Category: Archival collections

• Birr and the 1821 census: the case of Castle Street, Birr. An exploration for the Living in Towns series.  By Michael Byrne. Blog No 537, 26th Oct 2023

  In the Pigot directory of 1824 Birr was described ‘as far the most considerable of any of the towns in the King’s County. Birr was the leading town in the county from the 1620s until the 1840s By the 1820s Birr had new Protestant and Catholic churches (the latter nearing completion at the time of the census and the publishing of the Pigot directory), two Methodist chapels and a Quakers’ meeting house. The charitable institutions of Birr, were a fever hospital and dispensary, supported by county grants and annual subscriptions; a Sunday school for children of all denominations; a free school for boys, and another for girls. Birr had a gaol and a courthouse where the sessions were held four times a year. The prisoners were sent to Philipstown/Daingean which was the county town until 1835 for trial for serious crimes. From 1830 when the new gaol was built in Tullamore Birr prison was more a holding centre only. . One mile from the town were the Barracks, ‘a large and elegant building, capable of holding three regiments of soldiers’. Birr has two large distilleries and two breweries, which, it was said, gave employment to the poor of the town.

  The population in 1821 was 5,400. The market day was Saturday and the fairs were four in the year. And that was it. The brief introduction to Birr in the 1820s did not engage in any detail with the census of the town in 1821 other than to produce an abstract.

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  October 26, 2023

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• Spollanstown Sports Field, Tullamore: a sports venue for over 140 years. A contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. By Michael Byrne. Blog N0 535, 21st Oct 2023

  The rugby grounds at Spollanstown have been used for sporting activity in Tullamore for over 140 years. The establishing of the Spollanstown sports field is rooted in the difficult situation in the 1880s when the land war was at its height, the home rule movement was advancing steadily and, increasingly, sporting activities reflected the deep political and religious divide in the country.

  

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  October 21, 2023

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• Exploring Castle Street, Birr – merchants and trading community in the nineteenth century.  Part of the Living in Towns series. Michael Byrne. Blog No 533, 15th Oct 2023

  Castle Street, Birr comprises a mix of about thirty commercial and residential properties close to the Camcor river to the south, Main Street and the old parish church to the north, and to the west Birr Castle. On the east at the Market Place or Market Square the street opens into Main Street, Bridge Street and from the 1880s into the new Brendan Street. The market house stood from the 1670s where the memorial to the Manchester Martyrs was placed in 1894. Surprisingly, when the market house was taken down in the late 1700s it was not replaced with a new building in a less disruptive location.^[1] The new courthouse and jail of c. 1809 took care of the legal functions, while two plots were reserved in Castle Street for the markets.

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  October 15, 2023

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• Visualizing Tullamore and its unique architectural character – A new Capriccio. By  Fergal MacCabe. Blog No 527, 27th Sept 2023

  An Image in my head

  As the town changes and my own perceptions and values alter, the visual image of Tullamore that I hold in my head is continually refined.

  Little by little I have begun to realise that buildings which I dismissed as mundane are more important than I had first considered, while others which I once revered are now probably not all that good after all. There is also the fear that several much-loved landmarks I believed timeless may soon disappear.

  My visits to the town have become more infrequent and I find that when I try to summon up its civic character in my mind in order to make a drawing, it tends to coalesce into an amalgam in which some buildings and landscapes take centre stage while others recede. In this capriccio I have tried to corral my memories into an ensemble which has some underlying unity, but inevitably selection distorts scale and some of the juxtapositions may seem overly bizarre.

  Of late, three particular parts of the town have begun to take a hold of my imagination – two real and one imaginary. The stretch of Cormac Street from the railway station to O’Moore Street gets better on each revisit while O’Connor Square is at last beginning to reveal its potential to be one of the finest urban spaces in the country. On the other hand, the Harbour is as inaccessible and decaying as it ever was. Its unknowable future has always fascinated me –  as I’m sure it does many.

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  September 27, 2023

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• The 1923 General Election in Laois-Offaly: Cumann na nGaedheal papers in Offaly Archives. An Offaly History contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. By Michael Byrne. Blog No 523, 13th Sept 2023

  In the last blog we noted that the August 1923 General Election in Laois-Offaly was remarkably peaceful given that the civil war had only ended in May. Offaly was still strong in support for the Republicans as was clear from the fact they gained two seats, but, of course, were committed to not entering the Dáil. Labour’s William Davin continued to have a strong vote but not nearly so much as in June 1922. Tullamore’ Patrick Egan gained a seat on Labour transfers. Egan polled only 9 per cent of the first preferences.[1] In Laois-Offaly the Republicans outpolled Cumann na nGaedheal, but the latter won the by-election of 1926 created by the disqualification of Republican John or Séan  McGuinness.[2] Overall Cumann na nGaedheal secured 38.9 per cent of the 1923 vote as to anti-Treaty Sinn Féin’s 27.4 per cent.[3] The Sinn Féin vote was secured in difficult circumstances with many still in prison or in hiding. As Joe Lee recorded the outcome was a resounding success for anti-Treaty Sinn Féin and a loss for Labour. Cumann na nGaedheal secured 63 seats, but that was a gain of only five in a Dáil enlarged from 128 to 153 seats. This was the election in which the franchise was extended to all women over the age of 21, thereby expanding the electorate from 1.37 million in 1918 to 1.72 million in 1923.

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  September 13, 2023

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• St Catherine’s Church, 1815-2015: central to the heritage of Tullamore. By Michael Byrne. Blog No 521, 6th Sept 2023

  St Catherine’s Church, 1815. This is the second article to mark the successful Heritage Week 2023. The new St Catherine’s Church was designed by Francis Johnston and was built in the Gothic style with a Latin cross plan, side-aisles, a tower in the west and a crypt at the east end for the burial place of the Bury family. Its situation on Hophill makes it an impressive landmark in Tullamore. Hophill is a glacial mound which rises steeply to a height of about fifty feet above the land around it. It is not clear how the mound acquired its name or when. The earliest known reference to the hill occurs in a lease of 1748. There is a local story that the spoil for digging out the new lake at Charleville was used to construct the site for the new church. While this is not true perhaps some materials were used which gave credence to this story. Originally more pointed, the hill is a natural one.

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  September 6, 2023

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• Declan McSweeney reflects on the Laois-Offaly Constituency and its history. Blog No 520, 2nd Sept 2023

  The news that the Laois-Offaly constituency is to come to an end at the next general election, following the recommendations of the Electoral Commission, is an occasion to reflect on its long history.

  Under the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, the constituency was established as King’s County-Queen’s County, a four-member constituency for the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, as it was then known to the British authorities.

  It was first used in the 1921 election for the second Dáil. [ There was no actual polling as all 128 candidates were returned unopposed.] At various stages the constituency name was spelt as Leix-Offaly, Laoighis-Offaly until Laois-Offaly became official.

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  September 2, 2023

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• A map of the Philipstown/Daingean  Estate of the fourth Viscount Molesworth, 1786. The map was conserved with the support of the Heritage Council Project D.17701. This  important map of Daingean is the earliest of an Offaly town to provide such significant detail. An Offaly History Heritage Week Project 2023. See also the video presentation on OffalyHistory YouTube channel. Blog No 516, 19th August 2023

  Neville’s Atlas of the 3,000-acre estate at Philipstown in 1786 has not before been seen by the public and has probably not been consulted for fifty years.  The surveyor was Arthur Richards Neville who was Dublin City Surveyor, 1801-1828 and he prepared the map on the instructions of the Molesworth Estate, the owner of 3,000 acres including the town of Daingean.  Neville was in practice as a land surveyor from the 1780s or earlier. He succeeded RICHARD BURLEIGH WORTHINGTON   as City Surveyor in 1801. He retained the post until his death in 1828 when he was succeeded by his son ARTHUR NEVILLE (Dictionary of Irish Architects online).  The map is 154×128 cm and is 20 perch to the inch, taking in almost 3,000 statute acres and 130 land holdings. The map was conserved with the support of a grant from the Heritage Council. The map was donated to Offaly Archives in 2022. Our thanks to Arnold Horner for his assistance.

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  August 19, 2023

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• St Catherine’s Church steeped in the early history of Tullamore, 1700s to its completion in 1815. By Michael Byrne. Marking Heritage Week 2023. Blog No 515, 16th August 2023

  To mark Heritage Week 2023 we have two articles on St Catherine’s Church, Hop Hill, Tullamore. This week the background from the 1700s to the completion of the new church in 1815. When coming to Tullamore by boat or rail the two most prominent sites to greet the visitor are the spire of the Catholic church completed in 1906 and that of St Catherine’s church, built on the mound known as Hop Hill and completed in August 1815.

  We take the presence of the Cof I churches of St Catherine’s, Clara, Shinrone, Geashill, Edenderry and St Brendan’s in Birr (to name a few) for granted. The upkeep is great and the contributors few. More will need to be done to structure support for the upkeep of these buildings.

  

  Hop Hill site a brave choice

  The Hop Hill site was a brave choice as there was work to be done to make it suitable for building and the adjoining ground was soft and prone to flood, especially in the years before the two Brosna drainage schemes of 1850 and 1950. The Tullamore town landlord, Charles William Bury (1764-1835), had reserved the large distillery plot (now the Granary apartments in Market Square) for a church, from about 1800 to 1806.  In the latter year then rector, Ponsonby Gouldsbury, and the vestry opted for the Hop Hill site and the new church was largely completed in August 1815. Soon after the old church off Church Street, erected in 1726, was demolished and the site of the church and, possibly an adjoining graveyard, were used for the Shambles or meat market and the remaining land incorporated into the new Market Square or Corn Market. The new Bachelors Walk was worked on from about 1812 as an attractive avenue to the new church from the High Street and from the town’s owner’s new residence, Charleville Castle. The architect for the church was Francis Johnston and for the new avenue, or Bachelors Walk was John Claudius Loudon, the distinguished landscape architect and designer of demesnes.

  

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  August 16, 2023

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• The Tullamore and County Offaly Agricultural Show: part of the heritage of the county and now a national event. Contributed by Offaly History to the Decade of Centenaries. Blog No 514, 13th August 2023

  The Tullamore and County Offaly Agricultural Show may be described as a unique cross urban/rural community undertaking and a traditional family day out attracting up to 60,000 people to the show. The Tullamore show was rekindled in 1991 by a small group of local people representing urban and rural communities. The Tullamore and Co. Offaly Agricultural Show Society Ltd was founded in 1990 and since its inception the Tullamore Show has grown to become one of Ireland’s largest and finest one day shows with entries from the 32 counties. In the early years of the 1990s the Tullamore Show was held in the grounds of Charleville demesne and castle in the month of August.

  

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  August 13, 2023

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