3 Best Sights in Portlaoise, The Midlands

Connecting 10 of the county's celebrated formal gardens and expertly maintained privately owned ones, this driving route promotes the area's horticultural heritage. There's no trailhead for the tour so start the trail wherever you wish and spend as long as you'd like in each garden. Stops include the state-run gardens at Emo Court and Heywood House, as well as Gash Gardens in Castletown, which offers a delightful river walk along the banks of the Nore; the demesne gardens of Castle Durrow, with its glorious scented roses; and the organically managed potager-style kitchen garden of Dunmore Country School, just outside Durrow. For those interested and with time to spare, the Dunmore School also holds one-day gardening courses. There is a charge for only one garden, at Ballintubbert (€10); admission to the others is free.

Maps of the trail are available in Portlaoise Tourist Office based in the Dunamaise Arts Centre in Church Street.

Stop by the Portlaoise Tourist Office in the Dunamaise Arts Centre to pick up a map of the Laois Heritage Trail, a signposted, daylong drive on quiet back roads that takes in 13 heritage sites, ranging from Abbeyleix to Emo Court. The circular trail starts in Borris-in-Ossory on the N7.

Some sites along the trail charge an admission fee.

A dramatic 150-foot-high limestone outcrop, the famous Rock of Dunamase dominates the landscape east of Portlaoise. For this reason, it was used as a military stronghold. As far back as AD 140, its occupants kept watch against marauders, and it was fought over in turn by the Vikings, Normans, Irish, and English. Today it's crowned by the ruins of a 12th-century castle, once home to Diarmuid MacMurrough, king of Leinster, who precipitated the Norman invasion when he invited the famed and feared Norman leader Strongbow to Ireland to marry his daughter. Some of the castle's thick walls still stand after it was largely destroyed during the Cromwellian invasion in 1650.

Take the short walk to its summit to enjoy the view of the Slieve Bloom Mountains to the north and the Wicklow Mountains to the south.