The changing face of Offaly towns in the early 1900s: An illustrated history edited by…
The changing face of Offaly and Kinnitty in the early 1900s: launch by John Clendennen T.D. of a new book featuring Kinnitty at Giltraps’s, Kinnitty on Thursday 19 Dec. at 8 30 p.m.
Kinnitty Parish can now celebrate having two TDs, not to mention so many of of its young men on the first Offaly team to win an All Ireland back in 1924. All part of recent celebrations. What was the village like a generation earlier in the 1890s and earlier 1900s? To find out more come to the launch of The Changing Face of Offaly towns in the early 1900s published by Offaly History and for which local woman Grace Clendennen contributed an essay. Please note the launch time of 8 30 p.m. (ed.)
From the Midland Tribune of 5 Dec. 2024
Grace Clendennen writes of Kinnitty in 1901 and 1911
Like the 1901 census, the majority of Kinnitty residents in the 1911 were born in the King’s County. There were 225 people recorded in 49 houses[1]. Roman Catholic was the most common religion stated but a sizable number, 42 out 225, stated their religion to be other than Catholic[2]. Akin to the census of 1901, eight properties were listed as ‘first-class’. Two of the properties were listed as general shops. In 1901 Patrick Egan and his wife were recorded as shopkeepers. A shop assistant, a domestic servant and a yard man lived with the Egan family.
Rody Donnelly and his wife, listed as shopkeepers in 1901, were both listed as publicans in 1911. William Kinsella’s property was listed as a private dwelling in 1901 and a butcher shop in 1911. Alicia Beauman, listed as a teacher in the 1901 census lived with Georgina Helen Dagg, a national schoolteacher, and Mary Anne Hennessy, a domestic servant. William Mitchell, a farmer, lived with his wife Sarah and son Thomas. John Wilson and his wife Sarah Elizabeth were listed as general merchants. Reverend R Hitchcock lived in the Rectory with his son, Reginald M, and their servant Dora Maher. There were three occupants listed in the RIC Barracks: Margaret Shore and two constable’s Edward Joesph Roche and James Falkner.
A detail from the Lawrence view. Perhaps an entire school class out for the pose for this wonderful picture of c. 1910 in the estate village of Kinnitty. On the corner the general store of J. Hart. Lawrence Collection: courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.
The photographs of Kinnitty in the early 1900s are superb and mainly from the Lawrence Studio. There are none in this collection for Banagher, Ferbane or south Offaly below Birr.
The village of Kinnitty looking towards Birr about 1900. The postcard is from Lawrence Studio and the plate of it in b/w has survived in the National Library Collection. Always keen to praise the gentry the Chronicle recorded of a similar view it published in 1897 that ‘The lamp in front of the large tree, near Mr John Hogan’s house at that corner suggests that the villagers understand the comforts of civilization; and that it was erected by Captain Caulfeild French, D. L., supplies evidence of the kindly interest taken by this gallant resident landlord in the welfare of the Kinnitty people – an interest in which his good lady has uniformly shared. The first house opposite the spectator’s left is Mr Rody Donnelly’s [now the Slieve Bloom Bar] and the group of people on the same side of the street stand at the commencement of the road leading to Roscrea. The post office, Mr Carry’s public house, Mr Thomas Grogan’s, Merchant Tailor, are some of the houses appearing in the block on the same side; behind being the church which, however, is hid away in the background.’
Kinnitty village about 1900 with the Corrigan store to the right. In 1901 Kinnitty village had a population of 271 and 54 houses. By 1926 it was reduced to 140, or almost half – probably due to the departure of the Biddulphs, the Bernard successors, and other Protestant families. Back in the 1830s Lewis states the village had 455 inhabitants and 83 houses. By 1841 it had a population of 621 living in 96 houses.
The most famous Kinnitty resident from that period was Rex Ingram, the Irish film director, producer, writer, and actor. Rex Ingram spent a period of his youth living in Kinnitty as his father, Reverend Francis Hitchcock, was the Church of Ireland rector. The Ingrams lived in the Old Rectory at Kinnitty. The Hitchcocks moved to Kinnitty in 1903. Reverend Hitchcock was a man of firm character; alongside his normal parochial duties he was an aficionada of military affairs.
Reverend Hitchcock’s wife Kathleen designed the wonderful wooden carvings on the panels of the pulpit in the Church of Ireland. Rex Ingram left Ireland and went to America in June 1911. Ingram, a gifted and intelligent man, studied at Yale for some time and became known for his artistic approach to making silent films. Early in his professional career, Rex changed his surname to ‘Ingram’, his mother’s maiden name[3].
Ingram was one of Hollywood’s greatest silent movie directors and is best known for the film, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921).
Kinnitty Village c. 1910. Lawrence Collection: courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.
Fair Days were big days in the village in the first half of the twentieth century. Originally, there were two fairs each year, one in April and one in October. According to Lowry (2011), the fair was a day out for people and a lot of alcohol was consumed. Buyers or jobbers came from Roscrea and further afield. Local farmers would also buy cattle or mountain lambs. Bonhams were the best seller of the lot as locals wanted to buy them to fatten as they would achieve a very good price[4]. It appears that fair day was a big event in the community as the local school closed and the children helped for the day at the fair. The fair days lasted up until the 1960’s when the marts took over.
The new book of essays on the Changing face of Offaly towns was launched in Tullamore on 15 November. There are 15 essays in all with 366 pages and 380 photographs. About 100 pages of essays and pictures are about Kilcormac, Kinnitty, Birr, Birr Barracks and Shinrone, Moneygall and Dunkerrin.
A Lawrence view of Giltrap’s public house with lots of children on the street, but this time in the background. The one lamp in the town was located outside this former inn erected by the Bernard family, possibly in the 1830s. Lawrence Collection: courtesy of the National Library of Ireland
The late Paddy Lowry could recall when he started school in 1926 and has written of village life in the 1920s to the 1940s:There were two priests then where there is only one now; there was also a Rector. Kinnitty had a sergeant and three guards who would be out walking or on their bikes, now there is only one guard and he is only here now and again. There were six shops – grocery, drapery, hardware and light grocery. Just before my time there had also been three bakeries here. Cleeres had grocery, drapery and hardware businesses, they were also undertakers with a horse drawn hearse. P.H. Egan had a grocery and a hardware shop and you could get anything from a needle to an anchor. There were two pubs and they always did a good business there was Fanny Giltrap’s (now Percy Glendenning’s) and Donnelly’s (now the Slieve Bloom Bar). You also had a resident tailor, Joe Molloy, and his wife was a seamstress or “manty-maker” as she was known at that time. There were other small grocery shops and one of them had the post office. Peavoys had a hardware and a grocery shop and they also had a car for hire as had Tom Leahy. Ryans had a grocery shop and also sold animal feed. Johnny Grimes also had a small shop. People didn’t go to Birr or Roscrea very often to shop. They hadn’t the money and they hadn’t the way to travel unless a car was hired. Even bicycles were comparatively expensive. The blacksmith was Johnny Guilfoyle and before him Jimmy Holligan. Tom Feighery was a carpenter and owner of a sawmill. He might make a cartwheel and then it would be brought to the blacksmith to be “shoed” that is to have an iron band put around it using the binding wheel. Paddy Feighery, Lackaroe, and Paddy Bergin, Glendine, were two other men who were expert at making wooden wheels. Kinnitty also had a resident doctor and a nurse, or sometimes two nurses. I can remember Nurse Rigney from near Knockhill and also Nurse Talbot from Birr. So Kinnitty was a thriving place, even if there wasn’t much employment until the forestry came in 1935. There were usually about seven or eight working at the castle. The castle did most of their trading in Birr.
Castle Bernard about 1900. The house was built, incorporating an earlier structure, in the early 1830s. It was destroyed in 1922 by the Republican IRA, and like Durrow, Tullamore was rebuilt. Kinnitty is a planned estate village and from the late eighteenth century was owned by the Bernards of Castle Bernard or Kinnitty Castle. The original house on the site of the castle built in the 1830s would probably date to the Bernard purchase of the Winter estate in the 1750s or 1760s. Coote in his survey of 1801 makes no reference to the house but records of Castletown that it was the estate of Thomas Bernard who resides there. He noted that the demesne commanded a fine and extensive view and has some admirable situations for planting: ‘I know not a demesne could be more highly ornamented with timber. The plantations already made are in full vigour.’ Atkinson in 1815 described the older house as ‘a romantic villa’. Lewis in 1837 mentions the handsome mansion in the picturesque demesne. It was begun in 1833 and was not finished at the time of Thomas Bernard’s death in 1834. Tieney (Central Leinster, pp 424–29) describes the house as a hybrid of castle and Tudor manor house. The suspension bridge behind the house, now restored, is by Roberts of Mountmellick and may date to the 1840s. Unlike other villages, such as Mountbolus and Mucklagh, also owned by Bernard, he, and his successors, put planning and design into Kinnitty. Tierney describes the Church of Ireland church, on higher ground above the village, as the ‘ideal of an English parish church’, dated to 1847–51. The mausoleum of the Bernard family is on higher ground behind the church. Opposite the church is the rectory where the young Rex Ingram was brought up in the literary Hitchcock family.
It would make a perfect Christmas gift, pick up a copy using the following link: https://www.offalyhistory.com/…/the-changing-face-of…
In 1901 Kinnitty village had a population of 271 and 54 houses. By 1926 it was reduced to 140, or almost half – probably due to the departure of the Biddulphs, the Bernard successors, and other Protestant families. Back in the 1830s Lewis states the village had 455 inhabitants and 83 houses. By 1841 it was 621 living in 96 houses.
Kinnitty, like Banagher and Slieve Bloom featured on the tourist trail from the 1890s. The Chronicle was able to write of Kinnitty in 1897 as ‘one of the most picturesquely circumstanced not only in King’s County but in all Ireland; being embosomed amongst trees and undulating country, embellished by demesnes, castles, and mansions, with the neighbouring mountains of Slieve Bloom rising grandly out to enhance the view.’
The new book is available from Offaly History Centre (beside the new Aldi) in Tullamore; Midland Books and at the Birr Castle bookshop . We are also at the Bridge Centre, Tullamore from 14 December to 24 December.
Offaly History Bookshop, Bridge Centre, Tullamore, 12 2024.
The new large format book with almost 400 pictures was supported by Offaly County Council and the Decade of Centenaries.
[1] Paddy Lowry, Kinnitty – My Home in the Slieve Blooms (Kilcormac Historical Society), 2011, P. 88
[2] Kinnitty Village: My Earliest Memories. Part 2 by Paddy Lowry. https://offalyhistoryblog.wordpress.com/2022/05/07/kinnitty-village-my-earliest-memories-part-2-by-paddy-lowry/
[3] Ruth Barton, https://offalyhistoryblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/13/francis-hitchcocks-war-stand-to-a-diary-of-the-trenches-and-its-legacy-by-ruth-barton/
[4] Paddy Lowry, Kinnitty – My Home in the Slieve Blooms, Kilcormac Historical Society, 2011, P. 85
Kinnitty about 1990 with the Offaly History team arriving in the red Renault for a photoshoot. The phone was new in the early 1900s and would take on a greatly enhanced role by the late 1990s. The phone box, so long an essential requisite of any town or village, would soon depart without ceremony. In recent years Kinnitty has seen significant improvements and is well placed to win the national trophy in the Tidy Towns Awards
Well dressed school children, Kinnitty c. 1910. The Rody Donnelly store to the left. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland Lawrence Collection.