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A. E. or Alfred Edwin Goodbody was admitted a solicitor in 1881, having secured a silver medal at the final examinations of June 1880. He soon after set up on his own account at 15 Dame Street and later, probably in 1888 or in 1889, went into partnership with Archibald Tisdall who was based in Tullamore. He was joined in the partnership by his brother Lewis in 1891 and after this, Tisdall appears to have worked in Birr and later, after 1900, at the Dublin office. He left the partnership in 1901 and the new firm of A & L Goodbody commenced in 1902.

In 1903, the Wyndham Land Act was passed which allowed a 12 % bonus to landlords who sold entire estates to the Estates Commissioners to administer the sales under the Act. Lewis Goodbody was well placed to secure the business. He was of a Quaker family and all the other solicitors practising in Tullamore were Catholics. In 1905 Alfred sent Lewis a sum of £150, being his share of £500 secured for the sale of the Longworth-Dames estate to the Congested Districts Board. The other £200 he was holding to advance on mortgage to a client whom he was mindful of retaining. He seems to have been getting 1% on such sales but was able to quote to landlords the then Law Society scale of 2.5% and bargain thereafter. In the case of Lord Digby’s 30,000 acre estate in King’s County the firm was probably in for £3,000 fees if the matter proceeded on a total sale value of £300,000. Digby was looking for 0.75% and Lewis 1.25%. Digby had made enquiries from other landlords but so had Alfred suggesting that he would have remained firm on the 1% as is clear from a letter Alfred wrote to his brother in February 1908. With the end of the ‘big money’ estate sales, the war and the downturn thereafter inevitably the Tullamore office would have been less profitable. By this time the Dublin office was expanding and had taken in new solicitors such as G. A. Overend who was a partner in the firm by 1913 and probably commenced practice there on qualifying in 1907.

Kenneth A. Kennedy joined the firm after the death of Alfred in 1924 and was probably a partner in the Tullamore office by 1930. Kennedy was called to the bar in 1917 and qualified as a solicitor in 1924. In 1930 Kenneth Kennedy, Lewis Goodbody and G. A. Overend acquired the fee simple as joint tenants of the office premises at High Street, Tullamore held on lease since 1913. Lewis Goodbody died in 1933 and the ownership of the firm (at least as far as Tullamore was concerned) was shared between G. O. Overend and Kenneth A. Kennedy, but not necessarily in equal shares. In 1947 a new partnership arrangement was entered into between Overend and Kennedy and the following year Kenneth A. Kennedy acquired the entire interest in the building at High Street for £800. The A & L Goodbody partnership in the Tullamore office appears at this time to have comprised of G. A. Overend, Kenneth A. Kennedy and G. G. Overend. The Tullamore building was to serve the Tullamore firm, known since the late 1940s as Goodbody & Kennedy, until 1989 when the business was sold to Dermot Scanlon by Kenneth C. P. Kennedy. Kenneth A. Kennedy had remained a partner in A & L Goodbody, Dublin until his death in December 1974 at the age of 80 but the Dublin office had no involvement in the Tullamore firm probably from the late 1940s.

Captain Bernard Daly took over Tullamore Distillery in 1887. Daniel E. Williams (1848­–1921) who had joined the distillery in 1864 as an engineer, was promoted by Daly to General Manager of the Distillery in 1885. The distillery grew in strength and in 1903 was incorporated into the company B. Daly & Co., Ltd. The most famous brand produced was the whiskey, Tullamore DEW. Captain Daly held a portion of the shares in B. Daly & Co. Ltd., and the Williams family held the remainder. D. E. Williams died in 1921 and the business was taken over by his son, Captain John Williams. In 1931, Captain Daly resigned as director of the board and the Williams family acquired all shares in the company. In response to falling whiskey sales in the 1940s, an associate company, The Irish Mist Liqueur Co. Ltd was formed in 1948 to bring a new product to the market. In 1952, the brand name Tullamore DEW was sold to Irish Distillers Ltd, and B. Daly & Co. Ltd ceased distilling and diversified into chicken production.

Gaelic games were introduced to the Ballinamere area in the late 1880s and an official club was established in the early years of the 20th century. In 1909, Ballinamere players amalgamated with Tullamore to field a team which won the first hurling championship for North Offaly. Following a decline in the participation of the sport in the area in the succeeding years, it underwent a revival in the 1930s and the club exists to the present day.

Birr Business and Professional Women’s Club was formed in the County Arms Hotel, Sept-Nov 1967 (article in Midland Tribune, 2 Nov 1967) – the first business and professional women’s club to be formed in the Republic outside of Dublin.

Clongowes Wood College was bought by the Jesuits in 1814 at the cost of £16,000. In 1886, the Jesuit-run St. Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, county Offaly, was amalgamated with Clongowes Wood College. The school is dedicated to St. Aloysius of Gonzaga and is twinned with Portora Royal School, Enniskillen.

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.

Public house near Geashill, Co.Offaly, owned by Henry Bryan. Known to be meeting place of local Ribbonmen.

While working in Tullamore Distillery since 1864, D. E. Williams had also established his own grocery business in 1891 in Tullamore. This rapidly expanded to 26 bars, groceries and hardware stores all within a 30-mile radius of Tullamore. The branch houses, mostly licensed, were in located in neighbouring towns, and the company expanded into an important wine and spirit business, general wholesale, tea and mineral waters. D. E. Williams Ltd. also had interests in malting and seed/corn dealing, which expanded in the 1950s as it became the supplier of malt to other distillers and brewers through the Midland Malting Co.

In 1961, D. E. Williams Ltd. expanded into the supermarket business and established the chain of Five-Star supermarkets, some on the sites of the original Williams branch shops. In 1966, the Williams Group Tullamore Ltd was incorporated and comprised the companies D. E Williams Ltd., B. Daly & Co. Ltd, Keily & Co. Ltd., and Irish Mist Liqueur Company.

In 1997 both companies were sold to Greencore plc.