Edward Keegan Irish Volunteer and Robert Gourley World War I soldier

The First World War and the Easter Rising of 1916 cast shadows which despite the passing of several generations have tended to obscure our understanding and appreciation of what enlisted soldiers and volunteers alike had to endure during and after those conflicts.  Sometimes the men on the opposing sides were from the same family and many are the stories which have come down to us in the intervening years of a brother fighting in a British uniform on a battlefield in Flanders while a sibling as an Irish volunteer fought against Irish troops in the Irish capital.

Mary McMahon of Butler’s Lane had a similar story for me when I met her last week.  It was her paternal and maternal grandfathers who were on opposing sides 100 years ago.  Her mother’s father Edward Keegan was an Irish Volunteer who fought in the South Dublin Union, while her father’s father, Robert Gourley, enlisted in the British Army and was sent to France on 18^th July 1915.

Edward Keegan was an actor who performed in Synge’s ‘On Baile’s Strand’ on the Abbey Theatre’s opening night on 28^th December 1904.  He was also player – member of the original Irish National Theatre Society.  A member of the Gaelic League he was instrumental in the founding of St. Laurence O’Toole GAA club in October 1901 and was a founding member of St. Laurence O’Toole pipe band. 

An active member of the Irish Volunteers he was a member of “C” Company 4^th Battalion Dublin Brigade.  He fought in the South Dublin Union under Eamonn Ceannt and was engaged in repelling an attack by British troops when he was seriously injured on the evening of Easter Monday 24^th April.  Shot through the lung he was removed to hospital where he was treated under the care of Dr. W. Cremin.  Detained in the Union hospital for four months he was later transferred to Beaumont Convalescent Home.   By the time Keegan was discharged from hospital on 25^th August his employer had dismissed him.  Prior to his engagement in the South Dublin Union he had been employed in the Advertising Department of the Irish Times and the then Unionist paper regarded his involvement in the Rising as disloyal to the crown.

Edward Keegan had a continuous history of ill health thereafter which curtailed his job opportunities until he was appointed in a temporary capacity in 1922 as a stock taker in the Department of Local Government.  He was still employed in that temporary position 16 years later but after further deterioration in his health which resulted in extended sick leave his pay from the Department was stopped.  Edward Keegan died on 20^th September 1938 from bronchitis which was directly related to the lung wound he had incurred 22 years earlier.  He was just 55 years old.

On the 25^th anniversary of the Easter Rising the Abbey Theatre authorities erected a plaque to commemorate the Abbey actors, playwrights and staff who had participated in the Rising.  Regretfully Edward Keegan’s name was not included on that plaque, but the omission has now been corrected.

At the same time Robert Gourley, a native of Derry, had enlisted to fight in France.  He survived the war and with his second wife and family lived over 51 Lower Sackville Street, now O’Connell Street, Dublin.  He died ten years after Edward Keegan, aged 65 years.  His son Alexander married Molly Keegan, daughter of the 1916 veteran, bringing together two families which history had put on opposing sides during the 1914/18 war.

Recently several generations of the Keegan and Gourley families of several generations came together in Wynn’s Hotel Dublin to celebrate the life of Edward Keegan as part of the 1916 commemorations.  It was in Wynn’s Hotel on 11^th November 1913 that Eoin MacNeill and a small group first met to plan the rally held in Dublin’s Rotunda 12 days later at which the Irish Volunteer movement was formally founded. 

The short life of Edward Keegan was celebrated by his descendants and the descendants of Robert Gourley and in honouring the 1916 Volunteer both families were acknowledging that loyalties of the past are in the Ireland of the 21^st century no longer divisive in a mature and all embracing nation.  The Irish men and women of Easter 1916 and their British Army counterparts, whether soldiers in Flanders or Dublin, deserve to be remembered with honour.  The Irish Times, which dismissed Edward Keegan for disloyalty in 1917, recently purchased his 1916 medal at a New York auction and that medal will soon go on public display in the Irish Times building.  Attitudes have changed in the Irish Times and indeed they reflect the changing attitudes in today’s Irish society.

The death last week of Athy born Michael Keane, the last editor of the Sunday Press, at a relatively young age, is a tragic loss to Irish journalism.  Michael who attended the local Christian Brothers School was part of that brilliant group of students who graduated in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  He was editor of the Sunday Press when the Press newspapers closed and was remembered by his colleagues as a brilliant journalist.

Battle of the Somme

At 7.20 a.m. on 1^st July 1916 a huge mine was detonated under the German lines on the Somme.  A few minutes later more mines were exploded.  Just a few seconds after 7.30 a.m. bugles and whistles sounded and the waiting British army soldiers rose from their trenches and went over the top.  The Battle of the Somme which extended from north of Beaumont Hamel to Chilly, south of Chaulnes had started.

At the beginning of 1916 the Great War had reached a stalemate.  A month earlier Douglas Haig was appointed Commander in Chief of the British Army in France.  He would adapt a strategy of sending men forward in the region of the Somme to deflect German attention from Verdun approximately 150 miles to the south east.  There a battle of attrition which started the previous February had caused nearly 750,000 casualties. 

The Battle of the Somme commenced with a seven day artillery bombardment of the German lines.  On the morning of 1^st July the British Infantry moved towards the German trenches walking behind a rolling barrage of artillery fire which extended slowly towards the German lines.  Those German lines however were heavily defended and the artillery barrage proved so ineffective that the advancing British soldiers were scythed down by German fire.  Before the end of the day British Army losses on the Somme amounted to 41,000 men, 19,240 of whom were killed. 

The British professional army of 1914 had suffered such heavy losses at the start of the war that many of the troops engaged at the Somme were volunteers who were facing enemy fire for the first time.  The casualty figures on the Somme represents the heaviest loss for any one day in British military history.  The Somme battlefield would result in over 1,000,000 casualties before the military offensive ended on 13^th November 1916 with negligible gains in terms of territory by the British army.

Robert Hackett who was born in Kelly’s Lane, Athy enlisted as a private in the York and Lancaster regiment and served in the 12^th Battalion.  He was killed in action on the first day of the Somme and was the first Athy man to die during that battle.  On 4^th July Frank Alcock, a young man of 20 years, born in Athy and formerly of Woodstock Street who had earlier enlisted in Wicklow, died of his wounds.  He had joined the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and served in the 2^nd Battalion.  Was he, I wonder, a brother of Thomas Alcock, another Athy man who served in the 1^st Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers and had enlisted in Carlow?  Thomas was killed in action in France on 1^st June 1917. 

On the last day of the Somme on 13^th November 1916 Athy man James Dunne was killed.  His father was Peter Dunne who lived at 3 Offaly Street.  Twenty young men from Athy were killed between 1^st July and 13^th November 1916.  These included John Hannon of Ardreigh House who was just 24 years old when he died on 18^th August 1916.  His death came 15 months after his 20 year old brother Norman was killed at Festubert.  One man who survived the Battle of the Somme was John Vincent Holland of Model Farm whose gallantry at the siege of Guillemont was awarded with the Victoria Cross. 

Many of the Somme dead are buried in the Connaught Cemetery at the edge of Thiepval Wood.  A short distance away is the Mill Road Cemetery and nearby the 36^th Ulster Division Memorial.  The imposing Thiepval Memorial to the missing is close by.  It was built of bricks with stone facing on which are inscribed the names of more than 73,000 soldiers of the British Army who died on the Somme and whose bodies were never found.  Amongst them are the names of many young men from Athy and South Kildare, just some of the 218 men from the area who died during the 1914-18 war.

The Battle of the Somme which commenced on 1^st July 100 years ago occupies a unique position in British history as well as Irish history.  It marked a time when two countries, one the oppressed, the other the oppressor, came together for a brief period before engaging in their own war, of a lesser scale than the Somme, which we call the War of Independence. 

Earlier this week Michael Fox of Dublin, whose mother was Elizabeth O’Rourke, a niece of the O’Rourke brothers of Canal Harbour, presented me with a copy of his booklet ‘To Stem the Flowing Tide’.  It tells the story of the O’Rourke brothers involvement in the War of Independence as members of the Old I.R.A.  Copies of the booklet are available for sale in The Gem at €5.00 per copy.

John McCormack Principal Ardscoil na Tríonóide

John McCormack was appointed principal of Ardscoil na Tríonóide in 2013.  His appointment was one of huge importance in terms of the history of education in the town as John, or Johnny as he is generally known, is a past pupil of Athy Christian Brothers School which following an amalgamation with Scoil Mhuire has evolved as one of the largest educational campuses in South Kildare.

Born in Kilkenny in 1962 Johnny came to live in Athy nine years later and joined the 2^nd class in the St. John’s Lane School where Brother Murphy, the last in a long line of Christian Brother principals, was head teacher.  Later on ascending the iron stairs to the secondary school classrooms he came under the tutelage of Bill Ryan, Mick Hannon and Brother Tobin.  He finished his secondary education in 1981 and having graduated with a B.Com. from U.C.D. returned as a teacher to his old alma mater four years later.

Just a year before John returned to Athy the old Christian Brothers secondary school closed and reopened in new premises at Rathstewart.  The move came 167 years after the Christian Brothers came to Athy on the invitation of the Archbishop of Dublin to provide schooling facilities for the young boys of St. Michael’s parish.  A year earlier the Sisters of Mercy had opened their convent school here in Athy.  The move to a new site in Rathstewart saw the Christian Brothers secondary school operating side by side with the Convent of Mercy secondary school, Scoil Mhuire.  While there were some shared facilities the boys and girls schools operated under different school Boards of Management, separate principalships and under their own names, Scoil Eoin and Scoil Mhuire.  Lay principals would later replace the previous principals who like their predecessors going back to the schools foundations had always been members of religious orders. 

John McCormack was appointed vice principal of Scoil Eoin in 2002 following the retirement of Mick Hannon.  Five years later Scoil Eoin and Scoil Mhuire amalgamated to become a co-educational school under the name Ardscoil na Tríonóide.  The religious trusteeships under which Scoil Eoin and Scoil Mhuire had previously operated were replaced by a trusteeship under the name, Catholic Education Irish School Trust (C.E.I.S.T.).  In 2012 John McCormack was appointed principal.  He was the first past pupil of Athy C.B.S. School to assume that position. 

Today Ardscoil na Tríonóide is a far bigger secondary school than that which my school pals and myself attended in the 1950s.  Secondary education in those days was a facility which the vast majority of my primary schoolmates could not avail of.  While the Christian Brothers sought a very small fee where they felt it could be paid and no fee if thought otherwise, family circumstances often dictated that the young boys had to leave school at 14 years of age and sometimes earlier.  So it was that four small classrooms at the top of the iron stairs in the St. Johns Lane School provided sufficient accommodation for Athy’s Secondary School pupils up to more recent years.  The school staff in the 1950s consisted of four teachers, two Christian Brothers, Brett and Keogh and two lay teachers, Bill Ryan and Michael O’Riordan.

It was not until Donagh O’Malley’s move to make secondary education more freely available that the secondary school scene started to change dramatically.  Today Ardscoil na Tríonóide caters for upwards of 840 pupils with enrolment two years in advance.  A maximum of 150 pupils can be catered for in each class year, a number which is even larger than the total secondary school population of the Christian Brothers School in my time.  Another huge change is that approximately 95% of those who enrol in the first year of secondary school go on to sit their Leaving Certificate.  In my time the dropout rate after 6^th class primary and 1^st year secondary was very high and just a few years before I sat my Leaving Certificate the Leaving Cert. class in the local Christian Brothers School consisted of just one pupil.

Today Ardscoil na Tríonóide has 53 teachers, with backup secretarial staff.  The range of sports provided include basketball, rugby, soccer, equestrian and Gaelic games, with sports hall facilities not dreamed of in my St. John’s Lane school days. 

The Catholic ethos of Ardscoil na Tríonóide reflects those of the community it serves but it is a passive inclusion in a school which is non denominational and respectful of the religious beliefs of others.  Johnny McCormack, as a past pupil of the earlier Christian Brothers School, fosters and encourages his pupils to continue on to University.  The fact that up to 90% of the school’s pupils continue on to third level education is a tribute to the quality of education provided in Ardscoil na Tríonóide and the educational philosophy pursued by Johnny McCormack and his team.  The gateway to success in life is a good education and Ardscoil na Tríonóide combines the best traditions of my old secondary school and that of Scoil Mhuire to provide a first class educational environment for its pupils.

Last week I mentioned the sad death of journalist and last editor of the Sunday Press, Michael Keane.  As I finish this article I have before me a copy of ‘The Greenhills Magazine’ published at Christmas 1964 by the pupils of the C.B.S. Athy.  Its editor was Michael Keane who in his editorial expressed the hope that the magazine ‘will make you a little bit more proud of your school’.  We were indeed proud of our school and proud of Michael’s achievement in Irish journalism and we can be justifiably proud of the wonderful educational facilities available in Ardscoil na Tríonóide provided under the guidance of Johnny McCormack who like the late Michael Keane is a past pupil of the C.B.S. here in Athy. 

Athy magazines and newspapers of the 19th century and today's Athy Lions Club bookshop

It was Francis Bacon who claimed that ‘reading maketh a full man’.  At the same time he advised us ‘read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.’ 

Readers living in Athy in the early part of the 19^th century were reasonably well served in terms of reading material.  In the 1830s Thomas French had a printing office in Market Square, Emily Square, and it was French who embarked on an ambitious scheme of publishing a literary magazine ‘The Athy Literary Magazine’ which first appeared on Tuesday 14^th November 1837.  It was a small 8 page magazine costing one penny which appeared in the local shops every Tuesday.  The last known edition of the magazine was that which came out on 17^th April 1838.  The magazine was a mixture of local news coupled with extracts from Dickens Pickwick Papers and poetic contributions from local contributors.  The Royal Irish Academy have copies of the first 18 issues of ‘The Athy Literary Magazine’ while a full set is I believe to be found in a university in Chicago.

During the period of the Great Famine, Athy had a book shop which was located in Duke Street.  The 1846 edition of Slaters Directory gave the name John Lahee, described as a book seller so perhaps his was not a book shop as such but a retail business which included book sales. 

Three years later Athy readers for a short period were to have two local newspapers, each published and printed in the South Kildare town.  The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle started by Frederick Kearney, who had previously worked on the Anglo Celt, first appeared on the streets on Saturday 17^th February 1849.  The Leinster Express which was published in Maryborough (Portlaoise) and had enjoyed wide circulation in Athy, having advance notice of the new newspaper, brought out its own Athy based newspaper which they called ‘The Irish Eastern Counties Herald.’  It appeared on Tuesday 13^th February 1849.  The editorials in the rival newspapers set the tone for an acrimonious if short lived struggle.  Within three weeks the ‘Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle’ ceased publication and in its next edition the ‘Irish Eastern Counties Herald’ claimed ‘the principal object for which the journal was established having been affected, many of our friends very reasonably concluded that upon the demise of the so called Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle its publication would cease.  ‘The Irish Eastern Counties Herald’ ceased publication with its 5^th edition on 6^th March 1849.

In January 1852 Samuel Talbot, a member of the Talbot family of Maryborough who were proprietors of the Leinster Express and the short lived ‘Irish Eastern Counties Herald’, published another Athy based magazine, ‘The Press’.  Intended as a monthly magazine consisting of 26 pages it sought to advance ‘science, literature and the industrial arts’.  Unfortunately the first issue of ‘The Press’ was the only one to appear in the local shops.

As a reader and an avid book collector I have spent many spare hours in book shops.  In my young days there was no book shop in Athy but in recent years ‘The Gem’ and ‘Winkles’ have taken on the role of book selling.  The social and cultural life of any provincial town is hugely enriched by the presence of a book shop and I am delighted to see that the Lions Club Book Shop on Duke Street is doing so well.  This was started as a fundraising venture by the Lions Club approximately 5 years ago.  The Club had traditionally organised a second hand book sale every year, extending over 2 or 3 days.  It’s success prompted the setting up of a book shop staffed initially by members of Athy Lions Club.  Because of work commitments the shop in its first year was opened on Saturdays only.  I remember as I manned the book shop one day being approached by a woman offering to help in the shop.  I did not know Alice Rowan at that stage.  From Pairc Bhride she emigrated to England in 1966 and returned to Athy on retirement in 2007. 

Alice has now been running the Lions Book Shop on a voluntary basis for the last 4 years and the original Saturday opening has now been extended to a 5 day opening.  In recognition of her contribution to the running of the book shop the Lions Club some time ago conferred honorary Lions membership on Alice.  This is the first occasion such an honour has been awarded. 

The famous American book dealer Rosenbbach often claimed that ‘book collecting is the most exhilarating sport of all.’  It is certainly an entertaining and pleasurable hobby and within the confines of the Athy Lions Book Shop are to be found books catering for a wide diversity of tastes.  Thanks to Alice Rowan and to the Shaw Group which gave the Lions Club use of a vacant premises in Duke Street where we now have a second hand book shop of which we can be justifiably proud.

Edward Keegan Irish Volunteer and Robert Gourley World War 1 soldier

The First World War and the Easter Rising of 1916 cast shadows which despite the passing of several generations have tended to obscure our understanding and appreciation of what enlisted soldiers and volunteers alike had to endure during and after those conflicts.  Sometimes the men on the opposing sides were from the same family and many are the stories which have come down to us in the intervening years of a brother fighting in a British uniform on a battlefield in Flanders while a sibling as an Irish volunteer fought against Irish troops in the Irish capital.

Mary McMahon of Butler’s Lane had a similar story for me when I met her last week.  It was her paternal and maternal grandfathers who were on opposing sides 100 years ago.  Her mother’s father Edward Keegan was an Irish Volunteer who fought in the South Dublin Union, while her father’s father, Robert Gourley, enlisted in the British Army and was sent to France on 18^th July 1915.

Edward Keegan was an actor who performed in Synge’s ‘On Baile’s Strand’ on the Abbey Theatre’s opening night on 28^th December 1904.  He was also player – member of the original Irish National Theatre Society.  A member of the Gaelic League he was instrumental in the founding of St. Laurence O’Toole GAA club in October 1901 and was a founding member of St. Laurence O’Toole pipe band. 

An active member of the Irish Volunteers he was a member of “C” Company 4^th Battalion Dublin Brigade.  He fought in the South Dublin Union under Eamonn Ceannt and was engaged in repelling an attack by British troops when he was seriously injured on the evening of Easter Monday 24^th April.  Shot through the lung he was removed to hospital where he was treated under the care of Dr. W. Cremin.  Detained in the Union hospital for four months he was later transferred to Beaumont Convalescent Home.   By the time Keegan was discharged from hospital on 25^th August his employer had dismissed him.  Prior to his engagement in the South Dublin Union he had been employed in the Advertising Department of the Irish Times and the then Unionist paper regarded his involvement in the Rising as disloyal to the crown.

Edward Keegan had a continuous history of ill health thereafter which curtailed his job opportunities until he was appointed in a temporary capacity in 1922 as a stock taker in the Department of Local Government.  He was still employed in that temporary position 16 years later but after further deterioration in his health which resulted in extended sick leave his pay from the Department was stopped.  Edward Keegan died on 20^th September 1938 from bronchitis which was directly related to the lung wound he had incurred 22 years earlier.  He was just 55 years old.

On the 25^th anniversary of the Easter Rising the Abbey Theatre authorities erected a plaque to commemorate the Abbey actors, playwrights and staff who had participated in the Rising.  Regretfully Edward Keegan’s name was not included on that plaque, but the omission has now been corrected.

At the same time Robert Gourley, a native of Derry, had enlisted to fight in France.  He survived the war and with his second wife and family lived over 51 Lower Sackville Street, now O’Connell Street, Dublin.  He died ten years after Edward Keegan, aged 65 years.  His son Alexander married Molly Keegan, daughter of the 1916 veteran, bringing together two families which history had put on opposing sides during the 1914/18 war.

Recently several generations of the Keegan and Gourley families of several generations came together in Wynn’s Hotel Dublin to celebrate the life of Edward Keegan as part of the 1916 commemorations.  It was in Wynn’s Hotel on 11^th November 1913 that Eoin MacNeill and a small group first met to plan the rally held in Dublin’s Rotunda 12 days later at which the Irish Volunteer movement was formally founded. 

The short life of Edward Keegan was celebrated by his descendants and the descendants of Robert Gourley and in honouring the 1916 Volunteer both families were acknowledging that loyalties of the past are in the Ireland of the 21^st century no longer divisive in a mature and all embracing nation.  The Irish men and women of Easter 1916 and their British Army counterparts, whether soldiers in Flanders or Dublin, deserve to be remembered with honour.  The Irish Times, which dismissed Edward Keegan for disloyalty in 1917, recently purchased his 1916 medal at a New York auction and that medal will soon go on public display in the Irish Times building.  Attitudes have changed in the Irish Times and indeed they reflect the changing attitudes in today’s Irish society.

The death last week of Athy born Michael Keane, the last editor of the Sunday Press, at a relatively young age, is a tragic loss to Irish journalism.  Michael who attended the local Christian Brothers School was part of that brilliant group of students who graduated in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  He was editor of the Sunday Press when the Press newspapers closed and was remembered by his colleagues as a brilliant journalist.

James Joseph O'Byrne, Irish patriot

Last week the Irish Times carried an article on the closure of Ardscoil Eanna in Crumlin, Dublin.  Founded in 1939 by James Joseph O’Byrne, a former teacher in the Christian Brothers School in Athy, it was opened four years after the closure of Padraig Pearse’s St. Enda’s School.  Indeed in an interview I had with Denis Langton in 2001 J.J. O’Byrne, as he was known in Athy, was described as a friend of the 1916 leader who was sent down the country to organise the Gaelic League.  

J.J. O’Byrne’s was the son of an evicted tenant farmer from Valleymount, Co. Wicklow, who as a young man attended St. James’s School in Dublin before graduating with an arts degree from University College Dublin.  He subsequently taught in St. Augustine’s School Waterford before taking up a teaching post in Athy’s secondary school in 1916.  He was an active member of the Gaelic League in Athy as well as being a leading member of the local Sinn Fein Club.  The first reference I found to J.J. O’Byrne in the local papers of the time was in the Nationalist and Leinster Times of 11^th May 1918 when it reported on his speech at a Sinn Fein meeting regarding difficulties experienced by local traders due to the shortage of silver coins.  Apparently the war time shortage was so severe that the authorities had great difficulty in paying outdoor relief and old age pensions.  A few weeks later J.J. O’Byrne was again a prominent speaker at a Sinn Fein meeting held in Emily Square to protest against the arrest of the Sinn Fein leaders.  He addressed another Sinn Fein meeting in Stradbally towards the end of June 1918 where a fellow speaker was Dr. Higgins, father of Kevin Higgins, both of whom would in later years be killed. 

On Thursday 15^th August 1918 J.J. O’Byrne read a statement in Emily Square as part of a nationwide event organised by the Sinn Fein movement.  The statement, which issued after Sinn Fein’s success in the Cavan by-election, under the name of Michael O’Flanagan, Vice President and acting President of Sinn Fein, claimed that both sets of belligerent at the Versailles Peace Conference would have to support self determination for Ireland ‘which has at last emerged into the full sunlight of national consciousness and no power on earth can drive us back.’  The statement I believe was to have been read by P.P. Doyle of Woodstock Street but for whatever reason J.J. O’Byrne had to step in and ensure that the Sinn Fein plans for the day were fulfilled.  Inevitably he was arrested the following day and while kept in custody was not tried for almost two weeks.  The Athy Board of Guardians at its next meeting passed a vote of protest at O’Bryne’s arrest which all the members with the exception of the Chairman T.J. Whelan supported.  Athy Urban District Council also condemned the British government ‘for arresting and imprisoning Irish men without charge’. 

J.J. O’Byrne was one of seven men court martialled in Maryborough (Portlaoise) at the end of August 1918.  The name on the charge sheet read ‘James John O’Byrne’ and the prisoner was reported to have failed to answer when asked if he was J.J. O’Byrne of Duke Street, Athy.  After arguing that he was not handed the charge sheet O’Byrne refused to give his name or to recognise the Court.  Sergeant Heffernan of the R.I.C. Athy gave evidence that on Thursday 15^th August at Emily Square he saw a group of approximately 200 men whom O’Byrne addressed.  The Sergeant had a copy of O’Byrne’s statement, the reading of which he claimed lasted for approximately 15 minutes.  He described the statement as the Sinn Fein manifesto.  O’Byrne, he declared, was known as J.J. O’Byrne which was the name on the card in the house in Duke Street where he lived.  Sergeant Heffernan knew O’Byrne for the previous two years to which O’Byrne replied, ‘my names is James Joseph, not James John.’  Convicted as charged O’Byrne was further remanded in custody and two weeks later was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment.

J.J. O’Byrne was married with four young children when he was imprisoned.  He had married Esther Bates from East Wall, Dublin in 1910 having met her at a Gaelic League meeting.  They would eventually have a family of 12 children, one of whom, their daughter Maureen, married Sean Moore of Rheban.  The O’Byrne family lived for many years on a farm in Barrowhouse at a time when J.J. was teaching in Westland Row Christian Brothers School.  The family left Athy in March 1937 and two years later J.J. opened Ardscoil Eanna in Crumlin.  The school was founded on the principles of Pearse’s St. Enda’s School and one of the first teachers employed was Pearse’s sister Margaret.

J.J. O’Byrne died in January 1966 just four months after the death of his wife Esther.  He was one of the many forgotten patriots whose involvement in the Gaelic League and Sinn Fein during the troubled years of the War of Independence made those of us who came after them proud of our town’s past.

Athy magazines and newspapers of hte 19th century and todays Athy Lions Club bookshop

It was Francis Bacon who claimed that ‘reading maketh a full man’.  At the same time he advised us ‘read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.’ 

Readers living in Athy in the early part of the 19^th century were reasonably well served in terms of reading material.  In the 1830s Thomas French had a printing office in Market Square, Emily Square, and it was French who embarked on an ambitious scheme of publishing a literary magazine ‘The Athy Literary Magazine’ which first appeared on Tuesday 14^th November 1837.  It was a small 8 page magazine costing one penny which appeared in the local shops every Tuesday.  The last known edition of the magazine was that which came out on 17^th April 1838.  The magazine was a mixture of local news coupled with extracts from Dickens Pickwick Papers and poetic contributions from local contributors.  The Royal Irish Academy have copies of the first 18 issues of ‘The Athy Literary Magazine’ while a full set is I believe to be found in a university in Chicago.

During the period of the Great Famine, Athy had a book shop which was located in Duke Street.  The 1846 edition of Slaters Directory gave the name John Lahee, described as a book seller so perhaps his was not a book shop as such but a retail business which included book sales. 

Three years later Athy readers for a short period were to have two local newspapers, each published and printed in the South Kildare town.  The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle started by Frederick Kearney, who had previously worked on the Anglo Celt, first appeared on the streets on Saturday 17^th February 1849.  The Leinster Express which was published in Maryborough (Portlaoise) and had enjoyed wide circulation in Athy, having advance notice of the new newspaper, brought out its own Athy based newspaper which they called ‘The Irish Eastern Counties Herald.’  It appeared on Tuesday 13^th February 1849.  The editorials in the rival newspapers set the tone for an acrimonious if short lived struggle.  Within three weeks the ‘Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle’ ceased publication and in its next edition the ‘Irish Eastern Counties Herald’ claimed ‘the principal object for which the journal was established having been affected, many of our friends very reasonably concluded that upon the demise of the so called Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle its publication would cease.  ‘The Irish Eastern Counties Herald’ ceased publication with its 5^th edition on 6^th March 1849.

In January 1852 Samuel Talbot, a member of the Talbot family of Maryborough who were proprietors of the Leinster Express and the short lived ‘Irish Eastern Counties Herald’, published another Athy based magazine, ‘The Press’.  Intended as a monthly magazine consisting of 26 pages it sought to advance ‘science, literature and the industrial arts’.  Unfortunately the first issue of ‘The Press’ was the only one to appear in the local shops.

As a reader and an avid book collector I have spent many spare hours in book shops.  In my young days there was no book shop in Athy but in recent years ‘The Gem’ and ‘Winkles’ have taken on the role of book selling.  The social and cultural life of any provincial town is hugely enriched by the presence of a book shop and I am delighted to see that the Lions Club Book Shop on Duke Street is doing so well.  This was started as a fundraising venture by the Lions Club approximately 5 years ago.  The Club had traditionally organised a second hand book sale every year, extending over 2 or 3 days.  It’s success prompted the setting up of a book shop staffed initially by members of Athy Lions Club.  Because of work commitments the shop in its first year was opened on Saturdays only.  I remember as I manned the book shop one day being approached by a woman offering to help in the shop.  I did not know Alice Rowan at that stage.  From Pairc Bhride she emigrated to England in 1966 and returned to Athy on retirement in 2007. 

Alice has now been running the Lions Book Shop on a voluntary basis for the last 4 years and the original Saturday opening has now been extended to a 5 day opening.  In recognition of her contribution to the running of the book shop the Lions Club some time ago conferred honorary Lions membership on Alice.  This is the first occasion such an honour has been awarded. 

The famous American book dealer Rosenbbach often claimed that ‘book collecting is the most exhilarating sport of all.’  It is certainly an entertaining and pleasurable hobby and within the confines of the Athy Lions Book Shop are to be found books catering for a wide diversity of tastes.  Thanks to Alice Rowan and to the Shaw Group which gave the Lions Club use of a vacant premises in Duke Street where we now have a second hand book shop of which we can be justifiably proud.

Alice Quinn, Esther Flynn and Sarah Cahill

Emigration has always been a central feature of Irish provincial town life but particularly so in Ireland of the post economic war years of the 1930s.  I was reminded of this when talking recently to three Athy women whose family lives were marked by emigration.  For the vast majority of the Irish men and women who emigrated in the last century the principal destination was Great Britain.  So too for the father of sisters Alice Quinn and Esther Flynn who left Athy in 1942 to work for British Rail in Leicester city. Paddy Wall spent several decades working in Leicester.  On retirement he returned home to Athy and often recounted to his family stories of his involvement in the aftermath of World War II bombings.  Sarah Cahill’s father Thomas Morrin was also driven by Ireland’s past political and economic failures to take the emigrant boat to work in England. 

As I sat in Frank O’Brien’s pub to talk to the three cheerful ladies I was struck by their almost sanguine acceptance of difficult past times, but times which they insisted were nevertheless happy times.  All three left school at an early age, deprived because of their circumstances of the opportunities which a secondary education might provide.  At fourteen years of age they went to work, Sarah Morrin to Plewman’s house on the Kilkenny Road, while sisters Alice and Esther Wall, who with their mother and brother Johnny had joined their father in Leicester,  also joined the work force on reaching 14 years of age.  Esther worked for some years in a wool factory, while her younger sister Alice worked in Woolworths. 

The Wall family returned to their family home in 6 Nelson Street after spending five years in Leicester but a number of years were to pass before they could be joined again by the father of the family.  Thomas Morrin was also able to return to work in his home town of Athy when he obtained employment in the local Asbestos factory.  Family life with an absent father working and living in England was a fairly common situation to be found in provincial Ireland of the 1940s and 1950s.  The difficulties this presented for the mothers of young children and the void it created in family life can only be imagined.  However, in a country with so few employment opportunities and where emigration figured large in everyday life Irish mothers proved resilient and resourceful. 

Sarah Morrin and Esther Wall were in the same class in St. Mary’s Convent School in Athy with Alice Wall two classes behind before Esther and Alice left for Leicester where they continued their education.  Alice on returning to Athy worked in Bachelor’s Pea Factory until she married John Quinn in 1968.  They lived in Plewman’s Terrace, the same terrace where her friend Sarah Morrin was born and lived before her marriage. 

Esther Wall’s story highlights the persistence of emigration in Irish social life as having spent five years in Leicester before returning to Nelson Street, Athy she again emigrated in 1960.  This time the journey was made with her boyfriend Seamus Flynn of Kilberry when both travelled to Manchester where they were married and where they lived for the next 30 years.

Sarah Morrin, who later married Nicholas Cahill, remembers spending a number of years working all year round in Lambs farm in Fontstown.  An early morning start saw Sarah and her work companions collected in Emily Square to be brought by lorry to the Fontstown Fruit Farm.  On marrying at 21 years of age Sarah went to live in Pairc Bhride where she is now a long time resident.  Sarah Morrin whose parents were appointed tenants of No. 18 Plewman’s Terrace in November 1936 proudly claims to have been the first baby born in Plewman’s Terrace.

I met the three happy contented ladies last week when we swopped stories of life in Athy over the years.  Tales of the lively town scene of yesteryear when the shops stayed open until late on Saturday night, mixed with stories of ‘the tuppenny rush’ at Bob’s Cinema in Offaly Street brought back treasured memories.  Alice Quinn, Sarah Cahill and Esther Flynn are some of the wonderful people who with their friendliness and shared memories make Athy such a wonderful place in which to live.