offalyhistoryblog

Unlike Birr the detail for the 1821 census for Tullamore has not survived. The 1821 summary from the census of that year indicates that the total number of people living in Charleville/O’Connor Square in 1821 was eighty people, living in ten houses. This figure may have been arrived by excluding GV 1–4 High Street, the market house and treating GV 7 and 8 (Manly’s, now the library and PTSB) as one property, reflecting its leasehold ownership. The position in 1901 and 1911 is much clearer.

Table 1:  Population and number of houses in O’Connor Square in 1821, 1901 and 1911 from the census returns

Year	No. of people/families	No. of dwelling houses
1821	80	10 (would not have included O’Connor Sq west
1901	61/12	13
1911	64/11	11 (note occupied dwellings only)

Religious status of the house occupants in O’Connor Square in 1901 and 1911

In 1901 O’Connor Square (including GV 1–4 High Street) had sixty-one inhabitants and a total of twelve families. There were twelve inhabited houses and one uninhabited; all the houses were placed in the first-class division. Out-buildings included twenty-eight stables, ten coach houses, four harness rooms, seven cow houses, a calf house and a dairy, four piggeries, five fowl houses and two bailing houses. Unlike other parts of Tullamore the population was not much less in 1901 than it had been in 1821 reflecting the first class housing, not subject to subdivision, as happened with some of the larger houses in Crowe/Tara Street, Tullamore and in parts of the cities. Of the sixty-one people seventeen were servants or working in the ground floor shops and residing. Of the twelve families six were R.C., five were Church of Ireland and one Methodist. All the houses were in the first-class category with nine of the thirteen inhabited houses having ten or more rooms. Occupancy level was low with only two families having eight or more people and these were relations or staff.

Of the twenty houses/buildings in 1901 twelve were inhabited and all were for one family only.  GV 1 and 2 O’Connor Sq west were non-residential as was the town hall (GV 11), GV 10, and
GV 12 (the brick house). The other properties were residential. The square had 61 people of which 46 were RC, 9 C of I, 1 Presbyterian and 6 Methodists. There were no occupants in GV 1 (the Goodbody grocery) and GV 2 (the steam saw mill). Neither was there any one in Census 1901 nos 5, 6 and 7 – the Egan bottling division, or GV 11 and GV 12. – the Market House and the Goodbody warehouse. These twelve residential properties were consistently the largest in Tullamore with a high number of rooms per family. Poole’s (GV 4 High Street, no. 8 in the 1901 census) had fifteen rooms for two people on census night.

In 1911 O’Connor Square had twelve inhabited houses and six non-residential and 73 residents. All houses were in the first class except one. All the shops were on the western side of the square and the drapery and post office in GV 1 and GV 4 O’Connor Square with a hotel in GV 6, public hall in GV 11 and warehouse in GV 12.

Table 2: Religious status of persons in O’Connor Square in 1901 and 1911

The number of ‘Protestants’ was much higher than it is today with the three minority churches having 16 members in 1901 in O’Connor Square, and 25 in 1911. In 1911 all the houses in the square (excluding GV 1 High Street) were occupied, but with  significant turnover of more than half of the families since 1901. In GV 1 to GV 4 on O’Connor Square west the O’Carroll family were still in the pawnbroking business (High Street, GV 2, O’Connor Square west). Peter Daly was now in the Brewery Tap and R.H. Poole and his London-born wife were the only occupants of no. 3 High Street in 1901. However, in 1911, on census night, the only occupants were his eight-year-old son, Leslie Gordon Poole and a thirty-year old Nannie Yeates, a general help. Now it was classed as a shop as well as being a private house. These are regarded as in High Street for census purposes.

W.J Rafter, the Church of Ireland draper, was across the street in the fourteen-room house used as his residence and drapery business (GV 1, O’Connor Square). The Rafters were four in number and the other eight were working in the shop and the house. The Killeavy family in GV 3 had sold to Abraham Colton, an auctioneer and prominent golfer. The adjoining house (GV 4) was no longer a residence following the building of the new post office in 1909. James M. Bradshaw, the Antrim-born inspector of schools was now in no. 5 (now The Phoenix) in place of the hotelier James Hayes (who died in 1913). Bradshaw was Church of Ireland and living with his Belgium-born wife, a son and a servant. The last house on the southern side (GV 6, now The Square café) was by 1911 Lowe’s Temperance Hotel. Here two spinster sisters from Westmeath, Kathleen and Henrietta Lowe, were the hotel proprietors and had one servant and five guests. These included the twenty-three-year-old veterinary surgeon J.S. McCann, a bank cashier and a solicitor’s managing clerk, Mary Anne Murphy was a twenty-six-year-old typist, and she was joined by the Presbyterian manageress of the laundry (presumably the new one at Church Road), Elizabeth Neill. Religions were mixed in the house with four R.C., three Church of Ireland, one Presbyterian and one agricultural instructor, David T. Ritchie, who described himself in regard to religious belief as an Open Brother.

Table 2:  Population and religious status in 1901 and 1911 from the census returns

Year	Total no Persons	Total no. of occupied houses	Roman Catholics	Ch of Ireland	Presby.	Methodist	Other
1901 O’Connor Square	61	12 (one uninhabited)	46	9	1	6
1911 O’Connor Square	73	12 (one uninhabited)	47	20	3	2

Demolition Rate in the square

Demolition rate of the original 1740s to 1800s houses in the square stands at about thirty percent or six houses: GV 1 and 2 High Street and GV 4, 7, 8 and 12 in the square. Not a great record but GV 4 (the former post office) and GV 12 (the brick building) were rebuilt with an eye to scale and massing in 1909 and 1871 respectively. It could have been worse, but the big loss was the Tarleton house on the site of Tullamore Central Library (GV 7) in 1936. The site of the Tullamore Central Library was originally occupied by one of the finest houses in Tullamore and its demolition in 1936 was a blow to the architectural integrity of the square which it had dominated for almost 200 years The loss of GV 8 in the 1980s might have been avoided and led on the demolition of GV 1 and 2 High Street in the early 1990s.

Table 3: summary of household enumeration in 1901 in Charleville Square, GV 1–12 and GV1–4 in High Street (O’Connor Square west)

House no.	Building use	Class of house	No. of Distinct families	Name of ‘head’ of family	Occupation	No of rooms occupied	Total  no. of persons In each family	No. of Servants	Religion
1/ GV 1 High St	Wholesalers/Retail Grocery/Hardware
2	Kearn’s Saw Mill
3	Pawn Office and Private dwelling	1	1	O’Carroll, Martin Aloysius	Pawnbroker	15	5	Servant (1), Pawnbrokers Assistant (1), Pawnbroker’s Apprentice (1)	5 RC
4	Public dwelling	1	1	Galvin, Daniel	Shop Keeper Publican	6	5	Shop Assistant (1), Servant (1), Apprentice (1)	5 RC
5 [rear of 3 and 4]	Brewery
6/  do.	Malting House
7/ do.	Bottling House
8/ GV 4	Private dwelling	1	1	Poole Robert H.	Cycle Agent	15	2	None	2 Methodist
9/GV 1	Drapery Shop and Private dwelling	1	1	Rafter, William John	Drapery Merchant	10	9	Servant (1), Nurse (1), Milliner (1), Dressmaker (1), Apprentice (1), Shop Drapery (1)	5 CoI 1 Methodist 1 Presbyterian 2 RC
10/ GV 2	Post Office and Private Dwelling	1	1	Kehoe, Joseph M S	Postmaster	7	7	Servant (1)	7 RC
11/ GV 3	Private dwelling	1	1	Killeavy, Michael	Merchant	8	10	None	10 RC
12/ GV 4	Private dwelling	1	1	Cunningham, Peter	Supervisor of Inland Revenue	12	4	None	4 RC
1/GV 5	Private dwelling	1	1	Hayes, James	Hotel Proprietor	10	8	Servant (1)	8 RC
14/ GV 6	Private dwelling	1	1	Culley, Margaret	–	12	3	Servant (1)	2 CoI 1 RC
15/ GV 7	Private dwelling	1	1	Tarleton, John	Maltster and Farmer	14	2	None	1 Methodist 1 RC
16/ GV 8	Private dwelling	1	1	Love, Hugh Thomas	Retired Postmaster	10	3	Servant (1)	2 CoI 1 RC
17/ GV 9	Unoccupied Private dwelling
18/GV 10	Private dwelling	1	1	Woods, Dorothy	House Keeper	12	3	Servant (1)	2 Methodist 1 RC
19/ GV 11	Townhouse
20	Warehouse

Table 4 summary of household enumeration in 1911 in Charleville Square inclusive of GV 1–4 High Street (O’Connor Square west) and GV1–12 Charleville Square

House no.	Building use	Class of house	No. of Distinct families	Name of ‘head’ of family	Occupation	No of rooms occupied	Total  no. of persons In each family	No. of Servants	Religion
1	Pawn office and Private dwelling	1	1	O’Carroll, Martin Aloysius	Pawnbroker Jeweller	12	4	Shop Assistant (1), Servant (1)	4 RC
2	Public House and Private dwelling	1	1	Daly, Peter	Manager of Shop	4	11	None	11 RC
3	Shop and Private dwelling	1	1	Poole, Robert H.	Scholar	6	2	Servant (1)	1 Methodist 1 RC
4/GV 1 and 2	Shop and Private dwelling	1	1	Rafter, William John	General Draper	14	12	Assistants (4), Apprentices (2 ), Servants (2)	7 CoI 4 RC 1 Presby
5/GV 3	Private dwelling	1	1	Colton, Abraham	Landowner and Customers	9	7		6 COI 1 RC
6/GV 4	Post Office
7/ GV 5	Private dwelling	1	1	Bradshaw, James Moore	Inspector of School	10	4	Servant (1)	3 CoI 1 RC
6	Hotel and Private Dwelling	1	1	Lowe, Kathleen	Hotel Proprietoress	13	9	Servant (1)	3 CoI 1 Presbyterian 4 RC 1 ‘Open Brother’
9/ GV 7	Private dwelling	1	1	Tarleton, John	Maltster	14	4	Cook (1), House Maid (1)	1 Methodist 1 CoI 2 RC
10/ GV 8	Private dwelling	1	1	Lavin, John	National Teacher B A N W I	11	5	None	5 RC
11/GV 9	Private dwelling	1	1	O’Carroll, Anastasia	–	7	4	Shopboy (1), Excise Assistant (1), Excise Man (1)	3 RC 1 Presbyterian
12/GV 10	Private dwelling	1	1	Meagher, Timothy	General Practitioner M D R CS I	12	2	None	2 RC
13/possibly to rear of no. 8, 9 or 10	Private dwelling	2	1	Longworth, John	Labourer	2	9	None	9 RC
14/ GV 11	Public Hall
15	Store
16	Warehouse/ GV 12

Michael Byrne