Author: Offaly History

• The first aerial photograph of Tullamore 101 years ago – on the eve of the War of Independence. Michael Byrne. Blog No 167, 21 December 2019

  

  The first aerial photograph of Tullamore was published in the press in 1918 as part of the work of the Irish Recruiting Council and in an effort to promote voluntary recruiting. Variants of the aerial photograph and the story behind it are also to be found in competing historical accounts of the Great War and the War of Independence.
  A by-product of the accelerated interest in flying in the war years was that of aerial photography with happy results for the study of Tullamore’s urban history. In September 1918 an aerial photograph of Tullamore was published and described as ‘Tullamore gathering/Aerial Activity/Co-operation with Voluntary Recruiting by the Irish Recruiting Council.’ The same picture was also published in the magazine Irish Life at the time. The picture was taken by Captain Norman Herford Dimmock and was described as an ‘Aerial view of Tullamore horse fair taken by RAF biplane in 1918.’ What may have attracted Dimmock in his aerial reconnaissance for subversive activity was the extent of the movement of people in the town on that fair day on 16 August 1918. Tullamore town centre fairs were to last until the 1960s, but this is the only such aerial photograph of the farming event and the first aerial picture of the town.

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  December 21, 2019

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• The curtain falls: Hugh Carr – 9 December 2019. By Geraldine Clarke. Blog No 166, 14th Dec 2019

  

  

   

  On Wednesday last we said goodbye to a dear friend, Hugh Carr as he was buried in Clonaslee graveyard beside his beloved wife Máire Eibhlín, who predeceased him in 1982. We joined Hugh’s family and friends as mummers – travelling actors who traditionally visited houses in disguise, singing and rhyming. We did not go in disguise but went in memory of and tribute to, Hugh’s great play The Mummers of Reilig. In 1979 Hugh and Máire Eibhlín gathered a large cast and we started rehearsals for what was to become an 18 month journey together – culminating in winning best play at Listowel Writers’ Week in 1980. (more…)

  December 14, 2019

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• The Story of Brickmaking in Pollagh, County Offaly. By Caitriona Devery. Blog No 165, 7th Dec 2019

  Pollagh Heritage Group’s first book The Story of Brickmaking in Pollagh, County Offaly will be launched  by Cathaoirleach of Offaly County Council, Peter Ormond, on Sunday 8 December at 2pm in Pollagh Community Centre. The book represents almost two years of work by the group to locate, collect and represent research materials including recorded interviews, photographs, historical reports and minutes, newspaper archives and academic articles.

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  December 7, 2019

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• A Victorian Romance: Charlotte Bronte and her association with Banagher. Offaly History event, 5 December at 8 pm. Blog No 164, 30 Nov 2019

  

  Arthur & Charlotte: A Victorian Romance Remembered is the title for a dramatic evening to be presented by Offaly History in Hugh Lynch’s Pub, Tullamore on Thursday 5th December at 8 p.m. The event will chronicle the story of Arthur Bell Nicholls of Banagher and his romance with and marriage to the famous Victorian novelist, Charlotte Brontë of Haworth in Yorkshire. Using contemporary source material the presentation will narrate this intriguing love story in written word and song. Readings will recall Arthur’s early years when he lived in Cuba House with his uncle the Reverend Alan Bell, Master of the Royal School of Banagher, his subsequent ordination and appointment as curate to the Reverend Patrick Brontë in Haworth.

  

  Extracts from Charlotte’s letters will describe her marriage to Arthur and her honeymoon in Ireland. The production will close with an account of Arthur’s life following Charlotte’s death in 1855 and his return from Haworth to Banagher in 1861, up to his death in 1906.The event will be performed by the Martello Tower Players from Banagher, All proceeds from the evening will go towards the new Offaly Archives recently completed in the Axis Business Park, Clara Road Tullamore. Tickets are €12 each and can be obtained from Offaly History Centre. Telephone: 05793 21421 or email: info@offalyhistory.com and James Scully, Banagher

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  November 30, 2019

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• Renovation of a 210-year-old Tullamore house in Store Street. By Bernard and Melissa Westman. Blog No 163, 23 Nov 2019

  
  Over three years later and we are settled in our 210-year-old house in the heart of Tullamore, far from finished but we are happy to date. We tried to keep as much character as possible within the house with the stone walls. We also kept the original height of the ceilings in the bedrooms which are over 14 feet. Two of the bedrooms have the old iron cast fireplace and we restored them by sanding and spraying them back to their original look.

  

  Store Street is one of the quieter streets in Tullamore now, but from 1800 to the 950s it was a busy place with the canal stores in use beside the busy harbour. The passenger boat traffic finished in the 1850s with the advent of the railway and the canal hotel became a parochial house for the Catholic clergy. Besides the bustle of draymen was that boys heading up to the old St Brigid’s School from the late 1870s to 1961 while the younger children attended the convent primary school on the corner of Thomas Street and Store Street. Like Harbour Street the new Store Street of the early 1800s owed its origins to the building of the Grand Canal to Tullamore in 1798. The new chapel on the site of the present one was completed in 1802 and the CYMS hall (later St Mary’s Hall) and now the Parish Centre was in use from 1860 to the 1960s for meetings and dancing. If Store Street was quiet as to houses (only 12 to 15) it was still a busy spot at mass and school times and with the comings and goings of horses and drays to the canal stores (burned about 1960).

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  November 23, 2019

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• Johnny Gorman the tailor of Ferbane. The Story of a Fenian. By Tomas O Cleirigh M.A. and Offaly History. Blog No 161, 9th Nov 2019

  

  Some died by the glenside, some died ‘mid the stranger,
  The wise men have told us their cause was a failure;
  But they stood by old Ireland an’ never feared danger,
  Glory O! glory O to the Bold Fenian Men”
  Peadar O’ Cearnaigh

  Ferbane is a little place of about three hundred inhabitants. They often been wonder why the Shannon Scheme went out of its way to come to them. It’s queer to see it all lit up at night, because I think the whole three hundred go to bed at nine. There is bog all around it- miles and miles of good, hard bog, and a clean cold wind that makes fine men. Johnny Gorman is one of them.
  Johnny is a brisk and blue-eyed little fellow – a tailor by trade with a halo of glory by way of his having been once upon a time a bold Fenian man. I went to see him early on a Monday morning, and wondered if he could spare me a few minutes. That made Johnny laugh;
  “Musha, it’s not in New York ye are now, my son, and even so, sure Monday’s tailor’s holiday and I can stay talking to you all day if you wish.”

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  November 9, 2019

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• Going in on the Altar or an altar boy`s apprenticeship in West Offaly in the 1950s. By Pádraig Turley. Blog No 160, 9th Nov 2019

  This episode in my life dates from the early 1950s. I was about nine year old at the time. I lived with my mother, grand-parents and uncle on a farm in the townland of Clerhane, near the village of Shannonbridge. My father worked in Dublin.
  Our house was what was then called a rambling house, where friends and neighbours would gather for a chat, and to generally sort out the problems of the world. I must add that my grandmother, a somewhat severe woman, felt these matters could be sorted out elsewhere. My grandfather loved these evening chats, so it was unlikely my grandmother`s desire would ever prevail.

  

  Great craic and the curved ball

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  November 9, 2019

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• Stories and traditions from the historic ruins in Ballinagar. Specially Contributed by John Malone, Blog No 159, 2nd Nov 2019

  

  ‘At Ballinagar a large and handsome R.C. chapel was in the course of erection in the ancient English style of architecture’.

  Samuel Lewis in 1837 remarks that ‘at Ballinagar a large and handsome R.C. chapel was in the course of erection in the ancient English style of architecture’. This church replaced an earlier thatched building on the same site which probably dated back to the latter half of the 18th century on the relaxing of penal laws. When the present day church was reopened after being burnt in 2004, the wooden tabernacle of the original church was gifted by the Hackett family to the church and is now kept in the sacristy.
  Lewis also remarks that near Ballinagar are the ruins of a church. There is local tradition that there was a church on Hackett’s lane on the Geashill road in Ballyduff south. There was a church in Clonmore called Balleen Lawn church and there also was a reference by Dr Comerford in his history of Kildare and Leighlin to a church graveyard in Clonadd which is between Ballinagar and Daingean.

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  November 2, 2019

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• ROBERT BALL, ASTRONOMER AND TEACHER AT BIRR 1865-1867, DESCRIBES HIS TIME AT BIRR CASTLE. Presented by Michael Byrne. Blog No 158, 26th Oct 2019

  

  Surviving diaries and accounts of activities in Offaly (King’s County) in the nineteenth century are uncommon and because of this all need to be catalogued and evaluated. Diaries of travel writers, correspondence and memoirs can all throw light on activities of that time. One such source recently acquired by the Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society for its library is Reminiscences and Letters of Sir Robert Ball edited by his son W. Valentine Ball and published in 1915. It sets the scene for the intellectual milieu in which the children of the third earl of Rosse grew up and provides further information on the construction of the great telescope. Recently, a history of the building of the telescope was reprinted by Cambridge University as a cheap paperback while the Royal Society hosted a lecture on the ‘Leviathan of Parsonstown’ now available as a podcast.

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  October 26, 2019

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• County Offaly in the Military Service Pensions Collection: an exploration by Cécile Gordon. Blog No 157, 19h Oct 2019

  Cécile Gordon is Senior Archivist and Project Manager of the Military Service (1916-1923) Pensions Project in the Military Archives of Ireland. She will give a lecture on Offaly in the Military Service Pensions Collection on Monday 21 October, 8pm in Offaly History Centre, Tullamore. The talk will include an overview of the records available in MSPC for county Offaly and will illustrate how they interconnect. The highlight will be put on the IRA Brigade Activity Reports for Offaly Brigades. A selection of some of the most interesting pension cases will be presented with a focus on newly catalogued records and claims lodged by the women involved in the independence movement in Offaly.

  The Military Service (1916-1923) Pensions Collection – General

   The Military Service (1916-1923) Pensions Collection (MSPC) Project is one of the leading projects of the Irish government’s plan for the Decade of Centenaries, led by the Irish Department of Defence and supported by the Defence Forces. With around 250,000 files, it is the largest collection in the Military Archives and the largest collection covering the revolutionary years, anywhere.

  In a nutshell, the MSPC records are the pensions applications lodged by over 80,000 people who took part in the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War.  Veterans applied under various legislation from 1923 onwards, enacted to recognise active military service or to award gratuities for wounds or injuries contracted during active service. Dependants of deceased members of certain organisations could also claim in respect of their relatives. (more…)

  October 19, 2019

  Annie Grogan, Matthew Kane, Military Archives, MSPC, Offaly No 1 Brigade, Offaly No 2 Brigade

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