Introduction
Laois or Leix (also known as Queen's County), is located in Irelands Midlands in the Province of Leinster. It is surrounded by Counties, Kildare Kilkenny, Offaly, Tipperary and part of Carlow.
The county was originally named in honour of Queen Mary (Tudor). It was renamed Laois (pronounced Leesh) in 1922 when Ireland became Independent. The Capital is Portlaoise which was known as Maryborough until 1922.
A Brief History of Laois
The first people in Laois were bands of hunters and gatherers who passed through the county about 8,500 years ago. They hunted in the forests that covered Laois and fished in its rivers, gathering nuts and berries to supplement their diets.
Next came Ireland's first farmers. These people of the Neolithic period (4000 to 2500 BC) cleared forests and planted crops. Their burial mounds remain in Clonaslee and Cuffsborough.
Around 2500 BC, the people of the Bronze Age lived in Laois. They produced weapons, tools and golden objects. Visitors to the county can see a stone circle they left behind at Monamonry, as well as the remains of their hill forts at Clopook and Monelly. Skirk, near Borris-in-Ossory, has a Bronze Age standing stone and ring fort.
The next stage is known as the pre-Christian Celtic Iron Age. For the first time iron appeared in Ireland, as factions fought bloody battles for control of the land. At Ballydavis, archaeologists have discovered ring barrows that date from this time period.
By the first century AD, Laois was part of the Kingdom of Ossory. The county was divided roughly into seven parts, which were ruled by the Seven Septs of Laois: O'More (O'Moore), O'Lalor, O'Doran, O'Dowling, O'Devoy (O'Deevy), O'Kelly and McEvoy.
When Christianity came to Ireland, holy men and women founded religious communities in Laois. Between 550 and 600, St. Canice founded Aghaboe Abbey and St. Mochua founded a religious community at Timahoe. An early Christian community lived at Dun Masc or Masc's fort, on the Rock of Dunamase.
After 1150, the continental Roman Catholic Church began to assert its authority over the independent churches of Ireland. As religious orders with strong ties to Rome replaced older religious communities, the wooden buildings of the early Christian churches in Laois gave way to stone monasteries. The Augustinians and Dominicans established themselves at Aghaboe Abbey, while the Cistercians took over an older religious community at Abbeyleix.
Around the same time, the Normans seized control of most of Ireland. In Laois, the fortress on the Rock of Dunamase was part of the dowry of the Irish princess Aoife, who was given in marriage in 1170 to the Norman warrior Strongbow. Advancing Normans surveyed the county from wooden towers built on top of earthen mounds, known as mottes. They also built stone fortresses, such as Lea Castle, just outside Portarlington. Several of the county's towns were first established as Norman boroughs, including Castletown, Durrow and Timahoe.
From 1175 until about 1325, Normans controlled the best land in the county, while Gaelic society retreated to the bogs, forests and the Slieve Bloom Mountains. The early 14th century saw a Gaelic revival, as a burst of force from the Irish chieftains caused the Normans to withdraw. The Dempseys seized Lea Castle, while Dunamase came into the ownership of the O'Mores. Tower houses belonging to Irish chieftains survive at Ballaghmore and Cullahill, both decorated with Sheila-na-gigs.
In 1548, English warriors confiscated the lands of the O'Mores, and built ³Campa,² known as the Fort of Leix, today's Portlaoise. In 1556, the town was named Maryborough and Laois renamed Queen's County in honour of the English queen, Mary Tudor. The queen also issued orders for the plantation of Laois with English settlers. Irish chieftains, in particular Owny MacRory O'More, fought the English. But after the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, the power of the Gaelic chieftains was broken and by 1610, most of Laois's Irish nobility had been transported to Connacht and Munster. Catholic tenants and landless labourers remained behind and served the Protestant settlers who now owned the land.
During the English Civil War, Cromwell's forces raged through Laois, destroying tower houses that still belonged to Catholic landowners. After Cromwell's death, Laois became a refuge for outcasts and political refugees. In 1659, a group of Quakers settled in Mountmellick, while a group of Huguenots were given refuge in Portarlington in 1666.
What followed was a period of relative calm. Anglo-Irish landowners enclosed the land and built fine houses, including Durrow Castle, Heywood House and Emo Court. Fine Georgian houses came to line the streets of prosperous county towns. And in 1836, a branch of the Grand Canal stretched to Mountmellick, further stimulating industry in that bustling town.
The Great Famine of 1845-49 devastated the county. The county's workhouses could not cope with the number of destitute people seeking shelter. By the time the workhouse opened at Donaghmore in 1853, many of the poorest had emigrated or died.
Crop failures in the 1860s and 1870s, along with increasing levels of debt, caused tensions between the county's landlords and their tenants to grow worse. Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell travelled through Laois recruiting for the Land League. This confederation of activists, farmers, shopkeepers and clerics asserted tenants' rights and opposed the landlord system. From 1880 to 1881, a Land War convulsed the county, as members of the Land League challenged the authority of the landlords. Evicted tenants and other destitute people filled the county's workhouses. After the Land Act of 1881, tenants and landlords formed an uneasy truce.
By the foundation of the State in 1922, Celts and Vikings, Gaelic lords and Norman knights, monks and Huguenots, landlords and land leaguers, had all left their mark on this county. The new Ireland gave the county its old name back. Queen's County was once again County Laois.
Areas of Interest in Laois
Stradbally Steam Museum
The Stradbally Steam Museum celebrates the steam engines that once ruled Ireland's railways, built its roads and worked its farms.
Inside the museum, visitors can see a variety of steam-driven engines. The collection includes the Mann Steam Cart, built in 1918. This small steam traction engine cleared and ploughed land. The Fowler, another steam traction engine, built in 1936, was used in roadworks and to power stone crushers. Also on display is an elegant black steam engine commissioned by engineer Sam Geoghan in 1912. This small engine hauled raw materials around a track inside the Guinness Brewery. It took barrels of stout to the wharf on the Liffey, where they were put on boats and taken throughout the world.
Not far from the Steam Museum, the Steam Preservation Society operates a narrow gauge heritage railway in the grounds of Stradbally Hall. This track, about one kilometre long, was built between 1969 and 1982 by volunteers. As with the feeder railways of rural Ireland, which once linked into the main railway lines, the gauge, or width, of this track is three feet. The steam locomotive that pulls the train was constructed for Bord na Móna in 1949.
Rides on the narrow gauge railway are available to the public on Bank Holiday Sundays and Mondays from May to September. Each August Bank Holiday Weekend the Society hosts a Steam Rally in the grounds of Stradbally Hall. Check the website of the Irish Steam Preservation Society for full details of running times and events.
Slieve Bloom Environmental Mountain Park
In contrast with the surrounding plain, this modest 615m high mountain range appears imposing. Blanket bog, green forest with picnic and amenity areas, waterfalls, deep glens and peaceful villages make the area's 155,400 hectares an altogether delightful touring destination.
Ballyfin House
Located six miles from Mountrath, Ballyfin House is a magnificent example of the type of architecture that went into some of the greatest houses in Ireland during the 1800's. It is also said to be the finest sandstone neo-classical house to be found in Ireland dating from that period. An architect, to the name of William Morrison, was involved in the designing of the original house in the late 1700's. When Sir Charles Coote bought the house and estate in 1812 he took to redesign and rebuild the original house with the architect, Richard Morrison.
The Sensory Gardens
Located at Abbeyleix, The Sensory Gardens will appeal to everybody by the stimulation of the senses - vision, smell, touch, taste and sound. Set in the walled gardens of the Brigidine Convent, Abbey Sense Garden is the first of its kind in Ireland whose aim is to create a nursery specialising in fragrant plants. The garden provides a peaceful haven of spiritual and sensory nourishment and ultimately contemplation for the visitor.
Heywood Gardens
Heywood Gardens is the site of two garden types: the great park created by Frederick Trench in the late 1700s and the small interlocked formal gardens created by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll in the early 1900s.
After Trench built Heywood House in 1773, he landscaped the area between his house and the village of Ballinakill. Inspired by his Grand Tour of Europe, Trench moved hills, dug lakes, planted trees and placed follies. His results were considered to be the most exquisite romantic landscape of their time.
In the early 1900s, Colonel Hutchenson Poe hired the eminent architect Sir Edwin Lutyens to create formal gardens around Heywood House. The gardens were probably landscaped by Gertrude Jekyll. Although the house is gone, the gardens are among the best surviving example of Lutyens' work in Ireland.
The formal gardens contrast with breath-taking views of the landscape. A walk lined with pollarded lime trees leads to a formal terrace overlooking the surrounding countryside. Another terrace overlooks one of the lakes dug by Trench in the 1700s, where it is possible to spot moorhens, kingfishers and other waterbirds.
In the sunken garden, circular terraces descend to an elliptical pool, where small statues of turtles gaze inquisitively at the grand fountain. On the top level a loggia, roofed with red tiles, includes an inscription taken from the writings of Alexander Pope. In the wall that surrounds the garden, each circular window frames a spectacular view of the landscape so carefully constructed by Frederick Trench.
Rock of Dunamase
Stunning views of the surrounding countryside make the towering Rock of Dunamase a strategic place to build a fortress. Through the centuries, warriors have fought to control this limestone outcrop, known as a ³hum².
The first known settlement on the rock was Dun Masc, or Masc's Fort, an early Christian settlement that was pillaged in 842 by the Vikings.
When the Normans arrived in Ireland in the late 1100s, Dunamase became the most important Anglo-Norman fortification in Laois. It was part of the dowry of Aoife, the daughter of Diarmuid Mac Murrough, King of Leinster, when she was given in marriage to the Norman conqueror Strongbow in 1170.
When Isabel, the daughter of Strongbow and Aoife, wed William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, Dunamase was part of her marriage portion. It is likely that Marshall carried out some building on the rock when he lived there between 1208 and 1213, though most of the castle is earlier.
The castle was successively held by Marshal's five sons before passing to the Mortimer family through Marshal's daughter, Eva de Braoise, who passed the castle to her daughter Maud on her marriage to Roger Mortimer. All the Mortimer's lands, including Dunamase, were forfeited to the Crown in 1330. Shortly afterwards, the castle appears to have passed into the hands of the O'Moores and been abandoned.
Local tradition has it that the castle was besieged and blown up by the Cromwellian generals Hewson and Reynolds in 1651. While there are no contemporary records of these events, it is probably the best explanation for the ruinous state of the castle as we see it today.
Traditonal Music and Craic in Laois
The Castle Arms Hotel - Durrow
Castle Arms Hotel is well known for its traditional music and also the old thyme dancing that takes place in the hotel three times a week. People will come from the four corners of Laois and Ireland to enjoy a full day's entertainment and craic.