25th April 2002 Bishop John Cantwell Lecture

Please note that a lecture on Bishop John Cantwell Bishop of Meath in the mid - 19th century and who was born at Rahan Co. Offaly will be held at OHAS Centre at Bury Quay at 8.30p.m. on the 25th of April. The lecture is open to the public and is free of charge and all are welcome to attend.

The speaker is Reverend Fr. Paul Connell President of St. Finian's College Mullingar and we are pleased that he was able to come and speak.

For Committee Members

There is a Committee Meeting on 25th April at 7p.m. please note that the committee meeting of the Society will take place prior to the lecture and will be held at 7p.m. and should be completed by 8.15p.m. All committee members please note.

Meeting of Local History Societies and other persons interested for County Offaly on 9 May 2002.

Last year on or about the 10th of May (the anniversary of the great fire in Tullamore) . We had a meeting with other representatives of Historical Societies in Offaly to compare notes on matters of mutual interest. This year we are repeating this process and we are inviting representatives of Historical Societies throughout the County to attend at the Tullamore Dew Heritage Centre at 6 p.m. for refreshments and to have our meeting at circa 7.15p.m. to about 9.15p.m. We hope to have representatives of Offaly County Council and others in attendance together with members of the Society to talk about projects of mutual interests on Offaly History.

Noel Whelan R.I.P.

We want to extend sincere sympathy to the family of Noel Whelan, the members of Edendery Historical Society and his colleagues in the Offaly County Library on the sudden death of Noel Whelan aged 48 recently. Noel was a very strong member of the Edenderry Historical Society and a constant supporter of all matters of local historical interest in County Offaly. Edenderry and indeed the rest of the County will greatly miss him. He was a person who was always read to help with any query and he will be sorely missed by all particularly his family.

P. & H. Egan Exhibition

Congratulations to all in the Tullamore Dew Heritage Centre particularly Ailson and Mr. Bill Jaffray for their work in putting together the exhibition on the firm of P.& H. Egan Ltd. to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the firm in 1852. This exhibition will be open for a couple of more weeks and you should make a big effort to attend it and to see it before it is taken down.

Slievebloom walking club

The programme of Slievebloom walks from May to October 2002 has now been printed and is now available and can be had at the Tullamore Dew Heritage Centre. It is also available on www.slievebloom.ie

The Federation of Local History Society Spring Seminar

The Federation of Local History Society Spring Seminar will be held on the 27th of April at the Esplanad Hotel in Bray .

Rolf Loebar

Our thanks to Rolf Loebar who has a great interest in Offaly History for recent donation of a copy pamphlet showing a subscription list with Offaly subscribers in 1731. He is currently composing a small article on it which will be of interest to us. He has also prepared a paper on Castletown near Ballymooney for the new journal.

OHAS Journal

Please note that articles should be sent to Rory Masterson at Screggan Tullamore Co. Offaly or c/o OHAS Centre and should be completed by the 30th of June. We hope to publish in the autumn. Articles can be sent by email or on A4 preferably with a disk.

Tourists to Offaly

A Local History group from Fingal will be visiting the Society on the 8th of June the Irish Genealogical Society will be combining with the Irish Family History Society to visit Birr and Tullamore on the 22nd of June, to arrive in Tullamore at circa 3p.m. On the same day probably in the morning members of the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society will be visiting Tullamore. A warm welcome to everybody and we hope that members of the committee and other members of the Society will be available on the 8th of the 22nd of June to assist.

Group for Study of Irish Historic Settlement

The subject of this year's 31st annual regional conference will be settlement history and urban development in East Clare and will be held over the period May 10 to May 12, 2002 at the Old Ground Hotel Ennis Co. Clare. Details are available from the Secretary.

Tullamore Garda History

Copies of this wonderful publication complied by Sergeant Michael Dalton (retired) are available from the Society for €20. It is a hardback A4 size book of circa 200 pages well illustrated and is very good value.

Offaly Thatched Houses

As part of implementing the Offaly Heritage Plan. The Heritage Officer in conjunction with her committee are undertaking a survey of all thatched premises in Offaly. If members can help would you send information to the Society or to Amanda Pedlow at apedlow@offalycoco.ie


Irish Labour History Society

We have material on this and the journal for any member who is interested. The A.G.M. will be held at Beggars Bush, Haddington Road, Dublin 4 on the 27th of April 2002.

Irish Midlands Ancestry Website

Our sincere thanks to Sandra Dunne and to our manager John Kearney in connection with the new version of the www.irishmidlandsancestry.com website. It looks very professional and carries all the information which the old site had. Please open it and let us have your comments. If you have material which you would like put on the website and it is already typed you could send us an email with this material or send us a disk and we will look to installing it.

We are currently engaged on upgrading the offalyhistory.com site. Our thanks to those who have been involved in this process to date.

Bogs Boats and Bows

The current issue of Archaeology Ireland (volume 16 number 1 Spring 2002 ) contains an article by Conor McDermott and Others who have been surveying the bogs in Offaly and Westmeath during the summer of 2001 and have a report on bog finds at Daingean, Clonad and Ballybeg. A copy of the article is available at the Society's Library.


Arts News

For any members interested we received the newsletter of the Arts Council each month and it will be no surprise to the Offaly public to know that the grants received in County Offaly from the Arts Council are among the lowest in Ireland. The Local Authority grant for Offaly appears to have been €57,000 euros with little or no other funds coming to the county that can be identified. There are no plans for a county museum in Offaly and as of now we do not even have a warehouse in which to collect artefacts or material objects which are associated with Offaly History.

Durrow Abbey Site

A recent letter from Duchas indicated that a sum of €20,000 was made available out of the €1.27million euros promised to do some insignificant works on the roof at Durrow. While the work commenced by Duchas is to be welcomed it does not greatly improve the situation and certainly does not provide for the High Cross which is now agreed by all to be suffering substantially due to weathering and erosion and to be in danger from the beech trees in the vicinity of the High Cross. We often get complaints from members of the public about the difficulties they have with Duchas in restoring listed houses and meeting their requirements even when the building (for example an old church) might fall into ruin if the intended purchase and restoration does not proceed. However when work is expected of Duchas it can take fifteen, twenty years and longer to get any action.

Purchase of freehold of the Bury Quay Centre

We have reached agreement on the purchase of the freehold of the premises at Bury Quay for an nominal sum thanks to Waterways Ireland now based at Enniskillen. It has taken thirteen years of correspondence and numerous letters to T.D.'s and ministers to get to this stage.

Programme May - December 2002

9th May 2002 - We intend to organise a meeting of all Local History Societies in County Offaly to a social evening in Tullamore and a review of the progress in Offaly History to date.

18th May 2002 - On Saturday 18th May we hope to visit Laois and are currently making arrangements.

8th June 2002 - The Clontarf Historical Society will be visiting Tullamore.

22 June 2002 - We hope to visit Mullingar including Belvedere.

22 June 2002 - The Irish Genealogical Research Society will be visiting Birr and Tullamore.

6th July 2002 - It is proposed to visit Clonmacois

August - free

1st September to 8th September is Heritage Week

We are proposing the following programme:-

  1. Illustrated talk on the Hanly photographs of Tullamore and District.
  2. A walk through Tullamore on the Saturday of that week.
  3. An illustrated lecture on the Tullamore Gardai
  4. A talk on the growth and development of P. & H. Egan which was founded 150 years ago this year. Currently Mr. Bill Jaffray is organising with the Tullamore Dew Heritage an Exhibition of material on this company.

October 2002 - In October we hope to have an illustrated lecture on Shinrone.

November 2002 - An illustrated talk on the development of Charleville Demesne and the family life of the Moore's and the Bury's of Charleville,1740 -1948.

December 2002 - Mr. Joe Kenny has agreed has agreed to speak at our annual Christmas lunch on his recollections of Tullamore.

Membership fees

There are still a small number of renewals for 2002 outstanding. An invoice is enclosed for those still due. Please remit as soon as possible.

Community Employment

Our current FAS scheme will finish on Friday 26th April. We would like to thank most sincerely all who participated for their very valuable work. It is a great contribution to the store of historical material for the area. Over the year five people have obtained permanent employment. We would hope to recommence within a few weeks time.