Tullamore Town Hall (), is a municipal building in Cormac Street,

Tullamore Tullamore (; ) is the county town of County Offaly in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is on the Grand Canal (Ireland), Grand Canal, in the middle of the county, and is the fourth most populous town in the Midland Region, Ireland, Midlands Reg ...

County Offaly County Offaly (; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. It is named after the Ancient Ireland, ancient Kingdom of Uí ...

, Ireland. The building currently accommodates the local offices of

Offaly County Council Offaly County Council () is the local authority of County Offaly, Ireland. As a county council, it is governed by the Local Government Act 2001. The council is responsible for housing and community, roads and transportation, urban planning and ...

History

The building was commissioned as a private residence by a local developer, Captain Thomas Acres, who also served as an officer in the Tullamore Yeomanry Corps. The site he selected, which was at the junction of the three principal roads in the town, was acquired from the

lord of the manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

Charles Bury, 1st Earl of Charleville Charles William Bury, 1st Earl of Charleville Royal Society, FRS, Society of Antiquaries of London, FSA (30 June 1764 – 31 October 1835), known as The Lord Tullamore between 1797 and 1800 and as The Viscount Charleville between 1800 and 1806, w ...

, whose seat was at

Charleville Castle Charleville Castle is a Gothic architecture, Gothic-style castle located in County Offaly, Ireland, bordering the town of Tullamore, near the River Clodiagh. It is considered one of the finest of its type in the country. History The first ma ...

. The building was designed in the

neoclassical style Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...

, built in coursed

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

and was completed in 1786. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing onto Cormac Street. The central bay contained a doorway with a

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window (transom window), often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing (window), glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open Hand fan, fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, ...

, an

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...

, and a

lantern A lantern is a source of lighting, often portable. It typically features a protective enclosure for the light sourcehistorically usually a candle, a oil lamp, wick in oil, or a thermoluminescence, thermoluminescent Gas mantle, mesh, and often a ...

. The other bays on the ground floor and all the bays on the first floor were fenestrated by square-headed

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s with

window sill A windowsill (also written window sill or window-sill, and less frequently in British English, cill) is the horizontal structure or surface at the bottom of a window. Window sills serve to structurally support and hold the window in place. The ...

s. There was a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

and a pitched slate roof above. Acres named his new house "Acres Hall" and went on to commission a folly, a two-storey tower with an under croft, in the garden of his house, to celebrate the British victory in the

Peninsular War The Peninsular War (1808–1814) was fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Kingdom of Portugal, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French ...

. After Acres died in 1836, the building passed down the Acres Family and, by marriage, down the Pierce family, until it was acquired by Patrick Eagan, the proprietor of P. & H. Egan, maltsters, in around 1890. It then passed down the Egan family until the 1980s. Tullamore Urban District council, established under the

Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 ( 61 & 62 Vict. c. 37) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that established a system of local government in Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots diale ...

, in 1899, was based in an office in Tullamore Courthouse until 1974, when it relocated to a building in O'Connor Square which it shared with the County Library and the County Motor Tax Office. After finding this arrangement unsatisfactory, the urban district council acquired Acres House in the 1980s. The building was converted for municipal use at a cost of £450,000, and then re-opened by the Minister for Labour,

Brian Cowen Brian Bernard Cowen (born 10 January 1960) is an Irish former politician who served as Taoiseach and Leader of Fianna Fáil from 2008 to 2011. Cowen served as a TD for the constituency of Laois–Offaly from 1984 to 2011 and served in several ...

, as Tullamore Town Hall on 22 June 1992. The building continued to be used as the offices of the urban district council until 2002, and then as the offices of the successor town council. In November 2013, Father Michael Kelly, who was known for his education work in relation to the

HIV/AIDS epidemic The global pandemic of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) began in 1981, and is an ongoing worldwide public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), by 2023, HIV/AIDS ...

in Zambia, attended the town hall to receive a civic award for his work. In 2014, the council was dissolved and administration of the town was amalgamated with

in accordance with the

Local Government Reform Act 2014 The Local Government Reform Act 2014 (No. 1) is an Act of Parliament, act of the Oireachtas which provided for a major restructuring of local government in the Republic of Ireland, local government in Ireland with effect from the 2014 Irish loca ...

History

References

Further reading