Free entry for English Heritage members
This place is cared for by the Office of Public Works, which runs Ireland's national heritage sites as Heritage Ireland. English Heritage members are entitled to free entry to all OPW sites from the first year of membership. Show your current membership card at admissions.
More information
Standard price for the guided house tour, the same online and at the door; the parkland and gardens are free. OPW's general rule gives free admission to children under 12 (a free ticket is still needed) and to visitors with disabilities and their carers, who should contact the house to arrange their visit. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
OPW's Child/Student rate; the booking site defines it as children 12 to 17 and students 18 and over with valid student ID. Children under 12 free. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
OPW's Group/Senior rate; the booking site sells it as Senior 60+. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
OPW's family ticket as defined on its booking site; younger children are free. Free for English Heritage members showing a valid card, from the first year of membership (every OPW site; the named members on the card). Heritage Card holders free.
The Trust's page does not say how parking is charged.
OPW's large visitor car park, opened in 2022 with the visitor hub and picnic area, lies off the L3155 north-west of the house, about 400 m walk; a reviewer describes it as free with a separate accessible car park nearer the house, but OPW publishes neither a charge nor a free statement. Emo Court is 2.5 km from Emo village off the Kildare to Portlaoise road (N7) and 7 km from Portarlington railway station. Bicycle parking on site.
Driving pin: the visitor car park, 390 m north-west of OPW's pin on the house.
Emo Court is a quintessential neo-classical mansion in County Laois, begun in 1790 by James Gandon, fresh from the Custom House and the Four Courts in Dublin, for the Earl of Portarlington, though its copper-domed rotunda and the rest of the house were not finished for some seventy years. Home of the earls of Portarlington until the War of Independence, it then became the Jesuit novitiate of the Irish province, training some five hundred novices, before Major Cholmeley-Harrison restored it in the 1960s, opened the gardens and parkland to the public and presented the whole estate to the people of Ireland in 1994. The hour-long guided tour shows the restored ground-floor rooms and the basement where the servants worked. The free parkland is open all year, with lake and woodland walks, gardens, a renovated walled garden, a picnic area and tearooms, and dogs on leads are welcome in the grounds. Reviewers single out the giant redwoods, the Highland cattle grazing before the house and the flat walks around the lake.
Emo Court is open from 17 March to 4 November 2026, daily 9am to 5pm, by guided tour of about an hour with last admission an hour before closing; tours can be booked online (11am and 4pm slots) or taken on the day from walk-in tickets at the door, with extra tours added when busy. The parkland is open all year except Christmas Day: January 8.30am to 4.30pm; February to 5.30pm; March and October to 6.30pm; April and September to 8pm; May to August to 9pm; November and December to 4.30pm, with lock-up starting half an hour before closing. In winter the estate may not open in bad weather, so phone +353 57 862 6573 before setting out. Free admission to the house for everyone on the first Wednesday of each month, first come first served; 2027 house dates are not yet published.
Visitors who need special assistance or have mobility difficulties should phone ahead; the tour includes the basement and OPW lists no accessible toilet. Toilets, baby changing, the tearooms, a picnic area and an exhibition are on site, and card payments are accepted. The parkland has uneven terrain and a deep lake, so wear suitable footwear and take care; no cycling on the walkways, no fires, camping or barbecues.
Dogs: Dogs on a lead are welcome in the grounds; whether a dog may join the house tour or enter the tearooms is not confirmed. Dogs on a lead are welcome throughout the free parkland, lake and woodland walks all year; no ticket is needed.
Photo: Emo Court's stone front with its portico and green copper dome, seen across the lawn. AnTuisealGinideach, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:View_of_Emo_Court,_Co._Laois,_July_2013.JPG. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.
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Free walks from the visitor car park around the lake and through the woodland and gardens on OPW's improved path network, during parkland hours (08:30 to between 16:30 and 21:00 by month, lock-up half an hour before closing, closed Christmas Day); uneven terrain and deep water at the lake; no cycling on the walkways.