ROSE-TINTED: Memories of the Tullamore Swimming Pool inevitably come through rose-tinted glasses. Some can be explained: The glorious weather – you didn’t go to the pool unless the weather was good. But there were heatwaves!! I vividly remember tar bubbling up on red hot road surfaces beyond Hop Hill Church, destroying the soles of our bare feet or God forbid THE NEW SANDALS!! from Owen Marron’s sweet smelling leathery shoe shop [in Patrick Street]
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The making of O’Connor Square, Tullamore: People, Houses and Business will be launched on Wednesday 10 December 5 p.m. at the Brewery Tap, Tullamore and Ferbane 1950-2000 on 12 Dec. in Ferbane Blog No 766, 9th Dec 2025
The making of O’Connor Square, Tullamore: People, Houses and Business will be launched on Wednesday 10 December 5 p.m. at the Brewery Tap, Tullamore. The Brewery Tap is the longest established business in the square dating back to the 1830s as a pub and brewery. The lease of the site was dated to 1713 with the property in possession of the Brennan and Thornburgh families, later Deverell, Egan, Adams, Carragher and now Paul and Cathy Anne Bell.
We look forward to meeting you at the launch where savouries and tea/coffee will be served. Parking will be available at this time and should not cost more than 1 euro for an hour. Walkers and cyclists go free.
The making of O’Connor Square, Tullamore: People, Houses and Business (Offaly History, Tullamore, 2025), pp 440, p/b €23, h/b €29. ISBN978-1-909822-45-0 (hardcover) ISBN978-1-909822-46-7 (softcover). The book contains fifteen essays by Michael Byrne, Fergal MacCabe, Rachel McKenna and Timothy O’Neill. Publication is supported by the Heritage Council.
At the same event we launch Offaly Heritage 13. This the 13th issue of the Offaly History Journal It’s another bumper issue with over 330 pages and well-illustrated, €19 soft and €25 hardback. The issue is dedicated to the late Christy Maye – a great friend to Offaly History.
The two books are now available from Offaly History Centre, Midland Books and at www.offalyhistory.com for online.
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Tullamore Jail moves the muse in T.D. Sullivan. The new annotated edition of Prison Poems; or Lays of Tullamore (1888, new edition 2025). By Terry Moylan and Pádraig Turley. Blog No 762, 26th Nov. 2025
Timothy Daniel Sullivan MP published Prison Poems; or Lays of Tullamore in 1888, printed by The Nation at 90 Middle Abbey Street, Dublin. What are these about? What made Sullivan write them?
[Before moving to that we wish to congratulate the authors on the issue of the new annotated edition of Prison Poems; or Lays of Tullamore from Terry Moylan and Pádraig Turley and published by Offaly History with the support of the Decade of Commemorations funding. The book is now on sale and is available from Offaly History Bury Quay and online at www.offalyhistory.com. Ed.]
These were written during a most tempestuous, unsettled, tumultuous decade in Irish history, the 1880s. The Land War was at its height under the leadership of Charles S. Parnell. The campaign for Home Rule had turned to dust. William Ewart Gladstone the British Prime Minister had brought forward a Home Rule Bill in 1886, which by today`s criteria might appear modest, but for its time was seen as revolutionary. This set off alarm bells which would do irreparable damage to the ruling Liberal Party.
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An Old Charmer: Meeting Eamon de Valera, Uachtarán na hÉireann, in theÁras. By Fergal MacCabe. No. 22 in the 2025 Offaly History anniversaries series. Blog No 759, 7th Nov 2025
As this year is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Eamon de Valera it is probably a good time to recount meeting this towering (literally) but often controversial figure.
It would now appear to have been discontinued, but in those days the newspapers regularly printed a sort of Court Circular announcing the official engagements of Uachtarán na hÉireann. Dev’s visitors seemed to be drawn almost exclusively from visiting American priests and nuns, so in 1970 I wrote him a rather provocative letter accusing him of being out of touch with ordinary Irish people – especially go ahead modern youngsters such as myself and my wife Brid. How could he possibly know what was happening in the real world!
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A hidden jewel: The Chapel of the County Hospital in Tullamore. By Fergal MacCabe. A contribution to our Anniversaries series No 20. Blog No 756, 18th October 2025
The recent decision of the Health Services Executive to allocate funding for the renewal of the windows, doors and walls of the chapel of the original Offaly County Hospital, Tullamore is a welcome and well-timed architectural conservation initiative.
Opened in 1964, the building, which is a Protected Structure of Regional Importance, is an interesting example of stylistic change in Irish church architecture in the mid-20th century.
Though its exterior has been compromised by surrounding buildings, the serene and elegant interior is still totally intact.
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The Bulfin Bulletin: The Path to Publication. By Timothy Moloney. 10 10 2025. No. 22 in the 2025 Offaly History anniversaries series. Blog No 754, 10th 2025
In February 2025 William Bulfin’s travelogue Rambles in Eirinn was reissued in a new edition by Merrion Press. I had been working on the Bulfin legacy over the previous twelve years, and this publication had emerged out of those efforts.
I started researching a biography of William Bulfin in the autumn of 2013. Arriving at the National Library Reading Room in Dublin in September that year, I observed that it looked the same as it did decades ago. There was one major change: books and document references were now accessed initially via computer, though requests for books could still be made on paper slips and the enormous ledgers with entries pasted in by hand were still there on the left as one entered.
The next day I acquired an ID and requested Rambles in Eirinn and Tales of the Pampas, Bulfin’s two classic works, which I browsed through with enjoyment.
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William Bulfin: Birr’s Fenian Travel Writer. By Luke Condron. No. 19 in the Offaly History Anniversaries Series. Blog No 749, 20th Sept 2025
On the 1st of February, 1910, a Gaelic League nationalist died quietly in his home in Derrinlough House, Birr, County Offaly. Four days later, in An Claidheamh Soluis, he was briefly memorialised in print by Seán Ó Ceallaigh:
On Tuesday, Lá Fhéile Brighde, the first day of spring, Señor Bulfin was carried off by a sudden attack of pneumonia, before even his friends knew he was ill. The Gaelic League loses in him a great champion of its ideals, and the Irish of Argentina their leader… He was known and admired wherever an Irish class existed.
The name William Bulfin, in our time, does not live up to the description offered above, though it may well arouse some curiosity at the mention of an Irish Argentine. However, Bulfin, though his credentials remain firmly intact — An Irish nationalist, a Gaelic Leaguer who was present at the opening of the Argentine Gaelic League branch in 1899 and at many important league summits in Ireland — has largely fallen by the wayside in the discussion of Irish nationalist figures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When reading the musings and sophisticated theses of Rambles in Éirinn, his seminal work, one realises that obscurity ought not to be the final resting place of this man of two countries, who loved both so well.
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The Bridge Centre in Tullamore: Town centre shopping over thirty years. A contribution to the Offaly History Anniversaries and Commemorations Series, By Michael Byrne. Blog No 748, 17th Sept 2025
The big developments of the 1990s were the Bridge Shopping Centre and the new Texas store both of which were completed in September 1995. The equivalent of perhaps 100 typical shops in terms of floor space was added to the Tullamore offering in one month. It was a turning point in the history of shopping in Tullamore and opened a brief period when Tullamore possibly dominated shopping in the midlands. These were the ‘good Tiger’ years for Ireland and for Tullamore with two hotels to follow in the same decade.
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The Tithe Wars. The English’s of Wexford and Tullamore. By Maurice Egan. No. 19 in the Anniversaries Series 2025. Blog No 730, 12th July 2025
The Tithe Wars
In the period 1831 to 1836 a campaign of agitation occurred against the imposition of tithes or taxes on landholders to pay for the imposed established state church, the Church of Ireland. The tithes were imposed on all regardless of religious belief but particularly affected the mostly Roman Catholic peasantry.
‘Regular clashes causing fatalities continued over the next two years, causing the authorities to reinforce selected army barracks fearing an escalation. Taking stock of the continuing resistance, in 1831 the authorities recorded 242 homicides, 1,179 robberies, 401 burglaries, 568 burnings, 280 cases of cattle-maiming, 161 assaults, 203 riots and 723 attacks on property directly attributed to seizure order enforcement.’1
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Brisk walking tours of Tullamore town on 5 July and 12 July 2025. By Michael Byrne and Offaly History. Some notes for the 90 minute tours. Please print off this piece or bring your phone. Blog No 727, 2nd July 2025
This year for the walking tours we move to Patrick Street and Church Street on Saturday 5 July, and to the ‘canal quarter’ on 12 July taking in Harbour Street, Store Street, St Brigid’s Place, the Harbour and O’Carroll Street. All are welcome. Admission is free. Wear high viz is helpful. The details are as follows:
5 July, Saturday morning from 11 to 12 30 p.m. Walking tour of Tullamore town: Patrick Street and Church Street with Michael Byrne. Explore the history of these old streets dating back to the 1700s, from the military barracks of 1716 to the church of 1726, county hospital of 1788, the Methodist chapels (4) and the families and shops over 250 years. Find out what is left of the old barracks; where was Swaddling Lane and Pike’s Lane, the linen factory. Who was the Henry in Henry Street – and so much more.
We can meet outside Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay (beside Old Bonded Warehouse restaurant) for ease of parking from 10 45 a.m. All are welcome and the tour is free. Teas/Coffee and bathrooms available from Offaly History Centre from 10. 30 a.m. A big welcome to Birr IGS members who are planning to join the tour.
12 July Saturday morning from 11 to 12 30 p.m.Walk around Harbour Street, Store Street, St Brigid’s Place, the Harbour and O’Carroll Street with Michael Byrne. We can meet outside Offaly History Centre for ease of parking from 10 45 a.m. All are welcome and the tour is free. Coffee and bathrooms available from Offaly History Centre from 10. 30 a.m. Tea and scones available.
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