Thomas Lalor Cooke’s Picture of Parsonstown was first published in 1826 and a revised edition by his son William Antisell Cooke in 1875. So this year marks the 150th anniversary of the revised issue and in 2026 we mark the 200th anniversary of T.L. Cooke’s first and now rare book, the Picture of Parsonstown. A reprint of the 1875 greatly expanded history was issued by Esker Press in 1989 with a new introduction by Margaret Hogan. It is now also out of print. A reissue of the 1826 book is now under active consideration.
Getting a grip on Cooke’s writings and the several editions of his books takes time and diligence. Not least, because he often wrote under pseudonyms and would refer to his own writings in the course of these anonymous articles. So Cooke’s initials are peculiarly apt and when dealing with him handle with ‘Tender Loving Care’ – and so we shall. John O’Donovan probably had the measure of Cooke when, in the course of letters to his employers in the Ordnance Survey, he wrote from Birr in January 1838 two letters that mention T.L.C. and speculate on the name Birr. These letters are now online with RIA and also in printed form edited by the late Michael Herity (Ordnance Survey Letters Offaly (2008).
- Letter no. 30 from John O’Donovan written from Birr on 24 January 1838 queries the extent of the boundaries of Ely O Carroll and the competence of Birr historian, Thomas Lalor Cooke.
- O’Donovan in this letter, no 35, from Birr on 29 January 1838, takes a much kinder view of T.L. Cooke having read his history of Birr and counts him a good historian.
- In letter 40 of 4 February 1838 O’Donovan speculates on the placenames of Feara Ceall and the completion of the name-books and refers to Cooke.
Birr,
January 24th 1838.
Dear Sir,
I will find it very difficult to determine the limits of Ely O’Carroll without the assistance of more English-Irish documents than I have at present. There are several documents extant from which its exact extent could be easily determined, but I do not know where they could be found. Sir William Betham has written a good deal about this territory which I ought to have.
Have you got Cooke’s History of the Town of Birr? I am told it is curious and that it defines the limits of Ely O’Carroll. Mr. Cooke is an attorney, at present living at Birr but I do not like to call upon him, as I was told that he is one of those self- sufficient people who wishes to be considered the only antiquarian oracle now living. A friend of mine called upon him to see if he could or would give me any information, but he said that he has already communicated to Lieut. Wilkinson [mapping section Ordnance Survey] all he knows about the neighbourhood. I should like to see his book if you could spare me a copy of it. Mr. Cooke wrote some articles for the Penny Journal under the signature B. He seems to be of the Parsons and Vallancey School and would be apt to laugh at my common place ideas of Irish topography and history. I’ll not trouble him!
O’Conor is working very hard [Thomas O’Connor was assistant to O’Donovan], but I unfortunately am in the hands of the Doctor and not able to venture out. I have absorbed too much moisture.
I am anxious to hear how I stand with respect to car hire; the expenses of this town are more than we can bear.
Your obedient servant,
John O’Donovan.
O’Donovan in this OS letter, no 35, from Birr on 29 January 1838, takes a much kinder view of T.L. Cooke having read his History of Birr and counted him a good historian.
Birr,
January 29th 1838.
Dear Sir,
I have got a copy of Cooke’s “Picture of Birr” and I incline to think it well done (drawn). Mr. Cooke is a R Catholic Attorney, which is sufficient to shew that he could not be such a fool as Vallancey, Sir Charles Coote or Rawson.
In order to be a good historian it is necessary for a man to be a rogue himself (so a very sound lawyer told me!) that he may the more easily enter into the motives of men, especially of adventurers, who are most generally rogues and murderers. Now, Cooke is a good attorney, and consequently a good rogue and a sound historian. He has, however, fallen into several errors which should be corrected and his flattery of the Parsons (not parsons) is so gross that one can hardly doubt that he was on the lookout for fees. He has, however, overshot the mark and has like Crotty, lost the favour of both sides.
He states on page 9 that: “The River of Birr is called Comcor in the old leases and in General Vallancey’s copy of the Map of Ballybritt Barony made in 1657.”
I very much suspect that Camcor is a mistake for Avon-Cor, as Vallancey’s copy of the Baronial Maps of the Down Survey is full of errors in orthography. It is, however, certain that the ancient Irish name of this river is Avon Cor (Abhainn Chara) “the river of the weirs“, for Keating, in giving the boundary of ancient Meath, states that it extended from Geshill to Drumcullen, from Drumcullen to Birr and that the Abhainn Chara formed it, thence to the Shannon. Is not Com a mistranscript for avan?
The name of this river is now locally forgotten. The Inquisitions and all our other authorities should be consulted for its true name.
In page 33 he states that Offaly was part of Glenmallery. If this be right, I am wrong in all my speculations about Ophaly.
In page 158 he gives the following odd quotation from Usher, which I wish to have examined:-
“It should have been remarked elsewhere that long (perhaps a century) previous to the period now being treated of (1754) this town was reckoned to lie nearly in the centre of the Kingdom and it seems that there then was a large hollow stone somewhere here which used to be pointed out as that which Cambrensis in his Topographical Hibernia, distinct 3, C.4, calls the Navel of Ireland. Archbishop Usher mentions that it was shewn there in his time. His words (in speaking of the long stones near Naas in the County of Kildare) are: “Ubi lapidem quendam suo tempore Giraldus extitisse notat quid Umbilicus Hibernine decretur (quasi in medio et meditullio terrae positus) pro quo tamen umbilico Birrae in Comitatu Regis alias quidam excavatus lapis hodie ostenditur.” –
Primordia, page 453.
[Cambrensis was writing of Uisneach not Birr ]
Does Usher write that Cambrensis places the Umbilicus Hiberniae near Naas? Does Ubi, the first word in this quotation, refer to Naas? Let me have all Usher’s words and also the Chapter in Cambrensis to which he refers.
He speaks of the origin and derivation of the name Birr as follows:-
“It seems that this place (Parsonstown) had been in remote ages called Tulach Brenyard, which signifies according to Hanmer’s Chronicle, Collis Brendani, or Brendanshill. It was also known by the name of Birr, Birra or Buree, from the Irish word Birra, a standing water or marshy field, as Mr. O’Reilly testifies in his Dictionary. Others say that the appellation Bire arose from a crooked stick that formerly lay across the River here, resembling a spit, which in the Irish language is denominated Bir. Upon the grant of the town and surrounding lands to the family of Parsons in the reign of King James the First, it acquired the name of Parsonstown, having been then erected into a manor by that name. It was sometimes called Biorra to give it a Latin termination.”
To this he appends the following note:-
“A noble member of the Royal Irish Academy informs me that Birr took its name from the Irish Bior, a spring well. He likewise remarks that Birr also signifies a well in Hebrew, but I find that Bior in the Irish tongue likewise means the brink of a river, and as the ancient town was situate upon the river, it might from that circumstance have been denominated Birr. At all events, O’Reilly must be wrong in his derivation of the name, as there certainly does not appear to have been any standing water near the town. Perhaps the true cause of the appellation is from Bir, a spit, as the author of another Dictionary remarks and I am the more inclined to this opinion in consequence of the river here taking its name from a crooked weir, which might have resembled a spit.” – Page 10.
All this is very fine and shews how hard it is to have the right knowledge! I have the following objections to make to his.
“Mr. O’Reilly testifies in his Irish Dictionary that Birra means standing water or marshy field.” What does the Attorney mean by testifies? O’Reilly knew nothing about the localities of Birr or of the meaning of the word excepting what he copied from O’Clery’s Glossary. How then is the word testifies applicable?
2. Bir does not mean a spring well, but water in general.
3. Bior does not mean the brink of a river.
4. Bir or Bior means a spit, but the village or town of Birr was never called Bir or Bior in Irish. It was anglicised to that.
5. It was not called Biorra to give it a Latin termination, for all the most ancient and modern Irish writers have written it biorra in the nominative form.
What then is the meaning of the name? If we don’t agree with O’Clery and the more ancient Glossographers from whom he copied, that Birra or Biorra was an ancient Irish word to express “watery field”, we must reduce it to “horns” like Banagher and we shall then find ourselves between the horns of a difficulty.
But it would be audacious to reject the testimony of the old Glossographers in explaining an old word in their own language, for that of Mr. Cooke. How does he know whether there was any standing water near the town in the time of St. Brendan, or how does he know what feature was originally called birra? How does he know but his Cam Chor River has by constant running deepened its channel? I think that by Biorra the ancient Irish meant a Riasc, Srath, callow or field sometimes (occasionally) flooded by a river. Of this more hereafter. The Irish Calendar of the O’Clery’s has the following reference to St. Brendan, the Patron of Birr:-
“Nov. 30. St. Brendan of Birra, the son of Neman of the Clanna Rury race. He was a contemporary and companion of St. Brendan of Clonfert and the founder and (first) Abbot of Birradh. He died on the 29th of November 572. Sir James Ware calls him Brendan, the son of Luaighne, Abbot of Birr, but he was mistaken here and in many other instances:-
The Annals of the Four Masters have the following extraordinary passages relative to this Saint:
“A.D. 553. St. Brennan of Biorra ascended in his chariot to the skies this year. (If they saw Sadlier!).”
“A.D. 571. Saint Brennan of Biorra died on the 9th (29th?) of November.”
Then he remained a living man (composed of body and soul) for 18 years after his ascension into heaven. If Crotty could do this he would have no need of telling the Presbyterians that the Church of England is the “oldest daughter of the scarlet whore.”
The Four Masters then give merely a list of the Abbots of Biorra and nothing interesting occurs till the year 825 when they copy that:-
“A royal convocation took place between Conor, King of Ireland and Felim, King of Munster at Biorrae.”
I have frequently observed before that Birr was on the boundary of ancient Meath and Munster.
“A.D. 1213. The Castle of Biorra was erected by the English this year.”
“A.D. 1532. The Castle of Biorra was taken by a branch of the O’ Carrolls from another sept of the same family.”
Mr. Cooke has collected a good deal of history connected with this town. The chief object of his undertaking the work was to flatter the pride of the Parsons and to establish Parsonstown as the name of the town, which neither he nor the family themselves will ever succeed in establishing!
Parsonstown is such an ugly name and sounds so like tythes, that the men of Ely and Ormond prefer the nice old name of Birra to it.
Your obedient servant,
John O’Donovan.
O’Donovan’s assistant, Thomas O’Connor also used Cooke’s Picture of Parsonstown in reference to Col. Oxburgh and Kilcolman parish.
There is no account of O’Donovan having met Cooke. O’Donovan did meet others in County Offaly including Patrick Molloy, a native of Clonmacnoise. He refers to his old friend ‘Mr. Richard Monck, a very sound scholar, an old friend of mine now living at Banagher, who has seen the greater part of the round towers of Ireland, does not believe this tower [at Clonmacnoise] to be older than the 11th century, it being, in his opinion, four centuries more modern (younger) than the Tower of Roscrea O’Brien might call him the champion of modernisation in earnest.’ While O’Donovan was in Birr his assistant Thomas O’Connor, was in Banagher and recounting the story of John O’Molloy, the Soogan Chief, who died in the early 1800s and had possessed Mount Henry in Eglish parish.
Tradition says that the lands contained under the denomination of Mount Henry in this Parish were in the possession of John O’Molloy who is dead now nearly 30 years. He and his brother lived in a thatched house on the premises, which house as yet remains undestroyed; he never married and always entertained the highest aristocratic notions and on every occasion exhibited himself as a nobly descended personage. Out of peculiarity of taste in military dress, looking upon himself as the descendant of warriors, he always wore a three cocked hat with a Soogan (Sugan) of hay tied around it and carried a sword suspended from a soogan of the same material which encircled the middle of his body and served instead of a belt.
So what pity O’Donovan and Cooke never met. We might have been regaled with stories of that great antiquarian whose ideas about the purpose of round towers as temples of fire was very much at cross purposes with those of George Petrie who had been to Clonmacnoise and Birr in the 1818–23 period on the first of many visits.
Next week: Cooke (Mr ‘B.’) on Seir Kieran and later in this series Petrie at Clonmacnoise
Published as part of the County Offaly 2025 Commemorative Programme with the support of Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media
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