Tag: O’Connor Square

• The Crowd in O’Connor Square, the spatial strategy and Tullamore as the ‘Kilkenny of the midlands’. Blog No 16, 11 February 2017.

   

  O’Connor Square has been an open space and at times a crowded place over its 300 years in existence. Described as a market place as early as 1713 it was not until 1789 that the market house (now the Rocket restaurant) was built. For over 250 years the square fulfilled the important market function of any provincial town. A place where town met country and where people came to sell their farm produce and livestock. Trading was carried on in the formal setting of the market house for just thirty years. By 1820 that function in the square was modified with the provision of a new Cornmarket (now the Market Square) off Harbour Street and close to the Grand Canal harbour. (more…)

  February 11, 2017

  O’Connor Square, Planning, Tullamore

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• The war memorial in O’Connor Square: the first of the public memorials in Tullamore Town. Blog No 15, 04 Februarys 2017.

  The 2016-17 €3m enhancement plan for Tullamore town contains a broad proposal that the war memorial in O’Connor Square be moved to a widened footpath opposite the Brewery Tap. The reasoning is unclear, but may be to have a broad sweep in the square for a covered market or band stand idea to the front of the library. A Fergal MacCabe drawing of 2013 was able to provide for the retention of the war memorial where it was first placed in 1926. The purpose of this article is to provide a history of this and other memorials in the square with a quick overview of Tullamore’s monuments to recall ‘those who should not be forgotten’. (more…)

  February 4, 2017

  O’Connor Square, Planning, Tullamore

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• The families of O’Connor Square, Tullamore over two centuries. Blog No 14, 28 January 2017.

  There may be no families resident in O’Connor Square in 2017 and the area is now almost entirely a public and commercial space with well-designed buildings, a memorial in memory of the war dead of 1914-18, a public library, the restaurant ‘Bake’ and a market house/’town hall’ to which the public have access for the most part due to its being a restaurant at ground level. The great footfall recipient today is the Post Office, fulfilling in the square what the credit union does in Patrick Street. (more…)

  January 28, 2017

  O’Connor Square, Planning, Tullamore

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• Tullamore is the best town in the county and ‘Little inferior to any town in Ireland’. Blog No 13, 21 January 2017.

   

  Some of the options around the €3m Enhancement Plans for Tullamore town envisage O’Connor Square as a tree-lined open space with perhaps a band stand and from time to time one assumes the holding of local markets including a Christmas market. The market function goes back over 300 years and survived intact for the first 100 years up to the 1820s. By that time the town had expanded and a new market function, near the commercial harbour (an inland port) was developed in a rectangular area perhaps twice the size of O’Connor Square. Even so the main square continued to be used for the sale of light goods on the big trading days or Fair Days. That custom pertained until the 1980s when it came under fire from a pincer movement (more…)

  January 21, 2017

  O’Connor Square, Planning, Tullamore

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• Planning in Tullamore and the making of O’Connor Square. Blog No 12, 14 January 2017.

  Agreeing on what will make Tullamore better is not a simple task

  O’Connor Square, Tullamore is in the news because of the proposed enhancement works for Tullamore based on a budget of €3m which will see Main Street connected to the Bridge Centre, the laying underground of cables in some of the streets and the re-ordering of O’Connor Square to remove the motor car, in so far as politically possible. What are proposed now are enhancement works to have more pedestrianisation (more…)

  January 14, 2017

  Charleville, O’Connor Square, Planning, Tullamore

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