Origin of County
name:
- The small county of
Laois was created as Queen's county, twinned with King's
County (County Offaly) in the 16th century from lands
seized from the local Irish chiefs, the O'Mores,
Fitzgeralds, O'Dempseys and O'Dunnes.
- The English also
planted Portlaoise, calling the town Maryborough after
Mary Tudor for a time. Small plantation towns are dotted
throughout the flat farmland of the county, which rises up
to the scenic Slieve Bloom Mountains on its northern
border with Offaly.
- The Book of
Leinster, a historical and religious account of the High
Kings of Ireland between 1151 and 1224, was in the
possession of the O'Mores of Laois for centuries and is
now on show at Trinity College Dublin.
Initially called
‘Queen’s County, it was renamed Laois after the War of
Independence, (1919-21) in honour of the Loigis/Loigsi, late Iron Age
Pict mercenaries who helped Welsh invaders (the Laigin)
conquer Leinster.
There are more than 1,000 historical
sites and monuments in the county, some telling the story of
the Mesolithic times of 8,500 years ago, others tracing the
history of the Neolithic farmers. The county had a strong
Christian establishment by the sixth century, but many of
its monasteries fell prey to the Viking hordes, as evidenced
by a re-discovered Viking longboat at Dunrally. The Normans
gained control of the best land in the county by around
1325, but a gaelic revival occurred during the 14th century.
This revival was summarily ended when the O’Mores had their
lands confiscated by the English in the 16th century.
Laois
was established out of a number of unrelated Gaelic
territories and earlier chiefdoms and referred to as the
Queen’s County by a parliamentary act in 1556, during the
reign of Queen Mary Tudor of England in 1556. In 1558, Queen
Elizabeth came to the throne. A commission was appointed in
1561 to define the boundaries of Laois and Offaly and to
divide the counties into baronies. This was because many
English people were settling in these counties at the time. It, along with Offaly, became the first
area to be planted in Ireland.
Location
Dominated by the towering Rock of Dunamaise, it seems
as if Laois has protected its secrets for generations. But
historical treasures do exist. From the ancient Round Tower
of Timahoe, the elegant magnificence of Emo Court or the
wild and lonely isolation of the Slieve Bloom mountains,
Laois boasts a diversity of remains and monuments to a
varied and proud past.
In the tranquil days of the early Christian era Laois
was a haven of piety and sanctity, the silent ruins which
today are scattered throughout the county, gentle but
poignant reminders of the monastic era which originally
shaped our Christian heritage. The sept or seven-fold system
seems to have been a peculiarity of Gaelic civil life
interwoven with ecclesiastical divisions and custom. An old
common saying was 'he (she or it) is the talk of the seven
parishes.' The 'Seven Laoises' was a loose description of
both land divisions and clan divisions and the following
names were generally recognised as the Seven Clans of Laois:
O'Moore, O'Lalor, O'Doran, O'Dowling, O'Devoy (O'Deevy),
O'Kelly and McEvoy.
The Normans came amidst the din of military clamour
but they were quickly absorbed by the local population and
Laois continued throughout the medieval era as a Gaelic
outpost on the borders of the Pale. However, the storm
clouds were looming on the horizon. For even though the
plantation of Queen Mary was easily brushed aside as the
Great Hugh O'Neill marched south towards Kinsale the
administrative framework had been established which allowed
the modern county unit to emerge and which would allow
future plantations to succeed. The 17th century saw the
arrival of Cromwell and his troops and with his customary
barbarity he proceeded to obliterate the progress of
centuries. The Rock of Dunamaise was blown apart by
rampaging Roundheads in 1650 and Laois, like the rest of the
country, was quickly subjugated. The rich, fertile lands of
Laois passed to the new colonists, the delightful demesne
and impressive houses still in existence, statements of the
affluence and prosperity which the county afforded. So come
and explore, invite Laois to tell of its past, and discover
a wealth of history and heritage from every generation of
Ireland's past in this relaxing part of the Midlands.
HISTORY
Laois is fortunate in its historians, yet there is
much still to be told. The Office of Public Works has
identified more than one thousand sites and monuments in the
county, but there are more.
The earliest people in Laois were small bands of
Mesolithic migratory hunters-fishers-gatherers who appeared
about 8500 years ago. Then came Neolithic farmers who left
at least a chert javelin head near Glenkitt in Slieve Bloom,
and burial mounds in Clonaslee and Cuffsborough.
In 2500 B.C. Bronze Age people arrived with new ideas
and practices. They left examples of the fulacht fiadh or
cooking place, wonderful weapons and ornaments, and hill
forts such as Clopook and Monelly. Their megalithic
monuments may include the Ass's Manger (possibly a wedge
tomb near Luggacurren, a stone circle in nearby Monamonry
("Druid's Altar"), and the standing stone in the motte and
ring fort at Skirke near Borris-in-Ossory.
The pre-Christian Celtic Iron Age is one of bloody
conquest by a succession of ruling dynasties. We are left
with their ring barrows and forts, and a wealth of heroic
literature originally in oral form.
By the early sixth-century Christianity was
well-established in the county. Most of the early churches
and monastic foundations were of now rotted wood. "There is
something of the melancholy of the human condition in these
holy places, of the joy and sadness of brief life, of the
search for meaning and a place... These are the most sacred
places in Laois. Many of the monasteries, founded by
genuinely holy men, became too wealthy to be ignored by
predatory native warrior aristocracy and by marauding
Vikings perhaps from the re-discovered longphort at Dunrally
near Vicarstown.
About 1175 - 1325 the Normans had control of the best
land in the county. They founded boroughs such as
Castletown, Dunamase, Durrow and Timahoe, and brought the
feudal system, economic organisation, new farming, the
rabbit, architecture, literature and learning. Left on the
ground are mottes and baileys, manor farms, Lea Castle and
Dunamase. Gaelic society survived in the bogs and forests
and foothills of Slieve Bloom.
The fourteenth-century brought a Gaelic revival and
Anglo-Norman decline. Laoighseach O Mordha "violently
ejected almost all the English from their lands and
inheritance". The most impressive of the monuments that have
survived from this violent Gaelic period are the tower
houses or "castles".
The revival of English power in the sixteenth-century
was fiercely resisted by the O'Mores. Even so, in 1548 their
lands were confiscated, and a "campa" was built at
Portlaoise. In 1556 the "campa" known to the English as the
Fort of Leix, or Fort Protector, was renamed Maryborough in
honour of Queen Mary. Also in 1556 orders were issued for
the plantation of Laois with loyal English settlers. The
settlers lived in constant fear. At least three times the
town was plundered and burned. The most famous of the
O'Mores was Owny MacRory O'More, chieftain of Leix until his
death in 1600. He is best remembered for his defeat of
English forces at "the Battle of the Plumes" (between
Ballyknockan and Ballyroan) in 1600, and in the same year
his capture of the earl of Ormond, commander of the English
forces, whom he imprisoned in Gortnaclea castle (near
Aghaboe). "On the death of Owny... Leix was seized by the
English; and they proceeded to repair their mansions of lime
and stone". After the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 the Gaelic
order collapsed. By 1610 the seven septs of Leix were
transported to remote parts of Connacht and Munster.
The wars of the seventeenth-century engulfed the
county. Roger O'More was one of the prime rebels in 1641.
The revolt with its exaggerated stories of cruel slaughter
of Protestants almost coincided with the start of the civil
war in England. When Cromwell came to Ireland in 1649 he
believed he was doing God's will by avenging the slaughter
of 1641, and wished to restore order to unruly Ireland. The
destruction of many of the tower houses was the work of
Hewson and Reynolds, two of Cromwell's colonels. Woods were
cleared, Roman Catholic landowners, their families and
retainers were transplanted, while tenants and landless
labourers who stayed behind were retained in their old
capacity to serve the new Protestant settlers. The rest of
the century saw further reduction of Roman Catholic
landowning in the county reinforced by the Penal Laws.
Most of the eighteenth-century, was a period of
relative calm, consolidation, enclosure and landscaping when
many of the county's finest houses were built. The
1798
rebellion had sordid and sectarian aspects throughout the
country. And the resultant demise of Henry Grattan's
Parliament in 1800 saddened his last years in Dunrally near
Vicarstown.
By the 1840's the population of the county was about
three times its present number. Then came the Great Famine
of 1845 - 9, and the county's three workhouses couldn't
cope. Many small ruined houses especially in the Slieve
Bloom Mountains bear testimony to this calamity. The rest of
the nineteenth-century and the episodes which led to the
foundation of the state in 1922 all had important places and
participants in Laois.
Top 12
Tourist attractions in the county:
-
Abbeyleix House and
Gardens
-
Castles (Ballaghmore
Castle, Kinnity Castle, Lea Castle, Dysart Castle, Srahan
Castle and Moat)
-
St Canice’s Monastery
-
Emo Court and Gardens
-
The Great Heath of
Maryborough (one of the most important archaeological sites
in Ireland)
-
Heywood Gardens in
Ballinakill
-
Killeshin Church
(contains some of Ireland’s finest medieval stonework)
-
Mountmellick Quaker
Museum
-
Rock of Dunamase
-
Slieve Bloom
Environmental Park
-
Stradbally Steam Museum
-
Timahoe Church and
Round Tower.
Famous
natives of the past from the county:
- Cecil Day-Lewis
(1904-1972), British Poet-Laureate, 1967-1972
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- Charles Beale
(1850-1930), founding president of the Federated
Chambers of Manufactures of Australia
|
- Claire Byrne, TV3 News
Anchor
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- Colonel James C.
Fitzmaurice (aviator, died 1965)
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- Darina Allen (1953- ),
TV chef
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- Dr. Bartholomew Mosse
(1712-1759), founder, Rotunda Maternity Hospital, Dublin
|
- Dr. Daniel Delaney
(1747-1814), Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin
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- Eileen Dunne (1958- ),
TV newscaster
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- Evelyn Cusack,
meteorologist
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- Frank Power (acting
British Consul in French Foreign Legion, died 1884).
|
- Hon. William Russell
Grace (1832-1904), mayor of New York 1880-1885
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- Jacob Arthur
(discovered eye membrane, died 1874)
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- James A. Graves
(1827-1910), Australian commissioner of trade and
customs, 1881-1883
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- James Fintan Lalor
(1807-1849), Young Irelander
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- James Pim, railway
engineer, "Quaker father of Irish railways"
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- John Barrett
(1753-1821), Vice Provost, Trinity College, 1807-1821
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- John Lalor-Fitzpatrick
(1875-1949), Nationalist MP for Ossory, 1916-1818
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- Joseph Beale
(1770-1815), Quaker industrialist
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- Joshua Bewley, tea
merchant
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- Kevin O'Higgins
(1892-1927), former Irish Free State Minister for
Justice
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- Kivas Tully
(1820-1905), architect, Trinity College, Toronto, the
Custom House and the Bank of Montreal
|
- Liam Miller
(publisher, died 1987)
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- Lisa Burke, Sky News
weathercaster
|
- Oliver J. Flanagan
(1920-1987), Minister for Defence, 1976-1977
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- Owny MacRory O’More
(chieftain, died 1600)
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- Patrick Cahill
(prominent tenant-leader/first editor of Leinster
Leader)
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- Peter Burrowes Kelly,
(1811-1883), author "The Manor of Glenmore"
|
- Peter Lalor
(1827-1889), leader of the Eureka Stockade miners
revolt, Melbourne
|
- Rev. Dr. Patrick
Collier (1882-1964), Bishop of Ossory, 1928-1964
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- Roger O’More
(17th-century rebel)
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- Rt. Hon. Joseph
Hutchinson (1852-1928), Lord Mayor of Dublin 1904-1906
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- William Dargan
(1799-1867), responsible for the Industrial Exhibition,
1853
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(Source: A Guide to the
Heritage of Co. Laois & Local Ireland).
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Towns of Laois
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Baronies of County Laois |