A Virtual Tour of Athy [2]

This week we continue our virtual tour of Athy, beginning at the town hall in Emily Square. Built 300 years ago as a market house, courthouse and borough offices, the building’s courtroom hosted many trials presided over by John Toler, later ennobled as Lord Norbury, but better known in his time as the hanging judge. Wolfe Tone, as a barrister on the Leinster circuit, appeared on a few occasions at trials in Athy. Between the Town Hall and the River Barrow one can see the colonnaded building which was opened in 1852 as a corn exchange and now serves as the town’s courthouse. Nearby is the sundial donated by Macra na Feirme in 1994 to commemorate Athy’s part in its founding 50 years previously. At the side of the Shackleton Museum is the much-admired statue of the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton by the celebrated sculptor Mark Richards. In the middle of Emily Square is a 1798 monument erected some years ago to commemorate the brave men and women from this area who fought and those who died during the rebellion. Several local men were imprisoned in the White’s Castle jail, which is just ahead of us. Patrick O’Kelly, a local man who wrote his account of the 98 Rebellion, recounted how 7 young men from South Kildare were marched over Cromaboo bridge to be hanged on the banks of the Grand Canal. Beheaded, their heads were displayed on Cromaboo bridge, which was built two years previously. Robert Emmet’s rebellion five years later saw another Athy resident, Nicholas Grey of Rockfield House, arrested and detained in the White’s Castle jail. He had been commissioned by Emmet to lead the Kildare men into Dublin. Gray was eventually released, having been transferred to a Dublin prison and allowed to leave Ireland to live out the rest of his life in America. White’s Castle, built in 1417 to house a garrison to protect the bridge of Athy, was adapted for use as a prison following the removal of the soldiers to a newly built barracks in the 1720s. It continued to be used as a jail until about 1830 and for the next 60 years or more served as a police barracks. We now cross Cromaboo bridge, named for the war cry of the Fitzgeralds. It has been standing since 1796, a much shorter time than the castle ruins we see to our right in the distance. Woodstock Castle, the first stone building in the medieval village of Athy, has remained unoccupied since the middle of the 17th century. Edmund Rice Square is on our right, so named in 1996 to commemorate the Christian Brothers whose schools were located off St John’s Lane. St John’s was the original name, first used in Anglo-Norman times, and is the only street name of that period which is still in use. On our left, through the archway, was the site of the Kellyite meeting house of the early 19th century. Rev. Thomas Kelly, still remembered as one of Ireland’s finest hymnologists, was the founder of a breakaway group from the Church of Ireland called the Kellyites. He had 40 or so followers in Athy as well as meeting houses in Portarlington, Waterford, Wexford and Dublin. The Kellyites as a dissenting group faded away after Kelly died in 1855. Duke Street, with Leinster Street, is the main shopping street of Athy. In Duke Street we can see several fine examples of jostle stones, a reminder of the horse and carriage days. The jostle stones are at the side of the archway entrances to former stables and were designed to jostle the carriage wheels into position as the carriages entered the archway so as not to cause damage to the walls. As we pass up Duke Street on our left is Convent Lane, with the former Dominican Church at the end. Now the town’s library, the building when opened in 1965 represented a remarkable addition to modern Irish architecture and includes artwork by Brid Ni Rinn and George Campbell. Further on Duke Street on our left is Crown House, which once enjoyed the patronage of judges attending the quarter sessions in Athy. Adjoining the Crown House was the town’s cockpit, which was a popular venue until cockfighting was made illegal in 1849. The cockpit was restored many years ago. Crown House was from where Stephen Cullinan, founder of Macra na Feirme, first published the Farmers’ Journal. Just ahead of us on the road to Stradbally, which we reach by travelling on Woodstock Street, formerly called Barrack Street, is the site of the former cavalry barracks, built in the 1720s. The barracks is long gone but as we turn into Woodstock Street we can see on our left an archway which once formed an entrance to one of the barrack buildings. If we continued towards Stradbally we would pass on our right St Vincent’s Hospital, first opened in January 1844 as Athy’s workhouse. During the Great Famine the workhouse, built to accommodate 600 persons, catered for over 1500 men, women and children, necessitating the opening of two auxiliary workhouses in the town. Sadly, 1250 deaths were recorded in the workhouse during the four years of the Famine, and those unfortunate people are buried in the nearby St Mary’s Cemetery, known locally as the pauper’s graveyard. Now we continue our journey by William Street to Augustus bridge, named after one of the Duke of Leinster’s sons. We are crossing the Grand Canal, which was extended to Athy in 1791. The Grand Canal, like the railway of 1846, brought prosperity to Athy and allowed it to develop as one of Leinster’s great market towns. Facing the canal harbour is the former Canal Hotel where travellers stayed overnight so as to catch the Dublin-bound boat which left Athy at 5 o’clock in the morning to reach Dublin 13 hours later. We have now reached the end of our tour of Athy, which was once Co. Kildare’s principal town. The South Kildare town is traversed by rail, river and canal, and is endowed with many buildings of merit. The laneways and byways of Athy, its secret places and hidden corners, all have their own stories to tell, but those stories are for another day.