James Rogers set up his practice at High St., Tullamore in 1908 or 1909. Following his appointment to the post of county registrar for Offaly in 1926, his partner in the firm James A. Ennis took over its management. In a neat swap, Ennis succeeded Rogers as county registrar in 1943 and Rogers returned to private practice at Rogers & Co. Eugene Hunt took over the firm in 1967 following Rogers death but it was wound up by the Law Society in 1982 due to Hunt's bankruptcy.
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 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. Ltd. in 1968.
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.
Trench, the youngest of fifteen children was born near Ballybrittas, Queen’s County in 1808, he was named Richard. His younger brother who died in infancy was christened William. However, from a young age his name was changed to William Steuart. His father, Thomas, was the Church of Ireland Dean of Kildare, his mother was the daughter of Walter Weldon of Rahinderry, Co.Laois, who was MP for Athy. He grew up in the family home Glemalyre (Glenamalire) in Bellegrove, 3kms from Portarlington. At the age of 13 he was sent to be educated at the Royal School, Armagh, where he spent six years. He later studied Classics and Science in Trinity College Dublin. On leaving Trinity he began to study agriculture and land management, carrying out improvements on his brother’s estate in Kilmorony in Co. Laois, once home of the Weldon family. He then acquired land in Cardtown in the Slieve Bloom Mountains, where he was involved in carrying out reclamation, and began extensive potato cultivation.
In 1832 he married Elizabeth Sealy Townsend, whose father was the Master of Chancery in Ireland at the time. They had one daughter, Anna Maria, born 30 January 1836. Thomas Weldon Trench was born on 11 February 1833 and John Townsend Trench was born on 17 February 1834.(Elizabeth's brother, Richard Townsend , later married William Steuart’s sister Helena.)
Trench was an author. His most famous piece of work was 'Realities of Irish Life' which was published in London in 1868. He also wrote 'Ierne' (London, 1871), and produced many short articles including sketches published in the 'Evening Hours' (London, 1871-72). However, for most of his life he was employed as a professional land agent, a position he considered himself well qualified for. He claims in 'Realities' “to have lost no opportunity of acquiring information which might qualify me to become a land agent as being the most suitable, in its higher branches to my capacity.” He was appointed agent to the Shirley estate in Co Monaghan in April 1843 but resigned in April 1845. In December 1849 he was appointed agent to the estates of the Marquess of Lansdowne in Co Kerry. Two years later he took charge of the property of the Marquess of Bath in Co. Monaghan and that of Lord Digby in King's County in 1857 and held these appointments close to his death in 1872.
Trench was noted for the improvements carried out on the estates he managed. Under his agency the Barony of Geashill experienced a golden age of prosperity. There were vast improvements in both the architecture of the village and the topography of the landscape. Such improvements gained both national and indeed international recognition for Lord Digby and earned Trench the legacy of an improver who was well ahead of his time. Similar improvements in the layout and quality of the land as well as the construction of dwellings for example a terrace of cottages in Carrickmacross were built by Trench for the key workers on the Bath estate in Co. Monaghan. With the help of his son John Townsend Trench he transformed the Lansdowne estate by improving the dwelling houses of the tenantry, raising the standard of farming, improving local services and developing local industries and fishing. He had similar plans for the Shirley Estate, which he was not allowed to pursue, leading him to resign his agency.
To facilitate such improvements Trench embarked upon the implementation of assisted emigration schemes or what he referred to as ‘voluntary’ emigration. For example in assisted emigration from the Shirley estate 1843-54, it is noted that by 1851 the flow of assisted emigrants was reduced to a trickle. However, that year marked the beginning of a significant outflow of assisted emigrants from the neighbouring Bath estate, under the agency of William Steuart Trench. Similar schemes were carried out while he worked in Kenmare in Co Kerry, where he helped to ship over 4000 destitute people to the United States and Canada. Trench looked upon such schemes as a cheap and efficient way to improve the estate. While Trench was noted for his assisted emigration schemes in Counties Kerry and Monaghan, records show that the amount of money spent on emigration in Geashill was mimimal. Nonetheless the population decreased by 40.3%. during the Trench years suggesting that in an attempt to clear the estate to make way for improvements, many people were forced to leave, receiving little or no money from him.
While Trench’s physical legacy is a positive one, there is much evidence of discontent among the tenantry especially in counties Offaly and Monaghan, which led to a flame of agitation and the rise of Ribbonism. His physical legacy was greatly overshadowed by the realities of an agent who broke leases, levelled people’s homes and banished the poor and in so doing was often ruthless in his management of the estates in his charge. In a gradual process between, December 1871 and January 1872, Reginald Digby, Lord Digby’s nephew, replaced the Trenches as land agent in Geashill. Both Trench and his son Thomas Weldon died within a few days of each other in 1872 and were buried in Co. Monaghan in Donaghmoyne cemetery.
Many of Trench’s relatives were also employed as agents throughout the country: his cousin, Benjamin Bloomfield Trench worked as agent to Charles Verner (1854) and was also agent on the Bath estate 1868-1875. George Trench was employed on the Talbot-Crosbie estate in Co. Kerry while his cousin, William Trench acted as agent on the Heywood estate in Queen’s County. Other members of the Trench family held important positions in the church, for example: Richard Chenevix Trench was archbishop of Dublin from 1864 to 1884.
Thomas Weldon Trench was born on 11 Feb 1833. He was the eldest son of William Steuart Trench and Elizabeth Susanna Townsend. Thomas Weldon was installed by his father William Steuart Trench as co–agent and local magistrate on the Digby estate in Geashill in 1857. He also acted as assistant agent on the Bath estate in Co. Monaghan. During his agency in King's County, the Barony of Geashill experienced vast improvements in both the architecture of Geashill village and the topography of the landscape. While Thomas Weldon played an instrumental role in such a transformation, he adopted a hard line authoritarian style of estate management. This is reflected in his ruthless tactics to clear the estate of small tenants and beggars, in order to create larger holdings with better drainage and more advanced farming methods. The case of Alice Dillon illustrates how the actions of Thomas Weldon Trench were ruthless and hasty in dealing with the removal of a beggar woman from the estate on Christmas Eve in 1861. His actions were questioned by the Lord Chancellor, from whom he received a strong reprimand and warning, an episode he omitted in the annual reports to Lord Digby.
Hi agency was also marked by the rise of Ribbonmen and a flame of agitation likely to be the response of aggrieved tenants towards his style of management. Similar hostilities to him existed in Co. Monaghan. By 1870, Thomas Weldon Trench resigned his post as resident agent in Geashill
and subsequently became a medical volunteer in the Franco-Prussian War. This was short-lived due to illness and he returned to Ireland later that year. He died at the relatively young age of 39 in Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan on 15 August 1872, which was just shortly after the death of his father, W. S., on the 4 August 1872. They are both buried in Donaghmoyne churchyard, Carrickmacross.He remained unmarried and died on the 15th of August 1872.
Tullamore GAA Club was founded on 26 May 1888 and won its first title in 1890 when it defeated Banagher in the final of the Offaly Championships (football). Its club colours were initially red and green, but inspired by the 1916 Rising, the club changed its colours to green, white and gold in 1917. In the early 1920s, Tullamore gave the county team the right to wear the tricolour as the county colours and adopted the blue and white colours which are still used today.
Having played in rented fields at Church Road, and then Tinnycross, the club acquired land at Ballyduff Park in the 1910s. In 1932, it developed a site on the Arden Road and in 1934, O'Connor Park was opened. Following the decision in 2001 to let Offaly County Board lease O'Connor Park, O'Brien Park was developed for use by Tullamore GAA Club.
Reginald Digby was the fifth son of Rev Kenelm Henry Digby, rector of Tittleshall in Norfolk, younger brother of Edward, 9th Lord Digby. Reginald was born in 1847 and married Caroline Grace, daughter of Rev Thomas Fremeaux Boddington in 1872. They had three daughters and one son, Lionel Kenelm Digby, rector of Tittleshall, who was killed in action in 1918. He became resident agent on the Geashill Estate in 1871 following the resignation of Thomas Weldon Trench and sole agent in 1872 on the death of William Steuart Trench. He retired in 1923, having served as agent for nearly fifty years, although by this time he had more or less transferred the agency to Lewis Goodbody of A & L Goodbody, solicitors, Tullamore, who continued as agents for the Digby family. Like the previous resident agents before him, he lived at Geashill Castle. In 1922, he needed to go to London for an operation, but was unwilling to leave the house unattended, knowing that an empty house would be a target for burning. Eventually, he could wait no longer, and the house was burned down in his absence. He died in 1927.
Maura O'Brennan, of Cormac Street, Tullamore, spent her early years in Wexford. She came to Tullamore in the early 1920s and was a member of the teaching staff of the convent national school, and except for a brief period in Mucklagh spent all of her teaching career in Tullamore. She married Alyosius O'Brennan in {??]. She was a founding member of Tullamore Guild ICA, and appeared as a guest of honour at the ICA 25th anniversary party in the Bridge House in May 1984. She died in July of that year, aged 79.