The Groome Family of Knockdrin and Garr in the Heart of Uíbh Fhailí
Introduction
Nestled on the frontier of the ancient kingdom of Uíbh Fhailí, beneath the shadow of Croghan Hill, lies the historic townland of Knockdrin—a place long known as the “Hill of Conflict.” For centuries, this landscape formed part of the heartland of Gaelic Offaly, where kings ruled, battles were fought, and generations of ordinary families worked the land and built their lives.
Like many Irish families, the history of the Groomes was preserved through seanchas, the ancient Irish tradition of storytelling. Long before history was written in books, it was carried in memory. Stories of ancestors, local events, victories, hardships and family life were passed from one generation to the next around the warmth of the turf fire by the seanchaí (traditional storyteller), ensuring that the history of a family and its community would never be forgotten.
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.
The Goodbody family is widely associated with the prosperous Quaker industrial dynasty that emerged in Clara and Tullamore during the nineteenth century. However, this article focuses on a lesser-known and far less successful branch of the family: the descendants of Thomas Goodbody (1783–1848), brother of the prominent miller Robert Goodbody (1781–1860). While Robert’s line flourished, Thomas’s life and that of his children was marked by repeated financial failure, instability, and eventual decline, culminating in the disappearance of the Goodbody name from Birr by the early twentieth century.
The new edition of Prison Poems or Lays of Tullamore by T.D. Sullivan, now edited by Terry Moylan and Padráig Turley, will be launched on Saturday 28 March at 11 a.m. at Cormac Street entrance to the old prison. Coffee will be available from 10 a.m. at Tullamore market Spollanstown to the rear of the old prison, now Kilcruttin Centre.. Parking is available at the farmers’ market, Spollanstown and at the Cormac Street frontage to the old jail (best approached from Cormac St to take a left turn into the jail/Kilcruttin Centre). Pedestrian access only will be available from the market to the front of the jail from 10 to 12 noon The book can be ordered online from Offaly History or purchased on the day or later at Offaly History Centre and Midland Books.
28 March Saturday at 11.00 a.m. at the former Tullamore Prison/Kilcruttin Business Park, Cormac Street, Tullamore,
The plan is to meet in the farmers’ market, Spollanstown for coffee from 10 a.m. and process at 10 45 to the front hall of the jail for the launch. Tony Flanagan has kindly sponsored the coffee in the market and OH will distribute a voucher ticket to those attending the book launch.
The book will be launched by Michael Hanna who gave the lecture in December 2025.
The launch should take about thirty minutes.
The speakers are:
Chair of Offaly History Shaun Wrafter welcomes the speakers
Padraig Turley, a co-editor, on the author T.D. Sullivan
Terry Moylan, co-editor, on the Poems
Delcan Harvey Cathaoirleach of Tullamore Municipal
Michael Hanna to launch – on the jail, medical men and the new book. Michael Hanna is the author of Irish General Practice: the long story. He spoke on medical doctors at Tullamore prison in the 1880s in the course of his lecture to Offaly History in December 2025.
Michael Byrne, General Secretary Offaly History, to close and thanks to all.
[Before moving to the article Offaly History wish to congratulate the authors/editors on the issue of the new annotated edition of Prison Poems; or Lays of Tullamore from Terry Moylan and Pádraig Turley and published by Offaly History with the support of the Decade of Commemorations funding. The book is now on sale and is available from Offaly History Bury Quay and online at www.offalyhistory.com. Ed.]
Timothy Daniel Sullivan MP and Lord Mayor of Dublin published Prison Poems; or Lays of Tullamore in 1888, printed by The Nation at 90 Middle Abbey Street, Dublin. What are these about? What made Sullivan write them?
Paddy Claffey was born in Noggusboy, Ferbane, on April 17th, 1921, three months before the end of Ireland’s War of Independence. His parents were Sarah (Flaherty) of Gallen and Kieran Claffey, Noggus. The youngest of their ten children, Paddy had six sisters – Maryann, Maggie, Kit, Ellen, Jane, and Sarah – and three brothers – Ned, Kieran, who died aged 27, and Johnny, at birth.
The siblings attended Gallen NS, where Paddy’s teacher was Master Goodwin. In Brendan Ryan’s book, On Gallen Green, a 1927 school photograph on page 122 shows P.J. Claffey in the front row.
For his 90th birthday party in the Bridge House Hotel, I had the pleasure of interviewing my granduncle and writing his story. Paddy was a natural storyteller. Recalling his first time away from home for a long spell, he was thirteen and had taken an awful pain. Doctor Maher advised hiring a car to drive him to Tullamore. The hospital was the very same as a big hayshed, Paddy said, with auld lads smoking; they couldn’t see one another with the smoke. His sister, Ellen, cycled in to see him every day, and the woman who owned Lawless’s shop sent her two daughters with books and sweets. He was glad to go home, but couldn’t get used to the small house in Noggus for the longest time.
Tullamore is situated in the civil parish of Kildbride with 28 townlands and so too is the town of Clara with 19 townlands. Both parishes have a connection with the churches dedicated to Saint Brigid. Now Ireland mark the saint’s day on 1st of February with a public holiday, the beginning of spring and the celebration of Lá Fhéile Bríde, St Brigid’s Day.
These are the only townlands in Offaly dedicated by name to a church associated with Saint Brigid.
Kilbride (Cill Bhríde) , Kilbride Civil Parish, Barony of Ballycowan, Co. Offaly 193 A, 3 R, 20 P
Kilbride (Cill Bhríde) , Kilbride Civil Parish, Barony of Kilcoursey, Co. Offaly 146 A, 2 R, 30 P
The proximity of the two parishes often leads to confusion especially when tracing soldiers of the First World War who gave their place of birth as the civil parish of Kilbride without distinguishing wherether it was Clara or Tullamore.
To the east of both towns is Croghan Hill associated by some scholars with the birthplace of St Brigid. John O’Donovan was well aware of the association of the hill with the legend and cult of St Brigid and wrote of it in the Ordnance Survey letters. The Ordnance Survey Letters for County Offaly form part of a countrywide series, are commonly known as O’Donovan’s Ordnance Survey Letters.
The Ordnance Survey Letters for Offaly of 1837-1838 represent the first attempt on a systematic basis to collect material on Offaly’s historical and archaeological remains. The pioneering effort of the Ordnance Survey and of its topographical department, in particular, was not emulated until the publication some 150 years later of the Archaeological Inventory of County Offaly by Caimin O’Brien and P. David Sweetman. O’Donovan’s Ordnance Survey Letters are in manuscript form in the Royal Irish Academy and were published in a typescript by Fr. Michael Flanagan in 1933. The late Professor Michael Herity edited the volume of letters for Offaly and this book is available from the Society and can be ordered online at our shop at www.offalyhistory, or consulted at Offaly History Centre.
Civil parish of Kilbride, Tullamore from Townlands.ieCivil parish of Kilbride, Clara from Townlands.ie
The Offaly material consists of fifty-one letters of John O’Donovan and of Thomas O’Conor. O’Conor, a native of Carrickmacross, was assistant to O’Donovan. Both men had spent September, October and November of 1837 in County Westmeath and in late December of 1837 their attentions turned to Offaly, then and until 1920 called King’s County. The letters concern local antiquities, placenames, early Irish history and the genealogy of the native families
It should be noted that in the Westmeath letters volume are one of John O’Donovan’s from Tullamore and another from Edenderry. That from Tullamore is dated 1st January 1838 and could properly be in the King’s County volume. A list of the fifty-one letters concerning King’s County written over the period from 18 December 1837 to 11 February 1838 with the inclusion of two letters about Durrow, that of October 1837 and the second written on 1 January 1838.
O’Donovan wrote of the legends associated with St Brigid as follows:
St. Briget was consecrated a Bishop.
(Father Bollandus complains of the silliness of the writers of the lives of the Celtic Saints; and the Benedictines complain of the folly even of St. Jerome and Augustin!.)
“Bridget was desirous that a degree of Penance (gradh Aithrighe) should be conferred upon her. Hearing that Bishop Mel was at Bri Éle (Croghan old Church) she repaired thither, accompanied by seven nuns. But on their arrival the Bishop was not there, but had gone into the Country of the Hy Niall “terra nepotum Neill” (Meath). On the morrow she passed in search of him in company with Mac Caille (the Bishop of Brig-Ele) who guided her over the bog of Monaidh Fathing, which she converted into a flowery plain. When they had come close to the Town (baile) where Bishop Mel was, Briget told Mac Caille (Macaleus) to put (place) a veil on her head, that she did not wish to appear unveiled before the clergy. Upon her arrival a pillar (column, a glory?) of fire sprung rose, shot out) from her head, reaching even to the roof of the church. When Bishop Mel had seen this, he asked: “Who are the Nuns”? Mac Caille answered: “This is Briget, the celebrated Nun of Leinster.”
“My affection to her, said Bishop Mel, it was I who predicted her greatness, even while she was in her mother’s womb, and it is I who will confer orders on her.”
“This (gloss) alludes to one occasion that Bishop Mel came to the house of her father, Dubhthach; he saw the wife of Dubhthach grieved and sorrowful, and he asked whence the cause of her sorrow. I have cause of sorrow, said she, for Dubhthach admires (loves) the handmaid who attends. This is just (meet, dethbhir) said Bishop Mel, for thy seed shall serve (obey) the seed of this handmaid, alluding to Bridget.” (Bridget was illegitimate, but not the worse Bishop for that, and —-).
“Then Mac Caille placed a veil (caille, cowl) on the head of Briget. Wherefore, from that day to this, the Coarb (successor) of St. Briget (Abbess of Kildare) is entitled to receive the grade (dignity, orders) of a Bishop.”
“Wherefore have the Nuns come? said Bishop Mel. To have orders of Penance conferred on Bridget, said Mac Caille. Then he conferred orders on Briget, and it was the orders of (gradha eps.) a Bishop, that Bishop Mel conferred upon her!”
(Columbkille intended to get himself made a Bishop, but the Consecrator made him only a Priest by mistake. The authorities of the Irish Bulls Begins with Brian Boru).
“While St. Briget was being ordained, she held the foot of the altar (the altar was like a little table) in her hand; and (since that time) seven churches were burned down, in which this altar was, but it received no injury from the fire: Sed servata est per gratiam (favor) Brigidae. Dicunt alii, that this Church, to which Bishop Mel had gone, is in Feratullach. Ita ut alii putant.” (Fartullagh is near Bri Ele). – Liber Maculatus, Leabhar Breac, Fol. 31.
Colgan was ashamed of this. Cogitosus has not a word about it, or if he has, Colgan has suppressed it. I don’t laugh at these stories, for I think they are very nice if they were well told.[1]
For more on the Saint Brigid story see the Noel Kissane Life in the online Dictionary of Irish Biography. Some extracts below
The Brigit story Brigit was the daughter of Dubthach son of Deimre, a nobleman or military leader. He was of the Uí Bressail (Rawl. B. 502, 126a 28), a sept of the Fothairt, a subject people located in the present Co. Offaly, but with branches elsewhere. Brigit’s mother was named Broicsech; she is presented in alternative accounts as Dubthach’s wife (Cogitosus) or slave. When Broicsech becomes pregnant by Dubthach, in the scenario where she is a slave he sells her to a poet but retains ownership of the unborn child. The poet later sells Broicsech to a druid (magus) in whose house Broicsech gives birth to Brigit, who is born with the status of a slave. The location is not stated; claims for Faughart, Co. Louth are based on late medieval tradition. The druid kindly allows Brigit to live with her father Dubthach whose house was seemingly located in the area east of Cruachan Breg Éile (Croghan Hill, Co. Offaly). She is particularly involved with dairying and looking after the cattle, activities commonly represented in her iconography. She is especially kind to the poor and performs various miracles on their behalf. Her father and brothers want her to marry a suitor, but she refuses as she is committed to a celibate life in the service of God. Her father eventually allows her to take the veil. The ceremony is performed, according to different accounts, by one or other of the bishops Mel (qv) (d. 487) or Mac-Caille (qv) (d. c.489), the location probably being in Mag Tulach (the present barony of Fartullagh, Co. Westmeath).
Croghan Hill, County Offaly, associated with the Life of St Brigid
Brigit is said to have established a convent at Kildare, but the Lives are silent regarding the date and the circumstances. ….
The hagiography of St Brigit is typically Christian and it echoes the Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha and the early Fathers. It presents her as wise, humane, charitable to a fault, and concerned with the welfare of the common people. She is in constant communion with the Lord and is a prolific worker of miracles, which are almost invariably attributed to divine intervention and often have precedents in the New Testament. Many of the miracles and other aspects of the Lives, however, seem to reflect pagan religion or superstition; for example, the story of Brigit’s origin features a poet and a druid, both from classes with important functions in pre-Christian society; her suitor is the fictional poet Dubthach (qv) of the moccu Lugair, who is represented in seventh-century literature as a pagan who converts to Christianity; the only milk she can tolerate as a child is that of a white red-eared cow; and she resolves an unwanted pregnancy as if by magic. A notable feature of the Lives is a preoccupation with fire and light: a column of light rises from Brigit’s head; she hangs her cloak on a sunbeam to dry; the house in which she is asleep catches fire but remains intact. .
Folklore Echoes of pre-Christian religion and superstition are also intrinsic features of the folklore associated with St Brigit. Her feast-day (Lá Fhéile Bríde) on 1 February coincides with the pagan festival of Imbolc, one of the four quarter days of the pagan year, which marked the beginning of spring, lambing, and lactation in cattle. The feast of a saint was normally celebrated on the anniversary of the death, but there is no evidence that Brigit died on 1 February. Cogitosus states that she did, but the context suggests that his only evidence was her feast-day. In any case, the celebration of St Brigit’s feast-day retained various features of the pagan festival, including probably the straw or rush crosses, believed to bring luck to the home and the byre, and the strips of cloth representing Brat Bhríde (St Brigit’s mantle) which were claimed to protect virginity, cure barrenness, and relieve women in labour. The ceremonial often included visits to Brigit’s wells, some of which were thought to cure sterility. While much of the imagery relating to Imbolc was probably censored or Christianised at an early date, some of the folk customs associated with St Brigit’s Day retained explicit references to sexuality and fertility. Séamas Ó Catháin has identified parallels in the international folklore of northern Europe, especially that of Scandinavia, which suggests that the cult of the goddess was widespread and tenacious.
See also the Dictionary of Irish Saints by Pádraig Ó Riain below from the 2011 edition:
As this year is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Eamon de Valera it is probably a good time to recount meeting this towering (literally) but often controversial figure.
It would now appear to have been discontinued, but in those days the newspapers regularly printed a sort of Court Circular announcing the official engagements of Uachtarán na hÉireann. Dev’s visitors seemed to be drawn almost exclusively from visiting American priests and nuns, so in 1970 I wrote him a rather provocative letter accusing him of being out of touch with ordinary Irish people – especially go ahead modern youngsters such as myself and my wife Brid. How could he possibly know what was happening in the real world!
On the 1st of February, 1910, a Gaelic League nationalist died quietly in his home in Derrinlough House, Birr, County Offaly. Four days later, in An Claidheamh Soluis, he was briefly memorialised in print by Seán Ó Ceallaigh:
On Tuesday, Lá Fhéile Brighde, the first day of spring, Señor Bulfin was carried off by a sudden attack of pneumonia, before even his friends knew he was ill. The Gaelic League loses in him a great champion of its ideals, and the Irish of Argentina their leader… He was known and admired wherever an Irish class existed.
The name William Bulfin, in our time, does not live up to the description offered above, though it may well arouse some curiosity at the mention of an Irish Argentine. However, Bulfin, though his credentials remain firmly intact — An Irish nationalist, a Gaelic Leaguer who was present at the opening of the Argentine Gaelic League branch in 1899 and at many important league summits in Ireland — has largely fallen by the wayside in the discussion of Irish nationalist figures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When reading the musings and sophisticated theses of Rambles in Éirinn, his seminal work, one realises that obscurity ought not to be the final resting place of this man of two countries, who loved both so well.
The 1920’s saw high levels emigration to the United States from Ireland. Among those crossing the Atlantic Ocean was James Foley from Endrim near Ferbane. James was 21 when he boarded the RMS Cedric at Cobh enroute to New York in March 1927.
His brother Peter had arrived in the Big Apple a year earlier. In 1929 the Wall Street Crash heralded the end of the Roaring Twenties and the beginning of the Great Depression. Offalians in the city found mutual support in the Offalyman’s Association, an organisation in which the Foley family were closely associated.
James was living on Milton Street in the Greenpoint district of Brooklyn when he applied for US citizenship in 1933. After his marriage to Mary Egan, the daughter of Mr & Mrs Lawerence Egan from Kilcormac, the couple lived at Inwood on Manhathan and later in the Bronx.
I left Tullamore years ago but I enjoy reading the Offaly History blogs and delighted with the articles on Church Street. A friend of mine died there a few years ago and it brought back many memories of my time sharing in a flat in Church St, Tullamore. I was there in the late 1960s and 70s and it had certainly changed when I saw it lately. I came to work in the hospital from a small farm near the Mayo Sligo border and found the midlands a bit strange at first. I came to love Tullamore. I lived in hospital accommodation at first but eventually a friend and I branched out into a flat. There were lots of flats in Church St in those days. Nobody called them apartments! We were down near Merrigan’s furniture store in the terrace below the Methodist church. There were two of us. We had one bedroom and a living room. Our kitchen was actually little more than the passage between the two rooms with a two-ring cooker and oven, a sink and a little press. Ikea eat your heart out! We shared a bathroom and toilet with the girls across the corridor and it was fine .We took turns to clean it and we never fought! We also took turns to answer the phone in the hall and answer the front door. We all certainly knew each other’s business! There were lots of people living in similar flats right along Church St and we knew each other well to see. You could set you watch by one lad who used to drive his car around from Church St to Harbour St every morning to collect his paper from Francie Gorry ! I think he was one of the teachers from near the Manor.
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