Showing 68 results

Authority record
Corporate body

Presbyterian Church, Birr

  • Corporate body
  • c.1839-

The Presbyterian Church in Birr grew in numbers in the 1840s following the Crotty Schism. Fr William Crotty (with his cousin Fr Michael Crotty) led this breakaway Catholic congregation to join the Presbyterian Church. Crotty's Church built to emulate a Presbyterian Hall was erected in Castle Street in 1839. A new church building for the Presbyterian congregation was erected in 1885 in John's Mall, not now in use.

Prince of Wales's Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians)

  • Corporate body
  • 1881-1922

The 100th (Prince of Wales's Royal Canadian) Regiment of Foot and 109th Regiment of Foot were amalgamated in July 1881 to form the Leinster Regiment as part of the Caldwell Reforms. Regiments were to consist of two regular battalions and three militia battalion. 1st Battalion formed from the 100th Regiment of Foot, 2nd Battalion from the 109th Regiment of Foot, 3rd Battalion from the King’s County Militia, 4th Battalion from the Queen’s County Militia and the 5th Battalion from the Royal Meath Militia. Birr Barracks, Crinkill became the depot for the regiment, where depot staff were permanently based. The Regiment took part in: Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War (1895-6), Second Anglo Boer War (1899-1902), First World War (1914-1919), Malabar Rebellion (1921). Disbanded at Windsor Castle on 12 June 1922, along with five other southern Irish Regiments.

Victoria Cross Receptions
• Lieutenant John Vincent Holland, 1916.
• Corporal John Cunningham, 1917.
• Private Martin Joseph Moffat, 1918.
• Sergeant John O’Neill, 1918.

Robert Perry & Co.

  • Corporate body
  • c.1840 – 1982

The firm of Robert Perry & Co. originally began life in Clara, King’s County. Henry Robert Perry took a lease of the Street Mill in Clara and formed the company Robert Perry & Co., Clara Mills in the 1840s or 1850s. The company was named after his father, Robert Perry, who founded Rathdowney Brewery in 1831 which brewed Perry’s Ale. In 1859, Henry Robert purchased Belmont Mills from Captain John Collins for the sum of £3275. The mill complex was located beside the site an earlier 18th century mill complex situated south of Belmont Village on the right bank of the River Brosna. The company now traded as Robert Perry & Co., Clara and Belmont Mills but by 1865, Marcus Goodbody controlled all the mills at Clara so that Robert Perry & Co. became exclusively attached to Belmont and thereafter known locally as Belmont Mills or Perry’s Mills. Henry Robert’s brother, Thomas Perry ran the mill at Belmont during the 1860s and acquired full ownership of it in 1878. He converted the adjoining derelict corn and rape mills to an oat mill and a granary. Business was brisk, much of this owing to its advantageous location. Distribution was aided greatly by both the Grand Canal, which connected Dublin with Limerick via the Shannon, and also by the Clara-Banagher railway, which had opened in 1884. There were three major fires at Belmont Mills, the first of which occurred in 1879, the year after Thomas acquired outright ownership of the mill.

Rebuilding commenced immediately and innovative machinery was installed during this time such as ‘roller mills’ as well as the traditional millstones. In 1893 the company was restructured as Robert Perry & Co. Ltd. and upgrading continued. Ernest Perry took over in 1900 on the death of Thomas Perry. A new maize mill was added between 1906-09 for the production of animal feed and a turbine was installed in 1908 to provide electricity to the mill and the village of Belmont. The mill then passed to Wilfred Perry on the death of his brother, Ernest, in 1924. Another disastrous fire in 1925 destroyed the flour and maize mills. Insurance was paid out but after a couple of years, it was rebuilt and re-opened in 1928 under the name Robert Perry & Co. (1927) Ltd. producing flaked maize, wheatmeal, oatmeal, and flaked oatmeal. The mill subsequently passed to Wilfred’s son Philip, who continued to produce oats and animal feed until his death in 1967. His wife continued the business for many years and the oatmeal mill was used to produce ‘Groato’ flaked oatmeal until c.1974. On her death in 1980, their son, David Perry took over the business. In 1982, the mill was devastated by fire for the third time. This time it was not rebuilt, but demolished, except for the granary, which had not been damaged. David Perry began work on the installation of a hydro-power station at the site to generate electricity for the national grid. Animal feed production continued in the maize mill granary and did not cease until 1997 when the entire operation was sold to a new owner, Tom Dolan.

Rockfield

  • Corporate body
  • 1798

Rockfield was built some time after 1798 by a man named Higgins who had leased the land from the Fuller Family. It wa reported that he was an informer and received bribes from the government. This likely lead to his death, as he was found dead beside his horse on the road. His son, Harry, ran though all of his money and was reduced to poverty. Captain Adam Henry Fuller purchased Rockfield with money paid for him by Marcus Goodbody for the lease of Gurteen.

When Doctor Dalkeith Holmes Plunkett-Johnston died at Streete, in Somerset, Mrs Maria Blanche Plunkett-Johnston took her daughter Constance Charlotte, to live with her mother Mrs. Lizzy Fuller at Rockfield. Mrs. Fuller died in 1902, and Ms Plunkett-Johnston went to Dublin to stay with her uncle the Reverend Abraham Stritch Fuller DD. Rockfield became the property of Abraham Augustus Fuller, who let it to a man named Griffiths. When the estate was sold, Griffiths retained Rockfield, and later sold it to a man named Walsh.

Rogers & Co., Solicitors

  • Corporate body
  • 1908-1982

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.

Roscrea Rural District Council

  • Corporate body
  • 1898 - 1925

Rural district councils were created through the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, and were eventually abolished after the partition of Ireland, by the Local Government Act of 1925.
The first meeting of the Roscrea Rural District Council No. 2 was held on Saturday 15th of April, 1899, in the boardroom of the Union Workhouse, Roscrea.

Royal Irish Liqueur Company Ltd.

  • Corporate body
  • 1968 - c. 1980

After the incorporation of the company in 1968 , five years were spend with product and consumer research. The products came out in 1973 including the flavours Coffee, Citron, Chocolate Mint and Cream Mint. In the following years the liqueurs Creme de Menthe, Chocolate and Advocat were added to the range.
The export market was the focus of the company.

Society of Jesus

  • IE IJA
  • Corporate body
  • 1540-

The Society of Jesus was founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola and since then has grown from the original seven to 24, 400 members today who work out of 1,825 houses in 112 countries. In the intervening 455 years many Jesuits became renowned for their sanctity (41 Saints and 285 Blesseds), for their scholarship in every conceivable field, for their explorations and discoveries, but especially for their schools. The Society is governed by General Congregations, the supreme legislative authority which meets occasionally. The present Superior General is Father Arturo Sosa. Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish Basque soldier who underwent an extraordinary conversion while recuperating from a leg broken by a cannon ball in battle (see picture). He wrote down his experiences which he called his Spiritual Exercises and later he founded the Society of Jesus with the approval of Pope Paul III in 1540.

From the very beginning, the Society served the Church with outstanding men: Doctors of the Church in Europe as well as missionaries in Asia, India, Africa and the Americas. Men like Robert Bellarmine and Peter Canisius spearheaded the Counter Reformation in Europe, courageous men like Edmund Campion assisted the Catholics in England suffering under the terrible Elizabethan persecutions and missionaries like deNobili Claver, González, deBrito, Brebeuf, and Kino brought the Gospel to the ends of the earth. No other order has more martyrs for the Faith.

Ignatius Loyola had gathered around him an energetic band of well-educated men who desired nothing more than to help others find God in their lives. It was Ignatius’ original plan that they be roving missionaries such as Francis Xavier, who would preach and administer the sacraments wherever there was the hope of accomplishing the greater good. It soon became clear to Ignatius that colleges offered the greatest possible service to the church, by moral and religious instruction, by making devotional life accessible to the young and by teaching the Gospel message of service to others. From the very beginning these Jesuit schools became such an influential part of Catholic reform that this novel Jesuit enterprise was later called “a rebirth of the infant church”. The genius and innovation Ignatius brought to education came from his Spiritual Exercises whose object is to free a person from predispositions and biases, thus enabling free choices leading to happy, fulfilled lives.

Jesuits were always deeply involved in scholarship, in science and in exploration. By 1750, 30 of the world’s 130 astronomical observatories were run by Jesuit astronomers and 35 lunar craters have been named to honor Jesuit scientists. The so-called “Gregorian” Calendar was the work of the Jesuit Christopher Clavius, the “most influential teacher of the Renaissance”. Another Jesuit, Ferdinand Verbiest, determined the elusive Russo-Chinese border and until recent times no foreign name was as well known in China as the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, “Li-ma-teu”, whose story is told by Jonathan Spence in his 1984 best seller. China has recently erected a monument to the Jesuit scientists of the 17th century – in spite of the fact that since 1948 120 Jesuits languished in Chinese prisons. By the way, no other religious order has spent as many man-years in jail as the Jesuit order.

Jesuits were called the schoolmasters of Europe during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, not only because of their schools but also for their pre-eminence as scholars, scientists and the thousands of textbooks they composed. During their first two centuries the Jesuits were involved in an explosion of intellectual activity, and were engaged in over 740 schools.

Then suddenly these were all lost in 1773. Pope Clement XIV yielding to pressure from the Bourbon courts, fearing the loss of his Papal States, and anticipating that other European countries would follow the example of Henry VIII (who abandoned the Catholic Church and took his whole country with him), issued his brief Dominus ac Redemptor suppressing the Society of Jesus. This religious Society of 23,000 men dedicated to the service of the church was disbanded. The property of the Society’s many schools was either sold or made over into a state controlled system. The Society’s libraries were broken up and the books either burned, sold or snatched up by those who collaborated in the Suppression. As if unsure of himself the Pope promulgated the brief of suppression in an unusual manner which caused perplexing canonical difficulties. So when Catherine, Empress of Russia, rejected the brief outright and forbade its promulgation, 200 Jesuits continued to function in Russia.

That Jesuits take their special vow of obedience to the pope quite seriously is evident from their immediate compliance with distasteful papal edicts. Clement XIV’s Suppression is one example. Another occurred earlier in 1590 when Pope Sixtus V wanted to exclude Jesus from the official name of the Society. Jesuits immediately complied and offered alternate names but Sixtus died unexpectedly before his wish could be carried out. Included among these occasional papal intrusions in the Society’s governance was Pope John Paul II’s appointment of a delegate to govern the Society during Superior General Arrupe’s illness. So edified was he at the Society’s immediate compliance that the pope later lavished extraordinary praise on the Jesuit Order.

The Society was restored 41 years after the Suppression in 1814 by Pope Pius VII. Although many of the men had died by then, the memory of their educational triumphs had not, and the new Society was flooded with requests to take over new colleges: in France alone, for instance, 86 schools were offered to the Jesuits. Since 1814 the Society has experienced amazing growth and has since then surpassed the apostolic breadth of the early Society in its educational, intellectual, pastoral and missionary endeavors.

They form a Jesuit network, not that they are administered in the same way, but that they pursue the same goals and their success is evident in their graduates, men and women of vast and varied talent.

St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg

  • IE IJA/FM/TULL
  • Corporate body
  • 1818-1991

The Jesuits bought Tullabeg in 1818 (dedicated it to St Stanislaus) and opened a preparatory school for boys destined to go to Clongowes Wood College, Kildare. St Stanislaus College gradually developed as an educational rival to its sister school. It merged with Clongowes Wood College in 1886. Tullabeg then became a house of Jesuit formation: novitiate (1888-1930), juniorate (1895-1911), tertianship (1911-1927) and philosophate (1930-1962). In 1962, it was decided that the students of philosophy should be sent abroad for study. Tullabeg subsequently became a retreat house and was closed in May 1991.

Tullamore Distillery

  • Corporate body
  • 1829-1952

Tullamore Distillery was founded by Michael Molloy in Tullamore in 1829. On Molloy’s death in 1857, the distillery passed to his nephew Bernard Daly and in 1887, his son, Captain Bernard Daly took charge.

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