Category: Birr

• A new study of Offaly’s two Great Houses at Birr and Charleville, Tullamore Blog no. 802 in the Offaly History Series, 18 June 2026.

  A new study of Offaly’s two Great Houses at Birr and Charleville, Tullamore just published

  Two of the great houses of Ireland, are here in County Offaly at Birr and Tullamore. Both regularly feature in articles and magazine stories. Birr Castle much more so as it has been the family home of the Parsons family, earls of Rosse, since the 1620s. The present earl and his wife from the death of the sixth earl in 1979, have worked for almost fifty years to promote the castle and gardens for the benefit for tourism and build on the enthusiasm of the sixth earl to create a science museum commemorating the work of the third and fourth earls and that of Charles Parsons, the engineer who helped win the First World War. Both earls worked tirelessly for the gardens at Birr Castle.

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  June 18, 2026

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• A Prima Donna in King’s County/ Offaly, Dame Nellie Melba 1861-1931. By Aidan Doyle. Blog no. 798 in Offaly History Blog Series, 22 May 2026

  A Prima Donna in King’s County/ Offaly, Dame Nellie Melba 1861-1931. By Aidan Doyle.

   Melbourne, February 26 1931-

  The usually busy streets of Melbourne were hushed today when Britain’s “Queen of Song” Dame Nellie Melba, was taken in a simple farm cart on her last journey to her beloved village of Lilydale, 20 miles from Melbourne not far from her own beautiful home, to be buried by the side of her father. Australia’s last respects were paid by thousands of people who reverently lined the route of the funeral cortege from the Presbyterian Church to the cemetery, and the world’s tributes were represented by a mountain of wreaths from mourners in every corner of the globe. Throughout the early part of the morning crowds filed past the coffin in the Presbyterian Church in which the famous singer lay in state, and in which as a girl she used to sing in the choir. When the memorial service began every pew was packed. The Federal and State Governments and the worlds of music and art were fully represented. Dr. Borland, State Moderator, conducted the service which was fully choral. “Our sorrow and sympathy” he said in a striking tribute to Melba” are shared by millions in every land who feel grateful that God raised up in our nation for the benefit of the whole world the gifted singer they mourn. 1

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  May 22, 2026

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• The Goodbodys of Birr. By Michael Goodbody. Blog no. 793 in the Offaly History Blog Series, 24.4.2026

  The Goodbody family is widely associated with the prosperous Quaker industrial dynasty that emerged in Clara and Tullamore during the nineteenth century. However, this article focuses on a lesser-known and far less successful branch of the family: the descendants of Thomas Goodbody (1783–1848), brother of the prominent miller Robert Goodbody (1781–1860). While Robert’s line flourished, Thomas’s life and that of his children was marked by repeated financial failure, instability, and eventual decline, culminating in the disappearance of the Goodbody name from Birr by the early twentieth century.

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  April 24, 2026

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• Concrete and Community Kieran Keenaghan – An Appreciation by Offaly History. Blog no. 792, 18 April 2026

  Kieran Keenaghan began his professional journey in 1967 as a civil engineer working on motorway construction in County Down. After gaining experience in the North, he returned to his native Offaly in 1969 to work for Bantile, a precast concrete factory near his home. He later moved to Charleville, Co. Cork to work as a project engineer for Golden Vale, overseeing significant building projects during a period of major investment in the dairy industry. In 1976, Kieran took a significant entrepreneurial risk by partnering with five others to buy the insolvent Bantile premises and establish Banagher Concrete. Under his leadership as Managing Director for over 40 years, the business grew from a small local operation into a national leader employing up to 500 people. Throughout his career, he integrated his professional engineering expertise with a deep commitment to the GAA, often leading major local development projects such as the Faithful Fields in Kilcormac.

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  April 18, 2026

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• The new Birr Urban District Council 1899: women were included on the electorate for the first time and the end of the Birr Town Commissioners. Blog No 774, 10th Jan. 2026. By Martin Hoctor

  Town Commissions in Ireland were possible from 1847 after the introduction of the Towns Improvement (Ireland) Act that would allow the larger towns to introduce a series of measures starting with the appointment of commissioners to carry out works in a  town like drainage, paving, and other improvements to the infrastructure. Unfortunately, this legislation was neglected in Ireland during the years of the Great Famine and it was not until the early 1850s when events slowly improved in terms of lesser number of deaths that several towns began to explore embracing this legislation for their districts. Parsonstown (Birr) Town Commissioners held their first meeting on August 4 1852 with Laurence Parsons elected as the first chairman and slowly began to implement the 1847 Act and its subsequent consolidation statute in 1854. Over the next 46 years Parsonstown/Birr Town Commissioners attempted to run the town from the rates received from the ratepayers and loans from the Local Government Board as they engaged in constant disputes with the King’s County Grand Jury and the County Surveyor for decades over which authority was responsible for the scavenging and cleaning of the streets and the expenses incurred.

  We are glad to welcome the second of our Young Historians blogs this week and this year. If you have an article or an idea for an article do contact us at info@offalyhistory.com. Offaly History blogs now number 774 and reach 80,000 to 100,000 views each year. So do join the panel of authors of this treasure trove of easily accessed articles since 2016. Doing (or have done) a Leaving Cert History Project on local history -keep Offaly History in mind for your piece of research. We can help with editing and illustrations.

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  January 9, 2026

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• TRANSITION: Irish peatlands in a changing climate. A new photographic study of a landscape in flux. Blog No 769, 20th Dec 2025

  Ireland’s peatlands have long been a defining feature of the country’s landscape and identity—vast, open expanses that have shaped communities, powered homes, and inspired generations. But in recent years, these peatlands have entered a new chapter. TRANSITION, a striking new photographic book, captures this moment of profound change with sensitivity and depth.

  In 2019, a High Court ruling mandated that commercial peat harvesting on bogs over 30 hectares would now require planning permission. This shift accelerated the decline of industrial peat extraction, a process already underway as awareness grew of the ecological importance of peatlands. These landscapes, once seen primarily as fuel sources, are now recognised as vital carbon sinks and havens for biodiversity.

  TRANSITION captures this story through objects in time – each one a tangible link to the past, a marker of the present, or a symbol of the future. Structured in a unique A–Z format, the book presents a curated collection of items that reflect the evolving relationship between people and peatlands. These objects are thoughtfully juxtaposed to highlight the dramatic changes in land use, environmental values, and cultural identity. Each item occupies a liminal space, bridging the industrial legacy of peat harvesting with the emerging ecological renewal.

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  December 20, 2025

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• Change, resilience and imagination at Lough Boora: New Sculptural Works by Kevin O’Dwyer unveiled at Lough Boora Discovery Park. Blog No 763, 29th Nov 2025

  Two new sculptural works by artist Kevin O’Dwyer have been officially launched at Lough Boora Discovery Park, marking the first major additions to the park’s sculpture collection in over a decade. The works, titled Regeneration and Light as a Feather, reflect the park’s evolving story of transformation from industrial peatlands to a landscape of ecological restoration, culture and public enjoyment.

  

  Regeneration draws inspiration from the seed as a symbol of renewal, growth, and cyclical change. Rising vertically from the ground, the work acknowledges the industrial history of the site while pointing toward its continued regeneration.

  

  Light as a Feather offers a contrasting visual language — a suspended, airy form that engages with space, balance, stillness and the quiet expansiveness of Boora’s open horizon.

  “Lough Boora is a place shaped by change, resilience and imagination,” said Kevin O’Dwyer. “These works are rooted in the landscape’s capacity to hold memory while continually becoming something new. O’Dwyer says it has been an honour to contribute to this next chapter in the park’s cultural and environmental renewal.”

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  November 29, 2025

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• William Bulfin: Birr’s Fenian Travel Writer. By Luke Condron. No. 19 in the Offaly History Anniversaries Series. Blog No 749, 20th Sept 2025

  On the 1st of February, 1910, a Gaelic League nationalist died quietly in his home in Derrinlough House, Birr, County Offaly. Four days later, in An Claidheamh Soluis, he was briefly memorialised in print by Seán Ó Ceallaigh:

  On Tuesday, Lá Fhéile Brighde, the first day of spring, Señor Bulfin was carried off by a sudden attack of pneumonia, before even his friends knew he was ill. The Gaelic League loses in him a great champion of its ideals, and the Irish of Argentina their leader… He was known and admired wherever an Irish class existed.

  The name William Bulfin, in our time, does not live up to the description offered above, though it may well arouse some curiosity at the mention of an Irish Argentine. However, Bulfin, though his credentials remain firmly intact — An Irish nationalist, a Gaelic Leaguer who was present at the opening of the Argentine Gaelic League branch in 1899 and at many important league summits in Ireland — has largely fallen by the wayside in the discussion of Irish nationalist figures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When reading the musings and sophisticated theses of Rambles in Éirinn, his seminal work, one realises that obscurity ought not to be the final resting place of this man of two countries, who loved both so well.

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  September 20, 2025

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• The five Methodist Churches in Tullamore town, 1760–1889. In the Offaly History series on Church Street, Tullamore: houses, businesses and families, over 300 years. By Michael Byrne and Offaly History. No 5 in the 2025 Living in towns series prepared with the support of the Heritage Council. Blog No 741, 23rd August 2025

  John Wesley, the founder with his brother Charles, of the religious movement, Methodism, visited Ireland on twenty-one separate occasions between 1747 and 1789 and has left eight volumes of journals (the Curnock edition) to tell the tale.  The journals are mainly spiritual in character but nevertheless contain much that is useful about Irish life, the towns, estates and even the weather.  The late T. W. Freeman, in his ‘John Wesley in Ireland’  used the Everyman edition The Journals of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., edited by the Rev. F. W. Macdonald.[1]

  Freeman noted that Wesley generally visited Ireland in the late spring and stayed for two or three months; making what was in those days, the perilous journey across the Irish Sea.  Wesley was born in 1703 and died in 1791 and was the fifteenth child of Samuel Wesley.  His ‘conversion’ is dated to this time and following the example of George Whitefield (1714 – 70), the originator of Methodism, he began his open-air preaching of which he did much across his ‘parish’ which was effectively England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.  The ODNB noted that his journal of missionary travel would serve as a guidebook to Britain and Ireland.[2]  To the last he continued to travel and is said to have preached 40,000 sermons and travelled 250,000 miles.

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  August 23, 2025

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• The Birr family of George Morrison of Mise Eire fame, died August 2025, aged 102. No 15 in a series on the arts heritage of County Offaly, 1750-2000, explored through the works of artists from or associated with County Offaly. By Michael Byrne. Offaly History Blog No 737, 6th August 2025

  One of Offaly’s pioneering photographers living in Birr in the late nineteenth century was George Morrison, son of Edward, both were jewellers in the town in Duke now Emmet Square. George Morrison 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 who has just died at the age of 102. It can be said that George Morrison inherited a tradition commenced in the family by his grandfather, but following in the footsteps of many others including Mary, third countess of Rosse.

  Another Birr neighbour of the Morrison family was 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. The Chronicle was one of the first provincial papers to use the block process and Wright had been sent to London to study the process.

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  August 6, 2025

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