| New Birmingham | |
| Native Name: | Irish: Gleann an Ghuail |
| Native Name Lang: | ga |
| Settlement Type: | Village |
| Pushpin Map: | Ireland |
| Pushpin Label Position: | right |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Ireland |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | Ireland |
| Subdivision Type1: | Province |
| Subdivision Name1: | Munster |
| Subdivision Type3: | County |
| Subdivision Name3: | County Tipperary |
| Unit Pref: | Metric |
| Population Density Km2: | auto |
| Utc Offset1: | +0 |
| Timezone1 Dst: | IST (WEST) |
| Utc Offset1 Dst: | -1 |
| Coordinates: | 52.618°N -7.6377°W |
| Elevation M: | 172 |
| Blank Name: | Irish Grid Reference |
New Birmingham (known locally as Brimigim or Glengoole,)[1] is a small village of approximately 20 houses, in the parish of Kilcooly,[2] and the townland of Gortnahoe and Glengoole,[3] in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is located approximately 15 kilometres from Thurles and also on the R689 regional road between Urlingford and Fethard. It is within the townland of Glengoole,[4] and is in the barony of Slievardagh.
New Birmingham was founded by Sir Vere Hunt (1761–1818), a wealthy and eccentric Anglo-Irish landowner, with the help of Fr Michael Meighan, the local parish priest, in the early 1800s, for the workers in his coal mine at Glengoole. New Birmingham was a landlord-inspired creation whose location was chosen due to the site of a Catholic chapel. This new village was said to be very different from those established in Ulster in the early seventeenth century.[5] In his diary, he records having laid out the street pattern in person.[6] He also obtained a charter giving him the right to hold one or two markets, and several fairs every year. Hunt evidently hoped to turn New Birmingham into a major manufacturing centre,[7] with hopes to create a branch of the grand canal in order to transport coal to Dublin,[8] but he failed in this aim, as he did in most of his business ventures, due to not having the financial necessities to build this town. Historian Gillian Darley has called New Birmingham an "industrial foundation which failed to prosper, [and] remained a straggling hamlet".[9] As a result of this failure, the village was captured by the Catholic Church through the parish priest, and the landlords were withdrawn from ownership of this city, although New Birmingham is neither a landlord or chapel village.
The comedian Pat Shortt, from nearby Thurles, was inspired by New Birmingham for material on several occasions. He and Jon Kenny's characters, D'Unbelievables, were said to be from Glengoolie, taken from the regional name for New Birmingham, Glengoole. Residents of New Birmingham also inspired the pair for the names of their characters in an iconic Lotto advertisement from 1998.The name for Shortt's character, Buddy Brennan (known for the catchphrase "that's right"), was taken from one of the proprietor of Brennan's (O Braonain's) pub in the town.[10]