Workhouse orphan emigration, particularly those from Parsonstown (Birr). By Perry McIntyre

Perry McIntyre is the Chair of the Great Irish Famine Commemoration Committee (Email: contact@irishfaminememorial.org. Website: www.irishfaminememorial.org). 

On 4 May 2017 Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society archivist, Lisa Shortall, brought up the Parsonstown Union Letter Book [Reference OHS 71] for me to consult at Bury Quay. (This item is now available to consult at Offaly Archives). My interest was to see what clues may have been recorded about any of the 136 young women who left King’s County for Australia during 1848-1850 as part of the Famine emigration to Australia, now often referred to as ‘Earl Grey’s workhouse orphan scheme’. During these three years 4114 young women aged between 13 and 18 were selected as healthy, suitable domestic servants and potential marriage partners and they were given a free passage from Ireland to one of three Australian colonies: two in New South Wales (Sydney and Port Phillip) and Adelaide in South Australia.

Walking the stream at Ballinagar and district by John Malone

 

Ballinagar village is in the townland of Ballinagar. A small stream borders Ballinagar from its neighbouring townlands. For this article I walk along this stream to see what it can tell us about the past.

The stream as it flows through the scrub.

BALLYMOONEY
At Ballymooney bridge the stream enters the Tullamore river. The road here is called the Killeigh road. Over the years various road improvements and land reclamation works have changed this area completely. Before the late 1700s the stream entered the Tullamore River nearer to Ballycrumlin. A new road was constructed between Killeigh and Daingean and the Ballycue stream as it was known became a road drain. In 1808 local landowner’s Rev John Webb, Daniel Commins, James Digan and Rich Cleary got grants to work on drains between “the new bridge and where the old stream of Ballycue had been turned into a road drain” They also had to build five gullets or channels for water between Ballinagar and Ballina. William Steuart Trench who managed the Digby estate from 1857 to 1871 saw the potential of the land here and undertook a huge drainage scheme and redesigned the field system around Ballymooney House. He remarks after his drainage scheme that “land in Ballinagar that had previously lain in permanent water, where cattle were in constant danger of drowning were now good areas of pasture .”

Offaly Archives: an overview of the local government archival collections. By Erin Sears

Offaly Archives’ local government collections cover an extensive range of local government organisations – from grand juries, infirmaries, rural district councils, town commissioners, poor law unions, county councils, committees of agriculture and urban district councils. The material from the collections was acquired since the 1950s and covers roughly two hundred years of history.

Recently, the local government collections, as well as a number of donated collections of private origin, have been relocated from Offaly County Library to purpose built archival facilities at Offaly Archives, Unit 1F, Axis Business Park, Clara Road, Tullamore. Offaly Archives is the joint archival repository of Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society (Offaly History) and Offaly County Library, and is administered by Offaly History.

During the summer of 2019, I worked on providing online catalogue descriptions for the local government collections in preparation for their move. Descriptions for the collections were created using Michael Murphy, Anne Coughlan and Gráinne Doran’s 2003 publication Grand Jury to Áras An Chontae, which provides breakdowns of Offaly Archives local government collections, as well as detailed information relating to the formation of Offaly’s local government structures, their various duties, lists of members and historical points of interest.

Some Egan family members enter the church: Brothers, Sisters and Cousins: Ireland 1850-1918. By Maurice Egan

 

Background: Ireland 1850 to 1918
The emergence of an Irish Catholic religious revival can be traced back to mid-1770s. Tony Fahey writes of the ‘Catholic Revival in Ireland’, being a major feature of 19th century Irish history affecting politics, culture and social structure.
The punitive Penal Laws discriminated against and marginalised the Catholic church and were instrumental in ensuring that the 18th century Irish Catholic church was in disarray. Certainly, it was disorganised, had few priests and often places of worship and human internment, were by law, positioned away from places of population density.

The Queen, Princess Margaret and Dooly’s Hotel, Birr by Cosney Molloy

I was in Birr over the Christmas and chatting in Dooly’s I recalled that it will be 59 years this weekend since the first visit of a Royal princess to Ireland – Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong Jones- and that was the first royal visit to Ireland in over thirty years. The son of Anne, Countess of Rosse (by her first husband), Anthony Armstrong Jones, married the Queen’s only sister in May 1960. It was a grand affair and the Countess of Rosse, always one for beauty and glamour, was the finest dressed of the three mothers-in-law present at the royal wedding. The happy couple visited Birr six months later on New Year’s Eve 1960. The town of Birr witnessed an influx of pressmen never seen before in the midlands and perhaps not till that EC meeting in Tullamore ten or fifteen years ago.

The first aerial photograph of Tullamore 101 years ago – on the eve of the War of Independence. Michael Byrne

Tullamore town in August 1918 in the first known aerial photograph

The first aerial photograph of Tullamore was published in the press in 1918 as part of the work of the Irish Recruiting Council and in an effort to promote voluntary recruiting. Variants of the aerial photograph and the story behind it are also to be found in competing historical accounts of the Great War and the War of Independence.
A by-product of the accelerated interest in flying in the war years was that of aerial photography with happy results for the study of Tullamore’s urban history. In September 1918 an aerial photograph of Tullamore was published and described as ‘Tullamore gathering/Aerial Activity/Co-operation with Voluntary Recruiting by the Irish Recruiting Council.’ The same picture was also published in the magazine Irish Life at the time. The picture was taken by Captain Norman Herford Dimmock and was described as an ‘Aerial view of Tullamore horse fair taken by RAF biplane in 1918.’ What may have attracted Dimmock in his aerial reconnaissance for subversive activity was the extent of the movement of people in the town on that fair day on 16 August 1918. Tullamore town centre fairs were to last until the 1960s, but this is the only such aerial photograph of the farming event and the first aerial picture of the town.

The curtain falls: Hugh Carr – 9 December 2019. By Geraldine Clarke

 

On Wednesday last we said goodbye to a dear friend, Hugh Carr as he was buried in Clonaslee graveyard beside his beloved wife Máire Eibhlín, who predeceased him in 1982. We joined Hugh’s family and friends as mummers – travelling actors who traditionally visited houses in disguise, singing and rhyming. We did not go in disguise but went in memory of and tribute to, Hugh’s great play The Mummers of Reilig. In 1979 Hugh and Máire Eibhlín gathered a large cast and we started rehearsals for what was to become an 18 month journey together – culminating in winning best play at Listowel Writers’ Week in 1980.

The Story of Brickmaking in Pollagh, County Offaly. By Caitriona Devery

Pollagh Heritage Group’s first book The Story of Brickmaking in Pollagh, County Offaly will be launched  by Cathaoirleach of Offaly County Council, Peter Ormond, on Sunday 8 December at 2pm in Pollagh Community Centre. The book represents almost two years of work by the group to locate, collect and represent research materials including recorded interviews, photographs, historical reports and minutes, newspaper archives and academic articles.

A Victorian Romance: Charlotte Bronte and her association with Banagher. Offaly History event, 5 December at 8 pm

Arthur & Charlotte: A Victorian Romance Remembered is the title for a dramatic evening to be presented by Offaly History in Hugh Lynch’s Pub, Tullamore on Thursday 5th December at 8 p.m. The event will chronicle the story of Arthur Bell Nicholls of Banagher and his romance with and marriage to the famous Victorian novelist, Charlotte Brontë of Haworth in Yorkshire. Using contemporary source material the presentation will narrate this intriguing love story in written word and song. Readings will recall Arthur’s early years when he lived in Cuba House with his uncle the Reverend Alan Bell, Master of the Royal School of Banagher, his subsequent ordination and appointment as curate to the Reverend Patrick Brontë in Haworth.

Extracts from Charlotte’s letters will describe her marriage to Arthur and her honeymoon in Ireland. The production will close with an account of Arthur’s life following Charlotte’s death in 1855 and his return from Haworth to Banagher in 1861, up to his death in 1906.The event will be performed by the Martello Tower Players from Banagher, All proceeds from the evening will go towards the new Offaly Archives recently completed in the Axis Business Park, Clara Road Tullamore. Tickets are €12 each and can be obtained from Offaly History Centre. Telephone: 05793 21421 or email: info@offalyhistory.com and James Scully, Banagher

Renovation of a 210-year-old Tullamore house in Store Street. By Bernard and Melissa Westman

Over three years later and we are settled in our 210-year-old house in the heart of Tullamore, far from finished but we are happy to date. We tried to keep as much character as possible within the house with the stone walls. We also kept the original height of the ceilings in the bedrooms which are over 14 feet. Two of the bedrooms have the old iron cast fireplace and we restored them by sanding and spraying them back to their original look.

Store Street and the old church  in the mid- 1880s with two or three of the big houses demolished . O’Connell Hall is now the Parish Centre.

Store Street is one of the quieter streets in Tullamore now, but from 1800 to the 950s it was a busy place with the canal stores in use beside the busy harbour. The passenger boat traffic finished in the 1850s with the advent of the railway and the canal hotel became a parochial house for the Catholic clergy. Besides the bustle of draymen was that boys heading up to the old St Brigid’s School from the late 1870s to 1961 while the younger children attended the convent primary school on the corner of Thomas Street and Store Street. Like Harbour Street the new Store Street of the early 1800s owed its origins to the building of the Grand Canal to Tullamore in 1798. The new chapel on the site of the present one was completed in 1802 and the CYMS hall (later St Mary’s Hall) and now the Parish Centre was in use from 1860 to the 1960s for meetings and dancing. If Store Street was quiet as to houses (only 12 to 15) it was still a busy spot at mass and school times and with the comings and goings of horses and drays to the canal stores (burned about 1960).