The precise location of the earlier pier or jetty associated with a seventeenth-century ferry crossing here has never been pinned down, and that uncertainty is part of what makes this modest stretch of water quietly interesting. The quay itself may have replaced an earlier landing point, or it may have been built nearby, and no one has yet been able to say which.

What is known comes largely from the patent rolls of James I. In 1605, the king granted James Sculles of Lislaughtie, Co. Kerry, the authority to establish two ferry crossings on the Shannon between Limerick city and the sea. One ran from a place recorded as Begh, on the Limerick side, across to Ringannon, which is present-day Rineanna in Co. Clare, a distance of roughly 2.9 kilometres across open tidal water. The terms of the twenty-one year lease set out the fares with some precision: two pence per passenger, four pence for a horse, cow, or garran (a small working horse), and a penny for every two hogs, with sheep and goats charged at the same rate as the hogs. By 1619 the lease had changed hands, passing to James Ware and William Plunkett, suggesting the crossing remained a functioning and presumably profitable commercial enterprise well into the early seventeenth century.

The site today is not formally interpreted or signed, and visitors should expect to do a little navigation of their own. Beagh Quay is the practical landmark to aim for, with the castle ruins lying a short distance to the west along the clifftop. The estuary here is broad and subject to the usual tidal conditions of the lower Shannon, so the mood of the place shifts considerably depending on weather and tide. What you are looking at, in all likelihood, is a nineteenth-century stone quay that has quietly absorbed the function of something that once linked two provinces across a wide and fast-moving river, even if the exact spot where those early passengers and their livestock boarded the boat remains unknown.