Category: Birr

• Impressions of an Ireland Dream. De Jean Frazer, T.C. Luby and a Birr book launch. By Laurel Jean Grube. Blog No 467, 25th Feb 2023

  I dreamed of someday going to Ireland and exploring my ancestry. But I am afraid to fly; not only because of feeling trapped in a plane high in the sky over the ocean but because of the pain I have experienced in my ears on domestic flights.

  Can you believe it, this past November my husband got me on an airplane? And it did not require knocking me out. Just painkillers, nasal spray, decongestant, chewing gum, hard candies, a small teddy bear to clutch, and a prescription for an anxiety pill, nothing drastic. The ear pain was still present, and the nervous shaking was only subdued by continuous prayer.

  This was my first trip outside the United States, and I was pleasantly surprised by the warmth of the people of Ireland.

  We took this journey to launch a book I co-edited with two gentlemen from Dublin, Terry Moylan, and Padraig Turley. I met them through the internet when double-checking a fact about my ancestor, John De Jean Frazer, for the novel I am writing about him and his son-in-law, Thomas Clarke Luby.

  Terry and Padraig were starting a book to republish the poems of Frazer, my third great-grandfather. My novel includes some of those poems and I had wanted to honor him myself and bring him out of the cobwebs and into the light. I was happy to accept the invitation to join these gentlemen on an eye-opening adventure.

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  February 25, 2023

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• The execution of three young Tullamore men at Birr during the Civil War, 26 January 1923. By an eyewitness, Fr Colm Gaynor, a Birr curate (d. 1949). A contribution from Offaly History to the Decade of Centenaries. Blog No 458, 25th Jan 2023

  Fr Colm Gaynor was a Catholic curate in Birr in the years 1922–37. Originally from Tyone, Nenagh his valuable memoir was published in 2003 and included with that of Sean Gaynor and Eamonn Gaynor. The book was published by Geography Publications as Memoirs of a Tipperary family: the Gaynors of Tyone, 1887–2000. It is available from Offaly History Centre to buy or to read at Bury Quay, Tullamore.

  The three young Tullamore men were William Conroy (20), Patrick Cunningham (22) and Colm Kelly (18) and they were executed by the Free State military in the grounds of Birr Castle on 26 January 1923. They were from poor families in the town and had no one of influence to speak for them. It is said that a fourth young man was allowed to go free.

  Writing later to the Military Service Pensions Board about the execution of three men, Sean McGuinness, brigade O/C and on the Republican side said :

  The three had been expelled from their IRA active service unit for some minor misdemeanours. McGuinness wrote that the men returned to Tullamore, where they “remained unemployed and I presume penniless and without a smoke”. He claimed they were executed by the Free State for a “few minor robberies”, though the court records show they were summarily executed for armed robbery. McGuinness suggested that “their crime was nothing compared with that of the great betrayal of the Republic by the authority responsible for the killing of these three youths”.

  Such was the legacy of bitterness understandably arising from the Civil War.[1]

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  January 25, 2023

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• Clara and Ballycumber men among twenty that went over the wall at Mountjoy in 1919. By Pat McLoughlin. A contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. Blog No 457, 21st Jan 2023

  On the 29^th March 1919, 20 IRA Volunteers escaped from Mountjoy jail in broad day light.  This escape was planned by Michael Collins on the outside and Piaras Béaslaí on the inside.  A prison strike had been taking place in the jail in support of four prisoners who were not being afforded political status.  In the lead up to the escape this strike was halted because the escape plan had a better chance of success with a quieter atmosphere in the prison.

  The plan was to get Piaras Béaslaí and JJ Murphy both MPs and Padraig Fleming a volunteer from the Swan, Co. Laois out, followed by the four prisoners not being afforded political status.  A list of men with long sentences was created and it was decided that men serving short sentences or who had sentences close to completion would not escape.  Padraig Fleming had conducted an extraordinary fight for treatment as a political prisoner in Maryborough (Portlaoise) jail, enduring hunger strike, torture and physical mistreatment for months.  In Mountjoy he was the Officer Commanding the political prisoners.

  The escape was planned for 3 p.m. on Saturday March 29^th.  On the previous Monday the four prisoners being denied political status broke away from the warders in charge of them and led them on a big chase around the field before being recaptured.  As a result, they were kept in a metal cage for exercise and guarded by no less than eleven warders.  If these precautions were continued their chances of escape were slight, while the presence of so many warders also presented a serious obstacle to the escape plan.  On Fleming’s orders the four prisoners caused no more problems for the warders and the prison authorities were lulled into a false sense of security.

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  January 21, 2023

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• The District Court in Offaly is 100 years old, January 2023. A contribution from Offaly History to the Decade of Centenaries. Blog No 454, 11th Jan 2023

  The commencement of the new District Court in Offaly in January 1923 was an inauspicious time to start. The county was caught up in the civil war that it seemed neither side could win. The Free State (National Army) had taken all the cities by August 1922, but the fight was still going on in the hills, especially in the south. Neither Tullamore nor Birr was free of anxiety with shots fired on New Year’s Eve to remind people that the Republicans had not gone away. How could they forget? In January 1923 two men from Kilkenny were executed for possession of arms and robbery. Soon after five National soldiers captured with a body of anti-Government forces were executed –  a courtmartial having found them guilty of treachery. Five from County Offaly were executed in January and early February. In the same month there had been an attack at Raheen in north Offaly  – an ambush while soldiers were going to mass with at least one dead. Some of the neutral IRA were talking about ending the conflict and the press reported that Peadar Bracken ex Brigade officer, Thomas Ua Quinn ex Vice Commdt, and Martin Fleming, ex Brigade staff officer, had called a meeting of pre-truce ex officers of nos 1 and 2 Offaly Brigades IRA at the old Sinn Féin hall regarding the peace movement. Peadar Bracken would know the place well as he was involved in the ‘affray’ in 1916 where ‘the first shot was fired’ in that very hall in William/Columcille street, Tullamore.

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  January 11, 2023

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• Sanders and Christie: two gentlemen of Birr in 1900: a disputed county surveyor’s will worth £30,000. By Michael Byrne. A contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. Blog No 453, 4th Jan 2023

  When Richard B. Sanders, the county surveyor (today a county engineer) for King’s County,  died in Cumberland Square, Birr in 1900 he left an estate of the value of £30,000. This would have been enough to build 300 council ‘cottages’ in those days when smaller houses such as those of in Cappaneale, Birr and Davitt Street, Tullamore could be built for £100 each. Sanders was an Antrim man and was born in 1845. He had involved another Birr resident, also from Antrim, the solicitor Archibald Christie, in the making of his will. Albeit in the worst possible way by asking him to be a witness but without having given him any instructions. Both were neighbours in Cumberland Square (as it then was, now Emmet Square). Both of them would have been under the watchful eye of John Wright, the editor of the King’s County Chronicle and resident of Cumberland House. Nearby was the Ormond Club of which we can assume both Christie and Sanders were members and perhaps also of the Birr Masons, then going strong.

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  January 4, 2023

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• Saint Piran – of Seir Kieran, Offaly? By John Dolan. Blog No 449, 21st Dec 2022

  It was a casual comment at the recent excellent Heritage Day event at Seir Kieran, Discovering Seir Kieran Monastic Site, a local mentioned that there had been a visit in recent months from a group from Cornwall, visiting the birth place of St. Piran/St. Ciarán.  Cornwall had been mentioned as a place associated with St. Ciarán by one of the speakers on the day.  It was time again to have a look at this St. Piran. Piran is by far the most famous of all the saints to have gone to Cornwall from Ireland.

  St. Ciarán was one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland along with Brendan of Birr. Charles Plummer’s translation of the Life of Ciarán has him arriving to Ireland before St. Patrick. He also had the title of the ‘first born of the Saints of Ireland’. He is supposed to have been born at Cape Clear in Cork where there is a church, a beach and a standing stone as memorials to him.

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  December 21, 2022

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• Irish Sporting Lives. By Terry Clavin. Blog No 447, 14th Dec 2022

  Irish Sporting Lives (Royal Irish Academy, 2022) brings to life sixty figures who in their individual ways illustrate the drama and diversity of Irish sporting history.

  This collection of biographical essays draws from the Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB) and spans 200 years from the early nineteenth century. It is edited by DIB researchers Terry Clavin and Turlough O’Riordan, with an introductory essay by former Tullamore GAA clubman and Offaly Gaelic football coach, Ireland’s foremost sports historian, Professor Paul Rouse. 

  The biographies in Irish Sporting Lives encompass serial winners and glorious losers, heroes and villains, role models and rogues, enduring legends and forgotten or overlooked greats. Trailblazing women feature prominently, and their stories highlight the adversity they had to overcome in pursuing their sporting dreams. Aside from household names such as George Best, Jack Kyle, Christy Ring, Lady Heath, Alex Higgins and Jack Charlton, the volume will also inform readers about less well-known but equally fascinating figures. These include Vere Goold, the only Wimbledon tennis finalist ever convicted of murder; Dave Gallaher, New Zealand’s most revered rugby captain; and Martin Sheridan, the winner of nine Olympic medals for the USA.

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  December 14, 2022

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• Traditional Architecture in Offaly: History, Materials and Furniture, 1800 to Present Day. Blog No 444, 3rd Dec 2022

  Kitchen, parlour and bedroom – transforming a house into a home

  Traditional Architecture in Offaly: History, Materials and Furniture by Rachel McKenna (Offaly County Council, 2022) is a wonderful new addition to the growing collection of quality publications on the county of Offaly and its place in Irish heritage. For long neglected by the travel writers who took the coastal route the county has made up for that oversight since the late 1970s with a whole series of publications. The writer is the county architect and well placed to observe the changing scene and to appreciate what was distinctive about the habitations of the ordinary people (the third and fourth class housing of the 1841-61 censuses) and what has survived to the present day. As the CE of Offaly County Council has written in the Preface

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  December 3, 2022

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• Have an ‘Offaly History’ Christmas with over a dozen new books this year. Blog No 443, 30th Nov 2022

  It has been a good year for new publications contributing to the history of County Offaly and helping us to get to know ourselves and our place better. When the annual report of the Tullamore Credit Union is dropped in the door you know Christmas is close. Seeing the cover and that the credit union is now sixty years old set us thinking of phases in our history. The year 1923 marked the end of the civil war. After a period of growth from 1891 to 1918 things got difficult. You could write off 1923–63 in terms of the economic engine. It was mostly switched off with exceptions in Tullamore Yarns, the Bacon Factory, Tullamore and the Williams and Egan businesses serving the midlands. The emerging Bord na Mona and ESB were providing jobs in west Offaly from the 1950s and east Offaly later, but it was the 1960s before a general ‘all boats’ lift up occurred. Equally you could say that since September 2001 (and the mobile phone) we have been living with anxiety which seems to grow every year especially since Brexit 2016 and now the war and climate change. Not to mention all the things we have to do online to comply with the requirements of banks and government. These books are all available from Offaly History, Bury Quay (and online http://www.offalyhistory) and our friends in Midland Books, Tullamore.

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  November 30, 2022

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• ‘It will last for centuries’:  St. Joseph’s Convent, Tullamore. By Fergal MacCabe. Blog No 442, 26th Nov 2022

  Fergal MacCabe

  In 1840, the scaffolding began to come down to reveal the new convent and school of the Sisters of Mercy on Bury Quay, today Convent Road.

  With the building of the County Gaol in 1830, the County Courthouse in 1835 and the Union Workhouse in 1839-41, Tullamore was rapidly acquiring substantial civic and social buildings which were adding to its prestige and promoting its new role as the capital of King’s County.

  But as yet, no buildings of a religious or educational nature which might contribute equally significantly to the architectural character of the town centre had emerged. The Catholic chapel of 1802 on its backland site off Harbour Street was a relatively modest structure without a frontage presence onto a main street. Charleville School built in 1811 at the junction of Henry Street and Church Street exhibited a well-mannered but unassuming appearance. Though a most impressive structure, the siting of Francis Johnston’s St Catherine’s on Hop Hill rendered it remote from the daily life of the town.

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  November 26, 2022

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