A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
Laois· Irish · main form · validated name
Laois· English · main form
Leix· English · main form · historical name
Place & story
Find Queen’s County as well
Lewis files the county under Queen’s County in 1837 and locates it between Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary and King’s County. Searches of older indexes and catalogues may consequently need Queen’s County as well as Laois. The alias should be retained with its date and source, not treated as evidence of a second county. The same care is needed when a document uses Leix as an older territorial name.[2]
Rivers and the Slieve Blooms
The directory’s regional account distinguishes Leix and Ossory, using the Barrow, Nore and Slieve Bloom mountains as geographical reference points. Its remote chronology and early tribal identifications require separate scrutiny, but the landscape helps orient the reader. Older territories could extend beyond later county bounds, so neither a regional name nor a prominent ruling family should be used as an automatic substitute for a precise parish.[2]
Different town histories
The Maryborough entry explains the administrative and fortified context of the county town now associated with Port Laoise. Mountmellick’s entry instead describes textile manufacture, metalworking and canal trade across more than one parish. A county guide needs both kinds of local history. For family research, preserve Maryborough and Queen’s County when they occur in the source, then add the original street, townland and denomination. A county-wide association alone cannot decide which town, parish or industrial community supplied the relevant records.[3][4]
Figures cover the whole county including its cities. CSO recommends this series for long-term comparison, although minor boundary changes have occurred.
View population figures
County Laois, including its cities — census population
placenames