The most frequent family names with roots in County Laois — names that spread through Ireland and the Irish diaspora:
County Laois (pronounced 'Leesh') was the site of the first English plantation in Ireland — the Plantation of Leix and Offaly, begun in 1556 under Queen Mary I. The county was renamed Queen's County (and the county town Maryborough) in her honour — names that survived until Irish independence in 1922 returned the Gaelic forms.
The O'Moores were the ruling Gaelic family of Laois — Lords of Leix — and their resistance to plantation was fierce and sustained. Rory Óg O'Moore was one of the most tenacious Gaelic rebels of the sixteenth century, conducting guerrilla warfare from the Slieve Bloom Mountains for decades.
Fitzpatrick is an unusual Irish surname in that it did not take the 'O' or 'Mac' prefix — it derives from Mac Giolla Phádraig ('son of the devotee of Saint Patrick') and is one of the few Norman-Gaelic hybrid surnames. It is particularly associated with County Laois.
Laois emigrants went to England and America. The county's proximity to the Grand Canal made Portlaoise a significant market town and departure point. Many Laois families in America are traceable to the Famine emigrations of the 1840s.
Love Ireland covers the Slieve Bloom Mountains — one of the most undervisited upland areas in Ireland — and Laois's medieval and plantation heritage. The county rewards the traveller who gets off the main roads.
Subscribe to Love Ireland — FreeIf your family came from County Laois, here's where to start your research:
Common County Laois surnames with dedicated pages on this site: