Monday, August 24, 2026 Search My Trip EnglishChinese
World news · travel · culture
Taiwan The Taiwan Times
Taiwan's window to the world

Owenmore River (County Cavan)

The 883rd longest river in the world

km

The Owenmore River (Irish: Abhainn Mór, meaning "Big River") rises in the Cuilcagh Mountains, in the townland of Dunmakeever, civil parish of Kinawley, Roman Catholic parish of Glangevlin, Barony of Tullyhaw, County Cavan. It then flows in a north-west direction and ends in the River Shannon in Gowlat townland.[1] It has a fish population of brown trout. The Book of Magauran, dating to the 1350s, mentions an Abhainn Mór (Poem XV, stanza 9) but from the geographical description it probably means the Yellow River at Ballinamore rather than the Owenmore River. What cannot be disputed is the Owenmore River's claim to be the "true" headwaters of the River Shannon with the infant Shannon just a minor tributary of it. The Owenmore flows west for 14.5 km (9.0 mi) through the valley of Glangevlin before joining the Shannon about 3 km (2 mi) below the Shannon Pot at Lugnashinna, thus adding 11 km (7 mi) to the Shannon's overall length, taking it from 360 km (224 mi) to 372 km (231 mi).

Flows through: Ireland.

River data from Wikidata (CC0); lengths normalised to a common unit.

Other major rivers

  1. Amazon6,992 km
  2. Nile6,650 km
  3. Yangtze River6,300 km
  4. Bian River5,806 km
  5. Yellow River5,464 km
  6. Paraná River4,880 km
  7. River Congo4,700 km
  8. Mekong River4,350 km