These are the sort of industries that do real substantial service to the country, because speculations in which employers grasp at the lion's share of the profits and leave labour to eke out existence with a torn coat and a hungry stomach may benefit capitalists and enable them to realise rapid fortunes, but, as they breed discontent amongst the underpaid labouring population, they are more injurious than serviceable to the body-polite. It would be an advantage if we had in Ireland more employers like the Messrs Tarleton of Tullamore. They pay their people at a rate which enables the working man to live decently and incites him to perform his duties with zeal and energy as well as to make him contented with his lot, while we all know that in a great many instances the labourer is so harshly treated that it would be unreasonable to expected him to be reconciled to his condition. Hence the working man too frequently becomes the tool of the political agitator and an clement of mischief in the social system. And this train of reflection, taken in connection with what is now going on under the name of the labour league in England and America, forces us to the conclusion that not alone do we want in Ireland money and enterprise, but we also want just and generous employers, who will give labour a reasonable share of the profit it contributes to realise.

Were this view more generally acted on the demegogue would have fewer followers in this country. The malting houses of the Messrs. Tarleton are three in number. Sixteen on Tankard-road, one in Charleville Square, and one in Distillery Lane. So extensive are those buildings that were they all together they would present the proportions of a tidy little town. The houses are all in a splendid state of repair and are remarkable for scrupulous cleanliness. The stores are capable of containing 16,000 barrels of barley, and an idea may be formed of the quantity that is malted each season when we state that every fourth day 250 barrels are steeped in the cisterns. As most of our renders are aware, the object of stooping the barley is to cause the grain to absorb the necessary amount of moisture to start the germination requisite to convert its starchy matter into glucose. The time the barley is left in the steep varies according to the weather and temperature. In summer from 40 to 48 hours will be sufficient, and in winter from 65 to 70 hours. After the barley is taken out of the steep it is couched - that is, placed in a heap in a couch frame or on the floor of the malting house, where it soon begins to heat and germinate, the rootless shooting out and the corn giving forth a fruity odour. After four or five days in the couch, the barley is put through the third process, or that of flooring, which consists in spreading it out on the floor in thinner strain. As soon as it becomes perceptibly dry to the kilns are hardened with artificial boat to prevent all further growth and enable it to keep without fear of change. The Messrs. Tarleton sell all their malt to brewers and distillers in Ireland.

The small barley sifted from the grain intended to be malt is ground into barley meal, and this is used for stall feeding heifers and bullocks for 60 head of cattle. Every year they fatten and sell about 200 beasts. The reader may be able to realise the extent and condition of the entire premises, whom he has informed that the Messrs. Tarleton pay in taxes annually as much as £150. The malting business is managed by Mr. John Dargan, a skilful maltster and brewer of 20 years. The proprietors have recently expended a great deal of money in repairing, improving and extending the buildings, some of which were in a bad state of dilapidation on coming into their hands.

Under the guidance of one of the managing directors, Mr. Wm. R. Power, we recently made a tour through the various departments of the business establishments owned by Messrs. P. H. Egan, Ltd., Bridge-street, Church-street, and Market-square, Tullamore. We confess that we were surprised at the extent and variety of the business, and at the very modern manner in which it was worked.

Retail Grocery, Ironmongery and Furniture.

Our first visit was to the retail grocery and ironmongery departments, which front Bridge-street, and which is called the "Bridge House." At the left side as you enter is situated the grocery department, one of the best-stocked we ever saw, and equal to any of our large city houses. All goods displayed are of the very best brands procurable, and an efficient and courteous staff attend to the orders of the numerous customers. Directly opposite is the ironmongery department, stocked with every article likely to be required; and here some five or six energetic young men were busily employed. In spite of all these signs of a very large retail business, we were informed by Mr. Power that the firm does not devote their attention so much to their retail business, preferring to work wholesale. In the centre of the shop is situated a cash desk, which is connected by the Lanson system of wires with all the several departments of the house, for the immediate despatch of all cash receipts.

Leaving this shop we proceeded to the furniture store rooms. These are two very extensive warerooms, each of about 100 feet in length. They were filled to the utmost with furniture of every description, both useful and ornamental, and we succeeded in making our passage through only by proceeding very carefully. Here were mirrors (some very fine ones), chairs of every class; tables, massive and otherwise; sideboards, cabinets and beds. We next proceeded to the lofts in which were stored ranges, fire-irons; etc; pipes and farm implements, such as ploughs, harrows, grubbers, etc., and noted the system of pulleys by which all the goods for storage on these lofts are raised from the ground. These several lofts for furniture and ironmongery are built out over the extensive yard which runs at the back of the premises; the exigencies of Messrs. Egan's business having compelled them to erect these lofts recently.

Sugar and Bacon

Descending from the lofts we passed by the Sugar Stores. These stores were filled to the utmost with that useful article, sugar, and two men were busily engaged filling and weighing that commodity.
We then enter the Yard, which is very extensive, and was filled with every article that would not suffer from the effects of the weather, as Messrs. Egan are utterly unable to find house-room for all their stock of goods. Passing down the yard, which is lined at both sides with store-houses, we first saw the American Bacon Store. This department is a very important one, and accounts for an amount, by no means small, in the yearly returns of the firm. The trade done in this bacon is entirely wholesale. Messrs. Egan buy the meat themselves in America, ship it over in very large quantities, and are thus enabled to offer it the retailer at prices as favourable as could be obtained from the largest merchants in Ireland or England. Their bill for bacon runs up to £15,000 per and is ever increasing.

The Saw Mills, Barley Grinding and Cake Crushing.

Proceeding down the yard we came to the Saw Mills. These mills are fitted with machinery of the most modern type for cutting wood into every requisite form. Piles of timber were lying around or being prepared to be cut. Connected with this saw mill, and worked by the mill engine, are the barley-grinding and oil-cake crushing machines. These machines are of the most approved pattern, and were working away on the day of our visit. Leaving this part of the premises we visited the timber lofts which stretch along the better part of one side of the yard and were filled to the utmost when we saw them. They are capable, we are sure, of holding over £2,000 worth of timber. Connected with these lofts is the Artifical Manure Store, which was filled with that useful, though somewhat strong-smelling, article. We noticed there a very large quantity of the substance called Basic Slag. This is a by-product of iron mines and is a great fertiliser, being specially recommended for marshy, cold land.

Flour and Meal Department, Bacon Smoking, Tea, Tobacco, &c.

We next proceeded to the Four and Meal Lofts, situated at some distance from the former department. Here were was piled up a large quantity of flour, meal, &c; and here two men were busily employed in making up the numerous orders. Our next visit was to the small bacon smoking loft, where Messrs. Egan smoke a quantity of Irish bacon; numerous sides of meat were, when we looked in there, obtaining that taste which renders them so palatable. We next passed through the department used for the storing of all articles of hardware. On all sides were piles of brushes of every description, ropes chains, etc., all of best manufacture.
We also visited the Tobacco Store, another very important division of the business of Messrs. P. and H. Egan. Here was a large stock of tobacco of every brand. The yearly bill for tobacco alone paid by Messrs. Egan amounts to over £10,000. Close by this department are stored all the miscellaneous articles required by grocers, such as starch, soap, candles, etc., etc., and off this place is situated the store in which the wholesale orders are made out, at which work a number of hands are constantly employed. We next saw the Tea Store, through which the very large quantity of tea sold by Messrs. P. H. Egan passes. It was well stocked with a choice selection of teas. This concluded our visit to the "Bridge House" portion of the business.

Church Street Premises, and History of the Firm.

Our readers will take an interest in hearing a few facts about the firm of Messrs. P. & H. Egan. This business, established in 1852, and carried on the Bridge House under the name of P. and H. Egan, was converted into a Limited Liability Company on 1st January. 1896, with a nominal capital of £80,000. They purchased the old established business of Stirling and Co., in March. 1896, and now trade under the title of Power and Co., in those premises. The capital of the new company was subscribed privately, and since that time the business has increased by leaps and bounds, additions having continually to be made to the premises and plant to cope with the extension of the trade. The requirements of their business compel the firm to keep between forty and fifty horses on the road constantly. These horses travel over a radius of thirty miles, taking frequently two-days' journeys, and a staff of between 200 and 250 hands are constantly employed, this staff being considerably increased during the busy seasons of the year. In making our tour through the Church-street premises, we first entered the

Wine Bottling Store

On all sides were casks of wine of every description and age. Here were several men working busily at the various duties of a bottling department. Off this was the Bottled Wine Store, in which were wines of all ages, some of the port being fifteen years in bottle. The next place visited was the Mineral Water Manufactory, perfect in design and of the most modern form, in which are produced all the different minerals. The machines were worked by a gas engine, which also sets to work a corn-crusher, situated on one of the lofts over head. We next entered the

Beer Bottling Stores

In these stores are bottled ale, porter, lager beer, hops, etc. Here are bottled yearly over 600 hogsheads of Bass and an immense quantity of Guinness, lager beer, etc. Messrs. P. and H. Egan also bottle Bass's light dinner ale, and they are, we believe, almost the only people in the province of Leinster that bottle that particular ale. The label is similar to the ordinary Bass label in outline, but differs by having a blue instead of a red diamond in the centre. Off these stores are situated the Bottled Drink Storerooms. These rooms are divided off into sections, each section being capable of holding a hogshead. These several sections were either filled or being filled on the day of our visit, the supply being constantly renewed. The bins are dated as they are filled, and thus the length any bin is filled can be seen at a glance. Next these rooms is the Mineral Water Store. Here is a large supply of minerals of every description, in syphons and every shaped bottle. The output of mineral waters amounts to almost ten thousand dozen a month. Our next visit was to

The Whiskey Store

This store was filled on all sides with casks of whiskey. Of these casks there were more than a dozen, of capacity varying from two hundred and fifty to one hundred and twenty gallons. Whiskey of every make and age was to be found in this store, for Messrs. P. & H. Egan bottle an immense quantity of the native spirit. The firm do a very large case-whiskey trade, both in Ireland and across the Channel, and customers of theirs are to be found in every city and town in Ireland, from Dublin to Galway and from Belfast to Cork. Several men were employed on the day of our visit bottling, capsuling and casing the whiskey in this store. A large quantity of wines, brandy, &c., is also bottled by this firm and exported under their name. We next visited the offices belonging to the Church-street premises, which are fully adequate for the carrying out of the large business, and manned with an efficient body of clerks. Leaving these premises, we crossed the market square (out of which Messrs. Egan collect a toll), and proceeded to the splendid newly-erected
Maltings, which are situated at that side of the square farthest from Church-street and close to the bank of the Grand Canal. These maltings, in point of size, excellence and convenience, equal any buildings of the kind we have ever seen. The growing demand for Egan's malt, which is one of the best-finished malts to be found in the market, compelled the firm to build these new premises, and accordingly they were commenced some three or four years ago. First, one-half of the place was finished off to enable Messrs. Egan to work as soon as possible; the other half was then started and finished last year. These, now completed, form a very extensive range of building, measuring three hundred feet in length and about eighty in breadth. They are very solidly built of hammered limestone, and slated. On several parts of the walls are erected systems of pulleys, used for raising the corn to the lofts. Entering these premises. we first meet with a very extensive growing floor, occupying the whole length and breadth of the place, which was covered with barley to the depth of about eight inches, and must have contained about 500 barrels. Over this floor are two more floors of the same area, and used for the same purpose. The top floor, the fourth from the ground, is the one on which the barley is first stored, and is capable of holding 10,000 barrels. The corn, after being thoroughly cleaned and separated by machinery, is sent from this loft to the two immense cast iron tanks, which are situated at the farther end of the third floor, and there steeped. These tanks were erected by Ceres Iron Works, Kingston-on-Thames, and Messrs. Tonge and Taggart, Dublin, and are capable of holding 500 barrels of barley. When the barley is steeping for a sufficient length of time, it is taken from these tanks and put on to the germinating floor, where it is worked, and then put on the kilns by means of elevators, worked by the engines, until sufficiently dried, and then it passes to the cooling rooms, which are wainscotted to prevent the possibility of injury from moisture. It is then carefully screened by the most modern machinery, worked also by the engines. The rootlets, which are called combings, are sold to farmers in the neighbourhood for feeding purposes, thus forming a source of income to the firm. There are four very extensive kilns in the Market-square maltings. The amount of barley dealt with amounts in the year to between 20,000 and 25,000 barrels. Besides these extensive maltings the firm have some half-dozen smaller ones in connection with their brewery. We were informed that the malt turned out was purchased by the largest of our city brewers and distillers, among whom are the firms of Messrs. Guinness, Son & Co., Ltd., Messrs. John Power and Son, Mountjoy Brewery, etc; and we believe that it is equal to any produced in Ireland. We next noticed the extensive store-houses in which Messrs. P. & H. Egan stow away their heavy goods, such as artificial manners, timber, slate, etc., etc.,

We then crossed Market-square, proceeded along Church-street and High-street, until we came to

The Brewery,
in which this famous and old-established firm brew their several makes of porter and ale. Here we were handed over by Mr. Power to Mr. Patrick J. Egan, son of Mr. H. Egan. Entering the brewery yard we noticed the row of stables which extends down along one side, and which provides stable-room for over twenty horses. There is also a large amount of stable-room in connection with the retail premises first described. Passing the stables, we entered the brewery, and proceeded through that establishment, following the articles that go to the manufacture of porter and ale through the various stages. On the top is situated the tank which contains the liquor which goes to the manufacture of the beer. This tank is filled with water from the town supply, which comes a distance of about nine miles, from a place called Clonaslee, and which is of the purest kind possible. Close at hand is situated the boiling tank in which is stored the boiling water used in the manufacture of the grist. We next saw the Mash Tun. In this immense tun are mixed the malt (which had previously been ground on the loft below and brought up by a system of Jacob's ladders) and boiling water. Here this mixture is allowed to remain for some time, and then the wort is passed onto the Coppers. Leaving the liquor in the process of manufacture, we entered the office of Mr. Patrick J. Egan, the brewer and our guide. This office commands a full view of the yard beneath, so that everything enters and leaves the brewery under his personal supervision. Emerging from this office, we again took up the thread of our journey and proceeded to the copper room. In this room are situated the various coppers, in which the worts coming from the tun overhead are mixed with the hops and then boiled. These coppers are of a very large capacity, and are used - some for the brewing of ale, and others for the brewing of porter. The liquor, after being boiled in these coppers, is passed off into the hop back; here it is allowed to rest a short time, and is then sent on to the cooler, where it is allowed to stand for some time. It is then passed over refrigerators and into the fermenting tuns. There are five of these fermenting tuns in Egan's brewery, each of them of very large capacity, and all contained liquor in various stages of manufacture on the day of our visit. All of these vessels are furnished with attemperating apparatuses and skimming parachutes. The liquor is allowed to ferment for four or five days. During that time it gives off the yeast. When the process of fermentation is over, the liquor is sent on to the racking squares, and from this filled into casks and made ready for use. Both porter and ale are brewed at this brewery; but we understand that Messrs. P. and H. Egan intend to devote their entire attention henceforth to the brewing of ale. With this end in view, and to place their ales in a proper manner before the public, they are increasing their facilities for the manufacture of ale, and are appointing agents in every district in Ireland. They have already appointed Messrs. Slattery and Waters, 63 Middle Abbey-street, as their Dublin agent, and have also appointed a regular agent in the West of Ireland. We congratulate the firm upon their determination to secure for themselves a share of the ale trade for the city and provinces, and assure them that there is plenty of room for business with such a high-class article as theirs on the market. We saw samples of the several qualities of ale brewed by Messrs. Egan, and all were as sparkling in appearance and as palatable as any ale we have ever seen or tasted. The four qualities of ale, with their prices are strong-bitter ale, 48s. per barrel ; family bitter ale, 36s. per barrel ; strong mild xx ale, 48s.per barrel; single mild ale, 28s. per barrel, less usual trade discount. All these ales are the best of their several kinds, and equal any other make already on the market.
We visited next the Ale Store, where the barrelled porter and ale are stored preparatory to being sent out to the firm's customers. Here was a good supply of each of the several brands, and here completed our survey of the brewery proper. We then saw the Hop Lofts, two extensive stores, well filled with the best Worchester and Kent hops, as the ingredients used by Messrs. Egan in the manufacture of their liquors are the best procurable.

Leaving the brewery and its store-rooms, we crossed the yard and entered the

Bottling Departments,
which are worked in connection with the brewery. We first entered the Bottle-Washing Department. This consists of two rooms, in which the bottles are ranged on shelves, and a third room, in which stand the two machines by which the bottles are washed. These machines are of the best possible kind, and cleanse the bottles both inside and out in a manner that cannot be surpassed. Several men were working at the washing on the day of our visit; one man employed in bringing the bottles on a truck to be washed, and another carrying them away, when washed, on another truck. These rooms are capable of holding an immense quantity of vessels, and this capability is taxed to the utmost, as there is a constant draw on the store for all the departments of this large firm. We next visited the Ale and Porter Bottling Department, filled with hogsheads of bass, Guinness, lager beer, hop bitters, etc., all being filled from. The weekly bottling of porter here, amount to about twenty hogsheads per week, while the other liquors are bottled in proportionally large quantities. The liquors, when bottled, are sent from this place into the bottled ale stores, and there placed in bins (sections into which the store is divided) until ready to be taken to the retailer. Each of these bins are capable of holding a hogshead, so the department always contains on an average about forty hogshead, of bottled beers. Messrs. Egan also bottled their own ale here, and it commands a very large sale in the district and neighbouring counties. Twelve vans are continually kept on the road delivering these bottled stuffs to the trade in the surrounding districts.

We next proceeded the Wine and Whiskey Bottling Department. This department contained between twenty and twenty-five vats, from which the different brands of wines and whiskeys were being bottled under the name and label of the firm. Wines and whiskeys of every age were being filled here, both for export and home trade. We left this department, and, entering the yard, we saw the casks for the brewery being cleansed by hot water and steam after the most approved fashion; and also the large barley-lofts, which occupy one entire side of the yard, and which were filled to the utmost with corn.

Lastly, we saw the Offices attached to the brewery, a fine range of offices, two storeys high, and manned by a large number of clerks; and thus we concluded our visit to the premises of Messrs. P. and H. Egan, Tullamore.

Of all the firms described from time to time in this journal, we doubt if there was any description more interesting or instructive. This house shows conclusively that the business spirit still lives and thrives, not in one but in every branch of trade in Ireland; and in no part of the country does it flourish to a greater degree than in Tullamore, the centre of the Midlands. Our visit was totally unexpected by the firm.

The German Dragoons barracks in the tanyard was also attacked , and the sentries shot. The Dragoons fired from the river at the Light Bobs, some of whom were in Old Shamble Lane. Baron Oldenhausen, who was the Captain of the German Dragoons and General Baron Bock appeared at the scene when the conflict was raging fiercest. Baron Oldenhausen was killed in what may be described his efforts to restore peace. His friend Baron Bock, who was mounted on his charger, valiantly rode between the conflicting soldiers and, hat in hand appealed to them to desist. It was only after a desperate struggle and when several had been killed and wounded on both sides, that the conflict ended. Baron Oldenhausen and a number of his German soldiers are buried in Kilcruttin, and, as already stated, the resting-place of the Baron is marked by a pillar monument which is in a splendid state of preservation and which is the principal object of interest in the old cemetery. The "fight" has, no doubt, been exaggerated, and may have been nothing more than a street scuffle between a few soldiers, but the story of it is given above for what it is worth. In Beamish's "History of the German Legion", no mention is made of Baron Oldenhausen having lost his life in the melee, and it contains the rather far-fetched assertion that the battle only resulted in the death of one individual, that being one of the local militia-men, but an old resident gives quite a different version. His father told him of the fight in which Baron Oldenhausen, who, though only engaged as a peacemaker, met his death. Somewhere in the vicinity of the site of the present Methodist Church building where at that time the river was spanned by a bridge, the remains of which are still to be seen at the rere of Mr. John Tarleton's house. The King's County Infirmary records contain no reference as to the admission of gunshot wounds on the day of the battle, or on those following, but it is quite possible the wounded may have been treated elsewhere. Baron Oldenhausen's monument is inscribed as follows:-
Sacred to the Memory of Frederick William Baron Oldenhausen, Late a Captain of His Majesty's 1st German Dragoons, born the 13th March, 1776, at Verden in the Electorate of Hanover, and departed this life at Tullamore, the 22nd day of December, 1808. By His Brother Officers.

There is also the following inscription in German:-
Des Gatten Vatiers Freundes Baude Sind Feuh Gelost im Freinden Laude Schlafst du dem Cristen Todesschaff Dies monument Spricht Keine Luge Der Wahr heit Griffel Grub die Zuge De Warst Tren Edel Bieder Bray.

TURNING POINT

The fire of 1785 marks a turning point in the history of Tullamore for a variety of reasons. First, it led to the destruction of Patrick Street and possibly also Kilbride Street (at the time known as Upper Barrack Street) and it facilitated the reconstruction of Patrick Street as an important trading street, along improved lines. Secondly, it was the year that Charles William Bury, the town's landlord, came of age. He had inherited the Tullamore property while still a mere infant in 1764 on the accidental death of his father. Thirdly, the period 1785 to 1815 (the years of the long drawn out war with France) ushered in an age of prosperity for Ireland, characterised by the rapid expansion of many Irish towns.

Tullamore in 1785 consisted of at least five streets - Patrick Street, Bridge Street, High Street, O'Connor Square, Church Street (or Church Lane) and perhaps part of the present William or Colmcille Street. This does not include the lanes off the main streets and these would include Ruddock's or Swaddlin Lane behind the former Bolger's Hotel, Kilbride Street where the Mallet Tavern is located - and lanes off High Street and Bridge Street. The news reports of the fire suggest that only one street, Patrick Street, and perhaps all or portion of Kilbride Street were destroyed.

CONTEMPORARY REPORTS.

Only two contemporary reports of the fire have been recovered. One in"Faulkner's Dublin Journal" for May 14 and one in the Kilkenny based "Finn's Leinster Journal". Other accounts such as that in the "Dublin Evening Post" and "Hibernian Magazine" are the same as that in "Faulkner's Journal". Unfortunately, there were no local papers circulating in Tullamore area until the 1830's (Leinster Express) and 1840's (The King's County Chronicle). The "Faulkner's Dublin Journal" report states that nearly 100 houses were destroyed while a report in "Finn's Leinster Journal" puts it at 130 houses.

The fire was caused when an air balloon collided with the barrack chimney, and taking fire, it in turn set fire to the house of a Christopher Beck in Patrick Street. The location of this house was possibly where Talbot's shop and the Record & Tape Centre are located as one William Beck had a lease of this house in 1786. The balloon was launched from a Dr. Bleakly's yard. The location is not known, but I believe it may have been to the rere of the old military barracks (i.e. behind the present Garda Station) and possibly in the vicinity of Hugh Lynch's or the Lantern public house. Dr. Blakely's house was used as the county infirmary until 1788 and was probably away from the town centre for reasons of public health. The use of the word Montgolfier as an alias for air balloon had been invented by two Frenchmen, the Montgolfier brothers, in 1783. The first ascent of a manned air balloon in Ireland took place at Navan in 1784 and at the time of the fire in Tullamore further adventures were in progress in Dublin with attempts being made to cross the Irish Sea. The reading public in Ireland and the Dublin crowds had only just become familiar with air balloons in May 1785, but for the country people of the Tullamore area assembled for one of the three great annual fairs in the town it was an entirely novel spectacle. Despite the efforts of the Tullamore townspeople and the scorching and burning of a few, the fire could not be put out until it had done enormous damage.

JOHN WESLEY

However, the extent of the damage has been exaggerated. We have no reason to doubt the contemporary report which states that every house front and rere in Barrack Street with the exception of four slated houses and one thatched house were destroyed.

We cannot say if the thatched survival is the Mallet Tavern. With regard to the slated houses, the architectural style an other sources would suggest that Williams head office, Brady's and R. Smyth all survived the fire. There is no evidence to suggest that houses in any other street in Tullamore were damaged in the fire. Nevertheless just two years later, John Wesley , the founder of Methodism, on one of twenty visits to Tullamore over the period of 1748 to 1789, noted in his diary 'I once visited my old friends at Tullamore. Have all the balloons in Europe done so much good as can counterbalance the harm which one of them did here a year or two ago? It took fire in its flight and dropped it down on one and another of the thatched houses so fast that it was not possible to quench it, till most of the town was burnt down'.

Wesley certainly exaggerates the extent of the fire, perhaps because Patrick Street was the town's main trading area and most populated street and therefore its loss would be severely felt.

CHARLES WILLIAM BURY

Charles William Bury the owner of Tullamore came of age in 1785 and lost no opportunity in taking control of his estate. It was reported in the "Dublin Evening Post" of 24 May 1785 that shortly after the fire he made his way to Tullamore to enquire into the damage done and that he distributed upwards of £550 among the unfortunate sufferers. The report goes on "this noble act of charity and manufacture has endeared him to a numerous tenantry, and must procure him the public admiration and esteem."

The following year Bury set about re-organising his estate and had an atlas and schedule of the tenantry drawn up. In all 25 leases of properties, many of them in Patrick Street were given to tenants that year. These new leases appear to have been in lieu of older leases and allowed Bury to reorganise and possibly plan Patrick Street so as to have a street with slated houses throughout. Certainly the number of leases granted in that year exceeded all other years down to 1837. The true average was no more than 2 or 3 a year with the exception of 1790 (13), 1805 (11) and 1807 (13).

PHOENIX - LIKE

The new leases at 1s. a foot in front of perpetuity encouraged building and were important factors in the transformation of Tullamore over the period 1785 to 1805 and onwards to 1835.

Tullamore did indeed rise phoenix-like from the ashes but it was a bigger and finer bird than that which perished in 1785. At the same time we cannot agree with Coote who in his survey of Offaly in 1801, described Tullamore as a very neat town which owed "its newly acquired consequence to the present Lord Charleville with scarcely any better than thatched cabins, which were almost all destroyed by accidental fire ....." Coote's statement exaggerates the influence of Charles William Bury (later Lord Charleville) as a considerable amount of building pre-dated the fire of 1785. However, many of the gazetteer writers of the 19th century copied from Coote and helped to perpetuate the myth of wholesale destruction.

FIRE BRIGADE

By the way of concluding it should be said that the experience of fire did not stampede the town's people into availing of any kind of fire fighting equipment and that it was not until the destruction of the Goodbody tobacco factory in 1886 that the first trained fire brigade was established by the town commissioners. The present fire brigade has its origins in this service.

Part of Tullamore is well built. I passed through it to Captain Johnston's at Charleville, to whom I am indebted for the following account of the husbandry of the neighbourhood.

Farms around Tullamore are commonly 100 to 300 acres, but some smaller, and some of 5 or 600. The soil is generally a dry sound gravelly loam, lets from 12s to 18s. average 16s. five miles every way around. Average of land let in the whole country 15s. exclusive of bog. He thinks that one-seventh of the county is bog or mountain; but the latter pays from is. 6d. to 3s.

They are exceedingly late in sowing, not finishing their wheat and here till after Christmas. They sow rape on low grounds by the edge of bogs, upon paring and burning for seed; they get 12 to 15 barrels an acre, worth from 12s. to 20s. a barrel. They sow it on the ground without covering after ploughing, and the rougher the land the better. Sow rye after it, and then oats, getting good crops; and lay it down with grass seeds from lofts, or ray grass, or clover and trefoile. For turneps on fallow, plough sometimes thrice, oftener twice, lay on no manure for them, nor hoe them, get very bad crops. If pare and burn they plough twice; but a penalty is laid of £5 an acre for doing it. They eat them with sheep both drawn and on the land. Very little clover sown. Flax is sown very generally, from patches up to three or four acres; they do the whole of it themselves, spinning and weaving. About Good Friday is the time of sowing; but later sown is bad. The sky farmers, (and often the better sort) that is the petty ones, let potato ground for it, at £6 an acre to cottars.

Great quantities of potatoes in the trenching way, and all the dung is used for them. A common way is, for the farmers to let them have land for nothing, upon condition of their dunging it, which all do that have not land of their own: if not, they pay from £4 to £6 dunged, or turnep land fed with sheep, which they prefer, the potatoes being drier and better. The apple potatoe is most esteemed, because they are great bearers, last through the summer, and have been kept two years. Not much lime used, having been tried, but has not answered; limestone gravel on lay to be broken up, has a very great effect. The expense lOs. or 15s. The grass is chiefly applied to heifers, or store bullocks; the first sold in small parcels at home, the latter at Ballynasloe or Bannagher. They buy them in at a year or two years old; the first 30s. to 50s. the latter from 55s. to 57s. Keep them a year and four or five months, or only a year: in a year they will make, by the first, 25s. to 30s. and from 30s. to 40s. by the others.

Wherever the land is good enough, a few cows bought in icr fattening, in May, at £ 1 15s. to £5 and sold with 40s. a head profit. The poor people all rear calves.

Many sheep bred; the best farmers breed and sell them fat in three years old, wethers at Michaelmas, from 18s. to 24s. if in spring, tram 24s. to 44s. Clip from 5 to 7 lb of wool.

The tillage is done by oxen, tour in a plough, not half an acre a day, the sky farmers sometimes will put one horse and a cow in. Oxen are reckoned best. They cut no chaff, but winnow in the field.

Hire of a boy, horse and car is. ld.
The shy farmer will take 40 to 50 acres, with 3 or 4 cows and a horse or two, and 55s. in their pockets. Tythes are compounded, 5s. for winter corn, 3s. for spring corn, 25s. 1000 sheep. Mowing ground, 5s.

Land sells for 20 years purchase, rack rent has fallen two years purchase in seven years, and the rent has fallen from 3s. to 5s. (sic) in the same time. No tea. County cess 6d. Very few middle men left. Cottages with half an acre, let for 20s. with two acres, which is common, 40s. No emigrations. Religion, lower classes all Roman. Not one cottar in six has a cow about towns; but in the country, about half of them have. Most of them have a pig, and much poultry. They are not more thieving than for a few turnips and cabbages for their own use, nor that to any excess. Many of the poor have reclaimed much bog, the premiums of the Dublin Society have induced them to do it: which are now 50s. an acre: by gradual draining, either from cutting turf, or making bounds, or from drainings purposely done, they get to peat, and burn it 4 to 6 inches deep, at 20s. an acre, and sow bere, rye, or potatoes; the bere does best, and next year another crop of corn; and then another burning, and 2 more crops, the potatoes are wet, but will do for seed, and they will escape the frost in a bog, when they are killed in the high lands. They pay nothing for the bog, having land adjoining.

They lay the bits down to grass, sowing seeds, but the crop is generally very thin and poor, and after a year or two, burn it again; sometimes put out a little dung or gravel on the grass, and plant it with potatoes. Some have put potatoes in upon a red bog, with no other preparation than laying a poor, sharp, sandy gravel on it, and got tolerable crops.

Mr. Johnston has cultivated cabbages for several years. In 1772, he had one acre, in 1773, 2 1/2, and since that, between 1 and 2 acres every year. The great Scotch sort which he saws in February, and plants out in 4 feet rows, and 18 inches, from plant to plant, the beginning of June. If the plants are not in the ground then, the crop will not be good. Ploughs for them twice, and dungs richly in the furrows. Horse-hoes twice or thrice, and hand-weeds them; they come from 5 to 121b., but have always began to burst in September. Has used them for fattening sheep, that would not fatten on grass; also for bullocks, which throve perfectly well, likewise the leaves (with great care in picking) to much cows, but the butter tasted. Finds that the principal use of them is for bringing on cattle that will not finish at grass, and to be used all before Christmas. Barley that has been sown upon cabbage land which succeeded potatoes, a vast crop, 24 barrels an acre. Turneps Mr. Johnston has had for these ten years, from 1 to 4 acres, and has always applied them to fattening sheep, for which purpose he finds them excellent; and best to feed in the field, because fast in the ground for the sheep to bite at, provided there is some grass for them to lie on.

Has deviated from the common late sowing of wheat, putting his in the beginning of September, and finds his harvest so much earlier, that his is in the haggard (reek-yard) when others are cutting.

His tillage he performs with only 2 horses. Mr. Johnston is a great friend to the Irish cars: He carries 10 to 12 cwt. of turf, 3 statute kishes of hard stone turf, each horse 10 turns a day, or 20 miles, and all done on grass alone.

A canal link between Dublin and the Shannon had been mooted as early as 1715 but no work on the project was carried out until the 1750s. The construction of the Grand Canal commenced in 1756 it reached Tullamore in 1798 and the Shannon in 1804. Tullamore was the terminus for the intervening six years. The delay in proceeding to the Shannon was caused principally by the canal company's indecision as to the route the canal should take to the Shannon. In 1797 two schemes were suggested, first, that the canal should go via Kilcormac to Banagher and the Shannon with perhaps an extension to Birr and Roscrea. The other course suggested was by way of the Brosna Valley. In 1801 it was this latter course which was accepted.

Enormous Benefit

The canal was of enormous benefit in that it provided a direct link with Dublin and facilitated the transportation of goods and people at a time when roads were bad and railways were still fifty years off. With the coming of the canal Tullamore expanded rapidly: new streets were developed, for example, Store Street, Convent Road (Bury Quay) and Harbour Street. The canal company built the harbour, the canal stores (which gave Store Street its name) and the hotel. The fact that the town's proprietor, Lord Charleville, was a member of the canal company board may have been influential in determining the extent of the Grand Canal company's involvement with Tullamore but it was not decisive. Long before Lord Charleville joined the board it had been agreed that the Grand Canal would pass through Tullamore.

Hotel Needed

In March 1798 Captain William Evans, a canal engineer, wrote; "Our canal to Tullamore is so nearly finished that the passage boats will begin to ply to and from that place on the second day of April next though it is probable it may be opened some day sooner". In April Evans wrote from Tullamore complaining of the inadequate accommodation available in the town for boat passengers and suggesting to the board that a hotel, harbour and a bridge be built. In May the board decided that "the plan for the harbour at Tullamore marked no. 1 and estimated at £566. 7s 3d. be adopted.

Later in the same month Evans was instructed to "use the utmost diligence in laying before the board plans for an hotel, stores, a collector's house and dry docks at Tullamore, together with separate expense of each. The tender of Michael Hayes was accepted and in April 1801 he was paid £600 for his work on the harbour and stores. The harbour, stores and collector's house were all built in 1799 but the collector's house and hotel were not completed until late 1801.

Opposition to bridges

Other building work carried out at this time included the erection of the lockhouses and bridges. The twenty-sixth lockhouse (Boland's) near Tullamore was erected about 1800. This is an unusual house with bow ends and a castellated front. The Kilbeggan bridge formerly Pound Bridge was erected in 1801-03. The canal company had to compensate house owners who suffered damage by the raising of the approach road to the bridge. The Clara Bridge (Cox's bridge, after a landowner at Tinnycross) was built in 1809. This is surprisingly late but may perhaps be explained by the local opposition to the building of the bridges, presumably because of the difficulty experienced by animals pulling carriages over them. In December 1802 Lord Charleville "promised to use his best endeavours to put an end to the opposition heretofore existing to the proposed situation and number of bridges to be built at Tullamore". The Kilbeggan bridge was re-built by Duffy Brothers in 1929-30 while the steel footbridge at Convent View was erected by Smith & Pearson in 1934 for £390.

First passengers

Among the first passengers to arrive at Tullamore by boat in 1798 were soldiers on the way to Connacht to meet a French force which had landed at Killala. Travelling on the canal was expensive. When the canal reached Tullamore in 1798 a new scale of charges was put into operation. On the Dublin Tullamore run (56.5 miles) a state cabin cost 10s 10d and a common cabin 5s.11½d. Progress on the canal was slow, the Tullamore-Dublin trip took about 14 hours in 1798. When the fly-boats were introduced in 1834 the Tullamore-Dublin run was made in nine hours. Slow perhaps but nicer than walking. Passenger traffic in the canal finished up with the development of the railways after 1850 and goods traffic in the 1950's.

Today the canal is used for pleasure craft, sports, walking and scenic amenity. Tullamore is now the headquarters of the canal maintenance division of the Office of Public Works - the development now charged with responsibility for this great resource. The last function of Mr. Haughey as Taoiseach, was to attend the launching of a stage of the £30 million programme for the Ballinamore - Ballyconnell canal. When this is opened we will have a waterway from Dublin to Lough Erne.

[Note: In some of the amounts of money the reader will have seen s. and d. These signified shillings (20 = £1) and d. which was the old penny (12 = 1 shilling)]

A recently published guide for visitors to County Offaly had the curious title Offaly: Undiscovered Country. I like to think of Tullamore in the same way - as a town waiting to be discovered, a place full of surprises in terms of its history and its architectural remains.

The casual observer might consider the Midlands as a largely rural society, without any significant urban base. On closer examination, the same observer might be surprised to see the extent of the towns of Portlaoise, Tullamore, Mullingar, Athlone and Longford. Athlone, of course, is the most significant with Mullingar and Tullamore in second and third place and Portlaoise and Longford the more peripheral.

Tullamore today has a population of 9,500 and is the county town in Offaly with a population twice the size of its nearest rival Birr. If Birr can claim to be the "Umbilicus Hiberniae" or navel of Ireland, and Roscommon, "the heart of Ireland", then Tullamore must be the "taste of Ireland". The town is now famous throughout the world for its Tullamore Dew whiskey and Irish Mist liqueur. The whiskey is now made in Midleton, Co. Cork and the liqueur blended in Tullamore.

Tullamore occupies a central position in County Offaly and is the capital town since 1833. The town is situated on the Tullamore river which divides it in half. To the north is the gravel Ridge, the Eiscir Riada, known locally as the Arden Hills. To the south lie the Slieve Bloom mountains while to the east and west are flat boglands relieved only on the eastern side by the stump of an extinct volcano now known as Croghan Hill.

The name Tullamore or Tulach Mhor, meaning the big mound or hill, probably refers to the hilly ground behind the junction of O'Moore Street and Cormac Street once the location of the town's windmills. In the eighteenth century the town was also known as Tullamoore, a name introduced by former owners of the town, the Moore family.

Tullamore lies in the ancient district of Fear Ceall which has been translated as men of the woods or men of the churches. Neither would be inaccurate because Fear Ceall was once covered by vast bogs and forests. The area was famous for its monastic centres at Clonmacnois, Durrow, Lynally, Clareen and Birr. The route to Clonmacnois was across the esker while the Durrow to Birr monasteries were on a north-south corridor through the bogs. If holy places such as Durrow and Clonmacnois were once significant population centres, nothing now survives save the monastic remains. What is of interest is the way in which the old monastic north-south corridor continues to impact on the modern road transport system. Much of Tullamore's traffic comes from the Mullingar - Athlone routes heading towards Portlaoise and Birr. The east-west traffic bypasses Tullamore at Kilbeggan seven miles north of the town. The most leisurely way to arrive in Tullamore is by canal or rail.

Coming by canal boat will present an image of a holy place with the town's principal churches in view. The catholic church, somewhat secluded in the backstreets of the town centre, has a substantial spire to identify its location. This church was erected in 1802, and demolished and rebuilt in 1902. It was destroyed by fire in 1983 and again rebuilt at a cost of over £3 million. The new church has an impressive timber interior and some Harry Clarke Studio windows. St. Catherine's, the Church of Ireland church designed by Francis Johnston and opened in 1815, is placed prominently on a hill to the south-west of the town. Arriving by rail, the first sight to greet the visitor will be the former gothic-style county jail of 1826, and beside it, a substantial neo-classical courthouse of 1835 - the latter still in use and the former now comprised of small industrial units. Either way, the visitor cannot escape civil and religious authority. A brisk walk through the main streets will reinforce the feeling of authority and of some taste because the town is laid out on a grid-iron pattern with the principal street running from the Kilbeggan road canal bridge to the north and the Birr road railway bridge to the south and beyond it Charleville Castle, the home of the former owners of the town, the earls of Charleville. This castle, designed by Francis Johnston, is considered one of the finest gothic style country houses in Ireland and is now open to the public.

The oldest house in Tullamore is another castle, a tower house, known as Sragh Castle observable from the railway line and dating to 1588. Nearby was the original O'Molloy castle, shown on early maps and mentioned in the grant of the district to the Moore family in 1620 in the course of the Stuart plantations. The grant to John Moore of some 20,000 acres, in so far as it related to Tullamore may have been a formality, because Moore had already acquired the lands through a series of mortgages raised by the O'Molloys. John Moore was the son of Thomas Moore, an Elizabethan soldier, who had received lands at Croghan Hill in east Offaly in the 1570's as part of the first Offaly plantation. The Moore family let on long lease their Tullamore lands throughout the seventeenth century, choosing to reside at Croghan Castle instead.

There are no accounts available of Tullamore in the seventeenth century. We know it had a castle, a water mill and a few cottages in the 1620s. The fact that the landlords were not resident in the town in the seventeenth century would have hindered development. Surviving tax collection data of 1660 would suggest that the Tullamore town population was not much more than 100 and in rank order well below Birr, with a population of over 700. Birr was settled by the Parsons family (later earls of Rosse), in the 1620s and by 1641 was seeking county town status from Daingean or Philipstown, with a population of some 250. Daingean was the county capital, more by historical accident than design. As the location of an English fort inside enemy lines from the 1540s, it acquired county town status in the emerging new county of Offaly (or Kings County as it was known until 1920), under an Act of Queen Mary in 1557, which laid the basis for the Laois-Offaly plantation.

It was not until after 1700 that Tullamore developed as the town we know today. In the population stakes, it outstripped Birr only in the second half of the nineteenth century, but had already defeated Daingean by the 1720s. Viscount Molesworth, Daingean's landlord, writing in 1724 from his town to his wife, a letter of complaint regarding his urinary tract infection, said "I am in a place where no herb or drug that I might have occasion for, can be had nearer than Tullamore". The Moore family moved from their home at Croghan Castle in the early 1700s and built a large house in the vicinity of the present Tullamore harbour. No trace of this house now remains. Through political influence, they were able to secure a barrack to house 100 foot soldiers in 1716, (at the same time as that in Castlecomer), and by the late 1720s, a protestant church was built in what is now Church Street - then known as Church Lane, nothing now remains of this building). The demise of Daingean's county town status, which did not come about until 1833, was signalled as early as 1767 in a special County Infirmaries (Amendment) Act, passed to facilitate the establishing of the County Infirmary at Lifford rather than Letterkenny, and that for Offaly at Tullamore in place of Daingean.

Evidence of industry and housebuilding in Tullamore is available from estate records, the Registry of Deeds and from what survives on the ground and in the street names. The building of the barrack provided an impetus to business. Entrepreneurial immigrants, such as Huguenots from their settlement at Portarlington and Quakers from Mountmellick and Edenderry, turn up as lessees in the building leases granted by the landlord. The first recorded building lease is one from John Moore to Richard Brennan, a tobacco spinner, in 1713. His premises is now the Brewery Tap in High Street. Part of what is now O'Connor Square was known as the Market Place or New Street in the 1740s.

Notwithstanding the by-passing of Tullamore by the main trade routes to the south, (via Daingean and Birr), and the west, (via Kilbeggan and Moate), it continued to grow in the first half of the eighteenth century. Landlord influence was obviously a factor but so were structural forces such as the need to create a market centre east of the isolated Garrycastle barony which comprises much of west Offaly, and west of Daingean surrounded as it was by bog. One geographer has remarked that towns are the essential cog in the machinery of rural society. Tullamore's chief economic function would have been as a market centre for the predominantly rural population. The principal trading days were those on which markets and fairs took place. Captain Thomas Johnston, the lessee of Charleville demesne in the 1760s to the mid-1780s, wrote in March 1765, "I am a stout farmer, between 4 and 500 sheep, 50 calves, besides cows and horses, and I want 200 sheep more as soon as the rents come in." At the time, pasturage was still predominant in Offaly with tillage of much less importance.

Although tillage was less significant, it played a major part in the economy of towns such as Tullamore. The Tullamore distilling business, dependent as it was on oats and barley, developed rapidly in the 1780s and survived until the 1950s.

Agricultural activity reflected itself in trade with the woollen and tanning industries important. So also was the linen industry. In 1754 Charles Moore, now Lord Tullamore, gave a lease for a factory building for the linen business. This premises was in lower Church Street but does not now survive except in the name Pike's Lane - Pike being a linen weaver. In fact by the 1780s Offaly was a leading county for the manufacture of linen outside of Ulster.

By the mid 1760s Tullamore would have consisted of Patrick Street, Church Street upper, Bridge Street, part of O'Connor Square and some development in High Street. Town development received a set back in the 1760s following the death of Charles Moore, first Earl of Charleville. He had removed himself from the town of Tullamore to Charleville Demesne in 1740. He had encouraged building development through the provision of cheap sites on the basis of an annual ground rent of a shilling a foot in front with the lease for lives renewable for ever. The procedure was that the tenant nominated three lives, usually young healthy people, and when the three people died the landlord would accept three new lives at a nominal fine so far as town houses were concerned. For town parks the rent could increase substantially. This was the basis of all building in Tullamore until the advent of freehold sales in the 1920s. It provided a cheap site while the landlord enjoyed on-going revenue and a measure of control of the building development at commencement stage and later by means of covenants in the leases.

On Charles Moore's death the property passed first to his sister's husband, John Bury of Shannongrove, Limerick who died soon after in a bathing accident at Ringsend, Dublin. The Tullamore property, together with Limerick and Dublin estates, then passed to Moore's nephew, Charles William Bury, an infant of six months. During the Bury minority there were no leases of more than 21 years granted and thus no new building activity.

Charles William Bury's coming of age in 1785 coincided with the famous balloon fire in Tullamore. The fire was caused by an air balloon catching fire in what was only the third attempt to make such an ascent in Ireland. This led to the destruction of about 100 houses in the Patrick Street area. The fire had caused no damage in the Bridge Street, High Street, O'Connor Square area of which Arthur Young may have been speaking when he recorded in 1776 that part of Tullamore was well built. Nevertheless, John Wesley in his journal for 1787 felt obliged to remark: "I once more visited my old friends at Tullamore. Have all the balloons in Europe done so much good as can counterbalance the harm which one of them did here a year or two ago ?" Wesley's view that most of the town was burnt down was repeated by Charles Coote in his Offaly survey for the Royal Dublin Society, published in 1801. Coote looked on Tullamore as a very neat town which owed it's newly acquired consequence to the present Lord Charleville. "About 14 years ago it was", said Coote, "but a neat village, with scarce any better than thatched cabins, which were almost all destroyed by accidental fire ...". The Coote and Wesley comments are partly true only because many of the fine houses in Bridge Street, O'Connor Square and High Street pre-date the fire, as does the William's Head Office in Patrick Street.

Charles William Bury, the first Earl of Charleville (of the second creation) presided over the fortunes of Tullamore from his coming of age in 1785 to his death 50 years later. The burning of Patrick Street gave him an opportunity to let the properties there on new leases and widen the street in the process. During this time the population expanded three fold to over 6,000 in 1841. The new streets, such as Offaly Street, Harbour Street and William Street all followed the grid iron pattern and a second market square was provided in the 1820s. The Tullamore tenants petitioned the Irish House of Commons in 1784 and in 1786 to designate Tullamore as the county town in place of Daingean, but because of the significant political influence of the Ponsonby family, now owners of Daingean, this was not achieved until 1833. The county jail was built in Tullamore in 1826 and the county courthouse in 1835. The landlord went to considerable trouble about the design of his gothic style jail by the Pain Brothers and the neo-classical court house by J.B. Keane.

Lord Charleville did not develop the residential or commercial properties himself save the town hotel, which is still in use. Instead Charleville brought in the middlemen to build and sell or retain, either way at a profit rent. Chief among the developers or building speculators was Thomas Acres. His 1786 house is now the headquarters of Tullamore Urban District Council. Acres and his family were involved in the building of some 140 houses in the town, or some 15 percent of the housing stock in the 1900s. There were other speculators too and between them the town as we know it (excluding the centre core and suburbia which emerged after 1900) was completed between 1785 and the eve of the Famine in 1845.

All the older buildings of note in Tullamore were erected at this time, including:

(1) Charleville Castle - erected between 1800 and 1812;

(2) St. Catherine's Church - Church of Ireland dating from 1815 - with its Bachelor's Walk which was designed to give the landlord access to the church from his castle while avoiding the town. The vista at the eastern end of Bachelor's Walk is closed off by a view of Croghan Hill, part of Charleville Estate lands, and at the foot of which lay Croghan Castle - the landlord's ancestral home.

(3) The old Catholic Church was erected in 1802;

(4) The Town Hall in O'Connor Square was erected in 1789;

(5) The County Infirmary in Church Street erected in 1788 and now lying derelict;

(6) The County Jail of 1826 - now Kilcruttin Centre for small industries and prior to that Salts (Ireland) spinning mill;

(7) The courthouse of 1835 by J.B. Keane, Architect. This was destroyed by the Republicans leaving the town in July 1922. It was rebuilt and continues to serve as a courthouse but is largely laid out as offices for Offaly County Council;

(8) The Mercy Convent, erected in 1838-1840, demolished and rebuilt in the mid 1960s.

(9) The Workhouse erected in 1841 at Arden Road, and demolished in the 1970s brought to an end the public building programme.

Landlord influence facilitates supply more so than being a determinant of demand. The general upturn in the Irish economy after 1785 and which continued until the recession after the ending of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, was a spur to development. So also was the improvement in transport when the Grand Canal was linked to Tullamore in 1798 and to the Shannon in 1804. The canal passenger traffic led to the building of a new hotel in 1801 which, after the end of passenger traffic with the advent of the railways, served as a parochial house until demolition in 1974. The goods traffic must have been enormous because stores were built near the new harbour in what is now Store Street (these stores were destroyed by fire about 1960). The canal boats provided a direct link with Dublin at low cost facilitating the transport of turf, bricks, grain for malting and Tullamore limestone from the local quarries.

While the town turned its back on the river flowing through its centre and surrounded it with mills and industrial buildings, the canal at the northern end is open and an important visual amenity now serving as a linear park and a line to the Shannon for pleasure craft.

The canal marked the northern boundary of the town until the 1900s, as did the railway line from 1858 on the southern side. Some of the poor of the town lived on the northern bank of the canal near the convenient water supply and beside the bog of Puttaughan. It was this area which suffered most during the Famine years. The remaining poor lived in lanes at the back of the big private houses fronting the streets, and paid rents of 6d or 1s per week with the 'lease' determinable every Friday. At that time, and until the development of Charleville Road (the road to the landlord's demesne) after 1900 status was not so much having a house in a particular part of town as having it fronting the street.

The post-Famine years, and up to the end of the First World War, saw the steady consolidation of Tullamore's position as the leading town in Offaly. Whereas the population of Tullamore and Birr was virtually the same, at 6,300, in 1841 by 1926 the population of Birr had fallen to almost half that figure, and that of Tullamore to about 5,000. In fact, Clara because of the Goodbody jute business was the only town in Offaly to experience growth in the period 1861 to 1926. The towns had not fared badly by contrast with the rural areas and the county as a whole. The population of Offaly in 1841 was almost 147,000 falling to 53,000 in 1926. It is stuck in the fifties ever since and in the 1991 census was 58,494, down 1400 on the 1986 figure.

The Charleville influence declined after the 1840s and the earldom was extinguished with the death of the fifth earl in 1874. The merchants and the farmers came to prominence through the advent of public boards such as the Board of Guardians of the Tullamore Poor Law Union (established after 1838), and the Tullamore Town Commissioners, (established in 1860, so as to facilitate the provision of a town gas supply). The commercial role of Tullamore expanded after 1890, with the development of the general merchant business of P. & H. Egan and D. E. Williams. Akin to Liptons and Findlaters, both firms had a system of branch shops throughout the Midlands, connected to an agricultural food processing base in malting, brewing and distilling. The Goodbody tobacco factory provided significant employment until a fire destroyed the factory in 1886 and the entire workforce was transferred to new premises near Harold's Cross, Dublin. The Tullamore distillery business expanded in the 1870s and again after 1900 when D. E. Williams developed the Tullamore Dew brand. The distillery closed in 1954.

The main sources of employment up to the 1930s were in malting, distilling, stone quarrying and distribution. In the mid-1930s, Salts (Ireland) Ltd. established a spinning mill in the old jail which, behind protective tariffs until the mid-1960s, provided employment to upwards of 1,000. This factory closed in 1982 and jobs for men in Tullamore are in short supply since.

The IDA backed foreign industries such as Burlington (now Atlantic Mills), Sherwood Medical, Lowe-Alpine and Snickers between them provide about 800 jobs, and most of these are for women. The Midland Health Board and Offaly County Council employ about 600. The current unemployment figure for the Tullamore district is 2,100, comprising some 1,500 males and 600 females.

Shops and services are a significant source of employment for the town. Although Tullamore would have no more than 15%, of the county's population, it has 50% of the business and draws from a hinterland of at least 30,000.

Housing after 1900 saw the clearing of the town lanes and the building of over 1,500 houses by the Urban Council in the suburbs. Suburbs in the private sector commenced on Charleville Road after 1900 and got going in earnest after the second World War. There is now a strong demand for town houses, curiously enough, in the very lanes where the "cabin suburbs" were once situated.

Tullamore has managed to preserve much of its original townscape. The major public buildings are well presented, especially in the town square. The emphasis on timber shopfronts with painted lettering is having an effect. Shopping facilities have developed to the extent that the trip to Dublin is not a must. The town is served with three local newspapers and local radio. All sports facilities, including a tartan track, but excepting an indoor swimming pool, are available. All that is lacking are more job opportunities.

Is there a deus ex machina in town growth, I like to think not. No one influence, from landlord to government to structural economic forces is primary. Growth is a complex organism. Writing of Georgian London, Sir John Summerson remarked that: "a town, like a plant or an anthill, is a product of collective unconscious will, and only to a very small extent of formulated intention". Tullamore, I believe, well fulfills that viewpoint.

In Mr. Pretty's younger days there were bad houses in Tullamore; they were not much of an improvement on those which had existed at the time of the great fire. Church Street was a vacant space in 1830, and so was Earl Street, where there was a plantation. The streets were rough and difficult to traverse, as were also the footpaths, which were not at all like what are to be seen at present, in some of the worst parts of the town. There was no such thing as public lighting; there was one lamp in a central part of the town, the illuminant being the poor light of a tallow candle. In those days, as now, there was a splendid market in Tullamore, there being two market days in the week - Tuesday and Saturday. There were 7 fair-days in the year, namely, 26th January, the 19th March, the 10th May, the 10th July, the 13th September, the 21st October, and there was a big fair or margamore in or about Christmas.

Previous to the famine, the people of the town and district were very industrious. A great many of the townspeople kept cows, and the farmers of the district utilised oxen for the conveyance of hay and corn to the market. The townspeople also used them for drawing turf from the neighbouring bogs. The affairs of the township were managed by the police authorities, the Town Commissioners not having been established until 1860. In the beginning of the last century the town house, having previously undergone the punishment of the stocks, which were erected in Charleville Square. Persons found intoxicated on the streets were placed in the stocks where they were kept until they became sober. They were brought before the local magistrate, a Mr. Wallace, who dealt with them. The police barrack at that time was a building at the rere of the Charleville Estate Office.

Tullamore suffered severely during the years of the famine; hundreds of its inhabitants succumbed to the pestilence which followed in its train, and the old graveyard of Kilcruttin was the scene of many a sad spectacle. The effects of the potato failure which was first noticed in '44 were keenly felt, and in '45 and '46 the wave of sickness came. The people who had no food, left their homes in the town to go in search of it, and very little were they able to find. The workhouse, which was completed in 1841, and which like all the other similar institutions, seemed to have been built in anticipation of the famine, was soon filled, and the houses of the poor everywhere in the town were deserted and closed. When cholera broke out the situation was dreadful. The present fever hospital in the workhouse grounds, was filled with patients, while an auxiliary hospital at the place known as the Magazine, once an old military barracks, was improvised. Cholera patients were brought there, where they only lingered an hour or so, after being stricken with the disease. It was not an uncommon thing, according to Mr. Pretty, to see as many as a dozen corpses at several intervals of the day, being carted to Kilcruttin for interment. The dead were buried in a deep trench at the back of boundary wall on the western side of the entrance gate, where a slab marks the resting-place of a well-known Tullamore family named Gunning, some members of which succumbed to the disease. In this trench the coffins were piled on top of each other daily for months. Men were kept busily engaged making coffins and digging trenches to receive the dead.

The large building in which Messrs. P. and H. Egan carry on the malting business at Henry Street, was used as a kind of auxiliary workhouse, where the unfortunate people, men, women, and children, who were so fortunate as to escape death, slept. The disease was not finally checked until 1850, and from 1846 until that year it was very prevalent during the summer months, rich and poor, without exception, being visited by it.

The first agricultural show in Tullamore was almost certainly that held in the centre of Tullamore - in the Shambles, off Church Street - in October 1840.

The show arose from the deliberations of the Tullamore Agricultural Society established some short time earlier under the patronage of the second Earl of Charleville and drawn from tenants in the Earl's 20,000 acre estate which stretched from Tullamore to Croghan.

Inspiration and encouragement for the establishing of an agricultural society in Tullamore had come directly from that set up in Moate in 1839 and founded by Dr Thomas Bewley, of the well known Dublin family. Dr Bewley, born in Mountrath in 1806 and now a medical doctor in Moate, was a Council member of the Agricultural Society of Ireland and was its President in 1841. The first Moate Show took place in 1840, in the same year as that held in Tullamore.

Addressing a dinner in the Tullamore courthouse on the afternoon of the Show, the Earl of Charleville paid tribute to the Moate and other farming societies of Ireland and in particular to Dr Bewley. On returning thanks, Dr Bewley said the want of agricultural method in the tillage system had exhausted the land and that any improvement in cattle production was predicated on proper tillage as a means to good food.

Farming methods

One of the last to speak at the dinner was Mr Pat Egan of Deerpark, Croghan, who had been on a Croghan deputation to visit the estate of Lord Gosford in County Armagh. At the time, the estate was managed by William Blacker, who became famous for the system of management he introduced on the Gosford Estate and to other estates of which he became agent. The system involved the encouragement of green crop farming - mainly of clover, tares and rape, turnips being apparently beyond the capacity of the tenants - and stall feeding of the cattle.

By this method, one acre was said to be able to support as many cows as three had done formerly. Pat Egan, giving his own impressions, said the Croghan Committee visited the smallest holdings and they all followed up the system of house feeding; and the land was half under a manure crop, and half under a grain crop. Referring to flax, he said he had introduced a plan for it to Croghan and he exhibited a strike of flax to the audience.

Francis Berry, the Charleville Estate agent, in thanking Pat Egan for his contribution, said he had never seen 13 acres of land better managed and in addition that Egan had his own bacon. True to the form of the time, Pat Egan was a sub-tenant, paying a high rent for his small holding. Another tenant farmer, one Edward Gilligan, spoke of the rotation system and the extent of the sewering or draining of his land. A report available on the 1843 Tullamore Agricultural Show was in a similar vein. Prizes were awarded for the best cow, heifer, bull, pig, etc. Prizes for green crops included turnips, mangolds, clover and rye grass, transplanted rape, drainage, best labourer's cottage, etc.

The 1843 show was probably the last such show held in Tullamore until the 1900s. Its objective of improving farming methods was as much an encouragement to the landlord as it was to the tenant. However, it came too late in that both landlord and tenant were in a perilous state - the landlord had over extended himself and encumbered his estate with debt while the tenant greatly increased in number, was over-dependent on the potato.

The crash came in the mid-1840s. The second Earl of Charleville left Ireland in 1844, directing that his crops, farming stock and implements be sold and his demesne laid down in grass. The famine triggered off a population decline from which the rural areas of Ireland have never recovered.

Reviewing the progress of Tullamore some thirty years later, on the occasion of a dinner to mark the coming of age of the fourth Earl of Charleville, a Mr Handy said that in all matters of agriculture and stock farming they saw success. . . . They all regretted the loss of the agricultural labourers by emigration.

New mowing machine

The early 1870s was a more prosperous period for Irish farmers. The Goodbody brothers had a Tullamore premises (the brick building in O'Connor Square now part of the Bank of Ireland) re modelled to provide an agricultural services store. Earlier, in June 1869, they had promoted a trial of mowing machines near the town, attended by all the principal farmers of the district. The machines were also two-horse mowers. Among the judges was Thomas Weldon Trench, son of the famous William Stuart Trench, who had continued the improvements on the Geashill estate initiated by his father from 1857.

Evidence of such progressive thinking in farming methods and education does not appear to have translated itself into the holding of an agricultural show in Tullamore until the 1900s. In the southern end of the county, and in North Tipperary, a new farming society was established in the 1870s and the first show was held in c. 1874. Thereafter it became a regular event, usually held at the Maltings yard in Castle Street, Birr. Given the patronage available, the size of farms and the interest of the farmers themselves, it is hardly surprising that the Birr show continued up to 1966, long after the Tullamore show had finished.

Tullamore shows 1900s-1938

The growth of interest in agricultural instruction after 1900 was largely due to the stimulus provided by the passing of the Agriculture and Technical Instruction Act in 1899 and the setting up of a new department of agriculture and technical instruction with over 50 committees working throughout Ireland to promote agriculture and technical instruction. The Offaly Committee (now represented by Teagasc) promoted schemes throughout the county by means of assistance with small but very necessary grants. In addition, the climate of the time was one where Irish people became more aware of what they needed to do for themselves to promote native agriculture and industry. From 1905 onwards shows were held at Edenderry, Daingean, Tullamore, Birr and Kilcormac. A cattle show held at the Show Grounds adjoining New Road, Tullamore in 1906, attracted almost 300 entries with the gold medal for the best brood mare being won by Dr J.M. Prior Kennedy of Elmfield, Tullamore. The committee of that year included many who directly or through their families were to maintain an interest in the Tullamore Show until its demise in 1938.

The Tullamore Show continued throughout the First World War. The 1914 meeting, held on 5th August of the year, boasted a new jumping ground with competitions for horses 15 hands and upwards, under 15 hands, etc. Prizes were awarded for horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, butter, eggs and honey - in addition to the horse jumping.

The 1917 Show at Tullamore, favoured by beautiful weather, was described as the "great annual event attracting thousands to the busy and enterprising capital of the county". Great interest was shown in the new agricultural machinery on display. New to the Show was a horticultural exhibition. In the horses section, the gold medal was won by Revd R. O'Reilly of the College, Rahan. The Show secretary at this time was Mr Richard Hannegan, a hardware merchant, of O'Connor Square, Tullamore (now the Barry Keegan premises).

No show was held in Tullamore from 1920 to 1923, presumably due to the troubled state of the country, then in the middle of the Anglo Irish war and in 1922, civil war (the Offaly Courthouse was burned by the Republican forces in July 1922).

Revival of show - 1924

From February 1924 onwards, efforts were made to revive the Tullamore Show, culminating in success when a general meeting of the Offaly Farming and Industrial Society was held on the 29th of April of that year. In the chair was W.C. Graham, a shopkeeper in Patrick Street (where Doyle's Paperchase is now located). The meeting was called to consider taking over the old Tullamore Cricket Grounds at Spollinstown.

The work of preparation for the show proceeded with a considerable degree of efficiency. Differences with Tullamore GAA were ironed out (for a time) and an expected debt on the first show of £300 anticipated and covered. However, a local strike in the principal firms in Tullamore (Williams, Egan and Goodbody) brought the town to a standstill - and the Show also! The Transport Union would not allow their members to continue work in the Show Grounds and it was decided on 22nd June to postpone the Show. The Society was now £300 in debt. A change of bankers from Ulster to Hibernian followed. Early in 1925, it was agreed to hold a dance in the Courthouse to raise funds. The dance was a great success, making a profit of £60, and thereafter became an annual event. The refusal of the County Registrar to allow the use of this venue after 1938 was a factor behind the decision to abandon the Show in 1939.

The revived show held on Tuesday 7th of July 1925 was a great success. The attendance was numbered in thousands. The sideshows included exhibits by all local firms. Of particular interest was the mineral water display of P. and H. Egan Limited. On the agricultural machinery side, a demonstration was given of the Wade one-man drag saw. On the D.E. Williams Ltd stand was a sample of oats fed to Zionist, the Irish Derby winner. G.N. Walshe had a display of Ford cars.

Reviewing that first show at the AGM in November 1925, it was noted that the deficit was only £125 - a creditable performance after the first year. After the 1926 show, the overdraft stood at £186. It was not until the 1928 Show that the overdraft was converted to a credit balance. The annual farmers' dance and the Show dance that year contributed a net profit of £140. Actual gate receipts for the 1928 Show were down but interest was up. Poultry exhibits far exceeded expectations and entries here had to be curtailed. Entries in the Domestic Economy section were down. The Farmers' Dance and the Show Dance, usually held in the Courthouse, became popular annual events. Apparently the Farmers' Dance of January 1927 was the first dance in the reconstructed Courthouse, with permission for the event given by Commissioner David O'Keefe, who replaced the elected members of Offaly County Council for a time. Upwards of 400 attended a Monday night dance in January 1927, with dancing until 5.00 a.m. Music was provided by W. A. Manahan's No. 1 Band. Music for the July 1927 Show Dance was provided by the Midland Melody Band (Mr M. Killeavy conductor).

In regard to that 1928 Show, John J. Clavin was able to report that entries in the livestock and poultry sections totalled 687 as opposed to 614 in 1927. Domestic economy entries were down to 419 from 542 the previous year.

Shannon scheme

The 1929 Show was interesting as much for the industrial exhibits as the agricultural and domestic economy exhibits. The Irish Independent lent a model of the Shannon Electricity Supply Scheme, while a short lecture in relation to it was delivered by a representative of the Dublin Electricity Supply Board. A model was on display for the testing, packing and grading of eggs. Agricultural machinery was provided by P. and H. Egan, M/s Goodbody, North Offaly Co-Op, H. Hurst and G.N. Walshe. Craft work was on display from Portlaoise Mental Hospital. The categories that year were cattle, dairy cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, butter, eggs and dead poultry, home industries, jumping and driving. Reviewing the list of prizewinners would be to recall many of the personalities of the Tullamore area of that time, or who would prove to be so. Among the "Best Brown Bread" winners in the Domestic Economy section were Miss Mollie Garry, Clonminch, and Miss Annie Keegan, Ballyduff. The Best Seed Cakes were made by Miss Nellie Weldon and Miss Sadie Kemmy, both of Charleville Parade.

From 1932 onwards, the Tullamore Show began to run into difficulties. The depressed state of the country, the dispute over land annuities with Britain all contributed to an outlook of pessimism and in fact real hardship. In April of 1933 the Society had a debit balance of £177, which was not significant in itself but when combined with a poor outlook caused the brake to be applied. It was decided not to hold a show in 1933. No further show was held until 1938. The Society was divided on the question of holding a show in 1939, the Chairman referred to the serious financial situation and said the chief source of revenue had been lost by the discontinuance of the dances (due to the refusal of the County Registrar to make the County Ballroom in the Courthouse available). It was finally decided on 19th May of that year not to proceed with a show. It was indicative of the lack of dancing facilities at the time that the meeting gave consideration to going to Edenderry to procure a hall for the annual dances.

The Second World War put an end to any shows thereafter. Following an initial request in Sept. 1944 from Terry Adams, Solicitor, for a letting of the Show Grounds for the Committee of the Association Football Club and Tullamore Rugby Club, this was agreed to in January 1945. Out of this letting grew the combined Soccer and Rugby Club grounds, later to become the sole property of the Tullamore Rugby Club.

An attempt to revive the Tullamore Show in 1950 did not excite sufficient interest. In Birr, the annual Show was revived after the war and here shows were held almost every year from 1946 until the mid-1960s. The Tullamore Show Secretary, John J. Clavin, told a Birr audience at the meeting called to revive the Birr Show in September 1945 that the approximate cost of running a show was £628, with receipts of £547, leaving a debit balance of £171. It was this balance which was raised from dances and whist drives and lotteries. The first revived Birr Show was a great success, showing a credit balance of almost £500.

P.K. Pilkington was a leading light in the Birr Show and his tragic death in 1958 (attacked by one of his own prize Shorthorn bulls) was a great loss to the Birr Agricultural Society. The late C.B. Corcoran took over as secretary until his resignation in 1962. A deteriorating financial situation saw the demise of the Birr Show in the mid-1960s.

I am grateful to Donal O'Brien, Tullamore for his help in researching this article.