This is part two of a three-part blog on the 1835 Poor Law Inquiry into the baronies of Philipstown Upper and Lower. The respondents to the questionnaires for Philipstown were Rev P. Rigney and Roger North. Roger North was a landowner in King’s County. He inherited the Kilduff estate upon the death of his father, Roger North, in 1830. He was involved in estate management, including raising rents, which made him unpopular with local farmers and other landlords.[i] Roger North was shot dead in September 1850.
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Offaly History Lecture Series, Monday 26 January 2026 “Voices of Offaly” Website. By Aidan Barry. Blog no. 776 in the Offaly History Series.
Offaly History Lecture at Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay, Tullamore, R35 Y5V0 On Monday 26th January 2026 at 7. 30 p.m. following the AGM at 7 p.m. Offaly History presents a lecture about the recently launched “Voices of Offaly” resource available from http://www.offalyistory.com. The collection now comprises over 300 recordings of Offaly People captured over the past 30-40 years. Presented by Aidan Barry and Shaun Wrafter.
The illustrated lecture with voices will include:
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1. An overview of the resources available on the new “Voices of Offaly” website.
2. A chance to listen to short audio clips which will give a flavour of the recordings available on the website.
1. Overview of the Website
The website is organized into several key sections:
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Offaly Heritage 13. The 13th issue of the Offaly History Journal is now available and will be launched on 10 December at the Brewery Tap, Tullamore at 5 p.m. Blog No 765, 6th Dec 2025
Offaly Heritage 13. This the 13th issue of the Offaly History Journal is now available and will be launched on 10 December at the Brewery Tap at 5 p.m. 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 new book is now available from Offaly History Centre. Midland Books and online at http://www.offalyhistory.com. The new book on The making of O’Connor Square will also be launched at this event. Signed copies will be available on the evening.
Offaly Heritage 13 (2025)
Editors: Michael Byrne, Dr Mary Jane Fox. Obits editor Kevin Corrigan
Introduction by Helen Bracken, President Offaly History
It was 2003 when the first issue of Offaly Heritage was published. Now 22 years on we are publishing our thirteenth volume. With so many other demands it has proved difficult to produce a volume every year. Instead, we prefer to produce a large volume every two years.
Offaly Heritage 13 is another bumper issue and very much on a par in quality with the issues since no. 9 was published in 2016. It is a tremendous achievement and benefits from the pro bono work of the editors and contributors.
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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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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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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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Charleville School, Church Street, Tullamore. By Michael Byrne and Offaly History. No 7 in the new Offaly History series on Church Street, Tullamore: houses, businesses and families, over 300 years. Part of the 2025 Living in towns series prepared with the support of the Heritage Council. Blog No 745, 10th Sept 2025
There are few buildings of interest on the northern side other than the Charleville School. McNamara’s Foresters Hall of 1923-4 had a fine façade spoilt in the 1950s to make way for the Morris hardware store at ground level.
The former Charleville school is an attractive building in rough-cut limestone ashlar with Georgian glazing bars was built in 1811 and vacated as a school in 2006 when the new building was completed at Church Avenue. Erected by the earl of Charleville (1764–1835) for the education of the poor children of the parish of all religions, it was operated originally on the plan on Joseph Lancaster. Lancaster’s system was to have small classes with the elder pupils (monitors) doing much of the teaching of the younger. Louisa Tisdall, a daughter of the countess of Charleville by her first marriage, wrote a few interesting details about the school in 1824:
The school was built by Papa and is a handsome building. It was originally arranged by dear Mama on the Lancasterian plan, but in our absence it was remodelled and is now a mixture of the Bell system and Lancaster’s with other additions. Introducing the bible among the school books has given great offence to the Catholics, and the whole thing was nearly overturned: there are still however a tolerably good attendance of children in the boys’ school; the girls’ we hope to revive soon again – but subscriptions were withdrawn in our absence and as usual it will all fall again on Mama’s purse. The schoolmaster [Taylor] is clever but appears methodistical [that may have been true]… The Irish peasantry has great natural quickness and talent, and warmth of feeling very congenial to my own. Were they but educated, civilised, done justice to, would they not be a charming people.
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The firefighting Foley family of Ferbane and the supreme sacrifice at 9/11 New York. By Aidan Doyle. A contribution to the Commemorations Series 2025. Blog No 744, 6th Sept 2025
The 1920’s saw high levels emigration to the United States from Ireland. Among those crossing the Atlantic Ocean was James Foley from Endrim near Ferbane. James was 21 when he boarded the RMS Cedric at Cobh enroute to New York in March 1927.
His brother Peter had arrived in the Big Apple a year earlier. In 1929 the Wall Street Crash heralded the end of the Roaring Twenties and the beginning of the Great Depression. Offalians in the city found mutual support in the Offalyman’s Association, an organisation in which the Foley family were closely associated.
James was living on Milton Street in the Greenpoint district of Brooklyn when he applied for US citizenship in 1933. After his marriage to Mary Egan, the daughter of Mr & Mrs Lawerence Egan from Kilcormac, the couple lived at Inwood on Manhathan and later in the Bronx.
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The Morrison family, jewellers, creative artists and photographers, Emmet Square, Birr – prominent members of the Birr Methodist community. By Michael Byrne. No 9 in the 2025 Anniversaries Series. Blog No 699, 8th March 2025
The Changing face of Birr in the 1900 to 1920 period will be the focus of a talk arranged by the Birr Historical Society for Monday 10 March at 8 p.m. in the County Arms Hotel. The illustrated lecture will focus on change in that period and the record of it provided by the early photographers and other sources. Once such was George Morrison son of Edward, both were jewellers and in addition George was a trained photographer who had opened a studio in his Birr jewellery shop in 1894. He was grandfather to the now acclaimed documentary artist George Morrison of Mise Éire (1959) fame. Another neighbour, Archie Wright of nearby Cumberland House, Birr, had also trained in photography and would assist his father in producing photographs weekly for the local King’s County Chronicle newspaper from 1885. At the time an innovation in the provincial press.
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The changing face of Offaly and Kinnitty in the early 1900s: launch by John Clendennen T.D. of a new book featuring Kinnitty at Giltraps’s, Kinnitty on Thursday 19 Dec. at 8 30 p.m. Blog No 680, 14th Dec 2024
Kinnitty Parish can now celebrate having two TDs, not to mention so many of of its young men on the first Offaly team to win an All Ireland back in 1924. All part of recent celebrations. What was the village like a generation earlier in the 1890s and earlier 1900s? To find out more come to the launch of The Changing Face of Offaly towns in the early 1900s published by Offaly History and for which local woman Grace Clendennen contributed an essay. Please note the launch time of 8 30 p.m. (ed.)
From the Midland Tribune of 5 Dec. 2024 Grace Clendennen writes of Kinnitty in 1901 and 1911
Like the 1901 census, the majority of Kinnitty residents in the 1911 were born in the King’s County. There were 225 people recorded in 49 houses[1]. Roman Catholic was the most common religion stated but a sizable number, 42 out 225, stated their religion to be other than Catholic[2]. Akin to the census of 1901, eight properties were listed as ‘first-class’. Two of the properties were listed as general shops. In 1901 Patrick Egan and his wife were recorded as shopkeepers. A shop assistant, a domestic servant and a yard man lived with the Egan family.
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