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 Miss Jane Bulfin, (Research Librarian with the Tipperary Studies Section of Thurles Library), pictured here with the Dermot F. Gleeson gold medal. A gold medal for ‘Oratory’, awarded in 1917-1918, by the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland to historian, author and Co. Clare District Justice for some 20 years, Mr Dermot F. Gleeson, has now been returned on long term loan to his beloved county of Tipperary.
Born in 1896 in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary into the family of Michael Gleeson, Mr Dermot F. Gleeson was a pioneer of Tipperary local history. His publications include “The Last Lords of Ormond” (1938) and “A History of the Diocese of Killaloe” (1962).
Mr Gleeson also contributed dozens of articles to learned journals and indeed the popular press, discussing a wide variety of aspects relating to local history. He was also a hard-working District Justice and was the youngest of a batch of twenty-seven District Justices to be appointed to the new Irish Free State of 1922. Mr Gleeson, would sufferer a heart attack and pass away, while attending a recreated Medieval Banquet as a guest in Bunratty Castle, on September 23rd, 1962, aged 66 years. (R.I.P.)
The one hundred-year-old unique gold medal now takes pride of place in the Tipperary Studies section of Thurles County Library, this week at The Source, Cathedral Street, Thurles, and can be viewed during their normal hours of opening.
This unique piece of Tipperary history was kindly presented to the Tipperary County Council Library Service on long-term loan by Mr Donough Gleeson, latter son of Mr Dermot F. Gleeson. The Gleeson family recently travelled here to Thurles from their home in England, to make the presentation, happy in the knowledge that this Gold Medal, has been returned to Mr Gleeson’s native homeland on this, the centenary of his first receiving this prestigious award.
The Tipperary Studies section of Thurles Library is also the home to many of Mr Dermot F. Gleeson literary and historic publications.
Author, Poet and Journalist Tom Ryan reports:
Presentation Sister Patricia Wall from Ballingarry, Thurles, Co. Tipperary, affectionately nicknamed “The Flying Nun”, after she did a skydive for charity at the age of seventy five years; reached further new heights last Saturday.
The hugely popular nun, who is a former ‘Volunteer of the Year’ award winner and sister of former Tipperary All-Ireland Senior Hurling Team Captain of 1958, Tony Wall, celebrated both her 80th birthday and the Diamond Jubilee of her profession, at a convivial function attended by family members, including her brother, Tony and several hundred parishioners, in Anner Hotel, Thurles.
 Other family members present at the special Mass, celebrated by Fr. Joe Walsh with Fr. J.J. O’Rourke also present, included Sister Patricia’s sister, Mrs Helen De Veale; her brothers, Aidan, Tony and Michael and other relatives, neighbours and friends.
The presentation of symbols at the Mass featured Sister Patricia’s Volunteer Award; a lantern; a book, and flags of Zimbabwe and New Zealand, where she has ministered in the past.
Sister Patricia Wall, formerly of No.10, Fianna Road, Thurles and other Presentation Sisters renewed their Vows on the very special and unique occasion when many tributes were paid to the good- humoured, caring and selfless nun of many talents, as outlined by Ms Clare Cashman, latter Manager of the Millennium Resource Centre in Glengoole.
Local County Councillor, Imelda Goldsboro and Fr. Joe Walsh also lauded the sterling qualities of the ever-energetic Sister Patricia who is regarded as a great organiser. Other Public Representatives present included Dáil Éireann Deputies, Jackie Cahill, Seamus Healy and Mattie McGrath.
Present also were representatives of the numerous voluntary and community organisations in historic Slieveardagh where the Irish Tricolour was flown for the first time in Ireland, said Sister Patricia. This writer learned many years ago that it was brought over from France to Waterford, but Thomas Francis Meagher wished it to be flown for the first time near the historic village of The Commons, Ballingarry (SR), scene of the significant 1848 rebel uprising, (battle of the Widow McCormack’s Cabbage Patch) as a major symbolic gesture from a European context.
Sister Patricia, who featured in a video presentation by Mr Kealy of Ballingarry Community Development committee, spent 40 years devoted to teaching and “bringing the charism and vision” of the Presentation Sister’s foundress, Nano Nagle, to the classroom and in one instance into the home of a person for five years for home schooling.
She spent 12 of her 40 years in school work in New Zealand (six years) and in Zimbabwe (six years). She has been Principal of Presentation Secondary School in both Thurles and Ballingarry and was a good friend of the Arts here in Thurles, indeed I can personally vouch for her help with the production of a play of mine, “Children of the Nation”, which won awards for Presentation Secondary School, Thurles in the Co. Tipperary Schools Drama Festival.
Among those present on the night were Mr Denis and Mrs Sadie Heffernan, who have done so much for theatre in Slieveardagh Region. Teachers and former teachers present included Mr Joseph Moran, former National President of the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI).
Sister Patricia spent the last 20 years doing volunteer work in the Slieveardagh area, where she is a legend in the true sense of that word and to whose people in Glengoole , Ballingarry, Ballynonty, etc.
She has given unstinting and devoted service, displaying her many talents in the process and achieving so much, as outlined by Millennium Resource Centre Manager in Glengoole, Ms Clare Cashman.
A sumptuous repast was enjoyed by all, in the best traditions of the Presentation Order and Slieveardagh people, and a night of music followed when many happy memories were exchanged. Music for the Mass was provided by Sister Theresa of Presentation Secondary School, Ballingarry, with both the Mass vocals and music truly uplifting.
A number of French Transition Year and 5th year students; part of a student exchange programme undertaken by Scoil na mBraithre Chriostai (C.B.S) secondary school, and Coláiste Phobal Ros Cré, are presently visiting the towns of Thurles and Roscrea this week.
Here in Thurles, on Monday morning last the group were the guests of Hayes Hotel, who kindly invited them to partake of mid-morning tea and scones, together with a one-hour history lecture on Ireland’s Great Famine (1845-1850).
The group is being led by French and English-speaking teachers; Mary Kennedy, Pauline Deegan, Anne Marie Mullins, Isabelle Herlet and Sylvie Lissillour.
The all fluent English-speaking students, were formally welcomed to Thurles town by Independent T.D. Mr Michael Lowry, Ms Philomena Cunlu (Asst. Man. Hayes Hotel) and Mr Tiernan O’Donnell (Principal Thurles C.B.S.).
Lady Elisha (Elizabeth) Mathew
The students were surprised to learn that during the Great Famine period in Ireland’s history, while England may have ruled Ireland; Thurles and its lands were owned by a French diplomat of aristocratic descent.
The once owner of Thurles Town, Francis James Mathew, 2nd and last Earl of Llandaff, had been a spendthrift. To pay his enormous racing and gambling debts, he had sold all the family estates in Wales and some of his Irish estates; while heavily mortgaging the remainder including Thurles. He died suddenly, intestate, in Dublin on 12th March 1833, leaving no issue. His divided estate lands here in Tipperary then passed to his sister, Lady Elisha (Elizabeth) Mathew, born in 1781, and who herself died unmarried at her house in Molesworth St., Dublin, on 14th December 1841.
Following her death, Lady Elisha Mathew, in her legal right, and through her Will, bequeathed the Mathew, Earl of Llandaff (Welsh: Eglwys Gadeiriol Llandaf,) estates, including Thurles, Co. Tipperary (latter 1,713 acres), to her cousin the Comte de Jarnac, Viscount Chabot, (1815-1875), of the house of Rohan, France.
Thomas F. Meagher – Irish Flag.
The student group also learned, possibly for the first time, that Thomas Francis Meagher and William Smith O’Brien leaders of the failed Irish Nationalist uprising at Ballingarry (SR) Co. Tipperary, (Also known as the Battle of Widow McCormack’s Cabbage Patch), in 1848; having visited France to study revolutionary events there, had returned to Ireland with the new ‘Flag of Ireland’, a tricolour of Green, White and Orange made by, and presented to both men by French women sympathetic to the Irish cause.
Today, Article 7 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, Constitution of Ireland, confirms; ‘The national flag is the Tricolour of green, white and orange’.
Before we discuss what Street Furniture has mysteriously vanished, let us discuss for a moment what, today at least, currently exists.
We pass them every day giving them little recognition; but very soon the Irish Post Box is likely to become obsolete. Indeed, were it not for that essential correspondence each November with Father Christmas and our insistence on sending other miscellaneous thingamajigs, such as invitations, Christmas cards; this service would have vanished altogether.
Walled Post boxes and Post Pillar Boxes, where they currently exist in Thurles today, remain the once symbol of a more autonomous order, which demanded at all levels, high standards. With education being encouraged during Victorian times, communication, through the writing of letters was being identified as essential. Children were being encouraged to attend schools, except of course during peak harvest times, when family run farms saw crop saving as taking precedence; deemed more necessary to the needs of family preservation, than education.
Browse in any well stocked Irish tourist shop, which sells greeting cards, and you will most likely find a postcard featuring a green post box. Check same on any real street-scape scene today however, and you will find such collection boxes in an extremely neglected state, many gagged with “Out Of Service” signs, (See picture one above). The changeover, by modern society, to mobile phone text messaging and emailing have seen the news filled, multiple page, hand written, letter to the family, become almost as extinct as the white Rhino.
Irish Post boxes erected before 1922 usually carry the insignia, or cipher, of the reigning British monarch, dating the time of is initial placement. The vast majority of such postal collecting boxes arrived here in Thurles during the reign of Edward VII, (1901 until his death in 1910).
The oldest free-standing cast-iron pillar box in use in Thurles, (c. 1879), today sits on the south side of Friar Street, placed there during the reign of Queen Victoria (1819 -1901). Same is identified by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage as being an interesting example of good quality street furniture, with high-quality design and execution.
Óige Sinn Féin opposed to British symbols on post boxes in Northern Ireland believing that they could fight oppression and bring about a united Ireland by painting the red post boxes in a Republican green. Behaving rather like Islamic State (ISIS) followers in Syria and then in Iraq, they also, in a much more minor way of course, began the destruction of their heritage, attacking unsuspecting pillar boxes, foolishly believing that a two-inch paint brush, would strike terror and thus the deciding blow in attaining a united Ireland.
Alas, no one had informed their leadership that when these red postal pillar boxes were first introduced, most of same had been painted a dark green. It wasn’t until 1874 that the British Post Office had decided to paint them Royal Red, in an effort to ensure that they could be recognised more easily, by letter writers. With the arrival of Irish Independence, the Irish Post Office changed the colour red back to green here in our new Irish Republic.
Interesting to note; when a postal surveyors job came up in central Ireland in 1841, the position was quickly filled by the renowned British novelist Anthony Trollope, (1815-1882). Trollope was based initially in Banagher, King’s County, (Co Offaly), just 10 miles from the Tipperary border, with his work consisting largely of inspection tours in the province of Connaught. Trollope remained stationed at Banagher until late 1844, when he was transferred to Clonmel, here in Co. Tipperary; living at Briarview House, Marlfield, just a couple of miles west of Clonmel town. It is he whom today we credit with the introduction of the Irish pillar box.
Missing Thurles Street Furniture.
It is described in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage as a Cast-iron Water Pump, set on a platform with Stone Trough. It had a banded shaft and curved handle with fluted neck and fluted cap with pineapple finial. It had a foliate decoration where the spout met the neck.
The inventory goes on to say, “This water pump has an unusually comprehensive repertoire of artistic detailing, including banding, fluting, and foliate decoration to the spout. The pump is located at the junction of three streets, a typically busy location for a water source for the community. While no longer in use today, it still makes a positive contribution to the street-scape”.
What it wrongly stated is that it was erected c.1870; factually it was erected in the late 1980’s by the late Mr Wilbert Houben, Mr Joe O’Regan and myself, when we were members of Thurles Tidy Towns. I personally purchased the cut stone trough and pump, referred to in this National Inventory of Architectural Heritage; the trough from Auctioneer Mr John Gleeson who located it at my request.
The water pump and cut stone trough were removed a few years back, with the knowledge of Tipperary County Council & Thurles Urban District engineers, who stated that same would be returned, following the installation of the Cathedral Street Roundabout. This Street Furniture, consisting of the donated water pump and cut stone trough, were never returned and I would love to know would the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage be able to confirm their current whereabouts.
Maybe our elected Municipal District Public Representatives, (all committed, as one would expect, to developing a strong sense of pride in our Thurles community), their fellow committed County Engineers and District Administrators, would stick their heads outside the door, to let a yell down the yard, so as to enquire into who might have seen them last.
What has Thurles Railway Station, Co. Tipperary and the English Houses of Parliament got in common?
Mr Sancton Wood (1815–1886) was an English architect, born in the London Borough of Hackney. He was the son of Mr John and Mrs Harriet (née Russell) Wood, his mother being a niece of the painter and antiquarian draughtsman, Mr Richard Smirke, (1778–1815).
Back in 1845, the first year of the Great Famine here in Ireland, Mr Sancton Wood won a competition for the designing of Kingsbridge StationA. in Dublin (Built 1846). The competition, commissioned by the Great Southern & Western Railway Company, saw Wood’s designs selected unanimously by the railway company’s London Committee, despite the fact that the Dublin Committee had favoured the design of an Irish architect, Mr John Skipton Mulvany, latter a founder member of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Art, situated in our capital city of Dublin.
A. Note: Kingsbridge Station in Dublin of course is today called Heuston Station, renamed in honour of Seán Heuston, an executed leader of the 1916 Easter Rising, who had worked in the offices of Kingsbridge Station.
In that same year Mr Sancton Wood was appointed as architect to the Great Southern & Western Railway Company; designing all the railway station buildings between Monasterevin, Co. Kildare (including Thurles Railway Station) and Limerick Junction inc..
All of these station houses, with the exception of Limerick Junction station, are designed in a gabled picturesque Gothic style. Mr Wood also later became an architect to the Irish South Eastern Railway Company, which developed their railway line between Carlow and Kilkenny from 1848-1850. Six years later Mr Woods work, with reference to Ireland, appears to have ceased altogether.
 Top Pic.: Thurles in 1846, before the introduction of the Railway in 1847/48. Middle Pic.: Back entrance view of Thurles railway station. Bottom Pic.: Front entrance of Thurles railway station. Architect Mr Sancton Wood – The Early Years
Having developed a taste for drawing, Sancton Wood’s mother arranged to have him admitted to the office of his cousin, Sir Robert Smirke, RA. (Royal Academy), latter then an artist and leading London architect. From here he was transferred to Mr. Sydney Smirke, R.A., who succeeded to his brother’s practice. He remained with Mr Sydney Smirke for several years, working on the drawings of important works; which included sketches of the designs for the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament, which Sir Robert Smirke had already prepared for Sir Robert Peel B. the Prime Minister of the then English Conservative Party government, (1834–35), following a fire on October 16th, 1834.
B. Sir Robert Peel had entered politics in 1809, at the age of just 21 years, as an MP for the Irish rotten borough of Cashel, just 14 miles from Thurles here in Co. Tipperary. The son of a wealthy textile-manufacturer and politician 1st Baronet Sir Robert Peel, would ensure that his son Robert would become Chief Secretary for Ireland and the first future Prime Minister of England, from an industrial business background. With a double first in Classics and Mathematics from Christ Church, Oxford, and law training at Lincoln’s Inn; in 1809 Peel would become known as the father of modern policing, with his forces nicknamed ‘bobbies’ in England and less affectionately known as ‘peelers’ here in Ireland. In 1829, in setting up the principles of policing in a democracy, Peel declared that, quote: “The police are the public and the public are the police.”
It was Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel who first imported, secretly, maize into Ireland for the first time, which due to the lack of knowledge on how to properly cook it; same became known as “Peel’s brimstone”. His attempt to breech a ‘Laissez-faire (or ‘Let Do’) system of economics in Ireland, saw him loose out to Lord John Russell as Whig Party Prime Minister in 1846.
Following this Houses of Parliament fireC. the immediate priority for the British government, was to provide accommodation for the next Parliament, and so the ‘Painted Chamber’ (Latter the medieval Palace of Westminster), and the ‘White Chamber’ (Latter the meeting place of the House of Lords from 1801), were both hastily re-roofed and repaired for temporary use by the Houses of Lords and Commons respectively, under the direction of the only remaining architect of the Office of Works, the said same Sir Robert Smirke.
C. Yet, one other famous artist, William Turner RA. [Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)], had watched the burning of the House of Lords and Commons in 1834, before painting several canvasses depicting the scene.
Sir Robert Smirke’s temporary repairs to House of Lords and Commons were demolished in 1851, with the House of Commons deciding in favour of an open competition for the proposed rebuild. Alas, Sir Charles Barry conceived the eventual winning design for the New Houses of Parliament; the construction of which he continued to supervise until his own death in 1860.
Mr Sancton Wood died at his home in Putney Hill, in south-west London, England SW, on April 18th 1886, and is buried in Putney Cemetery.
Today, Thurles Railway Station, which officially opened on March 13th 1848, boasts two through platforms and one terminating platform and remains a major stopping stage on the Dublin-Cork railway line, with numerous trains running hourly in both directions daily. Three times winner of the Irish Rail Best Intercity Station prize, it was also from here that on August 5th 1848 William Smith O’Brien was arrested, following his unsuccessful insurrection in Ballingarry, South Tipperary, known by the British disparagingly as the “Battle of the Widow McCormack Cabbage Patch”.
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