A visit to Birr, Co. Offaly in 2016

A slideshow of photos I took during my visit to Birr on Tuesday 17th May 2016.
Birr (Irish: Biorra) is a town in County Offaly, Ireland. It was formerly called Parsonstown, after the Parsons family who were local landowners and hereditary Earls of Rosse, and renamed at some time between 1891 and 1901. The town lies within a parish of the same name in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Killaloe.
The town is known for Birr Castle and its gardens, home of the Parsons family and also the Leviathan of Parsonstown which was for a time the largest telescope in the world.
The town is situated at the meeting of the Camcor and Little Brosna rivers which flow on into the River Shannon near Victoria Lock.
Birr railway station opened on 8 March 1858. Birr was connected by railway to Roscrea, which at the time was the terminus of a branch off the Dublin-Cork mainline from Ballybrophy. When the railway line from Roscrea to Limerick was completed, the line to Birr became a branch line. There was a very short lived railway line that connected Birr with Portumna. It opened in 1868 and closed in 1878. 5 years after the line closed it became to be known as “the stolen railway ” after the sleepers and rails were removed without authorisation by farmers and locals to build sheds and other farm buildings. The railway line between Birr and Roscrea closed for good on 1 January 1963. The station building remains in Birr. The nearest railway station to Birr currently in use is at Roscrea.
The Ormond Flying Club has been in operation at Birr Airfield for over 30 years. The area has been linked with aviation for some time - as a British Army airstrip was previously near the current field.
Birr lies on the N52 Nenagh-Tullamore-Mullingar-Dundalk and N62 Athlone-Roscrea-Thurles national secondary roads. The routes are combined as they pass through Birr. The R439, R440 and R489 regional roads also terminate in the town.
Bus Eireann Route 72 Athlone to Limerick service regularly passes through the town daily. Kearns privately owned bus service provides a number of direct bus services to Dublin from Birr.
Birr had a population of 4,370 in the 2016 Census.
A monastery was founded here by St Brendan of Birr. It produced the MacRegol Gospels, named after the abbot at the turn of the 8th/9th century and now to be seen in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The Synod of Birr, held in 697, was the occasion on which the Cáin Adomnáin, or law of innocents, was pronounced.
In Gaelic Ireland, Birr was located in the O'Carroll territory of Éile. This petty kingdom (Irish: Tuatha) formed an area that now forms the south of County Offaly and the north-east of County Tipperary. The tuatha was subject to the overkingdom (Irish: Rí ruirech) of Munster and formed a border with the Kingdom of Meath to the east. The boundary between Ely O'Carroll and the ancient Meath is co-terminous with the present boundary between the Diocese of Killaloe and the Diocese of Meath. The O'Carroll family had a castle located at the present site of Birr Castle. Following the Plantations of Ireland, Birr was located in the Barony of Ballybritt following the formation of King's County (now County Offaly) in 1556.
The town itself is an old market and former garrison town dating to the 1620s.
Birr is a designated Irish Heritage Town due to the preservation and wealth of Georgian architecture in the town. The earliest Georgian style buildings dating from 1740s are located in Emmet Square and Emmet street (then known as Cumberland Square and Cumberland Street). The column in the centre of the square dates from 1747 and was built to carry the statue of the Duke of Cumberland, known as the Bloody Duke and the victor of the Battle of Culloden. The statue was removed in 1915 as it was in danger of collapse. The Oxmantown Mall and Johns Mall were laid out in the early 19th Century.
On 31 August 1869, the first road fatality recorded in history occurred in Birr, when local born scientist Mary Ward, a cousin of The 3rd Earl of Rosse, fell from a steam-powered car on a bend. The vehicle traversed her, causing fatal injuries.
The first ever All-Ireland hurling final was played in Hoare's field (currently the location of a Tesco store) in Birr on Easter Sunday, 1 April 1888, between Tipperary and Galway. The match was won by Tipperary on a score line of 1 goal, 1 point and 1 forfeit point to Galway's no score. A forfeit point was given against a player carrying the sliotar over his own goal line. The remarkably low score, albeit under different rules to the modern game, is recorded as the lowest score ever in a hurling match in the Guinness Book of Records.
Birr GAA won the All Ireland Senior Hurling Club Championship in 1995, 1998, 2002, 2003.
Birr has a Roman Catholic Church and Church of Ireland with both dedicated to St. Brendan. There is also a Methodist Church in Birr.
The annual Birr Vintage Week and Arts Festival takes place in the town in August.

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My grandad was from Birr. He moved to Manchester as a kid and was called up during WW2 and became a tank driver in North Africa. He was a very brave man. When he died my mother found loads of Irish rebel literature and music hidden in a cupboard in his bed room.