Category: Historic Towns

• Church Street, Tullamore: houses, businesses and families, over 300 years: the well-known Hayes’ Hotel (Phoenix Arms), now Boots Pharmacy. By Michael Byrne and Offaly History. No 2 in the 2025 Living in Towns series prepared with the support of the Heritage Council. Blog No 738, 9th August 2025

  It is strange that we should start with the most modern of buildings in Tullamore completed in 2001 and since 2015 Boots Pharmacy. Prior to that it was Menarys fashion and homeware and opened in 2001 as #1 Bar and Restaurant. It is the newest of the new buildings in the town and replaced one of the oldest – Hayes’ Hotel. The hotel was built in 1785 as a new hotel for Tullamore but was perhaps a refurbishment and not a new build.

  The building is in a strategic location with four streets intersecting and was known for many years as Hayes’ Cross. The original building was L-plan in shape not unlike no 3 in O’Connor Square (the insurance brokers) and its neighbour south of the river Flynn’s bakery, also L-plan until street widening in 1938 removed the two front rooms to Bridge Street. The hotel was on the south-west corner of the narrow part of Church Street – the oldest part dating back to at least 1726 when the first Protestant church was built in what was later the Shambles and market south of the Foresters Hall, now as to the ground floor a Thai restaurant.

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  August 9, 2025

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• The memorial to the earl of Charleville (1712–64) in St Catherine’s Church, Tullamore. No 10 in a series on the paintings and drawings heritage of County Offaly, 1750-2000, explored through the works of artists from or associated with County Offaly. By Michael Byrne. Offaly History Blog No 731, 16th July 2025

  John Wesley, the founder of Methodism with his brother Charles, was the first person to record seeing the Van Nost memorial to the lately deceased earl of Charleville, the owner of Tullamore town and ‘the manor of Tullamore and Croghan’ – about 20,000 acres. Wesley recorded in his Journal:

  Thursday 25 June 1767

  I was desired to look at the monument lately erected for the Earl of Charleville. It observes ‘That he was the last of his family, the Great Moores of Croghan [sic].’  But how little did riches profit either him, who died in the strength of his years, or his heir, who was literally overwhelmed by them: being so full of care, that sleep departed from him, and he was restless day and night; till after a few months, life itself was a burden, and an untimely death closed the scene.

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  July 16, 2025

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• Another brisk walk this Saturday in Tullamore to visit Harbour Street and the Canal Quarter. Tullamore Tour Saturday 12 July, 11 a.m. to 12 30 p.m. to include Harbour Street, Deane Place, Market Square, Gas Works Lane, Canal Harbour, O’Carroll Street, Store Street, Benburb Street and Chapel Lane. Blog No 729, 9th July 2025

  Walk around Tullamore’s canal quarter with Michael Byrne as guide. Find out where was Charles Street, Deane Place and Gas Works Lane. Where did Lord Tullamore live before the family moved to Charleville in 1740. When did the canal arrive. Was there a barracks there before that? Where was Pentland’s Distillery. Who was the Thomas in Thomas Street? Find out where the largest meeting in Tullamore was held and why. Take care and thanks to our yellow-jacketed stewards Shaun and Pat and to Helen and friends for assistance with the teas.

  We meet at Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay (beside new Aldi and Tullamore Old Warehouse restaurant) for ease of parking from 10 30 a.m. All are welcome and the tour is free. Tea/Coffee/scones available from Offaly History Centre from 10. 30 a.m. Bathrooms available. We walk to Harbour Street through the new Aldi car park (over the former Williams oats store and Irish Mist warehouses and into Offally (sic) Street or Wheelwright Lane).

  Harbour Street

  Developed over the period from 1800 to 1825 it could be described as the opening to the canal quarter facilitating access to the new streets at Deane Place, Market Square, Chapel Street, Store Street, Gas Works Lane and O’Carroll Street. Surprisingly for such a great artery it was never an important trading street. The harbour takes up much of the eastern end of the street together with the great distillery of the 1820s – now the Granary apartments. The original name here was Charles Street and this can be seen carved in stone on the corner with O’Carroll Street.

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  July 9, 2025

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• That Beats Banagher and Banagher Beats The Devil! Offaly History – a very special Bangs Banagher book launch on Friday 27 June. No 18 in the Offaly History Anniversaries Series. Blog No 724, 23rd June 2025

  Two local historians have collaborated to create a new lavishly illustrated book exploring the meaning behind the regularly used phrase ‘That Beats Banagher! and Banagher Beats the Devil! The book was written by Kieran Keenaghan, a retired businessman and engineer living in Banagher and James Scully, a retired primary school teacher originally from Tullamore and now living just outside of Banagher in Clonfert, Eyrecourt, County Galway.

  The book, designed and printed by the Guinan Brothers, Ciarán and Diarmuid, at Brosna Press, Ferbane, explores the Banagher phrase that dates back to 1787 and how history formed the saying which became a humorous expression of amazement used since all around the country, throughout Britain and across several continents.

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  June 23, 2025

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• Thomas Lalor Cooke (TLC) ‘the only antiquarian now living’ according to John O’Donovan in letters from Birr in 1838. The first in a series of articles to mark Cooke anniversaries. No. 15 in the 2025 Anniversaries Series from Offaly History. By Michael Byrne. Blog No 714, 21st May 2025

  Thomas Lalor Cooke’s Picture of Parsonstown was first published in 1826 and a revised edition by his son William Antisell Cooke in 1875. So this year marks the 150^th anniversary of the revised issue and in 2026 we mark the 200^th anniversary of T.L. Cooke’s first and now rare book, the Picture of Parsonstown. A reprint of the 1875 greatly expanded history was issued by Esker Press in 1989 with a new introduction by Margaret Hogan. It is now also out of print. A reissue of the 1826 book is now under active consideration.

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  May 21, 2025

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• The Morrison family, jewellers, creative artists and photographers, Emmet Square, Birr – prominent members of the Birr Methodist community. By Michael Byrne. No 9 in the 2025 Anniversaries Series. Blog No 699, 8th March 2025

  The Changing face of Birr in the 1900 to 1920 period will be the focus of a talk arranged by the Birr Historical Society for Monday 10 March at 8 p.m. in the County Arms Hotel. The illustrated lecture will focus on change in that period and the record of it provided by the early photographers and other sources. Once such was George Morrison son of Edward, both were  jewellers and in addition George was a trained photographer who had opened a studio in his Birr jewellery shop in 1894. He was grandfather to the now acclaimed documentary artist George Morrison of Mise Éire (1959) fame. Another neighbour, Archie Wright of nearby Cumberland House, Birr, had also trained in photography and would assist his father in producing photographs weekly for the local King’s County Chronicle newspaper from 1885. At the time an innovation in the provincial press.

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  March 8, 2025

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• The Beginning of the Gas Supply in Birr/Parsonstown. By Martin Hoctor. No. 8 in the Offaly History Anniversaries Series. Blog No 697, 1st March 2025

  The first indication that Birr/ Parsonstown (as often called in the 19th cent.) had used gas to illuminate the town during the dark winter months was an editorial comment that appeared in the King’s County Chronicle of January 9 1850^[1] that extolled how the use of portable gas had made the town safer to move around at night.

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  March 1, 2025

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• Can town planning make Tullamore a better place? An opening debate on the upcoming ten-year Local Area Plan. By Fergal MacCabe. Blog No 689, 22nd Jan 2025

  Can town planning make Tullamore a better place?

  Fergal MacCabe:  Can town planning make Tullamore a better place? An opening debate on the upcoming ten year-Local Area Plan. The talk is at 8 p.m. on Monday 27 Jan. and will be held after the AGM which commences at 7 p.m. An illustrated presentation by Fergal MacCabe architect and town planner at Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay, Tullamore R35 Y5VO.

  Since 1967 the growth of Tullamore has been guided by seven successive Development Plans which delivered the Bypass, the Town Park, the pedestrianisation of O’Connor Square and many other improvements. Though promised in 2021, no statutory plan which would identify future local projects like these has yet been revealed. The next opportunity would appear to lie in the upcoming 2027-37 County Offaly Development Plan which will hopefully promote a Tullamore Local Area Plan.

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  January 22, 2025

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• The first public elections by secret ballot in King’s County/Offaly were held in Birr and Tullamore in October 1872. Offaly History Anniversaries Series, no. 1 of 2025. Blog No 687, 8th January 2025

  The year 2024 saw the local and general elections held and, of course, voting was by secret ballot. The polling centres of 2024 were remarkably quiet as if one were attending confession in a quiet corner of a church. Long gone were the days when a glass of Birr or Banagher or Bernie Daly’s Tullamore whiskey would be proffered by candidates or their agents to thirsty voters. The right of secret ballot extends back to 1872 and the Ballot Act. Before that time voting was in public and held in the towns in Offaly of Tullamore, Birr and Philipstown (Daingean).The Birr-based Chronicle newspaper had thought to describe the polling booth as the voter having to go ‘behind a screen, a la Punch and Judy mode, and there make the sign of the cross with a pencil on the voting paper opposite the names of the favourite men’. This was 50 years before the STV (single transferable vote was used in parliamentary elections in 1922 (see note 5 below) The Chronicle had noted in 1872 the emergence of the polling districts and the practice before 1872 in parliamentary elections:

  Formerly, [before 1800] the county sent six members to the Irish Parliament, two for the county at large, and two for each of the boroughs, Philipstown and Banagher; but since the Union its representation has been limited to the two members for the county, and in 1836 the number of registered votes amounted to 1700.  The election under the new Ballot Act will, of necessity, assume a different form, and will not be confined to Tullamore, Parsonstown and Philipstown. 

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  January 8, 2025

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• The changing face of Tea (‘Tay’) Lane/O’Connell Street and Tullamore town centre shopping. Blog No 685, 30th Dec 2024

  Much has been written about the changing face of Offaly towns in the 1900-23 period and the same can be said for the period from the mid-1990s to 2007. For towns such as Tullamore the recession lasted up to about 2017 and since then building has improved. The former Tea/ ‘Tay’ Lane, later called O’Connell St (from Stella Press to the canal bank), saw change in the 1950s with the demolition of the old Tea Lane houses. Next came the new wine warehouse for D.E. Williams (now Offaly History Centre, also in the early 1950s), followed by the new Irish Mist warehouses in the early 1970s and early 1980s. This was followed in 1982 by the opening of the  Quinnsworth supermarket on part of the Williams ‘yard’ behind the head office of that company. Three years later, in 1985 the Irish Mist bottling facility was sold to C&C and the business transferred to Clonmel with the loss of up to 75 local jobs. Urban renewal tax relief in the late 1980s and early 1990s saw two blocks built close to the lane and off Kilbride Street by M/s Forrestal and Walsh for use as shops and apartments. (Chipland, florist etc).

  In a departure from the Gibney plan the town council sold sites in nearby St Kyran Street for offices and apartments as part of the urban renewal scheme. About 1994 the large carpark was developed by the council from lands that had been set aside for the Kilbride park and playground. The year 1995 saw the conversion of the 1929 large Williams oats store to a department store by Tom McNamara.  By 2007 the entire area was sold to an investment company for about €50 million with full planning for a supermarket and shops granted in 2009. Alas it was too late as the recession was developing and Ireland (outside of Dublin) did not recover for up to ten years. It was a case of ten years of plenty (the Tiger Years) followed by  ten desperately lean years. Covid came next in 2020—21 and it was 2022–3 before the kettle was on the boil again in Tea Lane. Aldi demolished the Irish Mist warehouses and, at  a cost of perhaps €1 million. the old 1929 store and former Texas shop that had been opened to great fanfare in 1995.

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  December 30, 2024

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