offalyhistoryblog

Flights of Fancy; Follies, Families and Demesnes in Offaly by Rachel McKenna, Architect for Offaly County Council. By Amanda Pedlow, Offaly Heritage Officer. Blog No 59, 02 Dec 2017

Flights of Fancy; Follies, Families and Demesnes in Offaly by Rachel McKenna has just been published by Offaly County Council at £30. It’s a large format coffee-table type book with over 350 pages, in full colour and hard cover. It can be bought across the county, Irish Georgian shop, Dublin and Offaly History Centre, Tullamore.

The book looks at the evolution of the demesne in Offaly with no less than fifteen studies of demesnes across the county from Charleville, Birr, Gloster, Tubberdaly, Ballycumber, Moorock, Busherstown, Prospect, Acres, Belview, Mullagh Hill, Ballyeighan, Hollow House, Kinnitty to Loughton. The big names such as Birr are well-known but there are others that provide surprising and interesting excursions into the county’s landscape, architectural history and family history. There are lots of curious things that are fascinating such as the story of the ‘mummy’s hand’ at Prospect House and Lord Bloomfield’s experiences as ambassador to Russia in its glittering heyday. (more…)

December 2, 2017

Follies
Memories are made of this. Jackie Finlay on social life in Tullamore since the 1950s, political intrigue and the music scene in Ireland. Blog No 58, 25 Nov 2017

Memories are made of this is the title of a book of memories by Tullamore man, Jackie Finlay. The new book will be launched at the Offaly History Centre, Bury Quay, Tullamore on Friday 1 December 2017 at 8.30 p.m. The book runs to 224 pages with about 70 pictures. It will sell for just €14.95. Copies can be collected at the Centre that evening and thereafter. It can be ordered online free of post in Ireland by going to the shop at http://www.offalyhistory.com.

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November 25, 2017

autobiography, entertainment, memoir
John Killaly (1766-1832) Tullamore’s premier resident engineer in the forty years from the 1790s to his death in 1832. By Ron Cox. Blog No 57, 19 Nov 2017

offalyhistoryblog

John A Killaly, surveyor and canal engineer, was born in Ireland. Killaly was a big noise in Tullamore. For his contribution to the building of the Grand Canal alone he deserves to be remembered. Lately Offaly History erected a plaque to his memory on our building at Bury Quay.

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November 19, 2017

Grand Canal, John Killaly
Killaly, John (1766-1832) Tullamore’s premier resident engineer in the forty years from the 1790s to his death in 1832. By Ron Cox. Blog No 56, 18 Nov 2017

John A Killaly, surveyor and canal engineer, was born in Ireland. Killaly was a big noise in Tullamore. For his contribution to the building of the Grand Canal alone he deserves to be remembered. Lately Offaly History erected a plaque to his memory on our building at Bury Quay. (more…)

November 18, 2017

Industrial Archaeology
Renovating a period house in an Irish country town – No 6 High Street, Tullamore, by Tanya Ross. Blog No 55, 11 Nov 2017

Tanya Ross tells the story of herself and her partner buying the former Kilroy dwelling house in High Street, Tullamore. It had been on the market for a considerable time and it did seem as if nobody wanted to live there. Probably a combination of lack of mortgages, fear of noise and nuisance from pubs and lorries contributed to the delay in selling what was and now is again a fine period house and one of the last houses in High Street to be occupied as a residence and not used for offices or a shop. Its restoration may be the catalyst for other such work in High Street and O’Connor Square and with best wishes to the owner of the house in Cormac Street recently and tastefully restored. The former Offaly Inn at Deane Place also looks attractive and adds to that part of Harbour Street and Market Square. Another blog will explore these additions and improvements to the town’s heritage.

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November 11, 2017

Dr Moorhead, Kilroy’s, No 6 High St, Tullamore Arts Centre, William Garner
The Clonbrock Murder – Part 2 of the story of Mary Daly, by Margaret Mulligan. Blog No 54, 04 Nov 2017

In the second and final instalment of the story of Mary Daly, the last woman to be hanged at Tullamore in 1903, read about her trial and execution which was a sensation at the time. She was buried three times and said to haunt the gaol building, later the Salt’s factory, for many years afterwards. A full version of this article with extensive bibliography and sources (‘The Clonbrock Murder’) can be found in our journal, Offaly Heritage, Vol 2. (Esker Press, 2009). (more…)

November 4, 2017

Clonbrock Murder, Joseph Taylor, Mary Daly, Salts, Tullamore Gaol
Mary Daly, the last woman to be hanged in Tullamore, Part 1, by Margaret Mulligan. Blog No 53, 28 October 2017

For years workers at the Salts factory in Tullamore, formerly Tullamore Gaol, spoke of the ghost of Mary Daly haunting the building. Margaret Mulligan, head researcher at Offaly History, recounts the tale of the last woman to be executed at Tullamore for the murder of her husband, John Daly.

Mrs. Mary Daly was the last woman executed at Tullamore on 10th January 1903, for complicity in the murder of her husband John Daly of Clonbrock, Doonone, Co. Laois. She was the second last woman to be hanged in Ireland. Until the early nineteenth century those convicted of most felonies were liable to be executed, and serious crimes such as robbery, rape and murder, received the death penalty. Mary Daly suffered the extreme penalty of the law, as it was alleged she was involved in a conspiracy in which she was the principal participator. She is still prominent in the folk memories of Tullamore town. Joseph Taylor was also executed for the murder of John Daly on 7th January 1903. (more…)

October 28, 2017

Clonbrock Murder, Execution, John Daly, Joseph Taylor, Laois, Mary Daly, Salts
Railway Competition in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s and the unfortunate experience of Peter Lumley of Tullamore, by Peter Burke. Blog No 52, 21 October 2017

The railway connection from Dublin was completed to Tullamore in 1854 and from Tullamore to Athlone in 1859. Here Peter Burke, a ‘railway buff’ tells of some of the shenanigans that went on to stifle competition. For what happened to Peter Lumley of that well-known Tullamore business family read on. (more…)

October 21, 2017

Ballinasloe Fair, Great Southern and Western Railway, Midland Great Western Railway, Peter Lumley, Portarlington and Tullamore Railway
The closure of Alesburys timber factory in Edenderry, by Dr Ciarán Reilly. Blog No 51, 14 October 2017

The extension and building of the railway line to Edenderry in the 1870s gave much needed employment to the area which was further bolstered by the arrival of two Quaker entrepreneurs from Bristol, England namely Daniel and John Alesbury. There had been a large Quaker community in Edenderry since the end of the seventeenth century and Daniel Alesbury commenced working with one such family, Williams, who owned a timber factory located in the towns market square. He subsequently married into the family and quickly commenced his own business before these premises were burned by fire in 1888. From here the factory moved to its location along the Grand Canal opposite New Row Corner at the junction which leads to the village of Rhode. (more…)

October 14, 2017

Alesburys, Edenderry Shoe Company, J.F. Gill, Quaker, Senator James Douglas, Senator Joseph Connolly, timber factory
Tullamore from the Famine to 1916: the recollections of Thomas Prittie (1833-1916), by Michael Byrne. Blog No 50, 07 Oct 2017

Thomas Prittie’s recollections of Tullamore from the Famine to the Easter Rising serve to confirm how much the town had improved both physically and in civility in that narrator’s own time. Thomas Prittie died on 29 April 1916 just at the close of Easter Week and was described by the Tullamore and King’s County Independent as ‘one of the oldest inhabitants of the town’ who helped in ‘our historical sketch of Tullamore published some months ago’. He was aged 83 according to his death certificate, but the reporter put him at ninety.[1] He lived, unmarried, in Henry/O’Carroll Street, Tullamore and, said the local press, left considerable house property. (more…)

October 7, 2017