Cormac Street is somewhat unique in the story of Tullamore Street development with its forty houses, two major institutional buildings, a folly and a town park. Rarely is a street preserved without blemish with so many elements over a two-hundred-year period. Cormac Street was also the home of the town’s major property developer and rentier Thomas Acres (d. 1836) who built his Acres Hall in 1786 (now the home of Tullamore Municipal Council). To the earl of Charleville and Thomas Acres is due most of the credit for the transformation of a green field site with Kilcruttin Hill and cemetery to the western side and the Windmill Hill to the east with the terraces in Cormac Street and O’Moore Street. Acres could thank the war with France, 1793–1815, for the boost to the local economy that provided him with tenants for the terrace of houses on the east side. The expansion of Tullamore after 1798 due to the Grand Canal connection with Dublin and the Shannon provided the impetus to secure a new county jail (1826–30), county town status in 1832 and to take effect in 1835 with the completion of the county courthouse. War, politics and pride of place all contributed to the mix. The Bury contribution was rounded off when Alfred (later the fifth earl) got a new railway station at Kilcruttin in place of that at Clonminch in about 1865. Alfred died in 1875 soon after he succeeded his nephew to the earldom.
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 two big garages in O’Moore Street, Tullamore of Roberts Motor Works and Hurst were famous from the 1920s and 1930s. The Hurst boiler, in particular, will be remembered by patrons of Georgie Egan’s in Harbour Street where, as a pot-bellied iron stove, it heated that old pub, now gone. Hurst was the first to open in 1925 and was building on a tradition of engineering in the Killeigh/Geashill area that may owe its origins to the service of large farm machines for the fine farms in the parish of Geashill and Killeigh, by men such as George Matthews in the 1900s. Matthews came to farms with his threshing equipment much as farm machinery services are provided today. The Roberts family was probably that connected with serious prize-winning gardening at Charleville back in the 1880s. The Motor Works garage was opened in the mid-1930s in the former Presbyterian manse after the departure of Revd Mr Humphreys.
Why mention the garages now with both long closed. We do so to illustrate how lack of planning in the 1750s still impacts on street development in O’Moore Street 275 years later. That said the first earl of Charleville (d. 1764) was concentrating on the main road from Charleville Gate to High Street and Pound Street (now Columcille St). The old church was in Church Street and the Crofton House at the junction with the Killeigh Road (now O’Moore Street) was the first in view from the demesne entrance on the avenue left of the main gate. The earl’s grand nephew successor, when he came of age in 1786, started working on making the demesne more picturesque and employed Leggatt (see IGS jn. no 26 (2023) in the late 1780s and J.C. Loudon in 1811 as the castle was nearing completion. Loudon is said to have laid out Bachelors Walk as an attractive drive to the new church at Hop Hill, then in progress and completed in 1815.
Moore Hall is an imposing two-story house over basement with two-story porch projection in cut stone, and coach arch and stables (now demolished). The façade is of three bays. The house is one of the finest in Tullamore, a fact that may escape notice because of its closeness to the street. In the front railing ironwork is the last gas lamp stand in Tullamore. This is the only surviving vestige of the era of gas lighting from 1860 to 1921.
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.
Once on the edge of the town O’Moore Street, Tullamore was, in the 1800s, known as Windmill Street because of the two windmills erected by the 1720s on the hill south of O’Moore Street The hill (probably the Tulach Mhór giving Tullamore its name) is now obscured by the houses from the courthouse to Spollanstown Road erected after the 1790s. Today O’Moore Street still exhibits some of the mixed residential development that was commonplace before the 1900s and the building of class demarcated suburban housing. Yet O’Moore Street was itself comparatively rural in the early 1800s, but now serves as an artery for traffic to Cloncollog, Clonminch, Killeigh (Mountmellick) and Geashill – with their extensive housing and shopping facilities. In the once undeveloped field opening to Clonminch and Spollanstown the substantial Tullamore Court Hotel was built in 1997. The street has more than a 300-year history it its physical development. The lack of decisions on good planning neglected to be taken in the 1750s continue to impact almost 300 years later and contribute the configuration the street has today.
The governance of the Tullamore Poor Law Union began in 1839 with the formation of the Tullamore Board of Guardians (the Board) under the Poor Law Commissioners (P.L.C.) sitting in Dublin. The unions were governed by the 1838 Poor Law Act.[i]
The guiding principles of the Irish Poor Law was the same as that of the 1834 English Poor Law; that the workhouse inmates should be worse fed than those in the district outside the workhouse.[ii] Two days after the first admissions to the Tullamore Workhouse, on June 11th , 1842 the first dietary scale for the workhouse was adopted by the Board and approved three days later.[iii]
The fever hospital of 1846, later the county hospital, 1921-42(more…)
This is the story of eight new houses built by Tullamore Urban District Council in 1923 in what is now John Dillon Street. Turning into the street from Charleville Road, the first eight houses on the right were built as part of the Provisional Government’s £1 million scheme launch in 1922 in the midst of the Civil War. Opposite them are houses built by the Irish Soldiers and Sailors Land Trust for veterans of World War I. The eight houses may only have made a small dent in Tullamore’s chronically bad housing conditions in the early 20th century, but the circumstances surrounding when and how they were built provide some valuable insights into the history of the town and the country in these turbulent years.
The line of the Grand canal to Philipstown and Tullamore is the only navigation through this county, and is material advantage to the district, through which it passes. Levels have been taken, and the line laid out for a further extension of this canal to the Shannon, with off branches to Birr and other towns, which is not yet put into execution.
The terminus of the line from Dublin to the Shannon was Tullamore for the years 1798 to 1804 when the link with the Shannon was at last completed. In the 1790s a line to Kilcormac and Birr was considered but on the grounds of expense that along the Brosna was selected.
[175] Ballicowan village is the estate of the [176] Earl of Mountrath, and here are the ruins of a castle, which gives name to the barony. Turf fuel is in plenty, and had on the cheapest terms. . .
Ballycowan castle c. 1958, it took its present configuration in 1626 and was destroyed by the Cromwellians in the early 1650s with the Cootes succeeding to the estate forfeited by the Herberts.
Tullamore is the market for grain, and indeed the produce of many adjoining baronies is sent thither, there being the fairest sale and a good demand amongst the buyers, occasioned principally on account of the many stores, which were established by the Grand Canal extending here, and which divides this barony for some distance. This proves the value of inland navigation and gives the farmer in these distant parts the advantage (as we may say), of bringing Dublin market home to his door.
Prior to 1783, the history of the Catholic Church in America was one of struggle and suffering. The country was under British rule until the victorious War of Independence that year. In her struggle for independence, France was America’s greatest ally. King Louis XVI sent out a large fleet, under the command of Comte De Ternay on April 16, 1780. It anchored off Rhode Island on July 11, 1780. It was to wait for a second fleet under Comte De Grasse, which departed on March 22, 1781. The second fleet reached Chesapeake Bay on August 26th of the same year.
At this time, the Irish Capuchins had two convents in France, Bar-sur-Aube and Vassy, where the friars were trained with the intention of returning to Ireland. Ireland at the time was under the penal laws. The Capuchins had removed their novitiate to France. The French King put out the call for Chaplains for the forces destined for America. Twenty Capuchins answered the call including, Father Charles Whelan, from the Vassy convent. Father Whelan was born in Ballycommon near Daingean, County Offaly, in the year 1741.
