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Henry George Farmer was born in Birr Barracks on 17 January 1882 and was later baptised in the Garrison Church. He was the son of Sergeant Henry George Farmer and Mary Anne Farmer (nee Moore), Depot, Leinster Regiment.

Henry had three siblings, Martha Mary who was born in London and sadly a brother and sister who died in infancy, both of whom were interred in Birr Military Cemetery.

Henry was an accomplished musician at a young age. He joined the Royal Artillery, at Birr as a ‘boy soldier’ just a month and ten days after his 14 birthday on 27 February 1896. Upon joining he was recorded as being four foot and six and a half inches tall. He has brown eyes and light brown hair. Initially he played the violin and clarinet, but took private lessons on the horn.

Throughout his life Henry was also a prolific writer, his first published piece was a ‘Sketch of the Leinster Regiment’ which appeared in the King’s County Chronicle in 1901, in this he outlined the history and origins of this famous Irish regiment. Farmer’s next publication in 1904 was a far more substantial ‘Memoirs of the Royal Artillery Band: its origin, history and progress.'

Henry left the Royal Artillery Band in November 1911 due to medical reasons. Soon afterwards he took up a job as a musical director in the Broadway Theatre, New Cross, London. Later in 1914 he was offered musical directorship of the Coliseum Theatre in Glasgow but soon transferred to the Empire Theatre also in Glasgow. He remained there for 33 years.

During this time he become an external student at the University of Glasgow, later becoming a postgraduate there and completing his master’s degree and PhD. Farmer’s doctorate thesis, which he completed in 1926 was ‘A musical history of the Arabs’. Other music interests of Henry were Irish and Scottish music, which saw a publication in 1947 ‘A history of music in Scotland’.

Henry Farmer married Amy Maud Jackson in 1904. He died at the age of 83 in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.

William Larkin was a land surveyor, notable for creating county maps in the early nineteenth century. Not much is known about him, other than that he attended the Dublin Society’s drawing school in 1788. He was most prolific in the early 1800s when he created a series of remarkable maps, beginning with 1805 map of the post roads of Ireland (British Library Maps 10835 (2)). He followed with road surveys for the Post Office such as Dublin – Enniskillen (1806), Dublin – Ratoath and Curragha (1807), and several other routes which saw him work across a large part of southern and western Ireland (1807-1808). 1807 also saw him complete a set of estate maps for the earl of Leitrim’s Manorhamilton estate.

Aorund this time, Larkin began to produce county maps, beginning with County Westmeath. Between 1817- 1819 he had published Meath, Waterford, Galway, Leitrim and Sligo. He had also had drafted manuscript maps for Cavan, Louth, Monagahn and King’s County.

The map for King’s County was completed in 1807 for the Grand Jury for their rooms at Philipstown (now Daingean). The map was never engraved or published due to a lack of subscribers. The manuscript map is now presumed lost.

In 1809, however, the newly constituted Bogs Commissioners engaged Larkin to produce a map of King’s County exhibiting all the bogs of the county. This was based on the manuscript county map and is now held by the National Archives of Ireland.

Larkin died some time before 1824.

Frances Berry was born in 1743, and was the only child of Knight Berry of Birr and Eglish and his wife Sophia, daughter of Captain James Sterling of Whigsborough. In 1759 she married Thomas Berry. They lived at Eglish Castle and had sixteen children. Frances Berry died in 1807 and is buried at Eglish.

Hester was born in 1762, the eldest surviving child of Thomas and Frances Berry of Eglish. In 1787 she married William Smith, a lawyer and member of the Irish Parliament. She was fifteen years older than Robert Fleetwood Berry, her brother. She had two daughters and two sons, lived in Hume Street, of St. Stephens Green in Dublin and died in 1832.

Arthur Richards Neville was in practice as a land surveyor from the 1780s or earlier. He became Dublin City Surveyor in 1801 and retained the post until his death in 1828, when he was succeeded by his son, Arthur Neville.

Charles William Bury inherited the Charleville estate when he was a mere 6 months old. His father, John Bury (1735-64), drowned four months after inheriting Charleville from his maternal uncle, Charles Moore (1712-64), earl of Charleville (of the 1st creation). The estate was several thousand hectares in size and included the town of Tullamore. In 1785, Bury reached the age of 21, graduated with a BA from Trinity College Dublin and returned to Tullamore which had been partially destroyed after the great balloon fire of that year. He granted new leases in the town and brought about its rapid development. He employed Francis Johnston to design three major landmarks in Tullamore: St Catherine’s Church, the Market House, and the Gothic fairytale castle, Charleville Forest, which was set in 1500 acres of woodland.
In his political career he was returned MP for Kilmallock in 1789-90 and again in 1791-7. He became Baron Tullamore on 26 November 1797, Viscount Charleville on 29 December 1800, and 1st earl of Charleville (of the 2nd creation) 16 February 1806.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1803 and a fellow of the Society of Arts in 1814. He published a paper in the RIA’s Transactions in 1799 on the subject of turf ash and became president of the academy from 1812-1822.

Charles Moore, 1st Earl of Charleville of the first creation, known as The Lord Moore between 1725 and 1758, was an Irish peer and freemason. Moore was the son of John Moore, 1st Baron Moore. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and succeeded his father in the barony in 1725. He was sworn of the Irish Privy Council in 1746 and created Earl of Charleville in the King's County, in the Irish peerage in 1758. He died in February 1764, aged 51, when the barony and earldom became extinct.