From the relative
comfort created by the economic whirlwind dubbed by some linguistic genius as
the Celtic Tiger it is reassuring to look back at the time not so long ago when
the people of Athy lived in the shadow of unemployment. In the early years of the new Irish State
local industry in South Kildare consisted of Minch Norton’s barley intake
plants in William Street and Stanhope Street, Hannons Mills, which were soon
thereafter to close, and the oldest local industry, brick making. The latter was however going through a tough
period. Several of the smaller brick
yards around the area, of which there had been upwards of twelve or so, had
closed leaving only the Athy Tile and Brick Company at Barrowford and Hosies
brick yard in Coursetown. John Conlan a
Farmers Party TD for Kildare said in the Dail in January 1924 “in the Athy
District of my constituency several brick yards were in operation up to a
comparatively short time ago and indeed I believe one of them is still in
operation. These works turn out the very
best class of brick. In fact some of the
old squares in Dublin were built of Athy brick and that will go to show their
durability”. Mr Conlan was pressing to
have provision made in a Bill going through the Dail for contractors to be
compelled to use Irish material and so give local industry a chance of
reviving.
I cannot say
whether any such provision was ever included in the Act when it was passed, but
even if it was, it proved unsuccessful insofar as the Athy brick industry was
concerned. The following year Hugh
Colohan by trade a brick and stone layer and a TD for Kildare again raised the
plight of the Athy brick industry claiming “the quality and durability of that
brick is beyond question having been recommended by architects for a great many
years”. The conditions prevailing in
County Kildare and in the Athy area were the subject of further comment by
Colohan when in June 1925 he stated in the Dail “we have fully three thousand
unemployed in the County of Kildare making with their dependants ten thousand
in a state of semi starvation”. Claiming
he was not painting “an overdrawn picture” Colohan handed in a letter from the
local Irish Transport Union Secretary confirming the figure of 954 unemployed
persons in Athy and about the same number in Newbridge..
Unemployment and
the lack of industry were topics Colohan would return to again and again but in
the meantime the Government decided to go ahead with the Barrow drainage scheme
which had been under consideration since the early part of 1923. The Cosgrave let government employed
Professor Meyer Peter of Zurich to prepare a scheme for the Barrow drainage and
he had estimated the cost of the project at just over one million pounds. The Government felt the project was only
justified on the basis of “the great deal of employment it would offer during
this period of depression”. Work began
in July 1925 and fortunately for the economy of the town of Athy, the Barrow
drainage works Head Quarters was based in the town for the duration of the
project. It provided an enormous boast
for employment in South Kildare and created increased business for the local
shops. A note worthy social side affect was the setting up of the first soccer
club in Athy by the drainage workers
with the encouragement and support of a number of locals.
The labour
intensive work of the drainage scheme can be gauged from the information given
to Labour T.D. William Davin in December 1926 when he was advised that the
total number of wheelbarrows supplied for the Barrow drainage scheme was one
hundred and sixty of which sixty were made by workers in the Athy works
yard. Inevitably complaints of Athy men
not obtaining employment on the scheme arose.
The denial which subsequently issued advised that labourers were
employed as required and were taken as near as possible from the districts in
which works were in progress. It was an
issue which Deputy Colohan raised again twelve months later to which the
Minister for Finance Ernest Blythe replied “labours employed on the Barrow
drainage works generally are all local men i.e. men who live within a short
bicycle ride of their work. The gangers
are designedly not local men as it is settled policy of the Commissioner of
Public Works not to employ men as gangers in the districts in which they
normally reside”.
The importance of
the Barrow drainage scheme to Athy and South Kildare was acknowledged by
Captain Sidney Minch TD when speaking in the Dail in April 1934. “Athy has been the very lucky town in which
the Board of Works established their head quarters for the Barrow
drainage. It has been really an industry
for Athy which has no other industries practically speaking”. By then the Barrow drainage scheme was coming
to a close but the workshop set up in Athy at the start of the project would
remain in the town until 1942 when it was moved to Dun Laoghaire.
Even as the
drainage scheme was finishing the local brick industry was also coming to an
end. The last brickyard was the Athy
Tile and Brick Company in Barrowford which despite the best efforts of its
director Peter P. Doyle could no longer compete with the on site manufacture of
concrete blocks. The last local
authority houses to be built in Athy
using Athy brick were the twenty-five houses at Geraldine Road.
The demise of the
brick industry in South Kildare was a serious blow for the area and compounded
the disappointment felt at the loss of the new sugar factory to Carlow in
1924. The Irish Government had opened up
negotiations that year with a Belgium company named Lippens to set up a beet
sugar factory in Ireland. Committees
were set up in Athy and Carlow to further their claims to the new factory and a
deputation was sent to Belgium in 1924 to meet with representatives of the
Lippens company. The Belgium’s were
concerned to get guaranteed subsidies from the Irish government and also
commitments from Irish farmers to grow the beet. The Carlow delegates claimed to have obtained
guarantees extending over eight thousand acres while the Athy delegates after
much effort over several weeks were in a position to guarantee five thousand
six hundred and ninety-eight acres to be devoted to beet growing in their area. In the end the factory which was apparently
confidentially expected to come to Athy ended up in Carlow.
Local man Captain
Hosie started up in the late 1920’s a small industry called Industrial Vehicles
Ireland Limited which would in time become a substantial employer of local
men. Duthie Large’s was around this time
also a substantial employer and indeed in 1928 it was claimed that as
manufactures of motor accessories of all kinds it employed two hundred
men. I am not sure if this figure quoted
in a Dail debate of May 1928 is correct but it is accepted that Duthie Large’s,
the IVI and Minch Norton’s were the only major industries in the town of Athy
at that time. An interesting insight
into the Sugar Industry which had commenced in Carlow a few years earlier was
given when Deputy Tom Harris a Fianna Fail TD for Kildare, who had fought in
the GPO in 1916, asked for special measures to be put in place in 1931 to
provide employment in the Athy district resulting from “the crisis in the beet
growing industry”. He claimed that in
the absence of local industry a large number of working people in Athy used to
find work at tillage. “Beet growing for
the past few years relieved the situation but this year conditions are worse
than they ever were. Unemployment in the
area is increasing rapidly and the Board of Health are unable to cope with the
demand for relief”.
It was a topic
which Captain Sidney Minch TD who lived in Athy would return to two years
later. The slum clearance programme of
the de Valera government was then beginning to have effect with new houses
replacing the unhealthy and unsanitary hovels which made up the laneways and
alleyways of most Irish provincial towns.
Athy was one such town where Minch claimed “employment will depend on
the rejuvenation and resurgence of country towns which at the present moment to
use a mild word are in a state of decay - - - there is no county I think worse
off and in need of industry than County Kildare. You have - - - Athy and several large
villages in which unemployment and depressing conditions are eating into every
house and home. One would think that
with local labour and local sites readily available the question of
establishing industries would be a priority”.
To be continued next week ………
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