It might not be long before many of us are discussing the comparative strengths of land and sea powers — or, to be more specific, China, Russia and Iran against the US and UK. Like Roman gladiators, they have different sets of weapons — tanks and soldiers, in particular, against ships and submarines. There is a particular reason to be interested in this subject in County Offaly — the birthplace and early home of one of the most insightful and original historians of this distinction.
David Beers Quinn, born in Clara in 1909, felt this contrast under his feet in his formative stages — passing his first 13 years on the Goodbody estate [at Inchmore, Clara] and then moving in 1922 to the port of Belfast, birthplace of great ocean liners.
A blog contribution had been planned closer to the envisaged eventual publication of the biography; however, following a request from Offaly History for an article prior to the lecture on 28 September, I have composed the following internet pages. I will return to the story of the biography from initial acceptance by my agent in 2022 in a separate blog.
[Monday 28 September 2026 at 7 30 p.m. Timothy Moloney on William Bulfin: his Life and Works at Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay, Tullamore (beside new Aldi). All are welcome.]
Timothy Moloney describes the life of William Bulfin using his works as a frame in which to set the biographical details. Drawing on his as yet unpublished biography, Timothy surveys his main works, Tales of the Pampas and Rambles in Eirinn, but he also pays attention to his lesser-known creations ̶ ‘Sketches of Buenos Aires’ and a novel A Man of the Pampas, as well as a series of articles he wrote on a trip to the Andes in 1905. He accompanies the lecture with interesting slides showing samples from Bulfin’s oeuvre and pictures from his time and of his family members.
Editor adds: Bulfin was an important figure in Irish Ireland of the early 1900s. His premature death in 1910 robbed Offaly and Ireland of a leader in cultural nationalism who might well have been a senator and perhaps a candidate for the presidency. The family have lived in County Offaly since at least the 1800s if not much earlier. Bulfin was buried in the Eglish churchyard. ]
The topic was to be a choice of my own, and after consideration, I chose ‘William Bulfin: his Life and Works’. It should have been easy to prepare, but since I had been working on other projects since completion of the biography ̶ a novel completed in 2023, and another historical work in 2023 and 2024, it proved more difficult than I expected. I had to review his life again, and had to distil it into manageable chunks for a sixty minute lecture. The life itself was one aspect, but then there were also the works: I planned to examine the genesis of his well-known works such as Tales of the Pampas and Rambles inEirinn, but also wanted to draw attention to his lesser known literary or journalistic creations, such as his ‘Sketches of Buenos Aires’ under the nom-de-plume Che Buono, an unpublished novel he wrote called A Man of the Pampas, and also a lengthy series of articles he composed about a trip to the Lower Andes in 1905.
This appreciation piece is based on an interview by Aidan Barry and Shaun Wrafter (Offaly History members) with Phil O’Reilly Snr. at his home in Harbour St. Tullamore on 10th June 2024.
You can listen to the full interview here at Offaly History on SoundCloud. Go to Phil O’Reilly on SoundCloud or to Voices on the http://www.offalyhistory.com website.
A lifetime spent in the quiet, noble service of a community leaves an indelible mark on the town that bred it. In the summer of 2024, when Shaun Wrafter, Offaly History sat down with Phil O’Reilly Snr in his beloved Harbour Street, the retired undertaker and former Offaly footballing legend looked back across his ninety years of life in Tullamore. With the news of his passing, Tullamore, County Offaly, and the wider GAA community mourn not just a giant of local history, but a man whose humble dedication, deep faith, and sporting courage touched generations.
From his earliest days kicking a ball along Harbour Street, Tullamore to the roaring, record-breaking crowds of Croke Park, and onward through over five decades of comforting grieving families as one of the town’s funeral directors, Phil O’Reilly Snr lived a life defined by decency, duty, and devotion. Phil Reilly was born in 1993 and grew up in Tullamore
Born in 1933, Phil was a son of Tullamore and a true product of Harbour Street. His father, Phil, hailed from Tullamore, while his mother, Nora, came from Ballyhaunis, County Mayo. The couple had married in New York, where Phil’s eldest sister, Patsy, was born in 1932 before the family returned to Ireland and settled into the property on Harbour Street.
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.
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 making of O’Connor Square, Tullamore: People, Houses and Business will be launched on Wednesday 10 December 5 p.m. at the Brewery Tap, Tullamore. The Brewery Tap is the longest established business in the square dating back to the 1830s as a pub and brewery. The lease of the site was dated to 1713 with the property in possession of the Brennan and Thornburgh families, later Deverell, Egan, Adams, Carragher and now Paul and Cathy Anne Bell.
We look forward to meeting you at the launch where savouries and tea/coffee will be served. Parking will be available at this time and should not cost more than 1 euro for an hour. Walkers and cyclists go free.
At the same event we launch Offaly Heritage 13. This the 13th issue of the Offaly History Journal It’s another bumper issue with over 330 pages and well-illustrated, €19 soft and €25 hardback. The issue is dedicated to the late Christy Maye – a great friend to Offaly History.
The two books are now available from Offaly History Centre, Midland Books and at www.offalyhistory.com for online.
A chance find led me to the story of Andrew and Eleanor (Ellen) Conway born in Offaly in the late 1790s. Looking for local records in the National Archives of Ireland I found a letter written to Mrs Eleanor Conway of Ferbane, King’s County. It was from her husband, Andrew Conway, a transported convict in New South Wales, Australia. Andrew wrote to Eleanor telling her of his life in Australia and how she and their child might petition to join him there.[1] He gives a very interesting account of his life in the colony, the prices of goods there, and his hopes for the future. He ends with a request to be remembered to family and friends.
Church Street is unusual in Tullamore in that it does not have a common width throughout and its lower half, closest to the town centre, is clearly earlier than the upper half from the Methodist church to the Pound Bridge over Tullamore River. While the building pattern is now post 1786 in date it did have at least two earlier buildings in the Protestant church built by Mrs Ellen Moore in 1726. She was the mother of the first Lord Tullamore who died in 1725. Charles the second Lord Tullamore succeeded while still a minor, having been born in 1712.[1] In an earlier article we reproduced maps from the 1770s depicting the church and noted that the building was shown on the on the 1730 Mountrath (Coote) estate map. The church stood in what was post 1820 the yard shown as The Shambles and was not aligned to the later street.[2]
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.
