An exhibition of Offaly in prints, pictures and photographs from 1650-2000 has been attracting not only local but national interest. The 75 items on display at the Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society's premises at Bury Quay, Tullamore, cover most of the county and offer an astonishing array of subjects.
Offaly has strong photographic links, as one of the first photographers in the country was Mary, Countess of Rosse.
The countess (1813-1888), was the first recipient of the Photographic Society of Ireland's silver medal in 1859 but relatively few of her photographs survive, as her albums of this early period cannot be traced.
As early as 1870, another photographer, Middleton Biddulph, of Rathrobin, Tullamore, was taking pictures.
On display is his print of what is thought to be the wedding of Catherine Bury to Capt William Hutton in 1873.
There is also a picture of an elderly man from south Offaly thought to have been taken by Archibald Wright, who had his own newspaper, King's County Chronicle.
Wright was sent to London by his family in the early 1870s to learn about the new art of photography and when he returned, the newspaper became one of the first in the country to publish photographs, back in 1885.
There is a photograph of probably one of the first air crashes in Ireland. A light aircraft crashed into Crinkle House in Birr in 1918. No one is sure who took the print.
On the same theme, the exhibition has three aerial photographs of Offaly towns: Tullamore in 1918 taken by the British army to recruit for the Royal Airforce; Birr town in 1950 by an unnamed Irish Press photographer; and Tullamore around 1978 showing buildings since demolished through development. A print of the old railway station at Clonminch, Tullamore, used in the Illustrated London News in 1854 shows the dispatch of a consignment of charcoal from Killurin bog to the troops fighting the Crimean war.
More recent historical photographs include one of local people skating on the Grand Canal at Tullamore during the harsh winter of 1947 and a colour print by Mark Shelly of the Catholic Church on fire on October 31st, 1983. It was destroyed by the blaze and later rebuilt.
Also on display are some of the earliest maps of the county, including one of Clonmacnoise published in 1658. There are also maps dating from 1685, 1728, 1776 and 1837.
A bog map of west Offaly and south Westmeath dated 1811 and a map of Tullamore town in 1838 are from the first ordnance survey published for Offaly, then known as King's County.
Most of the pictures on exhibition will be for sale when the exhibition closes at the end of this month.
The centre can be contacted at 0506-21421 or www.offalyhistory.com