Tullamore

A Grand Canal town that grew on whiskey — Tullamore Dew is named for Daniel E. Williams, the general manager whose initials went on the barrels. In 1785 the world's first recorded aviation disaster happened here when a hot-air balloon crashed and burned as many as 130 homes.

In the Middle Ages Tullamore lay in Firceall, the country of the O'Molloys. The area was part of the first English plantations in the 1550s, and in 1622 the Tullamore estate — a ruined castle, ten cottages and two mills — was granted to Sir John Moore; it passed later to the Bury family, Earls of Charleville.

On 10 May 1785 a hot-air balloon crashed and set fire to the town, burning as many as 130 houses — the world's first known aviation disaster — which is why a phoenix is on the town shield. The Grand Canal reached Tullamore from Dublin in 1798, and in 1835 it replaced Daingean as county town. Whiskey was distilled here from the 1780s; Michael Molloy's distillery of 1829 later came under its manager Daniel E. Williams, who launched Tullamore Dew under his own initials and brought electricity to the town in 1893. His grandson Desmond Williams created Irish Mist in 1947.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Tullamore ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Durrow Abbey · holy well · 6 km
• Charleville Castle · castle · 3 km
• Ballycowan Castle · castle · 5 km
• Tyrrellspass Castle · castle · 14 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Hill of Uisneach · The mythic navel of Ireland, where the five provinces met at the Catstone and the great Bealtaine fire was lit — answered by fires on hills across the island.
• Hill of Uisneach · Where the goddess Ériu, who gave Ireland its name, met the invading Milesians and was promised the island would bear her name forever. It has.
• Slieve Bloom — where Fionn was reared · Clann Morna had killed his father, so the boy Fionn was taken into these mountains and raised in hiding by two women — the poet Bodhmall and the warrior Liath Luachra. The range takes its name from Bladh, and it straddles Laois and Offaly.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.