The street that disappeared: Where was East View Terrace in Tullamore?
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Where was East View Terrace in Tullamore town? You would be right in thinking it has disappeared.
Where was East View Terrace in Tullamore town? You would be right in thinking it has disappeared. This is where the online maps of the old town of Tullamore can be so useful. I say the old town because it does appear that Tullamore now has over 200 streets of which only a fraction are between the canal and railway lines. Soon the town will fill what may have been the Plain of Magh Lena. That is the flat land between the high points in Screggan and the Ardan Hills.
East View Terrace is one of the lost terraces and streets of Tullamore. The building of the canal in 1798 saw Connaught Street disappear and replaced by Bury Quay/Convent, Mile Stone Lane cut in half and the old road from the barracks cut across what is now Kilbride Park and connected in with what is now Clontarf Road and Clara Street. The road of 1803 from the Clara Bridge to Dolan’s Shop was called the New Road to distinguish it (and yes, it will be soon again with all the works now in progress!)
The article this week is about housing progress made in 1880 and again in 1950. East View Terrace was a collection of six houses between what is now the Day Care Centre of HSE on Ardan Road and the Kilbeggan Bridge. The boundary on the northern side of the terrace was that of Tullamore workhouse, completed in 1841. The nearest building to the boundary was the mortuary for the workhouse and beyond the entrance lodge of the old workhouse.
Mapping issues
Confusingly the Terrace was not named on the surviving maps until the 1880s. Looking at the canal map of 1806, it seems that the land on each side of the canal west of the Kilbeggan Bridge to the west was retained by the Grand Canal Company and probably intended as a wharf. That is until a decision was made to create the present harbour. Also, that part of what is now Clontarf Road E. (opposite the bonded warehouse) was included in the townland of Tullamore and not in that of Puttaghan.
The censuses of 1901, 1911 and 1926
Even so the 1901 and 1911 censuses put East View Terrace in Puttaghan and do not name the terrace. For this we have to look at the 1926 census released in April last. Where the resident families of the time with ‘head of household’ were: Edward Scully, John Sweeney, Robert Kelly, John Pender, Jane Tandy, Patrick Horan and Mrs Ellen Dunne with 34 people in the six houses. The household of Edward Scully is also contained in the 1901 and 1911 censuses but who was in the other five houses needs further research to be sure.
So what do we know of the history of the terrace. First, the 1838 OS map shows the Terrace but does not name it. In Offaly Archives there is a donated sale notice for the Terrace dated 1862 that came to me via the late John Sweeney whose family lived on the terrace for a time.
The 1939 Housing Inquiry
There were houses on the site from at least 1838 but East View Terrace was rebuilt by Edward Scully (according to his wife) about 1880. The houses were demolished in 1948–49 and replaced by the new Clontarf Road of 82 houses – four of which faced east as did the old terrace and were numbered 1 to 4 Ardan Road while nos 1 2 and 3 in the new Clontarf Road of 1950 were occupied by the Doyle, Scully and Duffy families (see photograph).
Edward Scully, terrace developer, rentier and retired grocer, died in 1937. Two years later his wife in giving evidence to a local housing inquiry said she was the owner of the terrace and that it was built about 58 years earlier of the best of stone and mortar. Each house, she said, was well lighted and ventilated and that she had £35 clear in rental income from the houses. That would make the rent about £7 net from each of the five houses (excluding that she occupied) – or close on 3s. per week. It was a matter for the state arbitrator to fix compensation for Mrs Scully following demolition. John Duffy, the builder, was living nearby and he was paying 6s. 4d. pe week to Mrs Walsh for a good house with three rooms and a kitchen and large garden .
The county medical office in his annual report for 1938 confirmed that no houses were built by the council in Tullamore in 1938, but 22 [ at Park Avenue] had started in 1939. A total of 160 houses had been deemed unit for habitation and the new Clontarf Road of 84 [or 82] houses would meet some of the need. The Clontarf Road scheme did not start because of the war and it was 1950 before the scheme was completed.
The air must have been good in East View Terrace as it housed for a time some significant achievers in Tullamore, not least bring the Scully family, the Sweeneys, the Dowlings of GAA fame, and the mother of the late June Martin (Brigid nee Pender) was an excellent camogie player in her day.