Category: Tullamore

• Renovating a period house in an Irish country town – No 6 High Street, Tullamore, by Tanya Ross. Blog No 55, 11 Nov 2017

  Tanya Ross tells the story of herself and her partner buying the former Kilroy dwelling house in High Street, Tullamore. It had been on the market for a considerable time and it did seem as if nobody wanted to live there. Probably a combination of lack of mortgages, fear of noise and nuisance from pubs and lorries contributed to the delay in selling what was and now is again a fine period house and one of the last houses in High Street to be occupied as a residence and not used for offices or a shop. Its restoration may be the catalyst for other such work in High Street and O’Connor Square and with best wishes to the owner of the house in Cormac Street recently and tastefully restored. The former Offaly Inn at Deane Place also looks attractive and adds to that part of Harbour Street and Market Square. Another blog will explore these additions and improvements to the town’s heritage.

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  November 11, 2017

  Dr Moorhead, Kilroy’s, No 6 High St, Tullamore Arts Centre, William Garner

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• The Clonbrock Murder – Part 2 of the story of Mary Daly, by Margaret Mulligan. Blog No 54, 04 Nov 2017

  In the second and final instalment of the story of Mary Daly, the last woman to be hanged at Tullamore in 1903, read about her trial and execution which was a sensation at the time. She was buried three times and said to haunt the gaol building, later the Salt’s factory, for many years afterwards. A full version of this article with extensive bibliography and sources (‘The Clonbrock Murder’) can be found in our journal,  Offaly Heritage, Vol 2. (Esker Press, 2009). (more…)

  November 4, 2017

  Clonbrock Murder, Joseph Taylor, Mary Daly, Salts, Tullamore Gaol

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• Mary Daly, the last woman to be hanged in Tullamore, Part 1, by Margaret Mulligan. Blog No 53, 28 October 2017

  For years workers at the Salts factory in Tullamore, formerly Tullamore Gaol, spoke of the ghost of Mary Daly haunting the building. Margaret Mulligan, head researcher at Offaly History, recounts the tale of the last woman to be executed at Tullamore for the murder of her husband, John Daly.

  Mrs. Mary Daly was the last woman executed at Tullamore on 10th January 1903, for complicity in the murder of her husband John Daly of Clonbrock, Doonone, Co. Laois. She was the second last woman to be hanged in Ireland. Until the early nineteenth century those convicted of most felonies were liable to be executed, and serious crimes such as robbery, rape and murder, received the death penalty.  Mary Daly suffered the extreme penalty of the law, as it was alleged she was involved in a conspiracy in which she was the principal participator.  She is still prominent in the folk memories of Tullamore town. Joseph Taylor was also executed for the murder of John Daly on 7th January 1903. (more…)

  October 28, 2017

  Clonbrock Murder, Execution, John Daly, Joseph Taylor, Laois, Mary Daly, Salts

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• Railway Competition in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s and the unfortunate experience of Peter Lumley of Tullamore, by Peter Burke. Blog No 52, 21 October 2017

  The railway connection from Dublin was completed to Tullamore in 1854 and from Tullamore to Athlone in 1859. Here Peter Burke, a ‘railway buff’ tells of some of the shenanigans that went on to stifle competition. For what happened to Peter Lumley of that well-known Tullamore business family read on. (more…)

  October 21, 2017

  Ballinasloe Fair, Great Southern and Western Railway, Midland Great Western Railway, Peter Lumley, Portarlington and Tullamore Railway

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• Tullamore from the Famine to 1916: the recollections of Thomas Prittie (1833-1916), by Michael Byrne. Blog No 50, 07 Oct 2017

  Thomas Prittie’s recollections of Tullamore from the Famine to the Easter Rising serve to confirm how much the town had improved both physically and in civility in that narrator’s own time. Thomas Prittie died on 29 April 1916 just at the close of Easter Week and was described by the Tullamore and King’s County Independent as ‘one of the oldest inhabitants of the town’ who helped in ‘our historical sketch of Tullamore published some months ago’. He was aged 83 according to his death certificate, but the reporter put him at ninety.[1] He lived, unmarried, in Henry/O’Carroll Street, Tullamore and, said the local press, left considerable house property. (more…)

  October 7, 2017

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• Michael Molloy, the Tullamore Distiller, 1777-1846 ‘The first Mr Tullamore Dew’. Blog No 44, 27 August 2017

  Is Conor McGregor related to the Molloys? He probably is. He did his country proud last night as did Michael Molloy 150 years ago. Michael Molloy was the founder of the Tullamore distillery established in 1829. The date is to be seen over the gate beside the Tullamore Credit Union in Patrick Street. Molloy’s distillery is better known today as Daly’s distillery, Williams’s distillery or indeed, the Tullamore Dew Distillery. The first Bernard Daly was the owner of the distillery from the 1850s and was a nephew of Michael Molloy. Daniel E. Williams was the general manager of the distillery from the 1870s and, effectively, the owner of the distillery from the early 1900s. When Alfred Barnard visited the distillery in 1886 he noted that it had been founded in 1829 by an uncle to Bernard Daly and that Williams was the general manager. Much has been written about Daly and Williams, but who was Michael Molloy and where does he fit into the story of the Tullamore distillery? (more…)

  August 27, 2017

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• Kilcruttin Cemetery, Tullamore, no 1 in a cemetery series Michael Byrne. Blog No 43, 19 August 2017.

   Kilcruttin cemetery is located off Cormac Street and close to the boundaries of what is now Scoil Mhuire. Indeed, the original access lane and entrance to this cemetery is still to be seen. It’s the oldest cemetery in Tullamore town and dates back to the 1700s. At one time it was on the outskirts of the town and in soft poor ground close to the Tullamore river. It was not the cemetery of choice for the upper ten in Tullamore, but nonetheless has some very good monuments including that to the Methodist merchant Burgess and the German baron Oldershausen of the King’s German Legion, the heroes of Waterloo.

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  August 19, 2017

  Death, disease, Graveyards

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• Remembering John Walsh of Tullamore, executed behind enemy lines at Guise in Northern France on 25 February 1915: a man of Iron. Blog No 42, 12 August 2017.

   

  Presented by Offaly History

  The men were taken from their cells and subjected to a savage beating. Half-conscious they were led into a courtyard at the giant fort of Guise in northern France. All hope was extinguished once they saw that a ditch had been dug. The men were executed by a German firing squad in batches of six and dumped in a shallow grave. A German officer provided the coup de grâce to the French civilian Vincent Chalandre. When his body was exhumed after the war, he was found to have a bullet in the back of his head.  (more…)

  August 12, 2017

  Death, Graveyards

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• Eamon de Valera made his first visit to Tullamore on 29 July 1917. Blog No 40, 29 July 2017.

  ‘England will give nothing to Ireland out of justice or righteousness. They will concede you your liberties when they must.’ T.M. Russell quoting C.S. Parnell

  by Cosney Molloy

  Intimations of the change of mood in Ireland were, of course, obvious from May 1916 and none more so than a year later when de Valera visited Tullamore on 29 July 1917, shortly after his win in the famous Clare by-election.   (more…)

  July 29, 2017

  1917 Clare by-election, Eamon de Valera, O’Connor Park, Seamus O’Brennan, T. M. Russell

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• The Tribune generations: from broadsheet to compact edition. Blog No 37, 08 July 2017.

  The Midland Tribune and Tullamore Tribune went to a new compact edition in June 2017 after a broadsheet format in the case of the Midland since 1881 and that of Tullamore since 1978. A few whimsical reflections are ‘posted’ here on happenings since 1881, derived from many hours spent looking at the old files of both newspapers. (more…)

  July 8, 2017

  D. E. Williams, Durrow High Cross, Michael Scott, Midland Tribune, Tullamore DEW, Tullamore Regional Hospital, Tullamore Tribune

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