Crime in Athy

Athy’s transition from village to town status was marked by the construction of the town hall building. Its exact date of construction is not known, but it is believed to have been in the 1720s. Around that same time a cavalry barracks was built on the north west outskirts of the town which allowed the White Castle to be thereafter used as a town jail. This was a time when under the Penal code many offences were punishable by death or transportation. Theft of as little as a loaf of bread resulted on conviction to the imposition of the death penalty. This was a situation which prevailed until Robert Peel introduced a series of reforms between 1823 and 1830 which abolished the death penalty for over 180 crimes. The death penalty was still carried out in Athy for murder and other serious crimes using the gallows sited on the approach road from Dublin in the area now known as Gallowshill. One convict who escaped the gallows was James Carr who at Athy assizes in September 1779 was sentenced to death for ‘carrying away Judith Mitchell against her consent, with an intent that she should marry Thomas Condron and also having assisted the said Thomas Condron in ravishing the said Judith Mitchell.’ A Proclamation issued on 30th September 1779 offered a reward for the apprehension of the rescuers of James Carr who had attacked the sub sheriff and bailiffs and other peace officers as they transported Carr to the place of execution. It recounted how ‘a great number of persons concealed themselves behind the wall that bordered the road leading to the place of execution and from there made a violent assault upon the sheriff and the persons who so accompanied him and forcibly cut the ropes by which the said James Carr was pinioned and let him at liberty.’ Many persons who attended the planned public execution of Carr were struck by stones thrown by Carr’s supporters and the man who was to act as executioner died of injuries he received that day. The White Castle jail was to house many prisoners facing execution or transportation during its times as a prison. Housed in a medieval castle the building was understandably not fit for use as a prison and indeed Athy jail was condemned by prison inspectors on several occasions who in 1824 reported that it was ‘without exception the worst county jail in point of accommodation, having neither yards, pumps, hospital, chapel or proper day rooms.’ Responsibilities for the maintenance of the jail rested with the Grand Jury of the county which was made up of 23 members of the landed gentry, all selected by the High Sheriff of Kildare. The Grand Jury system was inefficient, but it was not until 1877 that the Grand Jury’s functions in relation to jails was taken over by central authorities. In the early decades of the 19th century there was a ground swell of support for penal reform following the Jail Act of 1823 which removed many of the worst abuses in the English prison system. The Duke of Leinster’s interest in penal reform saw him donate a site on the Carlow road in Athy for the building of a new jail. John Hargrove, architect, was engaged by the County Kildare Grand Jury to design the new prison and he prepared plans for a small polygonal building which was constructed of local limestone at a cost of €5,400 between 1826 and 1830. The Duke of Leinster in addition to donating the site also contributed the sum of €1,700 towards the building costs and he laid the first stone of the new jail on 20th June 1826. When opened in 1830 the new prison consisted of 30 cells in a semi-circular form, with five yards and five day rooms and a Governor’s house in the middle. While the prison was built to accommodate 30 prisoners, the average prison numbers in 1852 was 48. Amongst those imprisoned were men and women convicted at Athy Assizes and sentenced to transportation in Van Diemen’s land. At the Quarter Sessions in Athy in June 1850 nine persons were sentenced to 10 years transportation, with three persons sentenced to seven years transportation. Amongst the latter was Margaret Gambion who was convicted of cabbage stealing. The first convict ship to leave Ireland sailed from Cork in April 1791 carrying 175 men and 25 women to New South Wales. Amongst them were several prisoners convicted at assizes in county Kildare. Four years later they were joined in New South Wales by amongst others three men who were convicted at Athy assizes of the murder of John Hill and Michael Hill. James Connors, John Murray and John Meagher were sentenced to transportation for life and spent several months in Athy jail following their convictions in 1794 until joining the convict ship ‘Marquis of Cornwallis’ in Cork on 9th August 1795. The ship was 186 days at sea before arriving at Port Jackson Australia. Athy’s new jail was closed in 1859 and the prisoners transferred to the newly extended jail in Naas. Transportation to Australia which started in 1787 following the cessation of transportation to America, finished with the arrival of the last convict ship, ‘the Hougoumont’, carrying 63 Irish political prisoners including John Boyle O’Reilly in Freemantle on 9th January 1868. We do not know how many men and women sentenced at Athy Courts were transported between 1791 and 1868. The White Castle, the former medieval stronghold, later a prison, and following that a police station, reminds us of a dark and sad history which may never be fully recovered.

Planned Redevelopment of Athy's Shackleton Museum

During the early days of my research into the history of Athy I spent many hours in the main reading room of the National Library in Kildare Street Dublin. This is an impressive horseshoe shaped room with a domed structure almost 50 feet high. During the time I spent there in the 1970s it provided a wonderful setting for my never-ending research into the history of Athy. The National Library is a fantastic resource and its archives provided me with many new insights into the town’s history and shed light on forgotten aspects of its earlier years. I imagine that the numbers of members of the general public who frequent similar research rooms have fallen over the years. In most of our pockets is a smart phone which gives us instant access to data all around the world. Nevertheless the research rooms of national and county libraries still fulfil an important function. They are the access point for knowledge and information which is not necessarily readily available on the internet. Not every document or book is available online and national and local research centres play an important role in preserving our nation’s history. Many years ago on the founding of the Athy Museum Society and with the support of the late Bertie Doyle, Pat Mulhall and many others the Museum Society had planned to establish an Athy town archive which would comprise both the administrative records of Athy Urban District Council, local clubs and the commercial records of local businesses. Unfortunately this proved to be beyond the capabilities of the Museum Society. I was reflecting on this recently when I was depositing with the archive section of the Kildare County Council library some business records and remaining records of Athy’s Workhouse. Although not complete those records constitute an important amount of local historical material that will in time warrant some significant research. Something to consider in tandem with the records of deaths in Athy’s Workhouse recently compiled by Clem Roche and Michael Donovan. The planned redevelopment of the Shackleton Museum in Athy will see the establishment of a research room and reading library. The purpose is to provide an area to facilitate both study and research of all aspects of life and endeavour in the polar regions with particular focus on the Antarctic. Because the Antarctic continent was uninhabited until the establishment of permanent research stations in the early twentieth century, the corpus of Antarctic literature is quite small. That has encouraged the Directors of the Shackleton Museum to proceed with its plan to establish a research library and archive in in the redeveloped museum. These plans have been greatly assisted by the generosity of two Antarctic veterans. Fergus O’Gorman from Dublin who over-wintered in the Antarctica in the late 1950’s with the British Antarctic Survey generously donated hundreds of his polar books to the museum two years ago. Following on from that generous bequest the museum has entered into partnership with the publishers Harvest Press to publish Fergus’s memoirs of his time in the Antarctic and that publication will be launched at the Shackleton Autumn School on the night of October the 28th. Another generous bequest which will add immeasurably to the Museum’s research library and archive came from the U.K based naturalist and writer Robert Burton who sadly passed away at the start of this year. Robert or Bob as we knew him was a regular attendee of the Shackleton Autumn School and was a prolific lecturer to the Autumn School and a contributor of articles to its journal, Nimrod. Bob was an expert on all matters Antarctic and his meticulous research is reflected in the library of books which will find their way to Athy at the end of the Summer. Combined with Fergus O’Gorman’s they will form a body of almost one thousand volumes focused on the Antarctic regions. The museum itself has been assiduous in collecting original archival material that is pertinent to the Antarctic regions and amongst its treasures are diaries belonging to Emily Shackleton, the wife of Ernest Shackleton. The museum remains active in collecting such material and when the archive/library opens for researchers in 2024 there will be a wealth of Antarctic material available, for the first time, to researchers in this country. It is heartening to think that a small town like Athy can become in the near future a destination for researchers and academics from all over the world.

My favourite sports stories

Looking back over the years I find that sport of all kinds has provided me with wonderful memories which I have been able to revisit time after time. With these memories are reminders of the great sportsmen who brought excitement into many lives. My own memories of sporting heroes started with my namesakes Pat and Toss Taaffe, two brothers who graced the horse racing world of the 1950s and later. Pat Taaffe was a champion jockey, whose wins in the big races brought headlines which I was delighted to see whenever I came home from school at lunchtime. The Irish Independent was the family paper then and the name Taaffe was often headlined in the sporting pages with accounts of Pat Taaffe’s successes. Maybe there was an assumed reflected glory in my sharing a surname with the great jockey in much the same way when as a young school lad I was enamoured of Raftery the poet, one of whose poems offered the lines, ‘Saol fada ag Frank Taaffe agus na Loinsigh ann.’ Recently thinking of the great sports stars whom I admired over the years I wondered if in retirement they are conscious of the part their sporting careers played in creating never to be forgotten precious memories for the general public. For my part my first enduring sports star was the great Kerry footballer Mick O’Connell. In a footballing career which spanned the 1950s to the 1970s the Valentia islander won 4 All Ireland football medals and captained Kerry in the 1959 final. He was one of the greatest exponents of Gaelic football as we knew it before it was transformed into the basketballing game of today. Next to Mick O’Connell and of the same vintage was another great sporting hero of mine, hurling legend Eddie Keher. Eddie’s father was a Garda, as was my father, and the fact that I was born in County Kilkenny allowed me to cheer for Eddie and the Kilkenny team on hurling days and for Kildare in that county’s quest for footballing glory. Eddie was one of the most prolific scorers in hurling during the 1960s and late into the 1970s. Kildare’s success on the football field never matched that of Kilkenny’s in the hurling arena so I have collected more great hurling memories than football memories over the years. At the same time I have added to my hurling heroes with D.J. Carey, Tommy Walsh and J.J. Delaney, all of Kilkenny joining Eddie Keher as my hurling legends. While Kildare footballers did not meet with much success over recent decades, nevertheless several Kildare County players were footballing heroes of mine. Pa Connolly, Pat Mangan, Kieran O’Malley and three Athy players, Danny Flood, Brendan Kehoe and Mick Carolan were my youthful footballing heroes. Another favourite Kildare County player was Seamie Harrison of Monasterevin whom I admired for his not to be forgotten display in the 1956 Leinster Final. These players were just a few years older than myself but at a very young age those few years were sufficient to create an almost generational gap. They were excellent footballers whose names evoked wonder and excitement amongst many young followers of Gaelic football in County Kildare including myself in the 1950s and later. Apart from hurling and Gaelic football my other great sporting hero is Ronnie Delaney who won the gold medal in the 1500 metres Olympic final in Melbourne in December 1956. I had watched him training over the sand dunes in Arklow some time earlier when the Taaffe family was on holidays in Ferrybank, Arklow. Ronnie Delaney was Ireland’s first four-minute miler and an Olympian champion at a time when Irish field sports were not as prominent as they are today. As younger generation grows older the sporting heroes of the past slip from memory. I was reminded of this when reading of the athletic successes of Ballyroe native Paddy Moran who died in May 1970 aged 82 years. Paddy was a champion runner who won a large number of races organised by the GAA and other sporting bodies between 1911 and 1920. He was a Leinster champion over two miles, one mile and a half mile for different years during the second decade of the last century. His athletic colleague, a local man Dan Harkins, who for some unexplained reason raced under the name of F. Daniels, was 440 yards champion of Ireland for a number of years. Thanks to Paddy Moran’s daughters, Kathleen and Bridget, I have been able to research some parts of their father’s running career, but more research needs to be done. The sporting world saw both Kathleen and Bridget feature on camogie teams playing for County Kildare and Leinster province as members of St. Anne’s camogie club in Ballyroe long after their father had retired from athletics. I would welcome any information on Paddy Moran, Greg Bradley and Dan Harkins who were well known athletes from South Kildare during the early years of the 1900s.

Fr. Philip Dennehy

Fr. Philip is dead. The news of the passing of the Pastor Emeritus passed quickly through St. Michael’s parish. There was sadness at the passing of a much loved priest who had lived among the parishioners of the south Kildare parish for all but 20 years of his 67 year long priesthood. Fr. Philip was first appointed curate of St. Michael’s in 1955, eight years after his ordination and after having spent some years a chaplain in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Dun Laoghaire and in St. Mary’s Hospital, Phoenix Park, as well as six years as curate in East Wall and later in Valleymount. I first met the then young Fr. Dennehy when following the road accident which resulted in the death of my 21-year-old brother Seamus he called to No. 5 Offaly Street to comfort my parents. Philip Dennehy, born on 27th March 1931 in Middleton, Co. Cork, the son of a Garda, was to live in a number of Irish towns as he grew up, each new address marking another step in his father’s advancement up the ranks of the Garda Siochana. At the age of two he moved to Tramore, later to Limerick City and finally to Roscommon. Philip Dennehy, who had six sisters and one brother, attended the Christian Brothers Schools in Tramore and Limerick, ending his secondary schooling in St. Brendan’s College, Killarney. Both his parents were born in Co. Kerry and as he once told me his County allegiance was somewhat difficult given his almost nomadic early lifestyle. However, he acknowledged a sneaky regard for his County Kerry ancestry, the County where both of his parents were born and where the vast majority of his relations came from. It was as a schoolboy in Roscommon where his father was a Garda Chief Superintendent that his priestly vocation first emerged. After finishing his Leaving Certificate in St. Brendan’s College in 1948 he entered the seminary of Clonliffe College in Dublin. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University College of Dublin before transferring to Maynooth College where he was ordained on 4th June 1955. Fr. Dennehy first arrived in Athy as a young curate in 1963 to join the clergy team lead by Parish Priest Rev. Vincent Steen, which team included Fr. Frank Mitchell C.C. and Fr. Joe Corbett C.C. He participated in the ceremonies on 19th April 1964 when the Archbishop of Dublin John McQuaid blessed and dedicated the new Parish Church to St. Michael. Fr. Dennehy remained as a curate in Athy for ten years before transferring in 1973 to James’s Street, Dublin from where he moved to Corduff five years later. In 1979 he was appointed administrator of Mountview and a year later appointed Parish Priest of the same parish where he remained for five years before coming to Athy as Parish Priest in 1985. Ten years later I wrote of Fr. Dennehy on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his ordination:- ‘Sunday is the most important day in the weekly calendar for all Christians. For a clergyman it assumes perhaps even greater significance when viewed as an opportunity to address his congregation other than on an individual basis. However, the average sermon or homily can sometimes seem strained and perhaps even less than relevant in the context of the modern world but never when the words are those of the man who is the subject of today’s article. Fr. Philip Dennehy, Parish Priest of Athy, has a most eloquent if sometimes understated way of putting his thoughts before his parishioners. The obvious attention and care which goes into the preparation of his homilies is reflected in the meaningful words designed to help his congregation to come closer to God.’ On Saturday 4th June 2005 the parishioners of St. Michael’s came together to celebrate with Fr. Dennehy the 50th anniversary of his ordination with Mass in the Parish Church, followed by a reception at the G.A.A. centre at Geraldine Park. He retired as Parish Priest in 2006 and was then appointed Pastor Emeritus of St. Michael’s Parish. As a clergy man who took things at face value Fr. Dennehy refused to delve too deeply into people’s motives, always prepared to assume the best of intentions for every act, charitable or otherwise. Conscious of the excessively strong role of the old-style Parish Priest of another era, Fr. Dennehy always adopted an easy-going attitude in his contacts with members of his congregation. Recognising the important role of the laity he sought to motivate people within the Parish to do what they can for themselves. His common sense approach in all things underscored his belief that as a Parish Priest he was not an authority on everything. To him so called experts were suspect, common sense being the most useful tool in dealing with most situations. Fr. Dennehy’s time in Athy was marked with many happy events, many achievements and inevitably some sad occasions. Above all as a Pastor he shared the joys and burdens of his parishioners at all times expressing in action the words of the Gospel he preached every Sunday. Fr. Philip Dennehy, who died on 31st January 2022, was buried in Ballygunner, Co. Waterford with his parents following requiem mass in St. Michael’s Parish Church, Athy at 11am on 3rd February 2022.

Athy miscellaneous notes

Athy’s economic lifeline in the early years of the 19th century were its fairs and markets. The weekly markets were of particular commercial importance at a time when the majority of the townspeople lived in primitive housing conditions, created by private landlords in newly built one and two roomed cottages in lanes and alleyways named after the landlords in question. There was also to be found in Athy and the surrounding districts a class to whom the pangs of hunger were as alien as the Gaelic of the native Irish was to the absentee landlords of the time. Apart from the dispensary system established in Athy in 1818 little appears to have been done by the civil authorities or the local gentry to relieve the stress and poverty amongst the people of Athy. An unidentified correspondent in the Athy Literary Magazine of March 1838 castigated ‘the spiritless and inert beings that form the more elevated circle here in Athy’ whom it was claimed ‘should be active in conceiving measures for ‘….. adopting useful schemes for the improvement and comfort of the distressed and hardworking poor ….. there is not a town in Ireland so completely neglected.’ That same year the British Parliament passed the Irish Poor Relief Act which led to the setting up of Boards of Guardians throughout Ireland and the opening of workhouses. The first stone at Athy’s Workhouse was laid on 5th July 1841. Built and equipped at a cost of £7,000 Athy’s Workhouse, designed by the English architect George Wilkinson, was intended to be of ‘the cheapest description compatible with durability with all mere decoration being studiously excluded.’ It was built to accommodate 360 adults and 240 children, but during the years of the Great Famine the number of inmates in the Workhouse far exceeded those numbers. Throughout its long life the Workhouse building was managed by a variety of bodies, starting with the Board of Guardians in 1844. Later in the early years of the newly established Irish Free State the Workhouse, now called the ‘County Home’, came under the control of Kildare County Council as the authority responsible for the provision of health services in the county of Kildare. Kildare County Council were later replaced by the Eastern Health Board and now the Health Service Executive, is the body responsible for Ireland’s health services, including St. Vincent’s Hospital, which was previously the Workhouse and later the County Home. From the early years of Athy’s Workhouse the cemetery where the Workhouse dead were buried was under the control and management of the Board of Guardians and subsequently that of Kildare County Council. I was therefore surprised to read in last week’s Kildare Nationalist under the headline ‘ownership of Athy’s cemetery still yet to be established’ the following report, ‘Local Councillors have been told its probably safe to assume that no memorial could be installed in St. Mary’s Cemetery Athy until ownership is established.’ What a ridiculous excuse to offer in response to requests made almost two years ago for Kildare County Council to erect a memorial in the old Workhouse cemetery to the dead of the Great Famine and the many unfortunate people who died in the Workhouse and the County Home. The Council has agreed to provide funding for the memorial which I had hoped would have been in place in time for this year’s National Famine Remembrance ceremony held last May. It is clear that ownership of the cemetery passed from the Board of Guardians to Kildare County Council in the early 1920s and while title documents confirming this are apparently not available, the title of the HSE and its predecessors cannot be challenged. I cannot understand why the Council is unable to proceed with the memorial project. After all it is not intended to erect an office block in the cemetery, its merely a memorial to the dead who lie in that same cemetery. The erection of the memorial will never give rise to legal issues in relation to ownership or entitlement. All that is required is for the HSE to confirm to Kildare County Council that it has no objection to the erection of the memorial. In anticipation of the memorial being erected Clem Roche and Michael Donovan have compiled a listing of all those who died in the Workhouse and in the Fever Hospital in the years to 1921. They have identified 3,891 persons by name, address and occupation, as well as the cause of death in each case. Theirs was a mammoth voluntary undertaking which is deserving of recognition, and I hope Kildare County Council will press ahead with the memorial project in time to have it in place for the National Famine Remembrance ceremony in May of next year.