Introduction to Port Laoise, Ireland Portlaoise

PORTLAOISE is best known for its top-security jail and mental hospital – they're both on the same street, known to locals as Nuts 'n' Bolts Road. The prison was founded in 1547, when the O'Mores held the fortress of Dunamase to the south, as a fortification under the name of Fort Protector. The town itself is pretty unremarkable, though it does have a useful tourist office situated on James Fintan Lawlor Avenue (Mon–Sat 9.30am–5.30pm; tel 0502/21178) offering information on the whole county; it's reached by car by taking the bypass and stopping at the car park beside the new shopping mall, or, more easily, on foot by walking along Main Street and turning right down the small alley beside Dowling's Cafe. There's an adequate hotel, O'Loughlin's, on Main Street (tel 0502/21305, oloughlins@eircom.net; €50–160/£30–100), though it's advisable to continue to Abbeyleix where the accommodation is generally of a higher standard. You'll have no trouble finding somewhere to eat, however: possibilities range from the hospitable home cooking and open fires of the Kitchen café/restaurant in Hynds Square, a small courtyard off Main Street (tel 0502/62075), to the excellent Kingfisher Indian restaurant, a little further down Main Street (tel 0502/62500), in a fine converted red-brick building that once acted as the town's bank. There are plenty of drinking options: the town boasts 22 pubs in all. You could also head a few miles out of town on the Dublin road to the thatched Treacy's, supposedly the oldest family-run pub in Ireland (founded in 1780), which now sits somewhat uncomfortably on an island between a motorway and a main road, but still fulfils its role of serving travellers on the long haul from Dublin to the west.

Information by Rough Guides

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