Sean J. White

A SCHOOL INSPECTOR with a military moustache, and a wen on his forehead, who used visit our national school on his bicycle, awed us with his world knowledge when he proclaimed "The Rock Of Dunamase is as old and as important and as beautiful as the Acropolis of Athens".

As schoolboys in the '30's we had not seen Athens, in fact, few of us had seen Dunamase in our native Laois. As I drive down the main Cork road through Monasterevin and cross the Barrow bridge into my native county, soon after the village of Ballybrittas, a sweet little line of limestone hills rises on the left like the background of an Umbrian landscape. Among them is the strong Acropolis Rock of Dunamase, crowned with its shattered castle, and I begin to think the man had a point.

From this side it has a strange ghost resemblance to the Acropolis. From the Stradbally side with its drum tower gates, jagged walls and ruined keep massing above in tier upon tier, it looks more like an Italian hill town.

The story of Dunamase is that rich composite of people and events which is the story of Laois. The Celts had a hill fort on it as they had on the neighbouring bosky hills of Clopook and Luggacurren. Ptolemy marked it on his map as Dunum. Dermot MacMurrough possessed it at the time of the Norman invasion and through him it passed to his son-in-law, Strongbow and so on in his family to William Marshall Earl of Pembroke who built the first proper castle. In turn, it went to William de Braos, ancestor to the Scottish Bruces. A series of royal favourites owned it afterwards: Roger de Mortimer, the Fitzgeralds, Theobald de Verdun and Fulke de Freine, all alternating ownership in the fortunes of war with the local Irish chieftains, the O'Mores.

The last occupier was Sir John Parnell, speaker of the Irish Parliament and an ancestor of Charles Stewart Parnell.

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As the alternating lordship of Dunamase tells the story of Laois, the view from its ramparts reveals the face of the county. From the main road and especially from the railway, Laois looks flat with a high proportion of barren bog. From this height you can see that it is a plain almost surrounded by hills. Across the plain on the north and west are level blue ridges of the Slieve Bloom Mountains where the River Barrow rises. At one's back on the east and sourthern corner is the high plateau of Slieve Margy, part of the Leinster coal ridge. The plain in between, far from being bog is champagne land with wheatfields and beet-fields and hayfields and lots of trees in woody clusters in between and in lines along the roads.

To the speeding motorist it does not look like holiday country. Laois people are workaday people, farming and logging and mining and turf-cutting; in their matter-of-fact towns making butter and textiles, wood-working and metal forging. But their long and varied history as well as their remarkable mix of landscape, provides many places of interest for the day outing and for the week-end traveller. On the banks of the Barrow on the eastern border and on the slopes of Slieve Margy hills above it, iron age ringforts mix with early Celtic church sites and medieval tower houses. At Sletty, just across from Carlow, Fiacc the poet built his monastery to St. Patrick's specifications and became the first bishop of Leinster. There is a cross slab there to prove it. On the hill slope above at Killeshin, also in Laois, Dermot MacMurrough provided the romanesque church with a fine sculptured and pedimented west doorway. At Timahoe on the eastern slope is one of Ireland's finest round towers with a richly decorated doorway.

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THE colonists of the last thousand years also left enduring monuments. As well as Dunamase the Normans left a strong castle at Lea on the Barrow, a few miles east of Portarlington and a variety of tower houses dotted over the plain. Though many of them were built by Irish families such as the MacGiolla Phadraighs (Fitzpatricks), the O'Mores, O'Dunnes and O'Phelans, who mixed and married with them.

Laois owes its 'home counties' aspect to the fact that it and its neighbour, Offaly, were planted in the mid-sixteenth century in the time of Philip and Mary. The few tangible remains of that settlement include some fort wells in Portlaoise and the town's old name-Maryborough (before that it was Fort Protector). After the war years of religion in the seventeenth century, Laois got its demesnes and great houses and fine Georgian towns like Durrow, Abbeyleix, Rathdowney, Ballinakill, Mountmellick and Portarlington.

I am keeping the best holiday news until last. On the west side of Laois, along the Slieve Bloom range, is one of the best week-end or even daytrip holiday area, in Ireland. It is finely signposted from Mountrath or Rosenallis and has well metalled roads running up and over the mountain range.

You can picnic or follow the nature trail at Glenmonicknew, you can drive over the mountain by the Cut, and from Rosenallis drive up Glenbarrow and after that walk along the stream bed of the infant Barrow up to the lovely Clamphole Falls. As a final bonne bouche you can drive up deeply impressive Glendine. From the car park at the top, one hour's, not over energetic walking, will bring you to the summit of Arderin, the highest point of the Slieve Blooms.

At 1734 feet, you will enjoy the best view in midland Ireland. Mirror-like, you now look across the plain again to Dunamase and Slieve Margy and pick up again the wonderfully level landscape of demesne and wood and field.

Turn your back and you are looking into Birr and down the Devil's Bit hills to where they join the Slieve Feilims at the Shannon. North you are looking across Offaly to stacks of the power plants and the cooling towers. All the heart of Ireland, with mixed traditions is yours from this height in Laois.