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NEW INN

CO. LAOIS · IE

New Inn
An Cheapach Chaol, Co. Laois

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 08 / 08

An Cheapach Chaol · Co. Laois

A crossroads named for a coaching inn, hard against Exit 15 of the M7. The inn is still here - and it is the reason to stop.

New Inn is a name on a crossroads, not a village in any real sense. There is no main street, no shop strip, no church of its own - it sits in the townland of Cappakeel, near Emo, on the R445 just off the M7 at Exit 15, about ten minutes north-east of Portlaoise. The name comes from an old coaching inn, the kind of place that took travellers and changing horses on the road past Emo Court in the late 1700s.

What makes it worth a line in a guidebook, rather than a townland reference, is that the inn never closed. The 18th-century coach house is still standing at the crossroads and still trading, now as the Gandon Inn - a small Failte Ireland guesthouse with a bar and a restaurant, named for the architect who built half the parish. It is roughly 700 metres from the motorway, which makes it one of the more honest motorway stops in the midlands: a real old building doing a real old job, rather than a forecourt and a coffee machine.

Beyond the inn there is nothing to detain you at New Inn itself. The reason to come off the M7 here is the parish around it - Emo Court a few minutes north, the Gandon church at Coolbanagher, the parkland and the redwoods. Treat New Inn as the door, not the room.

Population

Hamlet, a handful of houses

Founded

Coaching inn on the road to Emo Court, late 18th century

Coords

53.0861° N, 7.1622° W

01 / 08

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The name

New Inn is exactly that - a coach inn that gave a crossroads its name.

The hamlet sits in the townland of Cappakeel (An Cheapach Chaol) near Emo, on the R445 about 700 metres off the M7. The inn was an 18th-century coach house built to take the overflow from Emo Court up the road. Two and a half centuries later it is still serving food and beds as the Gandon Inn.

Stories & lore → 02 The neighbour

Emo Court and Coolbanagher church are both a few minutes north.

James Gandon designed the great neoclassical house at Emo for the Earl of Portarlington in 1790, and the little church of St John the Evangelist at Coolbanagher a few years before that. New Inn is the motorway-side doormat to both. Most people drive straight past without knowing.

Stories & lore →

02 / 08

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

The Gandon Inn

Old coach inn, doing the bar-and-dinner double

Bar at the crossroads, off M7 Exit 15

The one and only spot at New Inn, and the reason the crossroads still has a name worth printing. An 18th-century Gandon-era coach house, now a small guesthouse with a bar and restaurant about 700 metres off the motorway. Useful as a real stop on the Dublin to Limerick run - a pint and a plate in an old building rather than a forecourt.

03 / 08

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
The Gandon Inn	Restaurant at the coach inn, off M7 Exit 15	€€	Breakfast, lunch and dinner in the old coach house. Standard country-hotel restaurant cooking - local produce, a roast, the dependable mains - aimed squarely at travellers coming off the M7 and the wedding-and-function trade. Not a destination kitchen, but a far better stop than the service station, and the only food at New Inn.

04 / 08

Where to sleep.

Place	Type	Local note
The Gandon Inn	Guesthouse, off M7 Exit 15	A small Failte Ireland guesthouse - around ten rooms - in the 18th-century coach inn at the crossroads. Functional rather than grand, but the location is the pitch: a short hop off the motorway, ten minutes from Portlaoise, and on the doorstep of Emo Court. A sensible overnight for anyone breaking the Dublin to the south-west drive.

05 / 08

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

Cappakeel, late 18th century

The coach inn that gave the crossroads its name

When the first Earl of Portarlington was remaking the demesne at Emo in the late 1700s, the traffic of visitors, agents and tradesmen needed somewhere to stop short of the gates. The answer was a coaching inn at the crossroads on the road in - a new inn, plainly named, in the townland of Cappakeel. The crossroads took the inn's name and kept it. The building survives as the Gandon Inn, an 18th-century coach house still pouring pints and serving dinners off the M7. It is a rare thing: a place named for a single building, where the building is still doing the thing it was named for.

Emo Court and Coolbanagher, 1782 to 1790

Gandon's parish

New Inn sits at the edge of one of the densest pockets of James Gandon's country work. Gandon - the architect of the Custom House and the Four Courts in Dublin - designed the small Church of Ireland church of St John the Evangelist at Coolbanagher, begun in 1782 and consecrated in 1785, and then the great neoclassical mansion at Emo Court for the Earl of Portarlington in 1790. Emo Court is now in state care under the OPW and free to walk into; the parkland and the avenue of giant redwoods are open all year. New Inn is the unglamorous junction you turn off at to reach all of it.

06 / 08

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The Emo Court parkland and the redwood avenue are at their best, and the back roads off the M7 are dry. The real reason to be here is the demesne up the road.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Long evenings, Emo Court open and walkable, the inn busy with passing trade and functions. The best window for the parish around the crossroads.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Autumn colour through the Emo Court woods is the picture. Quiet roads, a good time to break a long drive here.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days and not much shelter beyond the inn. The crossroads has nothing to offer in the dark and the wet except a warm bar.

◐ Mind yourself

07 / 08

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Expecting a village

New Inn is a crossroads and a townland, not a village with a street. There is the Gandon Inn and there are houses, and that is the lot. Come for the inn and for the parish around it - Emo Court and Coolbanagher - not for the place itself.

Confusing it with the other New Inns

There are New Inns in Galway and Tipperary as well, both bigger and better known. This is the small Laois one in the townland of Cappakeel near Emo. If your sat-nav sends you to east Galway you have the wrong one.

Treating the M7 stop as the destination

The point of getting off at Exit 15 is the demesne north of the crossroads, not the junction. Have the pint, then drive the few minutes on to Emo Court. The crossroads is the door, not the room.

Getting there.

By car

On the R445 about 700 metres off the M7 at Exit 15 (Emo / Killenard), roughly ten minutes north-east of Portlaoise and under an hour from Dublin. The Gandon Inn is signposted at the junction.

By bus

Not served at the crossroads itself. The Dublin to Limerick coaches and Bus Eireann routes call at Portlaoise; from there it is a short taxi or local hop. Plan on having a car.

By train

Nearest station is Portlaoise on the Dublin Heuston to Cork and Limerick lines, about ten minutes away by road. Portarlington station is a similar distance to the north.