Laois Genealogy Tours
My Ireland Heritage find your Ancestors and exact house location from the 1700’s to the late 1800’s, and all available records in Ireland. We are an Irish family business dedicated to assisting you in your Irish Genealogy research for your roots and records of your family history of past generations in Laois, as well as providing you with a once in a lifetime Irish Genealogy tour experience to visit your families original family house and Walk in the Footsteps of your Irish Ancestors.
Sean and the Team at My Ireland Heritage are a Government certified & approved Genealogy & Touring Company, and will personally guide you on the journey into your Irish ancestry to any County in Ireland.
Many companies are genealogy research only, many companies are touring companies only, we at My Ireland Family Heritage are proud to be able to encompass your research and tour together enabling us to work with you throughout the process to customize your tour with you and for you. To achieve a full genealogy tour experience consider adding one of our one-day historical tours.
Our Tours
Our Ancestral Townland Experience Tours
County Laois sits in the heart of the Irish midlands, a county whose name and boundaries changed more than once through Ireland’s history, it was known as Queen’s County until the early 20th century. For genealogy research, this history matters little in practice, but Laois’s midlands location means its farming communities and parish records share more in common with neighbouring Kildare and Offaly than with the coastal counties, and its records reflect a mix of long-settled Gaelic families and later plantation-era arrivals.
Laois’s landscape, from the Rock of Dunamase to the Slieve Bloom Mountains, shaped small farming parishes where families often stayed on the same land for generations before economic pressure or the Famine pushed later descendants abroad. We work through Laois’s parish and graveyard records with the same careful approach we bring to every county: confirming the actual church congregation behind the civil parish, then locating the specific townland connected to your family.
A tour through Laois takes in quiet midlands countryside, market towns and, for many families, a genuinely moving visit to a townland that has changed relatively little since your ancestors farmed it, a grounded, personal way to experience a county many visitors otherwise pass straight through.
- Laois has 10 Baronies
- Laois has 51 Civil Parishes
- Laois has 93 Electoral Divisions
- Laois has 1112 Townlands
- Laois has 7 sub Townlands
County Laois is located in the south of the Midlands Region and was formerly known as Queen’s County. It was shirred in 1556 by Queen Mary as Queen’s County, covering the counties on the southwest side of the River Barrow also. Laois received its present Irish language name following the Irish War of Independence. Portlaoise (previously Maryborough) is the county town.
The population of the county is 80,559, according to the 2011 census which is the highest percentage of population growth in the country
Laois was the subject of two Plantations by a mix of Scottish and English settlers. The first occurred in 1556, when Thomas Radclyffe, dispossessed the O’Moore clan and attempted to replace them with settlers. However, this only led to a war in the county and left a small Scottish and English community clustered around garrisons. There was a more successful plantation in the county in the 17th century, which expanded the existing Scottish and English settlement with more landowners and tenants from both Scotland and England. Neither plantation was fully successful due to a lack of tenants and because of continuous raids and attacks by the O’Moores.
Family Dynasties 1500-1600 AD
- Irish – Dunne, Dowling, Molloy, O’Carroll, O’Moores
- Norman – Fleming
- Scottish – None
- Viking – None
County Laois- Things to do and may be possible to include within your Ancestral Townland Experience Tour
- Rock of Dunamase (Portlaoise) Emo Court
- Donaghmore Famine Workhouse Museum (Portlaoise)
- Emo Court
- Abbey of Aghaboe
- Portarlington Golf Club
- Heywood Gardens (Abbeyleix)
- Heritage House Abbeyleix (Abbeyleix)
- Irelands Wild Atlantic Way
Frequently Asked Questions
Why was County Laois once called Queen's County, and does that affect old records?
Laois was renamed from Queen’s County in the early 20th century. Older records may use either name, and we account for this when searching historical documents.
Can you trace Quaker or Presbyterian ancestors from Armagh?
Yes, this upland area on the Laois-Offaly border has its own parish communities, and we regularly research families from this part of the county.
Is Laois a good option to combine with a Kildare or Offaly tour?
Often, yes, given the counties’ shared midlands geography, many families researched in Laois have branches or connections just across these borders.
