This is a new 20-minute video recording on the history of the Society, now better known as Offaly History with lots of interesting photos especially recorded for Heritage Week. We want to thank all who have contributed to making it so successful so far with activities across the county, and continuing until Sunday. The lecture on Larkin’s maps and their predecessors we shall post next week, also a video on the Durrow Pattern. Our next lecture is on 5 September on Michael Collins and is important. More information next week.
A PowerPoint presentation narrated by Michael Byrne explores the identities of Castle Street in Birr as part of a project to know and appreciate our distinctive town centres. This Streetscape project is in partnership with Offaly County Council and part funded by the Heritage Council.
An initiative promoted by the Heritage Council as part of its Streetscapes Project
Castle Street about 1857. Courtesy of Birr Castle Archives
The focus of this study is Castle Street in the town of Birr. The street comprises a mix of about thirty commercial and residential properties close to the Camcor river to the south, Main Street and the old parish church to the north, and to the west Birr Castle. On the east at the Market Place or Market Square it opened into Main Street, Bridge Street and from the 1880s into the new Brendan Street.
Castle Street about 1920.
The market house stood from the 1620s where the memorial to the Manchester Martyrs was placed in 1894. Surprisingly, when the market house was taken down in the late 1700s it was not replaced with a new building. Castle Street varied greatly in character from the strong residential houses of two and three-storeys to the robust commercial warehouses close to the boundary of the castle, attracted by the availability of water-power and facilitating in the 1800s the development of distilling, brewing and malting houses. Castle Street was also the principal marketplace in Birr with markets held each week and large fairs three or four times per year. There was a strong base in agri-business in the street and this in turn created businesses such as draperies and boots and shoemaking to cater for the farming clients from the prosperous hinterland. That Castle Street was intimately bound up with the rural economy is clear from the surviving early photographs of the 1900s and one of 1856–7. The early photograph is by Mary Rosse and is of a market day in Castle Street.[1] This would make it the earliest surviving photograph of a busy street in Offaly, as most others are not before 1890 or 1900.
Castle Street about 1970, courtesy Birr Castle Archives
[1] David Davison, Impressions of an Irish Countess: the photographs of Mary countess of Rosse, 1813-1888 (Birr, 1989).
Crotty’s Church, Castle Street
Click on the blue Offaly History Blog to open the video from an email
Exploring Castle Street, Birr: the buildings, business and people.
A PowerPoint presentation narrated by Michael Byrne explores the identities of O’Connor Square, Tullamore as part of a project to know and appreciate our distinctive town centres. This Streetscape project is in partnership with Offaly County Council and part funded by the Heritage Council.
The Making of O’Connor Square, Tullamore since the 1700s: the buildings, business and people
O’Connor Square is Tullamore’s most impressive open space and the gradual development of this area into its principal square is reflected in its fine houses, market house and the variety of names it has had. Despite the course of building for over some fifty years, from 1740 to 1790, it has a uniformity of scale even with the much later vocational school of 1936–37, now the Tullamore Library. In 1713 this area was simply known as the Market Place and, with the opening of one-third of the square in 2019 to pedestrian access only, is now enjoying a comeback to its original function as a meeting place, albeit now to barter ideas and stories and not agricultural produce. Our thanks to the Heritage Council and Offaly County Council for supporting this project and rejuvenation of the square. A special thanks to Fergal MacCabe for his watercolours that bring out so much of what is wonderful about townlife.
Take a look at the video below for more about Tullamore’s meeting place and prime residential location for so long.
Tomorrow, we look at Castle Street, Birr over 400 years of history in that one street.
J. de Jean’ was the nom-de-plume of John Frazer (c. 1804–1852), a Presbyterian of Huguenot extraction, cabinet-maker and a native of Birr. As a young man he started writing poetry, and his first work – a lengthy poem entitled ‘Eva O’Connor’ was published in 1826 (Richard Milliken, Grafton Street, Dublin). During the 1840s individual poems, increasingly expressing radicalised politics, appeared in the newspapers and periodicals of the day, many of which were featured in his collected works `Poems For The People` 1845 and `Poems` 1851.
This online presentation is to promote the first complete edition of his poems, edited by Terry Moylan, Pádraig Turley and Laurel Grube, which will be published in October of this year. The society would like to thank Offaly County Council and Creative Ireland for support for this important publication.
A presentation of the Birr poet John Frazer (J. de Jean)
This weekend sees the start of Heritage Week 2022 and a very welcome return to exploring the county in person with some great material coming on-line too from Offaly History. We are launching six new videos via Offaly History YouTube and Heritage Week 2022. Our thanks to Amanda Pedlow, county heritage officer for all who work in coordinating the programme. She writes:
With over 30 events here is a reminder for Saturday’s events as a starter’…@offalyheritage @HeritageHubIRE Our thanks to Fergal MacCabe for the use of three of his wonderful watercolours of Srah Castle (1588), Ballycowan (1626) and Bury Bridge (1801).
The Offaly Heritage Office and Amanda Pedlow have been working with Dr Maebh O’ Regan of National College of Art and Design supporting a project with the Banagher Crafting Group exploring the Banagher and Bronte connections. Some of you may have attended events at the recent That Beats Banagher Festival.
One of the outputs is a short fifteen-minute film about the discovery of the Bronte Family Portrait in Hill House in Banagher in 1914 and an interview with Dr Sarah Mouldon of the National Portrait Gallery London who care for it now. Please see the video link for you tube of a very fine presentation adding greatly to our knowledge of how the portrait was received when first presented to the public in 1914. We attach some background material on the discovery of the painting at Hill House, Banagher and how it came to be there from an earlier Offaly History blog. Our thanks to Amanda Pedlow and all concerned with this fine and informative production.
This is one of the projects supported by Offaly County Council through the Creative Ireland programme.
Arthur Griffith died of a heart attack, or stroke, in Dublin on 12 August 1922. He was only 51 and had given a lifetime of service to his country at huge personal cost. To mark the centenary of his death we recall an important contribution from Richard Barry (1880–1978) in 1970 where he set out some of the cultural history of Tullamore in the period before the Rising and the War of Independence. Barry was greatly influenced by the writings of Arthur Griffith in the United Irishman and also by the earlier contributions of William Rooney (1873–1901). Rooney met Griffith probably in 1888 and both were members of the Parnellite Leinster Literary Society, and after 1892 of the Celtic Literary Society. When the United Irishman was launched in 1899, with Griffith as editor, William Rooney was the main contributor and, working together, developed Sinn Féin policy. Rooney’s early death at the age of 27 was a devasting blow to Griffith. William Murphy in the short life of Rooney in DIB cites Michael Collins as describing Rooney in terms normally associated with John the Baptist: ‘Rooney spoke as a prophet. He prepared the way and foresaw the victory’ (Path to freedom, 150).
I recently found myself reminiscing about the experience of moving from Coláiste Choilm, Tullamore, to University College Dublin in 1978.
In many ways, there was a sense of culture shock, it was like moving to a foreign country, though I suspect the transition would be less for today’s students.
I was moving from what was then a small secondary school where I knew all my classmates to a university which even then had around 10,000 students.
As you were in different classes with students for different subjects, it was obviously very difficult to get to know many of your classmates.
Bridge Street, that narrow street that we rush through so many times each week, but have to stop at lights whether on foot or by car (or bike), is as old as the town itself. Here is the river that divides the town, was a source of water and power for milling and, because of this, a base for settlement. The bridge may date back to the 1720s and was in use from that time. The township of Tullamore dates back to the 1620s at least, but it was another 100 years before we learn of the first leases granted by Lord Tullamoore for buildings where the Bridge House now stands. Further on can be seen a date-stone in Douglas Jewellers giving a date of 1747. It was also at this time that the Tormey and Flynn shop properties were built by Edward Briscoe. The site of the Bank of Ireland may have been occupied by cabins, but it was in the 1780s that the houses here were built and later on that it got its Portland stone façade. Bridge Street had only six leaseholders from Lord Tullamoore/ later the earls of Charleville. The sites were generous with a large frontage. That of the Bridge House was 55 ft, followed by that of Tyrrell (now Douglas and the Foxy Bean restaurant) followed by the Vaughan leasehold (where now is the vehicular and pedestrian entrance to the Bridge Centre). Across the street was the Ridley, Acres and Briscoe leaseholds.
This article is part of our contribution to the Heritage Council’s historic towns initiative and to quote:
Many of our city, town and village centres are historic places with their own distinct identities. Sustaining these is a complex process that in many cases involves the conservation and re-use of existing buildings, the care of public spaces and the provision of community facilities. The conservation and interpretation of this heritage makes our towns interesting, unique and attractive to residents and visitors. In support of the Town Centres First policy set out in the Programme for Government: Our Shared Future (2020), the Historic Towns Initiative (HTI) is a joint undertaking by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Heritage Council which aims to promote the heritage-led regeneration of Ireland’s historic towns.
This year’s That Beats Banagher Festival will take place over next weekend Friday to Sunday, 22 to 24 July with a multiplicity of literary, heritage, cultural and sporting events including a food and craft fair in the Bridge Barracks Yard at the West End on Saturday, 12 noon to 4.30 p.m. craft workshops, children’s events, water events, children’s outdoor cinema and other surprise events. We are a day early with the blog to help promote this interesting festival.
Book Launches
The programme is particularly strong on literary events with the launch of two books on Charlotte Brontë’s honeymoon in Ireland, the first called Arthur & Charlotte, by Pauline Clooney (published by Merdog) and the second, Charlotte Brontë: An Irish Odyssey by Michael O’ Dowd (published by Pardus Media). Pauline & Michael recently spoke with much acclaim at the prestigious Bradford Literary Festival under the title No Net Ensnares Me: Charlotte Brontë Abroad. The event will be held at 6.30 p.m. on Friday 22nd July in the Long Room in The Crank House.
offalyhistoryblog 