Portlaoise Library is hosting a talk next Wednesday, 7th December at 7.30 pm on the Irish language during the revolutionary period in Ireland. The bi-lingual talk by Dr Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc is about the hidden history of attempts to both kill off and save the Irish language during the Irish revolution.Read More

In the middle of July 1921 along with the news of the Truce came the news of the last deaths and the last imprisonments.Read More

Stradbally Library is hosting a relaxed and informal gathering to hear and share information on local women in revolutionary Laois. Join us in Stradbally Library on Wednesday 23 November at 1.30 pm for tea and a chat to remember and celebrate these remarkable women.Read More

The Press in the Troubled Times, a talk by local historian and former newspaper editor, will take place in Portlaoise Library on Wednesday 30th November at 7.30 pmRead More

Between 1937 and 1939 the Irish Folklore Commission collected folklore in primary schools across the Irish Free State. In looking back to the past they were more looking back to the time of the Penal Laws or the Famine, but here and there the more recent revolutionary period could creep in, especially under the rubric...Read More

From 1907 to 1927 the Rev. Dudley Fletcher was the Church of Ireland rector of Coolbanagher. Fletcher gives us a window into the world of southern Unionism, and allows us to say something of Protestants, the Revolution and the Irish Free State.Read More

An exhibition on Laois Cumann na mBan will be launched in Stradbally Library on Thursday 3rd November at 7 pm. The exhibition was curated by Laois native Bernadette Dunne with the support of Laois County Library as part of its Decade of Centenaries programme.Read More

The October meeting of the Genealogy Club takes place this Thursday, 20th October at 7 pm in Portlaoise Library. This months meeting will feature an informative talk on using the Irish census records for family research.Read More

In 1876 there were twenty-two landed estates in Laois reaching a value of £2,000 or over. Together they contained almost 200,000 acres, roughly half of the county. The final stage in the undoing of this particular concentration of economic and political power took place in the 1910s and 1920sRead More

Laois Local Studies has acquired another large photographic collection of local interest.Read More