Tipperary Ireland

Portroe is a village with a fascinating view of the countryside, a beautiful church built in cream gritstone. There lies a simple headstone in the churchyard commemorating a Tipperary hurler Tommy Kenny, and his son Sean (1930-1973). The former is the author of the landmark 1926 U.S.A. tour and the latter crossed the Atlantic with three others in an open Ketch. Ituna, studied with Frank Lloyd Wright at Arizona and became a celebrated designer for the London stage. The visitors will also be directed towards a German-owned tube factory originally built up by J.B. O’ Driscoll, who revitalised the slate quarries (1923) in which there were 400 men employed at a time in the late 1700s. With the end of this era in 1956, this enterprise that used to supply ‘Kilaloe’ slates to a vast number of public and private buildings in Ireland, Scotland and Holland came to an end. But from 1991 the same production resumed in this area.

Posted on April 17th, 2008 under Town. Tags: Arizona, Atlantic, Holland, Ireland, Ketch, Kilaloe, London, Portroe, Scotland, Tipperary, U.S.A. Comments: None