Son of James Lalor and Eliza Brannagan. He gave his age as 43 in the 1901 Census. Stephen Lalor was a builder/contractor who lived in St Canice Place, and later in 17/19 Friary Street,Kilkenny. He had a lime kiln, building firm and building yard in Kilkenny city. Stephen’s work on the Catholic cathedral is inconclusively referred to in a booklet, St Mary's Cathedral (1972). The Cathedral by William Hague is c. 1857 and Stephen was involved in later additions to the building from the 1880s. Stephen also built most of the O'Loughlin Memorial Church of St. John the Evangelist, Kilkenny (pictured below) also designed by Hague.
A Martin O’Loughlin had made a vast fortune as a mine owner in Australia having struck gold in Ballarat, Victoria. His nephews fulfilled his wish to have a church built by paying for the building of St. John’s. The contract, for £19,750, was signed by Michael Loughlin (father) and Stephen Lalor, contractor, to be completed b 1899. The foundation stone was laid in 1897 (there is a silver inscribed trowel, used by Bishop Brownrigg to lay the foundation stone, in the possession of the family) but the architect died in March 1899 and other problems left Stephen in financial difficulties (of an uncertain nature, the family story is that problems with the foundations, caused by a spring, led to additional costs which were not met when the project reached the payment stage on reaching the eves. The family seems to think that he became bankrupt (which might go some way to explain the family’s anti-clericalism), but, if so, he made a good recovery and went on to do other work for the church). In July 1899 the surveyors estimated that work to the value of £12,151 remained to be done. In May 1901 agreement was reached and final payment of £2,500 as made, (total paid was £15,650). The building was finished by Patrick Nolan, builder, and consecrated in 1908.
In 1902 the new, 900 seat, theatre in Patrick Street, Kilkenny, was opened by Captain the Hon. Otway Cuffe, with a series of concerts. It had been paid for by Ellen Countess of Desart, Cuffe’s sister-in-law. The theatre had been built by Stephen to a design by A.M.Burden A.M.I.C.E., County Surveyor for Kilkenny. The works were still in operation twenty years later because on the 25th January, 1924, the New Ross Standard carried an advertisment ‘Lime - Building and Agricultural Lime of very best quality can be had at lowest prices from Lalor’s Lime Works, Kilkenny. Write for quotation.’
Stephen always claimed to be related to the family of James Fintan Lalor, and of Peter Lalor who led the miner’s rebellion at Eureka Stockade in Ballarat, and, in an odd twist of fate, St John’s church was paid for by a man who made his money as a mine owner in Australia. In 1912 Stephen was still rich enough to own a Model T Ford, as the photograph proves. (Gabriel remembered an occasion when his father apologised to a donkey, encountered unexpectedly in the middle of the road, for nudging it with the car). Interestingly, Stephen always spelt his name in Irish as “Ua Leathlobhar”. He went to Oberamagau sometime after the First World War at a time of the great inflation and was able to get by quite cheaply. I don’t know who in the family went with him.
Stephen is mentioned in
Birthistle, Dorcas ‘O’Loughlin memorial church of St John the Evangeist, Kilkenny’ Old Kilkenny Review: 53 (2001) pp. 103-123 ISSN 03320774.
Phelan, Margaret M. St Mary’s Cathedral Kilkenny: Notes on its foundation, consturction and furnishings (Kilkenny: Kilkenny Journal, 1972).
| Additional Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 5th Sep 1854 | |
| Date of Death | 15th Aug 1928 | |
| Associated Building (s) | O'Loughlin Memorial Church of St John the Evangelist | |
| Father (First Name/s and Surname) | James Lalor | |
| Mother (First Name/s and Maiden) | Eliza Brannagan | |
