Overview
Mountrath (Irish: Maighean Rátha, ‘the homestead of the ringfort’) sits on the R445 in County Laois, exactly 96.5 km from both Dublin and Limerick. That midpoint made it a coaching stop, and for decades a bottleneck – traffic crawled nose-to-tail through the square until the M7 bypass opened in 2010 and gave the streets back to the town of just over 2,000 people. The Whitehorse River runs through the centre. Most people who stop here are on their way to the Slieve Bloom Mountains, but one thing is worth pulling over for even if you never leave the road.
St Fintan’s Well – the wish tree
On the R445 towards Portlaoise stands a sycamore with coins hammered edge-first into its trunk and limbs, thousands of them, gone green and swallowed into the bark. The story goes that the original holy well was filled in to stop the superstition around it, and the spring water reappeared in the fork of the tree. People took to pressing pennies into the bark as offerings. The weight of metal killed the first trunk, but the tree threw up new shoots and carried on. Tradition holds that water caught in its hollow cures warts. If you have twenty minutes in Mountrath, spend them here: it’s free, it’s strange, and it’s genuinely old.
History and heritage
The area was on the map long before the town was. In 1111 the Synod of Ráth Breasail, held nearby, redrew the Irish church into territorial dioceses for the first time. The town itself took shape in the 1600s under Charles Coote, who secured a royal grant for two weekly markets and two annual fairs in 1628 and built up a linen and fustian trade that lasted until the surrounding woods were stripped for charcoal. The Coote line held on through the Earldom of Mountrath, which died out in 1802.
In 1809 the Brigidine Sisters founded a convent here and, with a later Patrician monastery, taught local children for the best part of two centuries. The Sisters handed the convent buildings to the community in 2017; after renovation they reopened as an Enterprise Hub and Community Centre, with co-working space, fitness studios and martial-arts classes where the classrooms used to be.
The town and the golf club
Mountrath keeps a 19th-century scale – a former courthouse, and St Fintan’s Church, which holds a set of early medieval cross-slabs moved in from the original monastic site. The graveyard is open, and worth a slow read.
Mountrath Golf Club, 3 km south, is an 18-hole parkland course, par 71, founded in 1929 and extended from nine holes to eighteen in 1994. The River Nore runs straight through it, and the old mill that once generated the town’s electricity still stands near the 19th. It plays 5,732 m off the championship tees and 5,371 m off the medal. Green fees and tee times are on +353 57 873 2558.
The river walk and the amenity park
The Mountrath River Walk follows the Whitehorse River on a compacted gravel path, flat, wheelchair-friendly and dog-friendly, with benches and interpretive panels on the river’s mill history. If you’re travelling with children, head instead for the Amenity Park: it has a large playground with a 30-metre cable run, an adventure trail, a tunnel slide and a sand-and-water area, plus an outdoor gym, table tennis, a small wildlife park and its own stretch of riverbank. Both are open during daylight hours.
Into the Slieve Blooms
The main reason to base yourself in Mountrath is the Slieve Bloom Mountains to the west, rising to around 500 m. There’s a 75 km three-day circuit for anyone with the time, and plenty of shorter forest and river walks for those who don’t, including gentle trails that suit families and mountain bikers. Conditions hold up reasonably well year-round, but bring waterproofs and proper footwear – this is not weather to chance in trainers.
Food and drink
For essentials there’s a Centra on Main Street (7am–10pm Monday to Saturday, 8am–9pm Sunday) and a Spar. For a pint, locals go to Eddie Kirwan’s, Fountain House or Tom’s Bar. Takeaways cover the after-a-hill-day hunger. Colgan Sports on the Portlaoise road sells outdoor and hiking gear, and the Emo station on the same road has 24-hour self-service pumps.
Nearby
- Aghaboe Abbey – a 6th-century monastic site 8 km north, with a well-preserved high cross and a quiet graveyard.
- Castle Durrow – an early 18th-century estate with formal gardens, 12 km away.
- Clonaslee – a small village 10 km off, and the main gateway to the Slieve Bloom Way.
Getting there
- By road – M7 to Portlaoise, then the R445 west; the same road brings you in from the Limerick side.
- By bus – the one scheduled service is the Slieve Bloom Bus (Route 831), which runs once each weekday, early morning, from Portlaoise to Mountrath and then loops on through Castletown, Borris-in-Ossory, Rathdowney, Ballycolla, Durrow and Abbeyleix before returning to Portlaoise. There are no weekend buses.
- By rail – the nearest station is Portlaoise, on the Dublin–Cork line, with onward buses.
- By air – Dublin Airport is about 120 km away.
Pay-and-display parking runs 8.30am–5.30pm Monday to Saturday in the town car parks. If you’re depending on the bus, plan around that single early-morning 831 – miss it and there isn’t another, and nothing runs at the weekend.