Heritage Week in Offaly and this year, 15-23 August 2026 Offaly communities and property owners have organised at least 58 events across the county. The national theme this year is Heritage at Risk. On this we can only reflect on vulnerable historic buildings and fading cultural traditions. What steps can be taken? What planning can be done? As the CEO of the Heritage Council said ‘we can shine a light on what we stand to lose, and what we can still protect’. We can also take positive steps and prioritise. The positive steps being taken by ordinary people are exemplified in the 2026 Offaly Heritage Events Brochure, so do download a copy. There are events at Rahan Mucklagh (Rory Masterson), Lemanaghan, Killeigh, Clara, Birr, Shinrone and much more. Both Killeigh and Mucklagh have new social centres which have given back a pride in community to both ‘villages’.
(more…)Category: Local history
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T. L. Cooke of Birr and the Great Industrial Exhibition in Dublin of 1853. By John Dolan. Blog no. 809, in the Offaly History Series,7.8.2026
The 1850s was the decade of the Great Exhibitions. The London Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851 was followed by Dublin and New York in 1853 and Paris in 1855. In Ireland there were regional/city exhibitions including in Cork (1852). It must be remembered that Ireland was still struggling to emerge from the disaster of the Great Famine.
The Great Industrial Exhibition of 1853 was the most ambitious exhibition ever held in Ireland up to that time. Staged in Dublin from 12 May to 31 October 1853, it was inspired by the famous Great Exhibition in London and was intended to showcase industry, technology, art, and manufacturing while encouraging economic development in Ireland. One of the developments of partcular interest was to copy the emergnce of Monster Houses (department stores) that began to appear in cities throughout Western Europe and the USA from the 1840s.
The exhibition aimed to move Ireland away from solely agricultural production towards industrialisation, promoting a shift toward Victorian consumer culture.
[Congratulations to Birr Historical Society on the reprint of Cooke’s first book on Birr published in 1826 and launched on 5 August 2026. Ed.]
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Urban Regeneration in Tullamore. By Fergal MacCabe. Blog no. 808 in the Offaly History Series. 31.7.2026
PROJECT 2040
Many may find it hard to believe, but Ireland has a pretty good planning structure and system.
Some years ago we embarked on an exercise of estimating where as a nation- indeed as an island – we should be going. How many people would we need to cater for, where would they live, how would they get around and what about climate change?
The outcome was Project 2040 which set out a broad overall framework and most importantly had a dedicated budget to deliver it. Its national vision is now filtering down through regional planning, to county planning, then to more detailed statutory plans for the cities and finally for the more important towns.
As a ‘Key Town’, Tullamore has a particular role to play and, in anticipation of an additional population projection of 1 million persons in the State by 2040, is presently making its own contribution by upping its housing projections to provide for an additional c. 2,000 houses and identifying an ambitious new employment and enterprise zone with direct access to the national road network.
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Tullamore Town Park and its historic associations: a walk in the park on Saturday 18 July 2026, 10 30 a.m. to 12 noon. Blog no. 806 in the Offaly History Series, 16.7.2026. By Michael Byrne
The second guided town walk on 18 July 2026 is alongside Tullamore River to the town park and Cormac Street. We start from Bridge House Hotel on Distillery Lane at 10 30 a.m. on Saturday 18 July and make our way through a part of the old Water Lane (now Main Street) taking the path along the river to Lloyd Town Park while reflecting on its historical features and change in the landscape of the area and the town of Tullamore since the 1700s. All are welcome and the tour is free. Michael Byrne is your guide for the morning. Richard Jack will talk about the town park and its trees.
In the park close to what is now the filling station can be seen the remains of a corn mill of c. 1800 and where Daniel E. Williams of Tullamore DEW fame started work as a young man in the mid-1860s. He lived nearby in the miller’s house (now demolished) until Dew Park was completed in 1900. Beside the corn mill was a flour mill demolished in the early 1990s to facilitate the Bridge Centre and new apartments. It was known as Cooke’s Mill and was said to be haunted by ‘old Ned Cooke’.
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Spollanstown, Tullamore Tour in 90 minutes, Saturday 11 July. Offaly History Series, blog no. 805, 10 July 2026. By Michael Byrne
The sunniest place in Tullamore in the early morning must be to the front of the rugby club in Spollanstown as the rising sun enjoys an unobstructed sweep across from Tullamore Distillery to the east. This Saturday 11 July starting at 10 30 a.m. and finishing at 12 noon there is a tour of Spollanstown commencing at the front of the Tullamore Court Hotel and taking the three Spollanstown Roads from the hotel to the boundary with Healion Drive, Ballard and emerging at the junction with Charleville Road at Aras an Chontae, to return on a brisk walk to Cormac Street. The tour is organized by Offaly History and this writer is the guide. We plan to have some local celebrities with us to show us the purple passages as we wind our way along the three Spollanstown roads.
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Buildings and housing of the Tullamore Workhouse, 1839-1852. By J.J. Reilly. Blog no. 804 3 July 2026 in the Offaly History Blog Series
The first meeting of the Tullamore Board of Guardians took place on Tuesday, the 26 November 1839, with 21 guardians present.[i] There were 24 elected members from 15 electoral divisions. The Union comprised an area of 246 square miles, covering 13 electoral divisions in King’s County and two in County Westmeath, with a total population of 53,905.[ii] It was headed by a chairman, John Hussey Walsh, with Charles Bagot as vice-chairman and John O’Brien deputy vice-chairman.
Figure 1 Tullamore Union Workhouse (Ordnance Survey, 1889)
The workhouse was situated on a 6.5 acre plot of land north of the Grand Canal on Emmet Road, or better known as Ardan Road. George Wilkinson, an Englishman, was the architect who followed similar designs to other poor houses built according to his designs in the years following the passage of the Irish poor laws Act. The Workhouse opened to inmates on the 9 June 1842. The workhouse cost £5,950 to build and a further £1,265 for fittings and furnish, bringing a total cost of 7,215.[iii]
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The Birr Weekly Journal: Birr’s first local newspaper, sidelights on the hazards of retailing in 1774. Michael Byrne. Offaly History blog no. 803 26 June 2026.
The Birr Weekly Journal: Birr’s first local newspaper, sidelights on the hazards of retailing in 1774. Michael Byrne. Offaly History blog no. 803 26 June 2026. Birr’s newspaper publishing tradition began in earnest 181 years ago with the issue of the King’s County Chronicle by Francis Sheilds of Emmet Square (or Duke or Cumberland Square as it then was). It was staunchly Protestant and unionist and grew out of the Leinster Express, first issued in 1831. The latter was intended to serve the counties of Kildare, King’s and Queen’s (Laois). Sheilds saw an opportunity and set up the Chronicle in Birr in September 1845. It was not the first Birr newspaper nor would it be the last. For the Midland Tribune was founded in Birr in 1881 as an antidote to the Chronicle’s unionism and Orangeism. The Chronicle spawned titles to gather in sales and advertising in Roscrea and Tullamore. The Tribune did likewise for Nenagh and Portumna, but its most important offspring was the Tullamore Tribune established in 1978. But what about Birr’s first local paper.
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Portarlington market house: a place of many uses and now restored. By John Stocks Powell. Blog no. 801 in the Offaly History Blog Series, 12 June 2026
On Thursday 23rd April 2026 the new, changed, developed, market house in Portarlington’s square was formally opened, following over a year’s work on the structure to commence a new chapter in its long history. The new occupier is the Portarlington Community Development Association, and the building has become available, for gatherings, conferences, presentations. There is no doubt this is a construction for specific purposes.
And the building has two names: market house, though there is no longer a market; and tholsel, a name given to municipal buildings in Ireland where tolls and dues were collected. Tholsels had an authority in a town, and usually hosted corporation bodies. Notable examples of tholsels in Ireland may be found at Carlingford, Clonmel, Kilkenny and Youghal. In other locations tholsels have been changed into other uses, or gone to demolition, such as that in Mountrath.
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Reminiscences of Fergal MacCabe: ‘I can never forget….’ waving goodbye to ‘the quare fellow’, the war bombs and celebrating a wedding in two Irish whiskey families, Tullamore Dew and Powers. Blog no 800, Offaly History Series, 5 June 2026.
An Emotional Farewell
My very first memory is of waving goodbye to a man who was on his way to the scaffold.
I was just three and was frightened by the noise and smoke of the steam train and the hubbub created by a large crowd but was totally unaware of the reason for it all.
The Tullamore courthouse Barney Kirwan
I was with my mother and her friend Tessie Leonard who had brought me along with them –together with half Tullamore – to wave goodbye to Rahan man Barney Kirwan who was being brought to trial in Dublin accused of having chopped up his brother, following a dispute over property and then burying the pieces in a nearby bog. Barney was now being transferred from Tullamore railway station to Mountjoy Gaol to await a high-profile trial whose guilty verdict he would challenge.
On the bikes in Kirwan’s time at Patrick St, Tullamore. Following an unsuccessful appeal to the High Court he was hanged on 2 June 1943. Brendan Behan who was in Mountjoy on Republican charges at the same time would make the event famous with his play ‘The Quare Fellow’ in which Kirwan is the unseen but central character.
The last hanging in Ireland was in 1954 and the brutal practice was terminated in 1990.
A Threat to Tullamore
I was born three days after the outbreak of the Second World War and was therefore quite oblivious of its progress and significance. This was to dramatically change on the 23rd January 1944 when a massive American B‑17 Flying Fortress which had taken off from Goose Bay, Newfoundland, bound for RAF Prestwick in Scotland, developed engine trouble over Northern Ireland
Its crew of ten parachuted to safety over Enniskillen. Before leaving the aircraft, they had set the now unmanned bomber on a course back toward the coast, hoping it would continue flying until it ran out of fuel and would crash harmlessly into the sea.
However, the prevailing winds shifted the aircraft off its intended path, carrying it further inland rather than out toward the coast. The unmanned bomber (luckily without a lethal load) remained aloft, flying on without its crew, but began gradually to lose height as it flew over the Irish Midlands. Its flight path brought it over Edgworthstown, west of Mullingar, over Kilbeggan and heading straight for Tullamore.
Fergal MacCabe (right) at one of his art exhibitions in 1972 and attentive to the comments of the sixth earl of Rosse. This created an emergency which was transmitted by alarm calls over Radio Eireann. The prospect of its crashing near, or even on, Tullamore caused great excitement. I remember standing in our yard and seeing it drifting slowly and silently over the town at a low level. It disappeared over Ballard bog. We waved it on its journey and hoped Portlaoise would not be its final destination. Eventually it crashed harmlessly in fields half a mile from the village of Johnstown in Co. Kilkenny.
In 1947 I asked my brother Tommy how the war was getting on. So far as I knew there had always been a war. I was quite surprised when he told me it had concluded two years previously.
A Big White Wedding – Williams and O’Reilly
The old Tullamore RC church of 1906-83 Tullamore Dew and Powers
But the event which made the greatest impact on me was the wedding in 1950 of our next door neighbour Teresa Williams to Frank O’Reilly (1922–2013) of Powers Distillery.
The excitement, glamour, fashion, music, food and general gaiety which it generated stimulated my young imagination and had a beneficial effect on the town of Tullamore which in those dreary days desperately needed a diverting public spectacle.
Though wealthy, the Williams family lived very modestly, their only public luxury being a beautiful dark blue Chrysler limousine.
The engagement of their eldest daughter to the handsome Frank O’Reilly who had returned from service in the British army during the Second World War to take over his family business of Powers Distillery, was not just a love match (they went on to produce ten children) but the linking of two great Irish distilling families. No expense would be spared therefore to mark the great occasion and a three-day gala was planned. For Tullamore it would be a huge event and everyone was excited by the glamour of it all.
The Williams O’Reilly wedding with a young Jeremy Williams on the left (see an earlier blog). I lived with my mother and brother in my grandparents house ‘Innisfree’ (now Loughmore Lodge) which was semi-detached with the Williams residence ‘Auburn’ owned by Captain Jack. The property had been much extended and additional land acquired to provide a magnificent south facing lawn and tennis court.
Scene of the wedding breakfast. Auburn then the home of John and Mrs Williams (nee Moorhead). In the run up to the great day tents began to be erected in the grounds to accommodate three days of festivities. On the first evening there was a spectacular fireworks display-the first I had ever seen.
The following day all of Tullamore went to the Church of the Assumption and crowded outside to greet the bride and her six bridesmaids and to witness the first white wedding in Tullamore since 1939.
The imposing west door of the church (now sadly blocked up) made a magnificent backdrop for the emerging bride and groom and I remember confetti being thrown and the bridal bouquet tossed in the air to be grabbed by a scrum of enthusiastic young women.
The bridal party then proceeded to Clonminch where a reception and dinner were provided by caterers brought from Dublin for the occasion. All us neighbouring children gathered on the flat roof of our shed which overlooked the kitchen where the feast was prepared and from time to time we were fed titbits. I savoured the unfamiliar tastes of lobster, pate and rhum baba.
The dancing under the fairy lights continued all night and in my bedroom I could hear it until I went to sleep. It was magical.
On the third day a party was thrown for the staff and employees of the two distilleries whose owners were now united in marriage and the gaiety continued well into that night too.
Then the tents were folded, the caterers cleaned up and departed and Tullamore got back to normal. But the wedding had brought a welcome interlude of glamour at the beginning of a decade that would be marked by further economic decay and emigration.
The Tullamore Dew whiskey of the late 1950s – ten years old and a child for every year in the Williams O’Reilly household. The brand was sold in 1965 and yes the sum was £10,000.
For an excellent Life of Frank O’Reilly see the online Dictionary of Irish Biography, written by Tullamore man Terry Clavin [Ed].Thanks to Fergal MacC for these memories and more to come we hope.
Pics and captions by Offaly History
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The long and eventful life of the Book of Durrow. By Rachel Moss. Blog no. 799 in the Offaly History Series. 29 May 2026
In the lead up to the feast day of Saint Colm Cille on 9 June we are glad to have this article thanks to Rachel Moss, Professor in the History of Art and Architecture, Trinity College, Dublin and author of The Book of Durrow, London, Thames and Hudson (2018), Blog Editor.
The long and eventful life of the Book of Durrow. By Rachel Moss. Blog no. 799, http://www.offalyhistoryblog. The Book of Durrow, a 1,300-year-old manuscript of the four gospels associated with the ancient monastic site at Durrow Co. Offaly, is special for many reasons. It is the earliest surviving complete gospel book in northwest Europe; it contains exquisite full-pages of ornament that demonstrate knowledge of current art styles in Ireland, Britain, Roman Europe and Coptic Egypt; it is one of the earliest examples of perfectly executed ‘Insular’ script that was to become the hallmark of Irish art for the following centuries and it is thought to be the work of a single scribe. Most significant of all, is the fact that it has survived, in near perfect condition, for such a long time
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