The people of Tullamore, now nearly 6,000 strong, speak proudly of their town as " the best for many miles," as "the most thriving in the Midlands," or even as "almost the only good town in Ireland." They rejoice in their widespread trade, their remunerative industries, their abundant employment, and a range of diversions that includes all kinds of athletics, a new swimming pool, a cinema worthy of Leicester Square, dances small and great, and occasional excitements such as the annual Horticultural Show, or the Annual Dog Show, which attracts entries from all over the British Isles. Within one week, it was said, Tullamore had a golf tournament, a swimming gala, and a clay pigeon shoot. Even if the cultural activities are less obvious, it is clear that here, in the very centre of Ireland, in the country commonly, but erroneously, shown as "Bog of Allen" in atlas maps, is a town of vitality, commercially and socially, in which life need not be dull for at least a substantial majority of the population. Nine miles away is Philipstown (or Daingan), (sic) named after the husband of Mary Tudor, now a quiet a quite village of some 500 inhbitants with its stately old houses largely in ruins and its former position as the county town of Offaly long since forgotten. The contrast between these two centres is so marked that a geographer might be tempted to seek "natural advantages" as an explanation of Tullamore's success: it is, however, on a branch railway line, with a single track, on no main trunk road or major river crossing- place, and in a countryside not richer than that in most of the Irish Midlands. Rather must the explanation be sought in a combination of good fortune and good management among certain families in the town.

"Tullaght more"(sic) is, in Irish, a "big hillock" which may have been the glacial mound, some 50 ft. high (but said to be formerly higher and more pointed), on which the church of Ireland now stands: this known locally as Hop Hill, is on the eastern outskirts of the present town. A century ago, the name was commonly spelt Tullamore, out of compliment to the owners of the demesne a mile away from the town. A grant of land was made in 1662 to Sir John Moore of Croaghan,(sic) whose descendant became Baron Moore in1715 ; in1758 the son of the first baron became Earl Charleville. Little is known of eighteenth-century Tullamore, though it was said to be "in part well-built" by Arthur Young in 1776. The epic event of the century was a fire in 1785, which burnt almost the whole town, and was caused by a balloon launched to celebrate the coming-of-age of Lord Charleville. A contemporary account says that near a hundred houses and offices were totally destroyed. The melancholy accident was occasioned by the liberation of a fire balloon (which) took its direction with a smart wind towards the barracks, where its progress was interrupted by the chimney and having in the shock taken fire it communicated to Christopher Beck's house and raged with ungovernable fury notwithstanding the utmost efforts and assistance of a number of people collected by the circumstances of the fair till every house front and rear (except one thatched and four slated ones) was entirely destroyed. This dreadful calamity, rendered more poignant perhaps from the absurd and dangerous practice from which it proceeded, has overwhelmed the ill - fated town.

Apparently the celebration coincided with a fair on May 10th.

If the fire of Tullamore seemed the end of the town's fortunes at the time, it was to prove merely the prelude to its later growth. In its rebuilding the streets acquired a stately Georgian air, and the author of Lewis's Topgraphical Dictionary,1837, says that the town had been rebuilt by the Earl of Charleville, "in an improved manner". The Earl engaged the services of Mr Francis Johnston, the architect of the Bank of Ireland, College Green , Dublin, to build a new mansion for the demesne, aptly described in Lewis as ' in the style of an English baronial mansion, ' and the austere but more pleasing Church of St Catherine, on Hop Hill, but it is not clear whether Johnson also designed some of the large houses in town . The plan, however, was typical of its age, with intersecting streets at right angles, a Square, and a tree - lined "Bachelor"s Walk, 'still free from building' on the outskirts of the town. The Grand Canal reached Tullamore in 1798, and the extension to the Shannon was completed in1804. The early nineteenth century was the golden age of the canal, both for goods and passengers, and at Tullamore a Harbour was made, with a tiny dry dock; warehouses were built and an hotel added in 1801 for the convenience of passengers who used the boats . The Harbour and dry dock remain in use, but some of the warehouses are in ruins and the hotel is now a presbytery. The canal was a great asset to Tullamore: Lewis speaks of the town as 'a central depot between Dublin on the one side and the West of Ireland on the other' as the chief mart for a very fertile agriculture district,' and adds that there are two distilleries, three creameries, and a large brickworks. The increase of population in this place risen from its own ashes was so great that in1833 it became the county and assize town, superseding Philipstown, which had been the assize town from the time of Mary Tudor, when the county was definitely formed. The Court House and the Goal were built, and the Ordnance Survey Map of 1842, shows a town smaller in the area than that of to-day, all its streets have survived.

Physical Features.

Tullamore stands on either side of a small river named after the town, which flows into the Brosna, a tributary of the Shannon. This little river runs through wide alluvial flats, ill-drained and liable to floods, for most of its course, and receives the brown peaty water from various bogs. In the town, there is firm ground on either side, and from the inconspicuous bridge there is a slight rise northwards to the canal, 203ft. above O.D., some ten feet higher than the river, and southwards to the Courthouse, at 225ft. O.D. Most of the roads from the town rise gently across the morainic country to altitudes some 30 - 50 ft, higher than that of the bridge though there is also a low - lying road past Hop Hill which stands just above the winter flood level marked on the 1842 6" survey. The alluvial flats have since been partly drained by ditches, but are still liable to periodic floods in times of heavy rainfall.

The contrast between dry ground on the one hand and alluvial flats or bogs on the other is the main geographical feature of the Central Lowland; while most landscapes of a few square miles include some bog, the drift country is of greater extent almost every where except around Edenderry, some twenty miles east of Tullamore. Further more, roads generally cross from one patch of ground moraine to another, so that the traveller by car sees the bogs much as a sailor passing through an archipelago sees islands here and there. The population lives on the dry ground, and goes to the bog for its turf supply, or pastures its cattle on the alluvial flats returning home to the farmstead securely placed on dry ground.

The dry ground is of three main types. The soils are mainly a gravelly loam, light in character, and normally well drained, overlying Carboniferous beds that include both sand stones and lime stone. The countryside of gently rolling ground moraine is not flat to the seeing eye, and has a natural drainage that is one of the farmer's main assets. A second element is the terminal moraines, of sharper and more hummocky form, that are occasional features of the landscape, and a third, the long esker ridges that wind across the countryside, mainly from west to east, in a series of sinuous lines add an element of variety in a landscape sometimes regarded as flat or dull, but possessing topographical modulations that Show the imprint of the glacial phase on the farmer's land or the traveller's road.

Agriculture

In the early part of the nineteenth century, the farms in Co. Offaly were being subdivided so that the average size was merely 12 - 17 acres with a few larger holdings of as much as 200 acres; in the 1842 survey the fields were very much smaller than those of to - day. To - day this region, like many more in Ireland, has the medium - sized farm more strongly represented than any other, for in the Tullamore rural district, out of 1,900 farms, 900 are of 30 - 100 acres, and a further 400 of 15 - 30 acres; this adjustment has meant that a large proportion of the farms are worked by the family alone, without any extra help except at busy seasons, and that the more enterprising holders of the medium - sized farms and of the large farms normally have hired help through out the year. This is not a peasant community, but one of considerable purchasing power and sufficient energy to till the land assiduously with the help of manures and implements; the fields, no longer microscopic, have the contrasting greens of various arable crops in mid-summer,interspersed with the deep emeralds of luscious pasture or hay, and are bounded by hedges or walls, the former studded with ash trees among the hawthorns, blackberries and roses. The early nineteenth century saw the planting of many woodlands, some on the borders of the boglands, others in small groves or as ornamental timber reserves in the Charleville demesne and else where. Trees mentioned by Lewis are ash, oak, birch, and lime, all of which, with beech ,are still abundant in the region; by contrast, the alluvial low lands have an open windswept character and seem comparatively desolate, as they have fewer trees.

The past hundred years have seen the population of this rural area reduced by approximately two-thirds, with the result that the holders have more land and many old houses have crumbled into dust; on the 1842 map, numerous houses are shown of which no trace now remains, and even since 1912, the date of printing of the 25" map, a number of homesteads have gone and left no relic or merely a pile of ruins. The houses of the larger farms are stately two-storied structures, those of the smaller farmsteads, cottages with three rooms, many of which are still thatched. Though some now have slate roofs. Almost all the farms have outbuildings. Many of them similar in construction to the houses, though a few have sheds or barns with galvanised iron roofs. At the lower end of the farming scale, the holdings are those of men having a few acres; but working as labourers, either on farms or in the town of Tullamore. The old cottages are one - or two - roomed structures with thatched roofs, pleasant to the eye if inconvenient to live in and now being replaced by two - roomed cottages that seem alien to the landscape, but are more acceptable to the inhabitants, who pay a rent of only 2/8 per week. In almost every case, the gardens are most assiduously cultivated with potatoes, other vegetables, fruit and even small crops of cereals.

A sample group forty - two farms investigated, all within three miles of Tullamore, covering every size of holding from one of 200 acres to labourer's gardens showed that thirty were inhabited by families with children, two by widows and children, five by childless couples, and only five by groups of unmarried people. There was less evidence of the dominance of elderly widows over adult bachelor families than in other parts (cf. Graiguenamanagh and Castleblayney), as in a number of cases, the son of the household was married and lived in the same house, with his family, as the grandparents. Whether this is always a happy arrangement may be left to the imagination of the reader, but Mr. de Valera has recently expressed the hope that farms will be passed on to sons, and elderly parents accommodated in a second house on the farmstead. At least, the succession is secure when a normal family structure is found, and several families rejoiced in the long succession of their forbears who had tilled the same soil; one elderly woman said 'We have been here for two hundred years.' On the other hand, eight out of thirty farms had been acquired by sale, one of them by a family from Co. Mayo who had been advised of the impending sale by a relative who had come to work in the town.

The plan of farming is mixed, with a substantial proportion of tillage, except on the natural cattle pastures of the alluvial river plains. Most farmers cultivate at least one - third of their land with wheat barley, oats, potatoes, turnips, mangles, sugar beet, and in a few cases, rape or rye. The wheat is sold for milling, the barley for malting in Tullamore, and the oats kept on the farm or sold to a firm in the town for eventual use on stud farms in co. Kildare. The potatoes are used partly on the farm, but also have a sale in the town, especially in the early part of the season. Turnips and mangles, with potatoes and oats are used as foodstuffs on the farms for cattle and horses, and rape, where grown, is normally grazed by the cattle in the fields. The sugar beet is sent to the factory at Tuam, Co. Galway Outside these standard crops, a number of farmers have orchards, or grow vegetables and soft fruit for Tullamore or the Dublin market. The considerable arable cropping of these 'tillage districts,as they are commonly known, would seem to offer a basis for winter dairying, but the store cattle trade is far more important than milk production, and the creamery established in 1928 failed to acquire adequate supplies and so turned into other lines of business.

The stock kept on the farms are reared primarily on grass, with the addition of the food not sold from the arable crops. Near the town, distillery mash is put out in the tubs for cattle, and pigs consume the small or dirty barley rejected by the malsters. There are a few specialised dairy farms which produce milk for the town, but normally the cows are kept mainly to supply the household with milk and butter and to give a small surplus for local sale. Some of the dairy farms are located immediately outside the town; one of them have a milking machine dealing with forty cows, kept on less on a hundred acres. Pig rearing here, as almost every where else, has been greatly reduced by the lack of imported feed stuffs such as maize. The cattle are kept both as stores and for fatting, as there is a good market for either variety; the monthly fairs at Tullamore have a good reputation among the farmers for prices, and fat cattle are bought by the butchers of the town or the Co-operative factory, which sells joints and makes meat products such as brawn. One farm of 200 acres has seven cows, fifteen calves, and forty - five dry cattle; a second of 140 acres, eight cows and thirty - five cattle; another of 100 acre, six cows and thirty dry cattle; yet another of 100 acres, six cows and thirty dry cattle. The numbers on farms smaller than these are generally in proportion; everywhere except on the farms specialising in dairying, there are at least twice as many stores as milch cows. Sheep are kept on some farms, but never on the alluvial pastures, and the main produce is fat lambs for the meat markets. Poultry are kept everywhere, and consist mainly of fowl, with geese and duck's in a secondary position, but very few turkeys as most farmer's wives find them too difficult to rear; the co - operative society and private dealers collect eggs and table birds and an assured market exits. So far, the possibilities of large returns from guinea fowl for export to England have not been exploited in this neighbourhood.

All these crops and live stock are integrated by the individual farmer into his own scheme of production, which varies according to his enterprise, labour supply, and reserves in land or capital. Most farmers continue on lines similar to those of their fathers, though they have introduced new crops such as sugar beet (said to be grown on four - fifths of the farms), and have tilled rather more land in recent years than before. The possible expansion of dairying is limited by the diversion of the Co - operative society's work into other channels and by the difficulty of finding workers to milk, especially on Sundays. In fact, this society could cope with more cattle and more pigs and, given imported foodstuffs, they may be available in future years. No marketing difficulties exist near the town, for all the produce is sold in the fairs, the dealer's stores, the malting, or the mills. In other words, the towns commerce is a vitalising influence on the countryside, capable perhaps of greater exploitation by the farming population. One example of intensive farming may be mentioned; a farmer of 110 acres, of which 20 are 'conacre,' has half his land in crops, keeps thirty - two cows, four calves, five horses (for farm work), seven pigs for fattening, a hundred hens, ten turkeys and twenty ducks. He sells milk in the town, wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, chickens, and eggs. Specialisation in its purest form exists on a three acre market garden, worked with the help of one full time - time labourer and extra help in the summer: this holding was formerly a poultry farm with 3,000 hens, but around 1942 disease reduced their numbers, so the hen houses were used for growing mushrooms, which are sent to the Dublin market. Tomatoes are also grown in glass houses, and the poultry farming is being re - started once again: one gardener at least, has the same quality of enterprise that has made the Vale of Evesham so famed England, but such cases are rare.

There is very little sign of 'land hunger' around Tullamore, and most of the farmers neither let or rent land. A few, however have more land than they can use, and let it as 'conacre' at rents of £10 - £12 per acre for tillage, or about one quarter of this price for grazing. Some of the more enterprising also have an 'out farm'. Expansion of a farm is often prevented by the expense and scarcity of labour, with the result that some manage to staff their farms satisfactorily and others do not: a 70 acre farm, for example, which had three labourers, now has one and a large holding given to milk production has sufficient workers in the fields and a dairy - maid, but no help in a home where it is very greatly needed. The scarcity , indeed the virtual absence, of domestic help, was mentioned everywhere. Yet casual labour still exists, partly because there are many men among the small holders who will take a job for a time to supplement the small returns from their land. Many of the farmers having small holdings spend part of the summer months on the turf bogs, cutting peat either for their own use or for sale. In this work they are joined by some of the labouring class from the town, and a few men who are displaced in summer from distilling or malting, both of which are seasonal industries. The labour position of the moment is that some farmers are fortunate, and hardly realise that farm workers are declining in numbers, while others are finding it difficult to carry on: expansion of production, however, depends on the availability of workers, and the removal of the labourer from the land, either to a job in the the town or through emigration, must bring serious consequences in time. On the other hand, many of the farmers have large families, and look forward to the day when their sons will work the farm.

Standards of amenity vary among the farmers according to inclination as well as financial resources, but the appearance of the landscape is much 'soignè' than in many other parts of Ireland, for the hedges are well - cut, the gates and walls in good repair, and paint plentifully used. Almost all the farms have a pump in the yard and a few have electricity though paraffin lighting is more general. The thatched roofs are sprayed with a solution of copper sulphate as a preservative, and several farmers regard their roofs with some affection and pride though many more have replaced them by slates on the plea of durability. In almost every case, the house itself is well - kept, a few flowers are grown in the garden and the appearance of the farmstead is attractive, partly because the outbuildings lie a short distance from the house and do not, as in some parts of Ireland, adjoin it.

The active commercialisation of Tullamore provides a first line of opportunity for those who wish to leave the farmstead, and a number of the town's workers come from the countryside. Some are sons and daughters of farmers, but a few also rent labourer's cottages and work in town. An example may be given ; Mr A. and his family of four work in Tullamore, and have an acre of land and a cottage 1½ miles away; they also rent an acre of pasture and two acres of meadow, on which they keep two cows, three calves, nearly hundred hens and chickens, and two turkeys. The land beside the cottage has fruit trees, apples, damsons, gooseberries, and blackcurrants, and vegetables are grown. The main produce sold is eggs, and the combined efforts of the family in the town and at home enable them to keep a car. To give a second case, Mr. B. a retired railway man with a small pension, occupies a cottage at 2/8 per week, has one acre of land on which he grows apples, plums, pears, and raspberries, and a wide variety of vegetables, some of which have won prizes at a local show. In addition he has twenty - four ducks, over thirty hens, and a few guinea fowl; his sales include vegetables, eggs, early and seed potatoes. Last of all, in a small space he had a flower of great luxuriance. Other examples could be given, but these two perhaps serve to illustrate the fusion of the town and country life that is made possible in certain cases; the pride in the land is an obvious and healthy feature of such a type of life, and one cottager, commenting to the writer on difficulties through illness, added that 'Whatever happens, we keep up the garden.'

The Town of Tullamore.

The town shown in the 1842 survey had 7,261 inhabitants and must have shared to the full that congestion for which Irish towns have long been notorious. In 1851, the population was 8,160, probably inflated by the number of people who came in from the countryside in search of relief during the hungry late forties. Each census showed a decline to 1891, when there were 4,676 people, but since than there have been increases and the1946 population was 5,894. In appearance, the main streets are not markedly different from those of a century ago, for the stately Georgian houses have weathered the years well, though much of the old cottage property has gone, and the abandonment of that surviving will be welcomed by all students of housing. The names of the street have been gone, changed; Tinker's Row to Clontarf Road, Pensioner's Row to O' Molly Street, Barrack Street to Patrick Street, Bury Quay to Convent Road, Charles Street to Harbour Street, Charleville Street to Cormac Street, Earl Street to O' Moore Street, William Street to Columcille Street. But there is still High Street and Bachelor's Walk. The Irish reader can test his history by explaining the origin of both sets of street names; others will see the expression of a different allegiance. In passing, one may note that Tullamore was never a major garrison town, though around 1837 it had over eighty soldiers in the barracks.

Commercial expansion began in Tullamore in the fifties, when the Egan family established their grocery business, combined with brewing and bottling, in 1852. Some forty years later, in 1895, the Williams family began to develop their business, also on a basis of licensed grocery, and since than the two firms have launched out into various subsidiary enterprises which, in all, give employment to at least five hundred workers in the town. To some extent, these firms show the achievement possible in a family business centred on the inconspicuous town, but both have elements typical of Irish rural trade for they have an astonishingly wide range of interests, which include, in the case Williams, distilling, malting, mineral water manufacture, wholesale and retail grocery, tea blending, the sale of seed potatoes for export and home markets, of manure's from Dublin, of oats prepared for farmer's and the licensed trade. The make - up of Egan's is similar though there is now no brewing, but only bottling of beer and stout, and the hardware trade is prominent; they too are importers of wines and spirits, have wholesale and retail grocery business with the licensed trade, and malting, but not distilling. In addition, Egan's are millers of grain and have saw mill. Each of these firms has numerous branches scattered through the Midlands, and their interests range from Galway and Clare on the west to Meath and Kildare on the east, and from Longford and Roscommon in the north to Tipperary in the south. The impression given by these firms is that a family business has been expanded from quite small beginnings during years in which the standard of living was rising and purchasing increasing, and that the two families have been singularly successful in meeting the commercial needs of the neighbourhood. Neither firm is comparable to the 'chain store,' a phenomenon little know in Ireland, for each is more diverse in enterprise and shows steady planning from a country town rather than a board of directors in a large city.

The Midlands Co-operative Society began its career as a creamery in 1928, and was at first intended to absorb the milk supplies of the neighbourhood for butter - making, but as these were never sufficiently great the trade in eggs and poultry became more important. Like the two private firms mentioned above, the Co - operative Society buys and sells over a wide area, which includes the two counties of Leix and Offaly , the whole of Co. Galway, and parts of Tipperary, Roscommon, and Meath. Altogether the Society handles some 30,000 cases of thirty dozen eggs, of which three-quarters are exported to Britain, and approximately 24,000 turkeys, 5.000 geese, and 18,000 hens per annum, mainly for export or the Dublin market. Butter is bought from other creameries, made into one - pound rolls, and sold. In 1945, a bacon factory was added; the pigs are bought in Co, Offaly, and the produce sold in much the same area as that covered by the eggs and poultry trade. The scarcity of pigs at present means that the factory is working below capacity. The Society also has a sawmill using local timber for making cases and firewood and runs retail shops in Tullamore town and a Clonaslee: in all, it employs 180 workers, with 80 extra in the Christmas turkey season, and 20 extra in the main egg season, from February to May: most of this labour is drawn from the towns

Tullamore's old gaol retains its solid stone façade, but old interior has been replaced by a modern worsted yarn factory, all on a single floor, and claimed to be the most modern in the world. The firm, opened in 1938 is Salt's (Ireland), a company associated with the famous Saltaire firm but having at least 51% of its capital drawn from Irish sources. The raw wool is imported through a buying organisation in Yorkshire, though some Irish wool is also used: the yarn produced is bought by Irish factories in ' cheese' for worsted and 'cones' for woollens, and it estimated that some 4,000 workers use the yarn made here. This factory, one of many begun under the industrial drive in Eire employs nearly 600 workers, but could do with many more and already has a small hostel housing a number of girls from Westport, Co. Mayo. The main labour supply is from Tullamore itself, or from a radius of ten miles around the town, and most of the employees come on bicycles. There is a welfare scheme for the workers, which includes the provision of hostel accommodation, a canteen serving a mid - day dinner and teas, the attention of a doctor and nurse, a social and holiday club and, in the near future. Apart from these major sources of employment, the activities of Tullamore centre round the shops, though mention should be made of a small dry cleaning works, a modern bakery, and a third malsters in addition to Williams and Egans: oddly enough, the town has no laundry. The shops number more than120, and range in type from the small huckster's one - roomed store to the large drapers or grocers with a considerable staff and elaborate window - dressing. There are eleven butchers, with two in the pork trade, over twenty grocers, about half of them with a licence, and about twenty drapers, outfitters and shoe shops: these trades interpenetrate to some extent, as most of the drapers and outfitters also sell shoes, and one shoe shop has a bar attached. There are six chemists, nine ironmongers (of whom some also deal in furniture ), two saddlers, four newsagents, three hairdressers, five garages, five baker's shops, and one pawn shop. The licensed premises number less than thirty, not a large total for an Irish town, but ten of them are definitely bars rather than a side line of some other business. Two shops are of special interest as they occur so rarely in country towns, one selling fruit and fish. and another fruit only and occasionally flowers, for which there is very little sale.

Fig.2 shows that the shops line the main street, interspersed with offices of the lawyers and residences of the doctors dentist and oculist, the three hotels, various boarding - houses, and the four banks all of which have a considerable trade. At the highest level, the shops are attractively laid out, and show every sign of commercial sophistication: at the lowest level, they are humble concerns with a stock - in trade that defies analysis, as it seems to range through tobacco and sweets to obscure patent medicines and hairpins and reels of cotton. Every town lives partly on retail trade, and Tullamore shops are socially not less interesting than those of other towns studied (cf. Graiguenamanagh, Co. Kilkenny, vol.1,p 72, and Castleblayney, vol. 1, pp. 122-123): in all, they employ at least five hundred people, and possibly many more. A few provide refreshments for visitors, and one baker has a definite tea room, while others proudly label themselves 'restaurants,; and some shopkeepers also act as agents or dealers in eggs, butter and other commodities.

The industrial and commercial prosperity of Tullamore has brought in its train severe housing problems, which can only be solved by new building on a considerable scale. The factory needs more workers, of whom some must be immigrants and yet it is extremely hard to find suitable quarters for those who want to come to work. Similarly , some of the shops have great difficulties in staffing, and their assistants are drawn from outside the town and, in one case, housed over the shop. The problem also affects poor families who should be moved to new council houses but live in cottages, of which some have been condemned for years and consist only of one or two rooms. The re-housing before 1942 was considerable, and the new houses have three to five rooms, with a patch of ground generally well-cultivated, and rents around 4/-to5/-for one story or small two-story houses, but 12/- to 15/- for some of the better two-storied houses. The poor however complain that they could never afford a rent of even8/-per week, and the new housing in these days of vastly increases costs will offer great problems: it has already begun through only one short terrace of council houses had been built by1947. Yet some of the back streets of Tullamore still have housing conditions that shocks any visitor, and the only consolation is that many poor cottages occupied even thirty years ago are already crumbling into dust. On the other hand, Tullamore has many nineteenth-century houses with two story's and normally four rooms with a kitchen: on the whole these are the well-kept houses of artisans and have not outlived their usefulness.

Middle class housing in Tullamore is found in the town itself and, rather more obviously, beside the roads leading from the town, where there are ribbons of modern villas or bungalows, many of them built within recent years, almost all with spacious gardens and a prosperous air. These are the modern equivalents of the dignified late Georgian and severe Victorian residences that exist in the town, most of which have a garden hidden away in the rear. Mny of the professional men, such as doctors, live in the town itself, and the new houses have been built by the commercial families, county officials factory managers and others, including some professional people are able to live away from their work: in all, these houses show the strength of the middle classes in the town. Their location, however, shows an acute form of ribbon development, for instead of clustering near the town they appear to shun it by seeking fresh woods and pastures new. In some cases, too there is no clear building line, for one house is near to the road and the next thirty yards from it, though a consultant on building has now been appointed, so such errors may not be repeated.

Social activities in Tullamore include a wide range of clubs for athletics, dances, bridge a modern cinema, and the occasional extra shows and matches that means so much to the people of a country town and its surroundings. On the athletic side the new swimming pool is the most attractive recent addition (but no mixed bathing), and there are clubs for Gaelic, Association Rugby football, tennis (but no cricket) and general athletics. The dances are frequent, and include elaborate affairs such as the 'Glamour Ball,' with admission at five shillings, and the simpler Ceilidhe on Sunday evenings in St. Mary's Hall. The cinema is open every evening, with four changes of programme in the week, and draws its crowded audiences both from the town and the country side: it seats 1,000 people and is generally well-filled, especially on Sundays. How far the cinema is a creator of social restlessness no one can say, but there are those who regard it as a dangerous element among the young and immature who find its sham splendours all too alluring.

Education is given by nuns and Christian Brothers at both the primary and scondary stages, and there is also a school for Catholic children run by a lay teacher, and a technical school giving courses in motor engineering, carpentry, gardening and for girls, cookery and needlework. The Church of Ireland, Methodist Presbyterian children attended a primary school with a roll of around forty. While the education is generally of a high standard within its range, very little of it is distinctly agricultural though some of the technical training, for example in carpentry, proves very useful on the farms. One cannot help wondering if courses in the market gardening might not appeal strongly in such a neighbourhood. The youth of the town is absorbed in the shops and the factories, though a number of the girls go away to Dublin as nurses or in various branches of the civil service, such as the Post Office: emigration does not of necessity mean departure immediately on leaving school, but some years later after some experience has been gained in the mill or on the farm.

The position of Tullamore in the emigration problem is extremely complicated, for on the one hand everyone agrees that large numbers of people have left and on the other it is equally certain that many have come to the town to work, in some cases from distant parts of Ireland. Emigration and labour shortage exist at one and the same time. There is for example, a scarcity of workers for certain jobs, such as shop assistants, some skilled a artisans, and the factory, able to absorb many more girls, cannot find an adequate supple locally. Nor is the prevalence of seasonal labour an explanation of emigration, for though malting and distilling operate only from October to March or April, those displaced can find work in summer on the peat bogs or in their own gardens or allotments: as much of the malting work is done in very dark conditions, the outdoor summer work is a healthy antidote to that of the winter. Again, the social amenities and amusements available in Tullamore remove the possible dullness of so many country towns in which the people can say with some justice that 'every day is like every other.' Further, trades union wages are paid, and those who live at home are comparatively affluent. Why, than, do the young people want to emigrate? The only satisfactory explanation seems to be the desire for change, combined with the appeal of high wages in England. The girls in the Tullamore factory work in a building admirable suited to it purpose, live in a smokeless atmosphere, and have homes inadequate in some cases though possessing gardens, and can enjoy all kinds of pleasures in the town. Nevertheless, they will go out cheerfully to Bradford or Bolton, probably to work at much the same job as at home in a far less modern factory, and to live under less healthy conditions. The industrialisation helps to create unrest: having drawn girls from domestic service, for maids are scarce in Tullamore, it opens even wider horizons for some of the more adventurous.

Every town, like every personality, has some quality of uniqueness, and Tullamore is impressive for a commercial strength and vitality that make it, in common speech, a superb example of a 'good' town, that is, a place where there is work, trade and facilities for enjoyment. Having superseded Philipstown in the early part of the nineteenth century, it is strong enough to stand against all possible rivals, especially as the crowning benefaction has been the large new yarn factory, placed here as part of the Government scheme of locating industry in various country towns instead of allowing every new concern to gravitate to Dublin or the few other major cities of Eire. The original geographical advantage lay in the canal, which placed it on the main line from Dublin to Limerick around 1800, but canal traffic, though still important, is no longer crucial. There may also be an indirect advantage in the fact that only one town of even 1,500 inhabitants Clara, seven miles away, 1,632 in 1946), lies within fifteen miles of Tullamore, and the towns one hears mentioned in conversation, such as Athlone, Mullingar, Edenderry, Portarlington, Maryborough, Mountmellick and Birr, are all from fifteen to twenty-five miles away. Again Tullamore is sufficiently remote from Dublin, sixty miles distant, to withstand some of its attraction to shoppers.

If then, the geographical advantages are negative rather than positive, no one can deny that enterprise has given Tullamore something of the character of a regional capital. The range of its trade extends far beyond its natural market area, and its industrial life is sufficiently secure to assume continued prominence.