Photographs / Wren Boys / Athy Gardai

Photographs are a wonderful record of times past and this week having laid aside my pen for the festive season I reproduce two photographs from our recent history.  The first photograph is of wren boys outside Noonan's pub in Stanhope Street, taken I believe sometime in the mid to late 1950's.  The pub was purchased by Garda Mick Noonan in 1949 from its previous owners, the Scanlons.  It was named the “Greyhound Bar” in recognition of Mick's greyhound, “Belles Prince”  which proved a very successful runner on the dog tracks.  The accordion player in the photograph is I believe Tom Pender of Convent View, but his colleagues remain unidentified. 

The second photograph is of some of the Gardai who were stationed in Athy in the 1950's.  I know the names of all the men whose images were captured in the yard behind the Garda Station in Duke Street but I will leave it to my readers to see if they can identify for themselves the men who once patrolled the streets of Athy. 

Happy New Year to all readers of Eye on the Past.