County Offaly
Uíbh Fhailí
- IrishUíbh Fhailí
- ProvinceLeinster
- County townTullamore
- Local governmentOffaly County Council
- Area2,000 km²
- Population83,150 (2022)
- Highest pointArderin, 527 m, shared with Laois
The Leviathan
At Birr Castle the third Earl of Rosse cast a mirror six feet across, in speculum metal, weighing three and a half tons. The tube was so heavy that massive stone walls had to be built to hold it.
He built it with local craftsmen he had trained himself. The cost was reputed to be between £20,000 and £30,000. It was finished in 1845 and was the largest telescope in the world.
Through it he saw that the nebula M51 had a spiral form. His drawing caused a sensation at Cambridge in June 1845.
That autumn the famine came, and he and his wife turned to relief around Birr.
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Clonmacnoise
Saint Ciarán founded a monastery on the banks of the Shannon in the sixth century. The Office of Public Works calls it a university of its time, with students from all over Europe.
What survives is a cathedral, two round towers, three high crosses, nine churches and over 700 early Christian grave slabs.
The original crosses are indoors now, in the visitor centre. The finest is the tenth century Cross of the Scriptures. The cross at Monasterboice is so like it that both are thought to be the work of one master mason.
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Mary Ward
Born Mary King at Ballylin, near Ferbane, in 1827. When she was eighteen her father bought her a microscope from London, and she drew what she saw in it.
Her cousin was the Earl of Rosse, and she was often at Birr while the Leviathan was being built. She was one of the first to observe through it. Her book of microscope sketches was printed locally in 250 copies and then taken up by a London publisher.
As a woman she could not join the learned societies. She was one of three women on the Royal Astronomical Society's list for its monthly notices. The others were Queen Victoria and Mary Somerville.
On the thirty first of August 1869, at Birr, she fell from a steam road locomotive designed by Lord Rosse and was killed. She is thought to have been the first person in Ireland to die in a motor accident.
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