Callan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Irish town. For the TV series of the same name, see Callan (TV series).

For the EFL teaching method see Callan method.

For the computer manufacturer in the US in the 1980s, see Callan Data Systems.

Callan is one of the largest towns in County Kilkenny in the Republic of Ireland. Situated 10 miles south of Kilkenny on the N76 road to Clonmel (recently bypassed by the route), it forms the border with Tipperary South and Kilkenny. Callan is the birth place of some famous people, namely Edmund Ignatius Rice, founder of the Irish Christian Brothers, and James Hoban, who designed the White House in the United States. Perhaps its most famous inhabitant, however was Amhlaoibh Ó Súilleabháin (1780-1838), who was a schoolmaster and linen-draper in the town, and kept a diary in Irish between 1827-35. This recorded in great detail the life of the town, which he named 'Callain an Chlampair' or 'Callan of the Ructions'. At the time the town was one of the poorest in Ireland, and was notorious for its extreme poverty. Amhlaoibh's diary is considered one of the most detailed contemporary accounts of life in Ireland at the time from a native perspective.