Charles Bianconi and Boherlahan

Tipperary Historical Journal 2026


It is striking that Charles Bianconi chose Boherlahan—the wide road—as his final resting place. Surely it was a fitting place for the man often described as the “father of the Irish transport system,” or, more poetically, for a man who began his Irish career as a pedlar of devotional prints, to leave his last remains1. Recently, Boherlahan has marked anew its association with Joachim Carlo Giuseppe Bianconi, born near Lake Como on 24 September 1786.2 Although these commemorations did not receive the same publicity as the re-enactment of the first Bianconi coach service between Clonmel and Cahir, held on 2 October, 1986, the parish’s connection with Bianconi is nonetheless a strong one. Within it stand two impressive and enduring monuments to this extraordinary Italian: Longfield House and the mortuary chapel constructed by Bianconi for himself and his family.3

Longfield

In March 1846, Bianconi purchased Longfield House from Captain Richard Long together with 623 Irish acres for £21,000.4 That a former pedlar of holy pictures could amass the means to buy such an estate is remarkable in itself. Bianconi had arrived in Ireland in 1802 to apprentice with Andrea Faroni, another Italian immigrant who traded in religious prints in Dublin.5 Upon completing his apprenticeship, he invested his modest savings in a stock of pictures and frames and set out on the roads of Ireland to sell them.6 For several years he trudged the highways and byways, prospering gradually in his laborious trade. In time he established shops in Carrick-on-Suir, Waterford and Clonmel.7


Transport Pioneer

Through these travels, Bianconi came to recognise the need for an affordable and reliable passenger transport system in Ireland.8 His opportunity arose after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when large numbers of horses came onto the market.9 Purchasing some of these animals, he inaugurated his first scheduled car service between Clonmel and Cahir in July 1815.10 The enterprise flourished from the outset, ultimately making him a wealthy businessman whose success was recognised in civic life when he was elected Mayor of Clonmel.11

Bianconi took up residence at Longfield on 16 September 1846—his sixtieth birthday—and was warmly welcomed by the local people. Bonfires blazed along the roads near the estate, and a triumphal arch was erected across the avenue gates. The grounds were thronged with tenants and labourers. A band travelled from Cashel and a dance was held that evening.12In his speech of thanks, Bianconi declared the now-famous maxim that “property has its duties as well as its rights.”13 Every class in society, he maintained, possessed rights: landlord, mechanic, and labourer alike. Even the poor man earning a shilling a day had as strong a claim to the enjoyment of his home “as the queen on her throne.”14 Whenever the people required assistance within his power to grant, he assured them he would willingly provide it. He credited much of Ireland’s recent social improvement to temperance and public virtue, owing largely to the work of Fr. Theobald Mathew and the leadership of Daniel O’Connell.15


A Friend in Need

During the Great Famine, Bianconi proved an important friend to the local community. He provided loans and assisted some in emigrating when they could no longer sustain themselves.16 In 1848 he established an extensive programme of drainage works on his estates. At a time when labourers might earn only eight pence per day, the drainage workers, paid by the piece, could earn up to nine shillings per week.17 Over one hundred men were employed there for a considerable period, and no one on his estate is recorded to have died of hunger.18 When potatoes sold at eight to ten pence per stone in the market, he sold them locally for four pence. 19


Unpopular with the Gentry

Such benevolence toward the landless poor did not always endear Bianconi to his neighbours among the landed gentry. Some disliked seeing a self-made man setting an example they were reluctant to follow.20 Yet Bianconi, independent in character, largely ignored their coldness and, in time, achieved a position of significant respect.21

The Mortuary Chapel

Soon after settling at Longfield, Bianconi determined to construct a mortuary chapel on the estate as a family burial place. Built of limestone and sandstone at a cost of around £1,000, it was designed largely by Bianconi himself and erected with the assistance of local craftsmen.22 The building features a flat-roofed tower surmounted by a Gothic belfry. The Archbishop of Cashel, the Most Rev. Dr. Leahy, presided at its consecration.23 The first interment there was that of his daughter Kathleen Henrietta, whose remains were brought back from Italy.24 Buried alongside her are other members of the family including his daughters Charlotte and Mary Anne O’Connell, his wife Eliza, his grandson John Coppinger O’Connell-Bianconi, his great-granddaughter Mollie Watson, and Bianconi himself.25

His Estates and Farming

During his years at Longfield, Bianconi greatly expanded his holdings with purchases in Ballygriffin, Road, Glanagile, Cashel, Ballinard, Knockamore, Liss, Lower Pallas and Upper Pallas.26 These outlays amounted to roughly £48,000, bringing the total value of his property to over £70,000 and the total area to nearly 5,000 Irish acres.27 He pursued agricultural improvement energetically. He often tended to the ailments of his own horses and kept a considerable number of livestock on the estate. He bred sheep and Berkshire pigs on a large scale and even experimented with ploughing by horned cattle in recollection, perhaps, of practices in his native Lombardy. The experiment was eventually abandoned as inefficient.28

A firm believer in heavy manuring, he adopted the maxim “the manure is the farmer,” and once took a particular interest in spreading soot upon his pastures.29 He invested nearly all of his fortune in land, subscribing to the proverb: “Money melts, land holds, while grass grows and water runs.”30

Final Years and Death

Charles Bianconi died at Longfield at 4:45 a.m. on Wednesday, 22 September 1875, two days before his ninetieth birthday.31 According to his great-granddaughter and biographer, Mollie Watson, the household gathered around his bedside throughout the night. Suddenly, the sound of galloping horses was heard on the gravel outside. The grooms rushed to the stables, but found the gates secure and the horses inside. Still the clatter continued—swelling and fading like an ebbing tide—“just as though all the horses in Bianconi’s long life had come to be with him at the last.”32 A romantic image, perhaps. But not unworthy of a man who quite literally set Ireland on the road.

References

1 O’Connell, Charles Bianconi, 1–3; McElroy & Butterfield, Charles Bianconi (DIB online)
2 Watson, King of the Irish Roads, 3–6.
3 Espinasse, Bianconi, 112–115.
4 O’Connell, Charles Bianconi, 147–151.
5 O’Connell, 14–18.
6 Smiles, Men of Invention and Industry, 257–260.
7 Espinasse, 48–55.
8 O’Connell, 35–42.
9 Espinasse, 60–63.
10 Levey, “Charles Bianconi,” History Ireland 20, no. 1 (2012).
11 O’Connell, 136–139.
12 Espinasse, 120–123.
13 Espinasse, 120–123.
14 Espinasse, 120–123.
15 O’Connell, 131–135.
16 Watson, 122–126.
17 O’Connell, 160–162.
18 Espinasse, 133–139.
19 Espinasse, 133–139.
20 Espinasse, 142–145.
21 Espinasse, 142–145.
22 O’Connell, 174–177.
23 National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, “Bianconi Mortuary Chapel.”
24 O’Connell, 176–177.
25 Cahir Historical Society, Bianconi 200.
26 Watson, 135–138.
27 Watson, 135–138.
28 O’Connell, 178–183.
29 O’Connell, 178–183.
30 O’Connell, 178–183.
31 Watson, 189–191.
32 Watson, 190–191