Thomas Ryder Pepper married Anne Bloomfield, daughter of John Bloomfield and Anne Charlotte Waller. He lived at Loughton House which built in 1777 on lands owned by the Pepper family. The Pepper family lived at Loughton House until Thomas Pepper died as a result of a hunting accident. Thomas Pepper requested in his will that his brother-in-law, the 1st Lord Bloomfield, Benjamin Bloomfield, acquire Loughton House.
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.
Tullamore Urban District Council
Tullamore Town Commission was established in 1860 but no records survive for this body. The Commission became the Urban District Council in 1900 but there are no extant records between 1900 and 1906. The UDC was dissolved in June 2014 following the Local Government Act. Tullamore Municipal District (2014-present) replaces the UDC.
County Offaly Committee of Agriculture
Section 14 of the Agricultural and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899 allowed for the creation of an agriculture committee. Following on from this, the Agriculture Act of 1931 provided the rules for county agriculture committees, including membership, which was to consist of county councillors or partly others, as well as at least one resident member of each county electoral area. Committees of Agriculture were dissolved by Section 30 of the Agriculture, Research, Training and Advice Act, 1988.
The distillery was founded in 1757 by Matthew MacManus, and went through several owners until by 1843 it had been taken over by John Locke who transformed its fortunes. In 1893 it became a limited company. The 20th century saw a decline in profitability and by 1958, the distillery ceased production. In 1982, it re-opened as a whiskey distillery museum following restoration by the Kilbeggan Preservation and Development Association. In 2007 distilling recommenced at Kilbeggan and it is known now as Kilbeggan Distillery.
The Presbyterian Church in Birr grew in numbers in the 1840s following the Crotty Schism. Fr William Crotty (with his cousin Fr Michael Crotty) led this breakaway Catholic congregation to join the Presbyterian Church. Crotty's Church built to emulate a Presbyterian Hall was erected in Castle Street in 1839. A new church building for the Presbyterian congregation was erected in 1885 in John's Mall, not now in use.
Daingean Town Hall Committee is a voluntary community group which oversees the running of the town hall, formerly the town's courthouse, as a community centre.
Edenderry Poor Law Union Industrial and Agricultural Society
Founded in 1925 and acquired by the Williams Group through B. Daly & Co. Ltd. in 1966. The company was established as a wholesaler of poultry, rabbits and game and specialises since 1966 in poultry and game processing. The brand of the ACE chickens was one of their best known products.
It supplied the of principal supermarket chains and frozen food distributors in Ireland in the 1970s (a quarter of the Irish broiler chicken market - ca. 6 million birds per year).