Birr
Birr (Biorra, "plain of water") is a town in County Offaly in the Midlands of Ireland, with a population of 4700 in 2022. It’s a well-preserved Georgian town with graceful streets and elegant buildings. From 1620 to 1899 it was called Parsonstown for the Parsons family who were local landowners and Earls of Rosse. In the Victorian era the 3rd Earl built a telescope that put Birr at the leading edge of astronomy.
Understand
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The first documented telescope was a patent of 1608: Galileo quickly learned of it, built his own, and made a series of discoveries. These early designs used refractive lenses, which distorted the light with a rainbow-effect on the colours, so their useful size was limited. Then came reflectors, using concave mirrors to focus distant light - these could be made much larger, hence magnify more, and probe deeper into space. William Parsons (1800-1867), the 3rd Earl of Rosse, built a 36-inch reflector and reckoned he could go further. No dilettante aristocrat he: he took first class honours in mathematics and had a distinguished academic career. The main technical challenges were accuracy of mirror grinding, tarnishing of the mirror surface, and supporting and maneuvering such weight. By 1845 his "leviathan" 72-inch telescope was completed at Birr Castle, with its great cylinder and mounting looking like a steamship met with an accident down a beer-cellar trapdoor.
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, when a new planet swims into his ken.... — the Leviathan came just too late to discover Neptune, but many other bodies were seen for the first time, or as never before. The main work of the telescope was on stars, mapping their position, brightness and colour. Particularly puzzling were "nebulae", fuzzy things, were they clouds, or masses of stars that couldn't be distinguished, or what? Parsons showed that some (such as Andromeda) were star masses, and therefore incredibly distant even compared to most stars, in other words they were separate galaxies. But his rival John Herschel (whose father had discovered Uranus) maintained that at least some were gas clouds, within which stars were born, to live and die in various ways. Just as geologists such as Hutton had shown the continuing evolution of landscapes, and Darwin was revealing that biological evolution continued, so this controversy revealed a still-evolving, turbulent universe. And all this was achieved using only the visible light spectrum, observed from the bottom of earth's moist and murky atmosphere, beneath the clouds that tumble over the midlands of Ireland.
Get in
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From Dublin by road follow M7 to Roscrea then north on N52.
Kearns Bus 845 / 847 runs from Dublin Ha'penny Bridge, taking 2 hr 30 min via Tullamore. There are 4 M-F, two Sa and three Su; some start from Dublin airport.
Bus 843 from Birr runs via Tullamore twice M-F mornings to Maynooth (2 hr), returning in the afternoon.
Altogether between Birr and Tullamore there are nine buses M-F, three Sa and 4 Su. Tullamore is the nearest railway station, with hourly trains between Dublin Heuston, Athlone and Galway.
Kearns buses from Galway take 1 hr 50 min via Portumna and Loughrea, with two on Friday and Saturday, one on Sundays; no service M-Th.
Local Link Bus 850 runs six times a day from Athlone to Clonmacnoise, Shannonbridge, Banagher, Birr and Roscrea. On Sunday it continues to Thurles.
Bus Éireann 72 runs on Sunday from Limerick via Nenagh to Birr (80 min), and continues to Athlone (another 50 min).
1 Emmett Square is Birr's main bus stop.
Get around
[edit]Walk or cycle.
Taxi firms are DK Cabs (+353 87 690 2174) and Hensey’s (+353 87 666 1420).
See
[edit]- Birr town centre is a well-preserved Georgian townscape. The best of it is around Emmett Square where N52 makes a zigzag, John's Place branching east, and leafy Oxmantown Mall starting a block north and leading to the castle gates. The square used to be "Cumberland Square", and the column bore a statue to the Duke of Cumberland, victor at Culloden in 1746. In 1915 the statue was removed before it either fell down or was furiously torn down. The square is now named for Robert Emmett (1778-1803), executed for rebellion: "When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then and not till then, let my epitaph be written" - though there are over 70 different versions of his final speech from the dock.
- John’s Hall is a neoclassical building of 1833, originally a Mechanics Institute then a council building and now an exhibition venue. The Seffin Stone in front has been moved here from its original site in Seffin village: its inscriptions date it to 3200 BC like Newgrange. In folklore it marks the exact centre of Ireland, and was inscribed by Finn MacCool, hence Suigh Finn the seat of Finn, so what part of his giant anatomy was doing the inscribing?
- 1 Birr Castle, Rosse Row R42 VO27, ☏ +353 57 912 0336, reception@birrcastle.com. Mar-Oct daily 9AM-6PM. The castle was built from 1620 and "gothicised" in the 19th century. It's the home of the seventh Earl of Rosse, Brendon Parsons (b 1936), with guided tours. But the main attraction is the grounds and gardens, of which the centrepiece is "The Leviathan of Parsonstown", the great telescope completed in 1845. It's a 72-inch reflector: the third Earl devised methods of grinding a mirror weighing three tons, and it was the world's largest telescope until 1917. It was mounted on an iron arc, giving it a wide range of altitude, but limited azimuth (side-to-side) so objects could only stay in view for an hour. The telescope was used to 1890 then succumbed to disuse, but was restored in the 1990s. In 2017 a low-frequency radio telescope was installed in the castle grounds. Garden £14, with castle tour £22.
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The first automobile fatality
Mary Ward (1827-69) was a notable astronomer and naturalist: her cousin was the 3rd Earl of Rosse so she was a frequent visitor to Birr Castle. The Earl's sons built a steam-powered car and the family went for a jaunt in it, but she was thrown from it on a bend near town. She fell under the wheels and was killed, the world's first known automobile fatality. |
- Crotty's Church on Castle St looks like a Presbyterian chapel and indeed became one, but it was built by a breakaway Roman Catholic faction. Michael Crotty was the local curate and in 1826 thought he'd been appointed as parish priest, then another fellow got the post. Crotty was excluded from the new RC chapel that he'd done much to establish, and together with his cousin William Crotty began to preach a doctrine of piqued anti-popery. These latter-day Luthers didn't have 95 theses to nail to the church door but had many priestly abuses to rail against, such as "clay money": people were paying for consecrated clay to be put into their coffins, to save their dead bodies from sullying by heretic remains. The Crottys had 1000 followers and by 1839 had built the Castle St chapel, nicely in time for the schism to peter out. Their bilious ranting sermons drove parishioners either back into the arms of the RC mother church, or to the Presbyterians for more of the same.
- 2 Leap Castle: see Roscrea for this ramshackle Gothic pile, energetically touted since 1910 as Ireland's most haunted house. There are so many contenders for that title, there needs to be a structured, televised tournament, with the spookiest qualifying for the European Finals in Transylvania.
Do
[edit]- Birr Theatre & Arts Centre, Oxmantown Mall R42 X407, ☏ +353 57 912 2911, info@birrtheatre.com. Theatre, music, film, dance and comedy.
- Birr Leisure Centre has a gym, pool and fitness classes. It's by the rugby club north side of County Arms.
- 1 Birr Golf Club, The Glens R42 XK68 (off R439), ☏ +353 57 912 0082, birrgolfclub@eircom.net. Woodland course, blue tees 5853 m, par 70.
- 2 Birr Equestrian Centre, Kingsborough House, Fortel R42 EV79, ☏ +353 87 244 5545. They offer lessons and treks.
- Birr Vintage Week is an arts festival in August.
Buy
[edit]The main store is Tesco on Railway Road south side of town, open M-Sa 8AM-10PM, Su 10AM-9PM.
Eat
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- Christiano’s Pizzeria, 6 Connaught St R42 EC94, ☏ +353 57 912 0937. W Th 5-11PM, F-Su 4-11PM. Friendly place for trad Italian pizza.
- Emma's Café, 31 Main St R42 A782, ☏ +353 57 912 5678. M-Sa 8AM-5PM, Su 9AM-5PM. Coffee shop and deli.
- 1 The Thatch, Military Road, Crinkill R42 Y036 (2 km south of Birr), ☏ +353 57 912 0682, info@thethatchcrinkill.com. W Th 4-9PM, F Sa 12:30-9PM, Su 12:30-7:30PM. This 200-year-old thatched pub serves trad Irish fare, some vegetarian options.
Drink
[edit]- Connaught St has Nolan’s, Brian Whelahan’s and Molloy’s.
- The Chestnut, Green St R42 E279, ☏ +353 87 220 8524. M-F 5-11:30PM, Sa Su noon-midnight. Charming bar founded in 1823 with cosy turf fires and dark wood interiors. Sometimes has trad Irish music.
- Kelly's, Green St R42 A627, ☏ +353 57 912 0175. M-F noon-11:30PM, Sa Su 11AM-11:30PM. Old style pub with good atmosphere and food.
- Fighting Cocks is on Townsend St.
Sleep
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- Dooly's Hotel, Emmet Square R42 KC56, ☏ +353 57 912 0032, info@doolyshotel.ie. Midrange hotel in 1747 coaching inn (though modern within), does good food. B&B double €130.
- The Stables, 6 Oxmantown Mall R42 TD21 (block north of Emmett Square), ☏ +353 57 912 0263. Georgian townhouse with five guestrooms. It also has a tea-room and shop. B&B double €180.
- 1 Townsend House, Townsend St R42 TK88, ☏ +353 57 912 1276. B&B in townhouse with tapas restaurant. Rooms at the front get traffic noise. B&B double €200.
- 2 County Arms, Railway Rd R42 Y568, ☏ +353 57 912 0791. Smart hotel in Georgian mansion at south edge of town. B&B double €180.
- 3 The Ring Farmhouse, Ballinree, Birr R42 AY95, ☏ +353 86 828 9321. Welcoming B&B 2 km southeast of town. B&B double €120.
Connect
[edit]As of June 2026, Birr and its approach roads have 4G from Eir, and 5G from Three and Vodafone.
Go next
[edit]- Tullamore has two distilleries open for tours, Tullamore DEW and Kilbeggan.
- Roscrea has a castle and many other medieval remains.
- Athlone has fine Georgian and Victorian architecture.
- Portumna in lowland east Galway has an early example of a bling castle.