Marina Carr was born in 1964 and grew up in Co. Offaly. She graduated from U.C.D. in 1987. Her plays include "Law in the Dark", "The Deer's Surrender" "This Love Thing" and "Ullalo", "Portia Coughlan", commissioned by the National Maternity Hospital to celebrate its centenary, was presented at the Abbey Theatre and elsewhere to a successful run. "On Rafferty's Hill" is said to be forthcoming from Druid as is a new play for the Project Arts Centre. Marina Carr lives in Dublin. She was formerly Ansbacher Writer-in-Association at the Abbey and lately won further prizes for her literary art. She featured on the posters f or the recent Frankfurt Book Fair which focused on Ireland. Among her publications are "The Mai", published by the Gallery Press on the 31st May 1995.
Hugh Carr was well known to many of us here in Tullamore as he lived with his family beside Pallas Lake near the town until the late 1980s. He was born in Dunkineely, County Donegal, and grew up in the Donegal Gaeltacht. After moving to Dublin he studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and later with Frederick May. In 1962 he entered the Irish civil service, where he worked in the district court, mainly as District Court Clerk in Tullamore, until taking early retirement in 1988 to write full time. He has had several plays presented at the Peacock, the Abbey, the Gate, in several Dublin Theatre Festivals, in London and New York. Many people on the drama scene locally will recall acting out his work and in particular his win at the Listowel Writers week circa 1980. His stories have been broadcast by RTE and have appeared in the late "Irish Press." His first novel "Voices from a Far Country" was published in Belfast in 1995.
Emma Cooke is mentioned in the Brady and Cleeve, "A Biographical Dictionary of Irish Writers" (Mullingar 1985). She was born in Portarlington in 1934 and at the time of publication of the "Biographical Dictionary" was living in Limerick. She published a series of short stories, "Female Forms" in 1980 and a novel "A Single Sensation" in 1982.
Joseph Stirling Coyne is well known and features in most of the guide books on Irish Writers. He was a Dramatist and Comic Journalist and was born it is believed at Birr. According to Boylan he was educated at Dungannon school. After success with light articles in Dublin periodicals, he abandoned law studies. His first farce was The "Phrenologist", (Theatre Royal, Dublin June,1835) and the following farces: "Honest Cheats" and "The Four Lover". In 1836, Coyne went to London and through William Carleton and Crofton Croker, obtained employment with "Bentley's Miscellary" and other magazines. That year his farce, "The queer Subject", was produced at the Adelphi, and he joined the literary staff of the "Morning Gazette", the short-lived first cheap daily London paper. His farce, "How to settle accounts with your Laundress", was played in Paris (Une femme dans ma fortaine) and Germany. Another of his well-known dramas was "Everybody's Friend" (1859), later renamed "The Widow Hunt", While producing dramas for the Adelphi and Haymarket theatres Coyne continued to contribute to newspapers and periodicals. He was one of the founders of "Punch" in June 1841 and contributed to its first number. In 1856, he was appointed secretary to the Dramatic Authors' Society. A prolific author, at the time of his death he had written fifty-five dramas, burlesques and farces, as well as several plays written in collaboration with other authors. He also co-authored two-volume work, "Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland" (1842). He died in London on 18 July 1868. His "Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland" is more by way of a text for the Bartlett plates in that two volume work and the text itself contributes little to our knowledge of Irish history and less to our knowledge of Offaly history. He is probably best remembered for his contribution to "Punch".
In Welch (ed) the "Oxford Companion to Irish Literature" his play "How to Settle Accounts with your Laundress" (1847) is described as a romantic farce which was adapted to the taste of an emerging lower middle class Victorian audience with the humour described as both physical and verbal. The "Brady and Cleeve" Dictionary states that he was the son of an Officer in the Commissariat and of course Birr was a strong miltary base (although not as strong in 1803 as it subsequently became) Rabroidi in his "Irish Literature in English,: The Romantic Period", volume 2 (London 1972) gives a detailed list of his works prior to 1850 and in passing mentions that he died paralytic in London on July the 18th, 1868.
William Joseph O'Neill (1807-1894), historian and novelist, Born in Tullamore, Co. Offaly, he converted to "Catholicism in 1827, expressing himself equally an enemy of Protestant proselytism and religious "Indifferentism" in the columns of The "Nation" in 1843 As MP for Mallow he was a long term supporter of the "Repeal Association and an effective mediator between the nationalist party and the Catholic hierarchy as represented by the Home Government Association and Archbishop Paul Cullen. He wrote various political works including "A Catechism of the History of Ireland" (1844) and "Ireland Since the Union" (1888), but is best remembered for his "Personal Memories of the Late Daniel O'Connell" (1848). Among five Irish novels written under the pseudonym "Denis Ignatius Moriarty" were Hugh Talbot (1846), on land confiscation under the "plantations, and "Innisfoyle Abbey" (1840) in which the Protestant English visitor learns to overcome his anti-Irish prejudices, "Saints and Sinners" (1843) displays his antipathy to Northern Protestants, while "The Gentleman in Debt" (1851), treating of the hard-drinking gentry, includes a mild caricature of O'Connell. His diaries were edited by his daughter Alice as "A Life Spent for Ireland" (1896).
Daunt was born at what was formerly the Christian Brothers house at High Street, Tullamore and is now the offices and residence of Donal Farrelly, Solicitor. I have published a reasonably detailed history of this house in previous articles in this series. Rafroidi gives a short biography of his work both fiction and non-fictional in his study. From a local point of view "A Life Spent for Ireland" is the most interesting with several references to Tullamore and to life here in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
Well -known contributor of verse to "Nation" over signatures of "Mylo" and "Pontiac," and to "Boston Pilot" and "New York Metropolitan Record" over those of "J.B." "Jasper Green," and "Roderick O'Donnell." Born in King's County, Ireland, about 1822, went to America in 1842, and died in New York (where he had settled), on January 27th, 1885. Has been credited by some with the authorship of the poems in Nation, etc., signed "Carroll Malone." Published a prose work, "The Battlefields of Ireland," in 1876.
John M. Doyle - the poet of Ferbane, born in Ferbane in Co. Offaly in 1896 where his father Patrick, was a teacher . He wrote "The Fields around Ferbane" in the 1940s.
Mildred HG. Dill, married to Jonathan Darby of Leap Castle, wrote novels about the life of the peasantry, under the pen name Andrew Merry. At a time when it was fashionable for an English author to be derisive and condescending when dealing with the Irish rural scene, her novels deal sympathetically and knowledgeably with the problems. One book, "The Hunger" - being realities of the Famine years in Ireland, 1845-1848 (published by Andrew Melrose, London, 1910) is taken from eye-witness accounts of the happenings in the Leap, Co. Offaly area during those harrowing years. Her other novels are 'Anthropoid Apes', published by Henry J. Drane, London, 1908; 'The Green Country', 1902 and 'Paddy Risky', 1903, both published by Grant Richards; and 'An April Fool', published in 1898. Mrs. Darby's literary activities were frowned on by her husband who forbade her to write any further novels after "The Hunger" was published. She took a great interest in the Leap Ghost and some of her correspondence on the elemental survives to-day. (For this account see George Cunningham, Roscrea and District), 1976, p.60.
Digby was born, probably at Geashill, Ireland in 1800 and died in London in 1880. Son of Very Rev. William Digby, of Geashill and Dean of Clonfert. Educated in Cambridge, Converted to Catholicism and became a vastly admired writer of pious and moralistic works. "The Broadstone of Honour" or "Rules for the Gentlemen of England" (on the Origin, Spirit and Institution of Christian Chivalry), 1822/3, revised in 4 vols, 1826-27, reissued 1845-48, was required reading for pious young men both Protestant and Catholic. Mores Catholici. or Ages of Faith, came out in 11 vols, 1831-1840, and was followed by much also the same kind. At one time some clergymen regarded Digby's work as next in value only to the Bible. (See Brady and Cleeve, "Dictionary of Irish Writers", p.60 and D.N.B vol one of 2 vol edition, p.540.)
Born in Tullamore, Co Offaly 1948. Ed. local CBS. Labourer in England, then teacher. Plays include "The Station Master, Edinburgh" 1974; "Upstarts", 1980; "The Silver Dollar Boys", 1981 (both pub. in Dublin); "Flying Home", 1983; and "Chalk Farm Blues". 1984; all produced Peacock, Dublin. Won Harveys Award 1982. The Crack, Gaiety 1985.
His play "Upstairs", is set in a Garda Station in a small town in the Midlands, and explored new play explores the pressures and tensions of a zealous policeman's life. Changes in Irish society had undermined many institutions and relationships, including the once unambiguous and stable role of the Guard in rural life. This play - intense yet at times humorous - presents a strong portrait of a man no longer supported by the 'old certainties' whose mental and emotional conflicts erupt, creating a highly original drama. The play "The Silver Dollar Boys" deals with the Christian Brothers and the violence of the I.R.A. "The Station Master" was one of the acclaimed productions at the 1974 Edinburgh festival. Neil Donnelly has been described as "one of our major young writers".
John (1874-1945), playwright. Born in Ballindown near Birr, Co. Offaly, he worked for the Congested Districts Board and the Land Commission as a civil servant. Besides short stories for newspapers-not collected-he wrote wrote four peasant realist plays for the "Abbey". These were "The Cuckoo's Nest" (1913), "The Plough Lifters" (1916), "Black Oliver" (1927) and "The Rune of Healing" (1931). He also collaborated with George Fitzmaurice on another, which was rejected. (See Welch (ed.) Oxford Companion to Irish Literature), p.230.
Fr. Joseph (1863-1932), novelist. Born in Co. Offaly and educated at Maynooth, he worked in a Liverpool Parish after ordination, Then in the home diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, before becoming Canon in Dromod, Co. Longford, in 1920. He wrote eight novels from a strongly Catholic standpoint, proclaiming the bond between priests and poor people, of both he has an intimate personal knowledge.
"Scenes and Sketches in an Irish Parish," or "Priest and people at Doon" (1903) traces this bond to an understanding rooted in a common experience of hardship, while "The Island Parish" (1908) calls it a marriage of true hearts. In The Soggarth Aroon (1905), his best-known work, he applauds the indifference of Irish country people to modernism while the anticlericalism of several characters, being rooted merely in personal pique, is easily 'killed with kindness'. Cultural nationalism is the theme of other novels such as "The Moores of Glynn" (1907) and "The Curate of Kilcloon" (1913), while "Annamore"(1924) and "The Patriots" (1928) are more politically motivated, set in the 1870's and the 1920's respectively. (See Welch (ed), The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature.
Fr S.J. Browne in "Ireland in Fiction" (1919) summarises the novels published up to 1913. The most detailed study to date is that of Catherine Candy, "Priestly Fictions" (Dublin, 1993) Candy states that Fr Guinan was born at Millbrook House, Cloghan in 1863 and enjoyed a comfortable existence in his early years. he was ordained in 1888 and was curate in Athlone from 1900 to 1908 and after that at Ferbane for fettr years. He died on the 5th of January 1932.
Charles (1675-1739), Portrait Painter, (included here although an artist not a writer) was born in Shinrone, Co. Offaly. Studied in London, and with the help of friends went to Italy for further training. Returned to England in 1709 and soon became fashionable as a portrait painter. Pope, Addison, Swift, and other celebrities sat for him. He married a widow with a fortune and entertained lavishly at his house in Hampton Succeeded Kneller as principal painter to George I, 1723 and retained the post under George II. Died in London 2 November 1739.
Sean was born in Tullamore in 1932 of itinerant parents. Lived a hard life Travelling the roads, with spells in industrial school and prison, in Ireland and England, before writing "The Road To God Knows Where", Dublin 1972, a rare and valuable account of the itinerant way of life and its traditions
O'Donoghue states that Fitzgerald was born in 1793, and died on Feb. 18th, 1856. He was a priest of the diocese of Meath. He wrote verse to the "Nation" and various other Irish papers over signatures of "J. F.," "Rev. J. - Id,' etc. Edited "The Old Songs of Old Ireland," (see W. Guernsey). Pleasure of Piety (unpublished Poem); Sacred Melodies. Fr. Fitzgerald was the son of Thomas Fitzgerald who ran a boarding school at what is now the Motors Works in High Street, Tullamore. He was parish priest of Castletown, Delvin and enter (1847) of Rahan.
Edward Egan was born 9 August 1858 in Tullamore, Co. Offaly, the son of William Egan and his wife Maria Murphy. He was baptised 12 October in Killeigh Church of Ireland parish church. Edward's family lived at the Meelaghans, one of the townlands near Tullamore. He attended the Meelaghans school, entering 5th July 1869 and leaving 5th June 1875. His father died in 1864, when Edward was six years of age.
At some time after leaving school, probably shortly after 5th June 1879 when he wrote the poem "Bidding Farewell To Tullamore", which was published in the 'King's County Chronicle' on June 5th 1879, Edward emigrated to Australia, where he was a very discontented emigrant. He returned to Tullamore around 1889. The poem "Lines By A Returned King's County Man" was published in the 'Kings County Chronicle' on the 10th of February 1890.
Edward Published a book of verse entitled "Kings County Couplets" in 1890. This book has been out of print for many years. He wrote of the country around Tullamore which he knew and loved. He was a life long student of Robert Burns, the ploughman poet of Scotland. Egan is remembered as a poet, but he was also a writer of short stories, many were published in the 'Kings County Chronicle' in County Offaly. Edward possessed a delightful sense of humour. His poem "The Geashill Ghost" conveys this. In this he writes about a phenomenon known as 'will o' the wisp'. His last published work was a short story, "The Borrower." published locally on the 4th January 1936. Egan died on February 24, 1940. He is buried in the family plot at Killeigh Church Cemetery in an unmarked grave. His Obituary was published in the local press of the 2nd of March 1940.
Hugh was born in Edenderry. This Author wrote over signature of 'Aedh'. Irish National poems Dublin, 1876?. O'Donoghue was not sure of the title or date of publication.
While confining this series to literary work I have made an exception in this case because of his enormous contribution and also because he has published several volumes of poetry.
John Feehan was born in Birr, Co. Offaly in 1946. He is the eldest of five children, the son of a small tailor in Birr. There was little or no money in his family. John joined the Salesians Aspirantate in Abbeyleix. Even in his first year he was chosen to teach Gregorian plain-chant to his peers. Teacher training in England followed. Two things the Salesians were scared of were intelligence and sanctity, so when John wrote a paper examining the nature of religious life and its vows the Salesians of England were simply unable to cope with his brilliance, after that it was put to him that he either leave the order or return to Ireland. He returned to Ireland deeply troubled, and taught for a year in Limerick. He then began a science degree in Trinity college, Dublin as a mature student. He found the teaching very poor and stopped going to lectures, he was given a degree on the understanding that he attend an odd lecture.
He then decided to do voluntary service in the third world, he took a job in a South African orphanage for white children, illegally teaching children in the black township of Langa at night. He was arrested for teaching black people and was sent to prison where he became very home sick. He returned to Ireland where he married Rosin Gilmore in January 1975, whom he met while doing his teachers training. He then a geology PHD.
John returned to Africa with his wife, his task was to find the department of agricultural science, transmitting skills with Africa desperately needed. Agricultural science the curriculum and John and his wife returned to Ireland. He then started an Anco course in Environmental in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary.
Resulting from his PHD, he wrote a book called "The Landscape Of Sleeve Bloom," published in 1979. He also wrote a book while he was in Africa called "An Environmental History- Laois" published in 1983. R.T.E. became interested in him and his books, he did two television programmes 'The Face Of The Earth' and 'Exploring The Landscape'. He enjoyed working in R.T.E. where he showed himself as a good communicator and teacher. His other publications range from work on 'Sheela-Na-Gigs' to numerous other archaeological and geological subjects. A book of essays on the "The Buzz of Ireland" is to appear in late 1996. (For details on John Feehan, see Irish Times, 3 August 1991 in interview with Kevin Myers.)
John Frazer was born in Birr about 1804. He became a cabinet maker and wrote verses under the name Jean de Jean, de Jean being the original name of his family. Too of his early were "Brosna's Banks" and the "Maid of Clondalla". John spent most of his mature years in Dublin where he married and became a catholic. He was editor of the 'Trade Advocate' in Dublin and contributed to the 'National' and 'The Irish Felon' etc., poems by J. de Jean, Dublin, 1851. John Frazer died in March 1852 in Dublin where he was buried. Author of: Poems of the people. Dublin. (printed by J. Browne 1845). Poems. Dublin: J Mc Glashan.
The OHAS has a copy of this book in it's library at Bury Quay, Tullamore.
An article published in 1945 suggested that Frazer was born in Moystown on the one hand and the other that he was born in Ballindarra and may have been a member of the Frazer Family of Hazelfort, Ballingarry.
Jasper Joly was a book collector. He was born in Clonsast, Co. Offaly on the 26 May 1819. He was educated at home and entered TCD at thirteen, graduating 1839. LL.D. 1857. Called to Irish Bar but never practised. Appointed Vicar General of Diocese of Tuam, An office abolished by the Irish Church Act. Received an annuity of £106 in compensation. A lover and a collector of books from childhood, in 1863 he donated a collection of 23,000 printed volumes and unbound papers and prints to the RDS, to be transferred to a National Library when such was established. It is now in the National Library', its chief Glory. Particularly valuable are the Napoleonic literature and the books on Irish History, topography and biography. Priceless items include the journals of "Captain Cook", three vols. 1772. He died in Dublin, Christmas day 1892. Buried in Clonbullog. (see Boylan, p. 160.)
John Tarpey Kelly was born at Clonmacnoise, Co. Offaly on the 24th February 1864, and lived near Birr for many years. He was educated at Blackrock College, and went to London in 1882, where took an active part in carrying on the Southwark Irish Literary Club. He was largely identified with the movement for the publication of "J.F.O'Donnell's" poems. A large number of ballads by him have appeared in 'United Ireland', 'Nation', 'Weekly News', 'Irishman', 'Shamrock', 'Young Ireland' and 'Irish Fireside', among Dublin papers, and in 'Derry Journal', among the Irish provincial journals. Some years ago a poem by him appeared in the 'Irish Monthly', and he contributed several to an Irish paper in Liverpool, entitled The Nationalist.
Rex Ingram was not born in Offaly but he lived at Kinnitty with his father who was rector in a house which still stands and is occupied - opposite the Church of Ireland. Boylan writes; (1893-1950), film director known as Rex Ingram. Born 18 January 1893 at 58 Grosvenor Square, Rathmines, Dublin, son of Rev. Francis Montgomery Ryan Hitchock, a Donnellan Lecturer at TCD, and later Rector of Kinnity, Co. Offaly and the author of several historical works. Educated at St Columba's College, Dublin. At eighteen he emigrated to the USA, studied sculpture at Yale School of Fine Arts and in 1913 joined the young film industry, working for the Edison, Vitagraph and Fox Companies as actor and script writer. At the early age of twenty-three he directed The Great Problem from his own story, for the Universal Company. Later his films for his company included Black Orchids, Reward of the Faithless, The Flower of Doom and Under Crimson Skies. Joined the Metro Company 1920 and launched The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, distinguished for its pictorial beauty, its introduction of Rudolph Valentino and Alice Terry, who was to become Ingram's wife and the star of many of his films. It was a great financial success and the basis of the fortunes of the Metro Company which later became the major partner in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer organisation. The Conquering Power, The Prisoner of Zenda, Trifling Women and Scarmouche followed, the latter three films introducing the young Mexican actor, Ramon Novarro. Tired of the regimentation of Hollywood, Ingram turned to North Africa and Europe for backgrounds to his films and founded the Victorine Studios of Nice. There, in 1926, he made Mare Nostrum based on a Blasco Ibanez story, The Magician and the Garden of Allah. He made one sound film, Baround, a romance of Morocco, in which he played the lead. Ingram retired from film making in 1933 to devote himself to sculpture, writing and travel. The director of twenty-seven films, he is regarded as one of the three most important film makers in Hollywood during the twenties. Received an honorary degree from Yale University, Cross of the Legion of Honour from the French government and Order of Nichan Igtkar from the Bey of Tunis. At one stage he embraced Mohammedanism. He left wo novels, The Legion Advance, a story of North Africa and Mars in the House of Death, a tale of bullfighting in Spain and Mexico. Died in Hollywood on 22 July 1950. (Boylan, p. 147). The Irish Film Theatre recently paid a tribute to him in screening a selection of his films.
In his study of Rex Ingram, Liam O'Leary (Dublin, 1980), stated that the family moved to Kinnitty in 1903 when Rex was 11 years of age - Kinnitty was to be his home until his departure to the U.S.A. seven years later. It was from here that his father published his Midland Septs and The Pale in 1908. When he departed for the U.S.A. at 18 years of age in 1911, his brother, Francis Clere, wrote of the departure of his brother:
"The afternoon before he left home - the rectory, Kinnitty, he and I went to say goodbye to Captain and Mrs. Drought of Lettybrook, and had tea with them and their family. On our return home it rained heavily and we got awfully wet which was akward because Rex was next morning to catch a train at Roscrea for Queenstown (Cobh) and his boat for the U.S.A. At 6.30 am we left on a lovely morning from the rectory, Kinnitty, for Roscrea railway station across the Slieve Bloom Mountains by a road called Boharaphuca - the way of the spirits. As we climbed the road we always dismounted from the outside car as the gradients were too steep for the horse. We could see the Shannon glistening in the morning sun and the Devil's Bit Mountain, also the great keep of Leap Castle. I went with him to see him off at Roscrea as father was away delivering lectures at Trinity College, Dublin.
And so I waved him farewell, not to see him again for twelve years when he came to France and I stayed with him in Paris when on leave (he was working on the preliminaries of Mare Nostrum). I returned home very, very miserable, I remember, for he had always been such a kind and gay brother to me, particularly since the death of our mother in 1908". (O'Leary, p2l-22).
Boylan records that Francis Clere Hitchcock was born in Dublin 1896, died in Beaconsfield 1972 (not 1962 as in Boylan). Brother of Rex Ingram. Served in India First World War and in England Second World War. OBE, MC. Published Stand To, a diary of the trenches, and his famous Saddle Up, 1933, a manual of equitation, frequently reprinted. To Horse, 1933, concerns advanced management of stables and horsed. Stand to: A diary the Trenches 1915 -18 was first published in 1937 and reprinted in 1988. Hitchcock a regular officer in the now disbanded 2nd Leinster Battalion and served at the mine in 1916 and gained the M.C. in the winter of that year.
O'Donoghue writes that Francis Brerton Hudson was a clever sporting writer of the day, and author of several Irish stories of a racy character. Only child of S. B. Hudson, of Screggan House, King's Co which is the Briscoe's house near Tullamore and perhaps let at the time. (Destroyed early 1920s). When about 14 he wrote a three-act comedy, and published his first poem, a hunting song, in Shamrock when about 16. Was editor and half proprietor of a Dublin paper, The Turf Telegraph, and editor of second series of Pat, a Dublin comic. Has written much prose and verse since he settled finally in London in 1882, for Theatre, All the Year Round, Lady's Pictorial, Globe, Winning Post, Pall Mall Ga\ette, Funny Folks, Sporting and Dramatic News, Household Words, Era, Pictorial World, Whithall Review, etc. A burlesque by him was produced at Queen's Theatre, Dublin, in 1881, and he has written various dramatic pieces not yet brought out. He is the author of a book entitled, The Fishing for Amateurs.
Of this family Jasper Robert has already been mentioned. Charles Jasper, (1864-1906), astronomer. Born St Catherine's Rectory, Tullamore, 27 June 1864. He was the son of Revd. John Swift Joly. Educated Galway grammar school and TCD where he took fellowship in 1894. Appointed astronomer-royal for Ireland at Dunsink 1897. Edited Quaternions of Rowan Haniliton (1899-1901). Accompanied expedition to Spain in 1900 to view eclipse. MRIA and elected FRS 1904. Published Manual of Quaternions (1905). Died at Dunsink, 4 January 1906.
(1857-1933), engineer, geologist and physicist. Born Hollywood, Clonbullogue, Co. Offaly on 1 November 1857. Educated Rathmines School and TCD. Studied modern literature and engineering, and on graduation in 1883 secured a teaching post in the school of engineering. Professor of Geology 1897-1933. He maintained a constant flow of inventions, including a photometer to measure illumination, and a steam calorimeter. In 1899 he measured the age of the oceans by estimating the rate of deposit of sodium and also devised a method of estimating the age of rocks. He carried out pioneer work on the cooling of the earth, on radium extraction, and on the radium treatment for cancer. Elected FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society) in 1892 and received many other distinctions from learned bodies. Died Dublin on 8 December 1933.
The Joly family are the second distinguished family in Offaly in the history of science. Patrick Hency wrote of this family in the Irish University Review (Autumn, 1977).
Kavanagh is of course associated with Monaghan but it may be noted in passing that his grandfather, Patrick Kevany who is buried in Durrow and was schoolmaster at the Tullamore Workhouse from the late 1850's.
Although not born in Offaly Lever had associations with the county through his brother John who was rector of Durrow (1823-30), Tullamore (1830-43) and Ardnurcher (1843-62) . The King's County Chronicle noted in 1906 that a great many people may not aware that the celebrated author of Charles O'Malley was identified with the King's County, and it may not be amiss to give some particulars contained in a communication received a few days ago, from the pen of the Rev. Canon Moore, M.A. Mitchellstown.
Any particulars regarding this celebrated Irish novelist are of interest, and if the following have not already been noted, you may perhaps kindly give them a place in your columns. Charles Lever had a brother in Holy Orders, the Rev. John Lever, who appears to have spent his clerical life in the Diocese of Meath. He was Rector of Durrow, and Charles used to stay a good deal with him and while there wrote some of his books. His occasional residence this locality made him familiar with Kilbeggan, Tyrrellspass and Philipstown, , which places figure in his works. One of his later novels, Lord Kilgobbin, (considered his best) deals with the Tullamore district. The Rev John Lever was promoted from Durrow to be Rector of Tullamore, and here again Charles used to stay with him, and I believe Charles' bedroom in Tullamore Rectory is still pointed out. John Lever afterwards moved promotion from Tullamore to Ardnurcher, (Horseleap), in the same neighbourhood, so that the King's County furnished Charles with much material for his novels. I had in my early days as a clergyman, a parishioner named Neal O'Donnell Browne, R.M. who remembered the Rev John Lever very well, having lived in one of his parishes in Tullamore, and who used occasionally to talk about him. He evidently regarded him as a very estimable and efficient pastor. While Rector of Durrow the Rev John Lever preached a funeral sermon on the death of Lord Norbury, of Durrow Abbey, who was murdered there during his incumbency. (1839) This sermon was printed, and the present Rector of Durrow, Rev Sterling S De Courcy Williams, recently informed me that he had seen it, and read it, but that in his opinion it displayed little or none of the literary merit to be found in Charles' work.
Fitzpatrick in his Life of Charles Lever (1884) recalls how John Lever, the novelist's brother was discharging clerical duties in Tullamore in the 1830's. Their mother died in 1833 and their father was so upset by her death that he moved to Tullamore where he lived with his son until his death, some three months later, at St. Catherine's rectory in April 1833. In a footnote to Fitzpatrick's life is a reference to the rector of the Tullamore of the 1880's, Revd. Graham Craig writes that "Some of Lever's best works were written in this house" i.e. St. Catherine's Rectory, Tullamore. Fitzpatrick does not accept this in an appendix where he cites the "Recollections of Charles Lever's boyhood" by Harry Innes' (a brother in law by reason of Levers sister having married Revd. John Lever). In the short Recollections it is stated that; "there is no man who expressed a greater influence on the character of Charles Lever than the Revd. Ponsonby Gouldsbury, rector of Tullamore (1799-1830) and uncle of Mr. North, M.P. Gouldsbury was intimate with the great men were actors in the French Revolution and with the men, he thought as great, who produced the Irish Revolution of 1782, of which the Union was only the end. Gouldsbury had a dinner party of eight every Thursday - Three talkers and three listeners (the best men of the lot), and two to whom the dinner was a dutie. His cook was an artiste; the dinner and wines - money nor skill could not produce better. But it was the after dinner talk that these feasts si attractive. Gouldsbury had anectoted of great people inexhaustible. With the old man, Lever was an immense favourite. I heard Lever say more than once after a pleasant dinner, that it was not a patch on Gouldsbury's.
Vivian (1919-1989), bilingual literary historian. Born in Clara, Co. Offaly, he was educated it Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, and at TCD, where he shared rooms with Conor Cruise O'Brien. He completed doctoral work on Realism in Irish Fiction. 1916-40, reviewing for The Bell in the 1940s before taking up a succession of teaching posts in American universities: New York City College, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and finally the University of California in Santa Barbra, where he followed Hugh Kenner in the Chair from 1974. In the same year he married his second wife, the novelist Eilis Dillon (who is now deceased and also buried in Clara). Mercier's commitment to learning Irish with the assistance of Professor David Greene in the 1950s resulted in The Irish Comic Tradition (1962), with its path-breaking assertion of a temperamental and imaginative bond between Anglo-Irish literature and its Gaelic antecedents. Beckett/Beckett (1977) provided commentary on the Irish novelist and playwright that grounded his sceptical humour and dramatise personae in the same broadly conceived tradition of Irish writing, with its antipathy to establishments and its Rabelasian irreverence. The impact of Irish texts in on W.B. Yeats and other authors of the literary reveal provided the subject-matter of e Modern Irish Literature (1994), an exploration of sources and influences published posthumously by his wife. (see Welch (ed.) Oxford Companion to Irish Literature)
(1947-), multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer and record producer. Born in Tullamore, Co Offaly but raised in Newbridge, Co. Kildare, educated in the National College of Art. Particularly noted for his role in establishing the bouzouki as a mainstream instrument in Irish music. Founder member of Planxty 1971 and in 1975 formed the Bothy Band with Matt Molloy, Paddy Keenan, Tommy Peoples, Triona Ni Domhnaill and Micheal O Domhnaill; despite its relatively short life the group has an enormous impact on the development of ensemble traditional music. The very popular Moving Hearts, formed in 1981, specialised in new musical directions.
Mr. Molloy is only son of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Molloy, Convent View, Tullamore. He is an ex-pupil of St. Columba's, Tullamore, and for the past six years, (in 1937) has been living in Dublin, where he has taken an active part in the language and cultural movement, both in organising ceilidhthe and in teaching Irish classes. He had made Irish a study and a hobby and to acquire a complete mastery of the language has spent a considerable time in the most primitive and least-known of the Aran Islands. Mr. Molloy has contributed several poems to The Midland Tribune. He later published several boys' stories including; Gillvgoolv and The Twins, these are stories based on folk tales together nonsense rhymes. The plot is based on old mythology, yet in a modern form. One of poems, which was his first is Evening in Dublin which was published in a Dublin weekley paper.
David O'Donoghue's writing in 1892-3 noted that Molloy was one of the most popular composers and song writers of the present day. His Kerrv Dance, Thady O'Flvnn, Darby and Joan, Just a Song at Twilight, and Bantry Bay, have had, or have, great vogue. He is son of Dr. K. J. Molloy, of Cornalaur, parish of Rahan, King's County, and was born there in 1837. Educated at Catholic University, Dublin, London University, and at Paris and Bonn. He was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple, London, in 1872, but does not practice. He has written the words of a large number of songs, and in 1879, published a work entitled Our Autumn Holiday on French Rivers. A short Biography of Molloy is soon to be published by the OAHS following its recent research by its author, Desmond Moore.
Born in Kilkenny city 26 of Nov. 1824 and died in 1904. His mother was Elizabeth., youngest daughter of Maurice Nugent O'Connor of Gortnamonanear, Tullamore. Educated in Oxford. Called to Irish Bar in 1854. Professor of Law at Kings Inns 1862. County Court Judge in Louth 1872. Moved to Gortnamona 1880. Wrote a great deal; his best-known book is the fictional reconstruction of the events leading to the Treaty of Limerick, and all that followed, told through the Memories of Gerald O'Connor 1671-1748). See DNB vol ii, p. 2803. But he wrote too much and too superficially to become an authority of Irish or Military history or Irish History. He died at Gortnamona August 1903, survived by one son and five daughters.
Proinsias (Francis Molloy) (?1614-1684), Franciscan priest, theologian, and grammarian. Born probably in Co. Offaly, of a noble family, he was educated at St Anthony's in Rome from 1632 in philosophy in Klosterneuberh near Vienna, held the Chair in Theology in Graz in 1645 and was appointed principal Professor of Theology at St Isidore's in Rome in 1650. Author of Disputatio Theologica de Incarnatione Verbi 1645 and Cursus Phliosophiac (1666) he also composed poetry, Iubelattio Genethliaca in honorem prosperi Balthasaris Philippi Hispaniarum Principis (1658). His devotional text Lochrann na gCreidmheach (1676), like many Franciscan publications of the period, was produced for the spiritual and Scottish missions, and for the spiritual welfare of Irish soldiers in Continental armies and of those banished to the West Indies and elsewhere. His Grammatica Latino-Hibernica (1677), which contains an eloquent plea for the preservation of Irish, and was the first modern grammatical text on Irish, and was used by Edward Lhuyd in Archaeologia Britannica (1707). He wrote his grammar so that the 'Catholic Irish nation' might retain a connection with its ancient history and avoid the 'numberless errors' consequent upon the lack of proper study of the language, as he declared in the preface. Tomas O Flannghaile made English translations of some of its metrical sections in De Prosodia Hibernica (1908). See Gregory Cleary, Fr. Luke Wadding and St. Isidore's College (1925). See Welch, ed. Oxford Companion.
Anthony Crain in his No Laughing Matter the early history of Flann O'Brien (Brian O'Nolan in Tullamore from 1920 to 1924). Strabane was to be a second home for all the O'Nolans for years to come, but in 1920 Michael O'Nolan was transferred to Tullamore, a town situated in the flat, rather featureless central plain of Ireland. Brian was to use this landscape years later as the background to The Third Policeman and to give its very emptiness and lack of individuality a curiously threatening and disturbing quality. It was Michael O'Nolan's job to oversee the payment of excise duties by the distilleries in his area. The principle ones were D.E.Williams of Tullamore, who made a brand called Tullamore Dew, and Locke's of Kilbeggan. Both of these were often mentioned later in Brian's Irish Times column; and in later years he was to affect more than a drinker's knowledge of the law governing the proof strength or otherwise of whiskey, sometimes to the annoyance of publicans.
The family's new home was a house called The Copper Beeches, about two miles outside Tullamore. Leased from the Odlums, a local flour-milling family, by Irish standards it was a small mansion, its size reflecting Michael O'Nolan's status as a senior excise official. The house is on the Daingean road opposite the junction for the canal and Thomas' boats. It had a lawn in front, a garden and a yard with outbuildings at the back. There was still no attempt to send the boys to school and the apparent idyll continued. As in Strabane they would wander off together and were seen only at mealtimes. Each of them was alloted a patch of garden and Brian made suprisingly good use of his, growing vegetables which were eaten at table. There was a donkey which had its own stable in the yard at the back, though it stubbornly refused to be ridden, making straight for a wall when mounted and threatening to crush its rider's knee. There were also fowl in which the boys took a great interest, observing with glee the conseqences of putting duck eggs under a brooding hen. When they hatched out tiny ducklings made straight for the water of the stream, to the bewilderment of their foster mother.
Michael O'Nolan, always a great book-buyer, now had his books about him again; for the time the boys were making full use of them. According to Ciaran, Brian soon had every book in the house read. These included works by most of the great writers of the English language from Defoe to Stevenson, as well as more contemporary authors, such as Conan Doyle, Wells, and Bennett. The boys especially enjoyed The Pickwick Papers and, for some reason , Trollope's Autobiography. James Stephens seems to have been the only representative of the so-called Irish Literary Revival, then in full swing, through the poems of the two most important Irish poets of the 19th century, James Clarence Mangan and Samuel Ferguson were in the house, as well as Douglas Hyde's eccentric but richly rewarding history of Gaelic literature, A Literary History of Ireland.
If Brian read all of these, or even a good proportion of them between the ages of nine and twelve, he was, though still free from what Ciaran called 'the foolish demands of school', a well educated youngster indeed. But besides the books in the house, the boys also soon had access to a library run by the nuns in Tullamore. Here they found many of the best-selling authors of the time, Including Rafael Sabatini, who wrote swashbuckling historical romances, H. de Vere Stacpoole, an Irish romanticist who wrote about imaginary South Sea islands. Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were well represented in this library; and it is not too difficult to discern their influence on their future creator of De Selby, Count O'Blather and Myles na Gopaleen. Another book Brian read which made an impression on him was Georrge A. Birmingham's comic novel Spanish Gold. This is a stage Irish but a genuinely comic tale and was one of the few books the boys read which was set in the Ireland of the time. They would visit the nuns eclectic library every Sunday morning after Mass and take a couple of books each, to be read and returned by the following Sunday.
The vast majority of the books in the house were in English, though there was some Irish and there is an element of comedy in the fact that Michael O'Nolan was undermining his own efforts to bring the boys up and think in Irish by providing them with so much engrossing reading matter in the tongue of the foreigner. He became aware that Brian's reading in that language was now fairly extensive on a day when they were laying linoleum in an upper room, the window of which was open. A car pulled up some yards away along the road to discharge a couple of passengers and as they said their farewells to the remaining occupants Brian began to mimic their flat Offaly accents. 'Bi do thosc. Clainfhidh siad thu ' - 'Be silent. They will hear you', his father said to him sternly. 'And as for you, sir,' Brian replied in English 'if you do not conduct yourself I will do you a mischief.'
They are his first recorded words in the English Language and it is evident that he was already a pasticheure of promise. It was also the first time one of the boys addressed his father in that language. Fortunately Micheal O'Nolan seems to have seen the joke. He certainly put no obstacles in the way of his sons continuing to read his books or make use of the library, though, like most parents of the time, he locked away some reading matter that he considered unsuitable.
The O'Nolan children were now seeing a great deal more of their father than they had in Strabane. On summer evenings they would all play croquet on the big lawn in front of the house, using a second hand set of mallets and hoops that Michael O'Nolan had bought. The game was generally quite decorous, but on one occasion, when his father's ball was poised to go through the hoop Brian drove his own at it with such vicious force as to send it across the lawn and behind some rose bushes. This was an Instance of lese-majeste so unusual as to be long remembered by the younger children.
Michael O'Nolan now owned a car, an Overland, and he often took the three eldest boys on his business trips. It was the time when the rough, potholed roads were sometimes blocked by trees felled across them by the local I.R.A.. Each of the numerous bridges spanning the Grand and Royal canals was a checkpoint guarded by parties of soldiers; and they were often forced to the side of the road by speeding Crossley tenders, The military sitting back-to-back with their knees. Although Michael was a servant of the crown and not an active nationalist his attitude to these soldiers was clear. They were foreigners, 'the enemy', and they should be sent back to their country fortwith. Shortly after moving into The Copper Beeches he received a visit from a party of them. The house was not searched nor the occupants seriously questioned but the intruders did a little casual looting, removing a sword belonging to the Odlum family which was hanging in the hallway. Michael's children were disappointed that their father had not sent the soldiers packing or at least given them a piece of his mind. He was not there when another party came to the house looking for helpers to clear away some trees that had been felled nearby. Such temporary press ganging was a common practice, but since there were only women and children in the house there was no corver this time. On another occasion when some soldiers came, there was nobody at home except the three eldest boys. Brian and Ciaran had both built 'houses made of sacking against the wall in their patches of garden. Finding no-one in the house the soldiers went into the garden, guns in hand and looked about. Seeing them through the gaps in the sacking, the boys decided one instinct to keep quiet and crouch where they were. Luckily the soldiers soon left. Given the general state of nervousness of the military a cough or an involuntary movement might have had serious consequences.
But Offaly was not one of the more disturbed counties and apart from such incidents life at The Copper Beeches was peaceful. There were visits to the cinema in Tullamore (the old Foresters or CYMS hall where the usual programme of silent feature plus one-reel comedy was to be seen. Brian had first been to the cinema on a memorable occasion during the Inchicore period, probably in 1916, when his father had taken him and his brothers to a newly opened cinema in O'Connell Street and they had seen a western full of galloping horses in which someone was shot dead every 30 seconds. Now as often as they were given permission they would walk into town to see much the same sort of fare, varied sometimes by a feature-length Chaplin comedy and even an epic.