Concluding from :County Laois or Leix Richard Hayward 1949 (From 'This is Ireland, LEINSTER and the City of Dublin) Mountmellick was the only town in Ireland really created by the Friends as a Quaker settlement, and it was built on such solid foundations of work and honest value that it would be a Quaker town to this day, but for the refusal of the old manufacturers to modernise their methods. That failure, and certain regrettable misunderstandings within the Society about war-service and mixed marriage, so disintegrated the structure of the community that Sam Pim and some of his relatives are the only Quakers left in the vicinity today. I felt very sad about this when I went with my host to find the old Friends' Meeting House, which was built to hold a congregation of three hundred and was, often overcrowded, now in use as a Y.M.C.A. For there is no Quaker Meeting in Mountmellick today, and even the fine Friends' School, which stands close beside the old Meeting House, is now a Roman Catholic establishment. I remember this school years ago, a most graceful and spacious building with its front a mass of Virginia Creeper and its whole bearing somehow redolent.of the gentle Friends as Elia knew them, and I could have wept to-day to see its face reduced to that staring cemented uniformity which seems to express so well the level of taste of the present era. Across the Square is the shop opened by Jonathan Pim about 1730 and still prospering, and my mind went back to the time when an English officer confronted the good Jonathan and demanded: A length of rope fit to hang a man. I will not sell thee rope to hang one of God's creatures, said Jonathan. And, being a Quaker, he kept his word. We stayed that night, and for the next four nights, in Anngrove, the home of Samuel and Winifred Pim and their happy family, and it wasn't long before I had my little Irish harp out of my car and we were all sitting round the turf fire, singing songs and telling stories. Anngrove was built about 1698 by one Beale, a Quaker from Suffolk, and some time afterwards it passed by purchase to the Pims and has remained in their possession ever since. It is that most beautiful and lovable of things, a house that has been lived in for a long time, and that has retained its, old personality and grace despite the many additions and improvements which it has undergone. I do not know that I ever stayed in a happier house, and the greatest compliment I can pay my host and hostess is to record that, since childhood, I have carried in my mind a most gracious picture of the true and proper Friend, and friend, and that they but added to the rich, warm colours of that happy limnery. The capital town of Leix is Port Laoighise, but this revival of the ancient place-name has not gained much currency, and the people commonly use the name which Lord Deputy Sussex imposed in honour of his Queen-Maryborough, though they pronounce it Marraburra. It, stands on the Triogue River, a tributary of the Barrow, and though it is a neat and prosperous town of respectable antiquity it has nothing much to offer the tourist. We drove to this town, from Mountmellick, along the ancient way which runs parallel with the main road, but to the east of it, a most interesting old track that is perched all the way on top of a gigantic esker. I have already had something to say about these gravel ridges left by the rivers which flowed under the ice sheets of Glacial times, and this a grand example. >From Port Laoighise we followed the Stradbally road to Dunamase-Dún Masg, the Fortress of Masg, one of the traditional ancestors of the Leinster people. This ruined castle stands most dramatically on a massive outcrop of rock to the left of the road, a site commanding a gap in the hills and a vast extent of flat country, which, as the place-name indicates, has been fortified from the earliest times. The present picturesque ruins are those of the Norman successor of the old Irish stronghold, and whilst that successor was probably built by Wilham le Mareschal, William de Bruce, Lord Brecknock, is credited with rebuilding here in 1250, and the formidable Roger de Mortimer also took a hand in re-edification. In time Dunamase became the chief stronghold of the O Moores, and was the scene of many sanguinary conflicts in the Irish wars, being captured with bloody slaughter by Coote in 1641 and by Owen Roe O Neill five years later. But Cromwellian troops, under Hewson and Reynolds, put an end to it in 1650, and the thoroughness of their slighting, to use a technical term which is such a lovely understatement, can be seen to-day in the great masses of shattered masonry which lie all around in splendid confusion. The outlines of the fortress are clear enough, with a D-shaped bailey to the east, and a triangular walled-courtyard to the west of it. A round-faced gateway tower, with traces of a drawbridge, gives access to this courtyard, and a sloping way leads to the inner ward, a terraced heart-shaped area on the summit of the rocky boss. About the centre of the inner curtain the main gateway is much shattered, and the condition of the crowning rectangular keep, of thirteenth-century date but with sixteenth-century additions, is no better. The view from Dunamase is fine indeed, with the wide sweep of the flat Leinster plain stretching before you like a multi-coloured patchwork quilt, and little imagination is needed to understand the strategic importance of this place in earlier times. We traversed some pleasant,little byroads, winding amongst the pretty hills around Stradbally, to reach Timahoe-Tigh Mochua, the House of Mochua-with its splendid Round Tower. A Celtic monastery was founded here in the sixth century by Saint Mochua, and the tower and associated ruins represent the remnants of the more permanent stone buildings which were later erected on his foundation. This Round Tower is especially interesting because of its most beautiful Hiberno-Romanesque doorway, consisting of two divisions separated from each other by a deep reveal and a close examination of this little masterpiece, in the light of what I have already said about our native style of architecture, will reward you with many delightful surprises. It is a very pleasant run to Portarlington up in the extreme northern tip of Leix, and you will find this charming town a most delightful place. It is known in Irish as Cúl an tSúdaire- the Corner of the Tanner-and owes its English name to the grantee of 1667, Sir Henry Bennett, afterwards Lord Arlington, and much of its later prosperity to the expansion of the canal trade. The charm of its architecture lies in the fluid, anti-Georgian freedom of its general conception, but the hand of the modern builder is heavy upon it with all its graceless disregard for beauty and comeliness. The best remaining example is the exquisite double-bow-fronted house in the Killmalogue section of the town, where the last of the back-to-front houses has just lost its quaint character by the insertion of a street window. It is said that most of these lovely houses were built by Huguenot refugees after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and by retired Huguenot officers of the Williamite armies, and that they designed them with blank walls to the street, because their un-popularity with the Irish townspeople provoked the stoning of their normal window panes. Whether this is so I cannot say, but it is evident that Portarlington was indeed a very French town, for the Register of the French Church, which is the normal Parish Church, is full of names such as Tabuteau, Desvoeux, La Combre, Blanc, Vignoles and Corsellis, and until 1816 was written entirely in French. Similarly the Expenses Book of the Church is titled Livre de Comples, and, until 1782, its entries are also in French, though after that date French and English are inter-mingled. The Parish Register for the third of June, 1694, contains the names of Bellaquier, Gillet, Bonneval, Cellier, Champs, Boucher, Mercier and Aigues, and the fine set of church silver bears this inscription: Donné par son Altesse Royale Madame Wilheimina Carolina Princesse de Galles en faveur de I'Eglise Francoise Conformiste de Portaliengton, le 1 Mars, 1714-5. The rector very kindly showed us over his attractive little church, and gave me such access to his registers and treasures that I was enabled to take notes on the spot and include the foregoing most interesting information in my book. I expressed my warm thanks to him and I now do so again. Our host drove us back to Anngrove through Emo Park, the former residence of the Dawson family, who became Earls of Portarlington in 1785, but now a monastery and a Government afforestation centre. On the way out of Portarlington he pointed out the once-famous Arlington School, where such diverse characters as Edmund Burke and Lord Carson were pupils, but change has come upon it also and it is now a factory. The main drive of Emo Park is famous for its border of splendid Redwoods, Wellingtonia giganticum, and the rest of the older timber here is varied and beautiful, in comparison with the quick-growing larch and spruce which the Government seem set on planting everywhere to the exclusion of all our lovely native trees. In Emo Church is a most exquisite recumbent effigy, carved in marble by the sculptor Boehm, of Aline, Countess of Portarlington, who died in 1874 and is buried here. The treatment of the beautiful hands and arms is delicate and masterly. As we drove back to Anngrove the sun was setting in a splendour of tawny light that worked its magic with the flat boglands that lay between us and home. The stacked turf cast long prune-coloured shadows across the brown land, and the bog pools reflected the glory of a sky that was full of luminous clouds with edges the colour of burnished copper. This was Leix, warm- hearted, friendly, hospitable Leix, and we felt sorrow that we should be leaving it in the morning.