The disappointment of yet another forgettable footballing Sunday in
May, this time with Kildare going down to a fourteen man Offaly team was thrown
into perspective by a late night phone call to tell me of the death of Michael
Delaney of Kilkea and Dún Chaoin, Co. Kerry.
I knew Michael since the days we both shared the same digs in Newbridge
in the early 1960’s. Michael was a newly
qualified National schoolteacher, I was a lowly County Council official with a
job in St. Mary’s Naas who had chosen to live in Newbridge to be near a then
girlfriend. In those days young fellows
living away from home did so in the supposedly relative comfort of digs rather
than flats so as to enjoy, if such be the word to describe the experience, the
comforts of home cooking. The
expectations never quite matched the actuality however and so my generation has
a veritable store of horror stories of landladies who might be better described
as the owners of unlicensed refugee centres.
However, Michael Delaney and myself fared somewhat better than most
in our Newbridge digs, which although not quite a home from home, was still in
comparison with other digs quite acceptable.
Michael originated from the village of Kilkea, the economic life of
whose people were interlinked with agriculture and the landowners of the
area. Trained in St. Patrick’s College,
Drumcondra, Michael’s proficiency in the Irish language was undoubtedly
encouraged in the college where Gaelic was used in the teaching of all
subjects. It was in Dún Chaoin, Co.
Kerry that Michael would sharpen and hone his Irish and it was there that he
died, as I write, two days ago.
Education in Dún Chaoin and Micheál Ó’Dubhshláine, for that was his
name in Irish, will always be linked, for it was to there that Michael went
over thirty-five years ago when he took up the invitation of the parents of the
area to teach in the one teacher school which the Department of Education had
decided to close. Transferring from a
permanent pensionable teaching post in the english speaking midlands to the
Gaeltacht of the Kingdom without any guarantee of permanency of position or
indeed payment of his monthly salary was a brave decision for a young man to
take. But Micheál Ó’Dubhshláine made
that decision and spent the rest of his teaching career in the Dún Chaoin
school which the Department of Education eventually agreed should be retained
as an essential part of the infrastructure in that part of the threatened
Gaeltacht.
Michael’s enthusiasm for local history saw him register to take a
course on the subject in Maynooth College, to where he travelled once a week
from Dún Chaoin for two if not three years.
I remember Michael calling to me one day on his journey home and how surprised
I was to find that he travelled so far each week from the most westerly tip of
the Dingle Peninsula in pursuit of his passion for learning. But Michael was not a man to whom Listowel
writer Bryan MacMahon’s claim could be applied:- “As
Irish, we are blind, dumb and deaf to the small but precious wonders of our
heritage”. No, Michael was truly
conscious of the heritage of the Dún Chaoin area and of the South Kildare area
of Kilkea where he had been born and reared.
The Great Blaskets overlooked by Dún Chaoin has produced a wealth of
literature, the most notable which included “An
t’Oileánach” by Tomás Ó Criomhthain, “Fiche
Bliain ag Fás” by Muiris O’Sulleabhán and “Peig: A Sceal Fein” by Peig Sayers. Michael Delaney immersed himself in the
literature and culture of the Peninsula and the Blaskets and proved a
knowledgeable and accommodating guide when a number of us from Athy paid a
visit to Annascaul, the home village of Antarctic explorer Tom Crean some years
ago. Michael invited us to Dún Chaoin
and arranged a wonderful trip for us all to the Great Blasket island where he
brought us around and gave us a delightful talk of the history and folklore of
the people of this most famous island.
Following that trip I wrote an Eye on the Past in which I described
the Great Blasket trip as the highlight of the weekend trip to County Kerry and
thanked Michael, who by 2002 had already spent thirty years or so in Dún
Chaoin, for generously sharing his time and his local knowledge with his former
County Kildare neighbours.
Michael was ever willing to share his extensive knowledge of matters
of local history, whether it be of County Kerry or his home County of
Kildare. It was perhaps twelve years or
so ago that Michael invited me to give a talk as part of a local history summer
school he and the late Billy Kelly had arranged for Crookstown Heritage
Centre. Most of the participants in that
course were primary school teachers from the South Kildare area and it is sad
to think that those associated with that seminar, Jim Maher of Crookstown Mill,
Ballytore historian Billy Kelly and now Michael Delaney are now gone to their
Maker. The summer school was another
concrete example of Michael’s love of local history and his desire to ensure
that local people came to understand and appreciate the significance of their
own place in Irish history.
Michael first brought back to public attention the Kilkea Farm
Workers Strike of 1945 which he researched and wrote up for his thesis on the
Maynooth local history course. He later
went on to publish a number of books, both in Irish and more recently in
English. His sad death is a tragic loss
for local history, but no doubt there will be others who will continue his good
work, motivated and encouraged by the schoolteacher Micheál Ó’Dubhshláine who
as a historian was a driving force in keeping alive the Gaelic culture of the
Dún Chaoin area. Michael Delaney was a
Kildare man who for the past thirty-five years or so enjoyed dual citizenship
of both the Kingdom and the shortgrass county.
His death is a sad loss to both counties. To his wife and family are extended our
sympathies on his passing.
Last week we suffered a tragedy on the main street of Athy when Mary
Foley was knocked down and killed by a cattle truck. I was out of the office for a few days but on
my return received a few phone calls, all from locals, who expressed much the
same view that large vehicles in this day and age should not still be passing
through the narrow main street of Athy.
Where they asked is the bypass or outer relief road planned over thirty
years ago and which when first mooted was to be provided in the short or medium
term. What, I was asked, have the two
Councils, Kildare County Council and Athy Town Council done to move ahead with
the building of a relief road since the decision handed down by An Bord
Pleanala and the High Court in Dublin in relation to the inept Inner Relief
Road plan?
I don’t know what has happened.
I gather that Kildare County Council has decided not to appeal the High
Court decision but again the Council only made known this fact long after the
time for lodging an appeal had expired.
Local government in Kildare seems to be unable to build anything, except
of course a fine office building in Naas where €58 million or thereabouts of your money and mine has been spent to
provide accommodation for those whose decisions in relation to roads and other
infrastructure for the county comes all too slowly. However, now that the officials have been
properly provided for in terms of accommodation, can we hope that a certain
degree of urgency will mark their efforts to provide a relief road for the long
suffering people of Athy.
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