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 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).