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Minutes recording proceedings of meetings of the Hospital and Homes Committee containing various reports such as Superintendent's Report from the County Home; Superintendent's Report from County Hospital; and Sub-committee reports from Birr Rural District, Edenderry Rural District, Tullamore Rural District, and Roscrea No 2 Rural District on matters relating to dispensaries and hospitals in their respective areas. Also contains lists of 'Letters and Sanctions' from the Ministry of Local Government.

Issues covered by the various reports are concerned with the appointment and salaries of employees; the arrest and detention of members of the committee during the Civil War (see p5, 10 April 1923); building works at dispensaries and hospitals; compensation and pension claims arising from the winding-up of the poor law unions; matters arising with the TB hospital in Birr; commandeering of Dr Woods house at Kinnitty Dispensary by the military (p 43, 8 May 1923); tenders for the supply of provisions to the county home; details of patients at the hospital; proposal from Ministry of Local Government relating to the abolition of Hospital and Homes Committee and Substitution of the County Board of Health therefor under the Local Government (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1923 (p59, 17 May 1923); remaining furniture from Birr Union being taken to Birr Castle on its requisition by Free State Army (pp62-63, 17 May 1923); the condition of Birr workhouse following evacuation by Free State Army (p 64, 2 June 1923); financial issues arising from failure to return 'inmates' in county homes to their counties of origin on amalgamation in 1921; and a proposal by the Ministry of Local Government relating to the appointments of Home Assistance Officers.

Includes report by the Visiting Committee (James O'Connor, J. Scally and Teresa Wyer) on condition of county home (p71, 10 July 1923) and remarks on unfulfilled recommendations from the previous year's report. Also includes extracts from the report of Dr Florence Dillon, medical inspector with the Department of Local Government on the condition of the hospitals at Tullamore, Birr and Edenderry, recommending the closure of the latter (p76, 22 June 1923) .

Contains lists of boarded out children, their foster parents and details of their accommodation, general health and condition in a report of the inspector of boarded out children. (p.87, 10 July 1923)

Annual report submitted by Lewis Goodbody, agent, to Lord Digby, in which he presents a detailed set of accounts and remits £5481 in rental income for Digby's properties in King's County and Rosekeen in Queen's County. Also references the burning of Geashill Castle on 16 August 1922 and that a claim for £15,000 has been lodged against the County and the Provisional Government.

Letters to the Viscountess de Vesci, mother of the sixth earl, to her brother-in-law, the Hon. Geoffrey L. Parsons, and to the agent for the Rosse estates, Toler R. Garvey Junior, (the only person permanently on the spot at Birr during the minority of the sixth earl), concerning the Civil War as it affected Birr Castle and other places; and also including a letter from the Countess of Bandon about the destruction of Castle Bernard, Co. Cork, and the kidnapping of her husband, Lord Bandon, 1921. The principal topic however, is the Free State government’s responsibility to the Rosse family for loss and damage incurred as a result of the Free State army’s occupation of Birr Castle from 1922 to 1924, which the shrewd and resourceful Garvey construes as extending to the cost of Lord and Lady de Vesci’s London house, No. 1 Hyde Park Street. Included in the bundle is a copy of a letter from Garvey to the Irish Land Commission arguing that compulsory acquisition of any more of the home farm at Birr would serve as a major disincentive to the sixth earl’s taking up residence and therefore giving widespread employment there on his coming-of-age, 1926.

Includes quotation for removal of six vans of furniture from Birr Castle to London by John Dooly, & Sons, Birr (April 1923)

Includes list of goods taken over by the National Army 28th September 1923, Property of the Trustees of the Earl of Rosse. Value of £235.16.0

Includes draft claim against Free State Government seeking rent and remedy £3000 and rent of Hyde Park (£600).

Includes letter from Office of Public Works settling claim for £3502.2.11 (7 August 1925)

Includes letter from Captain J.F. Hollins, Quartermaster No 2 Brigade, Athlon to Toler Garvey: ‘I wish to inform you that the Troops presently in occupation of the castle will evacuate same as from the 28th inst. In accordance with our regulations it will be necessary for a representative of the Owner, a representative from the Board of Works and of the Military Authorities to examine the premises after evacuation and compile a report as to its condition in comparison to that in which it was taken over by the Military (12 August 1924)

Includes a list by A. Panton Watkinson, painter and decorator, Stephens Green, Dublin, of wear and tear and damage in Birr Castle due to the military occupation. (July 1923)

Includes list of articles missing from Birr Castle May 1927.

Also includes letter from the Committee involved in arranging a plaque to be erected at the archway to the front of Birr Castle in memory of the three young men executed by Free State Troops in 1923. Appends text of the address given by Margaret Hogan, local historian, on the events of 1923. (2003)

Correspondence (1963-70), mainly between Swayne and W. H. Milner, Portarlington, relating to a film made by Fr. Kennedy in 1921 ostensibly on the turf-cutting industry in the area, but also features the exhumation of skulls of the ‘Ballynowlart Martyrs’ who were purportedly burned alive in Ballynowlart church by English forces in the 1600s. Correspondence culminates in the deposit of the film in the National Library of Ireland.

Offaly Sinn Féin material: original resolution from North and South Offaly Executive Sinn Féin signed by Comd. Ua Duinn relating to its support of the Treaty (29 December 1921) and calling on Offaly’s representative Dr McCartan to vote for ratification, and a pamphlet entitled 'Terms of Reference 23 May 1922 Adjourned Árd-Fheis of Sinn Féin'.

Leaflets and other printed material relating to Croghan Feis organised by Offaly Vocational Education Committee (1949).
Manuscripts notes on placenames and history of Killeigh Parish and Philipstown (Daingean).

Publications: Programme for Walsh Island Second National Turf-cutting competition (1935); Knockbeg Centenary Year Book (1948); and Suncroft, a Parish Magazine (1970).

Includes a letter from Toler R. Garvey Jr land agent at Birr Castle to ‘V.J. Beaumont Nesbitt’, Tubberdaly, Edenderry on 9 June 1921 who records agitations in Birr, and laments a former way of life:

‘...Although things are bad they are not a bit worse than I had anticipated, but we must reach an end of it sometime and we, or whoever is left, may once again be able to live in peace, though I don’t think they will ever know the comfort and good times which we had in the past.’

Also includes letter to Hon. Geoffrey Parsons on 8 December 1921, revealing the anxiety surrounding the situation for landowners following the War of Independence:

‘I enclose... Notice from the Local Government Board of their intention to take the land at Croghan after all, but in view of the Settlement just arrived at on the Irish question, it seems very doubtful that they will proceed with the matter. Things have moved rapidly since I saw you and we shall be face to face with a totally new situation.’

The autograph book originally belonged to John Lennon, of Killeenmore, Killeigh, and Harbour St, Tullamore. He was an internee of the Rath Internment Camp at the Curragh (1921) and later of Tintown Camp (1923). The album contains many Laois/Offaly signatories such as E. Forrestal, Tullamore (Rath); Bob Lennon, Killeigh (Rath); Frank Bulfin TD, Derrinlough, Birr (Rath); Seaghan Ó Dulchaointigh, Crinkle, Birr (Rath); J. G. Ross, Killeigh (Rath); Patrick J. Daly, Tullamore (Hut 31, Rath), Jimmie Egan, Henry Street, Tullamore (Hut 25, Rath), Denis Walsh, Tullamore (Hut 40, Rath); Séamus O’Faolain (Hut 12 Camp 3 Tintown), Patrick Boland, Ballycumber, (Camp 3 Tintown), Walter A. Mitchell (Camp 2 Tintown); Edward Dunne, Clonaslee (Camp 2, Tintown), Sean McGuinness TD, Kilbeggan, and P. Bracken, Clonaslee (Hut 12 Tintown). Later non-political entries dating from c. 1927 are by Maggie Corcoran (later Lennon) and her relatives and friends.