History
| Historical population | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Pop. | ±% |
| 1821 | 5,517 | — |
| 1831 | 6,342 | +15.0% |
| 1841 | 6,343 | +0.0% |
| 1851 | 4,630 | −27.0% |
| 1861 | 4,797 | +3.6% |
| 1871 | 5,179 | +8.0% |
| 1881 | 5,098 | −1.6% |
| 1891 | 4,522 | −11.3% |
| 1901 | 4,639 | +2.6% |
| 1911 | 4,926 | +6.2% |
| 1926 | 4,930 | +0.1% |
| 1936 | 5,135 | +4.2% |
| 1946 | 5,897 | +14.8% |
| 1951 | 6,165 | +4.5% |
| 1956 | 6,147 | −0.3% |
| 1961 | 6,243 | +1.6% |
| 1966 | 6,874 | +10.1% |
| 1971 | 7,474 | +8.7% |
| 1981 | 8,724 | +16.7% |
| 1986 | 9,442 | +8.2% |
| 1991 | 9,430 | −0.1% |
| 1996 | 10,039 | +6.5% |
| 2002 | 11,098 | +10.5% |
| 2006 | 12,927 | +16.5% |
| 2011 | 14,361 | +11.1% |
Tullamore was part of the first English plantation of Offaly in the 1570s. In 1785 the town was seriously damaged when the crash of a hot air balloon resulted in a fire that burned down as many as 130 homes, giving the town the distinction of being the location of the world's first known aviation disaster.
To this day, the town shield depicts a phoenix rising from the ashes. The event is yearly commemorated by the Phoenix festival which celebrates Tullamore's resurrection from the ashes following the accident in which part of the town centre was destroyed by a wayward balloon on May 10, 1785.
The Grand Canal linked Tullamore to Dublin in 1798. During the Napoleonic Wars, a clash between troops of the King's German Legion and a regiment of British Light Infantry who were both stationed in the town, became known as the battle of Tullamore. Tullamore became county town of County Offaly in 1835, replacing Daingean.
Read more about this topic: Tullamore
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)