Towns & Villages

Durrow

A charming village where the main road from Dublin to Cork crosses the Erkina River. The Anglo-Normans founded a borough on the river in the thirteenth century. The town prospered, and early in the eighteenth century, Colonel William Flower acquired the estate and built Castle Durrow, the magnificent classical mansion. Later ennobled as the Viscounts Ashbrook, the family designed the village which has retained much of its early appearance, with fine eighteenth and nineteeth century houses. The houses are built around an open green and the splendid gates of the castle open onto it. The Erkina River, offers great fly fishing for trout and occasional salmon. All around the village are old woods. The wood was part of the old estate and was planted primarily to provide cover for game birds. The nearby 'Leafy Loop' - a 20 km series of way-marked walking routes around the town - features riverside paths, leafy forest tracks, open farmland, numerous historic sites and a rich variety of flora and fauna.

Emo

Emo Court, one of the greatest houses and gardens in Ireland, designed by James Gandon and its nearby Coolbanagher Church provide an unforgettable summer’s day excursion. It took eighty years to finish the building of Emo Court. The house stood empty and decaying for ten years in the 1920s then became a seminary for the Jesuits, who made some alterations. In 1969 the Demesne was bought by Major Cholmley-Harrison, who restored the house to its nineteenth century grandeur and renovated the magnificent gardens. The latest phase began in 1994 when the owner presented the house and grounds to the people of Ireland. Now in State hands, both house and gardens are beautifully cared for and the house, with its magnificent rooms, is open for

guided tours throughout the summer.

Mountmellick

Founded in the seventeenth-century within a loop of the Owenass River, Mountmellick has always been a town associated with great industry and prosperity and in the late eighteenth century became known as the 'Manchester of Ireland'. From the start the town was dominated by the

enterprise of the Quaker Community and later served by the Grand Canal. The Mountmellick Development Association commissioned the conversion of a grain mill which houses a Quaker Museum, where the main focus is to conserve and display original pieces of Mountmellick work (embroidery) of which the town is renowned; and to protect the memory of Mountmellick’s rich Quaker industrial past. The Heritage Trail is a pleasure to follow. It is a pleasing town with a fine square, architecturally impressive houses, shops and ecclesiastical buildings.

Mountrath

Mountrath probably derives its name from a fort in Redcastle about 1.6km on the eastern side of the present town. The Irish name is Móin Ratha - meaning "the fort in the bog." On a very early map of Mountrath from 1659, the town is designated by a few houses situated on a stream - the White Horse River. By that date the town was over thirty years old as it was founded in 1628 by Charles Coote. By 1750 the town was a thriving industrial place with its own woolen and linen industries, ironworks, grain and rape mills and a little later its own brewery and distillery. Mountrath was also an important market town with its beautiful market house, dating from the early-eighteeth century, dominating the square. The town is now mainly agricultural and an excellent base for exploring the Slieve Bloom Mountains. It has picnic facilities near St Fintan's Catholic Church. The Church is an elaborate example of Gothic Revival architecture. The River Mountrath is also good for fishing.

Portarlington

Founded in 1666 on a bend of the Barrow River by Sir Henry Bennett, Lord Arlington. After the Jacobite Wars, the lands were given to General Rouvigney, Earl of Galway who established a thriving colony of French Huguenots in the town: separate chapels and schools were built for the English and French. Along with education (eventually 16 schools), the town became a centre for silversmiths and banking. The town has Georgian, Huguenot and Victorian architecture of exceptional quality