New book gives glimpse of local life just over a century ago

'Rathrobin and the Two Irelands' is the title of an attractive new coffee table book published by Michael Byrne of Offaly History.

It presents some 250 photographs taken by Colonel Middleton Biddulph, of Rathrobin, near Mountbolus, who lived from 1849 to 1926.

His photos of Offaly and Midlands interest taken between 1900 and 1920 are collected for the first time in this newly-published book which Michael had been working on for 14 months.

As the title suggests, the carefully-captioned photos depict two Irelands – unionist and nationalist, Catholic and Protestant, landed and cabbage garden.

Colonel Biddulph was of the lesser gentry, was a tenant of the Petty Lansdownes, and was keenly aware of the plantations of the 1550s to the 1650s.

He appreciated the needs of the farm labourers and was decent to his own tenants, indoor staff and farm workers. His entire estate was not much more than 1,000 acres.

Biddulph's circle was also the lesser gentry and those who served it such as land agents, bankers and clergy.

He had an empathy with his farm workers and their families and sought their advancement. Many local families were photographed, together with the farming activities of his own employees.

The book includes chapters on the farm workers in Rathrobin, on farming during the first world war, and on the Big Houses visited in Ireland by the Biddulphs.

Friends of the Biddulphs who visited their house in Rathrobin included Robert Baden Powell, the founder of the scouts movement.

Speaking to the Offaly Independent on Wednesday Mr Byrne, a solicitor and the secretary of Offaly History, explained that a small number of the Biddulph photos had appeared in the past in local Killoughey publications but a collection of this kind had not been published before.

The introductory essay in the book, which runs to some 70,000 words, "details the story of the planter family in the context of the changes in Killoughey barony (now Kilcormac parish) over the period from 1660 up to the present time."

The over-300-page book was produced with the assistance of some grant aid from the Decade of Centenaries project.