On 26 April 2025, I was invited to speak at the closing of Daniel Tuomey’s exhibition Stuck, a decomposition in Ormston House. I relayed the following story of a young boy, Michael O’Brien, who lost his life in the space where Ormston House now stands.
A number of years ago I was tasked with uncovering the history that lay beneath our feet and above our heads here in Ormston House. The history took a path backwards through Jack Ormston’s Supermarket to Michael Egan’s who created this space after demolishing three older buildings to create his tea and wine emporium in the 1870s.
It is easy to walk down a city street and think only of what is visible, what is modern, what is new. But history clings to places like this, quietly. Sometimes, if you stop and listen, the past begins to speak.
Even further back, before Michael Egan left his mark with these columns and his initials imbedded in the tiles on the façade, these buildings, Numbers 9, 10, and 11, each began life as bustling businesses: a hotel, a saddler’s, and a woollen drapery. Over the decades, their walls witnessed grocers, hardware merchants, stationers, booksellers, and countless stories of the city’s vibrant merchant class.
So, here we are today in Ormston House on Patrick Street where Number 10 once stood. Where a grocery, and a family home, bustled with life in the mid-1840s. The Great Famine was beginning to ravage rural Ireland, but cities like Limerick, bolstered by trade and the port, were initially spared the worst.
Looking around in this open room, it is hard to imagine the walls of three uniformed Georgian houses that once stood here. Number 10, like others along this street contained a business on the ground floor and the upper floors were a home for the business owner and their family.
These buildings, although only about 60 years old at the time, were very much susceptible to the cold and without the convenience of radiators and the luxury of central heating, they relied on open fires. Number 10, like many in Newtownpery, was fitted with large fireplaces.
Where there are fireplaces, there are chimneys. Tall, twisting flues running through brick and mortar like veins. Georgian chimneys were large for a few key reasons, and not simply because the fireplaces themselves were grand.
- First, Georgian architecture, especially in places like Newtownpery, was built on scale and symmetry. These were spacious homes for wealthier residents, and each important room, the drawing rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, all had their own fireplace. That meant multiple flues needed to run up through the building, all converging into a single stack at the roof. So what looks like one chimney on the outside could contain five, six or more separate flues inside.
- Second, these chimneys weren’t just big vertically, they had a complicated internal structure. Flues often twisted and turned to connect to the central stack, and this was done to reduce draughts, to protect adjoining rooms from smoke, and to accommodate the architecture. But all those bends made the inside a tight, dangerous maze.
- And finally, there was the sheer height. Georgian houses were tall, often three or four storeys—and so the flues had to travel a long way up to clear the roofline.
Although, a base cleaning of the hearth was carried out by a charwoman or servant. The fuels burned… smoky coals, turf, wood, discarded food… would leave a combustible sticky residue in their wake further up. Which meant longer climbs, had more opportunity for soot to build up and ignite if not regularly cleaned.
Today, chimney sweeps use a series of flexible rods with a collection of attachments to wind their way through narrow flues. Even employing cameras on occasions to check for faults.
Although by the mid-19th century, chimney sweeping had become a widespread trade across Ireland and Britain. And basic brushes and mechanical devices were invented decades earlier. Many master sweeps continued to rely on child labour it was cheaper, mobile, and expendable.
This was a deadly business, especially when your tools were not brushes, but the tiny hands and bodies of the young. These children of five, six, maybe eight years old often orphaned, undersized, almost always poverty-stricken, were exploited by the master sweeps, who promised food and shelter in return for labour.
There was no Dick Van Dyke singing merry show tunes, as in Mary Poppins. The Master Sweeps never uttered a chim chim anny. No, the children were sent climbing up narrow, soot-slicked shafts, scraping tar and filth with their flimsy tools and bare hands. Breathing in the dust of a thousand fires, the residue sticking to their skin, reddening their eyes.
Eight-year-old, Michael O’Brien was one of those children.
The fatal day
On the evening of 25th April 1846, yesterday 179 years ago, the chimney right here in Number 10 had caught fire and Matthew Ryan, who ran a grocery and restaurant on the ground floor, called in a sweep.
Michael Sullivan, who brought his apprentice with him. Little Michael O’Brien. They stood at the hearth for a moment. Sullivan inspected the fireplace, although he saw the soot still smouldering up the flue, he still told the child to climb.
Shortly after being sent up, the boy cried out, he was burning, it was too hot. He could feel the heat in the bricks. Young Michael returned into the hearth.
Thomas Costelloe a labourer and Catherine Ryan a servant, both in the room witnessed the boy’s hesitation being met with violence. Sullivan, grabbing him by the leg, pulled him back toward the fire grate, and beat him with a leather belt until he agreed to try again.
The little fellow threw himself on his knees, saying through tears: “I will go to the top of the house, and come down through the chimney”
These screams drew the attention of Matthew Ryan, the homeowner, who begged Sullivan: “Don’t send the boy up if there’s danger.”
But Sullivan didn’t listen, he was hired to do a job and the whines of a child was not going to stop him. He dragged Michael to the top of the house, and the boy was sent down the chimney instead. Sullivan poured water down the chimney just before the boy began his descent.
The upper flue might’ve seemed safer, cooler—but it wasn’t. The heat still clung to the bricks like a trap.
And once he was inside, it was too late.
Any sounds of scrapping and shuffling from the chimney soon fell quiet, and for hours there was silence.
Those in the house were unable to do anything but stare in horror into the open fireplace.
And then, with the assistance of Sub-constable Philip Nash, his small body came tumbling down the fireplace in the hearth below.
Burned. Blackened. Lifeless.
Eight years old.
His remains were taken to Barrington’s Hospital, and there, an inquest was held. The coroner returned the following verdict:-
Michael O’Brien came by his death from the effects of heat and suffocation, in consequence of having been forced to descend a chimney in Mr. Ryan’s house, Patrick Street, by Michael Sullivan.
We know nothing more about young Michael, no family members were interviewed in the press, no note was taken of his burial. His life appeared and disappeared from history in one day.
The cruelty of his fate sent a shockwave through not only Limerick but the country. The newspapers called it what it was—inhuman conduct. One headline read, “A Sweep Roasted Alive.”
But what of the master sweep? Sullivan, who was in his twenties, had about a year previously been convicted and served 14 days in prison for allowing a child to climb a chimney to get stuck and also died. So, he realised sooner than most what had happened and slipped away from the building unnoticed and fled.
It would take almost two months but eventually, in June 1846 Sullivan was found hiding and arrested at Farney Bridge, near Thurles. He was brought back to Limerick, tried at the Summer Assize.
His court appointed counsel, a Mr. Barry, wanted nothing to do with the sweep. Barry wanted to change Sullivan’s plea of not guilty, and plead guilty, but the prisoner refused to cooperate with his counsel and, in echoes of that dark chimney, remained silent. The court pronounced its judgement, and Sullivan was convicted of manslaughter. He was imprisoned for 12 months at hard labour. He was released after serving only eleven months.
None of it brought young Michael back.
Aftermath
This tragedy didn’t happen in some shadowy alley or industrial pit. It happened right here. In a house with customers and witnesses and people going about their evening. It happened in plain sight, and it took the death of a child to make people see the horror that had become normal.
This tragedy did not end the practice in Limerick, nor in Ireland. It would take another eighteen years, for the smallest of children to be freed from this task.
The 1864 Act, when it finally came into force, made it illegal to employ any child under ten, and required apprentices to be registered with magistrates. It was a start, but still allowed older children to be used in narrow flues. It came too late for Michael but just in time for others like him.
And so now, as we stand on this very ground, we remember not just the chimney and the boy—but the silence of the flue after he went in. We remember the pause between fire and discovery, between call and reply. The space where no voice came back.
If you ever feel a chill down Patrick Street, if something seems to move in the walls that no longer stand—perhaps it’s just the wind. Or perhaps, it is young Michael O’Brien, reminding us that history is not just found in books. Sometimes, it’s buried in brick and ash. Sometimes, it still echoes.
In another twist of history, throughout the 1950s and 60s. Mona Napier operated chimney sweeping service out of Number 11 next door. She was a rare woman chimney sweep at any point in history. Perhaps she heard young Michael’s calls.