1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Yrieix

ST YRIEIX, a town of west central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Haute-Vienne, on the left bank of the Loue, 26 m. S. of Limoges on the railway to Brive. Pop. (1906) town 3604, commune 7916. The town possesses a church in the early Gothic style known as Le Moûtier, dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, and a tower of the 12th century which is a relic of its fortifications. Its quarries of kaolin discovered in 1765 were the first known in France. The town owes its name to Aredius (popularly St Yrieix) who in the 6th century founded a monastery to which its origin was due.