placenamesLuggacurren
Log an Churraigh
The Plan of Campaign made Luggacurren a focus of the land struggle; renewed violence in 1922 exposed tensions that had outlasted the original dispute.
The name
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
- Log an Churraigh · Irish · main form · validated name
- Luggacurren · English · main form
Place & story
Rent withheld in Athy
In November 1886, tenants on Lord Lansdowne’s Luggacurren estate withheld their rents under the Plan of Campaign. Local historian Frank Taaffe identifies Father John Maher, Denis Kilbride and John W. Dunne among the organisers, with rents collected at Kavanagh’s hotel in Athy. The disagreement followed Lansdowne’s refusal to grant reductions comparable to those made on his Kerry properties, connecting local agricultural distress with a wider political campaign. [2]
Eviction and organised resistance
Kilbride was evicted in March 1887, and removals continued through the following years. A major meeting at Luggacurren in July 1887 drew William O’Brien and supporters from Athy and farther afield. With the land boycotted, the landlord’s agent used the Land Corporation to cultivate it. Later purchases and resettlement arrangements allowed some former tenants or their representatives to recover holdings, although the dispute left lasting divisions. [2]
Violence against later occupants
In late March 1922, armed men expelled two Protestant farmers from homes at Luggacurren, beginning a month-long campaign against other Protestant occupiers. Leigh-Ann Coffey’s study, as described by its publisher, identifies intervention by the provisional government as the means by which the violence ended. Its account places the attacks within older disputes over land as well as religion, cautioning against treating the episode as the product of one cause alone. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Laois
- Barony
- Stradbally
- Civil parish
- Tullomoy
- Within
- Luggacurren
- Coordinates
- 52.94859, -7.12215 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1413860 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Luggacurren. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Eye on the Past: Landsdownes evictions echoed over Kildare and Laois,20 March 2026 · Frank Taaffe / Kildare Nationalist
- The Planters of Luggacurran, County Laois: publisher synopsis · Leigh-Ann Coffey / Four Courts Press
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.