QUEEN'S COUNTY, an inland co. of the province of Leinster, Ireland, is bounded n: by the King's county, e. by Kildare and Carlow, s. by Kilkenny, and w. by Tipperary and King's county. Area, 424,851 acres, of which 303,153 are arable. The population, which, iu 1831, was 90,750, had fallen in 1871 to 79,771, of whom 70,186 were Catholics, 8,637 Protestant Episcopalians, and the rest Protestants of other denominations. The number of acres under crop in 1875 was 143,211; cattle, 77,241; sheep, 100,502: pigs, 29,098. Queen's county for the most part is within the basin of the Barrow, which is the chief river, and is partly navigable for barges. On the north-western border lie the Slieve Bloom mountains, and the Dysart hills occupy the s.e., the rest of the surface being flat or gently undulating. In its geological structure, it belongs to the great lime stone district; but the Slieve Bloom mountains are sandstone, and the Dysart hills include coal, but not in deep or profitably worked beds. Coarse linen and cotton cloths are manufactured in small-quantities. The chief town is Maryborough; pop. '71, 2,731. The national schools in 1875 were q6; pupils, 12,553: Queen's county anciently formed part of the districts of Leix and Ossory; and on the submission of ()Wore to the English, the territory retained a qualified independence. Under Edward II. the O'Mores became
so powerful that a protracted contest was maintained by them with the English. 'In the reign of Edward VI., Bellingham, the lo•d-deputy, succeeded in reannexing the territory of the O'Mores to the Pale (q.v.); and a new revolt in Mary's reign led to measures by which it was finally reduced to a shire, under the name of Queen's county, in honor of Mary, from whom also the chief town, Maryborough, was called. There ire a few antiquities of interest—a perfect round tower, and two in a less perfect con lition, and some ecclesiastical and feudal remains, the most important of the latter being a castle of Strongbow on the picturesque rock of Dunamase. Queen's county is traversed by the Great Southern and Western, and by the Great Western railways, and also by a branch of the Grand canal. It returns two members to parliament.