Mountmellick, sometimes spelt Montmellick or Montmellic, is an anglicisation of the Irish name Móinteach Mílic, which means "(the) bog of/by (the) land bordering a river".

Overlooking this valley with its trees and wildlife was a small church called Kilmongan (Ivy Chapel) which was closed by the Penal Laws in 1640.

They saw a future for this settlement and built it into a town, which was to grow to 8,000 people, with 27 industries which included breweries, a distillery, woollen mills, cotton, tanneries and glass.

Isaac Jackson, Nicholas's uncle, also settled near New Garden Township, in 1725, in an area the family later called Harmony Grove.

[citation needed] Deciduous woodlands, which once covered Laois, provided a source of bark for a tanning industry, which converted animal hides into leather.

These produced the necessary raw materials to develop weaving as an important cottage industry, providing farming households with a secondary source of income.

Up to this time, Mountmellick had been an extensive manufacturing town, but as the famine took grip, employment plummeted and money became very scarce.

Diseases such as typhus and cholera appeared and more people in Mountmellick died from a fever epidemic at the time than from the famine itself.

A cart of famine victims was brought daily from the workhouse to pit graves in the townland of Derryguile, one mile outside Mountmellick.

[citation needed] Local families who left during this time, or earlier, during the late 17th century, included the Newlins (who went to Chester County, Pennsylvania), Pims, Bewleys, and Dennys.

Although the precise location of her home is not known, the 'Primary Valuation of Tenements' indicates that a John Carter lived in a house in Pond Street, Mountmellick in 1850.

In the report on the Irish Industrial Exhibition of 1853, Joanna Carter was referred to as, 'Carter, J Mountmellick, Queen's County, Designer and Manufacturer, embroidered quilt, toilet cover and doileys'.

However, when the Society of Friends opened its school in Mountmellick in 1786, the girls were instructed in needlework to earn money for their textbooks.

The same report also noted that plain and fancy needlework was taught to girls at the Church of Ireland School Mountmellick.

[citation needed] In about 1880, a Mrs Milner started an industrial association in Mountmellick to provide a livelihood 'for distressed Irish gentlewomen'.

A Mrs Florance Patterson, an architect from Craigivad, County Down, was an expert in needlework, including Mountmellick embroidery.

For example, in 1885, Alexandra, Princess of Wales, visited Ireland and the industrial association presented her with a dressing-table cover in Mountmellick embroidery.

[citation needed] Barour's Prize Needle-Work series, published in the 1890s Boston, USA, included a section on Mountmellick embroidery.

In 1963, US President John F. Kennedy was presented with a white Mountmellick embroidery quilt by the National Council for the Blind of Ireland.

[citation needed] The chief herald of Ireland assigned a coat of arms to Mountmellick Town Commission on 16 December 1998.

Until its closure in the early 21st century, the nearby Patrician College secondary school in Ballyfin, had a portion of its pupils travel from Mountmellick by bus each day.

It serves as a dormitory town for nearby Portlaoise and for Dublin, with easy access to the M7 motorway and the Dublin-Cork railway line.

Mountmellick is served by Bus Éireann as part of its route between Athlone and Waterford, with three daily services in each direction.