The Morrison family, jewellers, creative artists and photographers, Emmet Square, Birr – prominent members of the Birr Methodist community. By Michael Byrne. Offaly History blog no. 698.

March 8, 2025
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The Changing face of Birr in the 1900 to 1920 will be the focus of a talk arranged by the Birr Historical Society for Monday 10 March at 8 p.m. in the County Arms Hotel. The illustrated lecture will focus on change in that period and the record of it provided by the early photographers and other sources. Once such was George Morrison son of Edward, both were jewellers and in addition was a George was a trained photographer who had opened a studio in his Birr jewellery shop in 1894. He was grandfather to the now acclaimed documentary artist George Morrison of Mise Éire (1959) fame. Another neighbour, Archie Wright of nearby Cumberland House, Birr had also trained in photography and would assist his father in producing photographs weekly for the local King’s County Chronicle newspaper from 1885. At the time an innovation in the provincial press.

The merchant community of Birr in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries provide an interesting focus of study. Where the Quaker community had dominated towns like Mountmellick, Tullamore Edenderry, Moate and to a lesser extent Birr from the 1700s this had given way after 1800 to a growing Methodist influence. We need look no further than Duke/Cumberland/Emmet Square for evidence of this with at least four of the sixteen houses in the square owned by Methodists. One family were booksellers and printers (Sheilds) and two others were jewellers – Lynne (Lynn) Riddler (Ridler), and later Morrison.

A tremendous early view of Emmet Square, probably in the 1880s, showing the Morrison house and shop on the extrme right (GV 5) and south of the site of the new post office of 1903. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland and from the Lawrence Collection but perhaps from another studio and bought in.

The progress of Methodism in Birr was similar to Tullamore in that both towns had a Methodist chapel by the 1760s (off Church Lane in Birr (later called the Banba Hall) and in Swaddling Lane, Tullamore) and a new church (similar in style) by 1820. The Tullamore community built its fourth church in 1889 (being the third on the existing site) but that in Birr has continued in use for the past 204 years. The site leased from the second earl of Rosse was that at Cumberland Street (upper and better known in 1819 as the upper Green, and post 1922 as Emmet Street. The lay trustees of the site included Michael Lynn, the jeweller, and John Sheilds, then a schoolmaster, but by 1830-1 a bookseller in Cumberland Square (later Sheppard’s stationers and booksellers/later Stanley’s).

Michael Lynn or Lynne, watchmaker was located on the northwest corner of Emmet Square (in a house later occupied by the Davis family, west of Cumberland House). He was listed in the 1821 census and the trade directories from 1834 to 1856. He had been living in Duke Square at the time of the 1821 census and was then aged 36. The household was four in number in 1821 with his wife Charity (30), Anne Talbott (10) and Elizabeth Fawsett (20) and an indoor servant.

A detail showing the Morrison shop and the Dooly house at Emmet Sq., E. that was sub-divided from the early 1840s when the solicitor John Julian had an office in the two-bay part nearest the coach entrance. The Dooly house provided the site for the new post office of 1903. *Morrison was delivering a half-a-ton of catalogues of his jewellery products for postage in the early 1900s Courtesy of the National Library.* *Do many people have catalogues, clocks or jewellery from this shop?*

From the trade directories

1824 Pigot, Michael Lynn, watch and clockmaker

1846, Slater, Michael Lynn, watch and clockmaker

1856. Slater, Michael Lynn, watch and clockmaker

1894 Slater, Bertie Davies.

Michael Lynn died at Duke Square on 17 September 1865, a widower, aged 82.

The second Methodist jeweller in Emmet Square was at GV (Griffith Valuation) no. 5 1854 (beside the present post office) William Ridler, watchmaker, with a house, offices and yard comprising of seven front rooms and shop, back rooms, the front gateway was from GV 7. Ridler and Lynn were the only two watchmakers listed in the Slater directory of 1846 and both were living in Cumberland/Emmet Square. In 1821 William Ridler (20) was serving as an apprentice to the watchmaker Michael Lynne but was living with his father and not his master. William Ridler’s father lived nearby at 6 Duke (O’Connell Street) in 1821. William Ridler died on 26 September 1861, aged 61.[1] A family history enquiry published in 1992 stated that a James Ridler, born in Beckford UK in 1762 went to Birr and married a Mary Robinson of Mallow.[2]

References in the trade directories

1846, Slater, Eliza Ann Ridder/ Ridler, academies and schools

1856, Slater, Eliza Ann Riddler, academies and schools

1846, Slater, William Riddler, watch and clockmaker

1854, King’s County Directory, p. xv, Edward Morrison, established 1854, advertisement.

1856, Slater, William Riddler, watch and clockmaker

1870, Slater, Edward Morrison, clock and watch maker

1881, Slater, Edward Morrison, clock and watch maker

1890, KCD, 345, Davies Dentistry at Morrison’s every alternate Wednesday

1894, Slater, Edward Morrison, clock and watch maker

1931 McDonald, Edward Morrison, jeweller.

The Morrison family of 5 Emmet Square were not prominent in the Birr Methodist Society until after the mid-1850s. The Ridler jewellery store was acquired, some say, about 1854 and by the 1860s Edward Morrison was a local Methodist leader and maintained that position up to his death in 1895. The new parish hall and vestry beside the Methodist chapel were named in his honour. About seven years earlier a manse had been acquired at Oxmantown Mall confirming how strong Methodism was in the 1850s to the 1900s.

*The King’s County and Ormond Club was on the corner with Cumberland Street and was relocated about 1908 to the house on the right, up to that date owned by the Misses Sylvester.* *The Cumberland Column dates to 1747 and was at a cross roads much as market crosses were in other towns.* Courtesy of the National Library.

Edward Morrison was succeeded by his son George who was a jeweller and in addition was a trained photographer who had opened a studio in his Birr jeweller shop in 1894. The younger Morrison had a distinguished career in photography. He was also a founder member of the Wilmer Tennis Club in 1886 and retained membership up to his death. He continued to manage the jewellery shop (retaining his father’s name over the shop) up to a year before his death in 1919 and also found time for his urban council duties. It may be mentioned that Morrison along with Michael Carroll secured pictures of the taking down of the ‘Duke’ in 1915. His 1901 photographs of the Bronte heirlooms at Hill House Banagher were published in a London weekly in that year. His client for this assignment was the avid Bronte collector, the journalist and literary critic, Clement Shorter.

*A detail from the column to Duke/Main Street with Meara’s drapery on the left (up to about 1890) and Dr Myles’ residence and pharmacy on the right.* Courtesy of the National Library.

George Morrison’s only son, called Edward after his grandfather, married in 1921 Florence Downey of Arcadia, Tramore. His mother, Katherine Hannah Morrison (née Clarke) now lived in Dublin where she died in 1944. Edward Morrison worked as a neurological anaesthetist and his wife was an actress. He was of the third and last generation who had lived in Birr.

Their son George Morrison (after his grandfather) was born in Tramore in November 1922, studied medicine for a while, but dropped out to follow in the footsteps of his Birr-based grandfather and work in films as opposed to still pictures. His best-known work is Mise Éire (1959). He was elected to Aosdána in 2005 and awarded the title Saoi in 2017. His wife was the late Theodora Fitzgibbon (1916–91). They married in 1960 and settled in Dalkey. Some of her best-known works on cookery were illustrated by her second husband George from his knowledge of photo archives in Ireland and Britain. He used one of Leap Castle by his grandfather, a picture first published about 1897, in their A taste of Ireland in food and pictures.

George Morrison was an astute illustrator and that long before the current craze for colouring old black and white pictures. As a film archivist he would hardly have approved. That said his grandfather George would almost certainly have sold coloured postcards in his shop in Birr’s Cumberland Square 125 years ago. As a jewellery artist and commercial photographer he would have been pleased to see the success achieved by his grandson.