About County Laois
County Laois sits at the geographical centre of Ireland, a landlocked county of rolling farmland, ancient bogs and the dramatic Rock of Dunamase. The county was the first in Ireland to be subjected to a formal English plantation, the Plantation of Laois and Offaly in the 1550s, giving it a particularly long and turbulent colonial history.
History
Laois was the territory of the O'More clan, who resisted English rule with notable tenacity for over a century. The county was renamed Queen's County after Mary Tudor, a name it kept until Irish independence. Its central location made it a contested frontier between Gaelic Ireland and the Pale for generations.
How Laois families left Ireland
Laois families emigrated heavily during the Famine, many through Dublin and Waterford. The county's midland location meant they had further to travel to reach ports, adding to the hardship of departure. Many Laois families settled in the industrial cities of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
Places worth visiting in County Laois
- Rock of Dunamase, the dramatic hilltop fortress that dominates the Laois landscape, occupied since prehistoric times
- Timahoe Round Tower, one of Ireland's finest, rising from the flat midland landscape
- Emo Court, a magnificent neoclassical mansion set in sweeping parkland
- Slieve Bloom Mountains, the upland ridge that forms the spine of the Irish midlands
Is your surname from County Laois?
Enter your Irish family name and we will tell you whether it is connected to Laois, and build you a personalised Heritage Package for your visit.
Trace your surname →