placenamesRathaspick
Ráth Easpaig
Lewis described the organisation of labour as well as steam drainage in the parish coalfield.
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
- Ráth Easpaig · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Rathaspick · English · main form
Place & story
Through clay, rock and slate
Samuel Lewis’s 1837 account of Rathaspick parish in Queen’s County, now Laois, describes the Doonane coal mines and other workings along the same range. Shafts passed through clay, then hard green rock and slaty layers beside the coal. At Doonane a steam engine drained the company’s mines. Lewis’s description records methods operating at that time rather than a construction date for the workings. [2]
Duties within a gang
Underground work was organised in gangs of about thirty, with each member assigned a particular duty. Lewis gave sixty workers when a pit was double-worked and a ten-hour working period for each crew. These figures describe the crews and their working arrangements, not the total workforce of the coalfield. He also noted the miners’ observance of holidays. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Laois
- Barony
- Ballyadams
- Barony
- Slievemargy
- Coordinates
- 52.89881, -7.11767
- Mapped area
- 30.83 km²
- Logainm ID
- 1451 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Rathaspick. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Rathaspeck (Queen’s County), A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.