Daingean is a small town in County Offaly, Ireland. The town was the county town of the King's County, as the county was once called, and this privilege remained until the eighteenth century when it passed to Tullamore. The Grand Canal of Ireland passes through the village. Once the stronghold of the O'Connor Faly dynasty, it was briefly named Philipstown, for Prince Philip during the reign of Mary I of England. The bog body, now called Old Croghan man, found near in 2003, featured on the BBC 2 Timewatch programme. County Offaly (Irish: Contae UÃbh FhailÃ) is a county in Leinster, Ireland, bordered by seven other counties: Galway, Roscommon, Westmeath, Meath, Kildare, Laois, and Tipperary. ... A county town is the location of the administrative headquarters of a county. ... (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... Tullamore (Tulach Mhór in Irish) is a large town in County Offaly, Republic of Ireland, located in the midlands region of Ireland, with approxiamately 20,000 (census 2002) inhabitants in the district. ... The Grand Canal begins on the Southside of Dublin, Ireland. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Mary Tudor is the name of both Mary I of England and her fathers sister, Mary Tudor (queen consort of France). ...
Daingean, when it was first built, was a British Army garrison, the main, two-storey building a plain but well-designed series of quite modest rooms surrounding the entrance courtyard on three sides.
From the point of view of Daingean, once on the fringe of the Pale, the period during which the barracks grew and came to dominate the town was an era of prosperity derived from the military presence quite at odds with the poverty in other parts of Ireland.
Daingean, in their view, should be a memorial to the inmates of all the industrial schools, other reformatories and to the many people who went through them.