base against an attack by enemy surface raiders or submarines. As the Irish Army had no heavy guns available the Department of Defence felt that since Berehaven was not an important base for the Irish Naval Service the two 6? BL guns mounted in Lonehort Fort would be put to better use defending the Shannon. Feeling in honour bound to discuss the matter with the British Dominions Office they asked for the views of the British government. The Admiralty, in particular, felt that Berehaven was an important potential base for the Royal Navy and were reluctant to see the guns moved. The Irish then asked the British to provide the guns and although from the beginning of the war Mr Churchill had refused to make military equipment available to the Irish because of DeValera's policy of neutrality, he was prevailed upon to approve the delivery of two 6? guns.



No.2 gun position.

Construction work on the battery commenced in August 1942 and two concrete gun positions were sited, one on the forward slope of a slight hill overlooking the river and the other on the top of the hill to the rear, together with two searchlight positions. Immediately behind the two gun positions the ground forms a shallow dip before rising again behind the battery position. The Fire Control Post was situated on this higher ground while on the crest of the hill there was a rough stone field wall with three pillboxes to provide defence on the landward side.



Centre pillbox from the landward side.

Gun crew accommodation was provided in a large wooden hut in the dip close to an electrical power house built of local stone which distributed the mains electrical supply to the gun positions and the crew accommodation and which also housed the telephone exchange. Three small brick-built engine rooms were also built to provide power to each searchlight position, with the third acting as a spare.


The gun positions themselves were the only ones in Eire to be provided with overhead protection. It would appear that their design was either influenced by British Army practice or that British plans were provided from HQ Northern Ireland District, as there is some similarity with the gun positions at Grey Point Fort near Belfast. Although similar, the Fort Shannon gun positions differed in a number of ways from the standard British design. Behind the gun there were two rooms separated by a short corridor, leading to a tunnel and the underground magazine.



The siting of the magazine some distance behind each gun meant that shells and cartridges had to be carried by hand to the ready-use lockers adjacent to the guns rather than being conveyed by hoists from a magazine below the gun as was usual in British gun positions. Another difference was that there was no concrete apron in front of each gun, only earth and grass. The guns provided by the British were two 6? BL Mk VII guns on PIII naval mountings. Both guns were made by the Elswick Ordnance Company; the No.1 gun was manufactured in 1902 and had barrel number 1396 while the No. 2 gun was made the following year, with barrel number 1927. The movable armament provided for the landward defence of the battery consisted of six Vickers .303" medium machine guns.


Fort Shannon became operational in November 1942 and the first firing of the guns took place in February 1943. The fort was manned by troops of the Irish Army Coast Defence Artillery, the garrison strength varying from a maximum of 244 in August 1943 to an average of 105 from late 1943 until the fort was evacuated on 31 May 1946. After that, a small caretaker party of five soldiers and a civilian maintained the guns and searchlights, but this party was finally withdrawn within five years. Today the battery position is abandoned and derelict. The guns have been removed and are on display at Fort Dunree in Donegal where members attending the 2003 conference saw them on display outside the old fort.



Searchlights in position.

The searchlights, however, are still in position and through stripped of most of their parts can still be seen inside their houses, as it would seem that the searchlight houses were built around them so they could not be removed.


Fort Shannon is an easy drive on the N69 from Limerick to Tarbert. At Tarbert you take a minor road for three miles following the river to reach Ardmore Point and the fort is approached down a motorable track to the remains of the gates. After that it is a walk across the fields to the gun positions.