Emo Court

Easily the best park in Laois. There is also a lovely café in the old house which is really nice, serving home made lunches and cakes. Best advice. Park the car up by the house … Bring some bread for the ducks and after the walk go in for a coffee and bun. Magic location. If you get the opportunity to go after snowing it’s really incredible

We love coming here. There aren’t many places where you can go for a long walk around a nice lake. The tree lined walk is really beautiful and these days you can lap the lake. There are nice statues and an old period home as a back drop that you can tour though I am not sure if the tours are available all year round. They have beautiful swans and ducks that everyone seems to feed so they will actually ignore you later in the day being bloated on the endless loaves of bread being tossed at them !!
Well worth a visit.

A lovely house worthy of a visit in the Midlands of Ireland. The house has a history stretching back to the 18^th century, and had an interesting variety of owners– rich English and American gentlement, and the Jesuit Order, before being passed to the Office of Public Works of the state. As with most OPW properties, visiting prices are very reasonable, and the tour guides are interesting and informative. They clearly are passionate about what they do, which is excellent.
Something that sticks out for me from the tour was that the Jesuits removed many artworks which were sexual in nature, left behind by previous owners, to avoid tempting the members of the order. I found this quite funny. However, they were good at keeping the art safely stored away to be recovered again in later years.
The gardens at Emo Court are also beautiful, and extensive. You can freely roam around in them all year. I particularly like the lake, with many different water birds living there, and a lot of fish. Well worth a visit.

Not where baby Goths go to stand trial, but a beautiful mansion designed by James Gandon of Four Courts fame in 1790. The playground of various earls until the 1930s, it was taken over by the Jesuits and eventually handed over to the State a few years ago.
One of the most impressive features of Emo is its wonderful gardens, which have been rejuvenated in recent times; they include formal areas, woodland walks, a rake of rare trees, an impressive lake and an abundance of statues.
Some of these statues were actually pulled from the lake when the State took over the estate, and it is suspected that they somehow made their way their during the time that the Jesuits were running the place.
«Brother, there seems to be an effigy of a naked faun down by the old stables.»
«I think I know the perfect spot for it. Grab a shovel.»
The house itself is open to the public from Easter to September, but you are free to roam the gardens all year round.