The Tullamore area, comprising some , was granted by the English to Sir John Moore in 1622. At that time the Tullamore estate included a ruined castle, ten cottages and two water mills. Sir Robert Forth, who leased the lands from Thomas Moore (son and heir of Sir John), built a mansion house c.1641 in what is now the Charleville
demesne. Charles Moore, Lord Tullamore, grandson of Thomas, eventually regained possession of the estate and when he died in 1674 it went via his sister to Charles William Bury. Charles William was later (1806) created the 1st
Earl of Charleville in a second creation of the title. On 10 May 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. 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. Tullamore has a long history of
whiskey distilling, with two distilleries known to have operated in the town in the 1780s, though closed some years later. Subsequently, a
new distillery was established by Michael Molloy, on the site of one of the old distilleries in 1829. When Molloy died, the distillery first passed to his brother Anthony, before eventually making its way into the hands of his nephew, Bernard Daly. When Daly died, his son, Captain Bernard Daly took ownership of the business. With an estate in Terenure, Captain Daly left the day-to-day running of the business to Daniel E. Williams, the distillery's
general manager, under whose careful watch the distillery grew and prospered, and launched
Tullamore Dew, the whiskey which bears his initials. Williams brought electricity to Tullamore in 1893. The distillery installed the town's first telephones and introduced motorised transport. Williams ran various commercial businesses throughout the
Irish midlands – drinks businesses, tea importing, seed and grain retail, and a network of 26 general stores. Following this period,
Prohibition in the United States, an
economic war with Britain in the 1930s, and
World War II all harmed the industry. Tullamore was one of many Irish distilleries affected by a general decline in Irish whiskey sales worldwide. After World War II, Desmond Williams, grandson of Daniel E. Williams, used modern marketing techniques to re-establish Irish whiskey in world markets. In 1947, Desmond Williams also developed
Irish Mist, an Irish
liqueur made from a blend of whiskey, herbs and honey, using a recipe alleged to have disappeared in the late 17th century and to have been rediscovered in a manuscript 250 years later. Williams also capitalised on the
Irish coffee concept, and promoted blended whiskeys along with Tullamore Dew. == Culture ==