Puttaghan, Tullamore: living on a powder keg 210 years ago

The older residents of Tullamore will know where the magazine was and will quickly tell you it was near the old footbridge in Convent View in the townland of Puttaghan. The magazine or arsenal on a site of almost one acre was built by the army in 1808 and the stores were surrounded by a nine-foot high wall, part of which survives at 21/21 Convent View. The high walls were designed to protect the powder magazine, store rooms and guard room. Other such walls surrounded the 1716 barracks and can still be seen near the garda station bordering Marian Place and a little more at Parnell Street (best viewed from the Marian Place off Kilbride Street). Little of the old Wellington Barracks (of c. 1800) survives in Cormac Street.

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Killaly, John (1766-1832) Tullamore’s premier resident engineer in the forty years from the 1790s to his death in 1832. By Ron Cox

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.