Settlement deserted

Medieval Lea rose as a royal staging post for armies marching against Offaly, then vanished so completely that modern fields still argue about whether its boundaries are ancient walls or merely drainage ditches. For a time it housed hundreds of soldiers, horses and camp followers, but by the early 1300s the O'Connors had burned it and the manor was largely waste. The town did not leave behind a grand ruin; it left behind uncertain earth, a forgotten castle and a great ash tree around which people still danced long after the streets had stopped existing.