I got a phone call last week from a
person who remembered reading an article I wrote some years ago following my
visit to the Texas town of San Antonio.
While there I came across the Athy Mace which is now on display in San
Antonio’s Museum of Art. My caller was
flying out to the same Texas city and wanted to check the Museum details so
that he could himself inspect the Mace.
Around the same time I received in
the post a copy of the programme planned for the Carlow 800 Festival to celebrate
the 800th anniversary of the building of Carlow Castle. What a pity I thought as we approach the 500th
anniversary of the granting of Borough status for Athy that the successors to
the medieval Borough, Athy Town Council, is about to be abolished.
We are now into the final year of
the Town Council’s life and it’s last ever chairman, Councillor Thomas Redmond,
was elected just two months ago. The
loss of the Town Council will be a matter of huge importance in the history of
the town, even if many might dispute the Council’s relevance or usefulness in
today’s world.
Undoubtedly the Town Commissioners,
the Urban District Council and the Town Council, all of whom in their time were
successors to the original 16th century Borough Council, could point
to many useful and worthwhile services provided in the town during their
respective terms of office. The first
piped water supply system came in 1907 at a time when unemployment, poverty and
disease were the hallmark of life in Athy.
Despite this the then Urban District Council members, by a majority
vote, resisted the provision of a piped water supply system and delayed it’s
implementation for several years ‘for
fear of the cost to the local ratepayer.’
The delay in replacing the existing
public pump water system resulted in several more deaths from sewerage
contaminated water before the Council members reluctantly agreed to proceed
with the piped water system from Modubeagh.
The next most valuable contribution
by the Urban District Council to the development of the town was the provision
of a sewerage system in the town. These
two public utility services were undoubtedly the most important contribution to
the wellbeing of the townspeople by any of the governing bodies of the town,
extending back as far as the year of the first Charter granted to Athy in
1515.
The drive towards centralisation, so
beloved of central authority, will deprive Athy and its people of an important
element of self government which for all its faults had the merit of letting
the local people have some say in their own destiny. You may well complain that the local Councils
have consistently failed to exercise wisely whatever powers they possessed and
that by default, if nothing else, local Councils have fallen into disrepute. Whatever your views on the effectiveness or
otherwise of Athy Town Council the loss of municipal self governance after
almost 500 years is unquestionably a sad loss for local democracy.
The chequered history of local
government in Athy did not always represent a glorious chapter in the history
of the town. The Borough Council of
Athy, whose Mace is now in San Antonio, existed from 1515 to 1840. During that time successive Dukes of Leinster
exercised complete control over those appointed to the Council. The electoral deficit resulted from the
Duke’s manipulation of the powers granted in the town’s Charter which saw Dukes
of Leinster nominating the members of the Borough Council. No elections were held and the powers of the
Borough Council, including the power to return two Members of Parliament to
represent Athy Borough, were exercised by the Council members at the behest of
the Duke.
The undemocratic nature of the
Borough Council’s operations were further signalled by the refusal to allow any
member of the majority religion become a Borough Council member. It was not until the passing of the
Emancipation Act that Colonel Thomas Fitzgerald of Geraldine House was
nominated as the first ever Catholic member of Athy Borough Council. Indeed he was the only Catholic ever
appointed to that body prior to its abolition in 1840.
Following the abolition of the
Borough Council there was no municipal body in the town for a few years. A petition by the local people led to the
establishment of Town Commissioners and the holding for the very first time of
local elections for membership of the Town Commissioners. Thereafter elections were held on a regular
basis for membership of the Commissioners, later the Urban District Council and
more recently the Town Council. From
next year the local people of Athy will vote to elect six Councillors from an
area extending from Castledermot to Monasterevin to represent that area,
including Athy, in the County Council which will sit in Naas.
For the first time in 499 years Athy
will then no longer have its own Town Council.
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