In 1922 twenty-six counties of Ireland left the United Kingdom, they did not however leave the British Empire. In this article we will explore some Irish, and more specifically Laois, connections with that wider world of the British Empire.Read More

A joint German-Irish flight into aviation history is an article by Teddy Fennelly on Colonel James Fitzmaurice, an aviation pioneer, who grew up in Portlaoise. The article was first published in the Laois Heritage Society Journal. Vol. 4 in 2008Read More

This article is about three ballads current locally in the opening decades of the twentieth century, all of which speak to that time as a period of profound social change.Read More

If one were to ask a Laois person to name somebody famous who hailed from within the county, one name unlikely to feature among the responses would be that of John Kinder Labatt, who was the founder of the world-famous Canadian Labatt Brewing Company in the mid-nineteenth century.Read More

The final dissolution of the six southern Irish infantry regiments of the British Army took place on the 31st of July 1922. They were the Royal Irish Regiment, the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Connaught Rangers, the Royal Munster Fusiliers, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the Leinster Regiment. The flag associated with the Leinster Regiment, the...Read More

At the time of the Truce in 1921 Denis Dwyer was a Volunteer in the D (Luggacurran) company of the 4th Battalion, Laois Brigade, Irish Republican Army and James Kealy a Volunteer in the E (Ballickmoyler) company of the same battalion. A year later Kealy was killed in the Civil War fighting on the Pro-Treaty...Read More

The rumour went like this: on Saturday the 9th of June 1832 the Virgin Mary appeared on the church altar in Charleville, in north county Cork, and left ashes which were the only protection against cholera. The ashes were to be taken to neighbouring houses and placed under the rafters, then the inhabitants of those...Read More

It is often claimed that the men who returned from the Great War were forgotten after they returned to an Ireland which had changed. This is in fact simply not true of the immediate decades after the war, however true it might be for much later decades at the close of the twentieth century. Moreover,...Read More

On the 1st of January 1920, despite it being the fair day, the streets of Maryborough were strangely silent. The silence was not to last. What was missing was motor traffic and not just because there was much less of it then than now. The absence was due to a cessation of all motor driving...Read More

On the 12th of March 1922 there was a cattle drive in the townland of Ballycarnan. Ballycarnan is just south of Portlaoise, to the east of the road to Abbeyleix. The property was then owned by Miss Flora S. Cassan of Sheffield House. In her evidence when making a bid for compensation in 1924 she...Read More