In January 1953 Clara and Tullamore district was introduced to its very own ‘bat mobile’ the recently launched sports car, the Jaguar XK120. After the austerity years of WW II its sleek design and incredible speed was said to have inspired the creators of the fictitious ‘bat mobile’ in 1966. It was owned by Larry Egan of Gayfield, Clonminch Road. Larry was joint managing director (with his relation Paddy [P. V.] Egan, Cloncon and later Spollanstown) of the firm P. & H. Egan Limited headquartered on Tullamore’s Bridge Street. Their relation and good friend, Clara’s ace motorcar and motorcycle racer Charlie O’Hara raced it for them.
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25 The Big Freeze of 1947 on the Grand Canal in County Offaly. By J.J. Reilly. No 25 in the Offaly Anniversaries Series of 2024. Blog No 682, 18th Dec 2024
On January 19th 1947 Ireland saw the beginning of a freak weather event. A ‘cold easterly regime set in’ as Kevin Kearns puts it in his 2011 book, Ireland’s Arctic siege.[i] Night frost and snowfalls began from the night of the 19th and by the 24th temperatures dropped to between -20c and -60c. With the reduction of the goods train service an increase in cargo haulage on the barges along the Grand Canal brought with it trouble for the canal workers. The owners of the barges were working to capacity.[ii] The Grand Canal froze at night making it difficult for barge traffic to move as the bargemen slowly broke through the ice in the early morning. A repetition of this continued for weeks into February and March.
Beginning around the 24th January the canal began freezing over. For the next six weeks, every morning the bargemen made slow progress hacking and smashing their way through the ice.
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New books on Offaly History in 2024: another good crop. Blog No 681, 15th Dec 2024
The year 2024 was another good year for publications on Offaly history with overviews of County Offaly towns, books on Tullamore, Birr and a musician from Killeigh who acquired fame in the United States. We also had Cloneygowan, canals, peat, a Feehan bibliography and natural history.
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The changing face of Offaly and Kinnitty in the early 1900s: launch by John Clendennen T.D. of a new book featuring Kinnitty at Giltraps’s, Kinnitty on Thursday 19 Dec. at 8 30 p.m. Blog No 680, 14th Dec 2024
Kinnitty Parish can now celebrate having two TDs, not to mention so many of of its young men on the first Offaly team to win an All Ireland back in 1924. All part of recent celebrations. What was the village like a generation earlier in the 1890s and earlier 1900s? To find out more come to the launch of The Changing Face of Offaly towns in the early 1900s published by Offaly History and for which local woman Grace Clendennen contributed an essay. Please note the launch time of 8 30 p.m. (ed.)
From the Midland Tribune of 5 Dec. 2024 Grace Clendennen writes of Kinnitty in 1901 and 1911
Like the 1901 census, the majority of Kinnitty residents in the 1911 were born in the King’s County. There were 225 people recorded in 49 houses[1]. Roman Catholic was the most common religion stated but a sizable number, 42 out 225, stated their religion to be other than Catholic[2]. Akin to the census of 1901, eight properties were listed as ‘first-class’. Two of the properties were listed as general shops. In 1901 Patrick Egan and his wife were recorded as shopkeepers. A shop assistant, a domestic servant and a yard man lived with the Egan family.
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Commemorating Offaly’s rocky road to its first All-Ireland success 100 years ago. A big day for the men of Kinnitty, Drumcullen, Coolderry and Birr. By Sean McEvoy. No 24 in the Anniversaries Series posted by Offaly History. Blog No 679, 11th Dec 2024
On the morning of Sunday October 12th 1924, two excursion trains from Birr and Tullamore bringing approximately 1000 Offaly supporters left the county for Croke Park in Dublin. As the Birr train pulled into Ballybrophy, a large train full of Cork supporters was seen in waiting. However, as the Offaly train was placed in front of its Cork counterpart for departure, one excited Faithful supporter prophetically exclaimed, ‘Gosh we’re ahead of Cork, we’ll be that way all day’. His enthusiasm was greeted with the response ‘we hope so’, as the Midland Tribune (MT) reporter who witnessed the event noted the contrast in the Cork supporters who seemed unable for a moment to countenance ‘the idea of defeat’, while the Offaly supporters were travelling more ‘in hope’ of victory but with the knowledge that their team which had come through a long campaign ‘were determined to fight in every ounce of their strength’ to land the county’s first national title.
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Tullamore in the Sixties launch – pictures capturing the period. Blog No 678, 7th Dec 2024
Tullamore in the Sixties was launched to great acclaim on 6 December. Most of the contributors living in Ireland participated in the proceedings with three to five minute talks. The book was launched by architect, town planner and artist Fergal MacCabe. A few of his own watercolours grace the contents of this 450 page book with extensive essays (from 18 writers) and 350 pictures. The book is available from Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay, Tullamore and Midland Books and the pop up at Bridge Centre. It can also be ordered on line.
Some of the contributors to Tullamore in the Sixties Some of the pictures capture the period:
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Banagher Brontë Group Book Launch, Blog No 677, 5th Dec 2024
AND WREATH LAYING THIS WEEKEND
BOOK LAUNCH
The Banagher Brontë Group will round off a great inaugural year with two events this coming weekend. On Saturday 7th December the group will launch Martina Devlin’s Charlotte at 2.30 p.m. in the Crank House, Banagher. The book will be launched by Nigel West whose ancestors lived in Hill House, (now Charlotte’s Way, a well-appointed guesthouse), until 1959 when it was sold to the local Church of Ireland community.
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Kilcruttin’s Forgotten People. Recapturing memories of Tullamore in the Sixties by Terry Adams. Blog No 676, 3rd Dec 2024
One of the essays in the new book on Tullamore in the Sixties to be launched on Friday 6 December 2024 at 7.30 p.m. at Offaly History Centre (beside the new Aldi store in Tullamore, all welcome) is that by Terry Adams on his beloved Cormac Street, Tullamore where his family have been located for 150 years or thereabouts. Terry’s is an evocative piece and one of 29 essays in this new book on Tullamore with over 300 pictures.
I stood with my back to Lloyd’s field, surrounded by memories of childhood and family. On my left, back towards the town, my Grandmother Egan’s family home, The Hall, now the municipal council offices, nestles behind its railings and garden. Opposite, on the junction of Cormac Street and O’Moore Street, stands the building I was born in, now home to my brother Brian. My Adams grandparents’ house faces me across the street. Further along the imposing old courthouse and jail buildings sit in their solemn majesty.
The view from Kilcruttin Hill courtesy of Fergal MacCabe Cormac Street, my street, even if I have not lived here since 1981. When I think of home it is to this street, to these buildings, my mind roams. It is a major part of me, of my identity, of who I am, of who I always will be. I look back towards the town centre, the street has changed little since my childhood. The house exteriors, excluding The Hall, have not been radically altered but most of their old occupants have left us: my father, also Terry, Frank and Carmel Egan, Ray and Sylvia Courtney, Ray and Emer McCann, Mr and Mrs McNeill, Mr and Mrs Brennan, Bridie Byrne, Jimmy and Marcella Byrne, Mrs Behan, Paddy and Mrs. Lloyd……
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‘Let Lemass lead on’ and ‘Lets Back Jack’ – politics in Offaly in the 1960s when three new TDs were returned in 1969 – just 55 years ago. A General Election special from Ballynagh South. Blog No 675, 30th Nov 2024
As we wait the outcome of the General Election today (30 Nov. 2024) we could look back to 1969 when Offaly returned three TDs in the five-seater Laois Offaly Constituency.[1]
How many in Offaly did not vote yesterday? We should recall that between 1885 and 1922 there was no opportunity to vote in North Offaly save in the Adams- Graham by-election of 1914 when Graham won by 79 votes as an unofficial candidate not backed by the Irish Parliamentary Party.
For the 1969 general election the slogan was ‘Let’s back Jack’. It was a campaign in which Fianna Fáil ran five candidates and secured three seats in Laois-Offaly. Tom Enright of Fine Gael picked up the O’Higgins seat. None of the winning candidates was from Tullamore. It was a reflection of the fact that Fianna Fáil (F.F.) back to the late 1920s, was strongest in Clara, Ferbane and west Offaly. In the event Offaly secured three new TDs and a first for the towns of Clara and Birr where Ber Cowen (F.F.) and Tom Enright (F.G.) were elected while Ger Connolly of Bracknagh was elected for F.F., having been added to the ticket. Fianna Fáil, with the help of some adroit redrawing of boundaries, secured two more seats than they had in 1965, and Labour had set itself against a coalition. Fianna Fáil won 51.7 of the seats with 45.7 per cent of the votes.[2]
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Tullamore in the Sixties. A new book of essays on Tullamore in an eventful decade, just published. Blog No 674, 29th Nov 2024
This volume of essays brings together the contributions of eighteen people who kept a keen eye on developments in Tullamore in the 1960s. Perhaps none more so than the late Joe Kenny who came to Tullamore in the 1950s as a vocational schoolteacher and was held in high esteem for his sound judgement and abilities as an impartial chairman. In that capacity he was the inaugural president of Tullamore Credit Union in 1963. Fergal MacCabe, as a Tullamore native, with a professional life in architecture and town planning in Dublin, brings a unique contribution by way of his recollections of Tullamore in the 1950s and his review of the first town plan of the 1960s. The same can be said of Vincent Hussey as a planning officer with Offaly County Council with his recollections of Tullamore since the 1960s. Niall Sweeney, an engineer and former Offaly County Manager, takes a close look at the provision of public infrastructure in Tullamore over the period from the 1960s to 2014. The late Jack Taaffe, as town clerk in Tullamore in 1970–72 demonstrates just how underfunded urban authorities were in those years. He went on to become county manager in Westmeath presiding over the progress of the county from 1981 to 1988. Michael Byrne looks at the history of business in Tullamore and sought to cover the principal enterprises of the 1960s in manufacturing, distribution, shopping, entertainment and dancing. Noel Guerin, as a former employee of ‘the bacon factory’, was able to write of a company that employed up to 100 people in Tullamore over forty years and made the name of the town famous for the Tullamore sausage. Ronnie Colton, from his own extensive involvement in the motor business brings a knowledge from the garage floor and sales yard that few others can match.
Miss Savage, a well-loved teacher in the Mercy primary school Alan Mahon, as the grandson of an innovative cinema proprietor, recalls two cinemas in Tullamore whose cultural contribution is perhaps forgotten now but was all important to the people of Tullamore and district over a period of sixty or seventy years, if one takes it from the commencement of the Foresters cinema (later the Grand Central) in 1914.
Sport, so important to so many, brings us to the essay by Kevin Corrigan who looks at a formative decade leading on to the GAA Senior Football All-Ireland victories in the 1970s. Kevin had the challenging job of reducing to a short essay what could fill twenty books were one to address in detail each of the sporting activities that came to the forefront in the sixties.
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