Street Wise - O’Connell Street and surroundings

This series of articles for the Westmeath Independent is run in conjunction with the Street Wise Athlone series on Athlone Community Radio which is broadcast on Wednesdays during Athlone Today at 2.30pm and repeated on Thursday mornings at 10am on The Brekkie Show

Athlone Miscellany

by Gearoid O'Brien

O’Connell Street is a relatively short but interesting street on the Connaught side of the town. It links Bastion Street to the junction of Pearse Street and Connaught Street. The present street name honours Daniel O’Connell (the Liberator) who was a regular visitor to Athlone. There is a story told, perhaps an apocryphal one, that Daniel O’Connell once had a drink in Mrs Coyle’s pub on the corner of O’Connell Street and Ball Alley Lane (now The Fiddlers) and that he sent her a present of one of his own bespoke armchairs because due to her size she could never get an armchair to suit her. The late P.J. Bannon told me, many years ago, that the armchair survived in an outhouse until his time but that it was subsequently thrown out, something he always regretted.

From 1824 at least, when it is recorded in Pigot’s Directory, the street was known as Wentworth Street. Dr Burgess is probably correct when he speculates that it was named for William Wentworth-Fitwilliam, Fourth Earl Fitzwilliam (1748-1833) who very briefly held the position of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from December 1794 to March 1795. The naming of the street probably dates to this period. An alternative explanation of the street name was put forward in a short article on Athlone in the Westmeath Independent in February 1935, which was just signed “Old Athlonian”. He (or she) put forward the view that Wentworth Street “preserved the memory of Thomas Wentworth, one of the first victims of Puritan domination in 1641.” This seems highly unlikely because the name didn’t come into use until about 150 years after the death of Thomas Wentworth. The same author believed that Queen Street and King Street were “possibly named after Queen Mary and her husband, King Philip, of Spain”. This too is incorrect. We know that these street names only date back to the opening years of the 19th C. long after the deaths of Philip and Mary which confirms the fact that they were named to honour King George III and his consort, Queen Charlotte who reigned at that time.

Malachy Joseph Fallon

For most of the 19th C. the street that we now know as O’Connell Street was named Wentworth Street, despite the best efforts of James Malachy Fallon, sometime Post-Master of Athlone, Apothecary, ‘Doctor’ and Coroner who was determined to have the name changed. Fallon was, it seems a ‘Lord Lieutenant’s’ man. He named his apothecary business Wellesley Hall, Wentworth Street, to honour Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquess Wellesley who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1821-28 and again in 1833-34. When it was clear that Wellesley would be conferring no more advantages on Athlone or on his humble servant, Joseph M. Fallon, Fallon tried to have a plebiscite taken among the residents of the street to have the street renamed, Mulgrave Street, in honour of the Earl of Musgrave who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1835-39. When his bid failed, he insisted on changing his own business address from Wellesley Medical Hall to Mulgrave Medical Hall, and adding Mulgrave Street to his address although he was, clearly, the only resident using that address! The use of Mulgrave Street by Fallon dated to 1837-38 and an advertisement which appeared in a local newspaper of 12th May 1837 read:

Mulgrave Medals.

The Mulgrave Medal Committee has appointed Mr J.M. Fallon, State Apothecary, agent for the sale of Mulgrave Medals in Athlone where medals of any description from Fifteen Guineas down to two-shillings and sixpence can be had

Mulgrave Medical Hall, Mulgrave Street, Athlone.

When Fallon was Dismissed as Postmaster

The Freeman’s Journal of the 7th of October 1833 recorded: “We have heard with extreme regret that a gentleman most respectably connected and occupying a station of great responsibility in the Post Office [in Athlone] has been charged with peculation to a large amount”. Very soon it became common knowledge that the gentleman in question was none other than Malachy Joseph Fallon. The offence, however, was not quite as serious as it had at first appeared. It was one of opening

letters and delaying deliveries of letters and newspapers. An investigation was conducted into the offences of the Post Office in Athlone by Mr Drought, Surveyor-General of the Post Office. Fallon was found guilty and dismissed. He took it all in good spirits. He wrote letters to the papers - he even wrote a play “The Post Office Investigation or Law and Letters” for performance by an amateur drama group in the town.

At a dinner in Athlone to honour James Talbot M.P., Fallon had been asked to propose a toast to the Athlone clergy. He stood up and said “I rise to return thanks to the Athlone clergy - they are not here - then gentlemen I come to the main point - my own affairs. He proceeded to refer to the charges against him, to the fact that he was not the most innocent creature in the world, of the great loss he was to the Post Office and of his displeasure with The Roscommon Journal. “Post-Masters would do well”, he said if they suppressed half the newspapers that passed through their hands. James Talbot was MP for Athlone from 1832-35 but did not contest the 1835 election. Shortly afterwards Fallon announced his intention of publishing a book “The Rambles and Adventures of a Coroner Thro’ Connaught” in which he set out to give an instructive lesson to novices in the trade some of whom, he claimed, could scarcely spell the word ‘coroner’. By the time he self-published the book he had re-named it ‘The Coroners’ Directory’ and dedicated it by permission to Col., Sir William Gossett, K.C.H. It was published in 1835 from “Mulgrave Medical Hall, Mulgrave Street, Athlone” and cost 5/-.

The name of the street was obviously changed to O’Connell Street circa 1890 as in a discussion at an Athlone Town Commissioners meeting in 1894 the question arose “Wentworth Street or O’Connell Street – which is it?” to which Mr Denis O’Connell, who ran a grocery business on the street replied “The people in the locality think it was in compliment to me that the name was changed to O’Connell Street” (laughter).

Some of the older residents may have remembered seeing the Liberator, Daniel O’Connell, on the street others would have heard the story passed down from their parents. By the 1890s there were several nationalist families living on the street – two of whom had their names in Irish on the signs above the door: Geraghty’s was Mag Oireachtaigh and Watson’s was Mac Uait.

This street has the distinction of having had the first branch of a commercial bank on it. No 7 O’Connell Street was built in 1836 as a branch of the National Bank. In January 1837 Daniel O’Connell, founder of the Bank, visited Athlone to further the candidacy of his son John, a parliamentary candidate for the borough. John O’Connell was elected unopposed. While in Athlone Daniel O’Connell interrupted his canvas to visit the bank on a tour of inspection. Obviously the residents in the street were sufficiently proud of the fact that the “Great Daniel O’Connell” had visited the Bank to name the street in his honour over fifty years later.

Next article: Parnell Square

You can read the previous articles in the series here