Map - Tullamore

Tullamore is the county town of County Offaly in Ireland. It is on the Grand Canal, in the middle of the county, and is the fourth most populous town in the midlands region, with 14,607 inhabitants at the 2016 census.

The town retained Gold Medal status in the National Tidy Town Awards in 2015 and also played host to the World Sheep Dog Trials in 2005, which attracted international interest in the region. The Tullamore Show is held near the town every year. The town's most famous export is Tullamore Dew – an Irish whiskey distilled by Tullamore Distillery – that can be traced back to 1829. The original distillery was shut down in 1954. The brand was later resurrected, but at first was produced at the Midleton Distillery in Cork. However, in 2014, the brand's new owners, William Grant & Sons, invested in a new distillery near Tullamore, bringing whiskey production back to the town.

In the Middle Ages, Tullamore was within the Gaelic territory of Firceall ruled by the O'Molloy clan. Firceall was part of the Kingdom of Meath. The Tullamore area was part of the first English plantations in Ireland during the 1550s when land was confiscated from the native Irish and colonized with English settlers. Firceall was divided into the baronies of Ballycowan, Ballyboy and Eglish, with Tullamore located in Ballycowan.

The Tullamore area, comprising some 5,000 acres, was granted by the English to Sir John Moore in 1622. At that time the Tullamore estate included a ruined castle, ten cottages and two water mills. Sir Robert Forth, who leased the lands from Thomas Moore (son and heir of Sir John), built a mansion house c.1641 in what is now the Charleville demesne. Charles Moore, Lord Tullamore, grandson of Thomas, eventually regained possession of the estate and when he died in 1674 it went via his sister to Charles William Bury. Charles William was later (1806) created the 1st Earl of Charleville in a second creation of the title.

On 10 May 1785, the town was seriously damaged when the crash of a hot air balloon resulted in a fire that burned down as many as 130 homes, giving the town the distinction of being the location of the world's first known aviation disaster. To this day, the town shield depicts a phoenix rising from the ashes. The event is yearly commemorated by the Phoenix festival which celebrates Tullamore's resurrection from the ashes following the accident.

The Grand Canal linked Tullamore to Dublin in 1798. During the Napoleonic Wars, a clash between troops of the King's German Legion and a regiment of British Light Infantry who were both stationed in the town, became known as the Battle of Tullamore. Tullamore became county town of County Offaly in 1835, replacing Daingean.

Tullamore has a long history of whiskey distilling, with two distilleries known to have operated in the town in the 1780s, though closed some years later. Subsequently, a new distillery was established by Michael Molloy, on the site of one of the old distilleries in 1829. When Molloy died, the distillery first passed to his brother Anthony, before eventually making its way into the hands of his nephew, Bernard Daly. When Daly died, his son, Captain Bernard Daly took ownership of the business. With an estate in Terenure, Captain Daly left the day-to-day running of the business to Daniel E. Williams, the distillery's general manager, under whose careful watch the distillery grew and prospered, and launched Tullamore Dew, the whiskey which bears his initials. Williams brought electricity to Tullamore in 1893. The distillery installed the town's first telephones and introduced motorised transport. Williams ran various commercial businesses throughout the Irish midlands – drinks businesses, tea importing, seed and grain retail, and a network of 26 general stores.

Following this period, Prohibition in the United States, an economic war with Britain in the 1930s, and World War II all harmed the industry. Tullamore was one of many Irish distilleries affected by a general decline in Irish whiskey sales worldwide. After World War II, Desmond Williams, grandson of Daniel E. Williams, used modern marketing techniques to re-establish Irish whiskey in world markets. In 1947, Desmond Williams also developed Irish Mist, an Irish liqueur made from a blend of whiskey, herbs and honey, using a recipe alleged to have disappeared in the late 17th century and to have been rediscovered in a manuscript 250 years later. Williams also capitalised on the Irish coffee concept, and promoted blended whiskeys along with Tullamore Dew.