Upper Ossory

Upper Ossory was formerly an administrative barony in the south and west of Queen's County (now County Laois) in Ireland. In late Gaelic Ireland it was the túath of the Mac Giolla Phádraig (Fitzpatrick) family and surviving remnant of the once larger kingdom of Ossory. The northernmost part of the Diocese of Ossory and medieval County Kilkenny, it was transferred to the newly created Queen's County in 1600. In the 1840s its three component cantreds, Clarmallagh, Clandonagh, and Upperwoods, were promoted to barony status, thereby superseding Upper Ossory.

County Kilkenny was created after the Norman invasion of Ireland from most of the Gaelic Kingdom of Ossory. Kilkenny's medieval cantred of Aghaboe, whose territory was the rural deanery of Aghaboe, corresponded approximately to the later Upper Ossory. From 1328, the Anglo-Norman Butler Earl of Ormond had palatine jurisdiction over the neighbouring county of Tipperary, and in the 15th century, the Butlers extended this de facto to most of Kilkenny. This was reflected in the subsidiary title Earl of Ossory which Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond was granted in 1538. However, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Gaelic Fitzpatrick family (Irish: Mac Giolla Phádraig) encroached southwards into Kilkenny and ruled as "Lords of Upper Ossory".