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    Founded in 1938 and re-established in 1969, Offaly History (Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society) aims to preserve and promote the rich heritage of County Offaly. Since 1993, the Society has occupied premises at Bury Quay, Tullamore offering a Bookshop, library, reading room, and lecture hall for researcher and members of the public.  Offaly History Centre is beside the new Aldi Supermarket and Old Warehouse restaurant), and best approached from Kilbride Street via Patrick Street or Main Street.

    The main objective of the society is the collection and sharing of research and memories. We do this in an organised way; through exhibitions, the publication of local interest books, weekly blog posts, monthly lectures, and more. The bookshop and reading rooms at Bury Quay are open to the public Monday to Friday, 9am-4:30pm. Regular updates can also be found at our website, www.Offalyhistory.com and on our social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X.

    To promote Offaly History including community and family history

    What we do:

    • Promote all aspects of history in Co. Offaly.
    • Genealogy service for counties Laois and Offaly.
    • Photographic collections of County Offaly
    • Purchase and sale of Offaly interest books though the Society’s book store and website with over 3000 history books in our shop and up to 1000 online.
    • Publication of books under the Society’s publishing arm Esker Press.
    • The Society subscribes to almost all the premier historical journals in Ireland.
    • The Society manages the collections if Offaly Archives under the care of a professional archivist.

    Our Society covers a diverse range of Offaly Heritage:

    • Architectural heritage, historic monuments such as monastic and castle buildings.
    • Industrial and urban development of towns and villages.
    • Archaeological objects and artefacts.
    • Flora, fauna and bogs, wildlife habitats, geology and Natural History.
    • Landscapes, heritage gardens and parks, farming and inland waterways.
    • Local literary, social, economic, military, political, scientific and sports history.
    Offaly History is a non-profit community group with a growing membership of some 150 individuals. The Society focuses on enhancing educational opportunities, understanding and knowledge of the county heritage while fostering an inclusive approach and civic pride in local identity. We promote these objectives through:
    • The holding of monthly lectures, occasional seminars, exhibitions and social media. Organising tours during the summer months to places of shared historical interest.
    • The publication of an annual journal Offaly Heritage – to date twelve issues.
    • We play a unique role collecting and digitising original primary source materials, especially photographs and oral history recordings
    • Offaly History is the centre for Family History research in Counties Laois and Offaly.
    • The Society is linked to the renowned Irish Family Foundation website and Roots Ireland where some 1,000,000 records of Offaly/Laois interest can be accessed on a pay-per-view basis worldwide. Currently these websites have an estimated 20 million records of all Ireland interest.
    • A burgeoning library of books, CD-ROMs, videos, DVDs, oral and folklore recordings, manuscripts, newspapers and journals, maps, photographs and various artefacts (now over 25,000 items and a catalogue online)
    • OHAS Collections
    • OHAS Centre Facilities
    The financial activities of the Society are operated under the aegis of Offaly Heritage Centre c.l.g, a charitable company whose directors also serve on the Society’s elected committee. None of the Society’s directors receive remuneration or any kind. All the company’s assets are held in trust to promote the voluntary activities of the Society. Our facilities are largely free to the public or run purely on a costs-recovery basis.

    Acting as a policy advisory body –  Offaly History endeavors to ensure all government departments, local authorities, tourism agencies and key opinion formers prioritise heritage matters.

    Meet the current committee: Our Committee represents a broad range of backgrounds and interests. All share a common interest in collecting and promoting the heritage of the county and making it available to the wider community.

    2024 Committee
    • Helen Bracken (President)
    • Shaun Wrafter (Vice President)
    • Michael Byrne (Secretary)
    • Dorothee Bibby (Treasurer)
    • Charlie Finlay (Assistant Treasurer)
    • Niall Sweeney
    • Ciarán McCabe
    • Noel Guerin
    • Angela Kelly
    • Rory Masterson
    • Oliver Dunne
    • Frank Brennan
    • Pat Wynne
    • Laura Price
    Co-opted
    • Reneagh Bennett
    • Michael Scully
    • Jim Keating
    • Eamon Larkin
    If you would like to help with the work of the Society by coming on a sub-committee or in some other way please email us at [email protected] or let an existing member know.  
    +353-5793-21421 [email protected] Open 9am-4.30pm Mon-Fri

    Daingean GAA Club experienced lean times during the Revolutionary Years, 1913-23. By Sean McEvoy

    While Daingean celebrates the completion of its new Sports Centre it is good to look back to how things were 100 years ago. The country is currently celebrating and remembering what have become popularly known as the Revolutionary years or era spanning the timescale 1913–23.  These years witnessed the formation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913, the Howth Gun Running in 1914, as well as the Easter Rising, the growth of Sinn Féin, and the formation of the first Dáil in 1919.  The events of this time are finally capped off with the War of Independence (1919–21), the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, and the calamitous Civil War (1922–31) which followed.  During this period also, the Great War (1914–18) and the Spanish Flu epidemic had varying degrees of impact on the life of the country.  There is no doubt that this train of events combined had a great impact on almost all GAA clubs then in existence. Some clubs fared better than others, for example, during the years in question Killeigh captured two Senior football titles while Rhode who had won only one title to date, captured three in six years.  For Daingean however, these years brought no titles in any grade.

    At the recent opening of the Daingean GAA Sports Centre. All pictures courtesy of Daingean GAA Club.

                These lean years for the club are surprising as Daingean had captured its first junior title in 1908 and their first senior title the following year.  However despite these success, the team broke up quite quickly.  During the early years of the GAA, player loyalty to clubs was not as entrenched as it is today.  Clubs often were formed one year and would simply disappear the next.  After Daingean lost the 1910 junior final to Banagher that was played in 1911, a number of players like John Buckley and Peter Brazil left to line out with the new club formed in Ballycommon shortly afterwards. Daingean fielded no senior team in the Championship from 1912 to 1927 and did not even field a junior side in 1912 and 1913.  Meanwhile the new club in Ballycommon had early success capturing the junior title in 1913 and reached the senior final the following year only to lose out to Ferbane.  The success on failure of clubs at this time could often hinge on the death of a key player or official.  In this regard, the unexpected death of the club’s junior captain Denis Flanagan in 1912, left the club remaining the loss of an on- field leader. Throughout 1913 the local correspondent to the King’s County Independent newspaper made a number of references to the poor state of the club.  In August that year he lamented that ‘we have already referred on more than one occasion to the great scarcity that exists in Philipstown at the present time of any sort of amusement, and the wonder is where there is such splendid material at hand, no attempt is made to organise a football or hurling club’.

    The new Daingean GAA Sports Centre. All pics courtesy of Daingean GAA.

                The same correspondent kept up his pressure for the rest of 1913 and by April the following year, the club has been revived again in a proper footing with Denis Gorman as President, John Harte as secretary and Nicolas Bolger as treasurer.  These officials wisely decided to place the emphasis on developing a new young side based on Juvenile sides that had emerged in the parish between 1911–13.  Surprisingly, these teams had emerged at a time when adult teams in the club were struggling or not fielding at all (as pointed out earlier) and the new juvenile teams emerged at a time long before proper underage competition would be organised county wide in the late 1920s.  Prominent players in these sides included J. Reilly, J. Harte, C Hayes, J Walsh, J and E Freer, P. Lynch and Joe Quinn. A nice combation of these young players and some veterans from the earlier years saw the junior side reach the 1915 Final which took place in Rahan the following year against Cloghan.  This was a bruising encounter that Daingean lost by the slimmest of margins and club’s supporters (possibly unfairly) felt that stricter refereeing may have altered the outcome.  The club did lodge an objection to the ref’s final report to the county board and subsequently brought an appeal to the Leinster Council.  This appeal was to be heard at the Council’s last meeting in Dublin just before Christmas 1916 but no Daingean delegate turned up and the matter was dropped.

                Rather than building on the progress made in 1915, the years 1916 to 1923 were some of the leanest in the club’s history.  There are a number of reasons for this starting with the departure of James O’Quigley a national teacher who had come to the town in the early years of the twentieth century.  He can be best described as a typical Irish-Irelander from this era and was a dedicated member of the GAA, Gaelic League and the Irish Volunteers.  O’ Quigley was the man behind the formation of a hurling club in the town and he was also behind the revival of the game of handball. In the latter case, he promoted the game by staging an annual tournament among the school children that grew in popularity from 1908.  On his departure to Mayo in 1916, the club made him a special presentation of a suitably inscribed walking stick for his services rendered to the club.  His loss to the club in relation to his administration and organisational skills really is difficult to calculate beyond saying that it came of a time when his guidance was probably most needed.  This can be especially seen in the club’s lack of effort to promote hurling again until the 1920s.  In fact, in 1916, the club actually donated its stock of cumanns for a North Offaly hurling team that played against a South Offaly selection in support of the National Aid Association tournament held in Ballyduff Park in September 1916.  Such tournaments were held to support the families of those who lost members fighting in the aftermath.  Sadly this rather generous gesture by the club in Daingean was most likely easier to take considering that the local hurling club had all but died out by then.

                A second reason why the club entered a lean period after 1916 is because recent research has thrown up that a huge number of the team that lost the 1915 junior football final became more involved in the independence struggle at this time.  Many of the players became involved in the Sinn Féin branch in the town while the following list names those who served in the local IRA.  These included Charlie and Ned Hayes, Denis Finlay, John and Ned Greene, Jim Brien, Pat Lynch, Nicholas Bolger, Mick Crystal and brothers John and George Grace.  While IRA activity in the Daingean area was not notable for spectacular ambushes, the local RIC barracks in the town and at Mount Lucas were attacked during this period.  It should be noted as well that the British army did have a small garrison in the town which certainly helped to curtail IRA activity.  Because of their involvement with the IRA, the players above did not have the spare time for GAA activity or that was needed to push the club forward. It is not totally a surprise then when one learns that the club had no representative at the 1917 Offaly GAA Convention, and the Midland Tribune reported that the junior side failed to fulfil their first-round fixture in the next year’s championship.

                The club was spared embarrassment later in August in 1918 when it managed to field both a senior side (against Ballycommon) and junior side (against Geashill) in compliance with the central council directive that all GAA units had to take part in games in what became known as Gaelic Sunday.  This nationwide set of games was in response to the British authorities’ insistence on clubs having to seek permits for the holding of matches.  This decision was in part designed to check the growth of Sinn Féin.  Central Council organised Gaelic Sunday in a blatant act of defiance of this request and the press reported that upwards of over 54,000 players took part nationwide making the day a glorious success. Sadly, the two local Offaly papers do not list the names of the players on the various teams who fielded that Sunday in Offaly and one suspects this may have been because of the Press Censorship directives in operation at that time.

                Despite fielding two teams on Gaelic Sunday, this did not mean an immediate upturn in the club’s fortunes.  Daingean failed again to take in part the 1919 championship and after drawing with Clara in the first round of their 1920 tie, the team showed its lack of practice in the replay by failing to score in the whole match.  As the country sank deeper into the War of Independence no championships were completed in 1921 or 1922.  It was only after the Civil War ended in May 1923 that field activity could start up again.  When Daingean took on Rhode at the pitch in St. Conleth’s that August, the local correspondent looked forward to the event claiming that ‘there had been no match in the locality of any description for nearly three years’.  This is probably one reason why a large crowd turned out to cheer the local club to victory and even though the team lost the North Offaly final to Killeigh in September, the end of strife and national conflict meant that the chance to re-build the club and country could now commence once again.

    The research for this article depended heavily on the files of the county’s two nationalist newspapers from this time, namely The Midland Tribune and the Tullamore and King’s County Independent.  Sadly no minutes of Daingean clubs meetings or photographs of teams from this period have survived.  A trawl through some County Board minutes in the OHAS show no major points of reference for the Daingean club while the monthly RIC police reports from 1913 to 1921 don’t add any material of note about the club’s struggles at this time either.  The author would welcome any reader with material not unearthed to date that may be lying in some attic or if anyone had photographs of Daingean players in teams to contact him, or any member of OHAS regarding same. 

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