•  County Offaly, Ireland

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In 1887, John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles described County Offaly like this:

King's County, an inland co. of Leinster province, Ireland; is bounded N. by co. Westmeath, E. by co. Kildare, S. by Queen's co. and Tipperary, and W. by co. Tipperary and river Shannon (separating it from cos. Galway and Roscommon); greatest length, NE. and SW., 58 miles; greatest breadth, NW. ...

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and SE., 20 miles; average breadth, 11 miles; area, 493,985 ac., (1733 water), or 2.4 per cent. of the whole area of Ireland; pop. 72,852, of whom 89.3 per cent. are Roman Catholics, 9.4 Episcopalians, 0.4 Presbyterians, and 0.6 Methodists. The surface for the most part is flat, and much of it is occupied by the great Bog of Allen. The Slieve Bloom mountains lie along the border with the W. of Queen's co., the greatest alt. being 1733 ft. The soil is of middling quality, consisting of a deep moor or gravelly loam in the flat portions of the county. Lime. stone, sandstone, and clay-slate are general. (For agricultural statistics, see Appendix.) The Shannon, which is navigable, forms the W. boundary; the other principal streams are the Blackwater, the Brosna, the Boyne, and the Barrow. The Grand Canal, traversing the entire extent of the co. from E. to W., communicates with the Shannon. The co. comprises 12 bars.- Ballyboy, Ballybrit, Ballycowan, Clonlisk, Coolestown, Eglish, Garrycastle, Geashill, Kilcoursey, Philipstown (Lower and Upper), and Warrenstown, 51 pars., and the towns of Tullamore, Parsonstown or Birr, and Portarlington (part). For parliamentary purposes the county is divided into 2 divisions - viz., Birr and Tullamore - 1 member for each division.

Vision of Ireland presents long-run change by redistricting historical statistics to modern units. However, none of our modern units covers an area close to that of County Offaly. If you want trends covering a particular location within the county, find it on our historical maps and then select "Tell me more".

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