Showing 794 results

Labour Party politician and T. D., 1922-1956

Parish councils were based on Roman Catholic parishes and were operating during the Second World War Emergency.
They were set up by Muintir na Tíre ( "People of the Country" - national voluntary organisation promoting community development) as an urgent initiative to deal with the threat of foreign invasion, food shortages and unemployment.

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.

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.

The branch of the Mulock family that lived in Bellair originated near Ballynakill, Meelick [Miloc] in East Galway. The Mulock family were Irish landowners, originating in the North of Ireland. Thomas Mulock [Mullock] from Ballynakill, Galway married Margaret Conran. Their eldest son, John Mulock [Mullock], acquired freehold interests of considerable extent and value in the lands of Ballyard (afterwards called Bellair), Kilnagarna, Castlerea and others, in the King’s County. John Mulock died without issue, and by his will of 1755, the Ballyard estate was devised to his nephew, the Rev. John Mulock and his heirs. Through his marriage to Anne Homan, The Rev. John Mulock acquired lands in Surrock, Westmeath. The Rev. John Mulock is credited with improving large tracts of land and with planting the trees on Bellair Hill. He also sponsored a dispensary and a school in Bellair to cater for the children of the families who were engaged in the flax growing and linen weaving industry. Rev. John Mulock died in 1803 after leaving his estates to his son Thomas Homan Mulock, who later left the estate to his nephew, Thomas Homan Mulock Molloy in 1843. After his death in 1889, his son, William Bury Homan Mulock, inherited the estate. In his will, William Bury Homan Mulock bequeathed Bellair House and the remainder of the estate to his niece, Lady Nina Hester, but she refused it and gave it to her niece Sheila Claude Beddington Wingfield, Viscountess Powerscourt.