The building was commissioned as a private residence by a local developer, Captain Thomas Acres, who also served as an officer in the Tullamore Yeomanry Corps.

[3] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing onto Cormac Street.

[6] Tullamore Urban District council, established under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, in 1899,[7] was based in an office in Tullamore Courthouse until 1974, when it relocated to a building in O'Connor Square which it shared with the County Library and the County Motor Tax Office.

After finding this arrangement unsatisfactory, the urban district council acquired Acres House in the 1980s.

The building was converted for municipal use at a cost of £450,000, and then re-opened by the Minister for Labour, Brian Cowen, as Tullamore Town Hall on 22 June 1992.