A Summer’s Evening recalled
Thinking back on 2023, possibly my most pleasant memory is of an evening in early June. Sitting with some very good friends on the sunlit deck at Bury Quay, we had finished a delicious meal and our attentive waiter was bringing the second bottle of wine. All the tables around were busy and there was a great buzz of conversation. A boat went by on the Grand Canal and everyone waved. It was simply idyllic.
I remember marvelling that what I had remembered as a north facing sunless and unfrequented byroad in a rather grim part of town had become such an attractive venue and gave thanks to whoever had delivered what is today one of Tullamore’s most attractive quarters. How did it come about and what might it yet become?
The Old Bond Store
In 2000 a joint venture between Irish Mist, Cantrell and Cochrane, Offaly History and Offaly County Council refurbished the unused but architecturally striking Old Bond Store to provide a Visitor Centre.The Centre would promote the histories of the Grand Canal and of Tullamore and tell the story of Irish Mist. Together with its attractive restaurant, it soon became a popular local destination and began to be a convenient wayside stop for tourist buses.
When the building was taken over in 2010 to promote the revived Tullamore DEW whiskey brand an even bigger tourism market opened up. With EU funding a sunny deck overhanging the waters of the Canal was provided. When Tullamore DEW moved out in 2022, Alan Clancy and Shane Lowry redeveloped the Old Bond Store into a popular gastropub now known as The Old Warehouse.
Over the years the adjoining Canal bank was paved and a pedestrian bridge gave greater access and footfall. An original crane was relocated into the paved area and inevitably advertising structures, directional signs, bike stands and bollards arrived also. A significant piece of sculpture was contributed by the Tullamore Lions Club. Ambitious plans for an adjoining Arts Centre had fallen through following the crash of 2008 and were finally abandoned when the opportunity of a better location in the centre of the town appeared.
At long last Tullamore had its Arts Centre but the intended celebration of the history of the town and county hadn’t come to pass. Might the redevelopment of the Grand Canal Harbour provide the ideal location for pursuing that dream?
Harbour Plans
Though promised for 2023, as with the Town Centre Redevelopment Framework Plan, the delivery of the Harbour Plan has now slipped into 2024.
When the draft eventually emerges, it will be open for public comment before a final version can be adopted. A detailed design phase will in due course lead to a major planning application, followed by a competitive tender and finally by some actual building. On the basis of similar projects it looks like being 2034 at least before we can look forward to a drink or a coffee in the Tullamore Docklands. Until that day arrives, could Bury Quay Plaza fill the gap?
A destination on the northern side of the town centre which would celebrate local history and literature would balance and complete the cultural offer of Tullamore and together with the excellent County Library, deliver an attractive range of town centre activities.
A Temporary Museum
Offaly deserves a public space to celebrate its history. Even a small temporary exhibition would suffice to demonstrate the value of a future County Museum. There could also be a need for an amenity which every other town in Ireland now seems to have- a Café Liteartha.
Possibly Offaly History could re-imagine its marvellous bookshop and open it up to the Canal and the Plaza and throw in some coffee and croissants with it? Besides a display of selected historical artefacts, it would be a fine location to present the Society’s unique collection of portraits of Irish historical figures by Sean O’Sullivan. A signposted walk via Millennium Square to the Esker Arts Centre would then link two cultural venues at either end of the town and entice visitors to explore the shops and restaurants in between at their leisure.
As part of such a relatively minor redevelopment which could be delivered within the space of a year, the beautiful but vulnerable stone carved celebration of the Four Gospellers might be afforded the more dignified and safer setting it deserves. A seat to relax and enjoy the waterside would be welcome also.
Might Offaly County Council in collaboration with Offaly History and the Lions Club explore how Bury Quay Plaza, for whose evolution they all deserve every credit, could be further enhanced to provide a stopgap museum and bookshop cafe while we await the long promised regeneration of the quaysides of the Grand Canal Harbour?
Fergal MacCabe
28 December 2023
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