Ballinagar village is in the townland of Ballinagar. A small stream borders Ballinagar from its neighbouring townlands. For this article I walk along this stream to see what it can tell us about the past. BALLYMOONEY At Ballymooney bridge the stream enters the Tullamore river. The road here is called the Killeigh road. Over … Continue reading Walking the stream at Ballinagar and […]

Offaly Archives’ local government collections cover an extensive range of local government organisations – from grand juries, infirmaries, rural district councils, town commissioners, poor law unions, county councils, committees of agriculture and urban district councils. The material from the collections was acquired since the 1950s and covers roughly two hundred years of […]

  Background: Ireland 1850 to 1918 The emergence of an Irish Catholic religious revival can be traced back to mid-1770s. Tony Fahey writes of the ‘Catholic Revival in Ireland’, being a major feature of 19th century Irish history affecting politics, culture and social structure. The punitive Penal Laws discriminated against and marginalised the Catholic church … Continue […]

I was in Birr over the Christmas and chatting in Dooly’s I recalled that it will be 59 years this weekend since the first visit of a Royal princess to Ireland – Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong Jones- and that was the first royal visit to Ireland in over thirty years. The son of Anne, … Continue reading The Queen, Princess Margaret and Dooly’s Hotel, Birr by […]

The first aerial photograph of Tullamore was published in the press in 1918 as part of the work of the Irish Recruiting Council and in an effort to promote voluntary recruiting. Variants of the aerial photograph and the story behind it are also to be found in competing historical accounts of the Great War and … Continue reading The first aerial photograph of Tullamore 101 years ago – […]