Abbeyleix, notable for the quality of its preserved historical buildings, was founded as an estate town by Viscount de Vesci. The house of the de Vesci family and the Church of Ireland Church were built by James Wyatt, and the estate workers were housed in some of the finest 19th century houses in the county. The old Patrician boys' primary school has recently been converted into a heritage centre.

In Ballinakill you can see the ruins of a castle built by the Dunnes in the 17th century, but never inhabited. The entrance to the town is marked by two Toll trees, where a toll was paid by visitors who came to the town.

Durrow, an old Norman town was made part of Kilkenny by the Ormonds, but was restored to Laois in 1846. It has one of the last large pre-Palladian houses to be built in Ireland.

"Abbeyleix", a market and post-town, and a parish in the barony of Fassadining, county of Kilkenny, and partly in the barony of Maryborough-West, but chiefly in that of Cullinagh, Queen's County, and province of Leinster, 7 miles (S.S.E.) from Maryborough, and 47 1/2 miles (S.W.) from Dublin; containing 5990 inhabitants, of which 1009 are in the town.

This place, called Clonkyne Leix, or De Lege Dei, was the site of a monastery founded about the year 600, but of which there is no further account till the year 1183, when it was refounded and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin by Conogher or Corcheger O'More, who placed in it monks of the Cisternian order from Baltinglass, in the county of Wicklow, and was himself interred within its precincts. The town is situated on the mail road from Dublin, through Athy, to Cashel, and containd about 140 houses, of which the greater number are neatly built.

The parish comprises 11.974 statute acres, as applotted under the tithe act: there are about 400 acres of bog and 300 of woodland; the soil is in general light and sandy. The parish church, recently erected, is a very handsome building, in the later English style, with a vaulted roof of stone and an elegant spire: the old church, which was endowed by Lord De Vesci, is not generally used. In the R. C. divisions this parish is partly in the diocese of Ossory, but chiefly in that of Leighlin; the former in the union or district of Ballyragget, and the latter the head of a district, comprising also the parish of Ballyroan, and containing a chapel in each.

[From A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837)]

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