AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE of COUNTY LAOIS Department AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE of COUNTY LAOIS Foreword COUNTY LAOIS (c. 1805) A Grand Jury map, signed David Cahill, Engineer, depicting the topographical features of Queen’s County, the name given to Laois in the sixteenth century. Courtesy National NATIONAL INVENTORY Library of Ireland. of ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE of COUNTY LAOIS Introduction The county that we now call Laois was cre- and Durrow, with smaller settlements at Ball- CATHOLIC CHURCH OF THE ated in 1556 under the Tudor policy of expan- inakill, Rathdowney, and Stradbally. SACRED HEART, sion in Ireland, and named Queen’s County The landscape of Laois, which is dominated Main Street, Stradbally after Queen Mary. A landlocked county in by tillage and pasture, is intersected by many (c. 1896) south Leinster, Queen’s County was adminis- rivers and streams, notably the Barrow and the This mask is a fine tered from Maryborough, which is now Nore. The Killeshin Plateau is to the east of the example of the dura- Portlaoise. The original boundaries enclosed county, which rises in the north to the Slieve bility of the locally quarried stone that only the eastern half of the modern county, Bloom Mountains. The underlying rock of the retains its precision which evolved to include the barony of lowlands is limestone, while the Slieve Blooms and finesse. It is also a good example of Tinnahinch in 1572, Upper Ossory in 1602 and have deposits of sandstone. As, prior to the artistry present in Durrow in 1837. advances in transport, virtually all buildings a number of buildings in County Laois. Following independence in 1922, Queen’s had to be of locally available materials, much County was renamed Laois, occasionally referred of the building stone of Laois originates in to as Leix. The name derives from the Lóigse, Laois itself. The former Mountrath Quarry was one of the groups of Gælic people who former- a source of limestone from the early eighteenth ly inhabited the area. Currently, the county sup- century, and provided most of the stone for the ports a population of about 52,800, of which building of Mountrath. Another quarry, near just over a third live in towns and villages Stradbally, producing a particularly popular (www.laois.ie). The principal towns include fine limestone, was still in operation in the late Portlaoise, Portarlington, Abbeyleix, Mountrath nineteenth century (Feehan, c. 1983). 5 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE of COUNTY LAOIS Laois supports a wealth of significant archæo- quently established an English colony. By the logical and early architectural sites including a eighteenth century, from which period the pres- twelfth-century round tower at Timahoe, a ent layout with its large square survives, church at Killeshin with a Romanesque door- Ballinakill was one of the most important fair way, and a thirteenth-century ruined castle at towns in the county. By the 1800s it supported Dunamase. Although Abbeyleix was founded by a brewery, several wool processing businesses, the Cistercians, little survives of its medieval and was a major tanning centre. Similarly, both origins and the tradition that the ‘Monk’s Mountrath, founded by Sir Charles Coote, and Bridge’ in Abbeyleix Demesne is medieval can- Portarlington date from the seventeenth centu- not be substantiated. ry. Plans for Portarlington were drawn up in Unlike many counties, Laois retains a num- 1678 when King Charles II granted the sur- ber of seventeenth-century tower houses and rounding lands to Sir Henry Bennet, Lord large private houses, their diverse type reflecting Arlington (c. 1618–85), and allowed for the the evolving political landscape of the period. establishment of a corporation, a weekly mar- Late tower houses include Ballinakill Castle ket, and two annual fairs. Not unusually, the (fig. 2) (c. 1680), and the renovated Ballaghmore Castle settlement was originally fortified, and strategi- COOLTEDERY (c. 1650) at Mountrath, the latter including a cally located on a bend of the River Barrow. MILESTONE, Main Street, sheela-na-gig. Houses such as Grennan House As a consequence of further political turmoil, Portarlington (begun c. 1650) appear to have been built in sev- the town was eventually re-granted to Henry de (c. 1800) eral stages, the earliest of which dates to the mid Massue, Marquis de Rouvigny and later Baron Items of street furniture such as this milestone seventeenth century. Similarly, the O’Nuallain of Portarlington, who eventually established a are modest and unas- shop, Ballyroan, incorporates a 1650s structure colony for French Huguenots. Little, however, suming historical arte- facts that are often over- with a number of later extensions. survives from the Huguenot settlement. looked in everyday life. With the exception of some monastic sites, Laois’s modern urban development did not really commence until the mid sixteenth cen- tury. Having finally gained control over the region, the Crown forces established Fort Protector or Fort of the Leys (hence Portlaoise) in 1548, but development was slow, and it remained the only town in the modern sense of the word, due to the ongoing instability in the region. In 1606, Sir Thomas Coatch was granted the right to hold a market and fair at Ballinakill, where Sir Thomas Ridgeway subse- 7 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE of COUNTY LAOIS The Eighteeth Century The Eighteenth Century After the successive upheavals of the 1641 teenth century encouraged the building of (fig. 1) KELLYVILLE COUNTY Uprising, the Cromwellian campaigns, and many roads and bridges; Laois was already BOUNDARY STONE, eventually the Williamite Wars (c. 1689–91), a strategically placed on ancient routes such as Stradbally (c. 1763) comparative peace was established by the the Slighe Dhála (Archæological Survey). This cut-stone county beginning of the eighteenth century. This, Occasionally, boundary and milestones remain boundary marker, combined with the instigation of the Penal as evidence of important eighteenth-century complete with inscribed date, is of considerable Laws (c. 1695), and the existence of the Irish routes. A limestone county boundary marker, historical importance, Parliament in Dublin, encouraged the develop- inscribed ‘Queen’s County 1763’, survives near having been instated when Laois was known ment of an influential landowning class — the Stradbally, although it has been moved from its as Queen’s County. Protestant Ascendancy. This was reflected in original position (fig. 1). In Portarlington, one architecture throughout the country, and Laois of a pair of milestones (c. 1800) gives distances was no exception. The eighteenth century was to Dublin and Monastereven, the other to the period of increasingly grand country hous- Mountmellick (fig. 2). Laois also has many fine es and the development of estates, which often examples of bridges, from the single-arch included the foundation of estate villages. In Stanhope Bridge (c. 1784) at Ballinakill, to the Laois, Viscount de Vesci demolished the old multiple-arch Poorman’s Bridge (c. 1770) at town and laid out Abbeyleix around a sub- Abbeyleix. Early eighteenth-century examples stantial main street; the Flower family of Castle include Pole Bridge (c. 1710), Stradbally, a two- Durrow planned Durrow around a square; and arch rubble limestone bridge with castellated Stradbally was established as part of the Cosby abutment walls crossing the Timogue River. estate. However, not all towns founded during The five-arch rubble stone Ballykilcavan Bridge this time were estate villages; Mountmellick (c. 1713) over the Stradbally River incorporates was developed into an important industrial four niches on one side. Castletown Bridge town by the Quaker merchant community. (c. 1750) is a large six-arch limestone bridge The improved communications of the eigh- from the middle of the century. 9 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE of COUNTY LAOIS The Eighteeth Century (fig. 3) (fig. 4) WAREHOUSE, FISHERSTOWN Vicarstown BRIDGE, (c. 1800) Fisherstown, Portarlinton Still in industrial use is a (c. 1790) rubble limestone ware- house that is attractively One of the numerous situated adjacent to the single-arch road bridges Grand Canal. of the late eighteenth century that are located as picturesque land- marks on the Grand Canal section that inter- sects County Laois. By 1790, the Grand Canal had been linked built of rubble limestone with yellow brick (fig. 5) GRATTAN AQUEDUCT, to Mountmellick, and to the Barrow Navigation dressings (fig. 3). At both Fisherstown (fig. 4) The Grand Canal, system. Decades later, the role of the canal in and Vicarstown there are single-arch canal Vicarstown (c. 1790) opening up the countryside to the wider world bridges dating from the end of the eighteenth was still emphasised; in 1846, Slater’s Directory century 1790. Fine quality stonework is fre- As part of the Grand Canal development noted how the canal ‘passed along the eastern quently associated with canal construction the impressive aqueduct side of the barony of Stradbally into the vale around Ireland; the notable limestone ashlar was built to carry the route over the River of the Barrow, opening a communication with Grattan Aqueduct (c. 1790) carries the canal Glashna below. Dublin.’ The canal system resulted in a range over the Glasha River near Portlaoise (fig. 5). of canal and ancillary structures such as the A plaque (c. 1790) names Richard Evans as three canal warehouses (c. 1800), Vicarstown, engineer of the construction. 11 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE of COUNTY LAOIS The Eighteeth Century The majority of houses surviving in towns now Kate’s Restaurant, retains its timber win- from the eighteenth century were either origi- dow shutters (c. 1730); the timber shopfront nally terraced or, as a result of later infill, now was added c.1910. A terraced house (c. 1740), form part of a terrace. Surviving examples have The Green, Castletown, retains an integral car- usually been altered.