Their influence helped secure a placemyth for Cnoch Liamhna among 300 locations featured in Dinnshenchas Érenn, the poem Liamuin.

The Lyons kings were: The arrangement of the three septs of the Uí Dúnlainge to exchange the kingship of Leinster in rotation was almost unique in Irish history.

The Uí Dúnchada dynasty held an important ecclesiastical role within the triumvirate, the Abbacy of Kildare, and Muiredach was simultaneously abbot and Kings of Leinster.

Finsnechtae regained the kingdom, presumably with Uí Néill support until his death in 808 causing dynastic strife and a further invasion of the High King.

This rivalry was responsible for provoking a war between Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill (948–1022), and Brian Bóruma (c.941–1014) for supremacy and the High Kingship.

It began in earnest in 999 when Donnchad mac Domnaill Claen was captured by Máel Mórda and his nephew Sitric Silkbeard, the son of Olaf Cuaran.

Brian captured Dublin on New Year's Day 1000 and at Athlone in 1002 took the hostages of Connacht and Meath thus ending Máel Sechnaill's first possession of the high-kingship.

When Brian Bóruma campaigned again in Leinster in 1003, he deposed Donncha and set up in his stead an Uí Fáeláin rival, Máel Mórda mac Murchada.

The original Lyons house and town were burned in 1641 on the orders of Lord Justice William Parsons (c.1570–1650), who ironically had sat for the borough of Newcastle-Lyons in the 1613–15 parliament, and his colleague Sir John Borlase.

Michael Aylmer inherited the estate at the age of four in 1733 and became indebted to banker Nicholas Lawless (later Baron Cloncurry), eventually losing the house in 1796.

Valentine Lawless, after 1799 the second Lord Cloncurry, spent £200,000 on renovation including frescoes by Gaspare Gabrielli and three shiploads of classical art imported from Italy.

Treasures which were successfully imported include three columns from the ruins of the Golden House of Nero in Rome, used in the portico, and a statue of Venus excavated at Ostia.

His son, the third Lord Cloncurry, committed suicide in 1869 by throwing himself out of a third-floor window at Lyons When work on the Grand Canal began in 1756 Ardclough was one of the first sections to be dug.

Lydia Shackleton (1828–1914), botanical artist, lived in Lyons between April 1853 when she moved to the family's newly acquired mill at the 13th lock, where she was the housekeeper for her elder brother Joseph, until 1860.

Lyons village, located at 53°17′58″N 6°33′25″W / 53.29947°N 6.55699°W / 53.29947; -6.55699, was restored 1999–2007 from a deserted and depopulated state by the aviation pioneer Tony Ryan (1946–2007), and contains his mausoleum.

The village consists of apartments based in the former canal-side industrial heritage buildings dating to the 1820s, a small chapel, and Café la Serre.