This handsome house was built in 1786 by Thomas Acres and is set well in from the street. The valuer of 1843 wrote: ‘This has always been considered the best house in Tullamore – it is well situate – extensive pleasure grounds in front and rear, and well walled garden.’[1] Acres Hall, the town hall since 1992, is a five-bay, two-storey house with a limestone ashlar façade. In this respect it bears comparison with the house of Dr Wilson of 1789 (now Farrellys) in High Street and was built at the same time.
Last week we set out reasons why Cormac Street can be considered so good. Anybody getting off the train, visiting the town park or the courthouse cannot but be impressed. The street is very largely intact since it was built and has been enhanced by the town park. The restoration of the full Kilcruttin Hill beside the folly should be undertaken by the municipal council given its historic importance. Charleville/Cormac Street was the outer extremity of the town when building started here in the 1780s. Probably the Elmfield house (now the location of the Aras an Chontae) dates to 1795. Both Norris of that house and Acres of Acres Hall (dated to 1786) were functionaries of the young landlord’s family and both built on the road to the demesne. Bury came of age in June 1786 and so could regulate matters himself. While there were some cabins on Charleville Road these were temporary structures and aside from Elmfield no building leases were granted here until that to Daniel E. Williams in 1898. He completed Dew Park by 1900 and it was then regarded as the best house in Tullamore having taken that honour from Acres Hall. It reflected changing times with the demise and relative impoverishment of the Acres family and the growing importance of the new Catholic merchant class of Egan’s and Williams. While Williams had a virtual freehold in Dew Park lands the Egan family took a long lease from the Acres Pierce family of Acres Hall in 1891. The third big house that of Elmfield may well have earned the first-place honour but the Goodbodys sold this house in the 1880s and moved to Dublin. Richard Bull, the sub-sheriff moved in and departed after 1904 when the house was taken by Dr Kennedy who had moved from The Cottage in O’Moore Street.
My paternal great-great grandfather was James Corcoran (c. 1801 to c. 1848), a tenant farmer/freeholder who, in the mid-1820s, had dominion over approximately 44 acres (current measurement) in the townland of Crissard in County Laois. At that time Crissard was often referred to as “Cropard,” with numerous variations on the name since. “Crissard” appears to be the official townland name, although local residents today favour “Crossard.”
In 1823 James married Elizabeth Conlon. Elizabeth was almost certainly from either Crissard or perhaps from one of two adjacent townlands; Wolfhill or Kellystown. Below is a cut-and-paste record from the Ballyadams R.C. Parish marriage records identifying their February 5, 1823 marriage. Note “Cropard” as the place name.
James and Elizabeth would go on to have six children between 1824 and 1846; Margaret, Mary, Frances, William, Honora and Patrick. A long gap between the birth of fifth child Honora in 1833 and sixth and final child Patrick in 1846 initially had me wondering if I had the “right” Patrick but all was quickly confirmed upon locating the baptism records for the children, all confirming the parents as James Corcoran and Elizabeth Conlon.
Aside from the Tithe record and baptism records for James and Elizabeth’s first five children, the next credible record(s) that I find of James are at least six newspaper entries in the Leinster Express between 1839 and 1842 where James, along with numerous other County Laois (Queens at that time) residents were seeking the right to vote. I never determined if James secured voting rights.
Following the early 1840s newspaper references, James appears in the record of son Patrick’s March, 1846 baptism. This is the final written reference to James. Then, in 1850, we find Elizabeth Corcoran in the Griffith’s Valuation records living as head-of-household in the townland of Shanbagh (Shanrath today), two miles to the east of Crissard (see below). The 11-shilling valuation of her residence suggests fourth class housing, an indication that she may have been living in mud hut poverty, as were seemingly most of her immediate neighbours.
I have little doubt that this is the correct Elizabeth Corcoran, owing in large part to the landowner listed for Elizabeth’s residence; one Alicia Kavanagh, a resident of nearby Wolfhill. The connection between these two women was likely tied to Alicia owning the land in Wolfhill on which the Roman Catholic Chapel of that time was located, which was almost certainly the church where my Corcoran ancestors would have worshipped.
Remains of the original Wolfhill R.C. Chapel, the ruins ofwhich are found in present day St. Mary’s Church Graveyard
James disappearance from the records after 1846 and Elizabeth’s subsequent appearance as a head-of-household in 1850 strongly hints that James died during this four-year period, which not coincidentally was the time of the Famine.
The Famine, and likely the death of James, triggered emigration of three and quite possibly four of the Corcoran children, including my great-grandfather William Corcoran who departed for New York in 1850, one year after his sister Frances Corcoran left for New York in 1849 and one year prior to sister Margaret (Corcoran) Knowles emigrated to New York in 1851; classic Irish “chain immigration” on display! There is strong circumstantial evidence that sister Honora Corcoran followed suit in 1852, although definitive proof is teasingly lacking.
I was able to trace the lives of William, Frances and Margaret until their deaths in New York. Frances, the first to emigrate, arrived in New York City, married another Irish immigrant named Patrick O’Brien, and remained in Manhattan until passing in 1895. More interestingly, William Corcoran and Margaret (Corcoran) Knowles relocated to Clinton County in the northeastern corner of New York State, both eventually landing in the rural Crissard-like town of Beekmantown, on the same road, just two houses/farms apart. Another Knowles, Patrick Knowles, the older brother of Margaret’s husband Dennis Knowles, lived on and farmed the property between William and Margaret’s; a little cluster of Crissard emigrants living in an environment in which they likely would have taken some comfort. Other Irish immigrant families surrounded the Corcoran/Knowles clan; families with surnames such as Conroy, Kearney, Mullen and Golden.
Margaret’s life in New York was sadly marred by two events. The first was the death of her and Dennis’ two young Irish-born children, Mary and Michael Knowles, both of whom died in New York City during the six months that the family lived there before relocating to Beekmantown. The second tragedy was the passing away of Margaret herself in 1861, at age 37. Brother William did not purchase his land in Beekmantown until 1863, so he was never reunited as a neighbor to his sister, although they did live in the same County for 10+ years, which no doubt allowed for close interaction.
William would marry another Knowles, Catherine Knowles, in 1869 (see St. James Church record below – “Knowles” is misspelled as “Noles”). Catherine was the Beekmantown-born daughter of Patrick Knowles and a niece of Dennis Knowles, further tightening the Corcoran/Knowles bond in Beekmantown. But in another grim twist, Catherine would die in 1871, only 10 days after giving birth to her and William’s second child and daughter, Anna Corcoran.
William quickly remarried in 1872 to Julia Kilroy (later “Gilroy”), Clinton County-born daughter of another Irish immigrant couple from County Cavan; Patrick Kilroy and Alice Keenan.
William and Julia would have one child, my grandfather, John Corcoran, in 1877. Upon William’s death at his Beekmantown home/farm in 1904, John inherited the farm where he would follow in William’s footsteps for over two decades, before losing his 300+ acres of land to the economic scourge of the Great Depression.
John Corcoran (c. 1900)
John would marry Margaret Dowd, with the couple going on to have four children of their own; my father Francis Corcoran, Mary Corcoran, Ruth (Corcoran) Martin and Florence (Corcoran) Tusa. The direct line Corcorans, including my brother, sister and I would remain in Beekmantown until 1975, at which point my father was transferred to Albany, New York for work, resulting in my siblings and I all dispersing after marriage, but all still making our homes in upstate New York.
My brother and I each have a son and daughter, with both of our sons living in upstate New York, ensuring at least one more generation of Crissard-origin Corcorans leaving their footprints, however small, in the same geographic area as our Irish immigrant William Corcoran.
Cormac Street is somewhat unique in the story of Tullamore Street development with its forty houses, two major institutional buildings, a folly and a town park. Rarely is a street preserved without blemish with so many elements over a two-hundred-year period. Cormac Street was also the home of the town’s major property developer and rentier Thomas Acres (d. 1836) who built his Acres Hall in 1786 (now the home of Tullamore Municipal Council). To the earl of Charleville and Thomas Acres is due most of the credit for the transformation of a green field site with Kilcruttin Hill and cemetery to the western side and the Windmill Hill to the east with the terraces in Cormac Street and O’Moore Street. Acres could thank the war with France, 1793–1815, for the boost to the local economy that provided him with tenants for the terrace of houses on the east side. The expansion of Tullamore after 1798 due to the Grand Canal connection with Dublin and the Shannon provided the impetus to secure a new county jail (1826–30), county town status in 1832 and to take effect in 1835 with the completion of the county courthouse. War, politics and pride of place all contributed to the mix. The Bury contribution was rounded off when Alfred (later the fifth earl) got a new railway station at Kilcruttin in place of that at Clonminch in about 1865. Alfred died in 1875 soon after he succeeded his nephew to the earldom.
As we conclude our series on O’Moore Street and move to Cormac Street it is opportune to look at the oldest terrace on the street but starting with No 1 O’Moore Street being Tullamore House, the home of the Bannon family. So many have lived here since that great house was built about 1800. We will go into more detail on this one as part of the Cormac Street series. For now let’s look at the terrace from no. 2 to no. 9 in the 1843-54 valuation records. The terrace was built in the years from say 1795 to 1805 with a few houses rebuilt in recent years.
The developer/rentier was Thomas Acres of nearby Acres Hall (now the Town Hall) and he was building on a nice lease for ever from the young landlord Charles William Bury of Charleville (Lord, Tullamore 1797 earl of Charleville 1806). It was a lease of the Windmill Plot from Victoria Terrace to the county courthouse.
O’Moore street, c 1910. Courtesy of National Library of Ireland At the two doors may be the O’Rourke and the Carroll families, nos 4 and 6.(more…)
Urban Design ‘The design of buildings, groups of buildings, spaces and landscape’
Early Efforts
The purpose of urban design is to create attractive and enticing public environments through the use of harmony, proportion, rhythm, art, unity and vistas. Urban designers treat towns and cities as artefacts whose appearance and civic life can be improved by the application of aesthetic devices .
In the late 18th and early 19th century these principles played an important role in the evolution of Tullamore. The laying out of O’Carroll Street and the fine terraces of Church Street and Bury Quay as well as the alignment of Patrick Street to frame the gate of the Barracks were all considered urban ensembles.
The fourth head lease in O’Moore Street granted by the earls of Charleville, and the last of significance, was that to the Tullamore printer Richard Willis in 1838 for the construction of the seven houses in Victoria Terrace, O’Moore Street. The lease from the second Lord Charleville was for 99 years from 25 March 1838 at £21 per year or £3 ground rent for each house. The first earl died in 1835 and, his son, the profligate second earl, was determined to extract more money from his estate to fund his expensive lifestyle and political ambitions. No more sweetheart deals as was done by the first earl for Thomas Acres in the 1790s who developed part of O’Moore Street and most of Cormac Street. The lease of 100 years instead of three lives renewable for ever was a change of policy on the part of the second earl who was disgruntled at his father having virtually alienated or sold much of Tullamore town for small money, as he believed.
Richard Willis was in the printing business for over fifty years. A few of his publications survive in the RIA (Hardiman pamphlets) and Offaly Archives. He worked from what is now the Insurance offices of Gray Cunniffe Flaherty and had a lane of cabins to the rear that was closed by 1854.
The two big garages in O’Moore Street, Tullamore of Roberts Motor Works and Hurst were famous from the 1920s and 1930s. The Hurst boiler, in particular, will be remembered by patrons of Georgie Egan’s in Harbour Street where, as a pot-bellied iron stove, it heated that old pub, now gone. Hurst was the first to open in 1925 and was building on a tradition of engineering in the Killeigh/Geashill area that may owe its origins to the service of large farm machines for the fine farms in the parish of Geashill and Killeigh, by men such as George Matthews in the 1900s. Matthews came to farms with his threshing equipment much as farm machinery services are provided today. The Roberts family was probably that connected with serious prize-winning gardening at Charleville back in the 1880s. The Motor Works garage was opened in the mid-1930s in the former Presbyterian manse after the departure of Revd Mr Humphreys.
Why mention the garages now with both long closed. We do so to illustrate how lack of planning in the 1750s still impacts on street development in O’Moore Street 275 years later. That said the first earl of Charleville (d. 1764) was concentrating on the main road from Charleville Gate to High Street and Pound Street (now Columcille St). The old church was in Church Street and the Crofton House at the junction with the Killeigh Road (now O’Moore Street) was the first in view from the demesne entrance on the avenue left of the main gate. The earl’s grand nephew successor, when he came of age in 1786, started working on making the demesne more picturesque and employed Leggatt (see IGS jn. no 26 (2023) in the late 1780s and J.C. Loudon in 1811 as the castle was nearing completion. Loudon is said to have laid out Bachelors Walk as an attractive drive to the new church at Hop Hill, then in progress and completed in 1815.
Moore Hall is an imposing two-story house over basement with two-story porch projection in cut stone, and coach arch and stables (now demolished). The façade is of three bays. The house is one of the finest in Tullamore, a fact that may escape notice because of its closeness to the street. In the front railing ironwork is the last gas lamp stand in Tullamore. This is the only surviving vestige of the era of gas lighting from 1860 to 1921.
The Cottage in O’Moore Street, Tullamore is one of the few examples in Offaly of cottage ornée architecture. This was an architectural style that may have begun with Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, built over the period from 1749 to the 1770s. One of the best-known examples in Ireland is the Swiss Cottage in Cahir. These cottages were built by the well-off to play at rusticity and, as with this house, have carefully hidden its actual size and its impressive garden. The Cottage was built about 1809 and is one of three or four fine houses in the street, the best being Moore Hall and Tullamore House at the junction with Cormac Street.
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