Christmas time sometimes brings sorrow as well as joy. Last week Athy mourned the passing of Des McHugh, a man full of years and Niall Dunne, a young man some years short of his prime. I knew both quite well.
Des McHugh, for me, epitomised all that one could desire in a man who lived in and for his hometown. Born in Athy over eight decades ago, he lived out his long life amongst the people of the South Kildare town where his father had founded the family business over one hundred years ago. A gentleman to his fingertips Des McHugh played an active role in the social and cultural life of Athy over many many years. He was a past captain of the local Golf Club and of Athy Rugby Club and with the latter club captained the first Athy team to win the Towns Cup in 1938. He was also responsible for the setting up of the Lions Club in Athy which he did with the active participation and encouragement of his brother-in-law, Paddy Reynolds. Des had a vast store of local knowledge and lore, all of which he was generous in sharing with me whenever we met. On our last meeting at the November meeting of the Lions Club held in the Leinster Arms Hotel he spoke of a photograph of old Athy which he had wished to pass on to me. Unfortunately his sudden death deprives us of a cultured man who shared his experiences and knowledge with a generosity and a kindness which is often difficult to find nowadays. He will be sadly missed but his memory will live on in the work of the local Lions Club of which he was the first President and in which he was active right up to the very end.
Niall Dunne was a young man whom I had met on several occasions in recent years and who was intended to follow in the footsteps of his father, the ever popular Pat Dunne and his Grand-father in the family hostelry in Woodstock Street. The large attendance at his funeral comprised of young and old alike, bore witness to the respect in which Niall and his family were held by the local people. He was a hugely popular man amongst his youthful peers and his unexpected and sudden death shocked the town where the Dunne family has been so well known for so long.
Our thoughts at this time are with the McHugh and Dunne families, two of the oldest business families in the town of Athy.
I recently came across a Directory of Irish Towns of 1824 which include a list of shopkeepers, traders and tradesmen in Athy 177 years ago. I wonder how many of those businesses named are still represented in the town.
Richard Alcock Tailor
John Andrews Nailer
James Atkinson Schoolmaster
Thomas Bailey Boot and Shoe Maker
Thomas Ballen Hatter
Mrs. Jane Barras Post Mistress
George Blacking Painter and Glazier
Mary Bryan Grocer and Baker
Mary E. Bryan Grocer
John Butler Tanner
James Byrne Publican
Jeremy Byrne Grocer
Michael Byrne Baker
William Clarke Match Maker
Thomas Coffer Woolen Draper
Mary Coram Grocer
Edward Couse Boot Maker
Mary Cox Haberdasher
William Craig Grocer
Michael Cummins Corn Factor
Richard Cummins Tailor
John Delaney Chandler
John Duan Dyer
John Duncan Boot and Shoe Maker
John Dunn Publican
James English Smith
Catherine Fogarty Grocer & Baker
Dennis Fogarty Publican
John Fogarty Woolen Draper
Goold & Dunn General Merchants
John Holmes Leather Cutter
James Hoysted Publican
John Johnson Shoe Maker
John Johnson Tinman
Peter Keating Publican
William Keating Grocer
Michael Kehoe Grocer
John Kelly Linen & Woolen Draper
Edward Kennedy Leinster Arms & Head Inn
James Little Smith
Alex McDonnell Haberdasher
Robert Molloy Merchant Tailor
James Moore Publican
Patrick Murphy Publican
William Murphy Publican
William Nevil Saddler & Harness Maker
John Owens Soap Boiler
John Peppard Grocer
William Plewman Watch Maker
Catherine Purcel Baker
Peirce Sharman Carpenter
Richard Sharman Shoe Maker
Thomas Sheil Grocer
John Slater Publican
John Sourke Baker
John Staines Publican
James Wright Brewer
George Youall Soap Boiler and Chandler
May I thank all those from Athy and abroad who wrote to me or otherwise contacted me during the past year. I wish all of you a happy Christmas and prosperous New Year.
Thursday, December 27, 2001
Thursday, December 20, 2001
Christmas Time in Athy / Bob Morrisson
Two letters received during the week brought me back to the Athy of 50 years ago and to the days when life seemed so much simpler and less complicated than it is today. The first letter was from a Coneyboro resident who wrote of memories of Christmas past.
“The night we brought our Christmas grocery list to Frank O’Brien’s was a great family occasion. All my teenage life, our family did the weekly shopping in O’Brien’s and each Friday, Mr. O’Brien would be seen delivering the weekly groceries and firing. But come Christmas our shopping list was special in more ways than one. I can still remember and sometimes still feel the excitement and magic of walking into O’Brien’s shop on that special night. Surrounded by Christmas everywhere, boxes of Cadbury’s chocolates, selection boxes, Christmas cakes and puddings and Santa’s smiling face on the Tayto boxes high up on the shelves. To me this was part of the Christmas magic for a young boy”.
My own recollections of Christmas when I was a young lad living in Offaly Street was of Duthie’s Santa Claus, the excitement of window shopping in Duke Street, the festive goose or turkey for Christmas dinner, and the eerie calmness of a Christmas day afternoon in the local streets. The nodding Santa in Duthie’s shop window placed in position some weeks before Christmas day was for us youngsters the start of the Christmas season. The winter evenings closed in early and the darkness descended on the quiet streets necessitating the advancement of the public lighting up time to an hour or so before tea time. It was that time which marked the schoolboys’ free time between the closing of the school for the day and incarceration at home following tea to “do our exercise”. In those innocent days “doing your exercise” had nothing to do with physical training, but rather an acknowledgment that we had to sit down at the kitchen table and learn the prescribed poem in Irish or English for the following day and perhaps agonise over an English or Irish essay.
The darkness of the November evenings were but sparsely illuminated by the old fashioned public lighting of the time but this merely added to the sense of adventure to the wanderings of the young fellows who walked up one side of Duke Street as far as Glynn’s Corner returning on the opposite footpath.
The shop windows all suitably decorated for the Christmas offered a hint of excitement to come when the long anticipated day dawned. We enjoyed peering into the shop windows and soaking up the atmosphere of a town where town and country folk came together in a mixum-gatherum of indistinguishable class and creed. Shaw’s of course, provided the biggest attraction with a number of shop windows, one of which always featured toys. A number of the smaller shops also stacked some Christmas toys while Duthie’s jewellery provided the Christmas window shopping show piece, the nodding Santa.
In those days, I can remember the long build up to Christmas each year. Maybe its only the anticipation of a young mind but everywhere then seemed to take on a christmassy feeling at the start of November. Displays in shop windows were changed, toys were taken out of storage and given pride and place where they could encourage little minds to prompt big dad’s and mam’s. The toys never seemed to change from year to year unlike today when the latest book or film inevitably spawns a plethora of gadgets in its wake.
Can anyone remember from fifty years ago any toy other than the gun and holster and if exceptionally lucky a cowboy suit for a boy and a doll and a pram for a girl. They were the basic and it has to be said the most desirable toys for young children then even if jigsaws, small paint boxes, snakes and ladders and other party games were sometimes also part of the usual Christmas fare. I am very aware now although I wasn’t then that for many local children even a gun or a doll was not to be had on Christmas Day. The very real poverty of the 1950’s, a poverty which saw children go to school barefooted and sometimes without a bite to eat for breakfast is now mercifully behind us.
The second letter I got last week was from an old friend and former neighbour who brought to my attention the recent death of Bob Morrisson. I remember Bob Morrisson who in the 1950’s worked in Shaw’s and lived in St. Patrick’s Avenue. He was a familiar figure as he walked briskly through Offaly Street each day on his way to and from work. His name was familiar to anyone who shopped in Shaw’s at the time and who in Athy of fifty years ago did not do that. Almost every local household involved in the rural electrification scheme of the 1940’s and 1950’s would have done business with Shaw’s for the new fangled cookers and other electrical equipment on offer at that time. Bob Morrisson was the man who with the proprietor Sam Shaw ran the sales campaign which Shaw’s of Athy put on in conjunction with the rural electrification scheme. He transferred to Waterford in the early 1960’s as Manager of Shaw’s Department Store in that City and died last week at an advanced age.
While I was writing on Bob Morrisson, I was reminded of these years when most if not every shop in the town gave tick or credit to their customers. I can recall my own mother having a book for Shaw’s wherein the goods bought and the instalments paid each month were faithfully recorded. I can also recall how a similar arrangement operated with the family grocer who in our case was Myles Whelan of Duke Street and later still Jim Fennin. This, of course, had the attraction, so far as the shopkeeper was concerned, of maintaining customer loyalty, something which is not very obvious today. The changes in shopping habits over the years and the discarding of the book in favour of cash sales has probably brought some benefit to the shopkeeper. I wonder to what extent the cash only sales concept has contributed to the loss of business to individual shops or indeed to our town of Athy as shoppers become more mobile , more demanding in terms of quality and service.
While I am writing of Athy in 1950’s its appropriate that I should mention that this week a group of school lads from the local Christian Brothers school of that time have agreed to have a class reunion in the town of the weekend of the 20/22 September next. Some of those not now so young fellows live as far apart as Australia, China, America and other far flung places, with just a few of us still here in the town. If anyone reading this knows of someone who was school with the likes of Mick Robinson, Teddy Kelly, Ted Wynne, Brendan McKenna et al, would you pass on word of a class reunion in September and ask them to contact me.
Happy Christmas to all my readers.
“The night we brought our Christmas grocery list to Frank O’Brien’s was a great family occasion. All my teenage life, our family did the weekly shopping in O’Brien’s and each Friday, Mr. O’Brien would be seen delivering the weekly groceries and firing. But come Christmas our shopping list was special in more ways than one. I can still remember and sometimes still feel the excitement and magic of walking into O’Brien’s shop on that special night. Surrounded by Christmas everywhere, boxes of Cadbury’s chocolates, selection boxes, Christmas cakes and puddings and Santa’s smiling face on the Tayto boxes high up on the shelves. To me this was part of the Christmas magic for a young boy”.
My own recollections of Christmas when I was a young lad living in Offaly Street was of Duthie’s Santa Claus, the excitement of window shopping in Duke Street, the festive goose or turkey for Christmas dinner, and the eerie calmness of a Christmas day afternoon in the local streets. The nodding Santa in Duthie’s shop window placed in position some weeks before Christmas day was for us youngsters the start of the Christmas season. The winter evenings closed in early and the darkness descended on the quiet streets necessitating the advancement of the public lighting up time to an hour or so before tea time. It was that time which marked the schoolboys’ free time between the closing of the school for the day and incarceration at home following tea to “do our exercise”. In those innocent days “doing your exercise” had nothing to do with physical training, but rather an acknowledgment that we had to sit down at the kitchen table and learn the prescribed poem in Irish or English for the following day and perhaps agonise over an English or Irish essay.
The darkness of the November evenings were but sparsely illuminated by the old fashioned public lighting of the time but this merely added to the sense of adventure to the wanderings of the young fellows who walked up one side of Duke Street as far as Glynn’s Corner returning on the opposite footpath.
The shop windows all suitably decorated for the Christmas offered a hint of excitement to come when the long anticipated day dawned. We enjoyed peering into the shop windows and soaking up the atmosphere of a town where town and country folk came together in a mixum-gatherum of indistinguishable class and creed. Shaw’s of course, provided the biggest attraction with a number of shop windows, one of which always featured toys. A number of the smaller shops also stacked some Christmas toys while Duthie’s jewellery provided the Christmas window shopping show piece, the nodding Santa.
In those days, I can remember the long build up to Christmas each year. Maybe its only the anticipation of a young mind but everywhere then seemed to take on a christmassy feeling at the start of November. Displays in shop windows were changed, toys were taken out of storage and given pride and place where they could encourage little minds to prompt big dad’s and mam’s. The toys never seemed to change from year to year unlike today when the latest book or film inevitably spawns a plethora of gadgets in its wake.
Can anyone remember from fifty years ago any toy other than the gun and holster and if exceptionally lucky a cowboy suit for a boy and a doll and a pram for a girl. They were the basic and it has to be said the most desirable toys for young children then even if jigsaws, small paint boxes, snakes and ladders and other party games were sometimes also part of the usual Christmas fare. I am very aware now although I wasn’t then that for many local children even a gun or a doll was not to be had on Christmas Day. The very real poverty of the 1950’s, a poverty which saw children go to school barefooted and sometimes without a bite to eat for breakfast is now mercifully behind us.
The second letter I got last week was from an old friend and former neighbour who brought to my attention the recent death of Bob Morrisson. I remember Bob Morrisson who in the 1950’s worked in Shaw’s and lived in St. Patrick’s Avenue. He was a familiar figure as he walked briskly through Offaly Street each day on his way to and from work. His name was familiar to anyone who shopped in Shaw’s at the time and who in Athy of fifty years ago did not do that. Almost every local household involved in the rural electrification scheme of the 1940’s and 1950’s would have done business with Shaw’s for the new fangled cookers and other electrical equipment on offer at that time. Bob Morrisson was the man who with the proprietor Sam Shaw ran the sales campaign which Shaw’s of Athy put on in conjunction with the rural electrification scheme. He transferred to Waterford in the early 1960’s as Manager of Shaw’s Department Store in that City and died last week at an advanced age.
While I was writing on Bob Morrisson, I was reminded of these years when most if not every shop in the town gave tick or credit to their customers. I can recall my own mother having a book for Shaw’s wherein the goods bought and the instalments paid each month were faithfully recorded. I can also recall how a similar arrangement operated with the family grocer who in our case was Myles Whelan of Duke Street and later still Jim Fennin. This, of course, had the attraction, so far as the shopkeeper was concerned, of maintaining customer loyalty, something which is not very obvious today. The changes in shopping habits over the years and the discarding of the book in favour of cash sales has probably brought some benefit to the shopkeeper. I wonder to what extent the cash only sales concept has contributed to the loss of business to individual shops or indeed to our town of Athy as shoppers become more mobile , more demanding in terms of quality and service.
While I am writing of Athy in 1950’s its appropriate that I should mention that this week a group of school lads from the local Christian Brothers school of that time have agreed to have a class reunion in the town of the weekend of the 20/22 September next. Some of those not now so young fellows live as far apart as Australia, China, America and other far flung places, with just a few of us still here in the town. If anyone reading this knows of someone who was school with the likes of Mick Robinson, Teddy Kelly, Ted Wynne, Brendan McKenna et al, would you pass on word of a class reunion in September and ask them to contact me.
Happy Christmas to all my readers.
Thursday, December 13, 2001
Launch of Carloviana
I received a phone call a few weeks ago from a man whom I had never met but whose name was known to me as the author of two recently published books on differing aspects of local history. Michael Conry, a native of Tulsk in Co. Roscommon has for 40 years or so lived in the Carlow area and he was the man who wrote and produced two volumes, one recording Culm Crushers in the Barrow Valley and the other dealing with the Carlow Fence. To the average readers, neither Culm Crushers or Carlow Fences are likely to evoke identifiable responses and I must admit that prior to reading the books I knew naught about either subject. Anyway, the purpose of Michael Conroy’s phone call was to query whether I was the man “who is involved with local history” and being satisfied that I was, invited me to launch the 2001 edition of Carloviana on behalf of the Carlow Archaeological Historical Society.
So it was that last week I travelled to Carlow to join the members of what was formerly the Old Carlow Society in the venerable surroundings of St. Patrick’s College. You know its difficult not to envy the resources available to Carlow Folk which includes the likes of the over 200 year old Seminary whose former alumni included such diverse characters as Cardinal Cullen and John O’Leary, the legendary Fenian who in his latter years was the father figure of Irish Nationalism.
I saw a friendly face early on my arrival in the person of Dan Carbery of Carlow whose firm did so much good work on the recent restoration of Athy Courthouse. Dan, quick to spot an Athy interloper among the proud Carlovians, laughingly advised that the invite to an Athy man to launch the Carlow Journal was a small gesture of reparation for Carlow taking the Sugar Factory from Athy in 1926. I couldn’t but chuckle at how Dan had anticipated how an Athy man, (even with a streak of Castlecomer in him) would look upon the events of 1926 as defining the centuries old rivalry between the Barrow Valley Towns.
I was delighted to meet the President from Carlow College, Fr. Kevin O’Neill who promptly asked Dan to tell me of his involvement in the greatest mile race of all time. The year was 1958, the track was Santry Stadium Dublin, which the late Billy Morton had developed for an occasion such as was to develop that day as the World’s best milers lined up in competition. Included in the line up was Ireland’s Olympic Champion Ronnie Delaney and the one mile World Record holder Herb Elliot. Amongst the runners was a young Carlow man, Dan Carbery whose task on the night was to bring the runners through two fast opening laps and in a world record time if possible. Dan did his job so well that the world’s newspapers next day proclaimed that the first four runners home in the Dublin race had beaten the existing world record for one mile. Dan returned to Carlow a few days later and while passing down Tullow Street, heard his name called “young Carbery come here”. Getting off a bicycle, Dan’s caller came over to him and wondered out loud as to what happened him during the Dublin race. “I caught your name on the wireless early on but begob you weren’t there at the end. What you should have done young fellow, was snug yourself in behind those other fellows and at the last bell sprinted as fast as you could for the line”. The bemused Dan did not have the heart to tell his fellow town man that snugging in behind World and Olympic champions and keeping pace with them over four laps required more than wishful thinking to accomplish.
Later in the night as I launched what I understand was the 50th Edition of Carloviana, I commended the various contributors to the Journal whose work of recovering the lost voices of past years is typical of the work of local historians throughout Ireland. Every historian who researches, collates and puts into print the stories and accounts of past events and long forgotten people provides material which helps to underpin the history of their areas. As I referred to the task of recovering the hidden past, I had in mind a book which I had bought just days previously. “Dancing the Culm”, is the latest production from Michael Conry of Carlow and its a fascinating account of how Culm was processed and used as a domestic and industrial fuel in Ireland. Within the pages of the book, the author has a striking example of how the opportunity can be taken to remind us of little remembered events. I was pleasantly surprised to find a reference coupled with a photograph of the late Jimmy Gralton of Leitrim and America who was shamefully deported by the DeValera of Government of 1933 because of his Socialist tendancies. Jimmy was a Community activist, or if you will, a Community Socialist and having spent many years in America where he took out American citizenship, fell foul of both Church and State in the Ireland of the early 1930’s and suffered the ignominy of being deported from his native country to America where he died in 1945.
The Carloviana Journal is recommended to you as a good read whether you have County Carlow connections or not, while Michael Conry’s new book “Dancing the Culm” is guaranteed to engage your interest from start to finish.
Before finishing this week I must pay my respects to two men who passed away last weekend while I was out of Athy. Denis Cahalane was former Managing Director of Minch Norton’s at a time when that firm played a full and active role in the life, as well as the economy of the town, where it traded for so long. Times have changed, and the once proud name of Minch Norton’s, while still in Athy, can hardly be said to be involved in the life of the town as it was in previous years. Denis Cahalane was a friend of Vincent Cullinane one of the founders of Macra Na Feirme and he was involved with Vincent, in the early years of the Farmers Journal.
Pat Taylor a teacher in Enniscorthy died tragically in a car accident just a week or so after I had last met him in Athy. He taught in the local school but left Athy just before I came back to the Town. I met him subsequently and he struck me as an innovative and go ahead man who might have made a major contribution to this Community if he had continued to live here. My condolences go to the Cahalane and Taylor families.
So it was that last week I travelled to Carlow to join the members of what was formerly the Old Carlow Society in the venerable surroundings of St. Patrick’s College. You know its difficult not to envy the resources available to Carlow Folk which includes the likes of the over 200 year old Seminary whose former alumni included such diverse characters as Cardinal Cullen and John O’Leary, the legendary Fenian who in his latter years was the father figure of Irish Nationalism.
I saw a friendly face early on my arrival in the person of Dan Carbery of Carlow whose firm did so much good work on the recent restoration of Athy Courthouse. Dan, quick to spot an Athy interloper among the proud Carlovians, laughingly advised that the invite to an Athy man to launch the Carlow Journal was a small gesture of reparation for Carlow taking the Sugar Factory from Athy in 1926. I couldn’t but chuckle at how Dan had anticipated how an Athy man, (even with a streak of Castlecomer in him) would look upon the events of 1926 as defining the centuries old rivalry between the Barrow Valley Towns.
I was delighted to meet the President from Carlow College, Fr. Kevin O’Neill who promptly asked Dan to tell me of his involvement in the greatest mile race of all time. The year was 1958, the track was Santry Stadium Dublin, which the late Billy Morton had developed for an occasion such as was to develop that day as the World’s best milers lined up in competition. Included in the line up was Ireland’s Olympic Champion Ronnie Delaney and the one mile World Record holder Herb Elliot. Amongst the runners was a young Carlow man, Dan Carbery whose task on the night was to bring the runners through two fast opening laps and in a world record time if possible. Dan did his job so well that the world’s newspapers next day proclaimed that the first four runners home in the Dublin race had beaten the existing world record for one mile. Dan returned to Carlow a few days later and while passing down Tullow Street, heard his name called “young Carbery come here”. Getting off a bicycle, Dan’s caller came over to him and wondered out loud as to what happened him during the Dublin race. “I caught your name on the wireless early on but begob you weren’t there at the end. What you should have done young fellow, was snug yourself in behind those other fellows and at the last bell sprinted as fast as you could for the line”. The bemused Dan did not have the heart to tell his fellow town man that snugging in behind World and Olympic champions and keeping pace with them over four laps required more than wishful thinking to accomplish.
Later in the night as I launched what I understand was the 50th Edition of Carloviana, I commended the various contributors to the Journal whose work of recovering the lost voices of past years is typical of the work of local historians throughout Ireland. Every historian who researches, collates and puts into print the stories and accounts of past events and long forgotten people provides material which helps to underpin the history of their areas. As I referred to the task of recovering the hidden past, I had in mind a book which I had bought just days previously. “Dancing the Culm”, is the latest production from Michael Conry of Carlow and its a fascinating account of how Culm was processed and used as a domestic and industrial fuel in Ireland. Within the pages of the book, the author has a striking example of how the opportunity can be taken to remind us of little remembered events. I was pleasantly surprised to find a reference coupled with a photograph of the late Jimmy Gralton of Leitrim and America who was shamefully deported by the DeValera of Government of 1933 because of his Socialist tendancies. Jimmy was a Community activist, or if you will, a Community Socialist and having spent many years in America where he took out American citizenship, fell foul of both Church and State in the Ireland of the early 1930’s and suffered the ignominy of being deported from his native country to America where he died in 1945.
The Carloviana Journal is recommended to you as a good read whether you have County Carlow connections or not, while Michael Conry’s new book “Dancing the Culm” is guaranteed to engage your interest from start to finish.
Before finishing this week I must pay my respects to two men who passed away last weekend while I was out of Athy. Denis Cahalane was former Managing Director of Minch Norton’s at a time when that firm played a full and active role in the life, as well as the economy of the town, where it traded for so long. Times have changed, and the once proud name of Minch Norton’s, while still in Athy, can hardly be said to be involved in the life of the town as it was in previous years. Denis Cahalane was a friend of Vincent Cullinane one of the founders of Macra Na Feirme and he was involved with Vincent, in the early years of the Farmers Journal.
Pat Taylor a teacher in Enniscorthy died tragically in a car accident just a week or so after I had last met him in Athy. He taught in the local school but left Athy just before I came back to the Town. I met him subsequently and he struck me as an innovative and go ahead man who might have made a major contribution to this Community if he had continued to live here. My condolences go to the Cahalane and Taylor families.
Thursday, December 6, 2001
County Home
In 1949 an Interdepartmental Committee was set up to examine the future of the County Homes in Ireland. In its report the Committee found that many of the old workhouses which were still accommodating the chronic sick, the aged, mental defectives, and amenities. However, it was recognised that these old buildings could be refurbished or reconstructed to provide for the aged and chronic sick while mental defectives, unmarried mothers and their children, it suggested, it should be accommodated in separate institutions to be specially provided. The recommendations of the Committee were accepted in the Government White Paper issued in 1951 and funds were in time made to upgrade a number of the County Homes including that at Athy.
Kildare County Council embarked on a scheme of improvement to the County Home to replace the patient accommodation which was then located on the ground floor and first floor of the original workhouse building. The County Architect, Niall Meagher, was responsible for the planning, design and construction of the new St. Vincent’s Hospital, ably assisted by Eric Wallace, a member of the staff in his department. In this they worked closely with the staff of the Department of Health under Architect Cecil Dowdall. The administration of the project and commissioning ,equipping and staffing of the new buildings also involved the Matron, Sr. Dominic, and Kieran Hickey, then a young newly-appointed Staff Officer under whom I worked in the Health Section of Kildare County Council. Work on the construction of the new buildings by Bantile Limited of Banagher commenced on 27th July 1996 and took almost three years to complete. The new hospital, which cost £250,000 contained two Hospital blocks for 100 female patients, three Hospital blocks for 168 male patients and a 14-bed maternity unit with two delivery rooms. A sparkling new fully-equipped kitchen was also included in the building project and this replaced what was, in effect, the old Workhouse kitchen.
The new buildings were occupied on 3 April 1969, 128 years after the Workhouse had first opened. The transfer of 268 of the elderly residents from the old County Home to the brand new spacious hospital ground floor accommodation was a major event for them and, of course, for the staff of St. Vincent’s. It was not without its moments of poignancy and mixed feeling at leaving the familiar surroundings of the old home. The following poem, written at the time by Mrs. Ruth Wiley, aged 90 years, eloquently describes these mixed feelings.
FROM OLD TO NEW
The Sister said “Come all ye, get ready
We are going off today
From an old to a new spot
Not very far away”.
So we gathered up our toothbrush
Just a toothbrush and a brush
And felt that life began anew
With an almighty rush.
New friend, new loungs, new bathrooms too,
Oh, we felt mighty grand;
Just as the Israelites had felt
When they reached the Promised Land.
Yet I think of the many cures
Witnessed in the old block
We have to ask the Lord to bless
Every stone of ancient spot.
In 1971 the newly established Eastern Health Board took over responsibility for St. Vincent’s Hospital. The first visiting committee of the Board under the chairmanship of Councillor Paddy Hickey met in the hospital on 20th May 1971. Like the board of Guardians of old, the representatives of the Eastern Health Board expressed themselves pleased with the conditions in the hospital and the treatment afforded to the patients.
In the following year the Department of Health gave approval for the construction of a new convent building, a nurses’ home and a mortuary. The Sisters of Mercy had retained a presence in the hospital and former workhouse since 1874 and on their first arrival they had occupied rooms at the back of the main building block. Later they moved to the front of the building where they occupied rooms on the first floor and where they remained until they moved into the purpose-built Convent. The contractors for the new development were Messrs M. Turley & Co and, in late 1974, the work was completed and the buildings officially opened on 25 June 1975.
In 1981 Sr. Dominic retired as Matron of St. Vincent’s and was succeeded by Sr. Peg Rice. In her forty-one years in the County Home and later in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sr. Dominic had witnessed an increase in staff numbers in keeping with the improved quality of care provided for the patients. In the 1940s the County Home employed three religious and three nurses and in 1952 the first attendants were employed. Today, despite a reduction in the number of patients in the hospital compared to fifty years ago, the staff employed include 73 nurses/medical, 97 attendants and 10 administrative and support staff.
Kildare County Council embarked on a scheme of improvement to the County Home to replace the patient accommodation which was then located on the ground floor and first floor of the original workhouse building. The County Architect, Niall Meagher, was responsible for the planning, design and construction of the new St. Vincent’s Hospital, ably assisted by Eric Wallace, a member of the staff in his department. In this they worked closely with the staff of the Department of Health under Architect Cecil Dowdall. The administration of the project and commissioning ,equipping and staffing of the new buildings also involved the Matron, Sr. Dominic, and Kieran Hickey, then a young newly-appointed Staff Officer under whom I worked in the Health Section of Kildare County Council. Work on the construction of the new buildings by Bantile Limited of Banagher commenced on 27th July 1996 and took almost three years to complete. The new hospital, which cost £250,000 contained two Hospital blocks for 100 female patients, three Hospital blocks for 168 male patients and a 14-bed maternity unit with two delivery rooms. A sparkling new fully-equipped kitchen was also included in the building project and this replaced what was, in effect, the old Workhouse kitchen.
The new buildings were occupied on 3 April 1969, 128 years after the Workhouse had first opened. The transfer of 268 of the elderly residents from the old County Home to the brand new spacious hospital ground floor accommodation was a major event for them and, of course, for the staff of St. Vincent’s. It was not without its moments of poignancy and mixed feeling at leaving the familiar surroundings of the old home. The following poem, written at the time by Mrs. Ruth Wiley, aged 90 years, eloquently describes these mixed feelings.
FROM OLD TO NEW
The Sister said “Come all ye, get ready
We are going off today
From an old to a new spot
Not very far away”.
So we gathered up our toothbrush
Just a toothbrush and a brush
And felt that life began anew
With an almighty rush.
New friend, new loungs, new bathrooms too,
Oh, we felt mighty grand;
Just as the Israelites had felt
When they reached the Promised Land.
Yet I think of the many cures
Witnessed in the old block
We have to ask the Lord to bless
Every stone of ancient spot.
In 1971 the newly established Eastern Health Board took over responsibility for St. Vincent’s Hospital. The first visiting committee of the Board under the chairmanship of Councillor Paddy Hickey met in the hospital on 20th May 1971. Like the board of Guardians of old, the representatives of the Eastern Health Board expressed themselves pleased with the conditions in the hospital and the treatment afforded to the patients.
In the following year the Department of Health gave approval for the construction of a new convent building, a nurses’ home and a mortuary. The Sisters of Mercy had retained a presence in the hospital and former workhouse since 1874 and on their first arrival they had occupied rooms at the back of the main building block. Later they moved to the front of the building where they occupied rooms on the first floor and where they remained until they moved into the purpose-built Convent. The contractors for the new development were Messrs M. Turley & Co and, in late 1974, the work was completed and the buildings officially opened on 25 June 1975.
In 1981 Sr. Dominic retired as Matron of St. Vincent’s and was succeeded by Sr. Peg Rice. In her forty-one years in the County Home and later in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sr. Dominic had witnessed an increase in staff numbers in keeping with the improved quality of care provided for the patients. In the 1940s the County Home employed three religious and three nurses and in 1952 the first attendants were employed. Today, despite a reduction in the number of patients in the hospital compared to fifty years ago, the staff employed include 73 nurses/medical, 97 attendants and 10 administrative and support staff.
Thursday, November 29, 2001
Launch of Vol. 2 - Eye on the Past
A Book Launch is always a treasured memory and for a man evokes perhaps some of the emotion felt by a woman following a birth. I jest of course, but arguably the comparision can sometimes be made more justifiably in some cases than in others.
Last week I was in the happy position of watching Volume 2 of Eye on Athy’s Past slipping down the launch pad helped along by the gracious words of Athy born Senator Brendan Ryan. I was particularly pleased that Brendan, who also wrote a Foreword to the book, did the honours on the night as I owe more than perhaps I acknowledge to his late Father Liam. A teacher of generous qualities, Liam Ryan shared his knowledge and above all his enthusiasm with his young charges in the Christian Brothers Secondary School in Athy where he taught for over forty years. Liam O’Riain was the name which would undoubtedly have been included on the School Syllabus if same was printed in those days but to his pupils he was known simply as Bill Ryan. There was no nickname applied in his case unlike the other teachers whose behind the back but never face to face, nomeclatures, gave a hint of their standing of or lack of it in the eyes of their students.
Bill Ryan was an enthusiast in every thing that he did and in the allegiances he bestowed. Faint hearted allegiances or half hearted efforts were foreign to the Tipperary County man who spent his adult life in Athy. By the time I joined the Secondary School, Bill Ryan was already part of the folklore of scholars and teachers who had passed through the gates of St. John’s. He was still a relatively young man (certainly from the chronological time span which I now occupy) but for so long had been part of school and town life that he was accorded a venerability and a status seldom if ever, reserved for persons today.
I remember the five years spent in the Secondary School in Athy for a variety of reasons, most better than some and Bill Ryan was, and remains, a substantial part of the good things remembered from those days. He thought us gawky youngsters with the enthusiasm of a man who delighted in his role as a teacher and a mentor. For him, the learn by rota system held no attraction but instead he brought his own personal experiences to bear on the subject, whether, it was English, History or Latin. I can still visualize him standing at the top of the class, his right hand in his pocket with his glasses focused on his young audience watching, monitoring and constantly noticing the reaction of his listeners. His voice carried across the room almost always to the accompaniment of the clicking sound of coins which he constantly turned over in the pocket of his trousers. He spoke of every day things of the Reports in that morning’s papers, which for a man of his political allegiances was always the Irish Press. For Bill Ryan was a follower of De Valera and his political convictions were assured and steadfast. Nevertheless, he never allowed himself to politicise in a party political sense, his remarks to his students and the overriding theme of all his asides was the importance of our national and political independence and the realisation that what we had achieved owed much to the sacrifices of previous generations.
Bill Ryan figures large in the school boy memories of several generations of Athy men who negotiated each morning and afternoon the iron staircase which lead to the academy of excellence which was Athy Christian Brothers School. I owe an enormous debt to the teachers who taught me over the years but particularly so to the late Bill Ryan whose son Brendan did the honours in launching my book during the week. I was delighted to see among those attending the book launch, Brendan’s mother Mrs. Noreen Ryan who apart from a few years spent in Spain during the years of the Spanish Civil War has lived her life in her native town of Athy.
A short time ago, I had made arrangements to interview Kevin Fingleton of Grangemellon with particular reference to the ballad he composed during the Kilkea Farmers strike of the 1940’s. Unfortunately Kevin died before the planned interview took place. I first met Kevin when he was a senior member of the Local Nights of Malta and I was a member of the Malta Cadets. It was only in recent times that I became aware of his authorship of the Ballad which I first heard from Michael Delaney formerly of Kilkea and now of Dunquinn in County Kerry. I learned at Kevin’s funeral that his first rendition of the ballad in public was on the back of a lorry used as a platform in conjunction with what was presumably a strikers meeting in Emily Square. With Kevin’s passing, I missed the opportunity to record an important aspect of local history but hopefully someone, somewhere, will be able to recover the voices of almost sixty years ago and the events in which those forgotten men and women were involved.
It would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to thank those people who in so many ways helped to give Volume 2 of Athy’s Eye on Past such a good send off during the week. Fiona and Liam Rainsford were particularly helpful in preparing for printing the manuscript which had been typed and retyped for me by my secretary Eithne Wall. My thanks to them and to Brian Rowan and his Transport Company who sponsored the Wine Reception at the Book Launch.
A special thanks to you the readers of this column who have persevered through 478 weekly columns, some of which have now been reprinted in book form. My gratitude to every person who has allowed me to reproduce and print the interviews with which I tried to record the lives and events of times past in this part of our little country.
Last week I was in the happy position of watching Volume 2 of Eye on Athy’s Past slipping down the launch pad helped along by the gracious words of Athy born Senator Brendan Ryan. I was particularly pleased that Brendan, who also wrote a Foreword to the book, did the honours on the night as I owe more than perhaps I acknowledge to his late Father Liam. A teacher of generous qualities, Liam Ryan shared his knowledge and above all his enthusiasm with his young charges in the Christian Brothers Secondary School in Athy where he taught for over forty years. Liam O’Riain was the name which would undoubtedly have been included on the School Syllabus if same was printed in those days but to his pupils he was known simply as Bill Ryan. There was no nickname applied in his case unlike the other teachers whose behind the back but never face to face, nomeclatures, gave a hint of their standing of or lack of it in the eyes of their students.
Bill Ryan was an enthusiast in every thing that he did and in the allegiances he bestowed. Faint hearted allegiances or half hearted efforts were foreign to the Tipperary County man who spent his adult life in Athy. By the time I joined the Secondary School, Bill Ryan was already part of the folklore of scholars and teachers who had passed through the gates of St. John’s. He was still a relatively young man (certainly from the chronological time span which I now occupy) but for so long had been part of school and town life that he was accorded a venerability and a status seldom if ever, reserved for persons today.
I remember the five years spent in the Secondary School in Athy for a variety of reasons, most better than some and Bill Ryan was, and remains, a substantial part of the good things remembered from those days. He thought us gawky youngsters with the enthusiasm of a man who delighted in his role as a teacher and a mentor. For him, the learn by rota system held no attraction but instead he brought his own personal experiences to bear on the subject, whether, it was English, History or Latin. I can still visualize him standing at the top of the class, his right hand in his pocket with his glasses focused on his young audience watching, monitoring and constantly noticing the reaction of his listeners. His voice carried across the room almost always to the accompaniment of the clicking sound of coins which he constantly turned over in the pocket of his trousers. He spoke of every day things of the Reports in that morning’s papers, which for a man of his political allegiances was always the Irish Press. For Bill Ryan was a follower of De Valera and his political convictions were assured and steadfast. Nevertheless, he never allowed himself to politicise in a party political sense, his remarks to his students and the overriding theme of all his asides was the importance of our national and political independence and the realisation that what we had achieved owed much to the sacrifices of previous generations.
Bill Ryan figures large in the school boy memories of several generations of Athy men who negotiated each morning and afternoon the iron staircase which lead to the academy of excellence which was Athy Christian Brothers School. I owe an enormous debt to the teachers who taught me over the years but particularly so to the late Bill Ryan whose son Brendan did the honours in launching my book during the week. I was delighted to see among those attending the book launch, Brendan’s mother Mrs. Noreen Ryan who apart from a few years spent in Spain during the years of the Spanish Civil War has lived her life in her native town of Athy.
A short time ago, I had made arrangements to interview Kevin Fingleton of Grangemellon with particular reference to the ballad he composed during the Kilkea Farmers strike of the 1940’s. Unfortunately Kevin died before the planned interview took place. I first met Kevin when he was a senior member of the Local Nights of Malta and I was a member of the Malta Cadets. It was only in recent times that I became aware of his authorship of the Ballad which I first heard from Michael Delaney formerly of Kilkea and now of Dunquinn in County Kerry. I learned at Kevin’s funeral that his first rendition of the ballad in public was on the back of a lorry used as a platform in conjunction with what was presumably a strikers meeting in Emily Square. With Kevin’s passing, I missed the opportunity to record an important aspect of local history but hopefully someone, somewhere, will be able to recover the voices of almost sixty years ago and the events in which those forgotten men and women were involved.
It would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to thank those people who in so many ways helped to give Volume 2 of Athy’s Eye on Past such a good send off during the week. Fiona and Liam Rainsford were particularly helpful in preparing for printing the manuscript which had been typed and retyped for me by my secretary Eithne Wall. My thanks to them and to Brian Rowan and his Transport Company who sponsored the Wine Reception at the Book Launch.
A special thanks to you the readers of this column who have persevered through 478 weekly columns, some of which have now been reprinted in book form. My gratitude to every person who has allowed me to reproduce and print the interviews with which I tried to record the lives and events of times past in this part of our little country.
Thursday, November 22, 2001
Castlecomer / Aran Island Funeral
Last week I returned to Castlecomer to give a talk to the local history society. It was for me a unique occasion as I was born in Castlecomer and lived the first few years of my life in part of a big rambling house next door to the Garda Barracks. Indeed that was the sum total of my knowledge about the town of my birth until after my lecture last week when I spoke to 82 year old Michael Ferris. He greeted me with the welcome if somewhat improbable claim, “I’d know you from your father”. Nobody has ever before claimed that my father and I bore anything other than a fleeting resemblance to each other. Michael knew my father in the days when they were both relatively young men, one a Garda Sergeant, the other a hackney driver and garage man.
I was born, according to Michael, in what was one time a British Army Barracks but which under the Irish Free State housed the Garda Barracks and accommodation for the Superintendent, the Sergeant and a number of the local Gardai. Nurse O’Mahony of Florentine Terrace was the local midwife and she apparently must take the responsibility for bringing a second red-head into the Taaffe family all those years ago. A formidable woman she was, so my informant told me last week, with the strength of two men and a thirst to match. Michael Ferris told me how my father had wanted to stay in Castlecomer but sought a transfer to Athy so that his five sons could attend secondary school. “You’ve Canon McNamara to thank for that” said Michael, referring to the man who was Parish Priest of Castlecomer between 1926 and 1957. As a former Rector of St. Kieran’s College in Kilkenny, the Canon sought to ensure that local boys with ambitions for secondary education attended St. Kieran’s College. For that reason, or so it is claimed, the Canon resisted any attempt to start a secondary school for boys in Comer, thereby unwittingly or otherwise depriving many young fellows of the opportunity of a secondary education. For not everyone could hope to fund the fees for St. Kieran’s College, and certainly a Garda Sergeant could not do so and as Michael Ferris said, “we lost a good Sergeant as a result.”
Another Comer man to greet me after the lecture was Eddie Collins who served Mass with my eldest brother Jack. Jim Downey’s daughter laughingly told me of how her father’s coal allowance for his steam threshing machine was utilised during the War. Apparently the anthracite provided was not suitable for the threshing machine and word soon got around the neighborhood of the availability of a supply of badly needed coal. Inevitably approaches were made to Jim for a few bags of anthracite and one of the supplicants was the local Sergeant, who with an empty grate at home with a couple of young children to keep warm, could not be refused.
“Cactus” Brennan also made my acquaintance, renewing a contact first made between us by telephone some years ago after I wrote of the Athy Hurling Team’s success in the 1959 championship. “Cactus”, so-called because of his crew cut, was a member of that team and now retired from the ESB he regaled me with a story of how my father once came to his rescue. Apparently Michael was in charge of the gelignite store in Thurles at a time when the IRA campaign in the North was ongoing. He togged out for a hurling match in Geraldine Park with the Athy team one Sunday afternoon, but since he had previously transferred to the Thurles club he played under an assumed name. During the course of the match he got a few “belts” and next day on returning to work his face bore the marks of battle, so much so that his superior questioned where he had been. “Up north” came Michael’s flippant response whereupon the Garda on duty at the gelignite store brought him to the Garda Station where he was questioned at length. “Lucky for me” said Michael, “I remembered seeing Sergeant Taaffe at Geraldine Park and a phone call to the Athy Station confirmed my sporting involvement over the weekend.”
A few days later I travelled to the Aran Island to attend the funeral of an elderly island woman. Catholic funeral rituals are the same wherever you go, even if the local funeral traditions differ from place to place. I have written previously of a funeral in rural county Cork, but this was my first time to attend a funeral on the Aran Islands. The local cemetery, located on high ground overlooking the Atlantic ocean, was 2 ½ miles from the Church and was approached by a narrow undulating road which circled around the edge of the island. In the past, coffins were brought by horse and cart from the Church to the cemetery, but today this has given way to the Fordson tractor and trailer. The journey across the island was made in clear, calm weather and at the start and for a short time thereafter the tractor and trailer was followed by an orderly group of men, women and children with cars bringing up the rear. The tractor’s pace, geared to maintain a purchase on the approach hills to the cemetery, soon saw those following on foot stretching back along the road for almost half a mile. As the hills steepened, those on foot fell further behind and the cars passed out the stragglers here and there picking up those for whom the journey was proving too much. Everyone assembled at the gate to the cemetery to await the last of the mourners before the coffin was carried shoulder high and placed beside the open grave which had been dug earlier that day by family and friends. Prayers were said and two of the deceased’s sons stood down into the grave to receive the coffin which was placed into their hands and which they reverently placed into position in the bottom of the grave. Then those same men took up shovels and while the rosary was being said filled in the grave. As a final act one of the deceased’s sons played the haunting tune “Se Fath mo Bhuartha” [The Cause of my Sorrows] on a tin whistle over the grave of his mother.
As I looked around at the nearby gravestones I could not but notice names in Gaelic script for those who died up to the 1940’s, but thereafter more often than not the inscriptions were in English. The O’Flaherty’s, the Conneely’s, the Costello’s were represented here by many generations and included references to service in the USA Army in World War II. Clearly the call of emigration found a ready response among the Aran Islanders.
What I wondered was the story behind the burial of Art O’Lundy, K.M. of Lisburn, Co. Antrim here among the islanders of Inis Mór. I was reminded of a conversation I had earlier that morning with a 70 year old islander who on hearing I was from Co. Kildare pointed to an elderly man in a distant group, “He’s a Kildare man too”. Seemingly the “Kildare man” was born to an Aran Island mother and a Kildare father, but despite having spent all his life apart from his early childhood on Inis Mór he was still regarded as “a Kildare man”.
Inis Mór graveyard had no more poignant reminder of the tragedies of life than the gravestone erected by Bridget McDonagh to commemorate her husband Coleman who died in 1956, aged 84 years of age, which also noted the deaths of her children Mary on 25th December 1918 aged 4 years, John on 27th December 1918 aged 3 years and Catherine on 28th December 1918 aged 2 years. The flu epidemic which ravaged the European mainland at the end of the Great War had obviously reached the Aran Islands and decimated a young family in the space of three days.
No matter where we live life and death are our constant companions.
I was born, according to Michael, in what was one time a British Army Barracks but which under the Irish Free State housed the Garda Barracks and accommodation for the Superintendent, the Sergeant and a number of the local Gardai. Nurse O’Mahony of Florentine Terrace was the local midwife and she apparently must take the responsibility for bringing a second red-head into the Taaffe family all those years ago. A formidable woman she was, so my informant told me last week, with the strength of two men and a thirst to match. Michael Ferris told me how my father had wanted to stay in Castlecomer but sought a transfer to Athy so that his five sons could attend secondary school. “You’ve Canon McNamara to thank for that” said Michael, referring to the man who was Parish Priest of Castlecomer between 1926 and 1957. As a former Rector of St. Kieran’s College in Kilkenny, the Canon sought to ensure that local boys with ambitions for secondary education attended St. Kieran’s College. For that reason, or so it is claimed, the Canon resisted any attempt to start a secondary school for boys in Comer, thereby unwittingly or otherwise depriving many young fellows of the opportunity of a secondary education. For not everyone could hope to fund the fees for St. Kieran’s College, and certainly a Garda Sergeant could not do so and as Michael Ferris said, “we lost a good Sergeant as a result.”
Another Comer man to greet me after the lecture was Eddie Collins who served Mass with my eldest brother Jack. Jim Downey’s daughter laughingly told me of how her father’s coal allowance for his steam threshing machine was utilised during the War. Apparently the anthracite provided was not suitable for the threshing machine and word soon got around the neighborhood of the availability of a supply of badly needed coal. Inevitably approaches were made to Jim for a few bags of anthracite and one of the supplicants was the local Sergeant, who with an empty grate at home with a couple of young children to keep warm, could not be refused.
“Cactus” Brennan also made my acquaintance, renewing a contact first made between us by telephone some years ago after I wrote of the Athy Hurling Team’s success in the 1959 championship. “Cactus”, so-called because of his crew cut, was a member of that team and now retired from the ESB he regaled me with a story of how my father once came to his rescue. Apparently Michael was in charge of the gelignite store in Thurles at a time when the IRA campaign in the North was ongoing. He togged out for a hurling match in Geraldine Park with the Athy team one Sunday afternoon, but since he had previously transferred to the Thurles club he played under an assumed name. During the course of the match he got a few “belts” and next day on returning to work his face bore the marks of battle, so much so that his superior questioned where he had been. “Up north” came Michael’s flippant response whereupon the Garda on duty at the gelignite store brought him to the Garda Station where he was questioned at length. “Lucky for me” said Michael, “I remembered seeing Sergeant Taaffe at Geraldine Park and a phone call to the Athy Station confirmed my sporting involvement over the weekend.”
A few days later I travelled to the Aran Island to attend the funeral of an elderly island woman. Catholic funeral rituals are the same wherever you go, even if the local funeral traditions differ from place to place. I have written previously of a funeral in rural county Cork, but this was my first time to attend a funeral on the Aran Islands. The local cemetery, located on high ground overlooking the Atlantic ocean, was 2 ½ miles from the Church and was approached by a narrow undulating road which circled around the edge of the island. In the past, coffins were brought by horse and cart from the Church to the cemetery, but today this has given way to the Fordson tractor and trailer. The journey across the island was made in clear, calm weather and at the start and for a short time thereafter the tractor and trailer was followed by an orderly group of men, women and children with cars bringing up the rear. The tractor’s pace, geared to maintain a purchase on the approach hills to the cemetery, soon saw those following on foot stretching back along the road for almost half a mile. As the hills steepened, those on foot fell further behind and the cars passed out the stragglers here and there picking up those for whom the journey was proving too much. Everyone assembled at the gate to the cemetery to await the last of the mourners before the coffin was carried shoulder high and placed beside the open grave which had been dug earlier that day by family and friends. Prayers were said and two of the deceased’s sons stood down into the grave to receive the coffin which was placed into their hands and which they reverently placed into position in the bottom of the grave. Then those same men took up shovels and while the rosary was being said filled in the grave. As a final act one of the deceased’s sons played the haunting tune “Se Fath mo Bhuartha” [The Cause of my Sorrows] on a tin whistle over the grave of his mother.
As I looked around at the nearby gravestones I could not but notice names in Gaelic script for those who died up to the 1940’s, but thereafter more often than not the inscriptions were in English. The O’Flaherty’s, the Conneely’s, the Costello’s were represented here by many generations and included references to service in the USA Army in World War II. Clearly the call of emigration found a ready response among the Aran Islanders.
What I wondered was the story behind the burial of Art O’Lundy, K.M. of Lisburn, Co. Antrim here among the islanders of Inis Mór. I was reminded of a conversation I had earlier that morning with a 70 year old islander who on hearing I was from Co. Kildare pointed to an elderly man in a distant group, “He’s a Kildare man too”. Seemingly the “Kildare man” was born to an Aran Island mother and a Kildare father, but despite having spent all his life apart from his early childhood on Inis Mór he was still regarded as “a Kildare man”.
Inis Mór graveyard had no more poignant reminder of the tragedies of life than the gravestone erected by Bridget McDonagh to commemorate her husband Coleman who died in 1956, aged 84 years of age, which also noted the deaths of her children Mary on 25th December 1918 aged 4 years, John on 27th December 1918 aged 3 years and Catherine on 28th December 1918 aged 2 years. The flu epidemic which ravaged the European mainland at the end of the Great War had obviously reached the Aran Islands and decimated a young family in the space of three days.
No matter where we live life and death are our constant companions.
Castlecomer / Aran Island Funeral
Last week I returned to Castlecomer to give a talk to the local history society. It was for me a unique occasion as I was born in Castlecomer and lived the first few years of my life in part of a big rambling house next door to the Garda Barracks. Indeed that was the sum total of my knowledge about the town of my birth until after my lecture last week when I spoke to 82 year old Michael Ferris. He greeted me with the welcome if somewhat improbable claim, “I’d know you from your father”. Nobody has ever before claimed that my father and I bore anything other than a fleeting resemblance to each other. Michael knew my father in the days when they were both relatively young men, one a Garda Sergeant, the other a hackney driver and garage man.
I was born, according to Michael, in what was one time a British Army Barracks but which under the Irish Free State housed the Garda Barracks and accommodation for the Superintendent, the Sergeant and a number of the local Gardai. Nurse O’Mahony of Florentine Terrace was the local midwife and she apparently must take the responsibility for bringing a second red-head into the Taaffe family all those years ago. A formidable woman she was, so my informant told me last week, with the strength of two men and a thirst to match. Michael Ferris told me how my father had wanted to stay in Castlecomer but sought a transfer to Athy so that his five sons could attend secondary school. “You’ve Canon McNamara to thank for that” said Michael, referring to the man who was Parish Priest of Castlecomer between 1926 and 1957. As a former Rector of St. Kieran’s College in Kilkenny, the Canon sought to ensure that local boys with ambitions for secondary education attended St. Kieran’s College. For that reason, or so it is claimed, the Canon resisted any attempt to start a secondary school for boys in Comer, thereby unwittingly or otherwise depriving many young fellows of the opportunity of a secondary education. For not everyone could hope to fund the fees for St. Kieran’s College, and certainly a Garda Sergeant could not do so and as Michael Ferris said, “we lost a good Sergeant as a result.”
Another Comer man to greet me after the lecture was Eddie Collins who served Mass with my eldest brother Jack. Jim Downey’s daughter laughingly told me of how her father’s coal allowance for his steam threshing machine was utilised during the War. Apparently the anthracite provided was not suitable for the threshing machine and word soon got around the neighborhood of the availability of a supply of badly needed coal. Inevitably approaches were made to Jim for a few bags of anthracite and one of the supplicants was the local Sergeant, who with an empty grate at home with a couple of young children to keep warm, could not be refused.
“Cactus” Brennan also made my acquaintance, renewing a contact first made between us by telephone some years ago after I wrote of the Athy Hurling Team’s success in the 1959 championship. “Cactus”, so-called because of his crew cut, was a member of that team and now retired from the ESB he regaled me with a story of how my father once came to his rescue. Apparently Michael was in charge of the gelignite store in Thurles at a time when the IRA campaign in the North was ongoing. He togged out for a hurling match in Geraldine Park with the Athy team one Sunday afternoon, but since he had previously transferred to the Thurles club he played under an assumed name. During the course of the match he got a few “belts” and next day on returning to work his face bore the marks of battle, so much so that his superior questioned where he had been. “Up north” came Michael’s flippant response whereupon the Garda on duty at the gelignite store brought him to the Garda Station where he was questioned at length. “Lucky for me” said Michael, “I remembered seeing Sergeant Taaffe at Geraldine Park and a phone call to the Athy Station confirmed my sporting involvement over the weekend.”
A few days later I travelled to the Aran Island to attend the funeral of an elderly island woman. Catholic funeral rituals are the same wherever you go, even if the local funeral traditions differ from place to place. I have written previously of a funeral in rural county Cork, but this was my first time to attend a funeral on the Aran Islands. The local cemetery, located on high ground overlooking the Atlantic ocean, was 2 ½ miles from the Church and was approached by a narrow undulating road which circled around the edge of the island. In the past, coffins were brought by horse and cart from the Church to the cemetery, but today this has given way to the Fordson tractor and trailer. The journey across the island was made in clear, calm weather and at the start and for a short time thereafter the tractor and trailer was followed by an orderly group of men, women and children with cars bringing up the rear. The tractor’s pace, geared to maintain a purchase on the approach hills to the cemetery, soon saw those following on foot stretching back along the road for almost half a mile. As the hills steepened, those on foot fell further behind and the cars passed out the stragglers here and there picking up those for whom the journey was proving too much. Everyone assembled at the gate to the cemetery to await the last of the mourners before the coffin was carried shoulder high and placed beside the open grave which had been dug earlier that day by family and friends. Prayers were said and two of the deceased’s sons stood down into the grave to receive the coffin which was placed into their hands and which they reverently placed into position in the bottom of the grave. Then those same men took up shovels and while the rosary was being said filled in the grave. As a final act one of the deceased’s sons played the haunting tune “Se Fath mo Bhuartha” [The Cause of my Sorrows] on a tin whistle over the grave of his mother.
As I looked around at the nearby gravestones I could not but notice names in Gaelic script for those who died up to the 1940’s, but thereafter more often than not the inscriptions were in English. The O’Flaherty’s, the Conneely’s, the Costello’s were represented here by many generations and included references to service in the USA Army in World War II. Clearly the call of emigration found a ready response among the Aran Islanders.
What I wondered was the story behind the burial of Art O’Lundy, K.M. of Lisburn, Co. Antrim here among the islanders of Inis Mór. I was reminded of a conversation I had earlier that morning with a 70 year old islander who on hearing I was from Co. Kildare pointed to an elderly man in a distant group, “He’s a Kildare man too”. Seemingly the “Kildare man” was born to an Aran Island mother and a Kildare father, but despite having spent all his life apart from his early childhood on Inis Mór he was still regarded as “a Kildare man”.
Inis Mór graveyard had no more poignant reminder of the tragedies of life than the gravestone erected by Bridget McDonagh to commemorate her husband Coleman who died in 1956, aged 84 years of age, which also noted the deaths of her children Mary on 25th December 1918 aged 4 years, John on 27th December 1918 aged 3 years and Catherine on 28th December 1918 aged 2 years. The flu epidemic which ravaged the European mainland at the end of the Great War had obviously reached the Aran Islands and decimated a young family in the space of three days.
No matter where we live life and death are our constant companions.
I was born, according to Michael, in what was one time a British Army Barracks but which under the Irish Free State housed the Garda Barracks and accommodation for the Superintendent, the Sergeant and a number of the local Gardai. Nurse O’Mahony of Florentine Terrace was the local midwife and she apparently must take the responsibility for bringing a second red-head into the Taaffe family all those years ago. A formidable woman she was, so my informant told me last week, with the strength of two men and a thirst to match. Michael Ferris told me how my father had wanted to stay in Castlecomer but sought a transfer to Athy so that his five sons could attend secondary school. “You’ve Canon McNamara to thank for that” said Michael, referring to the man who was Parish Priest of Castlecomer between 1926 and 1957. As a former Rector of St. Kieran’s College in Kilkenny, the Canon sought to ensure that local boys with ambitions for secondary education attended St. Kieran’s College. For that reason, or so it is claimed, the Canon resisted any attempt to start a secondary school for boys in Comer, thereby unwittingly or otherwise depriving many young fellows of the opportunity of a secondary education. For not everyone could hope to fund the fees for St. Kieran’s College, and certainly a Garda Sergeant could not do so and as Michael Ferris said, “we lost a good Sergeant as a result.”
Another Comer man to greet me after the lecture was Eddie Collins who served Mass with my eldest brother Jack. Jim Downey’s daughter laughingly told me of how her father’s coal allowance for his steam threshing machine was utilised during the War. Apparently the anthracite provided was not suitable for the threshing machine and word soon got around the neighborhood of the availability of a supply of badly needed coal. Inevitably approaches were made to Jim for a few bags of anthracite and one of the supplicants was the local Sergeant, who with an empty grate at home with a couple of young children to keep warm, could not be refused.
“Cactus” Brennan also made my acquaintance, renewing a contact first made between us by telephone some years ago after I wrote of the Athy Hurling Team’s success in the 1959 championship. “Cactus”, so-called because of his crew cut, was a member of that team and now retired from the ESB he regaled me with a story of how my father once came to his rescue. Apparently Michael was in charge of the gelignite store in Thurles at a time when the IRA campaign in the North was ongoing. He togged out for a hurling match in Geraldine Park with the Athy team one Sunday afternoon, but since he had previously transferred to the Thurles club he played under an assumed name. During the course of the match he got a few “belts” and next day on returning to work his face bore the marks of battle, so much so that his superior questioned where he had been. “Up north” came Michael’s flippant response whereupon the Garda on duty at the gelignite store brought him to the Garda Station where he was questioned at length. “Lucky for me” said Michael, “I remembered seeing Sergeant Taaffe at Geraldine Park and a phone call to the Athy Station confirmed my sporting involvement over the weekend.”
A few days later I travelled to the Aran Island to attend the funeral of an elderly island woman. Catholic funeral rituals are the same wherever you go, even if the local funeral traditions differ from place to place. I have written previously of a funeral in rural county Cork, but this was my first time to attend a funeral on the Aran Islands. The local cemetery, located on high ground overlooking the Atlantic ocean, was 2 ½ miles from the Church and was approached by a narrow undulating road which circled around the edge of the island. In the past, coffins were brought by horse and cart from the Church to the cemetery, but today this has given way to the Fordson tractor and trailer. The journey across the island was made in clear, calm weather and at the start and for a short time thereafter the tractor and trailer was followed by an orderly group of men, women and children with cars bringing up the rear. The tractor’s pace, geared to maintain a purchase on the approach hills to the cemetery, soon saw those following on foot stretching back along the road for almost half a mile. As the hills steepened, those on foot fell further behind and the cars passed out the stragglers here and there picking up those for whom the journey was proving too much. Everyone assembled at the gate to the cemetery to await the last of the mourners before the coffin was carried shoulder high and placed beside the open grave which had been dug earlier that day by family and friends. Prayers were said and two of the deceased’s sons stood down into the grave to receive the coffin which was placed into their hands and which they reverently placed into position in the bottom of the grave. Then those same men took up shovels and while the rosary was being said filled in the grave. As a final act one of the deceased’s sons played the haunting tune “Se Fath mo Bhuartha” [The Cause of my Sorrows] on a tin whistle over the grave of his mother.
As I looked around at the nearby gravestones I could not but notice names in Gaelic script for those who died up to the 1940’s, but thereafter more often than not the inscriptions were in English. The O’Flaherty’s, the Conneely’s, the Costello’s were represented here by many generations and included references to service in the USA Army in World War II. Clearly the call of emigration found a ready response among the Aran Islanders.
What I wondered was the story behind the burial of Art O’Lundy, K.M. of Lisburn, Co. Antrim here among the islanders of Inis Mór. I was reminded of a conversation I had earlier that morning with a 70 year old islander who on hearing I was from Co. Kildare pointed to an elderly man in a distant group, “He’s a Kildare man too”. Seemingly the “Kildare man” was born to an Aran Island mother and a Kildare father, but despite having spent all his life apart from his early childhood on Inis Mór he was still regarded as “a Kildare man”.
Inis Mór graveyard had no more poignant reminder of the tragedies of life than the gravestone erected by Bridget McDonagh to commemorate her husband Coleman who died in 1956, aged 84 years of age, which also noted the deaths of her children Mary on 25th December 1918 aged 4 years, John on 27th December 1918 aged 3 years and Catherine on 28th December 1918 aged 2 years. The flu epidemic which ravaged the European mainland at the end of the Great War had obviously reached the Aran Islands and decimated a young family in the space of three days.
No matter where we live life and death are our constant companions.
Thursday, November 8, 2001
Inaugural Shackleton Weekend / Remembrance Sunday
The inaugural Shackleton Autumn School was a rip-roaring success. Last weekend Athy’s Heritage Company played host to a lot of visitors, many of whom were spending their first time in the South Kildare town. All had arrived, some from as far away as Scotland and England, others from Kerry, Galway and Wexford, to participate in the events planned for the October Bank Holiday weekend. I have to say that all those involved with the Heritage Company were more than pleasantly surprised at the widespread response to the programme prepared in connection with the Shackleton School.
Right from the official opening on Friday evening it became apparent that there would be a large attendance at the various lectures on Saturday and Sunday and so it proved to be. Frank O’Brien’s was the scene of a unique coming together of local talent in the person of Brian Hughes, tin whistle player and Michael Delaney, balladeer on that Friday evening. The venue was packed to the rafters and both artistes performed to an appreciative audience. The next morning saw the lecture hall attached to the Library full to capacity as John MacKenna spoke on the Shackleton quaker legacy in South Kildare, while Jonathan Shackleton dealt with his relation’s early life and Kevin Kenny unraveled the story behind the arrival of a polar sledge harness in the Athy Heritage Centre. Dr. Bob Headland of the Scot Polar Research Institute of Cambridge was the first speaker in the afternoon when he lectured on Shackleton’s expeditions to the Antarctic. He was followed by Dublin man Frank Nugent who three years ago was part of the team which set out to retrace the famous journey of the James Caird from Elephant Island to South Georgia. Frank ended his lecture with a lovely rendition of a ballad written to commemorate the exploits of Kilkea-born Ernest Shackleton. The first day of lectures drew to a close when the audience dispersed to prepare for the concert in St. Dominic’s Church on Saturday night. For the first time ever, Ireland’s foremost uileann piper, Liam O’Flynn and his colleagues in the Piper’s Call Band, played in Athy and a great night was had by the large attendance.
More than 60 persons travelled on Sunday morning to various sites associated with Ernest Shackleton, including Ballitore Village, Moone High Cross and Kilkea House where he was born in 1874. Thanks are due to Mary Malone, Librarian, Ballitore, Eamon Kane of Castledermot, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Greene and Michael Delaney of Kilkea and Dún Chaoin, Co. Kerry for their contribution during that trip. The Shackleton Autumn School concluded on Sunday afternoon with an exceptionally finely delivered lecture by Michael Smith, a London journalist and recent biographer of Tom Crean. Understandably his subject was Tom Crean, the Annascaul, Co. Kerry man who had accompanied Shackleton on a number of his expeditions and whose story remained untold until taken up in Michael Smith’s recently released book.
The Ernest Shackleton Autumn School was a unique event representing the first time that the Kilkea-born explorer was honoured in this way in his own country. Everyone who attended had nothing but kind words to speak of Athy, a town which many of them had never previously visited. It is obvious that this is a venture which can and should be repeated in the future years. In the meantime congratulations are due and are extended to Margaret O'Riordan, Manager of the Heritage Centre who put an enormous amount of work into organising the event. Well done also to the local businesses and associations who provided sponsorship for the weekend.
Next Sunday, November 11th, is Remembrance Sunday, the one day which each year is set aside to remember the dead of World War I. No doubt you will recall my many previous references to the men of Athy and District who died tragically and needlessly in the bloody conflict which changed the world order. What did a man like James Dunne who lived with his father Peter Dunne at 3 Offaly Street, Athy expect to achieve when he enlisted in the Dublin Fusiliers. He went to France and died aged 20 years on Monday, 13th November 1916. His name is to be found on the Thiepval Memorial at the Somme in France which is a memorial to the missing soldiers of the Battle of the Somme and includes the names of more than 72,000 officers and men who have no known grave.
What did Frank Fanning of Convent Lane hope to achieve when he enlisted in the Dublin Fusiliers to fight in the war described as ‘the war to end all wars’. He took part in the landing at Cape Helles on 25th and 26th April 1915. He died on 12th July 1915 and is buried in Twelve Three Copse Cemetery which was opened at the end of the war when remains were brought in from isolated burial sites and small burial grounds on the neighbouring battle fields. There are 3,360 World War I soldiers buried or commemorated in the cemetery, but sadly 2,226 of those burials are unidentified.
These are two of the many local men who were destined never to return to their homes at the end of World War I. James Dunne and Frank Fanning have no known graves, unlike their six colleagues who are buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery. Michael Byrne, James Dwyer, Thomas Flynn, Martin Hyland, John Lawler and Michael O’Brien in a sense represent the 188 men from Athy and District who died during the 1914-1918 War. Next Sunday at 3.00pm we can pay our respects to the forgotten men of another time who once walked the same roads we now travel.
Another man who lived in Athy during the 1930’s and 1940’s died last week in England. He was Br. John Keane of the Christian Brothers who taught in the local CBS from 1935 to 1948. He was last in Athy in September 1994 when the townspeople celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edmund Rice, which celebration coincided with the departure of the Christian Brothers from Athy after a period of 132 years. Br. Keane who was based in Strawberry Hill, Twickenham came back to Athy for the celebrations and renewed acquaintances with some of his former pupils including Cha Chanders and Denis Smith. His death severs another link between the Irish Christian Brothers and the town of Athy.
Right from the official opening on Friday evening it became apparent that there would be a large attendance at the various lectures on Saturday and Sunday and so it proved to be. Frank O’Brien’s was the scene of a unique coming together of local talent in the person of Brian Hughes, tin whistle player and Michael Delaney, balladeer on that Friday evening. The venue was packed to the rafters and both artistes performed to an appreciative audience. The next morning saw the lecture hall attached to the Library full to capacity as John MacKenna spoke on the Shackleton quaker legacy in South Kildare, while Jonathan Shackleton dealt with his relation’s early life and Kevin Kenny unraveled the story behind the arrival of a polar sledge harness in the Athy Heritage Centre. Dr. Bob Headland of the Scot Polar Research Institute of Cambridge was the first speaker in the afternoon when he lectured on Shackleton’s expeditions to the Antarctic. He was followed by Dublin man Frank Nugent who three years ago was part of the team which set out to retrace the famous journey of the James Caird from Elephant Island to South Georgia. Frank ended his lecture with a lovely rendition of a ballad written to commemorate the exploits of Kilkea-born Ernest Shackleton. The first day of lectures drew to a close when the audience dispersed to prepare for the concert in St. Dominic’s Church on Saturday night. For the first time ever, Ireland’s foremost uileann piper, Liam O’Flynn and his colleagues in the Piper’s Call Band, played in Athy and a great night was had by the large attendance.
More than 60 persons travelled on Sunday morning to various sites associated with Ernest Shackleton, including Ballitore Village, Moone High Cross and Kilkea House where he was born in 1874. Thanks are due to Mary Malone, Librarian, Ballitore, Eamon Kane of Castledermot, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Greene and Michael Delaney of Kilkea and Dún Chaoin, Co. Kerry for their contribution during that trip. The Shackleton Autumn School concluded on Sunday afternoon with an exceptionally finely delivered lecture by Michael Smith, a London journalist and recent biographer of Tom Crean. Understandably his subject was Tom Crean, the Annascaul, Co. Kerry man who had accompanied Shackleton on a number of his expeditions and whose story remained untold until taken up in Michael Smith’s recently released book.
The Ernest Shackleton Autumn School was a unique event representing the first time that the Kilkea-born explorer was honoured in this way in his own country. Everyone who attended had nothing but kind words to speak of Athy, a town which many of them had never previously visited. It is obvious that this is a venture which can and should be repeated in the future years. In the meantime congratulations are due and are extended to Margaret O'Riordan, Manager of the Heritage Centre who put an enormous amount of work into organising the event. Well done also to the local businesses and associations who provided sponsorship for the weekend.
Next Sunday, November 11th, is Remembrance Sunday, the one day which each year is set aside to remember the dead of World War I. No doubt you will recall my many previous references to the men of Athy and District who died tragically and needlessly in the bloody conflict which changed the world order. What did a man like James Dunne who lived with his father Peter Dunne at 3 Offaly Street, Athy expect to achieve when he enlisted in the Dublin Fusiliers. He went to France and died aged 20 years on Monday, 13th November 1916. His name is to be found on the Thiepval Memorial at the Somme in France which is a memorial to the missing soldiers of the Battle of the Somme and includes the names of more than 72,000 officers and men who have no known grave.
What did Frank Fanning of Convent Lane hope to achieve when he enlisted in the Dublin Fusiliers to fight in the war described as ‘the war to end all wars’. He took part in the landing at Cape Helles on 25th and 26th April 1915. He died on 12th July 1915 and is buried in Twelve Three Copse Cemetery which was opened at the end of the war when remains were brought in from isolated burial sites and small burial grounds on the neighbouring battle fields. There are 3,360 World War I soldiers buried or commemorated in the cemetery, but sadly 2,226 of those burials are unidentified.
These are two of the many local men who were destined never to return to their homes at the end of World War I. James Dunne and Frank Fanning have no known graves, unlike their six colleagues who are buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery. Michael Byrne, James Dwyer, Thomas Flynn, Martin Hyland, John Lawler and Michael O’Brien in a sense represent the 188 men from Athy and District who died during the 1914-1918 War. Next Sunday at 3.00pm we can pay our respects to the forgotten men of another time who once walked the same roads we now travel.
Another man who lived in Athy during the 1930’s and 1940’s died last week in England. He was Br. John Keane of the Christian Brothers who taught in the local CBS from 1935 to 1948. He was last in Athy in September 1994 when the townspeople celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edmund Rice, which celebration coincided with the departure of the Christian Brothers from Athy after a period of 132 years. Br. Keane who was based in Strawberry Hill, Twickenham came back to Athy for the celebrations and renewed acquaintances with some of his former pupils including Cha Chanders and Denis Smith. His death severs another link between the Irish Christian Brothers and the town of Athy.
Thursday, October 25, 2001
Local Authority Housing in Athy
I had intended this week to write of a young man from our town who was recently ordained to the Priesthood but the time and opportunity to do so has eluded me but I will return to this story in the near future. Instead I will pass onto other mundane matters in the not so recent past. In particular Dr. Kilbride who on the 3rd November 1906 reported to the Urban District Council on the sanitary condition of the “houses of the working classes” in Athy. He was now about to embark on his second social campaign to improve the lot of the people living in Athy. In his report he stated:
The floors in many houses are lower than the laneway in front and the fall of the yard is to the back door, consequently the floors are wet and sodden in rainy weather and frequently are flooded. In the yards are found underground drains choked in most cases and quite ineffective. In less than a dozen cases was there found any sanitary accommodation … in some rooms the only light admitted is through a few (sometimes only one) small pane of glass found in the wall, sufficient light or air cannot find entrance to these rooms … there are many houses in more than one lane that if the poor people had other houses to go to should be closed as unfit for human habitation in their present condition… there is no main sewer in the west end of the town beyond Keating’s Lane… the Order of the Council with regard to the removal of manure heaps is not in force. In some yards there were accumulations for the greater part of the year.
Having started on the Water Supply Scheme for Athy just one month previously, the Urban Councillors probably felt justified in leaving Dr. Kilbride’s report aside without taking any further action. Instead, the Council renewed its efforts to persuade the Inspector General of the R.I.C. to have the local police barracks restored to the centre of the town, as it was felt that the old military barracks at Barrack Lane, to which the R.I.C. were relocated, was too far away. Their efforts were in vain and the local police were to continue to occupy the military barracks until the end of the British rule in Ireland.
Dr. Kilbride’s concern for the public health of the townspeople was supported by Lady Weldon of Kilmoroney who was instrumental in the formation of an Athy Branch of the Women’s Health Association in November 1907. A Tuberculosis Committee was also formed and a series of health lectures organised for the Town Hall. In December 1907, a Tuberculosis Exhibition was held in the same hall at which members of the Tuberculosis Committee were on hand to explain the various exhibits to the general public who were summoned to attend by the local Bellman. On 24th July, 1908, Lady Aberdeen, the Viceroy’s wife, visited the town to formally launch the newly-established Womans National Health Association for Athy. The Leinster Street Band met her at the railway station and paraded to the Town Hall where Lady Aberdeen was presented with an address of welcome.
By 1909 the Urban Council was in a position to address the need for housing in the town and appointed a committee to recommend an appropriate scheme under the Housing of the Working Classes Act. This committee when it met on the 26th February split into two groups to select suitable sites for housing in the east urban and the west urban of Athy. Within a month sites had been selected and the Council agreed to build three different classes of houses to be let at rents ranging from 2/= to 3/6 per week. The selected sites were at Matthew’s Lane (off Leinster Street), Meeting Lane and Woodstock Street. Public advertisements for plans for suitable houses for Athy elicited ten submissions and James F. Reade, already well known in Athy as the architect of the Water Supply Scheme, won the five guineas prize for the best design.
Within twelve months the Councillors were re-thinking the original house plans and decided to build “eleven better class houses” on the Matthew’s Lane site, five, “better class houses” at Woodstock Street and five “labourers houses” at Meeting Lane. A public enquiry was held in the Town Hall on 15th February, 1911 under the auspices of J. F. MacCabe, a Local Government Inspector to consider the Council’s proposed compulsory acquisition of lands for housing in Athy. Following that enquiry, an advertisement was placed in the local newspapers inviting tenders for the construction of twenty one Council houses - ten at Matthew’s Lane, five at Meeting Lane and six at Kelly’s field off Woodstock Street. The successful tender was received from H.A. Hamilton of Thomas St., Waterford, but when it was not acted upon after the lapse of ten months Mr. Hamilton withdrew. The Council re-advertised on 26th June, 1912, but not before Michael Malone, Secretary of Athy’s Town Tenants League had written to the Town Council protesting against “its inactivity in relation to house building”. Within a month Dr. James Kilbride had resigned as medical officer on health grounds.
It would be remiss of me not to bring to your attention the Ernest Shackleton Autumn School which is to take place in the Town Hall, Athy over next weekend. The Shackleton story of Antarctic Exploration between 1901 and 1922 is known to most people and especially those who live in the Kilkea area where he was born 125 years ago. The Shackleton Autumn School is organised by the local Heritage Company to celebrate the achievements of a man who lived his early life within a few miles of Athy. The lecturers for the weekend Seminar are of an extremely high calibre and include Jonathan Shackleton a direct descendent of the Explorer, Dr. Robert Headland of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, Frank Nugent who was part of the team which re-enacted in 1997 the heroic voyage of the James Caird and Michael Smith the recent biographer of Tom Crean. I would urge everyone with an interest in the subject to come to all or some of the Lectures over the weekend.
As part of the weekend festivities, there will be a Concert in the Dominican Hall on Saturday, 27th October at 9.00 p.m. Liam O’Flynn and the Pipers Call Band will provide the musical entertainment and tickets can be obtained from the Heritage Centre or at the door on the night. However, early booking is advisable as this is the first Concert to be given by Liam O’Flynn in Athy and promises to be a sell out. Also entertaining those attending the Earnest Shackleton Summer School on Friday night will be Brian Hughes whose CD, “Whistle Stop” which issued some time ago by Gael Linn was a huge success. He is joining forces with Michael Delaney who will be singing some of the old forgotten ballads of Kilkea and South Kildare area which he has collected over the years.
See you there.
The floors in many houses are lower than the laneway in front and the fall of the yard is to the back door, consequently the floors are wet and sodden in rainy weather and frequently are flooded. In the yards are found underground drains choked in most cases and quite ineffective. In less than a dozen cases was there found any sanitary accommodation … in some rooms the only light admitted is through a few (sometimes only one) small pane of glass found in the wall, sufficient light or air cannot find entrance to these rooms … there are many houses in more than one lane that if the poor people had other houses to go to should be closed as unfit for human habitation in their present condition… there is no main sewer in the west end of the town beyond Keating’s Lane… the Order of the Council with regard to the removal of manure heaps is not in force. In some yards there were accumulations for the greater part of the year.
Having started on the Water Supply Scheme for Athy just one month previously, the Urban Councillors probably felt justified in leaving Dr. Kilbride’s report aside without taking any further action. Instead, the Council renewed its efforts to persuade the Inspector General of the R.I.C. to have the local police barracks restored to the centre of the town, as it was felt that the old military barracks at Barrack Lane, to which the R.I.C. were relocated, was too far away. Their efforts were in vain and the local police were to continue to occupy the military barracks until the end of the British rule in Ireland.
Dr. Kilbride’s concern for the public health of the townspeople was supported by Lady Weldon of Kilmoroney who was instrumental in the formation of an Athy Branch of the Women’s Health Association in November 1907. A Tuberculosis Committee was also formed and a series of health lectures organised for the Town Hall. In December 1907, a Tuberculosis Exhibition was held in the same hall at which members of the Tuberculosis Committee were on hand to explain the various exhibits to the general public who were summoned to attend by the local Bellman. On 24th July, 1908, Lady Aberdeen, the Viceroy’s wife, visited the town to formally launch the newly-established Womans National Health Association for Athy. The Leinster Street Band met her at the railway station and paraded to the Town Hall where Lady Aberdeen was presented with an address of welcome.
By 1909 the Urban Council was in a position to address the need for housing in the town and appointed a committee to recommend an appropriate scheme under the Housing of the Working Classes Act. This committee when it met on the 26th February split into two groups to select suitable sites for housing in the east urban and the west urban of Athy. Within a month sites had been selected and the Council agreed to build three different classes of houses to be let at rents ranging from 2/= to 3/6 per week. The selected sites were at Matthew’s Lane (off Leinster Street), Meeting Lane and Woodstock Street. Public advertisements for plans for suitable houses for Athy elicited ten submissions and James F. Reade, already well known in Athy as the architect of the Water Supply Scheme, won the five guineas prize for the best design.
Within twelve months the Councillors were re-thinking the original house plans and decided to build “eleven better class houses” on the Matthew’s Lane site, five, “better class houses” at Woodstock Street and five “labourers houses” at Meeting Lane. A public enquiry was held in the Town Hall on 15th February, 1911 under the auspices of J. F. MacCabe, a Local Government Inspector to consider the Council’s proposed compulsory acquisition of lands for housing in Athy. Following that enquiry, an advertisement was placed in the local newspapers inviting tenders for the construction of twenty one Council houses - ten at Matthew’s Lane, five at Meeting Lane and six at Kelly’s field off Woodstock Street. The successful tender was received from H.A. Hamilton of Thomas St., Waterford, but when it was not acted upon after the lapse of ten months Mr. Hamilton withdrew. The Council re-advertised on 26th June, 1912, but not before Michael Malone, Secretary of Athy’s Town Tenants League had written to the Town Council protesting against “its inactivity in relation to house building”. Within a month Dr. James Kilbride had resigned as medical officer on health grounds.
It would be remiss of me not to bring to your attention the Ernest Shackleton Autumn School which is to take place in the Town Hall, Athy over next weekend. The Shackleton story of Antarctic Exploration between 1901 and 1922 is known to most people and especially those who live in the Kilkea area where he was born 125 years ago. The Shackleton Autumn School is organised by the local Heritage Company to celebrate the achievements of a man who lived his early life within a few miles of Athy. The lecturers for the weekend Seminar are of an extremely high calibre and include Jonathan Shackleton a direct descendent of the Explorer, Dr. Robert Headland of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, Frank Nugent who was part of the team which re-enacted in 1997 the heroic voyage of the James Caird and Michael Smith the recent biographer of Tom Crean. I would urge everyone with an interest in the subject to come to all or some of the Lectures over the weekend.
As part of the weekend festivities, there will be a Concert in the Dominican Hall on Saturday, 27th October at 9.00 p.m. Liam O’Flynn and the Pipers Call Band will provide the musical entertainment and tickets can be obtained from the Heritage Centre or at the door on the night. However, early booking is advisable as this is the first Concert to be given by Liam O’Flynn in Athy and promises to be a sell out. Also entertaining those attending the Earnest Shackleton Summer School on Friday night will be Brian Hughes whose CD, “Whistle Stop” which issued some time ago by Gael Linn was a huge success. He is joining forces with Michael Delaney who will be singing some of the old forgotten ballads of Kilkea and South Kildare area which he has collected over the years.
See you there.
Thursday, October 18, 2001
Reburial of Kevin Barry / Frank Flood and Others
I wonder if those who watched the State funerals of the men executed in Mountjoy Jail realised that two Athy families were represented among the pallbearers. Peter Maher was one of the men who carried the remains of his grand-uncle, Kevin Barry, while Danny Flood helped to shoulder the remains of his uncle, Frank Flood.
Kevin Barry, the eighteen year old medical student from Fleet Street in Dublin and with family ties in Tombeagh, Hacketstown, Co. Carlow was the first person since 1916 to be executed by the British under the Martial Law Regulations. Despite worldwide appeals for clemency he was hanged on 1st November, 1920. Frank Flood from Summerhill Parade, Dublin who was also an active member of the Republican Movement was court martialled following his arrest and hanged in Mountjoy Jail on 14th March, 1921. Both Kevin Barry and Frank Flood had attended O’Connell Schools in Dublin and were believed to be friends. At the time of their execution both were university students and so far as I can ascertain they were the only students executed by the British during that period.
The late Todd Andrews in his autobiography, “Dublin Made Me”, published by Mercier Press in 1979 knew both Barry and Flood as students in University College Dublin and recounted how Kevin Barry’s execution after an intense campaign to save his life aroused bitter anti-British feelings throughout the country. He noted somewhat sadly however that “whilst Kevin Barry’s death passed into the Nation’s mythology, Frank Flood’s name is scarcely remembered”.
Both young men were from Dublin and the links forged between them as schoolmates and later as members of the republican movement were strengthened when members of their respective families came to live in Athy some years after their executions.
Kevin Barry was a good friend of Athy’s Bapty Maher, and several letters from Barry to Maher have survived to this day. In one of those letters quoted in Donal O’Donovan’s book, “Kevin Barry and his times”, reference is made to a visit which Barry and his older sister Kathleen attempted to make on Eamon Malone from Barrowhouse while he was a prisoner in Mountjoy Jail. Malone who later married Miss Dooley of Duke Street, Athy was the effective leader of the Irish Republican Army in the Athy and Barrowhouse area. Bapty Maher to whom Kevin Barry wrote that letter was an Athy man whose mother operated an undertaking business in Leinster Street. He was later to marry Kevin Barry’s sister Sheila and their grandson Peter Maher was one of the pallbearers for the removal of Kevin Barry’s remains last Sunday.
Frank Flood was a lieutenant in the Dublin Brigade and a former classmate of Kevin Barrys while both were attending O’Connell’s School in Dublin. Several of his brothers were also involved in the republican movement. Frank Flood was captured at Clonturk Park while attempting to leave the scene of an IRA ambush. He was subsequently court martialled and sentenced to death. The Court Order was carried out at Mountjoy on 14th March, 1921. One of his brothers, Tom Flood, was captured following the burning of the Custom House, Dublin on 25th May, 1921. Fortunately for him he suffered an acute appendicitis on the eve of his trial as a result of which it had to be postponed. A truce was declared some days before the date fixed for his trial and as a result Tom Flood escaped the fate which befell his younger brother Frank just months previously.
Tom Flood was later a Commandant in the Free State Army during the Civil War and played a very prominent part in military actions in the Munster area during the 1922/1923 period. He subsequently married and settled in Athy acquiring licensed premises from Mrs. Eileen Butler in March 1926. In the June 1934 local elections Thomas Flood was elected a member of Athy Urban District Council and was re-elected in 1942 and again in 1950. I have not found his name listed in the Minute Books of the Urban Council following the June 1945 Election but as I have only been able to locate the names of eight Councillors it is quite possible that Tom Flood was also re-elected that year. He died on 9th October 1950.
It was surely a happy coincidence which saw family members of Kevin Barry and Frank Flood living in the same town, long after the two patriots had passed on to their eternal reward.
During the week Kevin Myers wrote in his usual eloquent manner in the Irishman’s Diary in the Irish Times decrying the decision to grant a State Funeral to the ten men hanged in Mountjoy Jail over more than eighty years ago. He saw the ceremony as reviving the “myth of single-sided Nationhood” which failed to recognise the suffering and losses of the opposing side. During the course of the moving ceremony on Sunday last, Cardinal Cathal Daly acknowledged the double-sided nature of war when he prayed for the young British soldiers who were killed during the Irish War of Independence. This was I feel an honest acknowledgment that we Irish do not have a monopoly of suffering resulting from armed conflict and helped in a small way to address the feelings of those who might believe that we think otherwise.
Returning to the paths which brought Barry and Flood together both before and since their deaths, one cannot but be struck by the courage which marked their involvement in the fight against the greatest military power in the world. Britain had come through the first World War having suffered huge casualties but having at the same time revitalised and reshaped its military operations so as to better face future conflicts. Frank Flood and Kevin Barry and their colleagues in the Irish Republican Army showed enormous courage and bravery in opposing the British Army of the time.
Another brave man if in a strictly non military sense who died in 1922 was Kilkea born Ernest Shackleton, the great polar explorer. His exploits in the Antarctic during several expeditions beginning with Scott’s expedition of 1901 and ending with his own death at South Georgia in 1922 marked him out as a man of extraordinary courage. The Heritage Centre in Athy has been fortunate to have on display material and artifacts relating to Shackleton’s exploits and to have acquired even further Shackleton material in recent weeks. The weekend of 26th to 28th October will see the opening of an Ernest Shackleton Autumn School in Athy during the course of which a series of lectures will be given by a number of eminent speakers. Programme details are available in the Heritage Centre and I would strongly urge anyone interested in all aspects of our history to take the opportunity to attend the Autumn School which will be held in the Town Hall.
William Nolan wrote to me recently from England but unfortunately omitted to give his address. As I know he reads my column I would ask if he would contact me again.
Kevin Barry, the eighteen year old medical student from Fleet Street in Dublin and with family ties in Tombeagh, Hacketstown, Co. Carlow was the first person since 1916 to be executed by the British under the Martial Law Regulations. Despite worldwide appeals for clemency he was hanged on 1st November, 1920. Frank Flood from Summerhill Parade, Dublin who was also an active member of the Republican Movement was court martialled following his arrest and hanged in Mountjoy Jail on 14th March, 1921. Both Kevin Barry and Frank Flood had attended O’Connell Schools in Dublin and were believed to be friends. At the time of their execution both were university students and so far as I can ascertain they were the only students executed by the British during that period.
The late Todd Andrews in his autobiography, “Dublin Made Me”, published by Mercier Press in 1979 knew both Barry and Flood as students in University College Dublin and recounted how Kevin Barry’s execution after an intense campaign to save his life aroused bitter anti-British feelings throughout the country. He noted somewhat sadly however that “whilst Kevin Barry’s death passed into the Nation’s mythology, Frank Flood’s name is scarcely remembered”.
Both young men were from Dublin and the links forged between them as schoolmates and later as members of the republican movement were strengthened when members of their respective families came to live in Athy some years after their executions.
Kevin Barry was a good friend of Athy’s Bapty Maher, and several letters from Barry to Maher have survived to this day. In one of those letters quoted in Donal O’Donovan’s book, “Kevin Barry and his times”, reference is made to a visit which Barry and his older sister Kathleen attempted to make on Eamon Malone from Barrowhouse while he was a prisoner in Mountjoy Jail. Malone who later married Miss Dooley of Duke Street, Athy was the effective leader of the Irish Republican Army in the Athy and Barrowhouse area. Bapty Maher to whom Kevin Barry wrote that letter was an Athy man whose mother operated an undertaking business in Leinster Street. He was later to marry Kevin Barry’s sister Sheila and their grandson Peter Maher was one of the pallbearers for the removal of Kevin Barry’s remains last Sunday.
Frank Flood was a lieutenant in the Dublin Brigade and a former classmate of Kevin Barrys while both were attending O’Connell’s School in Dublin. Several of his brothers were also involved in the republican movement. Frank Flood was captured at Clonturk Park while attempting to leave the scene of an IRA ambush. He was subsequently court martialled and sentenced to death. The Court Order was carried out at Mountjoy on 14th March, 1921. One of his brothers, Tom Flood, was captured following the burning of the Custom House, Dublin on 25th May, 1921. Fortunately for him he suffered an acute appendicitis on the eve of his trial as a result of which it had to be postponed. A truce was declared some days before the date fixed for his trial and as a result Tom Flood escaped the fate which befell his younger brother Frank just months previously.
Tom Flood was later a Commandant in the Free State Army during the Civil War and played a very prominent part in military actions in the Munster area during the 1922/1923 period. He subsequently married and settled in Athy acquiring licensed premises from Mrs. Eileen Butler in March 1926. In the June 1934 local elections Thomas Flood was elected a member of Athy Urban District Council and was re-elected in 1942 and again in 1950. I have not found his name listed in the Minute Books of the Urban Council following the June 1945 Election but as I have only been able to locate the names of eight Councillors it is quite possible that Tom Flood was also re-elected that year. He died on 9th October 1950.
It was surely a happy coincidence which saw family members of Kevin Barry and Frank Flood living in the same town, long after the two patriots had passed on to their eternal reward.
During the week Kevin Myers wrote in his usual eloquent manner in the Irishman’s Diary in the Irish Times decrying the decision to grant a State Funeral to the ten men hanged in Mountjoy Jail over more than eighty years ago. He saw the ceremony as reviving the “myth of single-sided Nationhood” which failed to recognise the suffering and losses of the opposing side. During the course of the moving ceremony on Sunday last, Cardinal Cathal Daly acknowledged the double-sided nature of war when he prayed for the young British soldiers who were killed during the Irish War of Independence. This was I feel an honest acknowledgment that we Irish do not have a monopoly of suffering resulting from armed conflict and helped in a small way to address the feelings of those who might believe that we think otherwise.
Returning to the paths which brought Barry and Flood together both before and since their deaths, one cannot but be struck by the courage which marked their involvement in the fight against the greatest military power in the world. Britain had come through the first World War having suffered huge casualties but having at the same time revitalised and reshaped its military operations so as to better face future conflicts. Frank Flood and Kevin Barry and their colleagues in the Irish Republican Army showed enormous courage and bravery in opposing the British Army of the time.
Another brave man if in a strictly non military sense who died in 1922 was Kilkea born Ernest Shackleton, the great polar explorer. His exploits in the Antarctic during several expeditions beginning with Scott’s expedition of 1901 and ending with his own death at South Georgia in 1922 marked him out as a man of extraordinary courage. The Heritage Centre in Athy has been fortunate to have on display material and artifacts relating to Shackleton’s exploits and to have acquired even further Shackleton material in recent weeks. The weekend of 26th to 28th October will see the opening of an Ernest Shackleton Autumn School in Athy during the course of which a series of lectures will be given by a number of eminent speakers. Programme details are available in the Heritage Centre and I would strongly urge anyone interested in all aspects of our history to take the opportunity to attend the Autumn School which will be held in the Town Hall.
William Nolan wrote to me recently from England but unfortunately omitted to give his address. As I know he reads my column I would ask if he would contact me again.
Thursday, October 11, 2001
Athy's Military Barracks
Standing at the junction of Woodstock Street and William Street is a simple stone arch. This forlorn structure, close to Tully’s travel agents, is all that remains of the military barracks built in Athy in the 1700’s. The arch does not, however, stand in its original location. It was re-erected by Athy Urban District Council after languishing for many years in the Council’s yard. The barracks formerly stood in the area now occupied by part of the Greenhills estate and gave Woodstock Street its original name Barrack Street. The name was only changed in the late nineteenth century when the Town Commissioners, concerned with the streets association with “Ladies of the night”, who plied their trade near the barracks, re-named the Street Woodstock in an attempt to improve the areas image.
Permanent barracks for troops were established in Ireland, earlier than in Britain, from the late seventeenth century onward. This was a consequence of the instability of the country in the aftermath of the Williamite Wars and a desire by Parliament to provide centres for troops to aid the civil authorities in dealing with disorder particularly of a agrarian nature.
The actual date of the barracks construction in Athy is unknown but the Princess Charlotte of Wales Dragoon Guards are recorded as being stationed there as early as 1716. This regiment of cavalry would serve on a regular basis in Athy for the next 150 years. The earliest surviving description of the barracks is contained in a survey of the barracks of Ireland in 1729 completed by Major-General Honeywood. It noted that a troop of Lieutenant General McCartneys’ Regiment were in occupation of the Athy Barracks. The barracks were run down at the time as the report went on to describe its roof as being “out of repair” while the stables were considered to be “bad”. Otherwise the remaining buildings, which were not described, were in good repair.
A more complete description of the barracks was provided by Carleton Whitelock. He was commissioned by the British Government to complete a survey of its barracks in the south-west of Ireland. Arriving in Athy in the Summer of 1759 he found the barracks were “one of the oldest in the kingdom”. It consisted of three rooms for officers, one for quartermaster, four for privates, and one corporals room. Evidently the room occupied by the corporals had been adapted from a store. The barracks was completed by its square around which were grouped the remaining rooms such as the kitchen, infirmary, straw house and stables. The stables though stoutly constructed, were the oldest part of the building and in need of replacement. Whitelock found that its floors were worn out with its windows and their frames so dilapidated that their replacement was necessary. His recommendation in his report to Parliament was that the stables should be rebuilt while the total works to the barracks, he estimated, would cost £59.4s7¼d.
The barrack was important not only in military but also in economic terms to the town. The stabling of horse guaranteed a constant demand for forage. Though the horses were put out to grass from June to November they were stabled in the barracks for the winter months. The merchants of the town would also have sold provisions to the army including foodstuffs, clothing, leather, candles and all the supplies necessary to maintain man and beast.
Life within the barracks was ordered and regimented and for each horse soldier the care of his horse and the maintenance of his saddlery would have been his primary responsibility. The accommodation for the men was frugal and sometimes little better than that of the horses. The barrack regulations in the mid 18th century laid down that each man should have a minimum space of 450 cubic feet. This compared unfavourably with that of a prison inmate who could expect to have a minimum of 1,000. A map by Alexander Taylor of the military establishments of Ireland in 1790 noted the presence of only 36 soldiers in the barracks. But it was not unusual for the barracks in Athy to hold more than one hundred men at a time which was in excess of its intended capacity. A return for the barrack in 1811 listed its permanent occupants as 4 officers, 60 cavalry troopers and 52 horses while it also housed, temporarily, 86 infantry soldiers. This overcrowding would have resulted in squalid and cramped conditions in the accommodation in the barracks. One officer recalled the conditions in winter.
“The men would block up the ventilation with old sacking and when I had to visit the rooms in the morning the atmosphere was so nauseating that I felt disinclined to touch my breakfast afterwards”.
In the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars many temporary barracks which had sprung up around the country in anticipation of an unrealised invasion were closed. Athy retained its permanent status. It was the home for troops from a multitude of regiments in the 18th and 19th centuries including the 15th Hussars, 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, 1st Royal Guards, 1st Royal Dragoons, Prince Alberts’ Own Hussars and Prince Charlotte of Wales Dragoon Guards. By the middle of the nineteenth century the barracks were not in permanent use. The Curragh became the focus for much of the army during the Summer months. However in winter many of the regiments moved into winter quarters. The 15th Hussars spread themselves in a number of different locations in the winter of 1863 including Kilkenny, Newbridge, Carlow and Athy. Although the barracks were not in constant use they were maintained by a skeleton staff at times. In 1846 the buildings were under the command of the Barrack Master, Major Peter Brown who was assisted by the Barrack Keeper Joseph Caher. The barracks also kept a fire engine which was used to assist the towns authorities at different times. Indeed, it was only when the military withdrew from the barracks that the Town Commissioners established a permanent voluntary fire service in the town in 1881. The last troops to serve in Athy in 1877 were the Princess Charlotte of Wales Dragoon Guards who were back in the barracks they first occupied 150 years previously. By 1889 the barracks had fallen into disuse and the Royal Irish Constabulary which had been based in Whites Castle moved to the barracks. This move was precipitated by a government report which had condemned the accommodation in Whites Castle as insanitary. The sum of £500 was spent on renovating the neglected barracks to house the seven married and four single men who were members of the local constabulary. The RIC occupied the barracks up until 1922 when it was taken over by the local IRA. Thereafter the Athy UDC housed some of its tenants there until it was finally demolished about thirty five years ago.
Permanent barracks for troops were established in Ireland, earlier than in Britain, from the late seventeenth century onward. This was a consequence of the instability of the country in the aftermath of the Williamite Wars and a desire by Parliament to provide centres for troops to aid the civil authorities in dealing with disorder particularly of a agrarian nature.
The actual date of the barracks construction in Athy is unknown but the Princess Charlotte of Wales Dragoon Guards are recorded as being stationed there as early as 1716. This regiment of cavalry would serve on a regular basis in Athy for the next 150 years. The earliest surviving description of the barracks is contained in a survey of the barracks of Ireland in 1729 completed by Major-General Honeywood. It noted that a troop of Lieutenant General McCartneys’ Regiment were in occupation of the Athy Barracks. The barracks were run down at the time as the report went on to describe its roof as being “out of repair” while the stables were considered to be “bad”. Otherwise the remaining buildings, which were not described, were in good repair.
A more complete description of the barracks was provided by Carleton Whitelock. He was commissioned by the British Government to complete a survey of its barracks in the south-west of Ireland. Arriving in Athy in the Summer of 1759 he found the barracks were “one of the oldest in the kingdom”. It consisted of three rooms for officers, one for quartermaster, four for privates, and one corporals room. Evidently the room occupied by the corporals had been adapted from a store. The barracks was completed by its square around which were grouped the remaining rooms such as the kitchen, infirmary, straw house and stables. The stables though stoutly constructed, were the oldest part of the building and in need of replacement. Whitelock found that its floors were worn out with its windows and their frames so dilapidated that their replacement was necessary. His recommendation in his report to Parliament was that the stables should be rebuilt while the total works to the barracks, he estimated, would cost £59.4s7¼d.
The barrack was important not only in military but also in economic terms to the town. The stabling of horse guaranteed a constant demand for forage. Though the horses were put out to grass from June to November they were stabled in the barracks for the winter months. The merchants of the town would also have sold provisions to the army including foodstuffs, clothing, leather, candles and all the supplies necessary to maintain man and beast.
Life within the barracks was ordered and regimented and for each horse soldier the care of his horse and the maintenance of his saddlery would have been his primary responsibility. The accommodation for the men was frugal and sometimes little better than that of the horses. The barrack regulations in the mid 18th century laid down that each man should have a minimum space of 450 cubic feet. This compared unfavourably with that of a prison inmate who could expect to have a minimum of 1,000. A map by Alexander Taylor of the military establishments of Ireland in 1790 noted the presence of only 36 soldiers in the barracks. But it was not unusual for the barracks in Athy to hold more than one hundred men at a time which was in excess of its intended capacity. A return for the barrack in 1811 listed its permanent occupants as 4 officers, 60 cavalry troopers and 52 horses while it also housed, temporarily, 86 infantry soldiers. This overcrowding would have resulted in squalid and cramped conditions in the accommodation in the barracks. One officer recalled the conditions in winter.
“The men would block up the ventilation with old sacking and when I had to visit the rooms in the morning the atmosphere was so nauseating that I felt disinclined to touch my breakfast afterwards”.
In the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars many temporary barracks which had sprung up around the country in anticipation of an unrealised invasion were closed. Athy retained its permanent status. It was the home for troops from a multitude of regiments in the 18th and 19th centuries including the 15th Hussars, 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, 1st Royal Guards, 1st Royal Dragoons, Prince Alberts’ Own Hussars and Prince Charlotte of Wales Dragoon Guards. By the middle of the nineteenth century the barracks were not in permanent use. The Curragh became the focus for much of the army during the Summer months. However in winter many of the regiments moved into winter quarters. The 15th Hussars spread themselves in a number of different locations in the winter of 1863 including Kilkenny, Newbridge, Carlow and Athy. Although the barracks were not in constant use they were maintained by a skeleton staff at times. In 1846 the buildings were under the command of the Barrack Master, Major Peter Brown who was assisted by the Barrack Keeper Joseph Caher. The barracks also kept a fire engine which was used to assist the towns authorities at different times. Indeed, it was only when the military withdrew from the barracks that the Town Commissioners established a permanent voluntary fire service in the town in 1881. The last troops to serve in Athy in 1877 were the Princess Charlotte of Wales Dragoon Guards who were back in the barracks they first occupied 150 years previously. By 1889 the barracks had fallen into disuse and the Royal Irish Constabulary which had been based in Whites Castle moved to the barracks. This move was precipitated by a government report which had condemned the accommodation in Whites Castle as insanitary. The sum of £500 was spent on renovating the neglected barracks to house the seven married and four single men who were members of the local constabulary. The RIC occupied the barracks up until 1922 when it was taken over by the local IRA. Thereafter the Athy UDC housed some of its tenants there until it was finally demolished about thirty five years ago.
Thursday, October 4, 2001
Athy Regattas 1856-1861
Sport has always been an important element in the social life of Athy. For most of us, this encapsulated in the annual pilgrimages to Croke Park to follow the fortunes of the Lilywhites in Gaelic Football. However, in the mid Nineteenth Century before the establishment of the G.A.A., the people of the town found distraction in other public spectacles such as rowing and steeple chasing.
On Friday 15th August, 1856, the Athy Regatta, revived after a lapse of some years, took place on the River Barrow with six races. The important race for the Silver Challenge Cup was for 2 oared boats, the property of persons residing at least 1 year within the town boundary, to be rowed and steered by residents. With an entrance fee of 10/= per boat, clearly it was a gentleman’s sport! A press report of the 1858 Regatta noted that “the embarkments presented a thronged and animated appearance”. while the Athy Regatta Ball for 1859 advertised single tickets at 7/6, the patrons to be entertained by a sting band from 9.30 p.m. with Mr. Doyle, professor of Dancing, Baltinglass, as the Master of Ceremonies. As the Leinster Express of 30th July, 1859 with reference to the Ball stated;
“There is not in Ireland an inland town that can boast of more public
spirit than Athy or among whose inhabitants so many friendly
and social reunions are reciprocated”.
The public spirit so apparent in 1859 quickly dissipated when the Stewards of Athy Regatta procrastinated throughout the summer of 1861 with no prospect of the Regatta taking place that year. Much annoyed by this were local oarsmen Daniel Cobbe and Francis Dillon who had won the Silver Challenge Cup renamed the Corporation Challenge Cup the previous year.
Popular feeling apparently ran in favour of Cobbe and Dillon as evidenced by a ballad sheet printed and circulated in Athy during November and December 1861 titled “Athy Regatta Rhymes.” One such ballad ran :-
Oh! Remember, remember,
The Nineteenth of November
Frustrates a contemptible “do”;
I do not see why
The ONE sport of Athy
Should be stopped by the “whims or mean
schemes of A FEW.
The two local oarsmen inserted an advertisement in the Leinster Express on 9th November 1861 in which they announced the holding of the Athy Regatta on Tuesday 19th November “two challenges having been sent to the Secretary and the Committee not wishing to act in the manner we the present holders of the cups hereby appoint the above day. The cups have to be won 3 times successively and if successful we will claim this as our second year”. The intrepid oarsman duly won the race. Faced with the same official reluctance in 1862 Cobbe and Dillon acted as before. Challenged on this occasion by Delaney and Keefe, victory went yet again to Cobbe and Dillon in what was to be the last of the once popular Athy Regattas.
On 7 May, 1857, steeplechase racing was revived in Athy after a lapse of many years. Four races were held on the Bray course which attracted a total entry of 19 horses, a matter of some satisfaction to the Stewards, Thomas Fitzgerald, J.P., Thomas H. Pope J.P. Anthony Weldon, Hugh Maguire, Joseph Butler and A. Kavanagh, Race Treasurer. The local Newspaper Report catches the excitement of that day.
“Such a sensation was never yet seen in the quiet and unexcitable district of Athy and its vicinity as the dawning of this eventful day created.
………. the roads leading to the race course were speedily thronged with a motley crew of thimble riggers, card setters, trick a loop men, followed by the no less accomplished creed of roulette and shooting gallery proprietors, musicians and all those who imbued with a mercantile and enterprising spirit sought the most eligible position for their forthcoming avocations ……. the proceedings and amusements of the day came off satisfactorily ………. the racing was throughout contested with the greatest spirit.”
Even the local horse racing was not long in resurrecting its critics. On 27 March, 1858, a local correspondent with the name de Plume “short grass” drew critical comparison between the races of 1843 and the previous years’ races implying the reason in his comment “but always in those days the right men were in the right place.” In 1858 the races were held once again during which “disturbances occurred s with subsequent action taken against one of the stewards, he was fined.” The races were not held in 1859. In 1860 Thomas Fitzgerald J.P. was instrumental in reviving the races which were held on Friday evening, 20 April over the Bray course. About 1,000 people attended the meeting and enjoyed the main race for the Athy Cup over a three mile course. The 1862 meeting was run over “a small but well laid out course about 10 minutes walk from the town” but despite Fitzgeralds best efforts, Athy’s tenous claim to racing fame had slipped away.
On Friday 15th August, 1856, the Athy Regatta, revived after a lapse of some years, took place on the River Barrow with six races. The important race for the Silver Challenge Cup was for 2 oared boats, the property of persons residing at least 1 year within the town boundary, to be rowed and steered by residents. With an entrance fee of 10/= per boat, clearly it was a gentleman’s sport! A press report of the 1858 Regatta noted that “the embarkments presented a thronged and animated appearance”. while the Athy Regatta Ball for 1859 advertised single tickets at 7/6, the patrons to be entertained by a sting band from 9.30 p.m. with Mr. Doyle, professor of Dancing, Baltinglass, as the Master of Ceremonies. As the Leinster Express of 30th July, 1859 with reference to the Ball stated;
“There is not in Ireland an inland town that can boast of more public
spirit than Athy or among whose inhabitants so many friendly
and social reunions are reciprocated”.
The public spirit so apparent in 1859 quickly dissipated when the Stewards of Athy Regatta procrastinated throughout the summer of 1861 with no prospect of the Regatta taking place that year. Much annoyed by this were local oarsmen Daniel Cobbe and Francis Dillon who had won the Silver Challenge Cup renamed the Corporation Challenge Cup the previous year.
Popular feeling apparently ran in favour of Cobbe and Dillon as evidenced by a ballad sheet printed and circulated in Athy during November and December 1861 titled “Athy Regatta Rhymes.” One such ballad ran :-
Oh! Remember, remember,
The Nineteenth of November
Frustrates a contemptible “do”;
I do not see why
The ONE sport of Athy
Should be stopped by the “whims or mean
schemes of A FEW.
The two local oarsmen inserted an advertisement in the Leinster Express on 9th November 1861 in which they announced the holding of the Athy Regatta on Tuesday 19th November “two challenges having been sent to the Secretary and the Committee not wishing to act in the manner we the present holders of the cups hereby appoint the above day. The cups have to be won 3 times successively and if successful we will claim this as our second year”. The intrepid oarsman duly won the race. Faced with the same official reluctance in 1862 Cobbe and Dillon acted as before. Challenged on this occasion by Delaney and Keefe, victory went yet again to Cobbe and Dillon in what was to be the last of the once popular Athy Regattas.
On 7 May, 1857, steeplechase racing was revived in Athy after a lapse of many years. Four races were held on the Bray course which attracted a total entry of 19 horses, a matter of some satisfaction to the Stewards, Thomas Fitzgerald, J.P., Thomas H. Pope J.P. Anthony Weldon, Hugh Maguire, Joseph Butler and A. Kavanagh, Race Treasurer. The local Newspaper Report catches the excitement of that day.
“Such a sensation was never yet seen in the quiet and unexcitable district of Athy and its vicinity as the dawning of this eventful day created.
………. the roads leading to the race course were speedily thronged with a motley crew of thimble riggers, card setters, trick a loop men, followed by the no less accomplished creed of roulette and shooting gallery proprietors, musicians and all those who imbued with a mercantile and enterprising spirit sought the most eligible position for their forthcoming avocations ……. the proceedings and amusements of the day came off satisfactorily ………. the racing was throughout contested with the greatest spirit.”
Even the local horse racing was not long in resurrecting its critics. On 27 March, 1858, a local correspondent with the name de Plume “short grass” drew critical comparison between the races of 1843 and the previous years’ races implying the reason in his comment “but always in those days the right men were in the right place.” In 1858 the races were held once again during which “disturbances occurred s with subsequent action taken against one of the stewards, he was fined.” The races were not held in 1859. In 1860 Thomas Fitzgerald J.P. was instrumental in reviving the races which were held on Friday evening, 20 April over the Bray course. About 1,000 people attended the meeting and enjoyed the main race for the Athy Cup over a three mile course. The 1862 meeting was run over “a small but well laid out course about 10 minutes walk from the town” but despite Fitzgeralds best efforts, Athy’s tenous claim to racing fame had slipped away.
Thursday, September 27, 2001
The Hand / Sleaty's Row
More today about “The Hand” and Sleaty’s Row. Several locals have contacted me during the week to confirm, what we now know, was the location of “The Hand” at the junction of the Bleach and Kilkenny road. Mick Grufferty was one of the callers and he pin-pointed the area by reference to Johnny Fox’s house at the corner of Beggar’s End. He remembers “The Hand” as a well-known land mark, especially for Barrowhouse folk who passed through the junction on their way into Athy. Amongst Mick’s recollections were memories of Mrs. Dan Howe, a widow, later married to Johnny Stynes, who earned for herself the nick-name “Alright from Ballylinan” because of her well-known habit of peering around the corner of “The Hand” from the passenger seat of a neighbours car and informing the driver that it was ‘alright’ to drive on. I gather Mrs. Howe lived in what I believe was the house in which Monsignor Boylan was born. She was for many years the sacristan in Barrowhouse Chapel and I gather her family subsequently emigrated to England.
A few other callers from the other side of the town brought to my attention the existence of a second “hand” located on the Stradbally road. Josie Moran of Churchtown was first with this information which was later confirmed by Esther Mulhall of St. Dominic’s Park. Esther recalls as a young girl walking with her mother on a regular basis to what her mother always referred to as “The Hand” . Again, like “The Hand” at the Bleach it was a road junction formed by the side road to Churchtown off the Stradbally road. The mother and daughter regularly walked from Dooley’s Terrace to “The Hand” and sat on the stone wall just beyond the Canal Bridge. I was intrigued to hear Esther recounting the death on that same stretch of road of a Mrs. Ramsbottom and of the cross which she said in her young days marked the spot where Mrs. Ramsbottom’s horse and cart overturned, resulting in her death. I later passed that way and found to my surprise that the iron cross had been replaced by a small stone cross, apparently erected not too long ago, and as evidenced from flowers at the memorial, the deceased, Fanny Ramsbottom, was still remembered. The surprising thing was that she died 85 years ago on 7th June, 1916.
Returning to Mike Grufferty’s call he brought to my attention something I had never heard of before. The area on which the Plewman Terrace houses were built by the Urban District Council was according to Mick the site of a tannery and known to generations of old people as the Tanners Yard. During the 18th century and into the early decades of the following century Athy, like many other Irish provincial towns, had a tanning industry and the present Church lane leading to the Dominican Church was once called Tanyard Lane. It was so-called because the lane led to George Daker’s tanyard sited in the area where the Council’s pumping station is presently located. That tanyard which was the largest in the area closed down following George Daker’s death, but several smaller tanneries continue to operate in and around Athy well into the 19th century.
As regard the Tanner’s Yard at Beggar’s End [to use the name by which the area was once known] I do recall that behind the Plewman’s Terrace houses some years ago there was a small pond which might have been a left over from the tanning pits of years ago. I had not previously heard of the area being referred to as Tanner’s Yard and wonder if any of my readers did.
Another caller following the recent article was Joss Hendy who also confirmed the existence of “The Hand” at the junction of the Churchtown road. It was while talking to Joss that I realised how the placename “The Hand” came to be used to describe two junctions heading into Athy. The answer lies in the old direction signs which depicted a hand pointing in the direction of the side road. Obviously, locals, when giving directions, could do so by reference to the signpost and hence the expression “turn at the hand”. All the road signs including these finger posts were removed during the Second World War to ensure maximum confusion for any invading army bold enough to ignore our neutrality.
As for Sleaty’s Row and the Gulch which I referred to in recent weeks Eileen Doyle of Castlerheban wrote me a hugely informative letter concerning her young days in the Rathstewart area. She recalls the Gulch as just a nick-name given to the ruins of houses in Sleaty Row thought up by the youngsters as they played Cowboys and Indians after the Sunday matinee in the Picture Palace in Offaly Street. The entrance to Sleaty Row she remembers as just about between the UDC offices and the entrance to the Secondary School. The original tenants, as I mentioned in my Eye on the Past, got first choice of the newly-built houses in Lower St. Joseph’s Terrace and Eileen Doyle was able to recall all of them in her letter.
I was fascinated to read of the number of families from Sleaty’s Row who had family members involved in World War I. Patrick Leonard was killed in the War, as was Tommy Alcock, and …………..I was in error recently when I referred to “Tut” Alcock as Tommy. John Davis and James Kavanagh also fought in the War and Davis was invalided home, suffering from gas poisoning. Patsy Delahunt was another World War Veteran who lived near to Mrs. Ned Keogh, an elderly woman whose son was killed in that War. These are just some of the men from the Sleaty Row area who fought during the Great War and gives some indication of the high rate of enlistment from the town of Athy during that conflict.
If the Gulch was a favoured playing ground for the make-believe Cowboys and Indians from St. Joseph’s Terrace, no doubt the nuns orchard which was nearby was often raided by the same happy warriors.
Incidentally when writing of Sheila Mulhall sometime ago, I mentioned that she was a daughter of “Hocker” Mulhall, one of the three Mulhall brothers who were barbers in Athy a generation or two ago. Sheila was in fact a daughter of Bill Brogan whom many of my readers will remember worked for his uncle Tom Brogan at his blacksmith works. “Hocker’s” daughter was Eileen Doyle who wrote to me last week recounting the wonderful times spent in St. Joseph’s Terrace where the Gulch provided the rough but ready-made playground for the local children of the 1930’s.
A few other callers from the other side of the town brought to my attention the existence of a second “hand” located on the Stradbally road. Josie Moran of Churchtown was first with this information which was later confirmed by Esther Mulhall of St. Dominic’s Park. Esther recalls as a young girl walking with her mother on a regular basis to what her mother always referred to as “The Hand” . Again, like “The Hand” at the Bleach it was a road junction formed by the side road to Churchtown off the Stradbally road. The mother and daughter regularly walked from Dooley’s Terrace to “The Hand” and sat on the stone wall just beyond the Canal Bridge. I was intrigued to hear Esther recounting the death on that same stretch of road of a Mrs. Ramsbottom and of the cross which she said in her young days marked the spot where Mrs. Ramsbottom’s horse and cart overturned, resulting in her death. I later passed that way and found to my surprise that the iron cross had been replaced by a small stone cross, apparently erected not too long ago, and as evidenced from flowers at the memorial, the deceased, Fanny Ramsbottom, was still remembered. The surprising thing was that she died 85 years ago on 7th June, 1916.
Returning to Mike Grufferty’s call he brought to my attention something I had never heard of before. The area on which the Plewman Terrace houses were built by the Urban District Council was according to Mick the site of a tannery and known to generations of old people as the Tanners Yard. During the 18th century and into the early decades of the following century Athy, like many other Irish provincial towns, had a tanning industry and the present Church lane leading to the Dominican Church was once called Tanyard Lane. It was so-called because the lane led to George Daker’s tanyard sited in the area where the Council’s pumping station is presently located. That tanyard which was the largest in the area closed down following George Daker’s death, but several smaller tanneries continue to operate in and around Athy well into the 19th century.
As regard the Tanner’s Yard at Beggar’s End [to use the name by which the area was once known] I do recall that behind the Plewman’s Terrace houses some years ago there was a small pond which might have been a left over from the tanning pits of years ago. I had not previously heard of the area being referred to as Tanner’s Yard and wonder if any of my readers did.
Another caller following the recent article was Joss Hendy who also confirmed the existence of “The Hand” at the junction of the Churchtown road. It was while talking to Joss that I realised how the placename “The Hand” came to be used to describe two junctions heading into Athy. The answer lies in the old direction signs which depicted a hand pointing in the direction of the side road. Obviously, locals, when giving directions, could do so by reference to the signpost and hence the expression “turn at the hand”. All the road signs including these finger posts were removed during the Second World War to ensure maximum confusion for any invading army bold enough to ignore our neutrality.
As for Sleaty’s Row and the Gulch which I referred to in recent weeks Eileen Doyle of Castlerheban wrote me a hugely informative letter concerning her young days in the Rathstewart area. She recalls the Gulch as just a nick-name given to the ruins of houses in Sleaty Row thought up by the youngsters as they played Cowboys and Indians after the Sunday matinee in the Picture Palace in Offaly Street. The entrance to Sleaty Row she remembers as just about between the UDC offices and the entrance to the Secondary School. The original tenants, as I mentioned in my Eye on the Past, got first choice of the newly-built houses in Lower St. Joseph’s Terrace and Eileen Doyle was able to recall all of them in her letter.
I was fascinated to read of the number of families from Sleaty’s Row who had family members involved in World War I. Patrick Leonard was killed in the War, as was Tommy Alcock, and …………..I was in error recently when I referred to “Tut” Alcock as Tommy. John Davis and James Kavanagh also fought in the War and Davis was invalided home, suffering from gas poisoning. Patsy Delahunt was another World War Veteran who lived near to Mrs. Ned Keogh, an elderly woman whose son was killed in that War. These are just some of the men from the Sleaty Row area who fought during the Great War and gives some indication of the high rate of enlistment from the town of Athy during that conflict.
If the Gulch was a favoured playing ground for the make-believe Cowboys and Indians from St. Joseph’s Terrace, no doubt the nuns orchard which was nearby was often raided by the same happy warriors.
Incidentally when writing of Sheila Mulhall sometime ago, I mentioned that she was a daughter of “Hocker” Mulhall, one of the three Mulhall brothers who were barbers in Athy a generation or two ago. Sheila was in fact a daughter of Bill Brogan whom many of my readers will remember worked for his uncle Tom Brogan at his blacksmith works. “Hocker’s” daughter was Eileen Doyle who wrote to me last week recounting the wonderful times spent in St. Joseph’s Terrace where the Gulch provided the rough but ready-made playground for the local children of the 1930’s.
Thursday, August 16, 2001
Public Houses in Ballylinan
I received quite a few phone calls following last weeks article concerning the whereabouts of “the Hand”. I had not heard of the locality referred to by that name until the previous week. The first person to phone me was Dom Brennan of Barrowhouse who told me that “the Hand” was well known by the older people in the Barrowhouse area. It was the junction of the Bleach and the main Kilkenny road. He first heard the expression from his late mother, and told me that Barrowhouse folk still refer to “the Hand” when speaking of that locality. Interestingly enough Dom, on reading my article, asked a couple of his workmates in Tegral, including some who live in the Bleach where “the Hand” was and more of them had never heard of the local placename.
There is obviously a good explanation as to how or why that name came to be given to the locality, but neither I nor any of my contacts know what it is. Is there anyone who can say why the junction at the Bleach cottages came to be known as “the Hand?”
While I’m on the Kilkenny road, I’ve decided this week to press out a little further and enter into the borderlands of what the Land Registry in Dublin still refer to as the “Queen’s County”. Ballylinan, although in county Laois, is rightly regarded as part and parcel of Athy’s hinterland and over the years many links have been forged between the town and village. Some weeks ago I wrote of the public houses in Athy in 1924 and I thought it might bring back a few memories if I tried to trace back the history of some local public houses in the Ballylinan area.
In 1899 there were eleven licenced premises in and around Ballylinan, taking in Killabban, Ballylehane Upper and Lower and Crossard. The village itself had five public houses 102 years ago, one of which was a thatched house owned by Patrick Lacey. It had an ordinary 7 day licence as did the other four public houses in the village. Patrick Lacey’s continued in business until 1910 when the licence was transferred to Elizabeth Murphy and transferred in turn six years later to John Murphy. The latter was still running the public house in 1926.
The other village pubs were in 1899 owned by Johanna Delaney, William Fleming, James Quigley and Michael Shortall. Delaney’s changed hands on several occasions, firstly to John Cleary in 1904, to John Troy in 1914 and to John O’Byrne in Timahoe in 1918 before Michael Nolan took over in 1923.
William Fleming died in 1903 after which his widow Anne took over the business and she was still operating the pub in 1926. James Quigley’s public house was licensed to himself until 1917 when Anne Quigley took over and she later transferred the business to Elizabeth Lacey who was still in charge in 1926.
Michael Shortall’s public house business in Ballylinan was augmented when he took over Anne Nolan’s pub in Ballylehane Lower in 1903. This latter pub was a thatched house and both pubs passed to Kate Shortall in 1915 and she was still proprietress eleven years later. However in 1927 the Ballylehane Lower pub was taken over by Edward Hogan.
In Ballylehane Upper there were two pubs. Jeremiah Keeffe had a six day licence which in 1920 was taken over by Mary Keeffe, before she in turn transferred it to her daughter Mary in 1923. James Hughes had a 7 day licence for his pub also in Ballylehane Upper which passed on to John Hughes in 1902 and to James Hughes in 1916. Ten years later James Hughes who was perhaps a grandson of the first named James Hughes was still running the business.
Crossard, Ballylinan also boasted two licensing premises in 1899, although only one of them was a public house in the strict sense of the word. The pub was owned by Elizabeth McGrath and in 1915 by William Byrne. Three years later the proprietor was Michael Leech and he was still running the business in 1926. The second licensed premises in Crossard was owned by Michael Knowles who had a Spirit Grocers Licence only. He was entitled to sell spirits for consumption off the premises and could not sell beer or porter. On his death the business went to his son Michael (Jnr.) and he was still in charge of the premises in 1926.
Killabban was the location of a thatched public house owned in 1899 by Thomas Deegan which passed to Margaret Dooley in 1907 and two years later to Michael Ryan. He was still in business in 1926.
I wonder how many of these public houses can you identify, and how many of the businesses are still in the same family ownership as 75 years ago.
I had intended last week to pass on good wishes to a former class mate of mine who retired recently. Pat Flinter, originally from just around the corner from “the Hand” was a brilliant student in the C.B.S. who went on to achieve remarkable success in his working life. He worked locally, after leaving secondary school and became in time a Director of Tegral Metal Forming Ltd. As far as I know, he is the only local man ever to be promoted to the Board of a company within the Tegral Group of companies. Its never easy for anyone to attain success in their home town but Pat Flinter’s achievements in fashioning Tegral Metal Forming into one of the most soundly-based manufacturing companies in Athy is a remarkable achievement.
Enjoy your retirement Pat and while I’m at it may I extend good wishes to another school mate of mine, Seamus Ryan, who last week tied the knot, yet again, this time in Beijing, China. It must be something in the Chinese air, which encourages our class mate to go on the merry-go-around a second time when Pat Flinter, Ted Kelly, myself and the rest of the class of 1960 can hardly muster up the energy to stand up straight.
There is obviously a good explanation as to how or why that name came to be given to the locality, but neither I nor any of my contacts know what it is. Is there anyone who can say why the junction at the Bleach cottages came to be known as “the Hand?”
While I’m on the Kilkenny road, I’ve decided this week to press out a little further and enter into the borderlands of what the Land Registry in Dublin still refer to as the “Queen’s County”. Ballylinan, although in county Laois, is rightly regarded as part and parcel of Athy’s hinterland and over the years many links have been forged between the town and village. Some weeks ago I wrote of the public houses in Athy in 1924 and I thought it might bring back a few memories if I tried to trace back the history of some local public houses in the Ballylinan area.
In 1899 there were eleven licenced premises in and around Ballylinan, taking in Killabban, Ballylehane Upper and Lower and Crossard. The village itself had five public houses 102 years ago, one of which was a thatched house owned by Patrick Lacey. It had an ordinary 7 day licence as did the other four public houses in the village. Patrick Lacey’s continued in business until 1910 when the licence was transferred to Elizabeth Murphy and transferred in turn six years later to John Murphy. The latter was still running the public house in 1926.
The other village pubs were in 1899 owned by Johanna Delaney, William Fleming, James Quigley and Michael Shortall. Delaney’s changed hands on several occasions, firstly to John Cleary in 1904, to John Troy in 1914 and to John O’Byrne in Timahoe in 1918 before Michael Nolan took over in 1923.
William Fleming died in 1903 after which his widow Anne took over the business and she was still operating the pub in 1926. James Quigley’s public house was licensed to himself until 1917 when Anne Quigley took over and she later transferred the business to Elizabeth Lacey who was still in charge in 1926.
Michael Shortall’s public house business in Ballylinan was augmented when he took over Anne Nolan’s pub in Ballylehane Lower in 1903. This latter pub was a thatched house and both pubs passed to Kate Shortall in 1915 and she was still proprietress eleven years later. However in 1927 the Ballylehane Lower pub was taken over by Edward Hogan.
In Ballylehane Upper there were two pubs. Jeremiah Keeffe had a six day licence which in 1920 was taken over by Mary Keeffe, before she in turn transferred it to her daughter Mary in 1923. James Hughes had a 7 day licence for his pub also in Ballylehane Upper which passed on to John Hughes in 1902 and to James Hughes in 1916. Ten years later James Hughes who was perhaps a grandson of the first named James Hughes was still running the business.
Crossard, Ballylinan also boasted two licensing premises in 1899, although only one of them was a public house in the strict sense of the word. The pub was owned by Elizabeth McGrath and in 1915 by William Byrne. Three years later the proprietor was Michael Leech and he was still running the business in 1926. The second licensed premises in Crossard was owned by Michael Knowles who had a Spirit Grocers Licence only. He was entitled to sell spirits for consumption off the premises and could not sell beer or porter. On his death the business went to his son Michael (Jnr.) and he was still in charge of the premises in 1926.
Killabban was the location of a thatched public house owned in 1899 by Thomas Deegan which passed to Margaret Dooley in 1907 and two years later to Michael Ryan. He was still in business in 1926.
I wonder how many of these public houses can you identify, and how many of the businesses are still in the same family ownership as 75 years ago.
I had intended last week to pass on good wishes to a former class mate of mine who retired recently. Pat Flinter, originally from just around the corner from “the Hand” was a brilliant student in the C.B.S. who went on to achieve remarkable success in his working life. He worked locally, after leaving secondary school and became in time a Director of Tegral Metal Forming Ltd. As far as I know, he is the only local man ever to be promoted to the Board of a company within the Tegral Group of companies. Its never easy for anyone to attain success in their home town but Pat Flinter’s achievements in fashioning Tegral Metal Forming into one of the most soundly-based manufacturing companies in Athy is a remarkable achievement.
Enjoy your retirement Pat and while I’m at it may I extend good wishes to another school mate of mine, Seamus Ryan, who last week tied the knot, yet again, this time in Beijing, China. It must be something in the Chinese air, which encourages our class mate to go on the merry-go-around a second time when Pat Flinter, Ted Kelly, myself and the rest of the class of 1960 can hardly muster up the energy to stand up straight.
Thursday, August 9, 2001
Rathstewart and Sleaty's Row
I met an old resident of Athy in the Heritage Centre last Sunday when I dropped in on Jerry Carbery’s woodturning exhibition. Old in the sense that it was many years ago since he lived here, and not in any way a reference to his age. Although, on second thoughts, one must necessarily reflect the other, and so perhaps the word old is not necessarily misplaced. He has lived in England for a long time but recalls as a very young boy, days spent in Sleaty Row. I had never previously heard of Sleaty Row, or if I had, the reference has been quite lost to me. I was intrigued to hear of the place name and got my informant to draw a sketch of the area which I was later able to compare with an Ordnance Survey map of 1872. His memory of the layout of what he called Sleaty Row was excellent, as the map prepared 129 years previously was to prove.
Just beyond Rathstewart Bridge and on the right hand side of the road were six two-storey houses which were knocked down in the early 1980’s. They were then demolished to make way for Athy’s Urban District Council Offices. Immediately beyond and adjoining them were two single storey cabins facing the river Barrow, with an entrance into the courtyard of Sleaty’s Row separating the row of houses from another two cabins on the far side of the entrance. As you entered the courtyard there was a small back lane running at the rere of the two river-facing cabins on your right, and on the far side of that small lane entrance were three two-storey houses making up the right hand side of the courtyard. Facing you as you stood at the entrance to Sleaty Row was a single storey house, which I understand was referred to as the garden house. It formed the back of the courtyard and the fourth side of the complex comprised the rear of four houses which were accessed by another entrance off Rathstewart, just beyond Sleaty Row.
I suspect, although I am open to correction, that the adjoining Sleaty Row cul-de-sac which consisted of eight houses on the right, a house at the end and six houses on the left was called the Gulch. The last mentioned six houses had rear yards, as did the house standing alone at the end of the cul-de-sac, but the other eight houses had no outside facilities.
It was as a young man in the early 1930’s that my friend remembered Sleaty Row, and that must have been before St. Joseph’s Terrace housing scheme was build in 1933/34. Indeed the records show that the new tenants of the houses in Lower St. Joseph’s Terrace and those in numbers 1 to 17 Upper St. Joseph’s Terrace received the keys to their new homes on the 2nd of March 1934. Several of the new tenants were re-housed from addresses in Rathstewart and many, if not all, were presumably tenants of Sleaty Row or the Gulch.
These former tenants of Rathstewart are mentioned in the Urban Council Minute Books as M. Keogh: W. Leonard: T. Alcock: James Neill: Patrick Neill: E. Rainsford: John Rainsford: M. Mulhall: C. Kelly: John Chanders: C. Dunne and Patrick Murphy. I suspect that the Council records may not always accurately record the correct names of the people involved as for instance in the case of James Neill and Patrick Neill who were in fact O’Neill. The others recorded in the Council records were Mick Keogh, Mrs. Leonard, Tommy Alcock (known as “Tut”), James otherwise Jim O’Neill, his son Paddy O’Neill, Eddie Rainsford, his brother Johnny Rainsford, “Hocker” Mulhall, “Messcock” Kelly, John Chanders, Christy Dunne and Patrick Murphy.
After writing the above I re-read an article I which wrote on Lower St. Joseph’s Terrace in the Eye on the Past series some five years ago and appended thereto was a note of a telephone call which I received afterwards from Mrs. Sheila Mulhall of Ballylinan, a daughter of “Hocker” Mulhall. She brought me up to date on some of the old residents of St. Joseph’s Terrace and in the course of that phone call I noted her as saying “Sleaty Row was the name of the area where Lower St. Joseph’s Terrace was built, while the Gulch was where the Urban District Council offices were put up”. So I had heard of Sleaty Row before last Sunday but quite obviously forgot about it. Now that I have identified with the aid of the Ordinance Survey map of 1873 three distinct types of houses at Rathstewart, I wonder to which of them the place-names Sleaty Row and the Gulch applied. Is it the six two-storey houses facing onto the street and adjoining St. Joseph’s boys school, or the courtyard just beyond, or the cul-de-sac beyond that again? Can anyone help me to positively identify the locations of the Gulch and Sleaty Row, as unfortunately the old town map does not give them these place-names.
While I’m at it, can I set another poser for the older generation. If travelling into Athy from a certain direction I would have to turn at “the Hand” to get onto the main road. Where was “the Hand”? I never heard of it until last Sunday when the wife of the good man who brought Sleaty Row to my attention mentioned how her mother always referred to a certain part of the town as “the Hand”. I’d like to hear from anyone who knows where it is.
The Chairman of Athy Urban District Council, Councilor Séan Cunnane, will launch the book “Athy Urban District Council - A brief overview of its first 100 years” in the Council Chamber on Thursday, 20th September at 7.30pm. The book is published as part of the centenary celebration of the Council and is by and large based on material culled from the Minute Books of the Council over the past 100 years. I understand that the Town Clerk, Tommy Maddock, who will shortly be resigning to take up a new position with Kildare County Council, is offering a glass of wine to anyone brave enough to come to the Book Launch. See you there.
Just beyond Rathstewart Bridge and on the right hand side of the road were six two-storey houses which were knocked down in the early 1980’s. They were then demolished to make way for Athy’s Urban District Council Offices. Immediately beyond and adjoining them were two single storey cabins facing the river Barrow, with an entrance into the courtyard of Sleaty’s Row separating the row of houses from another two cabins on the far side of the entrance. As you entered the courtyard there was a small back lane running at the rere of the two river-facing cabins on your right, and on the far side of that small lane entrance were three two-storey houses making up the right hand side of the courtyard. Facing you as you stood at the entrance to Sleaty Row was a single storey house, which I understand was referred to as the garden house. It formed the back of the courtyard and the fourth side of the complex comprised the rear of four houses which were accessed by another entrance off Rathstewart, just beyond Sleaty Row.
I suspect, although I am open to correction, that the adjoining Sleaty Row cul-de-sac which consisted of eight houses on the right, a house at the end and six houses on the left was called the Gulch. The last mentioned six houses had rear yards, as did the house standing alone at the end of the cul-de-sac, but the other eight houses had no outside facilities.
It was as a young man in the early 1930’s that my friend remembered Sleaty Row, and that must have been before St. Joseph’s Terrace housing scheme was build in 1933/34. Indeed the records show that the new tenants of the houses in Lower St. Joseph’s Terrace and those in numbers 1 to 17 Upper St. Joseph’s Terrace received the keys to their new homes on the 2nd of March 1934. Several of the new tenants were re-housed from addresses in Rathstewart and many, if not all, were presumably tenants of Sleaty Row or the Gulch.
These former tenants of Rathstewart are mentioned in the Urban Council Minute Books as M. Keogh: W. Leonard: T. Alcock: James Neill: Patrick Neill: E. Rainsford: John Rainsford: M. Mulhall: C. Kelly: John Chanders: C. Dunne and Patrick Murphy. I suspect that the Council records may not always accurately record the correct names of the people involved as for instance in the case of James Neill and Patrick Neill who were in fact O’Neill. The others recorded in the Council records were Mick Keogh, Mrs. Leonard, Tommy Alcock (known as “Tut”), James otherwise Jim O’Neill, his son Paddy O’Neill, Eddie Rainsford, his brother Johnny Rainsford, “Hocker” Mulhall, “Messcock” Kelly, John Chanders, Christy Dunne and Patrick Murphy.
After writing the above I re-read an article I which wrote on Lower St. Joseph’s Terrace in the Eye on the Past series some five years ago and appended thereto was a note of a telephone call which I received afterwards from Mrs. Sheila Mulhall of Ballylinan, a daughter of “Hocker” Mulhall. She brought me up to date on some of the old residents of St. Joseph’s Terrace and in the course of that phone call I noted her as saying “Sleaty Row was the name of the area where Lower St. Joseph’s Terrace was built, while the Gulch was where the Urban District Council offices were put up”. So I had heard of Sleaty Row before last Sunday but quite obviously forgot about it. Now that I have identified with the aid of the Ordinance Survey map of 1873 three distinct types of houses at Rathstewart, I wonder to which of them the place-names Sleaty Row and the Gulch applied. Is it the six two-storey houses facing onto the street and adjoining St. Joseph’s boys school, or the courtyard just beyond, or the cul-de-sac beyond that again? Can anyone help me to positively identify the locations of the Gulch and Sleaty Row, as unfortunately the old town map does not give them these place-names.
While I’m at it, can I set another poser for the older generation. If travelling into Athy from a certain direction I would have to turn at “the Hand” to get onto the main road. Where was “the Hand”? I never heard of it until last Sunday when the wife of the good man who brought Sleaty Row to my attention mentioned how her mother always referred to a certain part of the town as “the Hand”. I’d like to hear from anyone who knows where it is.
The Chairman of Athy Urban District Council, Councilor Séan Cunnane, will launch the book “Athy Urban District Council - A brief overview of its first 100 years” in the Council Chamber on Thursday, 20th September at 7.30pm. The book is published as part of the centenary celebration of the Council and is by and large based on material culled from the Minute Books of the Council over the past 100 years. I understand that the Town Clerk, Tommy Maddock, who will shortly be resigning to take up a new position with Kildare County Council, is offering a glass of wine to anyone brave enough to come to the Book Launch. See you there.
Thursday, August 2, 2001
Jim Flood Fontstown
It’s over a year since I had a most pleasant interview with Jim Flood of Fontstown, a man of 87 years of age with an extraordinary memory for the people and events of the past. Jim lives with his daughter Nuala and her family in the house where he was born and into which his parents first moved in 1913 as tenants of Kildare County Council. It was provided by the Council as part of a scheme of isolated cottages then being built for agricultural labourers in the County. Jim’s father was the first tenant of the house and it gave him an independence which he had not enjoyed when he previously lived in tied accommodation provided by farmers for whom he worked.
Jim went to school in Skerries during the War of Independence and walked four miles to school and back home again each day of the school year. School numbers at primary school level in those days were particularly high due to the large family sizes of the time and the two-roomed school house at Skerries catered for in excess of one hundred children. He recalls his first teacher, Miss Pender, whose father was a coachman in Kildangan Stud and who rode a horse each day from Kildangan to the Skerries School. Even as a very young school boy with a daily round journey of eight miles to walk Jim still found time to work on the local Dobbyn farm, initially doing small odd jobs around the place. He was 13 or 14 years of age when he left school for the last time and took up full time work with Dobbyns, working all hours of the day and night. He recalls the enjoyment of travelling to Athy by ass and cart to collect “messages” for the Dobbyns. This required stop offs at various shops including Brid Lawlers, Scully’s and O’Brien’s and occasionally a visit to the Railway Station to collect goods sent from Dublin. After two years or so Jim got a temporary job working in Blackwood Forest from T.J. Bodley, the local Welfare Officer of Leinster Street and spent some time there before moving on again.
He was soon to find work in his own area when he was taken on by Colonel Barry who lived in the Manor House in Fontstown. Colonel Barry lived in a fine three storey over basement house which was once the home of Canon Bagot, a powerful Church of Ireland Minister whose influence extended far beyond the rural district of Fontstown. The Manor House which is no longer standing was located just beyond Fontstown Church near to the entrance to Mervyn Stanley’s former home. Canon Bagot’s daughters later moved to Athy and lived in Shamrock Lodge on the Kildare Road. Colonel Barry with whom Jim Flood worked for five or six years was a veteran of the Boer War and his sister lived with him in the Manor House.
From the late 1930’s Jim worked for the Barrow Drainage Board on the stretch of the river from Jamestown Monasterevin to Athy. Within a few years he took up employment on the Lambe Brothers fruit farm in Fontstown where he worked in one capacity or another for almost forty years. Lambe’s started up in Fontstown in 1943 and the business was then managed by Alo Lawler, Dermot’s father, until it closed down in 1975. Thereafter the fruit farm was owned and operated by the former manager, and later still, and to this day, by his son Dermot.
One of Jim Flood’s greatest interests throughout his long life was ballroom dancing. He attended dances everywhere, as often as time and his resources allowed. He thought little of cycling to Dublin on the half day he got off each month while working with Colonel Barry, to attend dances in one of the many ballrooms in the city. The Machusla in Amiens Street, the National Ballroom and what he refers to as “The Bakers Place” were some of the favoured venues attended by Jim over the years. After each dance the journey by bicycle was retraced with the tired but happy young man reaching home as the dawn broke. He was invariably just in time to start his days work but as he says “once you had a craze for something you didn’t mind”. And it was a craze he continued after he got married. With his late wife Louie he attended dances in Crookstown, Castledermot, Athy and indeed anywhere the passion for dancing could be fulfilled. He recalls dancing in Dreamland Ballroom when it opened in 1961. Despite his age Jim retains the lightness of step of a dancer and still loves to get out on the dance floor for a quickstep or a foxtrot whenever the opportunity arises.
Jim has a great recall for the history of his native Fontstown and he remembers the Kilmead Fife and Drum Band which Ned Kelly, the tailor of Kilmead, was in charge of for so long. Folk memory has it that the band marched and played a welcome for Colonel Barry when he first arrived to live at Fontstown Manor at the early part of the century. The band practiced in the open air at “The Piers” which Jim explained were the gate piers to Youngstown House on the side road leading from Kilmead to Booleigh. They were known locally as “The Grand Piers” and the road leading down and beyond them was always referred to by the locals of old as “Piers Road”. Kilmead Fife and Drum Band broke up about sixty years ago when a similar band started up in nearby Mullaghmast.
Jim remembers the great political meetings in the Square in Athy where the likes of Eamon de Valera and Mary McSwiney, sister of the martyred Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence McSwiney addressed the crowds. These great gatherings were always preceded by the arrival of one of the local bands parading from the Railway Bridge on the Dublin Road. The interruptions and heckling generated by those opposed to the views of the platform party always provided an interesting aside to the evenings proceedings. Interestingly enough the Fianna Fail gatherings were always met with a phalanx, of what Jim refers to, as “the Minch’s crowd”, who were well-known Cumann na nGael supporters. The period of the Blue Shirt movement was an interesting time for a young onlooker such as Jim and many a story he has to recount of that time. The story of the movement in Athy and the outlining districts of South Kildare is another story for another day.
I leave the final word to Jim who recalls a time over 70 years ago:
“When I was going to school I remember them making the first road, steam rolling it here in the 1920’s. Then there was only one car on the road and when we were kids of a Thursday we would be listening to hear the approach of Captain Hone’s motor car. You would hear it when it was at the Seven Stars, with old Captain Hone driving down to Kilmead with money to pay his workers”.
Jim went to school in Skerries during the War of Independence and walked four miles to school and back home again each day of the school year. School numbers at primary school level in those days were particularly high due to the large family sizes of the time and the two-roomed school house at Skerries catered for in excess of one hundred children. He recalls his first teacher, Miss Pender, whose father was a coachman in Kildangan Stud and who rode a horse each day from Kildangan to the Skerries School. Even as a very young school boy with a daily round journey of eight miles to walk Jim still found time to work on the local Dobbyn farm, initially doing small odd jobs around the place. He was 13 or 14 years of age when he left school for the last time and took up full time work with Dobbyns, working all hours of the day and night. He recalls the enjoyment of travelling to Athy by ass and cart to collect “messages” for the Dobbyns. This required stop offs at various shops including Brid Lawlers, Scully’s and O’Brien’s and occasionally a visit to the Railway Station to collect goods sent from Dublin. After two years or so Jim got a temporary job working in Blackwood Forest from T.J. Bodley, the local Welfare Officer of Leinster Street and spent some time there before moving on again.
He was soon to find work in his own area when he was taken on by Colonel Barry who lived in the Manor House in Fontstown. Colonel Barry lived in a fine three storey over basement house which was once the home of Canon Bagot, a powerful Church of Ireland Minister whose influence extended far beyond the rural district of Fontstown. The Manor House which is no longer standing was located just beyond Fontstown Church near to the entrance to Mervyn Stanley’s former home. Canon Bagot’s daughters later moved to Athy and lived in Shamrock Lodge on the Kildare Road. Colonel Barry with whom Jim Flood worked for five or six years was a veteran of the Boer War and his sister lived with him in the Manor House.
From the late 1930’s Jim worked for the Barrow Drainage Board on the stretch of the river from Jamestown Monasterevin to Athy. Within a few years he took up employment on the Lambe Brothers fruit farm in Fontstown where he worked in one capacity or another for almost forty years. Lambe’s started up in Fontstown in 1943 and the business was then managed by Alo Lawler, Dermot’s father, until it closed down in 1975. Thereafter the fruit farm was owned and operated by the former manager, and later still, and to this day, by his son Dermot.
One of Jim Flood’s greatest interests throughout his long life was ballroom dancing. He attended dances everywhere, as often as time and his resources allowed. He thought little of cycling to Dublin on the half day he got off each month while working with Colonel Barry, to attend dances in one of the many ballrooms in the city. The Machusla in Amiens Street, the National Ballroom and what he refers to as “The Bakers Place” were some of the favoured venues attended by Jim over the years. After each dance the journey by bicycle was retraced with the tired but happy young man reaching home as the dawn broke. He was invariably just in time to start his days work but as he says “once you had a craze for something you didn’t mind”. And it was a craze he continued after he got married. With his late wife Louie he attended dances in Crookstown, Castledermot, Athy and indeed anywhere the passion for dancing could be fulfilled. He recalls dancing in Dreamland Ballroom when it opened in 1961. Despite his age Jim retains the lightness of step of a dancer and still loves to get out on the dance floor for a quickstep or a foxtrot whenever the opportunity arises.
Jim has a great recall for the history of his native Fontstown and he remembers the Kilmead Fife and Drum Band which Ned Kelly, the tailor of Kilmead, was in charge of for so long. Folk memory has it that the band marched and played a welcome for Colonel Barry when he first arrived to live at Fontstown Manor at the early part of the century. The band practiced in the open air at “The Piers” which Jim explained were the gate piers to Youngstown House on the side road leading from Kilmead to Booleigh. They were known locally as “The Grand Piers” and the road leading down and beyond them was always referred to by the locals of old as “Piers Road”. Kilmead Fife and Drum Band broke up about sixty years ago when a similar band started up in nearby Mullaghmast.
Jim remembers the great political meetings in the Square in Athy where the likes of Eamon de Valera and Mary McSwiney, sister of the martyred Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence McSwiney addressed the crowds. These great gatherings were always preceded by the arrival of one of the local bands parading from the Railway Bridge on the Dublin Road. The interruptions and heckling generated by those opposed to the views of the platform party always provided an interesting aside to the evenings proceedings. Interestingly enough the Fianna Fail gatherings were always met with a phalanx, of what Jim refers to, as “the Minch’s crowd”, who were well-known Cumann na nGael supporters. The period of the Blue Shirt movement was an interesting time for a young onlooker such as Jim and many a story he has to recount of that time. The story of the movement in Athy and the outlining districts of South Kildare is another story for another day.
I leave the final word to Jim who recalls a time over 70 years ago:
“When I was going to school I remember them making the first road, steam rolling it here in the 1920’s. Then there was only one car on the road and when we were kids of a Thursday we would be listening to hear the approach of Captain Hone’s motor car. You would hear it when it was at the Seven Stars, with old Captain Hone driving down to Kilmead with money to pay his workers”.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)