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
Port Laoise· Irish · main form · validated name
Port Laoise· English · main form
Place & story
The fort above the Triogue
Construction of the fort began in 1548 under Lord Deputy Edward Bellingham during the Tudor conquest of Leix. Its position on rising ground southeast of the Triogue, with an esker ridge to the east, gave it defensive advantages. The town that grew around it became Maryborough. Elizabeth I’s charter raised it to borough status in 1570; the name Portlaoise was adopted in 1922.[3]
A working county town
Lewis’s 1837 account describes infantry barracks, flour mills and markets in the town. Narrow streets and the business of an assize centre formed part of the same urban setting. Later planning history identifies the long Main Street between Market Square and Lower Square as a defining element of the town’s layout. Its commercial centre continued to develop around the inherited street pattern.[2][3]
People & connections
Fitzmaurice grows up in Maryborough
James Fitzmaurice was born in Dublin in 1898 and moved to Maryborough in 1902 when his father joined the prison staff there. He attended the local Christian Brothers’ school. Laois Local Studies records his fascination with the Aldritt family’s garage, where the automobile engineers also attempted to build an aircraft with local artisan Johnny Conroy. This was a place where a schoolboy could encounter the practical experiments of aviation’s early years.[4][5]
The Bremen crossing remembered
Fitzmaurice later became one of the crew of the Bremen, which completed the pioneering non-stop east-to-west North Atlantic flight in April 1928. The aircraft left Baldonnel on 12 April with Hermann Köhl, Fitzmaurice and Ehrenfried Günther von Hünefeld aboard. Portlaoise commemorated Fitzmaurice with a monument unveiled in 2001, shaped around the aircraft’s tail. The memorial connects his international achievement with the town where he spent his childhood.[6]
Portlaoise (formerly Maryborough) — Census 2016 settlement footprint
Population within 2016 settlement boundaries
24,532people · 2022
Both counts use the 2016 settlement boundary, allowing like-for-like comparison. CSO supplies the 2022 count on this older boundary for comparison only. The official 2022 Built Up Area has different boundaries.
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Portlaoise (formerly Maryborough) — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Portlaoise (Maryborough), Laois — 2011 legal town and environs; 2016 census settlement
Published census settlement populations
22,050people · 2016
Settlement boundaries changed during this period. Differences may reflect boundary changes as well as population change. Where a 2011 legal-town-and-environs count is shown, it has not been recalculated onto the 2016 settlement boundary.
View population figures
Portlaoise (Maryborough), Laois — 2011 legal town and environs; 2016 census settlement — census population
placenames