placenames.ie
Electoral division

Borris

An Bhuiríos

Clonreher, within Borris electoral division west of Portlaoise, preserves distinct records of a Georgian house and a medieval castle site.

Watercolour and fine ink illustration of Clonreher Castle and its farmyard, County Laois, as photographed in June 2011.
Illustration, Clonreher Castle and its farmyard, County Laois, as photographed in June 2011
Recorded locationBorris53.06660° N · 7.31677° WInteractive map supplied by OpenStreetMap.
Recorded place location · Logainm.ie

The name

A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.

Recorded forms

  • An Bhuiríos · Irish · main form · non-validated name
  • Borris · English · main form

Place & story

An early Georgian residence

The architectural inventory dates Clonreher House to around 1735. Its five-bay front rises through two main storeys to a dormer attic. The same record identifies a stable complex arranged around a medieval tower house. The residence and the older defensive building therefore form separate elements in the site’s architectural history. [2]

Limited testing beside the castle

On 9 June 2010, Gill McLoughlin investigated two road-verge trenches near Clonreher Castle before water-supply works. Neither contained archaeological material. This was a small intervention beside the recorded monument, not an excavation of the whole castle or house complex. The enclosure found elsewhere in the same project was at Kilminchy, a different site. [3]

Geographic information

Place type
Electoral division
County
Laois
Coordinates
53.06660, -7.31677
Logainm ID
1373500 ↗

Sources & further reading

  1. Logainm.ie — Borris. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
  2. Clonreher House, NIAH 12801307 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
  3. 2010:431 Portlaoise–Mountmellick Water Supply Improvement Scheme, Clonreher testing, licence 10E0170 · Gill McLoughlin, Irish Archaeological Consultancy
  4. Borris electoral division: constituent townlands · Townlands.ie / OpenStreetMap contributors
  5. Clonreher Castle and its farmyard, County Laois, as photographed in June 2011 illustration: based on a Castles of Leinster: Clonreher, Laois by Mike Searle. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.