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.

1909 in Athy

The All Ireland hurling final Sunday found me in the unusual setting of a Cork city household as I sat down to watch the 2022 senior hurling final between Kilkenny and Limerick. Both the setting of my viewing (in rebel territory) and the date of the final perhaps made me a little unsettled, but not as unsettled as the result left me after an enthralling final. There has been some debate in the media about the bringing forward of the date of the hurling final in the sense that the summer has been truncated without the usual August visit to Croke Park. However, delving into the history of All Irelands it was not unusual to find the senior hurling final played at unusual times of the year. The agricultural grounds in Geraldine Park Athy hosted on 27th June 1909 a replay of the All Ireland senior hurling final between Dublin and Tipperary. Athy was selected as the location for the replay as one of the few grounds in Leinster that was fenced at the time and it hosted a crowd of almost 7,000 people. Another reason why the venue was chosen was that Dublin had refused to play either in Thurles or Kilkenny city, while Tipperary were amenable to play at either venue and thus Athy was the compromise choice. Tipperary won the game comfortably by 3-15 to 1-5, but although the final was held in 1909, it actually was the 1908 championship. At the previous instalment of the final which had been held in Croke Park on 25th April, the score ended up Tipperary 2-5 and Dublin 1-8. A journalist reporting on the match described Athy as a ‘cosy town’ and that ‘The ground under the Agricultural Society was also in perfect order with the sod as lively as the most fastidious hurler could wish’. It led me on to reflect as to what a visitor to Athy would have found here in 1909 and what some of the personalities from the town were doing at the same time. The Post Office in Duke Street which is such a fundamental part of our streetscape was under construction in 1909. It was not without controversy when it was revealed that the building contractor engaged to build the Post Office was using Tullamore brick in its initial stages rather than the Athy brick, readily available from the brickyards just outside Athy. Following representations from Athy Urban District Council the postal authorities agreed that only Athy brick would be used thereafter in the building. In that same year the Church of Ireland parochial hall on Church Road was also constructed, designed by the architect Speirs & Co. of Glasgow. Athy Ladies Hurling Club was noted as organising a reunion on 20th July, while a Miss Campbell was listed as Club Captain and a Miss Tierney as Secretary. Older readers will remember the Athy Social Club Players who put on many plays in the Town Hall and the Social Club in St. John’s Lane in the 1940s and 1950s. Their 1951 production was Lennox Robinson’s play, ‘The White Headed Boy’. In 1909 Lennox Robinson had staged his first play in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin following on from which the poet W.B. Yeats offered the inexperienced Robinson the post of manager of the theatre. In Dublin, in November the Kilkea born explorer, Ernest Shackleton, could be found giving a lecture at the National University about his recent exploits in the Antarctic and his dash to reach the South Pole. 1909 was also the year that John Vincent Holland, a former pupil of Clongowes Wood College, after studying veterinary medicine for three years, left Athy to try his fortune in South America where at various times he worked as a rancher and on the railways. Of course he later returned to Athy in 1914, joined the British Army and was awarded a Victoria Cross for his exploits in the Somme campaign of 1916. Another Athy man, slightly younger than John Vincent Holland, was Sydney Minch who while John Vincent Holland was heading across the Atlantic, Minch was making the shorter journey to Clongowes Wood College for the first of his three years of study there. Like Holland he would join the British Army in the Great War, serving with the Connaught Rangers and fighting at the 3rd Battle of Ypres. Returning from the war he took an active role in public life, serving as a Cumann na nGael T.D. from 1930 to 1938, as well as being a member of Athy Urban District Council and Chairman of the Athy branch of the British Legion. Although the defeat of Kilkenny in this year’s All Ireland senior hurling final was a huge disappointment to myself and many others, I can comfort myself with the knowledge that in the 1909 All Ireland senior hurling championship final held in Cork Athletic Grounds, Mooncoin, representing Kilkenny, overcame the club side Thurles, representing Tipperary, with the score of 4-6 to 0-12. This was Tipperary’s first defeat in an All Ireland final and Kilkenny’s fourth victory. Thankfully there have been many Kilkenny successes since then and undoubtedly more to come!

Military activity in and around Athy 1642

News of military activity in and around Athy in April 1642 just months after the start of the Rising in Ulster was the subject of a pamphlet published in London later that same year. The pamphlet of 13 pages, printed by G. Miller for W. Bladen, recorded how the English army set out from Dublin on 2nd April comprising 3,000 foot soldiers and 500 cavalry, all under the command of the Lord Lieutenant General, the Earl of Ormond. On the next day the army marched to Naas entering about 3 miles into County Wicklow ‘burning houses and killing such rebels as they found straggling on the way.’ Having been shot at by rebels in the Castle of Tipper, the soldiers blew up the castle, killing 8 rebels. On April 4th, having burned down some houses in Naas, the English army marched to Kilcullen ‘killing and hanging rebels and burning houses on the way.’ The next day the army set out for Athy, camping overnight near Ballyshannon Castle. This was the home of Colonel Fitzgerald, who was regarded as a rebel, and where it was believed a rebel army of 500 men were in occupation. The English troops having no battering rams left the area for Athy without attacking the castle. On the road to Athy the English army continued to burn houses and kill rebels. They found the greater part of Athy ‘all burned by the Protestants the day before to prevent the rebels, who in great multitudes had entered in and were about to fire the castle/church, and other places, wherein the Protestants to the number of 300 besides children were preserved.’ Sir John Bowen of Ballyadams Castle came to Athy to greet the English army but being suspected of disloyalty was imprisoned. That same day the army marched to Ballyadams Castle where it was claimed Bowen’s wife entertained the officers ‘liberally with ale and cakes,’ but despite this the army on returning to Athy seized and brought with them 200 head of cattle and 100 sheep as the people of Athy were ‘in great distress through want of meat and drink.’ On 7th April ‘George Walker, son of English parents, then Sovereign of Athy with many other rebels being hanged,’ the army, leaving Colonel Crafford’s Regiment behind in Athy, marched to Maryborough. The next reference to Athy following the army’s march into Laois occurred on 12th April. We are told that ‘the Protestants had broken down Maganey bridge to prevent the incursion of the rebels’ and that 700 rebels were repairing the bridge intending to march over it and intercept the English army which was returning to Athy from Maryborough. The rebels were attacked by men from Colonel Crafford’s regiment, killing ‘one or two of the rebels’. The Irish rebels were camped near to Captain Erasmus Burrowes’ house in the vicinity of Maganey, but the English army commander decided not to attack and instead returned to his base in Athy. On 15th April a man named Brocke, ‘an English papist’, with a number of other rebels was hanged in Athy. The number of rebels executed in this way while the army was in Athy was believed to be seventy. After seven days waging war in various parts of Laois the English army regrouped in Athy before marching back to Dublin. They brought with them as prisoners Sir John Bowen, Fitzgerald of Timoga, Richard Grace of Maryborough and Captain Crosby. On their way about 2 miles from Athy Irish rebels numbering it is believed 8,000 foot soldiers and three or four troops of horses, were seen marching in the same direction as the English army, but with a bog between them. This prompted a race between the armies, both of which were anxious to reach firm ground, with the Irish rebels winning the race. We are told that at ‘Black-hale Heath on the lands of Kilrush about 5 miles from Athy and a mile from the Castle of Ballyshannon in the possession of the rebel Colonel Fitzgerald ….. the rebels made a stand ….. with the advantage of two great ditches on each wing, so high that we could see no more than the heads of their pikes.’ The rebels comprised men from counties Kilkenny, Laois, Carlow, Wexford, Wicklow and Kildare, as well as some men from Tipperary and Waterford. Despite their numbers the Irish rebels suffered a costly defeat, with 1,500 men or more killed and the loss of 15 regimental colours and much military equipment. An interesting description of some of the rebel colours captured indicated the religious background to the conflict which had started in Ulster the previous October, with banners displaying Jesus Mary and Joseph, with others of Mary Magdalene and St. Patrick. The English army having claimed the victory marching via Old Connell to the Curragh and then to Naas, before reaching Dublin on 17th April. Their commander expressed the view that the Irish rebels having ran into the woods, bogs and castles ‘will prolong the war and bring us all to ruin unless this summer we are furnished out of England with great store of men and money to maintain garrisons in all places.’ The White Castle in Athy would continue to be garrisoned and the town itself would figure prominently in the Confederate Wars fought on Irish soil as part of the English Civil War which would commence on 22nd August 1642.

Medieval Athy

In last week’s Eye on the Past when referring to Woodstock Castle, I mentioned the relocation to the east side of the river Barrow of the Anglo-Norman village of Athy which was first established on the west bank. This followed a prolonged period during which the Irish chiefs, particularly the O’Mores of Laois, attacked the village which had grown up around Woodstock Castle. Sir John Talbot brought the war into the heartlands of the Irish beyond the River Barrow and having defeated them sought to protect the village from further attacks. We are told that Talbot repaired and mended the bridge of Athy and erected a new tower on the bridge to house a garrison. This tower is generally believed to have referred to White’s Castle and its from the date of the castle’s erection that the gradual evacuation of the medieval village on the west bank is believed to have commenced. Woodstock Castle was by then a Fitzgerald holding and with the adjoining prior of the Canon Regulars of the Holy Cross, commonly referred to as St. John’s Monastery, continued to be the nucleus of the medieval settlement which did extend across the river to where the Dominican Friary was located. In 1434 the citizens of Athy were given the right by virtue of a murage grant to levy customs on persons selling goods in the village to finance the construction of defensive walls. This is the first reference found to murage grants for Athy and it might tend to suggest that the settlement had begun to take shape in its new location on the east bank of the river. Henry VIII in 1515 granted a charter ‘for the greater safety and security of the town of Athy’ which the charter described as lying ‘on the frontiers of the March of our Irish enemies.’ It was not only the Irish who continued to cause problems for the settlers in Athy, for the Silken Thomas Rebellion in 1534 saw the Earl of Ossory attacking Athy and Rheban, destroying both. A little more than 60 years later another Anglo Norman, James FitzPiers rebelled, resulting in further plunder and mayhem in south Kildare. The rebel James was the son of Sir Piers FitzJames of Ardreigh Castle which was burned and destroyed by Feach McHugh’s followers in 1593, resulting in the massacre of FitzJames’ family and servants. The Battle of Kinsale in 1601 resulted in the defeat of the Irish and brought a fragile peace to the settlers’ town of Athy. In 1611 James I granted a new charter to Athy, which despite the earlier charters referenced to ‘the town of Athy’ was now called ‘the village of Athy.’ The new charter created the Borough of Athy which extended one half a mile in ‘a direct line from every side of the Castle commonly called the White Castle in the village.’ This would suggest that a settlement was now firmly relocated in the more easily defended east side of the river Barrow. However, the countryside was to witness the outbreak of war in 1641. The Confederate War which ended after eight years, saw considerable action in and around Athy, with the legendary Owen Roe O’Neill at one time in charge of the White and Woodstock castles. Following the Confederate War which saw Woodstock and the White Castle severely damaged, as was the Dominican Friary, Woodstock was left damaged and vacant. It would remain in splendid isolation on the west bank of the river Barrow until the building of Council houses in its vicinity in the 1930s and later. When the Kildare Archaeological Society members visited Athy recently to view Athy’s medieval buildings I mentioned the society’s visit to Woodstock in September 1892when the local curate, Fr. Carroll, spoke of a Woodstock Castle’s ‘outer court having a fine arch gateway to the north’ which he indicated ‘still remains as does part of the outer enclosure walls.’ Sadly neither features were to be seen during this year’s visit by the Kildare Archaeological Society members. Woodstock Castle with St. Michael’s Medieval Church are Athy’s most important medieval structures which deserve to be protected and preserved. Would Kildare County Council on behalf of the people of Athy consider seeking funding to protect and restore both buildings and at the same time taking all appropriate action to save the White’s Castle. Aughaboura bridge, erected during the Great Famine, was removed last week as part of the Outer Relief Road Project. The dressed stones of the bridge were put in place by a skilled stone mason, assisted by local labourers who found work during the construction of the railway line to Carlow which helped to keep their families out of the Workhouse during the Great Famine. It would be a very fitting tribute to the dead of the Great Famine for these dressed stones to be used for constructing a memorial to Athy’s famine dead who now lie in unmarked graves in St. Mary’s cemetery? FRANK TAAFFE

Kildare Archaeological Society's Visit to Athy

Members of Kildare Archaeological Society visited Athy on Saturday last for a guided tour of the medieval and post medieval built heritage of the town. The 12th century village founded by the Anglo Normans on the banks of the river Barrow in the vicinity of Ath Ae, the Ford of Ae, has retained some important elements of his historic past. The 21st century town of Athy is readily identifiable from any image of the bridge and castle. The present Crom a Boo bridge erected in 1796 replaced an earlier stone bridge which consisted of 7 arches, a drawing of which was prepared by a William Smith just a year before it was demolished. A bridge over the river Barrow at Athy was an important part of the first line of defence for those living within the Pale against the hostile Irish, especially the O’Mores of Laois. This was borne out by a petition sent by the gentry of the Pale to the King of England in June 1417 in support of Sir John Talbot’s appeal for more funding in his fight against the O’Mores. The petitioners recounted how Talbot had repaired and mended the bridge of Athy and had erected a new tower on the bridge in order to resist the Irish enemy and to protect the inhabitants of Athy. The reference to repairing the bridge confirmed that there was already a bridge in place prior to 1415. Indeed, we know from other Anglo Norman settlements in Ireland that the French speaking adventurers had built stone bridges in many other parts of Ireland as early as the 13th century. The reference to the erection of the new tower on the bridge has generally been accepted as referring to White’s Castle. However, Ben Murtagh in his essay on the dating of White’s Castle in the book ‘Dublin and the Pale in the Renaissance C 1540-1660’ believes that the tower built by Talbot is not the current White’s Castle, but a castle built at a later date on the site of the original tower of 1415. White’s Castle is the most important readily visible medieval building in our town, as the other important buildings at that time, Woodstock Castle and St. Michael’s Medieval Church, are more often than not unseen by many of our visitors. Woodstock Castle lies in a low-lying area close to the river Barrow and directly northwest of the town’s centre. It is believed to have been built for the St. Michael family early in the 13th century and around it developed the settlers village and the monastery of the Crouched Friars. Located on the west bank of the river the castle and the village was subject to several attacks by the Irish. The first recorded attack on the village of Athy was in 1308 when the village was burned, a fate it was to suffer on four occasions during the following 70 years. Edward Bruce, brother of the Scottish King, having landed with his army on the Antrim coast in 1315 at the invitation of some Irish chiefs inflicted several defeats on the Anglo Normans. The Battle of Ardscull a few miles from Athy saw Bruce’s army defeat the joint forces of Lord Justice Sir Edmund Butler and Lord John Fitzthomas. Bruce is recorded as having plundered Athy and Rheban, both of which villages were developed around castles built for the St. Michael family. The positioning of Woodstock castle on the west bank of the river Barrow and on the same side of the river where the ‘wild Irish’ lived is a puzzle. The east side of the river where the Dominicans founded their friary in 1257 offered greater safety for the inhabitants of the newly founded village. Towards the end of the 14th century the Anglo Normans began a policy of retrenchment, having failed to successfully hold all the lands initially taken by them in the 12th and 13th centuries. The policy of retrenchment focused attention on Athy as a settlement of strategic importance and made Athy a first line of defence against the hostile Irish. The rebuilding of the bridge of Athy and the erection of a new tower in 1415-1417 was followed by a gradual relocation of the village from the west side of the Barrow to the opposite side. This process was no doubt accelerated following Sir John Talbot’s rebuilding of the bridge and the construction of the tower. The plantation of Laois and Offaly during the reign of Elizabeth I saw Athy take on an even more important role. It became a vital link in the supply chain for the beleaguered English settlers of Laois and Offaly. This was recognised by John Dymmok who in his ‘Treatise of Ireland’ in 1600 wrote:- ‘Athy is divided into two parts by the river Barrow over which lies a stone bridge and upon it a stone castle ….. the bridge of the castle ….. being the only way which leads into the Queen’s county’. …..TO BE CONTINUED

Michael Day, boxer, footballer and emigrant

One of the pleasures of writing a weekly newspaper column, which is made available on the internet, is the many queries one receives from around the world and the subsequent store of knowledge which is unveiled in relation to Athy persons of the past. For some time Sophie Hepburn of Glasgow has been emailing me in relation to her father’s family, originally from Athy. Michael Day, son of Peter and Bridget Day, emigrated to Scotland in 1942. As a young man in Athy he was a boxer of note and was a member of the Irish Army boxing team while he served in the early years of World War II. It was a sport in which he had a lifelong interest. He founded a boxing club in Glasgow and amongst those he trained was the youthful ‘John Cowboy McCormack’ who went on to win a bronze medal in the Olympic Games. Michael in addition to boxing was also a senior playing member of Athy Geraldine hurling and football club which won the Kildare Senior Football Championship in 1937. That team was captained by George Comerford, the famous County Clare and Munster provincial footballer who was then stationed as a Garda in Athy. I interviewed another member of that team in January 1990, the legendary Barney Dunne, who was the only man to have won four senior championship medals with Athy. He spoke of the players who defeated Sarsfield in that 1937 County final and he mentioned Michael Day whom he said lived in Barrack Street. The photograph of the Athy winning team of 1937 shows Michael Day lying in front to the left, Tommy Buggy/English, the player on the right. The photograph, a copy of which Sophie had, was she believed a picture of a street league team called the Starlights. It was in fact the 1937 Athy Championship winning team. The full team with subs were Tommy Mulhall, Joe Gibbons, Jim Birney, ‘Chevit’ Doyle, Pat Mulhall, Matt Murray, Tom Kelly, Paul Mathews, Barney Dunne, John Rochford, Tom Wall, Tom Ryan, George Comerford, Richard Donovan, Joe Murphy, Tommy Buggy, Johnny McEvoy and N. Heffernan whose first name regrettably is not known to me. The team trainer was the legendary Jack ‘Skurt’ Doyle. Michael Day’s parents had four sons and two daughters and given the difficult times during the economic war of the 1930s and those posed by World War II it’s not surprising that all of them emigrated to either Scotland or England to find employment. Jack Day and his brother Pat went to London, as did their sister Julia, while Michael and Peter spent the rest of their lives in Scotland. When Peter died his ashes were returned to his home town of Athy for burial in St. Michael’s Cemetery next to his parents Peter and Bridget. His sister Lizzie Day worked in Dublin for a time, but I understand she subsequently emigrated to England. Sophie Hepburn whom I met during the week last visited Athy almost 72 years ago when as a young girl herself and her brother were sent on summer holidays to their Granny Bridget Day. Bridget was by then a widow living alone, her husband Peter having died in 1948 aged 68 years. Sophie recalls her grandmother’s house which she described as a one roomed cottage. She had a photograph showing the small whitewashed cottage in the background from which I was satisfied that Bridget lived in what locals called ‘Beggars End’. It was one of a row of houses owned by the Plewman family and were located directly opposite the present Plewman’s Terrace. Sophie had fond memories of the time herself and her brother spent with their grandmother all those years ago and of the return boat trip from Broomley, Scotland to Dublin. Sophie who with her partner spent a few days in and around Athy last week traced and paid a visit to her grandparents’ grave in St. Michael’s Cemetery. She was immensely proud of her father and what he achieved after leaving Athy so many years ago. Sophie’s visit to Athy 70 years after her only previous visit and 80 years after her father Michael left his home town in search of work, was a pilgrimage in search of a family past. She would be delighted to make contact with any of her father’s relations still living in and around Athy.

Dr. Giles O'Neill, the Taaffe Legal Practice, identifying those who died in Athy Workhouse

Many of you, like myself, got a letter from the HSE a week or so ago informing us of the retirement of Dr. Giles O’Neill from 11th June. Messages of good wishes poured into Dr. Giles’ practice in the following days but it seems we were all somewhat premature in consigning the good doctor to a life of unending leisure. It now transpires that Dr. Giles has retired from the HSE General Practitioners list and will be replaced by Dr. Emma Carroll of the same practice on the Carlow Road. The fourth generation O’Neill general practitioners intends to stay on in the practice working two days a week dealing, I presume, with private patients. My Eye last week on Dr. Giles’ retirement prompted several people to ask the question of me – when do you propose to retire? I’m afraid the good man above will retire me and in the meantime I will continue as long as Dr. Giles keeps me in good trim or as I often say to my friends, ‘so long as I can continue to cast a shadow’. The June bank holiday found me spending a few days in Connemara where unlike the rainy weather which greeted the TriAthy athletes, the western countryside was basking in glorious sunshine. I had overlooked that this year’s June bank holiday was an important anniversary in my working life as it was on the Tuesday after the bank holiday Monday 40 years ago that I opened my own practice. Joining me that day was a young Eithne Wall as we waited the arrival of the first client to the first-floor offices of Taaffe & Co. Solicitors. I had rented rooms over the Hibernian Insurance offices located in the former Hibernian Bank premises on Leinster Street. During the past four decades the offices have been relocated to three other locations, but what has remained constant is the wonderful staff who have joined me over the years. Eithne Wall, with forty years’ service, is followed by Noreen Prendergast with 36 years’ service, Deirdre Dooley with 31 years’ service and Lisa Walsh who has been part of the staff for 22 years. All of the girls joined the office when they were single and their names have been recorded in those names, although all of them have since married. My son Seamus, after 5 years working as an archaeologist, joined the practice as a solicitor in 1997. Individually and collectively they have made an enormous contribution to the work of my office which because of the nature of its business deals with a myriad of sad human situations. On our fortieth anniversary I pay a heartfelt tribute to Eithne, Noreen, Deirdre, Lisa and Seamus. Clem Roche and Michael Donovan have been working for some months past on retrieving the names of those unfortunate persons who died in Athy’s Workhouse. Opened in January 1844 the Workhouse was a last refuge for a starving people who could not survive without institutional help during the Great Famine. In later years deaths were recorded as occurring in the Workhouse, Athy’s Infirmary and Athy’s Fever Hospital. The Infirmary was attached to the Workhouse, while Athy’s Fever Hospital was a separate institution first opened in February 1841. The perilous state of public health in the town of Athy was a matter of concern, particularly following a cholera outbreak in 1827 and an influenza outbreak ten years later. A Mr. Keating, whose premises in Market Square burnt down in 1836, was the beneficiary of a public collection intended to help him rebuild his premises. Instead, the generous man donated the community’s gift amounting to three hundred pounds to the building of a Fever Hospital in Athy. Officially designated as a District Fever Hospital under the Fever Ireland Act of 1847 it continued to be operated independent of the Workhouse until 1854. Those who died in the Workhouse, the Infirmary and the Fever Hospital were, so far as we know, buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery. Clem Roche and Michael Donovan have recorded 3,088 deaths with no records available for the first twenty years or so of the Workhouse existence. There are no memorials or grave markers to remember the thousands who were buried in St. Marys. The work of Clem and Michael is the first step in remembering and commemorating those unfortunate people which Kildare County Council is committed to doing in the near future.

The Doctors O'Neill

Four generations of the O’Neill family have provided medical care for the people of Athy and South Kildare, as well as patients in the institution formerly known as the Workhouse, later the County Home and now St. Vincent’s Hospital. On 11th June the fourth generation member of the O’Neill family, Dr. Giles O’Neill, will retire from general medical practice, thus bringing to a close the O’Neill family’s involvement in medical practice in Athy. Dr. Patrick Laurence O’Neill, who lived in Geraldine House, was the first member of the family to practice medicine. He had a private practice before taking up an appointment as medical officer to Athy’s Workhouse in 1874 in succession to Dr. Thomas Kynsey. Dr. P.L. O’Neill was involved in local and national politics and was president of the local branch of the Irish National League until his resignation in November 1885 following a disagreement with Martin Doyle, a fellow National League member. He continued as medical officer to the Workhouse until 1897 when he was replaced by his son, Dr. Jeremiah O’Neill who held the position for the next 55 years. Like his father before him Dr. Jeremiah was involved in local politics and served as Chairman of Athy Urban District Council for three years from 1912 and was also Chairman of the Athy branch of the Fine Gael party for 25 years. He died in 1954 aged 81 years, having been replaced by his son Dr. Joe O’Neill as medical officer in 1952 for what was then known as the County Home. Dr. Joe, who graduated in 1943, took over Dr. John Kilbride’s medical practice in 1959 and lived and worked initially from the Abbey off Emily Square before moving to Athy Lodge on Church Road. The Asian flu epidemic of 1971/’72 provided Dr. Joe and his colleague Dr. Brian Maguire with one of the most trying and difficult periods of their years in medical practice. The first flu victim was treated on 23rd December 1971 and over the following four days neither doctor had any respite as stricken patient after patient was treated in a frantic effort to halt the spread of the flu. The fourth generation of the O’Neill family, Dr. Joe’s son Giles, qualified as a doctor in 1975 and after practicing in Dublin and England returned to Athy in 1981 to join his father’s practice. The following year a new surgery was built in the grounds of Athy Lodge, the former home of Dr. John Kilbride and in the 19th century the home of John Lord, Solicitor. In the meantime Dr. Joe continued as medical officer to the County Home and the later renamed St. Vincent’s Hospital and on his retirement in 1991 his son Dr. Giles was appointed as medical officer. Dr. Joe O’Neill died in 2008, aged 91 years. Dr. Giles, now practicing in the new surgery on Church Road, was joined by another local man Dr. Raymond Rowan and both of them continued in practice there until the opening of a new surgery on the Carlow Road, first occupied years earlier by the now retired Dr. John Macdougald. On the retirement of Dr. Giles the Carlow Road surgery will now include doctors Anthony Reeves, Raymond Rowan, Emma O’Carroll and Dr. Luke Higgins. I remember Dr. Joe and Dr. Giles as dedicated, gifted and pleasant doctors who practiced medicine with kindness and thoughtfulness for their patients. Two of Dr. Joe’s brothers were also doctors who served in the British Army Indian Medical Services during World War II. A younger brother, Dr. Jerry O’Neill, was captured by the Japanese and held prisoner for more than three years until the end of the war. Family tradition tells us that the emaciated former prisoner on release was treated in a Calcutta hospital by his brother Dr. John O’Neill who did not recognise him until the prematurely grey-haired patient spoke of Ireland and of playing golf in the Geraldine course here in Athy. Their nephew, Dr. Giles O’Neill, has devoted 41 years of life as a doctor to the people of Athy and the patients of St. Vincent’s Hospital. He followed in the footsteps of his great grandfather, his grandfather and his father and Dr. Joe proved himself to be a doctor whose dedication to his patients and to his profession will be remembered with fondness and gratitude by all.

Barrowhouse Ambush May 1921

Patrick Whelan, Ned Gleeson, Liam Langton, John Langton, Keith Langton, Martin Langton, Pascal Lacey, Ger Gibson and Nessa O’Meara Cardiff. These are the members of the Barrowhouse Ambush Commemoration Committee responsible for organising the ceremonies on Saturday, 21st May surrounding the unveiling of the new memorial for William Connor and James Lacey and the launch of Nessa O’Meara Cardiff’s book on the ambush. The reawakening of interest in the Irish War of Independence saw a great gathering of folk to honour the memory of the two young Barrowhouse men who lost their lives on a May day 101 years ago. I was honoured to be invited to take part in the service at St. Mary’s Graveyard and to address some words to those who gathered around the grave of Connor and Lacey. In addressing the people in attendance I was conscious that my words could apply to so many other areas around Ireland which saw action during the War of Independence. That conflict was a complex one of military republicanism and of a people’s resistance to British Rule. For that reason the story of the Barrowhouse Ambush is important to our understanding of the history and legacy of our revolutionary past. It’s a struggle which continued long after the Treaty and has now evolved as a political struggle involving Irish, English and Northern Ireland politicians with American and European Union politicians in the background. The Barrowhouse Ambush occurred on a day in May 1921 when five other men suffered violent deaths attributed to political violence in Ireland. The deaths of William Connor and James Lacey lead to reprisals by the RIC and the Black and Tans stationed in the Athy R.I.C. Barracks. Patrick Lynch’s home and workshop were among several premises the subject of arson attacks the night after the ambush. Local narratives about the Barrowhouse Ambush are not always in agreement. New information and fresh interpretations can contradict accepted version of events. The accepted knowledge in the public domain in relation to War of Independent incidents generally is not always correct and as further research unfolds new information can give us a better understanding of those difficult times. The memorial unveiled that Saturday and the launch of Nessa O’Meara Cardiff’s book on the Barrowhouse ambush is a community’s way of confirming the importance of James Lacey and William Connor in the historical tradition of Barrowhouse and its neighbourhood. They were just two of the 2,850 who were killed in a war defined in popular imagination by IRA ambushes and Black and Tan reprisals with assassinations on both sides. The Barrowhouse Volunteers who took part in the ambush were undoubtedly committed Nationalists and Republicans whose motivation was an idealism fostered by the Irish Volunteer movement and developed by the Sinn Fein Clubs to end British Rule in Ireland. William Connor and James Lacey, both of Barrowhouse, were just 26 years of age when they joined James’s brother Joe Lacey, Paddy Dooley of Killabbin, Joe Maher of Cullinagh, Mick Maher and Jack O’Brien, both from Barrowhouse and Joe Ryan of Kilmoroney on that fatal day, 16th May 1921. 101 years later, the Barrowhouse community came together to remember its War of Independence dead and to commemorate the two young Barrowhouse men who died before they had the opportunity of knowing any of their relations who came after them. The Barrowhouse Ambush Commemoration Committee, under the Chairperson of Nessa O’Meara Cardiff, responded magnificently to the need to remember the two young men from Barrowhouse who paid the ultimate price in a people’s struggle for political freedom. I understand that the initial print run of Nessa’s book was sold out but further copies are now available at the Barrowhouse ambush online site. The past week saw the death and burial of Gretta McNulty, formerly Gretta Moore who grew up in Offaly Street as part of that great community, a mix of young and old. Gretta and the Moore family lived in No. 7 Offaly Street and when the Taaffe family arrived in Athy in 1945 they settled into No. 6 before moving after 8 or 9 years into No. 5 Offaly Street. Offaly Street was then home to a vibrant community of mostly young families and Gretta’s death sadly further depletes the shrinking list of Offaly Street neighbours and friends of old. When Gretta and Frank McNulty married in 1962 they moved into No. 9 Offaly Street where they lived for 9 years or so, reinforcing Gretta’s strong alliance with the street where as a young girl she had forged many long lasting friendships. Those precious friendships forged in youth are receding further and further in the fading memory bank of those of us who remain.

Festival Athy 1979

One of the interesting magazines published in Ireland in the aftermath of the Act of Union was the Irish Magazine. Edited by the notorious Walter (Watty) Cox it first appeared in 1807. Cox’s Magazine was one of the more significant journals of that time and engaged in what Barbara Hayley in ‘300 years of Irish Periodicals’ described as ‘outrageously insulting (behaviour) to the Administration and to the Established Church’. My interest in the Irish Magazine stemmed from my purchase of a bound copy of the monthly journal for 1809. In March of that year Michael Devoy of Kill wrote an interesting piece on the history of Athy. Devoy was a granduncle of the Fenian John Devoy. He was born at the Heath, Athy but because of his involvement in the 1798 rebellion the family moved to Kill in 1805. The Nationalist and Leinster Times of 6th October 1928 on reporting the death of John Devoy made reference to Michael Devoy’s article on Athy. It noted that the volume of the Irish Magazine in which the article appeared ‘was picked up at Mendozas Old Book Store at Ann Street, New York by Frank Richardson, a native of Athy and handed to the editor of the Gaelic American.’ The article claimed that Michael Devoy was a captain of the rebels in County Kildare during the ’98 Rebellion and that he had the benefit of his father’s long and intimate knowledge of the town of Athy when writing the article. Devoy in the Irish magazine article recounted how the monastery on the west side of the River Barrow was founded by Richard de St. Michael, the Lord of Rheban, under the invocations of St. John and St. Thomas. The precinct of the monastery extended from the river at the foot of the bridge, containing all that part of the town called St. Johns and St. John’s Lane and its demesne consisted of the island in the river and the adjacent fields as far as the military barracks. He noted that the Dominican Monastery on the east side of the river, founded in 1253 by the families of the Boisels and Hogans, extended from the river along the north side of the church to the corner of the street heading to Prestons Gate and from there along the street under the said gate and to the corner of Janeville Lane and to the rear of the present house called The Abbey. The church referred to was the Church of Ireland church which was then located at the rear of the Town Hall and interestingly Devoy referenced the claim that the church steeple had formed part of the old Dominican Abbey. The reference to the house called The Abbey which was demolished a few years ago was much older than we all thought given Devoy’s references to it in 1809. Whites Castle, according to Devoy, was built by the 8th Earl of Kildare about 1506, a year or two after a bridge over the river Barrow was built. He claimed that the castle was repaired and enlarged in 1575 by William White from hence it obtained the name Whites Castle. Among the town ruins noted over 200 years ago were those of St. Michael’s Church built some time in the 14th century and founded, as Devoy claimed, by the St. Michael family. He described the ‘new chapel’ built in place of the chapel burned in the aftermath of the 1798 Rebellion, which he says was built on a plot of ground granted by the Duke of Leinster. He continued ‘the new chapel (which was demolished in 1960) is not by any means suitable to the large congregation, nor on a plan fit for a country chapel.’ Apparently, he was dissatisfied with the construction of a gallery which he claimed ‘from the noise above the people below for about 60 feet in length cannot hear the priest’s voice, the men ranged on one side and the women on the other.’ He referred to the Quaker Meeting House and to the Methodist House as well as the prison (then in Whites Castle) which he claims was without a privy until an addition was built in 1802. He decried the fact that there was no manufacturer of any consequence in the town which for many years ‘surpassed the Kingdom for the best and most extensive tanyards.’ Athy was also he claimed the most extensive town in Ireland about 30 years previously for distilling whiskey ‘there being 14 stills at full work and the entire of the malt to supply them was manufactured here.’ The one redeeming feature according to Devoy was the extensive porter and ale brewery carried on by Robert Rawson and the extensive flour mills ‘in the neighbourhood, two of which are in the town.’ This years famine Remembrance Service will be held in St. Mary’s Cemetery located opposite St. Vincent’s Hospital on Sunday 15th May at 3.00 p.m. The service gives us an opportunity to publicly honour Athy’s Famine dead with dignity and reverence and to recall a period in our history which cast a shadow over Ireland’s subsequent history.

Thomas Reynolds 1798 Informer

In December 1797 a man who would be responsible for betraying the society of the United Irishmen in south Kildare and Leinster and the imprisonment of many of the leaders of the organisation came to live at Kilkea Castle. He was the 26 year old Thomas Reynolds, a distant relation of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and a nephew of Thomas Fitzgerald of Geraldine House, captain of the Athy Yeomanry Cavalry. Reynolds was a Catholic whose father Andrew Reynolds, a silk merchant from Dublin, had married Rose Fitzgerald of Kilmead. Thomas Reynolds spent the first eight years of his life at the Kilmead home of his maternal grandfather Thomas Fitzgerald. Educated at a school in Chiswick and later at Liege in Flanders he returned to Dublin in 1788 just a few weeks before the death of his father Andrew. Mr. Reynolds Senior had been a delegate to the Catholic Committee and at the age of seventeen years his son Thomas was elected in his place. Thus was Thomas Reynolds ‘without any kind of restraint pushed forward in a career of politics and family business for neither of which he possessed the requisite knowledge or experience.’ So wrote his own son in his ‘Life of Thomas Reynolds’ published in 1838. Reynold’s biographer claimed that his father was inveigled to become a member of the United Irishmen in January or February 1797 through the efforts of a Richard Dillon, a Catholic and Oliver Bond, a Presbyterian. Whatever the merits of this claim, he was sworn in as a member of the organisation by Oliver Bond at his house at Bridge Street, Dublin. Oliver Bond’s house was later to be inextricably linked with Thomas Reynold’s name because of the events which occurred there in March 1798. Some time previously Reynolds had agreed to take a lease of Kilkea Castle from the Duke of Leinster on the death of the previous tenant a Mr. Dixon, an elderly man who passed away at the beginning of 1797. Under the terms agreed Reynolds employed the Duke’s builder, a Mr. Shannon to provide new roofing, flooring and ceiling for the castle which was located a few miles from Athy. When the work was completed Reynolds and his family moved into Kilkea Castle in December 1797, his mother the former Rose Fitzgerald of Kilmead having died in Dublin on 6th November. Reynolds was soon admitted into the Athy Cavalry Corps and as a frequent visitor to Athy, befriended many of the local townspeople. He accepted Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s invitation to take over from him as Colonel of the United Irishmen in the south Kildare barony of Kilkea and Moone. Soon thereafter Reynolds was visited by Matthew Kenna, one of the mainstays of the United Irishmen’s organisation in South Kildare. Kenna informed Reynolds of the strength of the United Irishmen in that part of Kildare and arranged a vote of the local captains to confirm his appointment as Colonel. At the same time Reynolds was appointed as County Treasurer which entitled him to attend meetings of the Provincial Council of the United Irishmen. Reynolds, whose name was later to become synonymous with the dreaded terms ‘traitor’ and ‘informer’ is believed to have passed on information to Dublin Castle regarding a scheduled meeting of the Provincial Council in Oliver Bonds House in Bridge Street, Dublin. Members of the Leinster Directory were arrested on 12th March and their detention effectively destroyed any hope of a successful uprising by the United Irishmen. Those arrested were:- Michael William Byrne, Peter Ivers from Carlow, Laurence Kelly from Queen’s County, George Cummins from Kildare, Edward Hudson of Grafton Street, John Lynch from Mary’s Abbey, Lawrence Griffin from Tullow, Thomas Reynolds from Culmullin, John McCan of Church Street, Patrick Devine from Ballymoney, Christopher Martyn from Dunboyne, Peter Bannan from Portarlington, James Rose from Windy Harbour, and Oliver Bond of Bridge Street, Dublin. Two days later Reynolds met Lord Edward Fitzgerald at the home of Dr. Kennedy in Aungier Street, Dublin and again the following day when Lord Edward gave him a letter for the County Kildare Committee. On 17th March Reynolds left Dublin for Kilkea and stopped overnight in Naas. There he was met, apparently to Reynold’s surprise, by Matthew Kenna, the man who was Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s principal contact person in South Kildare. Kenna told Reynolds of a meeting arranged for March 18th at the house of Reilly, a publican, near the Curragh of Kildare where the County Committee Members of the United Irishmen were to assemble. Reynolds attended the meeting, although he must have been somewhat concerned that his United Irishmen colleagues would be suspicious of involvement in the arrests in Dublin six days previously. Nothing untoward happened to Reynolds and afterwards he arranged a meeting for local captains of the United Irishmen in Athy on 20th March. The meeting in a back room of Peter Kelly’s shop in the Main Street was convened to coincide with Athy’s fair. Reynolds read Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s letter to the rebel captains and then proceeded to burn it in their presence. Anxious to resign from the Society of United Irishmen Reynolds pressed the South Kildare Captains to allow him to do so citing the earlier arrests in Oliver Bond’s house as his reason for wishing to step down. It was decided that Reynolds would share his position as Colonel with Dan Caulfield of Levitstown. Nevertheless Reynolds was never again actively involved in the affairs of the United Irishmen.

Michael Devoy's history of Athy

One of the interesting magazines published in Ireland in the aftermath of the Act of Union was the Irish Magazine. Edited by the notorious Walter (Watty) Cox it first appeared in 1807. Cox’s Magazine was one of the more significant journals of that time and engaged in what Barbara Hayley in ‘300 years of Irish Periodicals’ described as ‘outrageously insulting (behaviour) to the Administration and to the Established Church’. My interest in the Irish Magazine stemmed from my purchase of a bound copy of the monthly journal for 1809. In March of that year Michael Devoy of Kill wrote an interesting piece on the history of Athy. Devoy was a granduncle of the Fenian John Devoy. He was born at the Heath, Athy but because of his involvement in the 1798 rebellion the family moved to Kill in 1805. The Nationalist and Leinster Times of 6th October 1928 on reporting the death of John Devoy made reference to Michael Devoy’s article on Athy. It noted that the volume of the Irish Magazine in which the article appeared ‘was picked up at Mendozas Old Book Store at Ann Street, New York by Frank Richardson, a native of Athy and handed to the editor of the Gaelic American.’ The article claimed that Michael Devoy was a captain of the rebels in County Kildare during the ’98 Rebellion and that he had the benefit of his father’s long and intimate knowledge of the town of Athy when writing the article. Devoy in the Irish magazine article recounted how the monastery on the west side of the River Barrow was founded by Richard de St. Michael, the Lord of Rheban, under the invocations of St. John and St. Thomas. The precinct of the monastery extended from the river at the foot of the bridge, containing all that part of the town called St. Johns and St. John’s Lane and its demesne consisted of the island in the river and the adjacent fields as far as the military barracks. He noted that the Dominican Monastery on the east side of the river, founded in 1253 by the families of the Boisels and Hogans, extended from the river along the north side of the church to the corner of the street heading to Prestons Gate and from there along the street under the said gate and to the corner of Janeville Lane and to the rear of the presen t house called The Abbey. The church referred to was the Church of Ireland church which was then located at the rear of the Town Hall and interestingly Devoy referenced the claim that the church steeple had formed part of the old Dominican Abbey. The reference to the house called The Abbey which was demolished a few years ago was much older than we all thought given Devoy’s references to it in 1809. Whites Castle, according to Devoy, was built by the 8th Earl of Kildare about 1506, a year or two after a bridge over the river Barrow was built. He claimed that the castle was repaired and enlarged in 1575 by William White from hence it obtained the name Whites Castle. Among the town ruins noted over 200 years ago were those of St. Michael’s Church built some time in the 14th century and founded, as Devoy claimed, by the St. Michael family. He described the ‘new chapel’ built in place of the chapel burned in the aftermath of the 1798 Rebellion, which he says was built on a plot of ground granted by the Duke of Leinster. He continued ‘the new chapel (which was demolished in 1960) is not by any means suitable to the large congregation, nor on a plan fit for a country chapel.’ Apparently, he was dissatisfied with the construction of a gallery which he claimed ‘from the noise above the people below for about 60 feet in length cannot hear the priest’s voice, the men ranged on one side and the women on the other.’ He referred to the Quaker Meeting House and to the Methodist House as well as the prison (then in Whites Castle) which he claims was without a privy until an addition was built in 1802. He decried the fact that there was no manufacturer of any consequence in the town which for many years ‘surpassed the Kingdom for the best and most extensive tanyards.’ Athy was also he claimed the most extensive town in Ireland about 30 years previously for distilling whiskey ‘there being 14 stills at full work and the entire of the malt to supply them was manufactured here.’ The one redeeming feature according to Devoy was the extensive porter and ale brewery carried on by Robert Rawson and the extensive flour mills ‘in the neighbourhood, two of which are in the town.’ This years famine Remembrance Service will be held in St. Mary’s Cemetery located opposite St. Vincent’s Hospital on Sunday 15th May at 3.00 p.m. The service gives us an opportunity to publicly honour Athy’s Famine dead with dignity and reverence and to recall a period in our history which cast a shadow over Ireland’s subsequent history.

The People's Park, Brian Hughes Piper and Whistle Player

In Eye on the Past No. 1513 I wrote of the Peoples Park and suggested that the Park provided for the people of Athy by Augustus Frederick Fitzgerald, the 3rd Duke of Leinster, was opened sometime in the 1850s. Referring to the arrival of the railway in Athy in 1846 I believe that the Crib Road, now known as Church Road, was constructed at the same time. A misplaced map recently discovered by Paud O’Connor in the Trinity College library collection helps to confirm that the road was indeed laid down as part of the railway development work in Athy. The map discovered by Paud was misfiled in the collection of John Rocque’s map books. It had been prepared by Clarges Greene in 1850. Greene of Dominic Street, Dublin had prepared a map of Athy in 1827 for the Duke of Leinster on a scale of 80ft. to 1inch. That manuscript map showed with great detail and clarity the entire town of Athy on a single sheet measuring 56inches x 82½inches. The 1850 Clarges Greene map was prepared as part of a survey of ‘Boherbuey in the manor of Athy’ for the Duke of Leinster. It showed the newly developed Southern and Western railway line and the station house, with the fairgreen on the north side of the line and a very small St. Michael’s burial ground. What is of interest are two roads each described on the map as ‘new road’. The first is what later became known as the Crib Road, while the other new road is the present Kildare Road. The original road to Kildare, but then described as a street located as it was in the centre of Athy, was the present Stanhope Street. In Rocque’s map of east Athy prepared in 1756, what we now know as Stanhope Street was then called Cotters Lane and subsequently Kildare Street. So the extension of the railway to Athy in 1846 gave us two new roads, the current Kildare Road and the Crib Road and undoubtedly led to the development of the lands encircled by the new Crib Road as the Peoples Park. Incidentally the name Crib comes from the metal cribs or circular barriers which were put around the young trees planted on both sides of the new road. The trees are no longer on Church Road but I do recall them when as a youngster with my pals in Offaly Street we played on the road which we always knew as the Crib Road. The cribs were long gone at that stage, but the name remained. When writing Eye on the Past No. 1529 of the Garda Siochana members who played Gaelic football for Athy Gaelic Football Club and Kildare County senior team I omitted to mention another great football player Colm Moran. Colm was for many years a stalwart on the Athy senior team and played on the 1987 Athy championship winning team. He featured on the Kildare County senior team for several years and retired recently as a member of the Garda Siochana. The Athy Gaelic Football Club’s association with An Garda Siochana is a unique and proud relationship stretching back to the 1930s when Garda George Comerford played for Athy and continued up to our time by Johnny McEvoy, Brendan Kehoe, Mick Carolan, Anthony McLoughlin, Eamonn Henry and Colm Moran. I missed the recent launch of Brian Hughes’ new CD as I was travelling from Cork that evening but from all accounts a great night of traditional music was enjoyed by all. The musical talent which has originated in Athy in recent years is quite extraordinary given the town’s relatively modest population size. Brian Hughes, a wonderful piper and whistle player, has featured on several CD’s to date and his growing reputation in the world of Irish traditional music is a measure of his masterful musical skills. I have often sought to make connections between Athy’s street bands of previous generations and the musicians of today without convincing even myself that there is a continuous generation link between them. Whether or not we can make that connection there is no doubt that Athy’s current crop of star performers, Brian Hughes, Jack L, Joe Byrne, Picture This, the Sullivan Brothers and Fran O’Mara are part of a great music making tradition which embraced several generations of Athy folk. This year’s famine commemoration service will be held in St. Mary’s Cemetery, located opposite St Vincent’s Hospital, on Sunday 15th May at 3pm. In the grounds of the hospital, formerly the Workhouse, can be found James McKenna’s famine monument. The famine monument, which I understand Kildare County Council agreed to erect in St. Mary’s Cemetery, has not yet materialised. The service on May 15th gives us an opportunity to publicly honour Athy’s famine dead with dignity and reverence and to recall a period in our community’s history which cast a shadow over Ireland’s subsequent years.

White's Castle and the possibility of its acquisition by Athy U.D.C. in the 1950s

The Nationalist and Leinster Times of December 17th 1955 under the headline ‘Bord Failte foots the Bill’ reported on that week’s Athy Urban District Council meeting which had been attended by two representatives of Bord Failte. The Councillors were informed of Bord Failte’s plans to acquire Whites Castle for development as a museum. The entire acquisition and renovation costs were to be borne by the tourism authority. Bord Failte also undertook to provide suitable living quarters for a caretaker and to pay all legal costs in connection with the transfer of ownership to the Urban Council. It was indicated that the Marquis of Kildare had promised several artefacts for display in the museum, while the Acting Town Clerk Jimmy O’Higgins was pleased to announce that ‘all necessary work on the Castle would be carried out under the supervision of Bord Failte’. The Council’s Chairman Tom Carbery proposed a vote of thanks to the Bord Failte representatives, Messrs P. Lawler and P.J. Hartnett which was seconded by Matt Tynan who expressed the view that ‘the people of Athy will be glad to know that the town would soon have its own museum.’ In response Mr. Lawler of Bord Failte reminded the Councillors that ‘if Athy and other inland centres can offer an attraction of that nature, they will be handsomely paid by the money that comes from tourism.’ The Urban Council minute book records the first reference to the museum in Whites Castle as a letter to the Council from Bord Failte on 10th July 1953 suggesting that the Council purchase Whites Castle for use as a local museum. The Council members agreed to enquire into the tenure rights of Miss Norman who occupied the castle. The next reference in the Council minute book to the museum was on 2nd March 1955 after Bord Failte submitted drawings and specifications for proposed structural and decorative work to Whites Castle. The local Councillors enquiries, if any, into Miss Norman’s tenancy rights were not recorded but in considering the Bord Failte drawings it was agreed ‘to see if Miss Norman would act as a caretaker to the museum.’ A new Council was elected in June 1955 and at their meeting the following September the Councillors resolved ‘that before any final decision is taken by the Council as regards the acquisition of Whites Castle a sub-committee consisting of the Chairman Tom Carbery and Councillors Dooley and Tynan be and is hereby appointed to interview Miss Norman to obtain her view on what remuneration she will require if she was appointed caretaker of the proposed museum.’ At the October meeting the Chairman reported that he and Councillor Tynan and the Town Clerk visited Miss Norman on 5th October. She was willing to act as caretaker of the museum for £1 per week plus fees collected from visitors. She also required the Council to provide her with adequate living quarters in the Castle and to employ ‘a charwoman for the museum.’ These terms were dependant on her retaining her old age pension of 24 shillings per week. The terms were accepted by the Council subject to Bord Failte bearing the full costs of converting the castle for use as a local museum. The project advanced when Bord Failte after initially refusing to do so agreed to provide showcases for the museum. In June 1956 Bord Failte reported that if Miss Norman became life tenant of portion of Whites Castle there would be no difficulty in the Council obtaining clear possession on her death. The Council immediately passed a resolution that ‘the caretakers’ quarters in Whites Castle be leased to Miss Mary Norman for her lifetime.’ The County Manager wrote to Miss Norman on 1st August 1956 setting out the Council’s terms to which her Solicitor, P.J. O’Neill, replied on 31st August (P.J. O’Neill had been a member of Athy U.D.C. from 1950 to 1955). Mr. O’Neill claimed that Miss Norman had a ‘valuable saleable interest in Whites Castle which she occupies under a lease dated 25th April 1925 for a term of 60 years at a yearly rent of £5. Accordingly, she was not prepared to surrender her interest in the property to Athy U.D.C. without receiving suitable monetary compensation.’ The Council members having considered the letter concluded that they had nothing further to add to their original offer. The local newspaper of 6th February 1957 reported the Council’s receipt of a letter from Bord Failte which stated ‘in view of Miss Norman’s refusal to accept the Council’s offer ….. there would appear to be no alternative but to abandon the project and accordingly Bord Failte’s offer of grant in aid towards rehabilitation of Whites Castle for the purpose of a museum was being withdrawn.’ The Councillors agreed to send a deputation to meet Miss Norman and her Solicitor. There is no record of what transpired but by letter of 26th April 1957 Bord Failte advised that its commitments over the following five years ‘and the necessity for adhering to a planned programme leaves no immediate prospect of making a grant in aid towards the rehabilitation of Whites Castle.’ When I founded the Athy Museum Society in 1983 I was not aware of the opportunity which had been presented 28 years earlier to open a museum in Whites Castle. There have been three occasions within the past 20 years for Athy Urban Council or Kildare County Council to acquire the castle. However, on each occasion the local authority failed to grasp the opportunity to purchase Athy’s most iconic building. I have no doubt that some time in the future Whites Castle will be acquired, developed and opened as a public museum to complement the town’s existing Shackleton Museum.

Garda Siochana members from Athy and the G.A.A.

We are about to celebrate the centenary of the founding of our police force, a celebration which would throw up memories good and bad for every family and every household in Ireland. For many households it will be good memories of family members who joined the Garda Siochana, for others sad memories of Garda members who were killed or injured in the course of their duties as Guardians of the Peace. Others may have memories which centre on wrongdoings and the part played by Gardai in bringing offenders to justice. Whatever our memories, the Garda Siochana has played an important role in the lives of several generations of Irish people. We may complain about the apparent lack of interaction between the Garda Siochana and the general public drawing comparison with the Gardai of an earlier age for whom “policing” was such an important part of the policeman’s role. Whatever about the strength and weaknesses of the modern day Garda Siochana one welcomed aspect of the earlier force was a decision of the then Commissioner Eoin O’Duffy to encourage Gardai to be involved in Gaelic sports. It was a decision which helped to break down the barriers which existed between the Irish people and the previous policing force, the RIC, during the War of Independence. Over the last 100 years Gaelic football and hurling has had many great exponents of the games who in their everyday life wore the uniform of An Garda Siochana. Here in Athy we were privileged to have one of the great footballing greats of the past, Garda George Comerford who captained the Athy team which won the Kildare senior championships in 1937. George was stationed as a garda in Athy working out of the Garda barracks in Duke Street which was then directly opposite what was Maxwells Garage. During his footballing days George togged out for four different counties, his native Clare, Dublin, Kildare and Louth. He joined the gardai in 1931 and that same year he was the only non Kerry man on the Munster team that defeated Leinster in the Railway Cup final. He also played on the Irish team in the Tailteann games of 1932. As captain of the Athy senior team in 1937 he played alongside Johnny McEvoy of Woodstock Street who would later join the Garda Siochana. Johnny who played for the Kildare senior county team for several years also won a county Dublin championship medal as a member of the Garda football club. The 1950’s saw the emergence of two young Athy club members as stars on the Kildare County senior team. Brendan Kehoe whose father John W operated a pub in Offaly Street first played for the county team in 1957. For the following four years he was a regular on the Kildare County team. Brendan joined the Garda Siochana and retired some years ago as a Sergeant. Another Athy player to feature in the 1957 Kildare county team was Mick Carolan whose county playing career extended over a period of 18 years. Mick, who has been the subject of a previous Eye in the Past, like his team mate, Brendan Keogh also joined the Garda Siochana. He won an All Star award in 1966 and retired from the Garda Siochana as a Superintendent several years ago. Another retired member of An Garda Siochana who played football for Athy Gaelic Football Club and County Kildare is Eamonn Henry. Eamonn who is now a retired member of An Garda Siochana played as did his father for his native County Roscommon. Eamonn featured as a County player on the Kildare team between 1984 and 1987 following which he lined out for County Roscommon for another 3 years. He won a senior championship medal playing for Athy in 1987 and indeed won the Man of the Match award in that final. Anthony McLoughlin currently serving as a Superintendent in the Garda Siochana also played football for Athy and Kildare County. He was on the Athy senior championship winning team of 1987 with his garda colleague, Eamonn Henry. These men all members of An Garda Siochana who played for Athy Gaelic football club surely fulfilled Eoin O’Duffy’s desire for Gaelic sport to create comradeship within the ranks of the Garda Siochana. Their participation in the sport also helped create a bond between the members of the Gardai and the people they served as Commissioner O’Duffy had intended. The involvement of young gardai in Gaelic games up and down the country is in sharp contrast to the events of the 4th of August 1918 when the then young GAA took on the British empire and the Garda Siochana’s predecessors, the Royal Irish Constabulary who had sought to ban the playing of GAA games.

The Great Famine and Athy

Started in 2008 the National Famine Commemoration Day gives the Irish people one dedicated day each year to reflect on one of the most significant tragic events in our history. The Great Famine which started in 1845 resulted in the deaths by starvation or disease of one million Irish men, women and children and the loss of a million and a half others to emigration. The third Sunday in May was officially designated by the Government as the National Famine Commemoration Day and this year the Athy commemoration ceremony will be held in St. Mary’s cemetery across the Canal bridge from the former local workhouse, now St. Vincent’s Hospital, on Sunday the 15th of May. In December 1995 Kildare County Council published “Lest we Forget – Kildare and the Great Famine” and by doing so allowed our knowledge of a significant and sad period of our history to overtake the silence of those who survived the famine. By and large those survivors did not pass on to the next generation their accounts of the unimaginable horrors of the Great Famine and so it was left to a later generation of historians to broaden our knowledge of those distressful days. I was one of the contributors to the County Council’s publication and in researching Athy’s Great Famine story I was astonished to learn of the emigration scheme which saw young girls from Athy’s workhouse sent to Australia after the famine. The death of 1,205 inmates of Athy’s workhouse during the Great Famine was another fact from our local history with which I was not familiar. Indeed that lack of knowledge extended not only to everyone of my generation but also to all post famine generations. A Catholic priest, Fr. John O’Rourke, who served as a curate in Athy from 1851 to 1852 wrote “The History of The Great Famine of 1847” which was one of the earliest accounts of the famine. It remained a standard work for generations but even his account has no reference to Athy’s famine story. The town of Athy was estimated to have lost upwards of 1,036 persons in addition to the 1,205 who died in the workhouse. The population of Athy Poor Law Union fell by 10,701 in the ten years to 1851. Within that part of the union area located in County Kildare the actual decrease was 19.04% while in the County Laois area of the union the population loss was a staggering 28.26%. At the height of the famine 16,365 persons from the Athy Poor Law Union were fed from local soup kitchens. This represented 34% of the total population. The highest dependency on soup kitchen rations was in the Ballyadams electoral division where it was almost 100%. The possibility of hungry distressed poor people exacting retribution on the prosperous merchant class was a matter of concern for local Justice of the Peace, John Butler who lived in St. John’s, Athy. He wrote as follows to Dublin Castle in April 1848 “As the only resident magistrate in this town I beg leave to state to your excellency that a few days ago the troops quartered here were withdrawn and the town left to the protection of a few police. I beg to refer that this is a county town with a jail and nearly 100 prisoners in it, 16 of whom are under sentence of transportation and only the Governor and three turnkeys to guard them. There are two banks in the town, a barrack for either cavalry or infantry and not a soldier. I do not like my native town in these alarming times to be left to the protection of 10 or a dozen policemen”. Athy was to remain peaceful despite the revolutionary events in Europe that same year and the short lived revolution led by William Smith O’Brien which ended with what became known as the battle of widow McCormacks cabbage patch. Throughout the first six months of 1849 the workhouse numbers in Athy increased so as to require the provision of additional workhouse accommodation. A grand canal store at Nelson Street was requisitioned to accommodate the overflow from the workhouse while five houses in Barrack Street were taken over for use as an auxiliary workhouse. It was only in recent years that we have come to understand how the Great Famine physically and emotionally shattered the lives of so many families from this area. It was for generations an unrecorded and unspoken period in our local history until it gradually became part of the community’s folk memory which helped define the relationship between a decolonised 26 counties and Britain. Here in Athy our famine dead from the local workhouse were brought across the road to be buried in unmarked graves in the workhouse cemetery. St. Michael’s cemetery also holds the remains of those residents of the town who died during the Great Famine. On Sunday, 15th of May at 3.00pm a short service will be held in St. Mary’s cemetery to remember Athy’s famine dead and to recall what was the single most important event in Irish history.

The fight for Athy Outer Relief Road

We are told that history is written by the victors. Not always it seems, as evidenced by the recent publicity surrounding the “tossing of the sod” to mark the start of work on the construction of the Southern Distributor Road formerly referred to as the Outer Relief Road. This was a project first proposed in or around 1975 as part of a traffic alleviation measure in anticipation of increased traffic flows through the town of Athy. Both an inner relief road and an outer relief road were suggested as future developments for the town and the then council members Paddy Dooley, Mossie Reilly, Jim McEvoy, Cha Chanders, Christy Delahunt, Enda Kinsella, Frank English, Jim Bergin and Megan Maguire accepted the experts proposals. However, there was no follow up until 10 years later when it became known that the inner relief road was to be built with walls on either side as it went through the centre of the town. This was an unbelievable degree of planning ineptitude which prompted the councillors elected in 1985 to raise objections which eventually led the County Council officials to announce that the roadside walls would not be built. At the same time some members of the Urban Council expressed concern at the building of a traffic route through the centre of the town which prompted the then County Manager Gerry Ward to bring forward an agreement whereby responsibility for any new road development passed from Athy U.D.C to Kildare County Council. At that stage while a majority of the Athy Councillors approved the building of an inner relief road, opposition to it’s construction was increasing amongst the local people. In its later stages that opposition was led by a newly formed Athy Urban Development Group which supported the alternative outer relief road as the best solution for the town’s growing traffic problems. However, a majority of the local councillors still supported the inner relief road and the matter became a local election issue during the Local Government elections of 1999. The election of 9 members of Athy U.D.C in June of that year saw 5 members elected who opposed the inner relief road and supported the outer relief road. However, just two weeks after the election one of the newly elected Councillors changed his views to give a majority in favour of the inner relief road. Kildare County Council was now ready to proceed with the building of the inner relief road which would exit from Meeting Lane across the back square and over a new bridge to join the Kilkenny Road at Augustus Bridge. It was a proposal which was the subject of a Planning Appeal Board enquiry held in the Curragh over 8 days in 2005. The local people’s objections to the inner relief road were presented with the assistance of Derek Tynan, Architect and Conor Wall, Environmental Consultant and opposed by numerous experts engaged by Kildare County Council. The Planning Board decision of the 2nd of June 2005 rejected the Council’s plan for an inner relief road as it considered that the road would both fail as a street and as a relief road because it would continue to bring traffic, including heavy commercial vehicles, through the town centre. This was a landmark ruling being the first time a local authority road scheme was rejected by the Planning Appeal Board. Undaunted Kildare County Council appealed the Planning Board decision to the High Court where they were also unsuccessful. Several years passed during which time Kildare County Council and Athy Urban District Council insisted on including the construction of an inner relief road in Athy’s town development plan. In the meantime nothing was done to advance the building of a new road. A change of attitude came with a change of personnel and the outer relief road project, fast approaching it’s 50th anniversary, was taken up and moved forward. Kildare County Council applied to the Planning Appeal Board for planning permission for the outer relief road which was granted in October 2017. The contract for the €40 million road construction contract was awarded to the Kill, County Kildare based firm BAM Ireland last October. Happily work on the much needed road has now commenced. The new 3.4 KM road will include two new roundabouts, new signalised junctions, footpaths and cycleways as well as an 80M single span bridge over the River Barrow which will allow the present railway bridge to be used for pedestrians and cyclists. It was those local people who resisted the inner relief road project and supported a call for an outer relief road who deserve our praise and gratitude. Amongst those were the following members of the development group which was formed in 1998 as a non-party political group to support the building of the outer relief road and to oppose the building of an inner relief road. They included Joan Collis, Vera Doyle, Mick Grufferty, Padraig Healy, Henry Howard, Fiona Rainsford, Liam Rainsford, Carmel Reddy and Peggy Whelan. The local politicians who supported the towns people’s opposition to an inner relief road and advocated for an outer relief road included Sean Cunnane, Frank English, Mark Dalton and Michael Foley. The true story of the campaign for the outer relief road or what is now called the Southern Distributor Road is one which is in danger of being overlooked or misinterpreted by later generations. This short account tells the true story of a controversial road project which brought a majority of the local people of Athy into conflict over several years with many of the towns public representatives and with the local authorities of Athy and Kildare County. When the new road is completed it will represent the greatest intervention in the town of Athy since the arrival of the railway in 1847.