Despite the low level of industrial activity in Birr in the latter half of the nineteenth century building contractors did well with a surprising amount of progress made in this area. This was in contrast to Tullamore where few new structures were erected until after the 1900s. The extent of the building activity tends to confirm the view that Birr owed its lack of industrial activity to want of entrepreneurs rather than want of capital. Among the public buildings and monuments to be erected or improved upon was St. Brendan’s Catholic Church which was completed in 1824-5. It was now remodelled and enlarged. Improvements were carried out at St. Brendan’s Church of Ireland church in 1879 under the supervision of Mr (later Sir Thomas) Drew, architect. The church was enlarged by extending the eastern gable. The organ was removed as also were the horse-box pews. In 1885 the stone was laid for a new Presbyterian church at John’s Place, beside the house of the parish priest, Dr. Bugler. The new church here was part of the redevelopment of the southern side of John’s Place. The old Crotty meeting house in Castle Street was sold for secular use in 1885.
All the south midland towns declined during the fifty-year period after the Famine with the exception of Clara where the Goodbody jute factory provided employment for 700 workers in the 1880s. The towns of Birr and Banagher were most severely hit. The decline of Birr was exacerbated by the final closure of the large military barracks in Birr in 1922. The previous year the Birr workhouse was closed and amalgamated with Tullamore. At a time of depression and scarce employment opportunities it was not surprising that the county capital, Tullamore, should seek to draw to itself whatever job opportunities existed in the public service sector, but it was to cause a good deal of resentment in Birr up to the 1950s.
The barracks of 1716 was at the western end of Patrick Street and Hayes Hotel, dating to 1786, at the eastern end on the corner with Church Street and Bridge Street (now Boots Pharmacy). The barracks was destroyed in July 192 2on the retreat of the Republican soldiers from the town during the Civil War. Within fifteen years the site was fully taken up with urban council housing and a garda station built here in 1937 and rebuilt in 2002. The military barrack of 1716 brought about 100 soldiers to the town and is thought to have been a major factor in the town’s growth because of the increased demand for goods and services that followed its construction. After the 1870s, soldiers were stationed at Tullamore only at infrequent intervals.
Barrack/Patrick Street, Tullamore about 1910. The barracks dated to 1716 and destroyed in 1922.
The police moved into the old barracks about the year 1899. The building was occupied by the old I.R.A. in March 1922 when the British army quit the town as part of the Treaty settlement and was destroyed some four months later as the Republican soldiers left town in the course of the Civil War and before the arrival of the Free State army. Parts of the old walls survive and one can see the star-shaped fort pattern in the part of the wall opposite DNG Auctioneers.
Part of the old star-shaped fort style for the new barracks of 1716 erected in TullamoreContinue reading →
I started collecting bottles a little over a year ago, interested in their origins and local history. I’ve picked a small collection of the type of breweriana bottles that were used in the day to day lives of the people of Tullamore and surrounding towns in the late 19th and early 20th century. I’ve provided a brief description of the types of bottles I’ve mentioned. Most of the dates provided are approximate and offered with the best knowledge I have at this moment. As I get more accurate information, the dates will be reviewed. I started off with some basic background information on bottles.
Carbonised mineral bottle It is widely known amongst bottle collectors that Joseph Priestly discovered how to make carbonised mineral water in 1772. It was prepared by dissolving carbon dioxide in water. By 1860, it had become easier to manufacture and was being flavoured with fruit syrups, lemons and limes. It was retailed by grocers, wine and spirit merchants, as well as chemists. At first the new drink was stored in earthenware bottles, but the gas escaped through the skin and so the drink became flat. Manufacturers switched to glass bottles. However, corks were still used to seal the carbonised mineral water drinks, and if they were allowed to dry out, they tended to loosen which allowed the gas to escape. If the bottles were stored on their side, this was less likely to happen.
Originally known as Acres Hall after the eighteenth century building developer Thomas Acres, this fine house with its Georgian features is now home to Tullamore’s town council chambers. In 1986 the house was acquired by Tullamore Urban District Council who undertook a refurbishment programme and extensions to the north and south wings, and at the rear of the house, to accommodate new civic offices. While much of the house was subject to a major reconfiguration, the development attempted to be sympathetic and sought to retain the house’s external architectural simplicity. Acres built the house in 1786 and positioned it in a commanding elevated position at the confluence of High street, Cormac street and O’Moore street. The location of the house may be on the hill from which the town takes it name, Tulach Mhór (great hill). Acres Hall is listed as a protected structure in the Tullamore town development plan.
Who were the Egans and where did they come from? What national and international impact did they have on nineteenth century Irish political reform? How did they become successful lawyers and businesspeople? For many years, my cousin David and I would pose and tease out these and many other unanswered questions. Too often the anecdotal and evidential answers were vague at best and often hearsay or random recollections from family members. We both eventually concluded that there was enough intrigue to pique our interest into doing proper research on the period of social history of the 1800s and early 1900s. We discovered a treasure trove of fascinating stories which we felt warranted publishing.
Why write this book now, one may ask? The surviving older Egan generation have fond memories of the days past and several of them learned the business of business and held their first jobs in the family firm. Many local people also retain fond memories of the firm and the employment offered to themselves and their antecedents. Continue reading →
Offaly History has organised a walking tour of Tanyard Lane on Sunday 18 August as part of Heritage Week at 2.30 pm meeting at the Library. The place has changed over 270 years right up to 25 July when the new Lidl store opened largely on site of the laundry, glass factory/wholesale and part of the creamery/bacon factory – the latter all post 1907.
Passing through Tanyard Lane, Tullamore today is to see almost total change since the 1970s. At that time it was full of old malting and grain stores the last of which to be built was also the first ferro-concrete building in Tullamore and one of the earliest in Ireland – that of Tarleton’s and now Oisin O’Sullivan Furniture, in about 1908. Beside it is another later grain store and now Robbins Limited of 1901. Below them is the plumbing store of zz, also housed in a former grain building. These are the only old buildings left now of an industrial legacy stretching back to 1750. Older photgraphs show the malting houses there with their louver chimneys (4).
Our thanks to our contributor Cosney Molloy for this piece. He is the perfect gentleman and sometime we will get him to accept Honorary Membership. He says he is not old enough yet. Like the whiskey he gets better as he gets older. If Galways wins tomorrow he will have a few.
I see my friends in the Offaly History Centre have organised a tour of the old industries of Tullamore to start at 2 pm from O’Connor Square on Sunday the 19th. It all part of this new idea Heritage Week. I am down for Clonminch Cemetery but I might skip the end of that and head up the Tanyard. I might skip a bit of Michael Byrne’s tour too as I want to head to one of the pubs to see the hurling. It should be great. I believe some of the Egan family will be there too. I remember when Frank and the family lived in Acres Hall and the bell at Christmas time down at Bridge House. Paddy Egan was up in Charleville Road with the minerals and Harry was down in Egan-Tarleton. That’s called the Granary now and must have forty apartments where the heaps of grain used to be.
During the late years of the Second War the town was a hive of industry. Egan’s had their Bridge House shop in full swing and at one time had coach building, saw mills and, of course, the famous brewery and they bottled whiskey too and like Williams had salesmen on the road six days a week. Joe Kenny used to tell me about it when I left the town. Himself and Pat Carty and all the teachers in town were great buddies and used to stay in lodgings with plenty of free time.
The Tullamore Distillery was going strong most of time and my namesake started it in 1829. That will be 190 years ago next year. Over in the Tanyard was the old tanning business. In fact I read somewhere that Marrons shoe shop in town could trace its history right back to the time when a certain Mulready man had a tannery business where Rattigan’s/ Wrafter’s Copper Urn was later. Then we had the bacon factory from about 1929 until 1989. The later Mr Quill told me that it gave work to nearly 100 people and that you could hear the roars of the pigs and sometimes the river turned red. OMG as my daughter would say. I think Lidl are going in to some of that old place soon. It will 30 years next year since they locked the gates.
Up the town my sister had work in Salts in the early days. I remember a John Carroll worked there and my old friend the late Michael Dowling. Sure it had nearly 1,000 people at one time. I think it closed about 1982. It’s hard to believe it now. Bill Proctor I knew and I remember to see Arthur Greene when he ran the place in the sixties.
Its great to see all the old pubs in town, Wrafter’s Harbour Bar, Hugh Lynch’s (my son tells me he is having a burlesque tonight. Sounds interesting but I will go down early maybe and have one of his nice rare whiskies. I met Paul Bell a few times. He always has the hand out to welcome everybody and has a fine place. I remember Kevin Adams in it and getting coffee in with my mother in Egan’s time. Behind it was the brewery and Seed and Manure and what not. Lumleys went in there after and I think they packed sugar over in the Tanyard where that funny man Oisin Sullivan is now. He is a character. Years ago that is where a man from Waterford, Aylward, I think, had bacon curing and later there was tea packing.
Come to think of it does anyone have the old tins with the Williamses Red Cup tea. And you remember the PAK orange and Egan’s great lemonade and orange. I am told that is still going on with a man called Harney, somewhere up in Spollanstown near the hotel where I often stay when I come down to Tullamore. Years ago Paul and Vincent were up there with a farm business. I think the Co-op moved there after. Come to think of it my old friend Martin Bracken tells me the Co-op will be 100 years old this year. I suppose they will have a dance. I remember all the great dancing in Tullamore and Christy May in his younger days. I hear he was one of the big men behind the show that I came down for a few times.
You know Tullamore has a lot going for it
Coming back to the whiskey it’s wonderful to see the new place out on the by-pass and I hear there are nearly 100 people working there. What would all the salesmen say who used to be in Williamses head office. I remember Paddy Hennessy worked there and Mick Casey and a Bill Igoe was in the Pak. Great Times. O’Donovan I think was the taster of the tea and the whiskey. Of course he was a Cork man – free tea and whiskey what more could you want.
Bill Jaffray was up the yard in Williamses where they made the Irish Mist, a lovely drink. It was like the Winter’s Tale sherry only stronger. You could open it and maybe not finish the bottle for a year.
The old Tullamore distillery with Seamus Flanagan looking into the mash tun. Not sure who is feeding the furnace unde one of the pot stills.
MAKING TULLAMORE WHISKEY
The late Desmond Williams (the man with the green Bentley) use to say that the harvesting and collecting of the grain in Tullamore, was like vintage time in French villages. For the manufacture of the Dew was, and is again, one of the town’s largest industries. Many extra hands were taken on during the working season in the war years, and all were involved in the magic transformation of the ears of the barley sheaf into the finished whiskey in the cask. And once the season started the Distillery worked day and night. The best whiskey, it is said, runs in the dim darkness of the night! The late Jack Clune told me that. He used to play cards with the Excise men (Redmond I think) well into the night. They were down in Water Lane where the Seed and Manure was after.
THE DISTILLERY
It’s hard to believe that the old Distillery covered an area of about twelve acres. Its where Maye built the shopping centre after. And then he built the hotel at the back of Egan’s old shop. The granaries of the distillery Seamus Flanagan told me could hold forty thousand barrels of grain—all purchased from the local farmers. There were special malting floors, a feature of the Distillery being the old style pagoda like kiln for the drying of the malt. The grinding of the grain into meal was done as of old, by means of a water wheel and grinding stones—this is said to make the best “mash.” People live now in apartments in one of the old mills. They used to say the place was haunted by man called Cooke. And what about all the chickens they reared after in those old warehouses.
A lovely whiskey. Maybe Cosney might win one at the Burlesque in Lynch’s if he is allowed go
To produce the perfect whiskey, the late Jack Wrafter (his father worked for Williams at the time of the pipe business – Sin Scéal eile) told me that four things were essential —sound barley, mountain air, pure water and distilling craft. Here in the centre of Ireland, he used to say in his gentlemanly way that nature had provided ‘all the requisites’ for Whiskey making. Well/ripened golden grain from the fertile fields of Offaly, fresh air from the Slieve Bloom hills, water laden with essences from local peat mosses, and a distilling tradition going back to the days of the illicit stills (we still have a few)—all these combine to make “Tullamore” a classic whiskey. It is, indeed, fit usquebaugh for connoisseurs. And you know they have an 18-year old now but its big money. They have a fancy one called Phoenix after the burst up with the balloonitics in Tullamore when Grattan was still in College Green. They say now it was the first air disaster in history, but I am sure someone will top it.
Patent Still
Now the old Tullamore was only Pot Still for a long time. Then Williamses got in the Coffey Still—invented by an Irishman, needless to say. Under one roof—so to speak—they can now produce all the ingredients for blends of pot, malt, and patent still ‘Whiskey. Very soon they will be in a position to sell at home and abroad, “vintage” Tullamore-made whiskey to compete on equal terms with anything produced on either side of the Atlantic and that includes Midleton, the Scotch boys and the Americans. Very soon because they started making the new Tullamore whiskey in 2014 and last year put in a massive Coffey still. I heard it cost €25 million. Old Mr DEW himself would be pleased that his name is now on 12 million bottles of whiskey every year.
I read somewhere that Sam Beckett used to drink only Tullamore. I was always interested in him because he wrote a book called Molloy years ago. I got a present of it but could make neither head nor tail of it.
Our Molloy distillery gates (1829) beside the credit union and the late Bob Smyth’s
I suppose you know that Tullamore distillery had three copper pot stills. John Teeling got them after for Kilbeggan about thirty years ago and they are still over in Locke’s place. A grand place to bring visitors and sure you can call into Durrow on the way to see the old high cross. Of course it was the monks who started it all and now there are three distillers buried in Durrow. Three Stills you could say.
I used to dread some of the priests calling to my mother’s house years ago because they just would not go home until the bottle was finished. My mother got clever though and started to keep a special bottle that would be three-quarters empty. Now you can’t beat the Molloys. Sure how could you when we started it all in Tullamore nearly 200 years ago and that was before Egans came or any other crowd, even Danny Williams who got a hold on the distillery because Daly was too fond of the good life with his horses and gentry friends.
That’s life, easy come easy go. The third generation nearly always breaks it.
Sure may be I will go tomorrow on this and have the ball of malt and a half-one if Galway wins. If Charlie Finlay is there on the tour tomorrow I might splash out on account of the old days when Guinness used to send the porter by train when the canal was finished. Charlie was always there to see everything went smoothly.
Patrick Egan senior, was born in 1805, at Moate, County Westmeath. He was an alumnus of the King’s Inns, Dublin and a lifelong friend of fellow alumni, The Emancipator, Daniel O’Connell. During a heated discussion in the House of Commons, in February 1835, O’Connell proposed Patrick Egan as candidate for the position of Sessional Crown Solicitor, County Westmeath. This position Egan subsequently held for forty years. Additionally, Patrick Egan was a successful merchant and trader, with extensive buildings and stores on Main Street, Moate.
Trading under the name P. Egan and Sons, the business thrived. Patrick married Eliza Barton of Clara and they had six sons and two daughters. In 1852 he decided to expand and to set up his sons, Patrick and Henry, in business, and called the business, P. & H. Egan. He bought the Bridge House premises and extensive yards, on Bridge Street, Tullamore. Continue reading →
The Copper Pot Still is one of the finest of the old pubs in Tullamore and has been connected with brewing since the 1800s when a brewery was operated at the back of the existing pub by the Deverell family. It is back in the news because it is now for sale and may sell for €375,000, or a long way shy of its €2.1m mark in busier times. Today there are just eighteen pubs, four hotels and six clubs trading, six more are licensed but not trading currently and thirteen are closed for good or not currently licensed. So for the Twelve at Christmas next year try Twenty Seven, if all six clubs are open on the night and you are admitted as a guest.
The former McGinn’s/Copper Pot Still pub comes from a long tradition of bar and groceries in Tullamore and was one of about forty such houses in the town in the early 1900s. Today we may have less than thirty when one takes account of what houses have closed. Now it is the turn of off licences in shops and supermarkets and the public house to which so many resorted may be an endangered species.
Some will remember the eight pubs of Patrick Street of which there are only two surviving and one of those not currently trading due to restructuring. Can you name them: Brazil, McGowan/Smith, Coleman’s Windmill, the Murals, Rattigans (Copper Urn), Cash (Brady/De Brun), Bolger, James Walsh. How many can you name in the other streets? Be sure to offer your comments and corrections. Send pictures and memories to info@offalyhistory.com Continue reading →
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