What is recorded here

Lea is a phantom town swallowed by flat green fields, its medieval streets erased so completely that even the earthworks beside Lea Castle might be ordinary drainage ditches rather than buried walls. It rose quickly after 1232, hosted royal armies marching against Offaly, burned under O'Connor siege in 1307, and faded into waste by 1323. What resists forgetting is a giant ash tree said to mark the 1642 recovery of Lea; people danced around it as late as 1814, but the tree decayed, the fair vanished, and the town disappeared with it.

Unlocated settlement within townland mentioned in seventeenth century document as the town of Raheenaisky (O'Flanagan 1933, p. 97-8) Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 17 December 2007

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.