placenamesBallickmoyler
Baile Mhic Mhaoilir
Ballickmoyler was developing as a market village before the violence of 1798 interrupted its growth. Nineteenth-century accounts preserve its later fairs and public services, while a mill survey recovers the workings of a vanished water-powered corn mill.
The name
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
- Baile Mhic Mhaoilir · Irish · main form · validated name
- Ballickmoyler · English · main form
Place & story
A market interrupted in 1798
Samuel Lewis’s 1837 description recalls a village that had been expanding before 1798 and had obtained a patent for a weekly market. During that year’s disturbances, more than half of Ballickmoyler was reduced to ruins and the market was abandoned. His account, written nearly four decades later, treats this destruction as a decisive break in the village’s development. It does not establish the later fate of every damaged building or a permanent end to all local trading. [2]
Fairs, courts and local services
By 1837, Lewis counted about forty houses and 249 inhabitants in Ballickmoyler. Although the weekly market had gone, fairs were still held on 16 March and 11 November. Petty sessions met every Wednesday, and the village contained the barony’s principal constabulary station and a dispensary. These functions made the roadside settlement a place where surrounding rural residents came for trading, justice and medical assistance as well as everyday business. [2]
The lost mill on the Fushoge
An 1840s valuation lists James Furney’s waterwheel at thirteen feet six inches across. Hamond’s 2005 survey found no surviving buildings or waterworks. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Laois
- Barony
- Slievemargy
- Civil parish
- Killabban
- Within
- Ballickmoyler
- Coordinates
- 52.87577, -7.00479 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413851 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Ballickmoyler. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Ballickmoyler: A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837 · Samuel Lewis
- Mills of County Laois: Part 2 Site Inventory, LAIAR-032-016, PDF page 309 · Fred Hamond, Laois County Council, 2005
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.