Author: Abbeyleix Heritage

  • Thumbnail for the post titled: Bacon’s Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes(1963) A Laois Connection

    Bacon’s Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes(1963) A Laois Connection

    Undertaking a profane career that encompassed amphetamine-psychotic cat burglary in the ’60s for which she served prison time, Henrietta Moraes was the epitome of willful caprice and bohemianism throughout her […]

  • Thumbnail for the post titled: Building the Big House

    Building the Big House

    We have recently been lucky enough to come into possession of a fantastic document setting out the specification for the complete refurbishment of Donore House, Co Laois. The document dates to […]

  • Thumbnail for the post titled: The Goats Are Going Home

    The Goats Are Going Home

    This post is a follow on to one I wrote on my own blog about 2 years ago. To be honest it’s very difficult to believe that it’s that long […]

  • Thumbnail for the post titled: Mary O’Shea

    Mary O’Shea

    Mary was born on 16 August 1893 in Dublin City to Robert and Sarah McDonald. Her father was a ‘Shop meter collector’ and her mother was a nurse. When Mary was only […]

  • Thumbnail for the post titled: 100 Years On

    100 Years On

    Like every other county in Ireland, Laois has always kept Gaelic sports close to her heart but through the years since the GAA was founded in 1884 the county has […]

  • Thumbnail for the post titled: Francis Bacon: Home, Estrangement and Identity

    Francis Bacon: Home, Estrangement and Identity

    Bacon’s infant consciousness was forged for the most part in an Ireland ravaged by the fratricidal conflict of civil war, and Bacon’s later mature art could itself be argued to […]

  • Thumbnail for the post titled: Abbeyleix Heritage House Fresco

    Abbeyleix Heritage House Fresco

    In the midst of the most febrile activity imaginable as typical of a Renaissance Florentine art workshop, diffuse and heaving energies ordered themselves into direction through collective concentration on the […]

  • Thumbnail for the post titled: Jam Making, 1900’s style

    Jam Making, 1900’s style

    As many people will know we have a large collection of photographs and documents in our museum. While sections of this collection have been cataloged we’re still slogging through parts […]

  • Thumbnail for the post titled: Abbeyleix – Why Build  New Town

    Abbeyleix – Why Build New Town

    By 1770 Thomas Vesey, 1st Viscount de Vesci had finally managed to resolve the legal issues that dogged the estate since his grandfather had inherited it almost 80 years previously. […]

  • Thumbnail for the post titled: Laois to Siberia in Almost One Piece

    Laois to Siberia in Almost One Piece

    On Friday 6th February we were lucky enough to have Gary, Ned, Jim and Kevin come in and tell us the stories, tall and short’ of their trip across Siberia […]