Preparing to conduct a tour through
some parts of the history of Athy for Heritage Week I re-read some of the notes
I wrote over the years to remind myself of people and events which have long
gone from memory. When reading those
notes I was reminded of the impact that the Oxford Movement of the 1830s had on
the Established Church in Ireland. Here
in Athy the local rector was Rev. Frederick Trench, whose wife was Lady Helena
Perceval, daughter of the first Lord Arden, an older brother of Spencer
Perceval, the British Prime Minister who was assassinated in the lobby of the
House of Commons in 1812.
The Trench’s lived in Kilmoroney
House from 1834. Rev. Frederick was
described in H. Montgomery’s biography of George Alfred Lefroy, Bishop of
Calcutta, as one of the old fashioned evangelical clergy deeply versed in bible
and prayer book. A frequent visitor to
Kilmoroney House was Sir William Heathcote who was married to Lady Caroline
Perceval, sister of Helena Trench. Sir
William was a friend and a patron of clergyman and poet John Keble, one of the
leaders of the Oxford Movement and through him Rev. Trench met John Keble and
later Edward Pusey, the clergyman and Oxford professor who with John Henry
Newman, later a cardinal of the Catholic church, were the acknowledged leaders
of that high church movement. Rev.
Trench’s high church practices as a supporter of the Oxford Movement was not to
the liking of at least one of his parishioners.
Michael Carey wrote in October 1851:
‘The Rev. Trench has taken down all
the emblems from his popish window and made an apology to his congregation …..
he stated to the congregation that he had not the slightest notion of Puseyism
or popery’.
Rev. Trench died tragically in 1860
after his carriage careered down Offaly Street, struck the medieval gate known
as Preston’s Gate, turned over and tossed both himself and his driver to the
ground. The rector died of his injuries
on 23rd November aged 74 years.
The medieval gate which had been the scene of many previous accidents
was immediately removed by the Town Commissioners workmen. Rev. Trench’s parishioners subsequently
donated a fine marble pulpit in memory of their rector which is to be found in
St. Michael’s Church of Ireland at the top of Offaly Street.
Crom a Boo bridge, built in 1796,
provides with nearby Whites Castle the iconic image of our town which is
recognised far and wide. Over its arched
pathways passed the prisoners who in 1798 were hanged in the ‘croppy acre’ alongside the Grand Canal
basin. It was in June 1798 that seven
young local men were tried by Court martial, convicted and hanged for alleged
involvement in the killing of John Jeffries of Narraghmore. Jeffries who with his family had fled to Athy
for safety later returned to his burnt-out home in Narraghmore to retrieve some
personal belongings. While there he was
killed. The seven young men convicted of
his murder were marched from the prison cells in Whites Castle over Crom a Boo
bridge, accompanied by members of the Waterford Militia. We are told in Patrick O’Kelly’s account of
the 1798 Rebellion that two of the seven were beheaded and their heads placed
on Whites Castle as a deterrent to would be insurgents. As you pass Whites Castle look at the
Geraldine family coat of arms embedded in the Castle wall which in 1798 was
deliberately damaged by a yeoman in revenge for Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s
participation in the Rising.
St. Michael’s Catholic Church,
consecrated in 1964, replaced an earlier church built in 1808. The site for that church described as ‘marshy ground’ was donated by the Duke
of Leinster. It replaced an earlier
thatched church located in Chapel Lane which was torched and burned to the ground
on 7th March 1800 in the aftermath of the 1798 Rebellion.
Rev. James Hall, an English cleric
who travelled through what he described as the ‘interior and least known parts’ of Ireland published his book of
travels in 1813. He visited the Roman
Catholic Church in Athy where near the door on the right hand as he entered
there was written in large capitals, ‘COME
UNTO ME, ALL YE THAT LABOUR AND ARE HEAVILY LADEN, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST’. On the other ‘BLESSED IS HE THAT HEARETH, AND WATCHETH AT THE POST OF WISDOM’S
GATES’. When he entered the church
he found both men and women lying flat on their faces on the floor repeating
certain prayers and now and then with fervent ejaculations turning up their
eyes. ‘I observed one man walk, on his bare knees, from the door up to the
altar, though the floor was extremely rough, the chapel being new, and not
quite finished.’ Rev. Hall noted
that Roman Catholic chapels in Ireland ‘like
the churches in Russia have neither seats nor pews of any kind’.
