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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

    The Marble of Clonmacnoise: Limestone Quarrying at Clerhane, Shannonbridge, County Offaly. By Declan Ryan

     

    About two kilometres from Shannonbridge on the Clonmacnoise road (R444), in the townland of Clerhane, a narrow laneway leads to the site of all that now remains of a once thriving industry in limestone quarrying.  While the origins of the quarries are lost in the mists of time it can be assumed that the stone for all the major building projects in the area was sourced locally.  The heyday of the operations can be regarded as being from the early nineteenth to the mid twentieth century.   While their many monuments and buildings in stone will stand for centuries, the memories of the quarries that produced them, their owners, the workforce and methods of operation are in danger of being totally forgotten. 

    The Rocks of Clerhane, as the area is known, contains two main quarries, both now flooded, in a wooded limestone pavement area.  The quarries consisted of two separate businesses, Egan’s and Hughes’ (later Claffey’s).  Following the laneway, the first quarry, Egan’s, is located on the right.  The only building still standing is the quarry workshop, formally a herdsman’s house in the Williams Estate.  The name Egan’s Quarry can still be read on the door which features a slot for letters.  Another small quarry, Mannion’s, adjoins to the northeast.  Just past Egan’s stand the ruins of Claffey’s house and further on, after a left fork in the lane, the abandoned Claffey’s quarry.   No trace of buildings remains here.  From Claffey’s quarry a one-kilometre rough track leads to the river Shannon ending in a short canal and the remains of a small pier.   A second track from the quarries runs parallel some two hundred metres upstream (to by-pass a shoal in the river) and this was used to transport stone for the building of Athlone Bridge in the 1840’s. 

    logo of Hughes Quarry c. 1890.

    The limestone quarries at Clerhane contain an abundance of fossils and a special seam which has been referred to as “Irish grey marble”. This is not a true marble, being sedimentary rather than metamorphic, but the term is used for limestone that can take a polish.  The stone is in tilted beds with the layers varying in thickness up to half a metre.  The layers facilitated quarrying by vertical cutting only, important where speed was essential in coping with the constant threat of water ingress from springs.  Stone was split by drilling a line of holes, inserting an oak dowel and peg and tapping them until the rock split.  This was known as the “plug and feather system”. A crane lifted the stone from the quarry floor, and it was transported to the shed where it was placed on a stone block, called the banker, for carving.  All the other heavy work was done with horses. 

    The finished product was transported to the river or to the pier at Shannonbridge and onwards via the Shannon and the Grand Canal, as for example to Belmont Mill for rebuilding after the disastrous fire of 1879.  The Parliamentary Gazetteer in 1845 recorded that, 3000 cubic feet of marble had been sent to Killaloe Marble Works, manufacturers of fireplaces, monuments and dairy slabs.  The building trade was responsible for 90% of stone sales.  An idea of the variety of goods produced can be gauged from this entry in the Industrial Directory 1939 for K.P. Egan and Sons – suppliers of marble, church fonts, headstones, monuments, altars and altar rails, marble mantelpieces, marble pulpits, statues, limestone, stone balustrades, corbels, cornices, kerbs, lintels, windowsills, doorsteps etc.  As well as the prestigious work of church building, wall cappings, gate piers, land rollers and animal troughs were turned out.    

    Egan’s quarry in 2009.

    Constant inflow of water from springs and the adjoining bog made an effective pump essential.  In addition, the better stone was found deep in the quarry.  Hughes / Claffey had a bucket conveyor, which when primed by water from a canal, would run until the quarry was empty.  Egan’s had a windmill which was superseded by a Hornby steam powered pump, imported by Fayles of Birr in 1889 from the Hornby Grantham Works in England, for Wallers of Hunston and purchased by Egan’s c.1913.    

     

    Newspaper advert. for Egan’s in 1919.

    The Egan family originated In Co. Wexford and were operating their quarry at Clerhane by the middle of the nineteenth century and continued until work finally petered out in the nineteen fifties.  Over time they opened branches in Athlone, Salthill, Portumna, Kilcormac and Mountbolus.  Their noted work included the repairs to the cap stone of McCarthy’s Tower, Clonmacnoise by Kieran Egan in 1868 for the Kilkenny Archaeological Society.  Clerhane limestone was also used in the repair of the Nuns’ Church by the Society in 1865 where missing carved stones were replaced with plain voussoirs.  Egans were also responsible for the supply of cut stone in Ballinahown Church, being paid over £800.00 for the contract, with the crinoidal limestone clearly visible on the threshold stones and door surrounds.  The last entry in the Parish Disbursements Book on 30th January 1904 reads “Egan, Stone Cutter, for six gate piers at road wall £15.00.”  A successful stone business is conducted to this day by Michael Egan and family in Kilbeggan.   

    James Hughes operated the second quarry, and the adjoining farm of 117 acres.  Hughes were masons from Newry, Co. Down who came south to work on the bridge at Athlone in the 1840’s.  They operated a coal, corn, potato and general merchant business trading as F.P. Hughes, The Quay, Athlone.  Many headstones by Hughes can be seen in cemeteries throughout the midlands and they also supplied stone to businesses such as Belmont Mill.  The Hughes family sold their property to Michael Claffey and emigrated to the United States in the early 1900’s. 

    Michael Claffey ran the quarry producing monuments in cut stone, of which there are many fine examples in local graveyards.  He supplied rubble stone for road making.  Unfortunately, production came to a premature end in 1940 when a spring broke through and flooded the quarry, there being no pump available with the capacity to cope with the situation.        

    In the 1940’s, Martin (The Dean) Flannery set up his monumental works at Clerhane .  He carved the fine Old I.R.A. monument that stands in front of the courthouse in Moate.  He carved the memorial to United Irishman, Michael Conway, who was hanged in Ballycumber in 1798.  This memorial, erected by “local republicans” in 1934 stands in Liss graveyard.  His brother Kieran Pat Flannery was a noted sculptor.    

    Claffey’s quarry, limestone beds tilted at 30 degrees.

    Many local workers were employed in the industry at peak times.  It’s now hard to estimate, but a total workforce of up to one hundred has been mentioned, but unfortunately most of the names do not survive. The numbers were augmented from time to time by travelling quarry workers, “stonies”.  These journeymen travelled from quarry to quarry working for a while and then moving on.  The stonies were generally regarded as “characters”, tough, hard-working and hard drinking.  They kept to themselves and a propensity to move on without notice often caused headaches for quarry owners.  One such stonecutter was Terry Callery who came to Clerhane from Oldcastle, Co. Meath and stayed with the Claffey family for over thirty years.  He had expertise in dealing with water ingress problems.  He was remembered as a great Irish dancer, who wore clogs, was afraid of ghosts and dug for gold at night.  He died in Tullamore Hospital on Pattern Sunday 1937.   

    Claffey family and Terry Callery at Claffey’s house Clerhane c. 1935. L. toR.: Annie Claffey (Sr. Monica) Michael Claffey, Terry Callery, Elizabeth Claffey, Joseph Claffey, Margaret Claffey (Mrs. Turley).

    The lucrative headstone business was a mainstay of the stone business and remains so to this day.  There was intensive competition between the quarries for this work.  As designs evolved hand carved twelve-foot-high Celtic crosses with inscriptions in relief or marble inserts were developed.  At a cost of £60.00 in the 1920’s, they were often erected with “money from America”.  

    The decline of the stone industry can be attributed to many causes.  Quarries were abandoned due to a combination of diminishing returns, increased depth of workings, reduced demand, lack of space for removal of spoil and flooding.   The introduction of concrete to the building industry with the arrival of cement production in the 1930’s, coupled with a transport and labour shortage during the Second World War, sounded the death knell of the stone industry as it then existed.  

    The quarries were an essential part of the local economy in difficult times when just to survive was a constant struggle, with privations and hardships which are now difficult to comprehend.  The industry made a significant contribution to the built heritage in the immediate area and much further afield.   

    Egan’s quarry workshop.

    In more recent times, in a link with the past, the water fonts in St. Kieran’s church in Shannonbridge (1965) were carved by Kieran Egan, the exterior stonework of the Clonmacnoise Visitor Centre (1991-92) utilises limestone from Claffey’s quarry and the magnificent countertop in the reception area and some floor inserts are of crinoidal marble from Egan’s quarry.  This may have been the last ever contribution from the Clerhane quarries, which have given so much to our heritage over the last two hundred years.  Now silent, their legacy will long remain.          

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