Taking the M6 Dublin Galway motorway is like having a lobotomy. It's a crass but efficient way of shifting one's perspective from one place to another – but so much is lost along the way. Missing out on Moate or Athlone may not seem a great loss, but missing Clonmacnoise definitely is.
Each time I make the detour to that bend in the Shannon where St Ciarán founded his monastery in 548AD my bearings get reset. Things move at a different pace there. The suspiciously fine condition of some of the grave slabs and high crosses suggest the site may not be fully under the control of our regular time continuum. It could be something to do with its position on an axis point where the Shannon meets the Esker Riada, the gravel ridge that provided one of the few routes across the central Irish lowlands for millennia. Either way, if you haven’t been to Clonmacnoise since you dragged some foreign relative there, go again – for yourself this time.
Right between Clonmacnoise and the M6 is the eco-craft village of Ballinahown which, as a creative hub for Irish designers and craft-makers, is as impressive as Avoca, Shanagarry or Bennetsbridge, and with as fine a café as any of those places. The craft galleries are in the front rooms of Victorian cottages and sell hand-made souvenirs that one would actually be proud to give as mementoes of Ireland.
When you are there, check out Athlone's new cultural quarter: the Luan Gallery juts out over the Shannon with barges and cruisers motoring by beneath your feet. The riverine light glinting through the glass walls is an artwork of its own, acting as a ligh-spectrum link between the gallery and its former lives as a Temperance Hall and a theatre where Count John McCormack gave some of his earliest performances. The Luan has strong links with the Irish Museum of Modern Art so the art is a mix of the best international and local works.
Across the road the daunting limestone walls of Athlone Castle soar ominously over the gallery and the Shannon. Like Clonmacnoise, the 13th to 19th century castle is in remarkably good fettle, though the castle reeks of violence and subjugation, rather than mysticism. This bastion of damp fortifications has been brought to life by a series of interactive displays designed by the company behind Belfast's Titanic museum, with illustrations by Victor Ambrus (of Channel 4's Time Team) and props by Windsor Workshop, which worked on the Harry Potter and Star Wars movies.
You arrive thinking the castle’s brutal past is safely confined to history, but are less certain after 10 minutes in the upper keep, which uses 360-degree projection and 4D sound-layering to evoke the bloody siege of Athlone in 1690 by Cromwell’s New Model Army. You’re right in the midst of the vicious fight and coming out onto the street again, towards the M6, feels like emerging from a very vivid dream.