Portnahinch

23 registered freehold parcels lie mostly in Portnahinch, from 519 m² to 288,060 m² (28.81 ha, 71.18 acres). The dashed line is the townland's boundary; 9 neighbouring parcels touch it.

Download the townland: DXF, in Irish Transverse Mercator metres, with its boundary, parcels and buildings; GeoJSON or KML.

No zone of a development plan covers Portnahinch in the national zoning. Outside zoned towns and villages, the county development plan's rural policies apply to each application.

Source: Tailte Éireann and the Department of Housing (MyPlan), national zoning, CC BY 4.0.

• 26 Jul 2022Conditional

  construct a dwelling house, domestic garage, sewage treatment system with soil polishing filter and new entrance. An Natura Impact Statement will be submitted as part of this application.

  Permission, 2 homes · Laois County Council, 22463

• 20 Jul 2022Conditional

  retain extension to the front of the existing dwelling and all associated site works

  Retention, 1 home · Laois County Council, 22451

• 29 Jul 2020Refused

  construct a dwelling house, domestic garage, sewage treatment system and entrance

  Permission, 1 home · Laois County Council, 19570

• 22 Feb 2018Conditional

  erect a shed for use as a workshop and all associated works

  Permission, 1 home · Laois County Council, 1898

Source: National Planning Applications, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Applicants are not shown.

Designated sites

• Special Area of Conservation: River Barrow and River Nore SAC 002162

Recorded monuments

• LA004-004 Church
  Description

  Situated on the demesne land of Portnahinch House which is 80m to the NW as indicated on the 1838 edition of the OS 6-inch map. The church is standing on raised ground 50m SW of Portnahinch Bridge which crosses the River Barrow and was the only fording point over the River Barrow in this region. This section of the River Barrow forms the boundary between Laois and County Offaly. Tinnakill Castle (LA008-001001) belonging to the MacDonnell family is 1.6km to the SE, Clonyhurk Castle (OF033-005003) and church (OF033-005001) in Offaly are 3.1km to the N. No church is indicated in this area on the 1563 map of Laois-Offaly which shows a bridge crossing the River Barrow on the site of the present Portnahinch Bridge. The Down Susrvey (1655-6) map of Portnahinch barony depicts no church building in this townland. Morrett Church is the only church in this area that is listed in the 1302-06 Ecclesiastical Taxation of Ireland. The church was described in the 19th century as 'an old church, in ruins, stands here in an extensive graveyard; portions of the four walls remain, and show it to have been very small and very ancient; it measures about 40 feet [12.2m] in length, by 16 [4.9m] in width; there is a window in the west [east] gable, 31/2 feet [1m] in height and only 4 inches [0.1m] wide; another window, still smaller, appears on the Epistle [S] side of the altar place' (Comerford 1883, vol. 2, 254). Present remains consists of the ruins of a church (ext. dims. 6.7m N-S, 13m E-W, wall T 0.9m), in fair condition, built of roughly coursed rubble limestone. The head or top of the E window is missing its cut stone surround, and has cut stone jambs which display evidence of punch dressing and possible diagonal stone tooling. The E window is a narrow slit ope which is unusually narrow and similar to slit opes found on tower houses rather than churches. Internally this slit ope is set into a segmental arched window embrasure in the centre of the E wall. There are the remains of a similar poorly preserved narrow slit ope at the E end of the S wall very close to the SE angle of the church. There is no evidence of any other window in the S wall of the church. There was no window in the N wall which is completely intact. The church was entered through a doorway, now broken out, in the centre of the poorly preserved W wall. The dating of this church is problematical and it has been suggested that it may date from the fourteenth century based on the stone-dressing of the window surrounds. Alternatively it is possible that this church with its narrow slit opes dates from the seventeenth century plantation of Laois and was built as a church associated with the first house constructed at Portnahinch. The church is located in the NE quadrant of a rectangular shaped graveyard (LA004-004001-) and is approx. 3m to the S of the inner face of the N section of the enclosing graveyard wall and approx. 3m E of the inner face of the E wall of the graveyard. Sheela-na-gig (LA004-006002-) that is now buried near Tinnakill Castle (LA008-001001-) may have come from this church. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Laois' (Dublin Stationery Office, 1995) compiled by P. David Sweetman, Olive Alcock and Bernie Moran. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Compiled by Caimin O'Brien Date of upload / revision: 23rd May 2011

• LA004-004001 Graveyard
  Description

  Undivided church (LA004-004-) in fair condition situated on raised area close to river Barrow in NE quadrant of rectangular shaped graveyard. Rectangular shaped graveyard (int. dims. 38m N-S; 33m E-W) enclosed by a stone wall as indicated on current ed OS 6-inch map. Church located in NE quadrant of graveyard. Graveyard contains 18th and 19th century memorials with a concentration of memorials inside and around the S , and W sides of the church. The graveyard is entered through a small gateway located off centre to S in the E wall near the SE angle of the graveyard. Beside this gateway to the S there is a stone stile. There is narrow gravelled pathway running E-W across the graveyard directly inside the gateway. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 17 December 2007

• LA004-004002 Sheela-na-gig
  Description

  Two grotesque female figures were to be seen in 1918 in the farmyard wall of the entrance gate to the SSW of Tinnakill Castle (LA008-001001-). Present owner of the castle and farmyard stated in 1990 that they were broken up by person or persons unknown and buried. One was said to have come from a window jamb of Tinnakill Castle (LA008-001001-) the other from somewhere in Portnahinch (Anon. 1920, 262-3). H. Roe has taken photos of them and these photos can be seen in Laois Co. Library. The second sheela (LA004-004002-) that came from Portnahinch may have been taken from the Church at Portnahinch (LA004-004-). Two sheela-na-gigs (LA004-004002-; LA008-001002-) were built into the coping of the gate entrance wall. One was part of the jamb of a window of the 16th century Castle, the other came from Portnahinch. Moved from this site to a house in the Dangans (Mrs. Fennelly) where they suffered a misfortune with a truck. Both it and the Portnahinch figure were broken as a result and were later used as building material. Nothing to be seen now. (http://www.irelands-sheelanagigs.org/archive/index-42071.php.html accessed 23 May 2012). Freitag recorded that the sheela-na-gig was rescued from the castle ruins (LA008-001001-) and re-erected in garden wall of private house together with the Sheela from Tinnakill (LA008-001002-). Due to an accident both figures were knocked down and later re-used as building material (according to Mrs Fennelly, owner of house). All attempts to find missing figures have failed’ (Freitag 2004, 145). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload/revision: 23 May 2012

Architectural heritage

No building of the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage stands in the townland of Portnahinch.

Designated sites: National Parks and Wildlife Service. Recorded monuments: Sites and Monuments Record, National Monuments Service. Buildings: National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Works at or in relation to a recorded monument need two months' written notice to the National Monuments Service (National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994, section 12).

Radon

About 1 in 10 homes in this area is likely to have high radon levels. Testing a home

Landslides

Susceptibility low, low (inferred), on the 1:50,000 map.

Terrain model

LiDAR of the Office of Public Works, flown in 2011, at 2 m: tile OPW_2163 (ZIP).

Flooding

The flood maps of the Office of Public Works: floodinfo.ie.

Radon Risk Map of Ireland, Environmental Protection Agency; Landslide Susceptibility Classification, Geological Survey Ireland; both CC BY 4.0. LiDAR: contains Irish Public Sector Data (Geological Survey Ireland & the Office of Public Works) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.

No address of the register names Portnahinch with five sales or more. The sales of the area are on the page of Co. Laois.

Name

Portnahinch · Port na hInse

Area

711,596 m² (71.16 ha, 175.84 acres)

Civil parish

Ardea, and its townlands

Barony

Portnahinch

Electoral division

Dangans, the unit of the census

Census 2022

Dangans electoral division: 1,524 people in 461 households; 53% of households own their home; 64% of homes were built since 2001; 4% of dwellings stood vacant on census night, and 0% were holiday homes.

Neighbouring townlands

Garryhinch (Co. Offaly), Tinnakill

Placenames

Portnahinch on logainm.ie, the Placenames Database of Ireland

Townlands, civil parishes, baronies and electoral divisions, National Statutory Boundaries, Tailte Éireann, CC BY 4.0. Census 2022, Small Area Population Statistics by electoral division, Central Statistics Office, CC BY 4.0. A townland is the smallest land division of Ireland, and the unit of a rural address; old registers such as the 1901 and 1911 censuses file it under its civil parish and barony.