Category: Historic Towns

• 37-38, Grand Canal Townlands East to West: Tullamore along the line,Puttaghan/ Srah / Ballydrohid/ Killiskea No 37-38 in the Grand Canal Offaly Series. By Philomena Bracken, Offaly History. Blog No 592, 27th march 2024

  

  

  Tullamore is the county town of Co Offaly, it lies on the Grand Canal. It is a large and thriving place that has seen great development over the years. In this article, have a look back with a picturesque timeline through from 1798 when the canal reached Tullamore. We will return to Tullamore stories of the canal when the east west tour is completed.

  Kilbride Parish: Seven Miles from East to West. The Parish lies in the ancient O’Molloy territory of Fir Ceall, or Men of the Church. It contains main archaeological sites some of which have sadly been destroyed or taken back by nature.

  Tullamore is in the Electoral Division of Tullamore Urban, in Civil Parish of Kilbride, in the Barony of Ballycowan, in the County of Offaly. The Irish name for Tullamore is Tulach Mhór meaning Great Hill. The rising ground in Tullamore leads to the hill at High Street – Cormac Street.

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  March 27, 2024

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• 17 The Finest Building in Offaly: The Grand Canal: A Modest Declaration. By James Scully, No. 17 in the Grand Canal Offaly series. Blog No 572, 3rd Feb 2024

  

  A case can be made for declaring that the Grand Canal in Offaly is the county’s greatest building. No other structure has contributed so much to the economic development of so many of its towns and villages over the last 230 years. In addition, it has supported the recreational wellbeing of local citizens for a hundred years or more and seems set to do so exponentially in the decades ahead. It also preserves a relatively undisturbed wildlife corridor for many of our threatened flora and fauna species. The canal has its own rich cultural identity, much celebrated in literature and music. Its components, listed below, still combine to create an architectural entity that is almost fully operational although in a fashion undreamt of when it was first conceived in 1715, well over 300 years ago.

  Combining the Shannon or Main Line (1793–1804) and the Kilbeggan Branch (1830–35), the stretches of the canal in Offaly and Westmeath took just over fifteen years to build. As it flows forty-four miles from Cloncannon, south-east of Edenderry, to Bunbrosna and Minus, downstream of Shannon Harbour, and eight miles along the Kilbeggan Line, its architectural components present a staggering list: it tumbles through sixteen locks; crosses five large aqueducts; supports and reflects forty or so ancient and modern bridges; funnels into its own channel an array of supplies or feeders, kept in control by a strategically placed system of overflows or overspills; conducts scores of unwanted streams, syphoned and otherwise, through scores of tunnels or culverts, under its non-porous bed to nearby rivers and gently glides along between a hundred miles of well-staunched towpaths and embankments to a seamless confluence with the brimming Brosna and the Lordly Shannon.

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  February 3, 2024

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• 3 From bonded warehouse and grain store to Old Warehouse bar/ restaurant and Aldi Retail Store: the changing uses of canal side buildings at Bury Quay, Tullamore, Ireland. No 3 in the new Grand Canal Offaly series from Offaly History. Blog No 559, 30th Dec 2023

  

  The recent demolition of all the former Irish Mist liqueur warehouses in Tullamore and the upcoming demolition of the great oats store of D.E. Williams have prompted this lookback at the site that may have been intended for the first canal harbour or docking point in Tullamore close to Pound Street, later called William Street and now Columcille Street and Bury Quay – where the Old Warehouse (‘Shane Lowry’s’) is now located. The newly cleared site is intended for a 1,644 sq. metre Aldi retail store and associated parking. The bonded warehouse or now Old Warehouse and the oats store south of it were built close to the canal as part of a strategic acquisition by the distiller, maltster and merchant Daniel E. Williams and at a time when the Grand Canal provided a commercial transport artery for smooth access to Dublin and Limerick. This article is no. 3 in the series on the impact of the Grand Canal on Offal

  If you would like to contribute contact us info@offalyhistory.com

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  December 30, 2023

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• 1 The Grand Canal in County Offaly, Ireland: one of the county’s greatest amenities for walking, cycling and taking time out in tranquil countryside. Buen Camino this Christmas and in 2024. Prepared by Offaly History. Blog No 557, 23rd Dec 2023

  

  This month we begin a series of articles on the history and heritage of the Grand Canal in County Offaly that will run to upwards of 50 blog articles in 2024 and have its own platform on our website, http://www.offalyhistory.com. Our aim is to document the story of the course of the canal from the county boundary east of Edenderry to Shannon Harbour in the west. Today the Grand Canal is one of the greatest amenities that County Offaly possesses and we want to tell the story, and for readers to contribute by way of information and pictures. All the material will be open to be used on our website and the format will allow for editing to improve and to receive additional information from you the reader, which will be acknowledged. So Buen Camino as we make our journey through a quiet and well-watered land. The year 2024 marks the 120^th anniversary of the completion of the Shannon Line at Shannon Harbour and may also see the completion of the canal greenway in this county.

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  December 23, 2023

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• John Flanagan recalls his time with Irish Mist, Tullamore, Ireland, 1963–1985. An extract from the new book on Ireland’s legendary liqueur and the people who made it, published by Offaly History on 1 December 2023. Blog No 550, 2nd Dc 2023

  In 1961  I joined B. Daly & Co Ltd and two years later SI was transferred to Irish Mist (another wholly owned Williams company) to supervise the production line in the Bond Store. I joined up with Joe Scally, and I was still with him until I finished in 1985 over 22 years later. Joe and I were always involved in Production.  We overcame many difficulties in the area over the years due to expansion and increased demand for output, with changes in packaging and design etc. I started on the middle floor of the Bond Store. We shared the building with Tullamore Dew. We had a staff of about 12 at the time, with no machinery as the output was small. Within a short time later, in 1966 due to increased demand, we had to move to the top floor. We became much more mechanised and we saw a dramatic increase in output, and also a big increase in staff numbers. We also saw the introduction of the Figurine, Blue decanter, the pocket Flask, the Waterford Glass decanter, and many more display packs, introduced onto the market. In 1966 a new office block was built, along with a new laboratory and a compounding unit.

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  December 2, 2023

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• 1   The making of O’Connor Square, Tullamore, Ireland, 1713–2023: the first market place or Market Square. By Michael Byrne. A contribution to the Living in Towns series promoted by the Heritage Council. Blog No 545, 18th Nov 2023

  Over a series of articles, it is intended to examine the evolution of the ‘market place’, Tullamore to the fine square it is today. It is intended to look first at the evolution of the square over the period from 1713 to 1820 with additional comments on the building history in the last 300 years in the second article. This will be followed with analysis of the return for the 1901 and 1911 censuses and thereafter case studies of two of the houses in the square. Both are public houses, the Brewery Tap and The Phoenix, and business is conducted in the original houses albeit that both have been extended. Both are well known with the Brewery Tap one of the oldest pubs in Tullamore and The Phoenix the newest. The Brewery Tap house can be dated to 1713 and The Phoenix as a house to 1752.

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  November 18, 2023

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• Castle Street, Birr in 1911: households, families and businesses in the street over 110 years ago. A contribution to the Heritage Council’s Living in Towns series. By Michael Byrne. Blog No 543, 12th Nov 2023

  So far we have looked at the 1821 and 1901 censuses for Castle Street, Birr together with traders in the street in the nineteenth century (see previous articles by going to the blog section on http://www.offalyhistory.com.) There were a lot of new families in Castle Street in 1911 when compared with 1901 based on the surname of the occupiers – not always a reliable guide. Families where there was continuity included that of John Wall, James Sammon, Patrick Connors, Laurence Kennedy, Owen Gaffney and Elizabeth Watterson.

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  November 12, 2023

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• 29 High Street, Tullamore – the former Motor Works house, known since the 1900s as The Manse and formerly West View. A contribution to the Living in Towns series. By Michael Byrne. Blog No 541, 8th Nov 2023

  On several walking tours of High Street, Tullamore in 2023 what stuck one was how good the architecture is, the plan of the street, how much has survived, and the extent of reforms and repairs needed to houses that have become dilapidated. This article is about no. 29 High Street, the former Motor Works,  and a dwelling or manse for the Presbyterian minister for over thirty years from the early 1900s. The number 29 is derived from that in the first printed Griffith Valuation of 1854.

  

           No 29 is the first house on the upper east side of High Street and occupies an important visual position when seen from Cormac Street and in the distance from the old road as one walks out of Charleville Demesne. The house is of five bays and three storeys, and has ‘gable-ends with rough cast battered walls and a high pitched, sprocketed roof. The windows are small and have a good rhythm which slows towards the centre. However, they have lost their original glazing-bars. The house has a simple round-headed, architraved doorcase which is probably later in date. (Garner, 1980).

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  November 8, 2023

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• Castle Street, Birr in 1901: households, families and businesses in the street over 120 years ago. A contribution to the Living in Towns series. By Michael Byrne. Blog No 540, 4th Nov 2023

  The 1901 census noted twenty-seven buildings in Castle Street, Birr (five less than in 1821, see our recent blog) of which six were unoccupied commercial properties, eight were shops including two public houses, four were boarding and lodging houses, and ten were private dwellings. Women were ‘head’ of house in six of the twenty-one dwellings. There was only one ‘dwelling’ where there was no more than one occupant and the largest household was thirteen. Only one house was divided between two families. Almost all those with stated occupations in the head of house category were in shops and craft industries with the exception of a bank porter, a retired teacher, and an Ordnance Survey employee. The latter family was Anglican as was Mrs Ellen Morahan and all other residents on the street were Roman Catholic. In 1821 perhaps up to one-third of the residents were other than Roman Catholic. The other significant change was the almost entire absence of domestic servants in 1901 and in 1911. This is a longish blog to accommodate the 1901 census. Next week we look at the street in 1911. If you have material to pass on email us info@offalyhistory.com.

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  November 4, 2023

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• Birr and the 1821 census: the case of Castle Street, Birr. An exploration for the Living in Towns series.  By Michael Byrne. Blog No 537, 26th Oct 2023

  In the Pigot directory of 1824 Birr was described ‘as far the most considerable of any of the towns in the King’s County. Birr was the leading town in the county from the 1620s until the 1840s By the 1820s Birr had new Protestant and Catholic churches (the latter nearing completion at the time of the census and the publishing of the Pigot directory), two Methodist chapels and a Quakers’ meeting house. The charitable institutions of Birr, were a fever hospital and dispensary, supported by county grants and annual subscriptions; a Sunday school for children of all denominations; a free school for boys, and another for girls. Birr had a gaol and a courthouse where the sessions were held four times a year. The prisoners were sent to Philipstown/Daingean which was the county town until 1835 for trial for serious crimes. From 1830 when the new gaol was built in Tullamore Birr prison was more a holding centre only. . One mile from the town were the Barracks, ‘a large and elegant building, capable of holding three regiments of soldiers’. Birr has two large distilleries and two breweries, which, it was said, gave employment to the poor of the town.

  The population in 1821 was 5,400. The market day was Saturday and the fairs were four in the year. And that was it. The brief introduction to Birr in the 1820s did not engage in any detail with the census of the town in 1821 other than to produce an abstract.

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  October 26, 2023

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