Portroe's slate industry brought Welsh workers to the Arra Mountains. An 1869 account preserves local traditions about the nearby Graves of the Leinstermen.
Illustration, Lough Derg viewpoint, near Portroe
⊕Recorded locationPortroe52.88425° N · 8.34293° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
An Port Rua· Irish · main form · validated name
Portroe· English · main form
Place & story
Slate from the Arra Mountains
The quarries near Portroe produced the roofing material known as Killaloe slate. Geological Survey Ireland identifies it as slate of the Silurian Slieve Bernagh Formation and records the old Corbally quarries' closure in 1956. The heritage-trail history describes hundreds of workers in the nineteenth-century industry, including Welsh specialists who trained local people and formed a Welsh-speaking community. Slates went by horse and cart to Garrykennedy for onward transport by boat. A later quarry at Killoran operated briefly in the 1990s.[2][3]
Saint Mary's and the hilltop cross
The Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in 1872. Its surviving fittings include marble altar rails by Earley and Powell and sanctuary windows from the Harry Clarke studios, installed in the 1950s. On nearby Loughtea, a forty-foot cross erected in 1935 was destroyed by a storm in 1946. Work on its replacement began in 2002; the completed Millennium Cross was blessed at an ecumenical service in 2006. The parish's account links both landmarks to successive generations of local religious life.[4]
People & connections
Portroe's sporting connections
Portroe won its first North Tipperary senior hurling championship in 2012. The club's players include Tipperary goalkeeper Darren Gleeson, footballer Kevin O'Halloran and hurler and manager Liam Sheedy. In a 2016 GAA interview, O'Halloran described the club and its organisation. Hurling was its principal sport, but his own county football career also brought Portroe representation in a different code. The interview records these connections at a particularly successful period for the club.[5]
Folklore & tradition
A dying prince's last view
Visiting the Graves of the Leinstermen on Tountinna's slopes in October 1868, Maurice Lenihan was shown the stones by local country lads. His account, published the following June, recorded a tradition that retreating Leinstermen had been killed there. Their wounded prince asked to be carried to a mountain gap so that he could see his own country before dying. Lenihan also reported a story that a man named Cormack removed bones believed to be the prince's and died within days, his death attributed to the disturbance. These are traditions of the hill country near Portroe, recorded alongside Lenihan's observations of the stones.[6]
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
Portroe — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
Portroe, North Tipperary — Census town, CSO 2006 report
2002–2006: census town
454people · 2006
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
Portroe, North Tipperary — Census town, CSO 2006 report — census population
Portroe, North Tipperary — Census town, CSO 1996 report
1991–1996: census town
411people · 1996
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
Portroe, North Tipperary — 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
Portroe, Tipperary — Census town, CSO 1986 report — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Portroe, North Tipperary
Published census settlement populations
461people · 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