The James Francis Fuller-designed church was one of two new Church of Ireland churches in the Tullamore area completed in the 1880s. The other was at Lynally and was the gift of Lady Emily Bury (died 1931) to mark the recent death of her young husband Charles Kenneth Howard. That at Durrow was to replace the 150-year-old church in Durrow Abbey demesne and which had been rebuilt in about 1730. Other churches such as Tullamore, Killeigh and Geashill had all benefited from funding in the early 1800s and were in better order. That said there was probably a degree of self-interest as much as selflessness in the gift of the new church at Durrow by Otway Fortescue Graham Toler. The old church was in Durrow Demesne close to the manor house of the Norbury family and one could understand them wanting to see it placed elsewhere. The well-known agent, Toler Garvey, had beautified the demesne with the provision of a new well and the placing of the High Cross in the graveyard in a line from the entrance door to the old church. The Norburys had purchased the Durrow estate in 1815, and it was here that the second earl was murdered by an aggrieved tenant in January 1839. It appears that the family did not take up residence in the new manor house until the mid to late 1850s.
The new Church of Ireland church, Durrow, completed in 1881.This view about 1990.(more…)
It is hard to believe that we are catching up on history. In seven years time we mark the 200th anniversary of the building of the Catholic church in Durrow. This year is the thirtieth anniversary of the major renovation. The catholic church now in use at Durrow dates back to 1831and was completed in 1832 and consecrated by the then bishop Rahan-born Dr John Cantwell, on 24 September 1832. In an unpublished report on the houses and churches of County Offaly prepared for the Offaly Historical Society in 1985, William Garner wrote:
In 1803, Hanover was occupied by troops from Napoleon Bonaparte’s French Army. Up to that point the Electorate of Hanover had been governed by King George III of the United Kingdom. In response to the occupation and the disbandment of the Electorate’s army, thousands of Hanoverian exiles travelled to England where they enlisted in the King’s German Legion of the British Army. The Legion were quickly deployed to Ireland and its soldiers appear to have created a good impression the towns like Tullamore where they were stationed.
The word duel supposedly has its origin in the Latin duellum, roughly translated as a war or battle between two. Ancient history, religious accounts and myth are all full of accounts of Champion Warfare as elite warriors battled for the glory of their respective peoples. When David slew Goliath, Achilles dispatched Hector outside the gates of Troy or when Cu Chulainn faced off against the fighters of Connacht, they were engaging in a form of single combat common across the world. Later still, during the Middle Ages many European societies condoned ‘Trial by Combat’ as part of their legal system. One of the last examples of such a contest in Ireland occurred at Dublin Castle in 1583.
A Family Feud, the O’Connors of Uí Fháilghe
For centuries the kingdom of Uí Fháilghe (consisting of the eastern region of modern county Offaly) was ruled by the O’Connor clan. During the 16th century, the family featured as a regular irritation and occasional ally for English administrators based in Dublin Castle. The situation was further complicated by internal dynastic rivalries within the clan and alliances between the O’Connors and Fitzgerald Earls of Kildare.
The last official great chief of the clan, Brian O’Connor Faly, married the daughter of the Earl of Kildare, engaged in a prolonged struggle for supremacy with his brother Cathaoir, fought in Silken Thomas’s Rebellion and lead numerous raids into the English controlled Pale.
Pardoned by Henry VIII in 1541, he was regranted his lands later in the decade, but rebelled in conjunction with Cathoair and the O’Mores of Laois in 1548. The Gaelic Irish leaders suffered serious reversals. Cathoair was executed in 1549, Giollapádraig O’More died while imprisoned in England and Brian’s political power was diminished. By the time of his own death in the cells of Dublin Castle in 1560, the kingdom of Uí Fháilghe had already on its way to being dismantled.
In 1556, Parliament passed an act to enable the government to carry out Plantations in O’More and O’Connor territory. As a result, Uí Fháilghe became King’s County, named in honour of King Phillip II of Spain, the husband of Queen Mary I of England.
Despite the major reverses which the O’Connors had suffered, some branches of the family continued to retain importance under the new dispensation. Moreover, the tendency for internal feuding had not entirely abated.
In 1583, Connor McCormac O’Connor alleged that several of his followers had been killed on the orders of Tadhg Gilpatrick O’Connor. In response Tadhg claimed that those killed had collaborated with a noted rebel. The case was referred to the lord justices. Having considered the matter, the Master of the Rolls, Sir Nicholas White suggested that the issue could be resolved by single combat.
The Bermingham town in Dublin Castle about 1895.
So, on the September 12th a large crowd of legal officials gathered in the inner courtyard of Dublin Castle to view the kinsmen do battle. Having been searched for hidden weapons, both men striped to the waist, shook hands and swore on the bible to refrain from the use of “enchantment, sorcery, or witchcraft”. (1)
The combatants were each armed with a sword and a shield, and the contest was a prolonged one. Badly wounded, Connor McCormac O’Connor attempted to effect a killer blow but overextended himself and lost his footing and was beheaded. (2)
Honour is Everything –Codes duello
While the notion of a duel to resolve legal issues had already begun to diminish by the time the O’Connors met in Dublin Castle. The idea of single combat as a means to settle disputes involving personal honour would prove to be a more persistent.
The importance of retaining personal honour and responding to any perceived slight was common across the globe. Especially in militarised societies with large numbers of young aristocratic men, but it found particular popularity in Renaissance Italy. It was there that duelling with rapiers first gained widespread popularity and some of the first of the so-called code duello were drawn up.
These rules, under which duels were fought, were developed in the hope that a well-regulated encounter would restore honour, reduce bloodshed and remove the danger of personal disagreements spiralling into family feuds.
The offended party issued a challenge to reassert their honour after a perceived slight. The second’s role was to patch up some form of face-saving compromise between the aggrieved parties and falling that to ensure that the duel was fought in a fair manner.
The many duels were fought without serious injury to either side, but the details of such encounters were rarely recorded. So much of what we know about duelling is drawn from fatal confrontations.
Duels were not designed to end in death, but rather to re-establish the equilibrium amongst the sons of aristocratic families. Nevertheless, deaths did occur, sometimes as the result, distain for proper duelling procedure or the temperament of the combatants and often because of the rudimentary medical skills of the time.
The rise of duelling corresponded with the demise to of the Gaelic Ireland, the confiscation of large tracts of land and the eventual emergence of the Anglo-Irish landed elite as the great beneficiaries of the Nine Years War, the War of the Three Kingdoms and the Williamite War. It was from such families that duelling would draw its adherents in the century that followed.
The New Order
In 1725 it was reported in the Ipswich Journal…
‘They write from Dublin, that on the 8th of Aug, a Duel was fought Parsonstown in Kings County, between Michael Moore of Cloghan, of the Said county, esq and Captain John Eyre of Feddan, in county Tipperary; at which were present among several other persons, lieutenant Bagnall, and quartermaster Charles Armstrong; and that the said Moore in the attack, tumbled, fell down, and lost his sword, upon which the said Eyre seized it, and pursued Moore with both swords in order to stab him, which the said Amstrong endeavouring to prevent, and putting his own sword into Moore’s hands to defend himself, the said Eyre run upon Armstrong (naked as he was and no party to the quarrel and stabbed him in the breast, of which he instantly died.’ (3)
Captain Eyre was subsequently acquitted of murder.
The Eyres had arrived in Ireland as Cromwellian settlers during the 17th century and were soon closely associated with county Galway. To this day the main square in Galway city and the village of Eyrecourt in the east of the county, bear the marks of that association. The Moores were a long-standing aristocratic family dating back to the Norman invasion. Having obtained Cloghan castle at Lusmagh early in the 17th century, they threw their support behind the Royalist and Jacobite causes. Despite this, they retained some of their holdings, until the reality of mounting debts forced a sale at the Encumbered Estate Court in 1852. The Armstrongs had first gained fame as Border Reivers operating in the Debatable Lands along the border between England and Scotland during the 15th and 16th centuries. Many Armstrongs travelled to Fermanagh in the hope of benefiting from the Plantation of Ulster. A few generations later a branch of the family had begun to establish a dynasty in the former stronghold of the MacCoughlan Clan in the west of King’s County, amassing estates containing thousands of acres with country houses at Banagher, Ballycumber and Gallen Priory outside Ferbane.
Duelling continued to grow in popularity throughout the 18th century, but how it was carried out would change greatly during that time as pistols replaced rapiers as the preferred weapon of choice for duelists.
The rise of duelling
To a certain extent firearms served to level the playing field. Previously, taller men with a greater reach, the more athletically able and those with training in swordsmanship went into battle with considerable advantages. The greater availability of pistols gave the unfit, untrained short man at least a fighting chance. But this equality of opportunity, probably also contributed to a rise in the number of duels being fought. The phenomenon is said to have peaked in the 1770s. In November 1774 it was reported …
Kilcormac about 2017
‘On Wednesday last a duel was fought at Frankford between Mr. George Drought and Mr. Alex. Comins, Ganger, when the latter received a ball in the right arm, which broke the bone.’ (4)
In 1777, representatives from Tipperary, Galway, Sligo, Mayo and Roscommon drew up a new code duello at the Clonmel summer assizes. These 25 ‘commandments’ would go on to provide a framework under which future duels were fought in Ireland, Britain and the United States. Duelists were expected to keep a copy of these rules in their pistol case.
‘a meeting took place last week, near Birr, in the Kings County, between a Mr. Dillon and a Mr. Moor, both living in the neighbourhood of that town, in consequence of some dispute at a hunting match. On the first discharge, Mr. Dillon received his antagonist’s ball through the groin’ (5)
Echoes of Rebellion
Henry Peisley L’Estrange was born at Moystown House around 1776. His family traced their roots to Norfolk and during the 17th century had amassed thousands of acres between Clonony and Shannonbridge in the west of King’s County. The family was also closely connected with military life and following the resignation of Laurence Parsons as commander of the King’s County Militia in the March 1798, L’Estrange replaced him. During the Wexford Rising, he played a prominent role in the Battle of Bunclody/Newtownbarry, when forces under his command initially retreated in the face of a rebel advance before regrouping, counterattacking and inflicting serious losses on Rebels led by Fr. Mogue Kearns.
Ballycumber House – home of John Warneford Armsrong, about 50 years ago. Picture by Rolf Loeber
John Warneford Armstrong was born at Ballycumber in 1770, 45 years after his unfortunate relative Charles Armstrong met his death while attending a duel between John Eyre and Michael Moore. A commissioned officer in the King’s County Militia, and in May 1798 Warneford Armstrong was approached by two radical lawyers John and Henry Sheares, who attempted to induce him to defect to the United Irishmen cause and bring his militia detachment him. Instead, he reported the matter to his superior Colonel L’Estrange who advised him to play along with the conspirators while reporting the details of his meetings. Eventually the Sheares were arrested, and Armstrong later appeared as prosecution witness at their trial in July. Convicted of high treason, the brothers were hanged, drawn and quartered outside Newgate Prison, with their remains buried in the crypt of St Michan’s church. During the Rebellion Armstrong took command of troops in Kildare and North Wicklow, where he was known for the ferocity of the methods, he used to suppress United Irish activity. (6)
In the summer of 1799, the Kings County Militia prepared for deployment to the Channel Islands. It’s not known what caused the outbreak of bad feeling between two of the regiments officers but in June it was reported that
‘Thursday last a duel was fought on the banks of the canal, near Dublin, between Colonel L’estrange and Captain Armstrong, both of the King’s County Militia; the exchanged a case of pistols, but neither received the least injury’ (7)
Both men lived to fight another day. L’Estrange died at Bath, England in 1824.
Armstrong was regularly villainized in nationalist literature and song…
‘We saw a nations tears,
Shed for John and Henry Sheares,
Betrayed by Judas, Captain Armstrong’
It was a characterisation that Armstrong robustly rejected, arguing that he had acted at all times in accordance with his duty as an officer. Returning to Ballycumber, he was the recipient of a large government pension. Described as an indulgent landlord, but a stern magistrate, on his death in 1854, he was buried at the Armstrong family vault at Liss church.
Thomas Acres Pierce (sometimes written as Peirce) the eldest son of Dr Pierce (d. 1859) who succeeded his father and mother at Acres Hall died in 1879. Colonel Thomas Acres Pierce, (he was an officer in the King’s County Militia and in his early years the regular army) died suddenly in December 1879 of a heart attack. The local newspaper of the time noted that his father and grandfather (doctor and solicitor respectively also died in similar circumstances). Pierce was for a time local inspector of prisons and secretary to the grand jury of the county. While locally prestigious these were not remunerative appointments. He had married Miss F. G. French in 1856 and had issue – six children, the last dying in 1937. Not surprisingly with the smaller shares and number of dependants the Acres Estate got into financial difficulties in the 1880s. At the time of the death of another of the ten children of Dr Pierce, John Pierce, in 1889 his son Donald McFarlane Pierce (b. 1869) succeeded to Acres Hall and at the same time he managed to purchase a moiety of the entire Acres Estate for the sum of £4,703, and this money was raised through four new mortgages on the Tullamore properties. Donald M. Pierce married Mary Frances Murphy in 1896, and the marriage settlement was made in South Africa. He had married a Roman Catholic which in those days may have been difficult for some members of the family. There were at least four children of that marriage, Bernard, Donald, Fr. John (parish priest of Rathmines in the 1970s) and Robert Acres Pierce.[1] Donald Pierce and family returned to Ireland and were living on the terrace opposite the old family home in 1901 and 1911. In the 1911 Donald Pierce was described as a commercial traveller.Two members of the earlier Acres family, from which Thomas Acres is thought to have come, survived in the Roscrea area up to the 1970s
My paternal great-great grandfather was James Corcoran (c. 1801 to c. 1848), a tenant farmer/freeholder who, in the mid-1820s, had dominion over approximately 44 acres (current measurement) in the townland of Crissard in County Laois. At that time Crissard was often referred to as “Cropard,” with numerous variations on the name since. “Crissard” appears to be the official townland name, although local residents today favour “Crossard.”
In 1823 James married Elizabeth Conlon. Elizabeth was almost certainly from either Crissard or perhaps from one of two adjacent townlands; Wolfhill or Kellystown. Below is a cut-and-paste record from the Ballyadams R.C. Parish marriage records identifying their February 5, 1823 marriage. Note “Cropard” as the place name.
James and Elizabeth would go on to have six children between 1824 and 1846; Margaret, Mary, Frances, William, Honora and Patrick. A long gap between the birth of fifth child Honora in 1833 and sixth and final child Patrick in 1846 initially had me wondering if I had the “right” Patrick but all was quickly confirmed upon locating the baptism records for the children, all confirming the parents as James Corcoran and Elizabeth Conlon.
Aside from the Tithe record and baptism records for James and Elizabeth’s first five children, the next credible record(s) that I find of James are at least six newspaper entries in the Leinster Express between 1839 and 1842 where James, along with numerous other County Laois (Queens at that time) residents were seeking the right to vote. I never determined if James secured voting rights.
Following the early 1840s newspaper references, James appears in the record of son Patrick’s March, 1846 baptism. This is the final written reference to James. Then, in 1850, we find Elizabeth Corcoran in the Griffith’s Valuation records living as head-of-household in the townland of Shanbagh (Shanrath today), two miles to the east of Crissard (see below). The 11-shilling valuation of her residence suggests fourth class housing, an indication that she may have been living in mud hut poverty, as were seemingly most of her immediate neighbours.
I have little doubt that this is the correct Elizabeth Corcoran, owing in large part to the landowner listed for Elizabeth’s residence; one Alicia Kavanagh, a resident of nearby Wolfhill. The connection between these two women was likely tied to Alicia owning the land in Wolfhill on which the Roman Catholic Chapel of that time was located, which was almost certainly the church where my Corcoran ancestors would have worshipped.
Remains of the original Wolfhill R.C. Chapel, the ruins ofwhich are found in present day St. Mary’s Church Graveyard
James disappearance from the records after 1846 and Elizabeth’s subsequent appearance as a head-of-household in 1850 strongly hints that James died during this four-year period, which not coincidentally was the time of the Famine.
The Famine, and likely the death of James, triggered emigration of three and quite possibly four of the Corcoran children, including my great-grandfather William Corcoran who departed for New York in 1850, one year after his sister Frances Corcoran left for New York in 1849 and one year prior to sister Margaret (Corcoran) Knowles emigrated to New York in 1851; classic Irish “chain immigration” on display! There is strong circumstantial evidence that sister Honora Corcoran followed suit in 1852, although definitive proof is teasingly lacking.
I was able to trace the lives of William, Frances and Margaret until their deaths in New York. Frances, the first to emigrate, arrived in New York City, married another Irish immigrant named Patrick O’Brien, and remained in Manhattan until passing in 1895. More interestingly, William Corcoran and Margaret (Corcoran) Knowles relocated to Clinton County in the northeastern corner of New York State, both eventually landing in the rural Crissard-like town of Beekmantown, on the same road, just two houses/farms apart. Another Knowles, Patrick Knowles, the older brother of Margaret’s husband Dennis Knowles, lived on and farmed the property between William and Margaret’s; a little cluster of Crissard emigrants living in an environment in which they likely would have taken some comfort. Other Irish immigrant families surrounded the Corcoran/Knowles clan; families with surnames such as Conroy, Kearney, Mullen and Golden.
Margaret’s life in New York was sadly marred by two events. The first was the death of her and Dennis’ two young Irish-born children, Mary and Michael Knowles, both of whom died in New York City during the six months that the family lived there before relocating to Beekmantown. The second tragedy was the passing away of Margaret herself in 1861, at age 37. Brother William did not purchase his land in Beekmantown until 1863, so he was never reunited as a neighbor to his sister, although they did live in the same County for 10+ years, which no doubt allowed for close interaction.
William would marry another Knowles, Catherine Knowles, in 1869 (see St. James Church record below – “Knowles” is misspelled as “Noles”). Catherine was the Beekmantown-born daughter of Patrick Knowles and a niece of Dennis Knowles, further tightening the Corcoran/Knowles bond in Beekmantown. But in another grim twist, Catherine would die in 1871, only 10 days after giving birth to her and William’s second child and daughter, Anna Corcoran.
William quickly remarried in 1872 to Julia Kilroy (later “Gilroy”), Clinton County-born daughter of another Irish immigrant couple from County Cavan; Patrick Kilroy and Alice Keenan.
William and Julia would have one child, my grandfather, John Corcoran, in 1877. Upon William’s death at his Beekmantown home/farm in 1904, John inherited the farm where he would follow in William’s footsteps for over two decades, before losing his 300+ acres of land to the economic scourge of the Great Depression.
John Corcoran (c. 1900)
John would marry Margaret Dowd, with the couple going on to have four children of their own; my father Francis Corcoran, Mary Corcoran, Ruth (Corcoran) Martin and Florence (Corcoran) Tusa. The direct line Corcorans, including my brother, sister and I would remain in Beekmantown until 1975, at which point my father was transferred to Albany, New York for work, resulting in my siblings and I all dispersing after marriage, but all still making our homes in upstate New York.
My brother and I each have a son and daughter, with both of our sons living in upstate New York, ensuring at least one more generation of Crissard-origin Corcorans leaving their footprints, however small, in the same geographic area as our Irish immigrant William Corcoran.
The fourth head lease in O’Moore Street granted by the earls of Charleville, and the last of significance, was that to the Tullamore printer Richard Willis in 1838 for the construction of the seven houses in Victoria Terrace, O’Moore Street. The lease from the second Lord Charleville was for 99 years from 25 March 1838 at £21 per year or £3 ground rent for each house. The first earl died in 1835 and, his son, the profligate second earl, was determined to extract more money from his estate to fund his expensive lifestyle and political ambitions. No more sweetheart deals as was done by the first earl for Thomas Acres in the 1790s who developed part of O’Moore Street and most of Cormac Street. The lease of 100 years instead of three lives renewable for ever was a change of policy on the part of the second earl who was disgruntled at his father having virtually alienated or sold much of Tullamore town for small money, as he believed.
Richard Willis was in the printing business for over fifty years. A few of his publications survive in the RIA (Hardiman pamphlets) and Offaly Archives. He worked from what is now the Insurance offices of Gray Cunniffe Flaherty and had a lane of cabins to the rear that was closed by 1854.
The first overview of the street is available from the 1838 six-inch map and the 1843–54 valuations. By the early 1800s only one windmill survived and that was marked as in ruins on the 1838 five-ft manuscript map. Interestingly the 1838 six-inch map refers to windmills in ruins. Looking closer at both maps it does appear as if the second mill ruin was in the garden of no. 9 Cormac Street (see six-inch map). Moore Hall and ‘The Cottage’ were a hankering after rural life and as good quality houses were isolated from the town centre, but they made possible the attractive Willis-built Victoria Terrace of 1837–8.
Last week we looked at the history of steamers on the Shannon. Today we take the account of Henry D. Inglis published in 1835. Inglis was a professional travel writer and author of Spain in 1830, A Journey through Norway etc, published his A Journey throughout Ireland during the Spring, Summer and Autumn of 1834 in London in 1835. His account is well thought of and in his concluding remarks he says why jest or narrate the curious and witty eccentricities of Irish character when ‘God knows there is little real cause for jocularity, in treating of the condition of a starving people.’ So there was a degree of sympathy rather than of superiority.
Inglis was born in Edinburgh and was the only son of a Scottish lawyer. His Irish travels volume was published the year of his death, (first edition, 1835, fourth edition 1836). While considered a ‘fairly benevolent interpreter’ he could find no explanation for the Irish situation other than defects of character.
Inglis spent a week there and also visited Killaloe, Portumna and Banagher. He went from Banagher to Athlone by road and thought the latter was a remarkably ugly town – but not withstanding an interesting and excellent business town. He spent a week in Athlone and used it as a base for touring in the county of Longford to see Goldsmith’s Country.
The history of passenger steamers on the Shannon, covering a period of 140 years, was traced by Dr McNeill of Southampton University, in a lecture jointly sponsored by the Old Athlone Society and the local branch of the Inland Waterways Association, and held in the Prince of Wales Hotel, Athlone, in January 1966.[1] Dr McNeill soon after published two volumes on the subject of steamer transport. Ruth Delany has also published material in her The Shannon Navigation (Dublin, 2008).[2]
McNeill, in his 1966 Athlone lecture, said that Ireland had a tremendous heritage of water transport. Mentioning that the first experiment in the idea of iron bulkheads in streamers was tried out on the Shannon in 1829, he said that we were apt to forget the work done by Irishmen in the technical field in the last 150 years. Iron steamers were cradled in Ireland in the 1820s.
Mr. McNeill acknowledged his debt to the late Dr Vincent Delany and to the files of the Westmeath Independent for much information on Shannon steamers.
Recalling that in 1829, the first commercial passenger steamer service commenced plying on the lower Shannon, he said it was operated by the City of Dublin Steampacket Company for roughly thirty years. The fleet included the Garryowen, the largest iron steamer in the world at that time and first development of the new idea of iron bulk-heads. Another steamers, Erin Go Brath, made marine history at that time by keeping her engines running for six days without stopping.
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