It formed part of an England, Wales and Scotland series where more local research had already been done. In the 1837 preface, the editor noted that 'The numerous county histories, and local descriptions of cities, towns, and districts of England and Wales, rendered the publication of their former works, in comparison with the present, an easy task. The extreme paucity of such works, in relation to Ireland, imposed the necessity of greater assiduity in the personal survey, and proportionately increased the expense'.

The aim of the text was to give in 'a condensed form, a faithful and impartial description of each place'. Local contributors were given the proof sheets for final comment and revision. The names of places are those in use prior to the publication of the Ordnance Survey atlas in 1838. Distances are in Irish miles (the statute mile is 0.62 of an Irish mile).

The Dictionary was greatly assisted by the great British Parliamentary Papers series which was just then beginning to make an impact in terms of the data available for the study of Ireland. The census of 1831 was used as was the report into Ecclesiastical Revenue and Patronage, and Public Instruction. The national school system had commenced in 1831. When the editors of the Parliamentary Gazetteer (1845) set to work they had the benefit of the more accurate and more useful 1841 census together with agricultural and trade returns.

The Lewis Dictionary was and remains a significant achievement. A study of the Queen's County text will show also how its contributors drew on early surveys and compilations such as the Coote survey of agriculture in 1801 and some of the early travel guides but in the extent of its coverage and its detail it had no equal.

Its recent reprinting both in Ireland and America will again make it available to a wider public as will compilations by county for the benefit of local historical studies.

This version of the extracts for County Laois, otherwise known as Queen's County, from Lewis' Topographical Dictionary is reproduced here in facsimile. The spelling of surnames and places has not been changed. Occasionally, where deemed necessary, square brackets have been used to indicate insertions for this version.

The description of the county as a whole has been placed at the beginning of this work rather than under 'Q' where it is found in the 1837 edition. The survey of the county was the first of its kind leaving aside Coote's Statistical Survey of 1801 which was an agricultural survey carried out for the Royal Dublin Society. However, unlike the later Parliamentary Gazetteer (1845), Lewis did not include descriptions of the county's natural features such as bogs, mountains and rivers. Neither did it provide separate descriptions of the baronial divisions of the county which until 1898 were an important administrative sub-division. The Gazetteer was able to incorporate descriptions of the Poor Law Unions established after 1838. The description of the county as a whole drew on the earlier Lewis.

It must be noted, of course, that Samuel Lewis did not actually write the text but instead relied on the information provided by local contributors and on the earlier works published such as Coote's Statistical Survey (1801), Taylor and Skinner's Maps of the Road of Ireland (1777), Pigot's Trade Directory (1824), Archdall's Monasticon Hibernicum (1786) among other sources. He also used the various parliamentary reports and in particular the census of 1831 and the education returns of the 1820s and early 1830s.

It should be noted too, that the original Dictionary did not carry any illustrations save the map for each county in the atlas volume. For this version, some illustrations have been included drawn largely from studies of pre-Famine Ireland.

The Topographical Dictionary is one of many sources available for the study of Laois history.