A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
Clóirtheach· Irish · main form · validated name
Clara· English · main form
Place & story
People & connections
The Goodbodys' jute works
Jonathan and Lewis Frederic Goodbody established the Clashawaun works in 1865. Imported Indian jute became sacks through spinning and weaving in Clara. Water initially powered the machinery; steam was introduced in 1870. Jonathan's son Robert expanded the works in 1873, and workers' terraces accompanied the factory's growth. A siding connected this international business to the Portarlington–Athlone railway. The works continued into the 1970s, leaving an industrial history unusually closely tied to one family's enterprise.[2]
Erry's great water wheel
The earlier grain-milling landscape was equally ambitious. The 1838 map of Erry Mill records nine pairs of millstones and a wheel measuring twenty-eight feet across and seven feet wide. Later steam and electrical equipment changed how the mill operated. Its surviving engine house, chimney and hydroelectric plant preserve successive stages of that history, when the river's mechanical power was supplemented and transformed by new technology.[3]
A landscape built from moss
South of Clara, a shallow post-glacial lake gradually became fen and then peat bog. Accumulating plant material raised its surface above the surrounding ground. Clara Bog Nature Reserve, established in 1987, protects 460 hectares of this landscape. Its mineral-rich soaks support different plants from the acidic moss-dominated bog around them. Drain blocking helps retain the water on which the peat-forming habitat depends; pools, hollows and mossy hummocks reveal its varied surface.[4]
Both counts use the 2016 settlement boundary, allowing like-for-like comparison. CSO supplies the 2022 count on this older boundary for comparison only. The official 2022 Built Up Area has different boundaries.
View population figures
Clara — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
These are the historical areas published in the 2006 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
View population figures
Clara, Offaly — Census town, CSO 2006 report — census population
These are the historical areas published in the 1996 census report. Boundaries may differ between censuses and from modern settlements. Legal towns, environs and suburbs are shown separately; none has been combined into a modern settlement total.
View population figures
Clara, Offaly — Census town, CSO 1996 report — census population
Figures cover the historical town area printed in the 1986 report. Boundaries may have changed between censuses. Legal town, environs and suburb totals remain separate and differ from modern settlement boundaries.
View population figures
Clara, Offaly — Census town, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Clara, Offaly
Published census settlement populations
3,336people · 2016
Settlement boundaries changed during this period. Differences may reflect boundary changes as well as population change. Where a 2011 legal-town-and-environs count is shown, it has not been recalculated onto the 2016 settlement boundary.
placenames
