Abbeyleix

Patrick Weston Joyce

1923

Abbeyleix; the abbey of the old principality of Leix, so called from a monastery founded there in 1183 by Conor O'Moore. In the reign of Felimy the Lawgiver (A. D. 111 to 119), this territory was given by the king of Leinster to Lughaidh Laeighseach [Lewy Leeshagh], Conall Carnach's grandson, for helping to expel the Munstermen who had seized on Ossory. Lewy's descendants, the O'Moores, took from him the tribe name, Laeighis [Leesh], and their territory was called by the same name, now modernized to Leix.

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