The Irish Midlands, which are in every sense
the antithesis of the English Midlands for they are sumptuously rural,
with many of the roads lined by tall and splendid beech trees, horse chestnuts
and aged oaks. Great flat stretches of the bog are, in summertime, sprinkled
with feathery white and yellow flowers; many of the roads crossing the
bog have become switchbacks from subsidence caused by the bog-water on
which they are laid down. But, apart from their natural beauties, the
Midlands abound in well-preserved ruins of abbeys, friaries, forts and
castles, which seem from a distance, moored in the bogs and meadows. Here
flocks of gregarious sheep and more solitary cows and bullocks mooch and
graze on the course green grass spattered with buttercups and daisies
beneath the windswept Irish sky.
Set in the heart of the Irish Midlands and
the vale of the Shannon, Offaly is a place of ease, rest and contentment.
If Offaly is sometimes described as undiscovered
country, it is no backwater and the visitor will be pleasantly surprised
at the way in which the well cared for and prosperous towns and villages
sit in the quiet and generally flat landscape.
Offaly presents an excellent opportunity
for people of all ages to enjoy an excitingly varied holiday in unspoilt
surroundings; the climate is mild with bright spring days and temperate
summer weather giving way to a rich colourful autumn.
Comprising only some 50,000 hectares and
with a population of some 60,000 people the county is famous for its bogs,
meadows and tree lined roads. On the eastern side bordering Kildare the
county is largely flat save for the historic Croghan Hill - itself the
stump of an extinct volcano of some 250 million years ago. To the south
bordering Laois are the Slieve Bloom mountains, where the oldest rocks
in Laois and Offaly will be found ranging in age from 300 to 450 million
years ago.
Of more recent age are the eskers being the
sinuous ridges and hills of sand and gravel which are associated with
the ice age and are so much a characteristic of Offaly. Superb examples
can be seen at Clonmacnoise, from Banagher to Birr and Birr to Tullamore.
Another range can be seen connecting Rahugh in Westmeath to Clonmacnoise.
The ancient roads and not surprisingly many of the existing roads run
alongside the eskers, the natural causeways of earlier times.
Of the rivers, the Barrow divides the county
from neighbouring Laois at Portarlington, the Tullamore river and the
Silver river flow into the Clodiagh which joins the Brosna which in turn
flows into the great River Shannon. The Shannon river is the boundary
on the western side of the county separating Offaly from the counties
of Galway and Roscommon. The Camcor river flows through the town of Birr
and into the Little Brosna which can be seen at Riverstown and Birr Demesne.
The Little Brosna joins the Shannon at Meelick.
Running through the county from Edenderry
in the east to Shannon Harbour in the west is the 200 year old Grand Canal
with harbours at Edenderry, Tullamore and Shannon Harbour.
Lakes in the county were few until the recent
development of the Boora Parklands. In the centre of the county is the
man made, Charleville Lake near a bird sanctuary and to the south of it
Pallas Lake. Some years ago it was thought that the only evidence of early
human activity in Ireland was in the north - east but thanks to archaeological
excavations at Boora near Kilcormac we now know that Boora held an encampment
for hunters some 6800 - 6000 BC. The hunting site lay on the pre-bog surface
on the shore of a lake much larger than the modern Lough Boora. Evidence
of settlement in the early part of the Bronze age was also found near
Kilcormac as was the impressive gold collection, the Derrinboy hoard and
the famous Dowris hoard of the later Bronze age 900 - 600 BC. The latter
associated with ritual and possibly a 'bull cult'.
Of our ancestors the people of Offaly, some
150,000 before the Great Famine (1845 - 49) and near 60,000 today are
largely English speaking since the 1800s. The people of the county appear
on linguistic evidence to come from Connaght and Leinster with only those
south of Birr coming from Munster.
The linguistic evidence is not surprising.
The county of Offaly established in 1557 with the lands of the O'Connor
Faly, the principal native family, was part of the ancient kingdom of
Leinster. The land of the O'Molloys in the Tullamore district was added
to the new county as was that of the Mac Coughlan (now west Offaly) in
1570. These districts formed part of the old kingdom of Meath or 'middle
kingdom'. The territory south of Birr, the land of the O'Carroll known
as Ely O Carroll, was incorporated in the county in 1605. Ely O'Carroll
was part of ancient Munster. The parish of Clonmacnois was incorporated
in the King's County in 1638. Minor changes were made to the county boundaries
in the 1830s and the name was changed from King's County to County Offaly
in 1920 as an act of local defiance of British government in Ireland during
the course of the Anglo-Irish war of 1919-21 and to commemorate the principal
local gaelic family, the O'Connor Faly.
Today the County has almost 20,000 at work
in a population of 60,000 and has attracted many new high technology industries
to supplement the native base.