A pretty and well-kept one-street village with a good small harbour on Lough Derg; this makes it hugely popular with boating people during the summer months. Holy Island (q.v.) is reached from here by the East Clare Heritage launch (see under Tuamgreaney) and is well worth a visit. Mountshannon is also a shooting and fishing centre. The village was designed and built from scratch by Alexander Woods, a Limerick merchant, who intended it as a purely Protestant settlement from which the surrounding Catholic population would be so impressed by the thrift and industry of the settlers that they would quickly convert to the Reformed Church; even as late as the 1830's there was not a single Catholic resident in the village. In fact the reverse happened - it was the Catholics who colonised the village, and the picturesque Protestant church in a wooded churchyard bears mute testimony to Woods and his scheme. Some of the original surnames of these Protestant settlers survive in the locality.

The village had to support itself by means of flax-growing and linen-making, and Woods established the infrastructure for this (There is no flax in Mountshannon now either). The history of Mountshannon is set down in 'Mountshannon', by Gerard Madden, director of East Clare Heritage (see Tuamgreaney). The village won the National Tidy Towns competition some years ago, and the village still maintains a high standard of neatness. The local Catholic church is a simple but attractive stone building.

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