Then, as now, fashionable weddings get a lot of press attention. Michael F. Gorry was the great grandfather of Francis (Francie) Gorry whose family had the famous newsagency shop in Harbour Street, Tullamore for over 100 years. Michael F. Gorry was the first person to be buried in the new Catholic cemetery in Clonminch in 1893. The report of a wedding on 31 July 1891 was published in the Midland Tribune on 8 August and no doubt created a stir in Tullamore. The style of the report was that of the kind carried in the Birr Protestant and unionist King’s County Chronicle, a then hated rival of the Midland Tribune, and might have been related to Gorry’s being the agent for the Birr Chronicle in Tullamore. One James Joyce also used this style to describe fashionable bourgeois occasions is his Ulysses (published in 1922).
(more…)Category: Tullamore
-
Tullamore marks the 40th anniversary of the rebuilding of the Church of Assumption, Tullamore in August 1986. No. 811 in the Offaly History Blog Series, 15.8.2026. By Michael Byrne
One of the saddest events in Tullamore history was the destruction of the 1906 Church of the Assumption by fire in the early hours of 31 October 1983. By morning all that remained was a burnt-out shell and the spire which survived. It is ironic that in the opening of Heritage Week 2026 Tullamore is also marking the 40th anniversary of the opening of the new and third church on the same site at Harbour and Chapel Street, Tullamore. Another example of the Phoenix at work in Tullamore over the past 250 years.
The new Catholic church, Tullamore completed for 15 August 1986. 
The interior of the 1906-83 church The background to the fire was well documented in several publications and resulted from a break-in and carelessness in not reporting a small fire that had been started by the lighting of a candle near a confessional curtain after the church had been closed and locked at 8.30 p.m. By 2.00 a.m. the building was gutted and gone with it were all the improvements since the late 1960s including the great refurbished organ and the well varnished pitch pine. It was a great tragedy for the parish.
The detail from the west front of the Hague McNamara church of 1906. This picture probably early 1906. 
Chapel St and the church in 1977. Courtesy of Oliver Connolly. The building was deemed too unsafe to permit investigation of the causes of the fire, and as a result important and never-to-be replaced architectural features were taken down. Whether the stone could have been salvaged was contested by at least one architectural historian. The question of building a second church in Tullamore, which had been on the agenda in some shape since the mid-1960s, was now solved by a decision to build a new and larger church on the existing site in keeping, in so far as this was possible, with the old church. Edward N. Smith and Partners, architects, were selected by the then parish priest, Fr Fallon, to design the new church (there was no competition).
Fr Fallon took charge of the operation to built the new church.The historic first mass in the new church was celebrated on Saturday 9 August at 10.00 am. It was a deeply emotional occasion for the parishioners and clergy. Parishioners bade farewell on the previous Sunday to the temporary mass centres of almost three years standing in the case of Vocational School, St Mary’s Hall and the Tullamore Harriers, and seven years in respect of the G.A.A. centre. Fr Fallon’s first words on the Saturday morning ‘My dear people of Tullamore, Welcome Home’ The architect’s brief was to re-build the church in such a way as to ‘retain or regain as much as possible of the character of the old church but in a modern idiom’. This was next to impossible to achieve. He reused much of the old stonework especially on the Chapel Street side and went for a contemporary interior. What was lost of the Gothic exterior and interior was replaced in the self-finished timber ceilings and laminated structural frames of the interior. Full restoration of the exterior was not possible on expense grounds in the 1980s.
Miss Fallon of Robbins Limited and a friend – all great church people of the 1900s to the 1980s
John Dunne (Sacristan) and Mrs Dunne at retirement. He opened the church at 7 30 Mon to Friday and at 6 a.m. on Good Fridays. For many the most attractive feature of the new church was the warm and modern interior with its timber spans. John Flanagan & Sons Limited, the Tullamore-based building firm, was appointed builders and work began in October 1984 and was completed for the opening of the present and third church on the Harbour Street site in August 1986. For almost three years masses were said at the Tullamore GAA Centre, Tullamore Vocational School gym, Scoil Mhuire, Tullamore Harriers Pavilion and St Mary’s Hall. Weddings were generally in Durrow and a few were held in St Catherine’s Church of Ireland church.
William Ralph
Fundraising for the new building had started almost immediately after the fire and a sum of £700,000 was raised through donations, raffles and special events. The chairman of the Finance Committee was William Ralph, who was a corporate director of the Williams Group. The experience of Williams trained directors and managers would benefit not only Tullamore Parish but also Tullamore Credit Union and could be seen in the shrewd management of money. A sum of £2.85m was eventually paid by the state in settlement of the malicious damages claim and part of this amount had, in the meantime, been advanced by the insurer, Church & General. That sum combined with the donations earned for the parish over £600,000 in investment income. Ralph believed in working from cash flow and in trying to maintain capital and use interest to fund projects. It worked because some of the more expensive stonework features were not restored and as result the parish was left with about £1m which was placed in a Trust Fund for the ongoing maintenance of the new church. In the mid-1990s the High Court confirmed that the money could only be used for this specific purpose which accorded with the intention of the donors and could not be called on to fund broader charitable proposals. The Trust Fund has continued to benefit Tullamore parish in that way and is managed by local trustees with the benefit of professional advice.
Donation of an organ by the Lutheran church in Copenhagen
In 1994 a sum of £90,000 was paid from the Trust for the installation of the organ donated by the Lutheran cathedral church in Copenhagen. The organ was built by one of the world’s leading organ building firms, Th. Frobenius of Lyngby (Copenhagen), in 1965 for the great cathedral church of Denmark’s capital city. The organ obviously needed a new case to fit the gallery dimensions of Tullamore’s fine new church. This was designed and built by the Frobenius firm with the work carried out by a team of three Frobenius craftsmen. The net result was that Tullamore now has the largest mechanical action church organ in Ireland, and the sole example in the country of the Frobenius firm’s renowned skill and craftsmanship. The organ was inaugurated in a gala concert on 10 May, 1995. Tullamore’s requirements for an organ at that time and their request to Prof. Gerard Gillen, NUI Maynooth, to assist them in securing an instrument, brought about a remarkable series of coincidences which resulted in the organ’s installation in Tullamore in the latter months of 1994. A Tullamore International Summer Organ Series (TISOS) of concerts was inaugurated in 1999 and has continued since. This series would not be possible without the help of Professor Gillen.
Fr Fallon and his team of curates
While in a sense things worked out well Tullamore lost its Hague-McNamara designed church of 1906 and the strain of the decision-making over three years affected the health of Fr Fallon and he died just three years later, aged 70, in 1989.
During his time in Tullamore Fr Fallon had among his curates some very popular men. He had the benefit of John Charles O’Reilly until his transfer in 1981 and also of Edward Daly who was a curate in Tullamore from 1970 to 1979. Fr Daly was later transferred to Kilcormac as parish priest. Seamus Giles (later PP in Castletown, d. 2013) was a curate in the Tullamore parish from 1965 to 1974 and was popular with young people because of his easy way of connecting with the trends of the late 1960s and 1970s. Another man who had a lot of experience of Tullamore was Joe Gleeson who had been a curate for a short time in 1958 and again from 1966 to 1976. A native of Kilcormac parish he was transferred at about the same time as Fr Fallon was appointed to Tullamore. Fr Colm Savage was in the parish from 1972 to 1983 and worked closely with the Tullamore Vocational School.
Probably best known in the late 1970s and early 1980s was Michael Lynn. He had been in Peru for ten years and had a close affinity with the ordinary person, and the Travellers at the several halting sites. This was helped by his cycling about the town in a leisurely way, something that gave him more immediate contact with parishioners than is possible in a motor car. He was curate in the parish of Tullamore from 1975 to 1986. His commitment to the social dimension of the Church mission found another outlet as a member of the Education Committee of the Tullamore Credit Union. In this he was unusual as unlike in other places in Ireland this important local organisation had no other clerical activist since the days of Fr Fintan Cassidy as a founding director (1963-64). Fr Lynn celebrated twenty-five years as a priest in 1985 and told those present that in the large class from which he was ordained in June 1960 62 were still in the priesthood. ‘The man on the bike’ the Tullamore Tribune called him when he departed Tullamore to serve as PP in Duleek in 1988.
Fr Sean McGearty spent ten years in Tullamore from 1979 to 1989. He was on loan from Adelaide, Australia and during his time in Tullamore made a singular contribution to the development of family history in Ireland through his appreciation of the importance of the Catholic parish registers and the need to index and conserve them. He was the inspiration for the setting up of the Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society family history project which in the 1980s was the host for the country-wide development of the Irish Family History Society and the Irish Family History Foundation. He made a valuable photographic record of the course of building of the new church over the period 1984 to 1986. His colleague, Fr Tom Mullen, came to Tullamore in the same year as Fr McGearty and from late 1983 to 1985 led the fundraising drive for the new church. He was appointed as parish priest of Kilcormac in 1985. Fr Philip O’Connor served in the parish from 1984 to 1988 as did Fr David Hanratty from 1984 to 1985. In the year before Fr Fallon’s death, Fr Dermot Farrell, was appointed to the parish and remained for two years. His forte was in administration and he went on to serve as vice-president and president of Maynooth College and later as parish priest of Trim. He is now Archbishop of Dublin.
John Flanagan, the builder, looking at work on the old Ballyduff Catholic church of 1775.
-
T. L. Cooke of Birr and the Great Industrial Exhibition in Dublin of 1853. By John Dolan. Blog no. 809, in the Offaly History Series,7.8.2026
The 1850s was the decade of the Great Exhibitions. The London Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851 was followed by Dublin and New York in 1853 and Paris in 1855. In Ireland there were regional/city exhibitions including in Cork (1852). It must be remembered that Ireland was still struggling to emerge from the disaster of the Great Famine.
The Great Industrial Exhibition of 1853 was the most ambitious exhibition ever held in Ireland up to that time. Staged in Dublin from 12 May to 31 October 1853, it was inspired by the famous Great Exhibition in London and was intended to showcase industry, technology, art, and manufacturing while encouraging economic development in Ireland. One of the developments of partcular interest was to copy the emergnce of Monster Houses (department stores) that began to appear in cities throughout Western Europe and the USA from the 1840s.
The exhibition aimed to move Ireland away from solely agricultural production towards industrialisation, promoting a shift toward Victorian consumer culture.
[Congratulations to Birr Historical Society on the reprint of Cooke’s first book on Birr published in 1826 and launched on 5 August 2026. Ed.]
(more…)
-
Urban Regeneration in Tullamore. By Fergal MacCabe. Blog no. 808 in the Offaly History Series. 31.7.2026
PROJECT 2040
Many may find it hard to believe, but Ireland has a pretty good planning structure and system.
Some years ago we embarked on an exercise of estimating where as a nation- indeed as an island – we should be going. How many people would we need to cater for, where would they live, how would they get around and what about climate change?
The outcome was Project 2040 which set out a broad overall framework and most importantly had a dedicated budget to deliver it. Its national vision is now filtering down through regional planning, to county planning, then to more detailed statutory plans for the cities and finally for the more important towns.
As a ‘Key Town’, Tullamore has a particular role to play and, in anticipation of an additional population projection of 1 million persons in the State by 2040, is presently making its own contribution by upping its housing projections to provide for an additional c. 2,000 houses and identifying an ambitious new employment and enterprise zone with direct access to the national road network.
(more…)
-
Tullamore Town Park and its historic associations: a walk in the park on Saturday 18 July 2026, 10 30 a.m. to 12 noon. Blog no. 806 in the Offaly History Series, 16.7.2026. By Michael Byrne
The second guided town walk on 18 July 2026 is alongside Tullamore River to the town park and Cormac Street. We start from Bridge House Hotel on Distillery Lane at 10 30 a.m. on Saturday 18 July and make our way through a part of the old Water Lane (now Main Street) taking the path along the river to Lloyd Town Park while reflecting on its historical features and change in the landscape of the area and the town of Tullamore since the 1700s. All are welcome and the tour is free. Michael Byrne is your guide for the morning. Richard Jack will talk about the town park and its trees.
In the park close to what is now the filling station can be seen the remains of a corn mill of c. 1800 and where Daniel E. Williams of Tullamore DEW fame started work as a young man in the mid-1860s. He lived nearby in the miller’s house (now demolished) until Dew Park was completed in 1900. Beside the corn mill was a flour mill demolished in the early 1990s to facilitate the Bridge Centre and new apartments. It was known as Cooke’s Mill and was said to be haunted by ‘old Ned Cooke’.
(more…)
-
Buildings and housing of the Tullamore Workhouse, 1839-1852. By J.J. Reilly. Blog no. 804 3 July 2026 in the Offaly History Blog Series
The first meeting of the Tullamore Board of Guardians took place on Tuesday, the 26 November 1839, with 21 guardians present.[i] There were 24 elected members from 15 electoral divisions. The Union comprised an area of 246 square miles, covering 13 electoral divisions in King’s County and two in County Westmeath, with a total population of 53,905.[ii] It was headed by a chairman, John Hussey Walsh, with Charles Bagot as vice-chairman and John O’Brien deputy vice-chairman.
Figure 1 Tullamore Union Workhouse (Ordnance Survey, 1889)
The workhouse was situated on a 6.5 acre plot of land north of the Grand Canal on Emmet Road, or better known as Ardan Road. George Wilkinson, an Englishman, was the architect who followed similar designs to other poor houses built according to his designs in the years following the passage of the Irish poor laws Act. The Workhouse opened to inmates on the 9 June 1842. The workhouse cost £5,950 to build and a further £1,265 for fittings and furnish, bringing a total cost of 7,215.[iii]
(more…)
-
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.
(more…)
-
Reminiscences of Fergal MacCabe: ‘I can never forget….’ waving goodbye to ‘the quare fellow’, the war bombs and celebrating a wedding in two Irish whiskey families, Tullamore Dew and Powers. Blog no 800, Offaly History Series, 5 June 2026.
An Emotional Farewell
My very first memory is of waving goodbye to a man who was on his way to the scaffold.
I was just three and was frightened by the noise and smoke of the steam train and the hubbub created by a large crowd but was totally unaware of the reason for it all.
The Tullamore courthouse Barney Kirwan
I was with my mother and her friend Tessie Leonard who had brought me along with them –together with half Tullamore – to wave goodbye to Rahan man Barney Kirwan who was being brought to trial in Dublin accused of having chopped up his brother, following a dispute over property and then burying the pieces in a nearby bog. Barney was now being transferred from Tullamore railway station to Mountjoy Gaol to await a high-profile trial whose guilty verdict he would challenge.
On the bikes in Kirwan’s time at Patrick St, Tullamore. Following an unsuccessful appeal to the High Court he was hanged on 2 June 1943. Brendan Behan who was in Mountjoy on Republican charges at the same time would make the event famous with his play ‘The Quare Fellow’ in which Kirwan is the unseen but central character.
The last hanging in Ireland was in 1954 and the brutal practice was terminated in 1990.
A Threat to Tullamore
I was born three days after the outbreak of the Second World War and was therefore quite oblivious of its progress and significance. This was to dramatically change on the 23rd January 1944 when a massive American B‑17 Flying Fortress which had taken off from Goose Bay, Newfoundland, bound for RAF Prestwick in Scotland, developed engine trouble over Northern Ireland
Its crew of ten parachuted to safety over Enniskillen. Before leaving the aircraft, they had set the now unmanned bomber on a course back toward the coast, hoping it would continue flying until it ran out of fuel and would crash harmlessly into the sea.
However, the prevailing winds shifted the aircraft off its intended path, carrying it further inland rather than out toward the coast. The unmanned bomber (luckily without a lethal load) remained aloft, flying on without its crew, but began gradually to lose height as it flew over the Irish Midlands. Its flight path brought it over Edgworthstown, west of Mullingar, over Kilbeggan and heading straight for Tullamore.
Fergal MacCabe (right) at one of his art exhibitions in 1972 and attentive to the comments of the sixth earl of Rosse. This created an emergency which was transmitted by alarm calls over Radio Eireann. The prospect of its crashing near, or even on, Tullamore caused great excitement. I remember standing in our yard and seeing it drifting slowly and silently over the town at a low level. It disappeared over Ballard bog. We waved it on its journey and hoped Portlaoise would not be its final destination. Eventually it crashed harmlessly in fields half a mile from the village of Johnstown in Co. Kilkenny.
In 1947 I asked my brother Tommy how the war was getting on. So far as I knew there had always been a war. I was quite surprised when he told me it had concluded two years previously.
A Big White Wedding – Williams and O’Reilly
The old Tullamore RC church of 1906-83 Tullamore Dew and Powers
But the event which made the greatest impact on me was the wedding in 1950 of our next door neighbour Teresa Williams to Frank O’Reilly (1922–2013) of Powers Distillery.
The excitement, glamour, fashion, music, food and general gaiety which it generated stimulated my young imagination and had a beneficial effect on the town of Tullamore which in those dreary days desperately needed a diverting public spectacle.
Though wealthy, the Williams family lived very modestly, their only public luxury being a beautiful dark blue Chrysler limousine.
The engagement of their eldest daughter to the handsome Frank O’Reilly who had returned from service in the British army during the Second World War to take over his family business of Powers Distillery, was not just a love match (they went on to produce ten children) but the linking of two great Irish distilling families. No expense would be spared therefore to mark the great occasion and a three-day gala was planned. For Tullamore it would be a huge event and everyone was excited by the glamour of it all.
The Williams O’Reilly wedding with a young Jeremy Williams on the left (see an earlier blog). I lived with my mother and brother in my grandparents house ‘Innisfree’ (now Loughmore Lodge) which was semi-detached with the Williams residence ‘Auburn’ owned by Captain Jack. The property had been much extended and additional land acquired to provide a magnificent south facing lawn and tennis court.
Scene of the wedding breakfast. Auburn then the home of John and Mrs Williams (nee Moorhead). In the run up to the great day tents began to be erected in the grounds to accommodate three days of festivities. On the first evening there was a spectacular fireworks display-the first I had ever seen.
The following day all of Tullamore went to the Church of the Assumption and crowded outside to greet the bride and her six bridesmaids and to witness the first white wedding in Tullamore since 1939.
The imposing west door of the church (now sadly blocked up) made a magnificent backdrop for the emerging bride and groom and I remember confetti being thrown and the bridal bouquet tossed in the air to be grabbed by a scrum of enthusiastic young women.
The bridal party then proceeded to Clonminch where a reception and dinner were provided by caterers brought from Dublin for the occasion. All us neighbouring children gathered on the flat roof of our shed which overlooked the kitchen where the feast was prepared and from time to time we were fed titbits. I savoured the unfamiliar tastes of lobster, pate and rhum baba.
The dancing under the fairy lights continued all night and in my bedroom I could hear it until I went to sleep. It was magical.
On the third day a party was thrown for the staff and employees of the two distilleries whose owners were now united in marriage and the gaiety continued well into that night too.
Then the tents were folded, the caterers cleaned up and departed and Tullamore got back to normal. But the wedding had brought a welcome interlude of glamour at the beginning of a decade that would be marked by further economic decay and emigration.
The Tullamore Dew whiskey of the late 1950s – ten years old and a child for every year in the Williams O’Reilly household. The brand was sold in 1965 and yes the sum was £10,000.
For an excellent Life of Frank O’Reilly see the online Dictionary of Irish Biography, written by Tullamore man Terry Clavin [Ed].Thanks to Fergal MacC for these memories and more to come we hope.
Pics and captions by Offaly History
-
Henry Robinson in conversation with Sandra Robinson about his life at Belmont and working with the Grand Canal Company from the 1930s. Part 2 (concluded). No. 794 in the Offaly History Blog Series, 1 May 2026.
Down in the Jetty. In your early childhood? Yeah. What form of lighting was used down there?
Hurricane lamps. All the time. All the time
There was always a few hurricane lamps here and you’d light up and walk down with this hurricane lamp hanging out of you and, you know,
And that was in the office and in the store.
Oh, yeah. No other light only paraffin oil, hurricane lamps. During the time that the boats were traveling night and day, they always had a red light up in the stern of the boat.
That’s up on the front of the boat?
Yes. Just as one board could see another.
And what? These lamps. What fueled the lamps?
Just an ordinary pony and trap lamp, you see, with a candle in it. And that’s all just red surround. Well, that was before the all night traffic stopped. There was a big strike, and there were several boats tied up here.
(more…)
