Category: Kilcormac

• The Silver River of Slieve Bloom. From John Feehan’s address at the launch in Kilcormac on 20.11.2025. Blog No 764, 3rd Dec 2025

  It’s almost exactly 50 years since I had the great privilege of studying the geology of Slieve Bloom as a postgraduate student in Trinity College. For over 4 years after that my job was to reach into every corner of the mountains where rock might have poked through to the surface, and then bring together the clues these pieces, of the jigsaw that told the story of the formation and subsequent history of the mountains, to form a more or less coherent picture.

  But I soon began to understand two things. First of all, that in looking at the rocks I was seeing less than half of the story; even if I included the flora and fauna they supported. The other half was the human story. Slieve Bloom is what its people have made it down all the centuries, and a parallel investigation is required to assemble all the pieces of this jigsaw together into a coherent story, and then place it over the first jigsaw. And then you begin to see how they are really two sides of the same coin. 

  And then, at the end of the four years, as some of you will know, I wrote a book about it.

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  December 3, 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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• Striking the right note: The formation of Ferbane’s Confraternity Brass Band in 1925. By Aidan Doyle. No 5 in the Anniversaries Series from Offaly History. Blog No 693, 15th Feb 2025

  There is a long history dating back to the Middle Ages of lay confraternities seeking to bring together Christians for prayer and charitable actions and during the 19^th century several such organisations came into being. In 1844, a Dutch born, Belgian army captain Henri Belletable established the Holy Family Archconfraternity in an effort to promoted piety and prayer among the industrial workers of Liege. The group enjoyed a meteoric rise across catholic Europe, in part due to the support of the Redemptorist Order.

  Massive changes in relation to industrialisation, urbanisation, education, and transportation acted as a catalyst during the 19^th century, facilitating the creation of religious, political, fraternal and sporting bodies. While the term the ‘Golden Age of Fraternalism’ is often applied to the United States during the later third of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century, Europe too saw ordinary people engage a plethora of new organisations with mass membership during this period.

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  February 15, 2025

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• The changing face of Offaly towns in the early 1900s, beautifully illustrated with historic pictures, to be launched on Friday 15 November, 7.30 p.m. at Offaly History Centre Tullamore by Cllr Tony McCormack, cathaoirleach Offaly County Council. Blog No 668, 9th Nov 2024

  The changing face of Offaly towns in the early 1900s: An illustrated history edited by Michael Byrne with contributions from Paul Barber, Stephen Callaghan, Grace Clendennen, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Goodbody, Ger Murphy, John Powell, Laura Price, Ciarán Reilly and Brendan Ryan (Offaly History, Tullamore, 2024, 368 pp). Available from Offaly History Centre and Midland Books Tullamore and online at www.offalyhistory.com. ISBN 978-1-909822-38-2 (hard back), €27.99. The book will be launched at Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay, Tullamore – beside the new Aldi and Old Warehouse. It is already available at the Centre, online at http://www.offalyhistory.com and at Midland Books, Tullamore. If you cannot attend in Tullamore we have a launch at Giltrap’s of Kinnitty on Thursday 21 Nov. at 7. 30 p.m. We will have copies in Bridge Centre for the Christmas Sale 14 to 24 December.

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  November 9, 2024

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• 17 Shocking attack on Violet Magan near Mountbolus, Tullamore on 8 December 1924: one of ‘the most barbarous acts’ in the history of Killoughy. No 17 in the Anniversaries Series. Blog No 659, 9th Oct, 2024

  Violet Magan (aged 48), a sister of Shaen Magan, was acting as land agent to Colonel Biddulph of Rathrobin, Mountbolus, Tullamore and had continued to run the estate business of after the burning of Rathrobin House in April 1923. She was born in 1876 and was well known in the midlands as a volunteer worker with the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society ((I.A.O.S.) and went everywhere on her bicycle. Colonel Biddulph departed Ireland in a hurry in June 1921. It was soon after the killing of two RIC men in an ambush at Kinnitty. At the end of June there took place the killing of two brothers at Coolacrease near Cadamstown over land or over obstruction of the IRA or being alleged informers. The jury is out on this, but it can be said that many of the big house burnings were in the interest of securing for distribution the remaining demesne and home farmlands of the once big landlords. The Biddulph brothers of Kinnitty and Mountbolus had up to 2000 acres most of which they farmed themselves. Colonel Biddulph had about 700 acres and gave good employment in the area and was popular with his workers and tenants. His brother Assheton of Kinnitty had died in 1916 and the lands were in course of being sold in 1921-22. Shaen Magan was the husband of Kathleen Biddulph, the favourite niece of Col. Biddulph was was childless.

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  October 9, 2024

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• 12 The Grand Canal: the Brosna route from Tullamore to the Shannon. No 12 in the Grand Canal Offaly series. Blog No 567, 20th Jan 2024

  

  The line from Tullamore to the Shannon is known as the Brosna route. Last week we looked at it from the terminus at Shannon Harbour and followed Donal Boland’s well illustrated trip from the Shannon to Tullamore.  The canal had reached Daingean in 1797 and Tullamore in 1798.  It was then the terminus for six years with trade opened to Shannon Harbour in 1804 and fully in 1805.  During that period the directors of the Grand Canal Company had considered three options for completing the canal to the Shannon:

  1.   To lock down into the River Brosna and continue as a river navigation.

  2.   To construct a canal alongside the Brosna.

  3.   To continue the canal on the same level to the south, with the possibility of an extension to Birr and the lock down steeply into the Shannon at Banagher.

  

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  January 20, 2024

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• 2 The background to the development of the towns on the Grand Canal in County Offaly. ‘The man-made features of the Irish landscape, urban and rural, were created within little more than a century before the 1840s and remained largely unchanged till the 1950s.’[1]  Prepared by Offaly History. Blog No 558, 27th Dec 2023

  

  This week we look at the background to the Vallancey report on the Offaly towns carried out in 1771  to  facilitate the construction of the new Grand Canal line from Dublin to the Shannon.  Vallancey was then a young engineer, employed to report to the Commissioners of Inland Navigation and his findings were published in a little known and very scarce pamphlet, A Report on the Grand Canal or Southern Line (Dublin 1771).[2] This report is useful as a window on some of the north King’s County (hereafter generally referred to as Offaly) towns and villages and all the more so because of the scarcity of published accounts of the midland towns prior to 1800.[3]   The report was published in the same year as that of John Trail who was at the time employed by Dublin Corporation.[4]  Vallancey was writing with a mission.  He was being paid to spin the story of the benefits that would come from inland navigation and to highlight the difficulties with road transport and its adverse impact on competition and pricing of commodities so as to bolster the arguments in favour of canal construction and satisfy those who were paying his consultancy fees.

  Why not contribute to our series of blog articles on the Grand Canal in Offaly – info@offalyhistory.com.

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  December 27, 2023

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• The 1923 General Election in Laois and Offaly: a remarkable outcome. Tar barrels in O’Connor Square for Pat Egan and a substantial vote for Republicans. An Offaly History contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. By Michael Byrne. Blog No 519, 30th August 2023

  Laois Offaly is again to be divided into two three-seat constituencies according to the just announced electoral commission report. ‘This would be the first time that the Offaly constituency would fully align with its county boundary.’ For the 2016 General Election Laois and Offaly were divided and to the Offaly constituency was added 24 electoral divisions from North Tipperary. Laois-Offaly was adopted again for the 2020 general election. Now what was it like in the first Free State election in 1923 just 100 years ago? It was remarkable that the 1923 general election held on Monday 27 August 1923 was in general peaceful. It was only in early July 1923 that Ministers Milroy and Blythe spoke at a Cumann na nGaedheal (CnG) meeting in Tullamore in what was described by the Chronicle as scenes of an unprecedented character in the history of public meetings in Tullamore.  The ‘supporters of Mr de Valera’ had posted anti-government posters about the town recalling the executions of Byrne and Geraghty, and also the three young men shot in Birr on a charge of armed robbery. On the office of the state solicitor, James Rogers, in High Street, Tullamore was pasted the words ‘Come inside and see the executioners’.  Rogers would have been known both sides in the civil war as someone who defended Sinn Féin prisoners in the 1917–21 period. The newly appointed civic guards kept the peace between Cumann na Gaedheal supporters and supporters of the Republican IRA.[1]

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  August 30, 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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• Gaelic Assembly and Inaugurations Sites in County Offaly. By John Dolan. Blog No 488, 10th May 2023

  Pre-Christian Irish Society

  When Christians arrived in Ireland and started to write about the country they found an island of Gaelic kingdoms, perhaps up to 150, that was dynastic and the political organisation was based on the tuath.  The tuath was the bedrock of the Gaelic political system and is described as a small kingdom. Most of what we know now has been gleaned from the Irish Law Tracts, commonly known as the Brehon Laws. Other written sources include the Hero and Saga Tales. 

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  May 10, 2023

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