Continuing the story behind the 25 objects chosen to tell the
history of Athy I start this week with the bell which once rang out in the
Convent of Mercy Athy. It is now part of
the exhibition in the Heritage Centre devoted to the town’s religious
diversity.
The bell hung over the main stairway in the convent with a large
rope reaching down to the hall floor. It
was rung to summon the nuns to prayer and to alert individual nuns when they
were required to greet visitors in the nuns’ parlour. Each nun had her own unique bell call and for
the 40 or more nuns in the Convent there was a bewildering range of long and
short peals of the bell to identify each nun in the Convent.
The extraordinary impact that the Sisters of Mercy had on the town
of Athy, beginning with their arrival here in 1852, has yet to be fully
told. Educating young children and
tending to the poor was the mission of the Sisters of Mercy and one to which
successive generations of nuns dedicated themselves over many decades. With their departure some years ago from the
local Convent which had been built on part of Clonmullin commons of old, the
bell and some other artefacts from the Convent were presented to the Heritage
Centre. The bell, now silent, is a small
reminder of that noble band of women whose work among generations of Athy folk
encouraged and enabled so many to take advantage of life’s opportunities.
A small wooden bird cage which once belonged to Ernest Shackleton is
one of several Shackleton related items on display in the Heritage Centre. I have chosen the bird cage, rather than any
of the other perhaps more important Shackleton artefacts, as its everyday simplicity
brings a human dimension to the Arctic explorer whose exploits excited the
world 100 years ago. Shackleton is
perhaps the most widely known man to come from South Kildare and the exhibition
space devoted to him in the Heritage Centre is believed to be the only
permanent Shackleton Exhibition anywhere in the world. It is of course appropriate that Athy boasts
of its Shackleton connection for the man whose Antarctic exploits were headline
news at the beginning of the 20th century was born in Kilkea House
just a few miles from the town.
Looking back on the history of Athy there are a number of key events
which stand out. These include the
Confederate Wars, the ’98 Rebellion and the Great Famine but amongst them must
also be included happier occasions such as the Gordon Bennett Race of 1903 and
the Eucharistic Congress of 1932. Both
events had a huge and lasting impact on the people of Athy and like the night
of the Big Wind of 1829 were for many locals a reference point in lives
unfettered by calendars or time pieces.
Amongst the exhibits in the Heritage Centre are a number of items linked
to the Gordon Bennett Race and I have chosen the Arrol Johnston motor car to
tell the story behind Ireland’s most famous road race. The Arrol Johnston was presented to Athy
Heritage Centre by Honor McCulloch in memory of her father William Ringwood McCulloch
who as a young boy, then living in Sawyerswood, was a spectator at the Gordon
Bennett Race of 1903. His lifelong
interest in cars stemmed from that event and about 31 years later, having
discovered a derelict car abandoned on a Scottish farm, negotiated its
acquisition and set about its restoration.
It took him three years to restore the Arrol Johnston which had been
first purchased as new by Lord Cochrane of Fife in Scotland in 1902. The car, when restored, was driven in the
Empire Exhibition run between Glasgow and Edinburgh in 1938 and also took part
in the celebrated London to Brighton run in 1970. The Arrol Johnston motor car which was previously
on display in the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu between 1993 and 2000 is now,
due to the generosity of Honor McCulloch, one of the highlights of Athy’s
Heritage Centre.
A handball, made by local man Bill Aldridge, is the next item
selected to tell another aspect of the townspeople’s story. Bill was a champion handballer with Athy
Handball Club which in the 1920s and earlier had such exceptional players
amongst its ranks as John Delaney, Tom Aldridge, George Robinson and Jack
Delaney. Bill was in later years a maker
of handballs and an example of his handcraft was purchased by me many years ago. It’s a reminder of a sport which was very
popular in Athy up to a few decades ago.
The town once had two handball alleys, the Barrack Lane court, located
next to the Army Barracks, while Leinster Street also had a handball court
behind a public house. The Barrack Lane
court survived up to the 1970s and was replaced by a newly built court,
provided by Athy U.D.C., which however remained unused and was demolished after
a few years.
..... TO BE CONTINUED
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