Category: Decade of Centenaries

• Offaly evacuated,  not a British policeman or soldier now in the county.  Tullamore R.I.C. barracks occupied by I.R.A., troops march in with fixed bayonets, headed by St. Enda’s pipers. 7 March 1922. An Offaly History contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. Blog No 508, 29th June 2023

  The dismantling of the barrack structure of the British military establishment advanced rapidly in the aftermath of the signing of Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921. The great exodus in Offaly began in February 1922. The newly issued Offaly Independent (absent since November 1920 due to its destruction by the British military) was now able to report that

  

  , “They are going with a vengeance,” but now it is the army of occupation, not the natives of the country, that is leaving our shores, going while a great sigh of relief goes up, and no pang of regret is felt at the departure of those who held is in bondage for so long. What a change the front of St. Conleth’s School in Daingean now presents from what it did a short time ago. The front gates are now thrown open for the first time in nearly two years, as when the local police barrack was destroyed the splendid group of houses inside the gates of St. Conleth’s School which had been used for the purpose of housing some of the tradesmen employed in the institution were commandeered and used as a barrack for police and Black and Tans until Wednesday of last week when the evacuation took place. From an early hour on that morning the residents of the barracks were astir and it was easy to see that something out of the common was about to take place. Before long it was evident that the long-wished for hour had come and that the Crown forces were about to clear out, bag and baggage. At mid-day lorries arrived from Edenderry carrying the Black and Tans from that district, and all assembled at the Grand Canal Bridge, Daingean for the final parting. Such musical instruments as accordions, mouthorgans, etc., were produced and the disbanded heroes made the welcome ring to the strains of “Come back to Erin” (we hope they won’t). “It’s a long way to Tipperary”, “You’ll Remember Me”, and other items. The townspeople viewed the scene unmoved and the farewells were not returned. On the following day the members of the old R.I.C. force prepared to leave Daingean, and by Friday not a single policeman was to be seen in the place, while a new force guarded the town (OI, 11 2 1922).

  (more…)

  July 29, 2023

  ---

• Gone With the Wind and the Offaly Connection. By Danny Leavy. Blog No 505, 15th July 2023

  The 1937 Pulitzer Prize winning book and subsequent Oscar winning movie were set in Clayton and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O’Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of poverty following Sherman‘s destructive March to the sea.

  The author of Gone with the Wind was Margaret Mitchell. While Margaret Mitchell’s Irish heritage is well known, most of the focus has centered on her maternal great-grandfather, Philip Fitzgerald. It’s believed Philip emigrated from the Fethard area of Tipperary and eventually settled on a plantation near Jonesboro, Georgia; where he had one son and seven daughters with his wife, Elenor McGahan, who was from an Irish Catholic family.

  (more…)

  July 15, 2023

  ---

• Caitlín Kingston Brugha (1879–1959). By Deirdre Stuart. A contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. Blog No 501, 24th June 2023

  We are drawing to the end of a period of remembrance and reflection on the events that took place during the period 1912–1923 and the emergence of the Irish state as we know it today. These commemorative events have been referred to as the Decade of Centenaries (www.decadeofcentenaries.com)

  As we proceeded through the decade of commemoration, it became apparent that little was known or reported about the many women who were active throughout this period, with some notable exceptions such as Constance Markievicz and Mary MacSwiney, but including thousands of other women. Mary McAuliffe has pointed out that there has been a failure to see the women of 1916 and the subsequent years as historical figures. An additional strand has been added to the Decade of Centenaries online resource. ‘Mná 100’ is an online women’s initiative for the final phase of the Decade of Centenaries Programme and continues to work in highlighting the role of women in the revolutionary period (www.mna100.ie). Caitlín Kingston was one such woman.

  

  Caitlín Kingston was born in Birr, Co Offaly, in 1879 to William Kingston and Catherine Roche. The Kingstons were quite prosperous and owned a large store in Main St, Birr dealing in groceries, spirits and delph. They also owned land outside the town.  Caitlín had two brothers, John was a Holy Ghost priest in Rockwell College and Charles was Offaly County Secretary during the difficult period of 1900 to 1921, steering the county through the minefield that was local government during the transition from British rule to Irish rule. She had two sisters, Máire who went to live with Caitlín and helped her raise her family after the death of her husband, Cathal Brugha, and Hanoria/Nora who joined the Sacred Heart order of nuns in Roscrea. Caitlín herself was educated in Roscrea. On the death of her father William in 1904, Caitlín helped her mother to run the business. However, they sold that business in 1910 and moved to Dublin.

  (more…)

  June 24, 2023

  ---

• ‘Education in Tullamore down the Years.’ By Dr Moran, From Centenary records, Christian Brothers, St Columba’s Tullamore,1862-1962. Blog No 492, 24th May 2023

  Dr William Moran, a distinguished man of letters and former parish priest of Tullamore (1949–65), published the article below in 1962 and in the same year as his pamphlet on the history of Tullamore.  In many ways it was a seminal overview that has not as yet been superseded.[1]  Material has of course been published by the late Sister Dolores Walsh on the history of the Mercy schools in Tullamore while others have written of the Presentation schools in Rahan and Birr, Mercy Birr, Mount St Joseph, Tullabeg College, vocational schools in county Offaly including Tullamore, and  primary schools in Durrow (See Irishhistoryonline and the OH Library catalogue online for guidance). Dr Moran’s strongly held and trenchantly expressed views come across in this piece.

  

  (more…)

  May 24, 2023

  ---

• Kathleen Cowan, Birr Suffrage Activist. By Rosemary Raughter. A contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. Blog No 491, 20th May 2023

  The name of Kathleen Cowan is virtually synonymous with accounts of the suffrage movement in Co Offaly during its most vital phase. As secretary of the Birr Suffrage Society, she reported on its activities in the local and suffrage press, organized and spoke at meetings in the town and throughout the county, and represented it at suffrage gatherings in Dublin. Beyond the fact of her involvement, however, little is known of her background. I was, therefore, particularly pleased to come on her name in the context of some unrelated research, and to realise that *my* Kathleen Cowan was the person described by historian Margaret Hogan as ‘tireless in the cause of women’s issues’ and one of the moving spirits in the campaign locally.[1] This short account of Cowan’s life is intended to fill in some of the blanks in her story.

  (more…)

  May 20, 2023

  ---

• The Marble of Clonmacnoise: Limestone Quarrying at Clerhane, Shannonbridge, County Offaly. By Declan Ryan. Blog No 486, 3rd May 2023

   

  About two kilometres from Shannonbridge on the Clonmacnoise road (R444), in the townland of Clerhane, a narrow laneway leads to the site of all that now remains of a once thriving industry in limestone quarrying.  While the origins of the quarries are lost in the mists of time it can be assumed that the stone for all the major building projects in the area was sourced locally.  The heyday of the operations can be regarded as being from the early nineteenth to the mid twentieth century.   While their many monuments and buildings in stone will stand for centuries, the memories of the quarries that produced them, their owners, the workforce and methods of operation are in danger of being totally forgotten. 

  (more…)

  May 3, 2023

  ---

• The burning of the Big House at Toberdaly/ Tubberdaly, Rhode, County Offaly and the departure of E.J. Beaumont Nesbitt. By Michael Byrne. A contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. Blog No 485, 29th April 2023

  Terence Dooley in his Burning the Big House: the story of the Irish country house in a time of War and Revolution (Yale, 2022) devoted fourteen pages to a case study of the burning of Tubberdaly, Rhode. He concluded that the house was burned as a result of labour disputes, local agrarian issues and the demand to have the demesne and untenanted lands distributed to local people as the main reasons.[1]

  Beaumont Nesbitt had inherited an 8,000-acre estate from his cousin Catherine Downing Nesbitt of Leixlip House in Kildare in 1886. Most of this estate was at Rhode in King’s County. Nesbitt sold all of this land (save 1200 acres) under the Wyndham Land Acts. The First World War has been said to mark the last phase of unionism in ‘Southern Ireland’ and to that can be added personal tragedies with the death of one of Nesbitt’s son in the war and Nesbitt’s wife in 1918. The same was to happen with the Digbys of Geashill Castle and the Rait Kerrs of Rathmoyle. Prices rose substantially in the latter years of the war and with that came the agrarian disturbances among the labourers who had not benefited in the way that farmers had from high prices. The labour dispute at Tubberdaly in 1919 went on for four months and when resolved saw three of the ringleaders dismissed. That would prove to be a running sore, just as with Thomas Dunne and the Geashill Cattle Drive of 1914. Land disputes, personal animosities and IRA membership all provided the ingredients in the ongoing struggle, which in the case of some of those concerned was not resolved until de Valera and Fianna Fáil came to power in 1932.

  (more…)

  April 29, 2023

  ---

• James Perry Goodbody, Offaly’s leading industrialist and county council member for 21 years (1853–1923). By Michael Byrne. A contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. Blog No 482, 19th April 2023

  April 16th 2023 was the 100^th anniversary of the death of James Perry Goodbody, a significant figure in business and political life in County Offaly. His family were connected with the commercial life of Clara from 1825 and were by the 1900s the largest employers in the county. He was a contributor to local government and pushed forward the provision of facilities for TB patients when nobody wanted such a hospital in their neighborhood.

  

  James Perry Goodbody was the second son of Marcus Goodbody and Hannah Woodcock Perry (a daughter of James Perry) and a grandson of Robert Goodbody who came to Clara in 1825. He was born in 1853 and married in 1875 Sophia Richardson, a daughter of Joseph Richardson, a prominent linen merchant of Springfield, Lisburn at the Lisburn Quaker meeting house.[1] She predeceased him in 1917. He graduated with a B.A. from Trinity College, Dublin. James Perry Goodbody was the principal partner in the Clara mills, M. J. & L. Goodbody, and also in Goodbody businesses in Tullamore and Limerick.[2] The three main family businesses of M., J. & L. Goodbody, J. & L.F. Goodbody and T.P. & R. Goodbody (besides the peripheral businesses) probably employed about 1,500 people in the 1920s.[3] Of this number about 700 jobs were in Clara, down from perhaps 1,000 in 1890, in the businesses, the houses and the farms.[4] This employment figure may be conservative. He served on the King’s County Grand Jury and was high-sheriff in 1893–4.[5] He was said to have been the only member of the old grand jury to be returned in the 1899 county council election and served as a member of the council up to 1920.[6] He was elected by the members to the vice chair of the county council in 1912. The Midland Tribune commented at the time that his dissent from a grand jury motion in 1895 against Home Rule was noted in his favour.[7] He was valued by the council members for his business acumen and chaired the Finance and Proposals Committee from 1899.[8] In 1916 he was instrumental in securing a dispensary for tubercular patients in Tullamore built at no cost to the council.[9] He served for many years as chairman of Clara Petty Sessions where his motto was ‘fair play’ to rich and poor alike and, it was noted, always disposed to temper justice with mercy.[10]

  (more…)

  April 19, 2023

  ---

• Kenny’s ballroom, GV 12 High Street, Tullamore now forms part of the Esker Arts Centre. Another story in the Tullamore 400th series contributed by Offaly History. Blog No 481, 14th April 2023

  Today, 14 April 2023, will see the first event in the new Esker Arts Centre at High Street, Tullamore. Part of the new arts building was once ‘a ballroom of romance’ when owned by the Kenny family of musicians with their own dance hall to the back of their house at no. 12 High Street. Memories of that hall and the Kenny Band were recalled almost forty years ago in reports compiled by the Tullamore Tribune. We had no county archives at that time and wonder have the precious posters and scrapbook mentioned in the articles survived. In an earlier blog we looked at the story of no. 13 High Street. No. 12 dates to 1790 and nos 13 (Esker Arts) and  GV 14 (Ulster Bank) may well be 1750s in date although the head lease to 13 and 14 High Street was to Elizabeth Crofton and dates from only 1801.

  (more…)

  April 14, 2023

  ---

• The burning of the Biddulph ‘Big House’ at Rathrobin, Mountbolus, County Offaly, Ireland during the Civil War, 18 April 1923. By Michael Byrne. A contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. Blog No 480, 12th April 2023

  Rathrobin House, Mountbolus was the most modern and one of the finest of the ‘Big Houses’ burnt by the anti-Treaty IRA during the Civil War of 1922-3. Its loss was a tragedy for the district and for its owner and builder Lt Col Middleton Biddulph. Today the house is a ruin and the intended tomb of the old colonel in Blacklion churchyard remains empty. Biddulph was a generous man of independent means and was not dependent on exacting high rents from his tenants and employees with whom he was on the best of terms. Much has been written of the trauma experienced by participants in the Civil War, of the needless killings and the executions (81). It was a shocking time for the two sides and many innocent people suffered also. Perhaps some of the post-Civil War trauma and the silence can be attributed to the consideration that the war may have been an unfortunate and costly mistake. It may have seemed so to some of the participants following the success of the Free State and Fianna Fáil governments in rolling back on the oath, dominion status and the ports in the 1930–38 period. Thus confirming the ‘stepping stone’ thesis. As with the Spanish Civil War (much more violent) there is, even now, a kind of Pact of Forgetting (Pacto del Olvido) with people wanting to move on and forget about something that should not have happened. Yet, it is important to record the events of that period and what brought about the shocking atrocities especially in Kerry. County Offaly had its share in these tragedies.

  (more…)

  April 12, 2023

  ---