Category: Subjects

• Is Dolan’s of Tullamore, the oldest pharmacy in Ireland? By Michael Byrne. Blog No 183, 29th March 2020

  

  Is Dolan’s Pharmacy in Pound/William/Columcille Street, Tullamore the oldest family pharmacy in Ireland? It almost certainly is now that so many of the old family pharmacies have been bought up by pharmacy chains. Up to the decade ending 2020 it was the one area of shopping in Tullamore that was still largely locally controlled and in the same family for generations. One thinks of Dolan’s (the Dolan and later the O’Connell family since the 1940s); Quirke’s Medical Hall (Carragher’s from the 1930s until 2019); Fahey’s from 1955; and Adams’s in Bridge Street since the 1940s and still in the family. Up to twenty-five years ago there was not much above seven pharmacies in Tullamore but that changed in 2002 with deregulation as to the number permitted vis a vis the population served. Even by that time pharmacy chains were growing in strength with one company (Unicare) having fifty outlets, but seventy percent of the market outlets were still controlled by independent pharmacists. Today Tullamore has thirteen pharmacies and new locations at Ardan Road (2), Clonminch Road (1), Church Road (2) and Main Street (1). The town centre still has five around the former Hayes’ Cross with three in Bridge Street, Patrick Street (1) and Columcille Street (1).

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  March 29, 2020

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• Seir Kieran- Part 1. By John Dolan. Blog No 182, 25th March 2020

  We welcome a new contributor this week to our series of articles on the history of County Offaly. John Dolan writes about Seir Kieran in this fine piece. John was born in Tullamore, now retired, and has a degree Archaeology and Celtic Civilisation. He speaks regularly to historical societies in Dublin. Part 2 will be published next Wednesday. Seir Kieran is the ‘island parish’ in Offaly belonging to the diocese of Ossory. Our blog articles are brought to you twice weekly during these weeks  of the plague to hopefully provide some inner peace through historical inquiry. You now have 182 to chose  from and can join the 150,000 views since 2016.

  

  The parish of Seir Kieran is one of the many early Christian sites that remain under reported and hidden in today’s world. Since its destruction by ‘the O’Carrol and the English’ in 1548 and similar to many other Offaly early churches, it has dropped into insignificance.
  Seir Kieran is now mainly known for the history of its GAA club rather than its claim to be a Christian site before the arrival of St. Patrick.

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  March 25, 2020

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• ‘Killing the pig in 1950s West Offaly’. By Pádraig Turley. Blog No 181, 21st March 2020

  

  The killing of the pig was an event, which occurred twice a year on our farm in Clerhane, two miles north of the village of Shannonbridge, during my childhood. The particular event I am going to relate happened in the early 1950s, certainly no later than 1953. I remember this because reports of the Korean War, were perpetually on the wireless. My grandfather Michael Claffey took a keen interest in that war, which was very remote to the folk in Clerhane.
  So I was about eight or nine years of age when this happened. We are very much talking about the pre iPhone/iPad era. Back then it was not possible to take instant photos, which one could post to some social media platform. One can only imagine in today`s world how the image of the killing of a pig would horrify the viewer, and would no doubt release a stampede of trolls. The outrage would be immense.

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  March 21, 2020

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• From a hedge school in Cappincur to adventures in the American Civil War: the story of Peter Cavanagh. By Michael MacNamara. Blog No 180, 18th March 2020

  Offaly Archives received a very interesting donation of manuscripts in recent times. Michael MacNamara, a native of Colehill and long-time resident of County Limerick, donated archives relating to his great grand-father, Peter Cavanagh, who was born in Cappincur in 1824 and ended up as a solider in the US army during the American Civil War.  Before all those adventures, Peter undertook high level tuition from a Mr Patrick Glowry in a hedge-school arrangement through the famine years of 1844-1848.   His copybook survived and is among the items donated to Offaly Archives. Michael MacNamara has spent many years researching Peter Cavanagh and summarised his unusual life and times for an interview in the Midland Tribune in 2005: (more…)

  March 18, 2020

  American Civil War, Great Famine, hedge schools

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• Pandemics in Ireland and Spanish Flu cases in Offaly, 1918-19. Dr Tim O’Neill and Offaly History. Blog No 179, 14th March 2020

  Last week’s article on the cholera outbreak in Offaly in 1832 attracted a huge readership. This week Dr O’Neill (a Mucklagh, Tullamore native) contributes this piece on Pandemics in Ireland. The Offaly History research team has added some local material on the effects of the Spanish Flu (1918–19) in the county and some pictures by way of further reading. Enjoy and stay positive. Read our  179 articles posted to offalyhistoryblog and catch up on Camus.

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  March 14, 2020

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• How did we cope with Cholera in Offaly in the 1830s? Edited from an article by Dr Tim O’Neill in Offaly Heritage (2003).Blog No 178, 7th March 2020

  

  Cholera was the epidemic disease most feared around the world in the nineteenth century.A letter from Tullamore of 1832 describes the devestating disease of cholera. ‘We had 165 deaths. All bridges to the town are cut and broken. Every house is shut up and there is no such thing as business. Men who would eat their breakfact in perfect health would be buried before dinner.’

  In the eighteenth century neighbouring countries began to suffer from the disease and in the nineteenth century it attacked Europe. Cholera spread around the world in great epidemics from its traditional base in the Indian sub-continent and carried with it high mortality rates, severe suffering and terrifying symptoms. These began in 1817 but the first wave did not reach Europe and was halted temporarily at the shores of the Caspian Sea. From there in 1829 it spread rapidly through Europe. It arrived in Ireland around St Patrick’s Day 1832. This was the most serious cholera outbreak in Ireland in the nineteenth century and it has been estimated that 25,378 people died during that epidemic. The Irish death rate was high when compared to other countries for the same period.

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  March 7, 2020

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• Researching the story of your house: Brady’s shop, Daingean, Offaly and some of Daingean’s old families. By Claire Gogarty. Blog No 176, 22nd Feb 2020

  

  I was asked by John Brady to research his house, which has long functioned as a shop in Daingean, Co. Offaly. John Kearney’s book From the Quiet Annals of Daingean contains a picture of the old post office, with the name Z. Collins above it, and a large ivy-covered wall beside it, taken some time at the beginning of the 20th century. This is the same building, so it was going to be very interesting to find out all about it.

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  February 22, 2020

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• The spirit of the Shannon: a journey along the River Shannon in Richard Hayward’s footsteps. Offaly History Centre, Monday 17 Feb. 2020. Blog No 175, 15th Feb 2020

  

  In August 1939 the Irish travel writer Richard Hayward set out on a road trip to explore the Shannon just two weeks before the Second World War broke out. His evocative account of that trip, Where the River Shannon Flows, became a bestseller. The book, still sought after by lovers of the river, captures an Ireland of small shops and barefoot street urchins that has long since disappeared.
  Eighty years on, inspired by his work, Paul Clements retraces Hayward’s journey along the river, following – if not strictly in his footsteps – then within the spirit of his trip. From the Shannon Pot in Cavan, 344 kilometres south to the Shannon estuary, his meandering odyssey takes him by car, on foot, and by bike and boat, discovering how the riverscape has changed but is still powerful in symbolism. Paul Clements will be giving an illustrated lecture on Monday 17 Feb. at 8.00 p.m. at the Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay, Tullamore ‘The spirit of the Shannon: a journey along the River Shannon in Richard Hayward’s footsteps’ Admission is €5 and includes tea and biscuits. So why not come along to hear and see this wonderfully illustrated talk.

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  February 15, 2020

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• A D. E. Williams Limited Tullamore maltster for fifty years tells his story. By the late Michael Power of Marian Place, Tullamore. Blog No 174, 8th Feb 2020

  

  The Williams company of Tullamore (1884–1996) was in the malting business from 1892. Other Tullamore firms included Egan, Tarleton and B. Daly, the Tullamore distillery. In this article Michael Power tells his story. This piece was first published in Jip-cat, pig’s head, petticoats and combinations: our lives, our times in Tullamore and surrounding districts; editor Feargal Kenny. Tullamore: Tullamore Active Retirement Association, 2002 (available from Offaly History Centre).

  

  As a seasonal worker in the Maltings, you started in September when the harvest came in and wound up in May when the malting was over. I became a permanent worker [at Williams/B Daly/Tullamore Distillery [in 1932 and remained there for fifty years. The work was hard, labouring work, carrying sacks, working in the malthouse, screening malt and barley and carrying sacks of grain.

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  February 8, 2020

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• Dancing with the Stars and the Tyrrellspass connection. By Bríd Ryan. Blog No 173, 1st Feb 2020

  
  I was delighted to see Fr Ray Kelly doing so well on Dancing with the Stars for the past few weeks. He may not be a great dancer but he is a lovely singer and he was a grand young lad in Tyrrellspass years ago when I went on holidays there to my aunt. My aunt and uncle lived in The Buildings, Tyrrellspass on the Mullingar Rd and very near Ray Kelly’s home. The houses there were a part of an orphanage years before and some of the older people remembered the children walking to the Protestant school on the Green in their little white smock uniforms.

  

  I remember a lovely quaint house with a stairs going downwards inside the front door. A woman called Mrs Craven lived in the largest house in The Buildings. She was involved in the ICA but I didn’t know her. I remember the Kelly children playing in the garden. They were a little younger than me but they were always friendly and I know there was always music in their house. His Dad drove a lorry and dealt in sheep and cattle. He had a word for everyone and was very popular. Nurse Kelly was known far and wide as a midwife and was very highly regarded for same. It was interesting, in the book, to see her work from the children’s point of view. I don’t suppose anyone wondered who would mind her four children when she was with an expectant mother and their Dad was working away from home. His Aunt Kitty got great love and well deserved praise from Ray. I just remember her as a quiet woman who loved to go to Bingo and was a regular on the Bingo bus with my own aunt!

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  February 1, 2020

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