The R401 road from Kinnegad to the north and the R402 from Enfield to the east meet at the northeastern end of the Main Street. At the Grand Canal they split, with the R402 continuing westwards towards Tullamore and the R401 heads south to Rathangan and Kildare Town.[5]
In the 16th century, Edenderry was known as Coolestown, after the family of Cooley or Cowley, who had a castle here. It was defended in 1599 against the Confederates, during the Nine Years' War. This subsequently passed by marriage to the Blundell family and was sacked in 1691 by the army of James II.[6]
The Blundells' land passed subsequently to the Marquess of Downshire who reversed the earlier opposition of the Blundell sisters to the establishment of a branch to the Grand Canal to Edenderry and paid for the £692 cost of the project,[7] which was completed in 1802.
By 1716 there was thriving woollen cloth manufacturing, established by Quakers, which employed around 1,000 people.[8] By 1911 the town had grown to 2,204 people. Other industries included the factory of Daniel Alesbury who made a variety of woodwork as well as the first car manufactured in Ireland, the Alesbury, in 1907. Edenderry Town Hall was completed in 1830.[9]
Demographics
The population of Edenderry doubled in the period between the census of 1996 (when it had a population of 3,825 people)[10] and the 2022 census (which recorded a population of 7,888 people).[1]
Education
There are two secondary schools in the town, St. Mary's Secondary School and Oaklands Community College, as well as five primaries, Gaelscoil Éadan Doire, St. Mary's Primary School, Scoil Bhríde Primary School, Saint Patrick's Primary School and Monasteroris National School.[11]
Local organisations
Organisations and businesses operating in the area include the Offaly Express newspaper, Edenderry Chamber of Commerce [12]
and Eden FM Community Radio
Local sports clubs include Edenderry Rugby Club,[13]Edenderry GAA club,[14] Edenderry Town AFC,[15] and Highfield Golf Club.[16]
^http://www.cso.ie/census and www.histpop.org. Post 1971 totals are for Edenderry urban and Edenderry environs. For a discussion on the accuracy of pre-famine census returns see J. J. Lee “On the accuracy of the pre-famine Irish censuses” in Irish Population, Economy and Society edited by JM Goldstrom and LA Clarkson (1981) p54, and also “New Developments in Irish Population History, 1700-1850” by Joel Mokyr and Cormac Ó Gráda in The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 37, No. 4 (November 1984), pp. 473-488.
^"Demographic context"(PDF). Offaly County Council Development Plan 2009 - 2015. Archived from the original(PDF) on 30 October 2008. Retrieved 28 June 2008.
^"Schools". Edenderry Parish. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
^"A robust performer with a Derry air". The Irish Times. 16 October 1999. Retrieved 11 August 2024. He performed a number of "come-back" concerts through the 1980s...though he lived a largely quiet life with his wife Carmel (nee Dignam), in Edenderry, Co Offaly
