Category: anniversaries

• Kilcruttin’s Forgotten People. Recapturing memories of Tullamore in the Sixties by Terry Adams. Blog No 676, 3rd Dec 2024

  One of the essays in the new book on Tullamore in the Sixties to be launched on Friday 6 December 2024 at 7.30 p.m. at Offaly History Centre (beside the new Aldi store in Tullamore, all welcome) is that by Terry Adams on his beloved Cormac Street, Tullamore where his family have been located for 150 years or thereabouts. Terry’s is an evocative piece and one of 29 essays in this new book on Tullamore with over 300 pictures.

  I stood with my back to Lloyd’s field, surrounded by memories of childhood and family. On my left, back towards the town, my Grandmother Egan’s family home, The Hall, now the municipal council offices, nestles behind its railings and garden. Opposite, on the junction of Cormac Street and O’Moore Street, stands the building I was born in, now home to my brother Brian. My Adams grandparents’ house faces me across the street. Further along the imposing old courthouse and jail buildings sit in their solemn majesty.  

  

      Cormac Street, my street, even if I have not lived here since 1981. When I think of home it is to this street, to these buildings, my mind roams. It is a major part of me, of my identity, of who I am, of who I always will be. I look back towards the town centre, the street has changed little since my childhood. The house exteriors, excluding The Hall, have not been radically altered but most of their old occupants have left us: my father, also Terry, Frank and Carmel Egan, Ray and Sylvia Courtney, Ray and Emer McCann, Mr and Mrs McNeill, Mr and Mrs Brennan, Bridie Byrne, Jimmy and Marcella Byrne, Mrs Behan, Paddy and Mrs. Lloyd……

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  December 3, 2024

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• ‘Let Lemass lead on’ and ‘Lets Back Jack’ – politics in Offaly in the 1960s when three new TDs were returned in 1969 – just 55 years ago. A General Election special from Ballynagh South. Blog No 675, 30th Nov 2024

  As we wait the outcome of the General Election today (30 Nov. 2024) we could look back to 1969 when Offaly returned three TDs in the five-seater Laois Offaly Constituency.[1]

  How many  in Offaly did not vote yesterday? We should recall that between 1885 and 1922 there was no opportunity to vote in North Offaly save in the Adams- Graham by-election of 1914 when Graham won by 79 votes as an unofficial candidate not backed by the Irish Parliamentary Party.

  For the 1969 general election the slogan was ‘Let’s back Jack’. It was a campaign in which Fianna Fáil ran five candidates and secured three seats in Laois-Offaly. Tom Enright of Fine Gael picked up the O’Higgins seat. None of the winning candidates was from Tullamore. It was a reflection of the fact that Fianna Fáil (F.F.) back to the late 1920s, was strongest in Clara, Ferbane and west Offaly. In the event Offaly secured three new TDs and a first for the towns of Clara and Birr where Ber Cowen (F.F.) and Tom Enright (F.G.) were elected while Ger Connolly of Bracknagh was elected for F.F., having been added to the ticket. Fianna Fáil, with the help of some adroit redrawing of boundaries, secured two more seats than they had in 1965, and Labour had set itself against a coalition. Fianna Fáil won 51.7 of the seats with 45.7 per cent of the votes.^[2]

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  November 30, 2024

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• The Education Inquiry 1824-26, – its Context and its findings for Killoughey, County Offaly. By Damian White. No 23 in the Offaly Anniversaries Series. Blog No 672, 23rd Nov 2024

  The 1824 Survey of Irish schools and the reason it was carried out must be put in context. That context probably can be traced back to the Gavelkind Act, enacted in the Protestant Irish Parliament 120 years earlier in 1704. This act brought into force what became known infamously as the Penal Laws.

  The Penal Laws were intended to protect the interests of the Protestant Ascendency from any future threat from the Catholic majority. Amongst these laws was one stating that “No Catholic may attend a university, keep a school, or send his children to be educated abroad. £10 reward is offered for the discovery of a Roman catholic teacher.”

  These laws were severe, but as time went by, were more observed in the breach. Teachers, many of whom lived an itinerant lifestyle for fear of discovery and arrest, moved around the country, being sheltered by families in the areas where they would provide lessons for local children, often in outdoor, secluded areas, protected from view by hedges and the alert observations of a well-positioned look-out. This led to the use of the term ‘hedge school’, the convenor of which was known as the ‘Hedge School Master’.

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  November 23, 2024

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• 22   Bussing in the Midlands from Tullamore to Birr, Banagher and back again: Lennox Robinson (1886–1958) on tour in the early Fifties. No 22 in the Offaly History Anniversaries Series. Blog No 671, 20th Nov 2024

  At one time I didn’t think, but now I definitely do think, that the pleasantest way of seeing Ireland is from a seat in a bus. I do not mean one of those eight-day bus tours, conducted and excellent and comfortable as they may be, I mean the couple of hours spent bussing from one country town to another. [So announced Lennox Robinson in an article first published in the Irish Press and later in his compilation I sometimes think (Dublin, 1956). He would possibly have been amused to know that bussing has another meaning nowadays when students get together in a college dorm. Robinson was not inspired by some of the women who joined his Tullamore to Banagher and Birr bus. Now read on.]

  If you travel in a friend’s car, you are cribbed and confined, he or she has to make talk with you and you have to return the ball of conversation; a train nearly always looks for and finds, the most poor and uninteresting country to travel through, and when it reaches an interesting town, Portarlington, for instance, is careful to stop a mile away from the place, John Gilpinish.

  But a country bus swirls along, is very swift, and yet can be leisurely, picks up a parcel here and delivers a bundle of papers there.

  

  We are, back in the old coaching days : the conductor knows everyone-or nearly everyone-and has a friendly word for each on-comer or down-getter. He sets down Mrs. Maloney at the Cross and helps an old Jack who is off to spend the day, his pension-day, in the town: yet he can be severe and inexorable on the question of accepting bikes.

  I am beginning slowly to fall in love with the midlands slowly, because there is nothing tempestuous or flashy about them. The vivacity of Kerry and Donegal, the cuteness of Cork and Antrim-these are lacking, and instead there is a lovely autumn-afternoon placidity, golden and Veronese-woman-like atmosphere. The very names of sleepy; they are bees in August Lime-trees: Birr, Clogher, Ferbane, Clara, Mountrath.

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  November 20, 2024

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• From ‘Tay Lane’ to a new Aldi store in Tullamore town centre. The four layers of development since 1790 – just 234 years ago. No 23 in the Offaly History Anniversaries Series By Michael Byrne. Blog No 669, 13th Nov 2024

  Very soon now Tullamore will have a new Aldi Store at Tay Lane/O’Connell Street, Tullamore. This is the company’s second store in the town/The first was opened in 2000 at Cloncollog and preceded Tesco in 2004 (who once occupied the adjoining Tay Lane site and are near neighbours of Aldi at Cloncollog). Lidl and Dunnes already have two stores each in Tullamore and now Aldi will join this grouping with an investment in Tay Lane of close on €20 million when all expenses are taken into account.

  

  Tea Lane (‘Tay’ Lane) is a popular old street name in Tullamore and most people seem to know that it was the area from the Al Conroy Printing Works (now again Stella Press under Brian Conroy)  as far as the Offaly History Centre on the corner of Bury Quay and the former bonded warehouse (the Tullamore DEW Old Bonded Warehouse, 2000–20) and since December 2022 the Old Warehouse bar and restaurant (proprietor Shane Lowry). The name was in existence as early as 1821. The northern part of the lane was called the Old Fair Fields on a 1791 lease map. More changes are now in hand with the opening of a new Aldi store in late November 2024, following on the demolition of all the Irish Mist warehouses (erected from 1970 to 1985) and the great oats store of 1929. Irish Mist and Williams constituted the third layer. The first was that of long gardens from Patrick Street to almost the canal bank and before the canal (1801) the old fair fields. The second was the Williams buildings on these lands post 1897 and before their demolition for the new Irish Mist buildings of 1970-1985. Now Aldi will provide the fourth layer.

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  November 13, 2024

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• The changing face of Offaly towns in the early 1900s, beautifully illustrated with historic pictures, to be launched on Friday 15 November, 7.30 p.m. at Offaly History Centre Tullamore by Cllr Tony McCormack, cathaoirleach Offaly County Council. Blog No 668, 9th Nov 2024

  The changing face of Offaly towns in the early 1900s: An illustrated history edited by Michael Byrne with contributions from Paul Barber, Stephen Callaghan, Grace Clendennen, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Goodbody, Ger Murphy, John Powell, Laura Price, Ciarán Reilly and Brendan Ryan (Offaly History, Tullamore, 2024, 368 pp). Available from Offaly History Centre and Midland Books Tullamore and online at www.offalyhistory.com. ISBN 978-1-909822-38-2 (hard back), €27.99. The book will be launched at Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay, Tullamore – beside the new Aldi and Old Warehouse. It is already available at the Centre, online at http://www.offalyhistory.com and at Midland Books, Tullamore. If you cannot attend in Tullamore we have a launch at Giltrap’s of Kinnitty on Thursday 21 Nov. at 7. 30 p.m. We will have copies in Bridge Centre for the Christmas Sale 14 to 24 December.

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  November 9, 2024

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• Memories of Offaly: celebrating the mix of rural and urban life in the 1960s and 1970s by Killina, Rahan man Aidan Grennan. Blog No 667, 6th Nov 2024

                                     Memories of Offaly can best be described as opening a diary into life in Co Offaly, over the last 50 or 60 years. The author of the book is Aidan Grennan, from Killina, Rahan. Aidan is to be congratulated on his second book. Both books are available from Offaly History Centre and online at http://www.offalyhistory.com

  ‘It is a nostalgic glimpse into the people and events in the county within my own life-time’ said Aidan. He commented: ‘I think it’s important now and then, to take a look-back over the years. I love nostalgia’, though we have to live in the present.

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  November 6, 2024

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• 21 ‘Rambling Jack’, Ned Holohan, a ‘knight of the road’ (died 1931) recalled in this article of 1961 by the late Alo O’ Brennan, War of Independence activist and late manager of the Tullamore Labour Exchange, and Pat Fanning, Offaly journalist, with a poem from Athlone. No 21 in the Offaly History Anniversaries Series. Blog No 666, 2nd Nov 2024

  In his entertaining reminiscences last week, John Freyne laments the “Vanishing Knights” and incidentally recalls a Prince among them, the sightless Edward Holohan, better known over a great part of Ireland as “Rambling Jack.”

  Mr Freyne tells of the respect and affection, with which this famous wandering minstrel was held in Moate. It was only symptomatic of the esteem-amounting almost to veneration in which he was held in the many counties, that he traversed twice each year, from his native Limerick of the rich pastures, to the shores of Lough Sheelin. A noble hearted Fenian himself, Ned Holohan was a living link with ’67  [The Fenian Rising of 1867] and everything that Fenianism stood for. He was born at Darnstown, near Killmallock, on the way to Bruree in 1839, and he died there on 27^th December, 1931 in his 92^nd year. He lost his eyesight in the attack on Killmallock Police Barracks in 1867 and his famous old fiddle, which up to then, had been his amusement, became for him his means of livelihood. His herculean physical strength failed, one brown October day, on the main road between Birr and Banagher, while making his way to the later town. He was removed to the old County Hospital at Tullamore where he was among real kind-hearted friends, many of whom still survive. He recovered and took up his permanent abode in Tullamore where he lived until shortly before his death. He returned to his beloved Limerick to die on the spot where he was born. No Irishman did more than Ned Holohan in a humble way, without pension, fee, or reward of any king to tend the Phoenix flame of Irish nationality. He was one of the real old Fenian stock, staunch and true, an inspiring rebel to the end.

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  November 2, 2024

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• 20 Uptown Clara, a hive of activity from 200 years ago. Looking at Clara’s old families. No 20 in the Anniversaries Series.  By Maurice G Egan. Blog No 665, 30th oct 2024

  Recently, I walked Clara’s Main Street and was again reminded of its relative short length and the relatively small size of its adjoining, almost hidden, Market Square. A square and street where much trade, barter and banter, laughter, disagreements, or agreements on family member marriages, and heated discussions on political reform, occurred on a regular basis for hundreds of years.

  Many local hostelries were frequented, where typically a farmer and his wife and family would come to settle bills, visit the local medic for advice, or attend religious services. Today the square is modernly paved, almost hidden and its well-maintained former Market House now tucked away from the passing motorised traffic. Sadly, as in the case of many Irish provincial towns several old buildings have fallen into a state of disrepair and exude an aura of reduced circumstances.

  Back in 1826, Clara’s Main Street and Market Square was a hive of activity and was where many notable families conducted their commercial business and resided upstairs. As I strolled the street and looked above the ground floor level of today’s shop fronts, I wondered who were these former resident families and what ever became of some of them?

  Clearly, this is just a chosen snapshot of some Clara families, and I would be keenly interested to hear from family members of their stories from those days’ past.

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  October 30, 2024

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• 19 Tullamore Irish National Foresters:  One of the oldest organisations in Tullamore. A photo-essay to mark the 125th anniversary, looking at the first 25 years from 1899 to 1924. No. 19 in the Anniversaries Series by Michael Byrne and Offaly History.  Part Three and concluded. Blog No 664, 26th Oct 2024

  In early 1916 the Foresters accommodated a support dance for the war effort and a ceilidh organised by the new branch in Tullamore of Cumann na mBan. A report of the first Ceilidh Mhór of Tullamore branch of Cumann na mBan held in the Foresters in early January had over 100 couples in attendance. The Tri-colour prominent in the hall was that ‘of the ’48 men, green, white and yellow’. The decoration of the hall was carried out by a ladies committee of Cumann na mBan assisted by Messrs Bracken, McNally and others (all prominent in the First shot episode in Tullamore in March 1916).The president of the branch was in attendance, Mrs P.F. Adams, as was P.F Adams. The Ladies Committee included McBrian, Mooney, Neary, Conway, Galvin while Messrs Alo Brennan, Seamus Connor and H. McNally and Miss Long assisted. These men and women were all prominent in the national movement and the breakaway minority group from Redmond’s Volunteers.[1] In a strange decision Adams gave up his seat on the county council in February 1917 in favour of the Limerick-born T.M. Russell, the new full-time local organiser for Sinn Féin. The Foresters were not happy that Tullamore now had no representative on the council except ‘this new man’.[2]

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  October 26, 2024

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