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
Móinteach Mílic· Irish · main form · validated name
Mountmellick· English · main form
Place & story
A town of several industries
Samuel Lewis’s 1837 account records cotton weaving, woollen manufacture, tanning, brewing, soap making and pottery in Mountmellick. The Roberts brothers had established an iron and brass foundry in 1834. A Grand Canal branch from Monasterevin carried grain, butter and merchandise, connecting these local trades with wider markets.[2]
The settlement stood chiefly in Rosenallis parish and partly in Coolbanagher, beside the Owenass. Quaker institutions were prominent: Lewis records a Friends school founded in 1788 alongside Methodist, Catholic and established-church congregations. Laois County Council’s heritage trail traces William Edmundson’s settlement and tannery to 1659 and identifies the Pim family with a wide range of later manufacturing businesses.[2][3]
People & connections
Johanna Carter and Mountmellick Work
Johanna Carter introduced Mountmellick embroidery around 1825. The Mountmellick Heritage Society’s bicentenary exhibition describes textured white-on-white designs inspired by local riverbank and hedgerow plants. Girls at the Quaker school learned the craft to earn money for books; later women produced household linens to supplement family income. Bedspreads, table runners, pillow shams and tablecloths carried these bold stitched motifs into everyday use.[5]
Sister Teresa Margaret McCarthy revived the craft in the 1970s and donated her collection to the museum.[4]
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.
View population figures
Mountmellick — Census 2016 settlement footprint — census population
These figures use different area definitions. Read the boundary note before comparing them.
Mountmellick, Laois — 2011 legal town and environs; 2016 census settlement
Published census settlement populations
4,777people · 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
Mountmellick, Laois — 2011 legal town and environs; 2016 census settlement — census population
placenames