Offaly (King's)

Taxonomy

Code

Scope note(s)

  • King's County reverted to County Offaly in 1920.

Source note(s)

Display note(s)

Equivalent terms

Offaly (King's)

  • UF County Offaly
  • UF Co. Offaly
  • UF Uibh Fhaili
  • UF King's County

Associated terms

Offaly (King's)

15 Authority record results for Offaly (King's)

Banagher Improvement Committee

  • Corporate body
  • 1890-1938

The Banagher Improvement Committee was involved in the development of public housing, drainage and sanitation, local industries, electricity supply and street lightning, employment schemes, local infrastructure and the revival of Banagher Great Fair.

Banagher Refugee Commitee

  • Corporate body
  • 1914-1918

The Committee had been established during World War I to support Belgian refugees with accommodation and financial assistance after the German invasion into Belgium.

Birr Business & Professional Women’s Association

  • Corporate body
  • 1967-1982

Birr Business and Professional Women’s Club was formed in the County Arms Hotel, in November 1967. It was the first business and professional women’s club to be formed in Ireland outside of Dublin.

Bulfin, Eamonn

  • Person
  • 1892-1968

Eamonn Bulfin was born in Argentina to Irish parents. His father William Bulfin of Derrinlough, near Birr, County Offaly, had emigrated to Argentina in the 1880s and became the editor of The Southern Cross newspaper. On the family's return to Ireland, William Bulfin enrolled Eamonn in Pearse's school, St Enda's in Rathfarnham, and he later attended University College Dublin. Eamonn joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1913, and along with some fellow St Enda's students created home-made bombs in the school's basement in preparation for the Easter Rising.

Notable for raising the 'Irish Republic' flag over the GPO In the Easter Rising of 1916. Following the insurrection he was condemned to death, but was reprieved and deported to Buenos Aires after internment in Frongoch in Wales along with the other Irish soldiers of the Rising. In 1920 he was elected Chairperson of Offaly County Council in absentia and held the post when the decision was taken to rename King's County as Offaly. He returned in 1923 on the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 and was active in local politics.

Cox, Ambrose Clement Wolseley

  • Person
  • 1845-1913

Col. A.C. Wolseley Cox was the son of Ambrose Cox and Emily C. Wolseley. He was born in 1845 and inherited Clara House on the death of his father in 1863. He subsequently mortgaged the house and estate to fund his army career and his life in London. He married Louisa Helen Elizabeth Kirwan in 1870 and left a son, Reginald Garnett Wolseley Cox (1872-1904). Their Dublin residence at 41 Fitzwilliam Street is now known as the Fitzwilliam Townhouse. Col. Cox served as High Sherriff for King's County in 1873 but his income was insufficient to support his lifestyle and he was declared a bankrupt in 1888.

Farmer, Henry G.

  • Person
  • 1882-1965

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.

Fitz-Simon, Christopher Richard Manners Daniel O'Connell, Lt Col

  • Person
  • 1898-1984

Born in Glencullen House, Co Dublin on 30 May 1898, to Daniel O'Connell Fitz-Simon and his wife Alice Maud Bunbury MacFarlane, Christopher Fitz-Simon spent his early life at 'Moreen', in Sandyford, Co. Dublin. He was educated at Earlsfort House, Dublin and St. Edmund's, England. He completed his military training at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, England.

His military career began when he was commissioned in December 1917 for the Prince of Wales Leinster Regiment, Birr, Co Offaly, subsequently serving during World War 1, where he was wounded at Flanders in May 1918 and awarded the Military Cross. He returned to the Leinster depot at Birr until August 1920, and subsequently served on a peacekeeping mission to Silesia (Poland) in 1921. On the disbandment of the Leinsters in 1922, he joined the King's Own Royal Regiment in December of that year and saw subsequent service in India, Sudan, England, Egypt, and Palestine. He commanded the 2nd Battalion King's Own as temporary Lieutenant-Colonel, WW2 North Africa campaign against Italy in 1940/1941. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1942, and subsequently served in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland commanding the 1st battalion East Surrey Regiment. In 1942, he was hospitalised and invalided from the army in 1943.

In 1945, he was appointed land agent to the Tottenham estate at Mount Callan, Co. Clare and moved to a similar post in Annaghmakerrig, Co. Monaghan, in 1948. He retired to Glencullen House, Co. Dublin in 1953 and died in June 1984.

Col. Fitz-Simon married Gladys Killen, in October 1931; she pre-deceased him. Their sons are Dr Christopher O'Connell Fitz-Simon b.1934, now in Dublin, and Nicholas O'Connell Fitz-Simon, b.1936, now in Victoria, Australia.

J. & L. F. Goodbody Ltd.

  • Corporate body
  • 1865 – 1984

J. & L. F. Goodbody was established in 1865 as a jute manufacturing business based at Clashawaun in Clara and also with offices in Dublin. Its directors were Jonathan Goodbody (1865-88), Lewis F. Goodbody (1865-87), Robert Goodbody (c1870-88), Joshua C. Goodbody (c1873-88), Fredrick R. Goodbody (1880-88) and J. B. Clibborn Goodbody (1880-88).

The business was formed into a limited company in 1888 and traded under the name J. & L. F. Goodbody Ltd. As well as jute, it also manufactured cotton and synthetics. Its main factories at Clara and Waterford were later joined by factories at Dublin, Limerick and Slane. In 1937, it became a public company when outside shareholders and directors were introduced. It was quoted on the Dublin Stock Exchange and wound up in 1984. The family crest was adopted as the registered trade mark.

King's County Infirmary

  • Corporate body
  • 1788-1921

King’s County Infirmary was established under King George III’s reign with the passing of the Irish County Infirmaries Act of 1765. This act enabled the creation of infirmaries in thirty Irish counties. In an amending act from 1768, King’s County Infirmary was moved from Philipstown (Daingean) to Tullamore, the new county town. During the redevelopment of Tullamore town by the Earl of Charleville, a new infirmary building was erected in 1788 on Church Street and was further extended in 1812.

The County Infirmaries Act was enacted to provide healthcare to the poor which fulfilled the eighteenth century philanthropic ideals of the landed gentry who supported these institutions through donations and subscriptions. King’s County Infirmary was supported by an income comprising of parliamentary funds, grand jury presentments, governor subscriptions, donations, and patient fees. The infirmary was managed by a Board of Governors who paid subscriptions for their position on the board. Governors had absolute control over the infirmary including staff appointments and patient admissions. To gain access to the infirmary, Governors issued tickets of admission which were most likely given to their employees, tenants, and servants. The governors who supported the hospital were made up of local gentry and landowners such as the Earl of Rosse, Lord Digby and prominent businessowners such as the Goodbody family.

During the War of Independence, King’s County Infirmary came under the jurisdiction of the new Sinn Féin majority council, now renamed Offaly County Council. On the 21st of January 1921, the secretary to Offaly County Council attended a meeting of the board to inform them of the closure of the infirmary. It was to be closed under the Offaly amalgamation scheme whereby the workhouse hospital would become the new County Hospital. The board pleaded with the council to delay the closure in order to settle the affairs of the hospital in relation to critical patients and financial matters. The hospital eventually closed in August 1921 after it was reported by the surgeon and registrar to the board, that the bedding and beds were carried out of the infirmary by unknown persons suspected to be under orders of the county council.

Following its closure, King’s County Infirmary accommodated the civil guards and then housed the county library until 1977. The façade of the original King’s County Infirmary can still be seen on Church Street, Tullamore, which has now been repurposed into apartments.

McGinn's Bakery

  • Corporate body
  • 1920-1996

The premises were first mentioned in a lease from Charles William Bury to John Shaw in 1790. It became a brewery in 1805 when Richard Deverell acquired the property. The ownership changed again, i.e. to George Wilkinson, a baker, in the 1850s.
Michael McGinn (1879-1973) bought the premises in 1920 from the widow Brophy under whose ownership a pub was run by the Keeney family. McGinn was from Mountmellick and managed a D. E. Williams grocery shop there before he bought the pub in Tullamore. He continued the pub trade and also operated a bakery and a grocery on the premises. The licence was transferred in 1967 to his son Philip McGinn who renovated the pub in 1978 and changed the grocery part to an off-licence in 1980.

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