Turtulla is a

townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic origi ...

in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

of Fertiana,

County Tipperary County Tipperary ( ga, Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early 13th century, shortly after th ...

. It is a little over 790 acres in extent and is bounded on its northern edge by the River Suir, which separates it from another, much smaller, townland of the same name, which belongs to

Thurles Thurles (; ''Durlas Éile'') is a town in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is located in the civil parish of the same name in the barony of Eliogarty and in the ecclesiastical parish of Thurles (Roman Catholic parish), Thurles. The cathedral ch ...

civil parish.

Turtulla House

The townland house, ''Turtulla House'', is now the clubhouse of Thurles Golf Club. The house and 218 acres were offered for sale in the ''

Tipperary Star The ''Tipperary Star'' is a weekly regional newspaper covering news in County Tipperary, Ireland. The newspaper's main office is located in Thurles town. The paper is currently owned by Iconic Newspapers Iconic Newspapers is an Irish newspape ...

'' newspaper in February 1944 and were bought, for £6,100, on behalf of the club by a local solicitor, P. J. O'Meara. A map of the area drawn in 1755 shows a house on the site. Previous owners of the house included members of the Nicholson, Bailey and Maher families.

Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilizat ...

stayed in the house as the guest of the Mahers, when he addressed a "monster meeting" on a hill at nearby Knockroe on the outskirts of Thurles.William Nolan, Thomas G. McGrath
Tipperary: History and Society : Interdisciplinary Essays on the History of an Irish County
, (1985), page 281. The Knockroe in question is probably Knockroe townland in the neighbouring civil parish of

Moycarky Moycarky or Moycarkey is a civil parish in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is one of 21 civil parishes in the barony of Eliogarty. Partly bounded by the River Suir, it has an area of 3554 statute acres and contains sixteen townlands: *Ash Hill ...

. Around this time, the house was renovated by a

Clonmel Clonmel () is the county town and largest settlement of County Tipperary, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is noted in Irish history for its resistance to the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, Cromwellian army which sacked the towns of Dro ...

-born architect, William Tinsley who later, in 1851, emigrated to the United States where he designed several important buildings. (Tinsley also renovated another Maher property, Tullamaine House, near Fethard). In the 1880s, the property passed from Valentine Maher to the Barry family from County Limerick and remained occupied until 1927, after which it lay empty until taken over by the golf club. In the early 1920s, the Barry family coachman, Denis Regan, was shot by the Black and Tans near the bridge close to the entrance of the property and left for dead; he survived and later became a hearse driver for a local firm of undertakers.

References

{{coord missing, County Tipperary Townlands of County Tipperary Eliogarty