Offaly History Blog

Fr Willie Cleary died after a short illness at Tullamore hospital on Sunday 19 July 2015  aged 80. He had been parish priest of Tullamore from December 1989 until his retirement from that post in September 2004. He was then transferred to Laytown as a curate and was serving there at the time of his … Continue reading Fr Willie Cleary, parish priest of Tullamore (died 2015) and fifteen eventful years in Tullamore. By Declan McSweeney […]

Banagher’s Cuba Court (now demolished) is said to date from the 1730s and may have been constructed by one George Frazer, a former Governor of Cuba and perhaps to a design of Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. The house was unroofed in 1946 because, like so many Irish houses, it was ruined by the policy on … Continue reading Charlotte Bronte and her association with Banagher. ‘It is a solemn and strange and perilous thing for a woman to become a wife.’ Offaly Literary Associations, no 6 by Michael Byrn […]

What a marvel it must have been in Birr in the year 1851. The town and the country were barely emerging from the shocking catastrophe of Famine and the associated fevers and deaths. Emigration was everywhere and Irish towns presented a shocking appearance of want and degradation. The town’s historian, Thomas Lalor Cooke, had reflected … Continue reading The Fireworks in Birr in 1851: Optimism after despair. By Michael Byrn […]

The flat countryside around Tullamore left a deep impression on the future writer’s mind. And when, 20 years later, he wrote an existentialist murder mystery called The Third Policemen, set mainly in a nether afterworld, he used Offaly as his model. Flann O’Brien (1911-66) was the well-known Irish novelist and political commentator. He was born … Continue reading Flann O’Brien and the Tullamore Connection. Offaly Literary Associations, no 5. Michael Byrne. […]