About County Offaly
County Offaly sits at the centre of Ireland, its landscape dominated by the vast raised bogs of the midlands and the River Shannon on its western border. The county's early Christian heritage is notable, Clonmacnoise, founded by Saint Ciaran in the 6th century, became one of the most important centres of learning and art in medieval Europe. Offaly was renamed King's County during the Plantation, a name it kept until 1922.
History
Offaly was one of the first areas subjected to formal English plantation in the 1550s. The O'Carroll and O'Connor families had ruled here for centuries before their dispossession. The county's boglands provided refuge for displaced Gaelic families and Catholic clergy throughout the Penal period.
How Offaly families left Ireland
Offaly families emigrated through the midland routes to Dublin and Drogheda. The county's Famine experience, though severe, was somewhat less catastrophic than the western counties due to its mixed economy. Many Offaly families settled in the industrial cities of New England and the Great Lakes region.
Places worth visiting in County Offaly
- Clonmacnoise, the magnificent monastic city on the Shannon, one of the most important early Christian sites in Europe
- Birr Castle Demesne, home to the Great Telescope that was the world's largest for 70 years, set in notable gardens
- Kinnitty Castle and the Slieve Bloom Mountains, the upland ridge rising unexpectedly from the flat midlands
- Tullamore Dew Heritage Centre, tracing the history of Irish whiskey distilling in the county town
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