Leap

23 registered freehold parcels lie mostly in Leap, from 320 m² to 263,935 m² (26.39 ha, 65.22 acres). The dashed line is the townland's boundary; 20 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 Leap 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.

• 1 Sept 2026N/a

  the demolition of existing livestock cubicle shed and silo walls and permission to build a new slatted livestock cubicle shed and concrete walled silo including all ancillary concrete areas and all associated site works

  Permission · Offaly County Council, 2660461

• 12 Aug 2026N/a

  demolition of existing livestock cubicle shed and silo walls and permission to build a new slatted livestock cubicle shed and concrete walled silo including all ancillary concrete areas and all associated site works

  Permission · Offaly County Council, 2660420

• 29 Jan 2024Conditional

  for a slatted livestock cubicle shed with underground slurry storage, a concrete walled silo and all associated site works.

  Permission · Offaly County Council, 2460024

• 18 Jun 2021Conditional

  A WOODCHIP STORAGE SHED AND ALL ANCILLARY ASSOCIATED SITE WORKS. THE DEVELOPMENT IS THE SUBJECT OF AN INTEGRATED POLLUTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL LICENCE. THE SITE IS LOCATED SOUTH OF LEAP CASTLE (A PROTECTED STRUCTURE)

  Permission · Offaly County Council, 21378

• 27 May 2021N/a

  A WOODCHIP STORAGE SHED AND ALL ANCILLARY ASSOCIATED SITE WORKS. THE DEVELOPMENT IS THE SUBJECT OF AN INTEGRATED POLLUTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL LICENCE. THE SITE IS LOCATED SOUTH OF LEAP CASTLE (A PROTECTED STRUCTURE)

  Permission · Offaly County Council, 21323

• 4 May 2021N/a

  A WOODCHIP STORAGE SHED AND ALL ANCILLARY ASSOCIATED SITE WORKS. THE DEVELOPMENT IS THE SUBJECT OF AN INTEGRATED POLLUTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL LICENCE. THE SITE IS LOCATED SOUTH OF LEAP CASTLE (A PROTECTED STRUCTURE)

  Permission · Offaly County Council, 21272

• 5 Apr 2017Conditional

  A SLATTED LIVESTOCK CUBICLE SHED, UNDERGROUND SLATTED SLURRY STORAGE TANKS AND ALL ASSOCIATED SITE WORKS

  Permission · Offaly County Council, 17118

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

Designated sites

No designated site (Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area, Natural Heritage Area or proposed one) touches the townland of Leap.

Recorded monuments

• OF039-047 Castle - tower house
  Description

  Located on the E facing slope of rising ground in upland area. Three storey high Tower house (ext. dims. 13.2m N-S; 10m E-W; wall T 2.2m) built with roughly coursed rubble with crenellated wall-walk. The W face of the tower has been heavily modified by the insertion of a Georgian door and facade with the interior of the building severely altered over the years. Originally the Tower house had a two ordered door on the S wall with chamfered stops, the top half of which is now missing and was defended by a machicolation at wall walk level. Inside the door to the E there is a barrel vaulted guard room with wicker work centring still evident. This room is accessed by a two centred doorway with hanging eye inside. Opposite this room is the mural passage leading to a spiral stairs in the SW angle of the building from which all rooms are accessed. The ground floor has been heavily modified while at first floor level there is a barrel vaulted roof with a fine toggled fireplace in the NE corner. There is a small loft between first floor and barrel vault which is accessed from the main stairs. Above the vault at second floor level there is a large room which has a fine two centred doorway with hanging eye and a bolt hole box-like structure protruding from the face of the wall. Several later inserted windows in the four walls of this room have finely punch dressed jambs. A door in the NW angle gives access to a bartizan and mural passage in the N wall which gave access to the destroyed Jacobean house which was attached to the N face of the tower. Only the diagonal shaped chimney stacks and fireplace are all that remains of this building. In the NE angle of the second floor there is a large hole in the E splay of the N window which is a possible garderobe although locals believe it to be a dungeon. From the second floor the wall walk is accessed with lintelled mural passage at each gable leading to the open wall walk on E and W side. Above the second floor there is a small ante chamber and chamber which are accessed off the spiral stairs in the SW angle. The ante chamber has a narrow slit window with slop stone under, while the barrel vaulted chamber appears to have been the pantry. A later Georgian house was constructed around the core of the Jacobean house giving it its modern appearance today. Overall the tower house would appear to be a late 16th-century tower house with 17th-century house (OF039-047001-) to N with later Georgian alterations. O' Carroll castle captured by the English in 1557 and given to the Darby family in the 17th-century. Bawn area (OF039-047002-) to S, W and N of castle with natural cliff edge on the E side. Bawn wall appears to have been greatly modified by the landscaping and rebuilding in the 18th century (Cooke 1875, 216-21). Monument placed on the Register of Historic Monuments on the 15 April 1976. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 15 May 2006 The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Offaly' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 23 May 2011

• OF039-047001 House - 16th/17th century
  Description

  Located on the E facing slope of rising ground in upland area. Three storey high Tower house (OF039-047----) built with roughly coursed rubble with crenellated wall-walk. The W face of the tower has been heavily modified by the insertion of a Georgian door and facade with the interior of the building severely altered over the years. Originally the Tower house had a two ordered door on the S wall with chamfered stops, the top half of which is now missing and was defended by a machicolation at wall walk level. A later Georgian house was constructed around the core of the Jacobean house giving it its modern appearance today. Overall the tower house (OF039-047----) would appear to be a late 16th-century tower house with 17th-century house to N with later Georgian alterations. O' Carroll castle captured by the English in 1557 and given to the Darby family in the 17th-century. Bawn area (OF039-047002-) to S, W and N of castle with natural cliff edge on the E side. Bawn wall appears to have been greatly modified by the landscaping and rebuilding in the 18th century (Cooke 1875, 216-21). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien. Date of upload: 23 May 2011

• OF039-047002 Bawn
  Description

  Located on the E facing slope of rising ground in upland area. Three storey high Tower house (OF039-047----) built with roughly coursed rubble with crenellated wall-walk. The W face of the tower has been heavily modified by the insertion of a Georgian door and facade with the interior of the building severely altered over the years. Originally the Tower house had a two ordered door on the S wall with chamfered stops, the top half of which is now missing and was defended by a machicolation at wall walk level. A later Georgian house was constructed around the core of the Jacobean house giving it its modern appearance today. Overall the tower house (OF039-047----) would appear to be a late 16th-century tower house with 17th-century house (OF039-047001-) to N with later Georgian alterations. O' Carroll castle captured by the English in 1557 and given to the Darby family in the 17th-century. Bawn area to S, W and N of castle with natural cliff edge on the E side. Bawn wall appears to have been greatly modified by the landscaping and rebuilding in the 18th century(Cooke 1875, 216-21). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien. Date of upload: 23 May 2011

Architectural heritage

• Leap Castle, gate lodge, 1730–1790 · Regional interest
  Description

  Detached Gothic style three-bay single-storey gate lodge, built c.1760, with extension to rear and principal entrance gates to Leap Castle to west. Hipped tiled roof with rendered chimneystacks. Rendered walls. Square-headed window openings with chamfered sandstone surround, label moulding and timber casement window. Pointed-arched door opening with carved sandstone colonnettes to surround and timber panelled and glazed door. Door accessed up two sandstone steps. Castellated entrance gates to adjacent Leap Castle comprises segmental-headed arched opening with wrought-iron double gates flanked by castellated square towers with gun-loops, pointed-arched pedestrian openings and quadrant walls.

• Leap Castle, castle/fortified house, 1550–1750 · National interest
  Description

  Detached sixteenth-century three-storey tower house with remains of Jacobean house constructed to north. Altered and enlarged by the Darby Family, c.1760, to include flanking Neo-Gothic two-storey castellated blocks and door surround. Roughcast rendered walls to tower house with castellated parapet with bartizans and machicolations. Ruled and lined rendered to flanking bays with sandstone dressing. Variety of window openings including limestone pointed-arched twin lights to the tower house and pointed-arched window openings with sandstone sills to the eighteenth-century flanking bays. Pointed-arched door opening with flanking pointed-arched sidelights to front elevation has a Batty Langley style door surround comprising sandstone clustered collonnettes and hoodmouldings. Tower house and flanking bay to south in use as a private dwelling. Two and three-storey castellated bays to north of tower house are derelict.

• Leap Castle, stables, 1840–1880 · Regional interest
  Description

  Gothic Revival stable yard to Leap Castle, built c.1860, comprising stables and coach house. Located south-west of Leap Castle. Seven-bay two-storey castellated stable block with breakfront and central pointed-arched carriage arch opening accessing partially cobbled enclosed yard. Hipped slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and pierced brick chimneystacks. Coursed limestone and sandstone walls with limestone cornice and castellated parapet. Pointed-arched window openings with yellow brick surrounds and sandstone sills. Carriage arch openings to rear elevation are now windows openings. Main entrance to house in upper level accessed from road side to west. Castellated entrance bay with limestone cornice and square-headed door opening. Three-bay coach house to south of yard with carriage arch openings to ground floor and former Orange Hall above. Additional two-storey outbuildings to north-west of yard with pitched corrugated roofs. Walled garden to west of yard. Cast-iron entrance gates to roadside access site.

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

Terrain model

No LiDAR survey of the Office of Public Works covers the centre of the townland of Leap.

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 Leap with five sales or more. The sales of the area are on the page of Co. Offaly.

Name

Leap · Léim Uí Bhánáin

Area

938,183 m² (93.82 ha, 231.83 acres)

Civil parish

Aghancon, and its townlands

Barony

Ballybritt

Electoral division

Aghancon, the unit of the census

Census 2022

Aghancon electoral division: 371 people in 144 households; 89% of households own their home; 17% of homes were built since 2001; 5% of dwellings stood vacant on census night, and 3% were holiday homes.

Neighbouring townlands

Aghancon, Ballycurragh, Killeen, Knock, Lissanierin, Tullaroe

Placenames

Leap 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.