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The south of County Laois consists of lush farmland, dotted with estate towns and villages. The largest of these and well worth a visit is ABBEYLEIX , about ten miles from Portlaoise on the N8, named after a Cistercian abbey founded here by a member of the O'More family in 1183. In one of those periodic bursts of enthusiasm that seem to be a mark of the Ascendancy, Abbeyleix was entirely remodelled by Viscount de Vesci in the eighteenth century and relocated on the coach road away from the old village to the southwest. The place has been designated a heritage town, and has an excellent heritage centre (tel 0502/31653, www.laois.local.ie/abbeyleix ), housed in the old National School Building just off Main Street, which has exhibits on the town's history and examples of the craft of carpet weaving that once was an important part of the local economy. Unfortunately, the attractive pedimented eighteenth-century Abbeyleix House (designed by James Wyatt) isn't open to the public, and the gardens are open just two Sundays a year. In the village, the famous Morrissey's Bar , an enormous grocer's shop and pub combined, probably hasn't changed in fifty years, with pew seats and a brazier and old advertisements for beer and tobacco that seem to have been forgotten by time. It's a great place to sit and soak up the atmosphere. If you prefer to stimulate rather than relax your senses then head across the road from Morrissey's to the Dove House Convent where you'll find the Sensory Gardens . Inside the convent's ivy-clad walls, the gardens not only provide a sanctuary from the busy street, but promote awareness of the senses by devising walks around beds of flowers that are visually striking, and which exude an arresting and at times intoxicating combination of smells. Accommodation is plentiful in the area: the friendliest B&B is offered at Ms Peverell's Olde Manse (tel 0502/31423; GBP33-40/?41.90-50.79), while next door is the Dowling's creeper-covered B&B Preston House (tel 0502/314332; GBP40-55/?50.79-69.84), which boasts good-quality rooms and excellent home-cooking in the adjoining restaurant. Just out of town on the main Cork road is the comfortable, though characterless, modern Manor Hotel (tel 0502/30111, info@abbeyleixmanorhotel.com ; GBP55-70/?69.84-88.88); and the fine Hibernian Hotel (tel 0502/31252; GBP40-55/?50.79-69.84) is back in town on Lower Main Street. If you have a few hours to spare, it's worth considering a short excursion to the tiny village of Timahoe , seven miles northeast of Abbeyleix, on the R428. The village is the site of a twelfth-century monastery, of which all that now remains is a round tower, its entrance framed with unusual carvings of human faces. About three miles southeast of Abbeyleix is BALLINAKILL , itself a pretty Georgian village on a sloping main street, and just north of the town, the gardens of Heywood House (mid-June to mid-Sept Mon & Fri-Sun 1-6pm) are worth a look for their re-creation of a distant Italianate idyll. The house was burned down early last century, but the gardens, drawn up by the English garden designer Gertrude Jeckyll and architecture - complete with gazebos and sunken terraces - by Sir Edwin Lutyens, architect to the Empire, have been fully restored. DURROW , back on the N8, about six miles south of Abbeyleix, is yet another planned estate town, grouped around a green adjoining Castle Durrow , which is - its medievalized gateway notwithstanding - the first great Palladian house to be built in this area (1716). It's now a convent, but you can walk up the drive and see it from the outside. The town was owned by the Duke of Ormond, who had it adopted by County Kilkenny; it took an act of parliament to get it returned to what was then Queen's County in 1834. The Castle Arms (tel 0502/36117; GBP40-55/?50.79-69.84), facing the green, is one of the few places to stay , while sturdy home cooking can be found at the Copper Kettle , two doors up. The extreme southwest corner of County Laois consists of quiet farming land punctuated by small villages such as Cullahill, Rathdowney and Erill, full of neat colour-washed houses. Cullahill , about four miles southwest of Durrow, and its castle, up the road opposite the Sportsman Inn , are of little interest in themselves, but if you walk through the farmyard next to the castle and look at the stone protruding high up on the south wall, you'll see a fine example of a Sheila-na-Gig (an ancient fertility symbol ). The unassuming village of BALLACOLLA , about two miles northwest of Durrow, has few sights to speak of but offers some cosy, and reasonably priced, accommodation options. Excellent hostel accommodation (IHH; tel 0502/34032) is available in a converted grain loft on a working farm just outside the village itself; take the right at the bottom of the village (R434) to the family-friendly farm where owner Marty Farren takes great care of his guests. Nearby is Sean Hyland's Foxrock Inn (tel 0502 38637, www.foxrockinn.com; GBP33-40/?41.90-50.79) where you will find a hearty welcome in the convivial pub and fine B&B accommodation; to get here follow the R434 to Ballacolla, taking a right in the middle of the village and from there follow the Foxrock signposts to the small hamlet of Clough. About eight miles west of Durrow (take the R434 then the R433), Rathdowney is altogether a more metropolitan sort of place, with a raffish pride that gives it a continental flavour. The Central bar on the main square does B&B (tel 0505/46567; GBP33-40/?41.90-50.79), plus breakfast, tea and dinner. Just north of Rathdowney, DONAGHMORE 's Workhouse and Agricultural Museum (daily 2-5pm; GBP2/?2.54) gives some idea of the less picturesque aspects of the area's past. The austere building, formerly the parish workhouse (at some distance from the village itself), is evocative of the lives of the poor - its very size indicates the scale of the problem of rural poverty, even if the exhibits themselves, a selection of mainly agricultural machinery, seem a bit random. Families were frequently broken up on admission and no one was allowed to leave the premises; on average two of the eight hundred inmates died every week, to be buried in the mass grave behind the workhouse. The buildings functioned as a workhouse between 1853 and 1886, and the museum exhibits take up the story again with a series of documents relating to the Donaghmore Co-operative, which was founded in 1927. Unfortunately, many of them - one of the cases has an order for sandwiches at a hotel in Birr - are of little more than local interest. The museum practises a strenuous self-censorship over the intervening period, during which the buildings were used as a British army barracks, at one stage housing the notorious Black and Tans - something the authorities deem as wiser not to address. Donaghmore itself - three pubs, a Protestant church and a mill - is a clear statement of the inability of these little settlements to ride out the economic turbulence of the nineteenth century. A glimpse of the other end of the social spectrum can be gleaned from a visit to Balaghmore Castle (appointment only, call ahead on tel 0505 21453; GBP3/?3.81) on the Laois/Tipperary border (take the R433 north to where it meets the main N7 road and the castle is on the right, two miles after the town of Borris-in-Ossory. Formerly guarding the outer reaches of the Fitzpatrick lands the castle has been single-handedly renovated by its owner, Ms Pym, and is now open to the public to view and rent; it's best to call the owner before visiting as opening times can vary. As with many of the castles in the area, a Sheila-na-Gig can be found three quarters of the way up its southern wall.
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