THE LONG READ: The Bishop who died in Offaly after eating mushrooms following confirmation service

Richard Pococke (1704–65) was only the Anglican bishop of Meath a few months when he found himself, in September 1765, attending to confirmation ceremonies in Ballyboy and Tullamore in his far-flung diocese. The Tullamore ceremony was probably in the old Protestant church in Church Street where the Shambles and Foresters Hall building are located today. Naturally the bishop was invited to stay at the ‘big house’ of the owner of Tullamore, Mrs Bury, the widow of the late John Bury who died a little over a year earlier in depressing circumstances. Their only child, Charles William Bury, was the heir to substantial estates of over 20,000 acres and would come of age twenty years later and live on until 1835.

The ‘big house’ of the landlord of Tullamore was called Charleville since 1740 and had been erected a 100 years earlier in 1641. To many it was probably better known as Redwood and had been acquired by Charles Lord Tullamoore from the Forth family in 1740. Lord Tullamoore was created earl of Charleville in 1758 and died, childless, in 1764.

John Bury of Limerick inherited the Moore property in King’s County through the marriage of his father to Jane Moore, sister of the first earl of Charleville. The first earl died in 1764, but Bury died by drowning in the same year leaving his wife Catherine (née Sadleir of Sopwell Hall, Co. Tipperary) and an only son Charles William. Mrs. Bury married secondly (January 1766), Henry Prittie, who became Baron Dunalley in 1801. Catherine Prittie gave leases of the Charleville lands in King’s County, but not for a period of years beyond 1785. The childless Hester Moore née Coghill, countess of Charleville also took a second husband. According to Arthur Young she had £3,000 a year out of the Charleville property. She died in 1789.

Charles William Bury (1764–1835, first earl of Charleville, second creation) reorganised his property in 1786, a year after his coming of age.⁶ A fire caused by an air balloon in 1785 destroyed about one hundred houses in Tullamore mostly in the Patrick Street area.⁷ This fire and his coming of age cleared the way for Bury to improve Tullamore. Almost all of the Patrick Street property owners and others were given new leases mostly dating from 24 March 1786. Readers of the recently published essays on O’Connor Square will be aware of the catalogue of improvements in Tullamore from the 1780s to the 1830s.

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Expansion of Tullamore initiated by Charles William Bury

Charles William Bury, first earl of Charleville, presided over the fortunes of Tullamore in the period 1785 to 1835. His career coincided with the years of development. The years of neglect during the Bury minority from 1764 to 1785 were more than compensated for. His role in the planning of Tullamore saw its post-1740 extension to O’Connor Square and High Street consolidated and the new Cormac Street, Columcille Street, Harbour Street, Bury Quay and lower Church Street developed. Soon after his marriage in 1798 Bury began building at Charleville and commenced the redesign of the demesne over the period from his majority in 1785. Work on the new house, Charleville Forest began in 1800 and was not completed until 1812. The gothic-style house/mock castle was designed by Francis Johnston with the participation of his patron.⁸ The house was formally opened in 1809, despite its unfinished state, by the then lord lieutenant the duke of Richmond.⁹ Over the next four or five years new avenues were laid about the demesne and an artificial lake created. Possibly his final embellishment was added in 1815 when a new church, designed by Francis Johnston, was completed in Tullamore.

Eating too many mushrooms at Ballyboy

Charles William Bury, earl of Charleville of the second creation from 1806, recalled the death of ‘of that worthy prelate and very learned Traveler Bishop Pococke’ and noted reports that the bishop had indulged too freely of the Champignion – ‘tis a sad reflection, that one who had traversed the torrid Zone unmolested, should suffer from so slight a cause.'

During the minority of Charles William Bury, no more than five weeks old when his father died, the Charleville estate was under the care of his mother as trustee. The demesne lands including the old Forth house were let. Everything west of the old road between Mucklagh and Tullamore was leased to Thomas Johnston, a son of John Johnston of Rath, near Birr. His relative George Stoney of Borrisokane has left a diary for the years 1765 and 1780. Mention was made in more blunt terms than those of Bury at 15 September 1765 of the death of the bishop of Meath, Dr Pococke, at Charleville, following the eating of mushrooms at Ballyboy the previous day. The bishop who had just confirmed at Tullamore, returned indisposed ‘went to his chamber, took a puke, went to bed about 5 o’clock, seemed to rest quietly, but was found dead at 12 o'clock. He complained of a pain in his stomach, which he could impute to no other cause than a few mushrooms eaten on the day before at Ballyboy.

So ended the life of that scholar and intrepid traveller Bishop Richard Pococke.

He was a well-travelled Church of Ireland clergyman who with the help of valuable sinecures was wealthy and well able to afford to travel. He visited European countries as far as Austria in the 1730s and from 1737 to 1741 he explored Egypt and Palestine, later writing up his travels as a Description of the East (2 vols, 1743–5). He also toured in England, Scotland and Ireland leaving published accounts in books and letters. He was nominated bishop of Ossory in 1756 and was there until appointed to Meath diocese in 1765. He helped restore St Canice’s Cathedral in Kilkenny and there is a memorial to his memory in that fine church and a plainer one at the cemetery close to the bishop of Meath’s see at Ardbraccan in County Meath. Pococke’s sad demise in Tullamore is not marked in any way in the new church (1815) of St Catherine’s or in Charleville Demesne.

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The old house at Redwood/Charleville

The old Redwood House was demolished by the 1840s having been replaced by the great Gothic mansion there today. What survives from Charles Moore’s time are the works to beautify the Clodiagh river as it runs through the demesne and the building of the grotto. This was probably the work of his wife, Hester daughter of James Coghill of Drumcondra, who it was said was an heiress with a fortune of £100,000. The grotto was erected within a few years of their marriage in 1737 and in a time of scarcity. This would fit with the severe frost and famine of 1741.