Anna Edith Duthie

Anna Breakey was 24 years old when she came to live and work in Athy 74 years ago. She was a native of Ballybay, Co. Monaghan, the third of four children born to farmer James Breakey and his wife Edith. Anna would spend all but the last three years of her life in the south Kildare town. She arrived in Athy three years after the ending of World War II to work in Shaws Department store in Duke Street and lived over the store with the other female assistants until she married in 1953. She had met local man, Albert Duthie, whose late father, William Thomas Duthie, had taken over the watchmaking and jewellery business of William O’Connor in 1905. That business, located at 30 Leinster Street, would continue to operate under the name W.T. Duthie & Son until Anna Duthie, formerly Anna Breakey, retired in 2013. One of my many treasured memories of Athy in the 1950s was the nodding Santa Claus figure high up in Albert Duthie’s shop window in the weeks prior to Christmas. As youngsters my friends and I approached the window in the darkening gloom of winter evenings to bask in the simple belief that anything we asked for would somehow magically appear on Christmas morning. As we grew older and innocent beliefs disappeared, the nodding Santa Claus still attracted our attention, but now as a reminder of the forthcoming Christmas festivities and the school holidays which we looked forward to with eager anticipation. I left Athy in January 1961, spending years in several different towns including Monaghan town, not too far away from Ballybay. I found Monaghan folk to be friendly and helpful and on my return to Athy 21 years later I found Mrs. Anna Duthie displaying the same qualities. During the 1960s and the 1970s I returned to Athy on a regular basis and got to know Anna’s husband Albert. I shared with him an appreciation of all that is good in Athy and Albert shared with me his efforts to highlight the story of his native town. He did this by frequently photographing events and buildings in Athy and also by commissioning the town’s coat of arms which he used on various items sold in his shop. Albert sadly passed away in 1979 at 54 years of age and Anna who had celebrated with him their silver wedding jubilee a year previously would spend the next 45 years without her loving partner. Anna Duthie, like her late husband Albert, always exhibited a great interest in and appreciation of all things Athy. She was a wonderful help to me in relation to unravelling the history of the Presbyterian Church in Athy and always displayed a willingness to share with me information on different aspects of Athy’s story in which generations of the Duthie family once played a prominent part. Anna was particularly helpful in the making of arrangements which saw the first performance of John MacKenna’s Oratorio ‘Still and Distant Voices’ in the Presbyterian Church in the early 1990s. This work which remembered and commemorated the young Athy men who died in World War I was perhaps one of the first times that this long-forgotten aspect of Athy’s history was brought to the public’s attention. Following her husband’s untimely passing Anna Duthie continued the business at 30 Leinster Street. Duthie’s, as it was known by the local people, was an important part of the commercial streetscape of Athy, presided over by the ever friendly and kind lady behind the counter. Anna Duthie continued in business until she retired in 2013 at 89 years of age. I believe that the Duthie family name first appeared in Athy when William Thomas Duthie’s parents arrived here from Perthshire, Scotland with other Scottish families in the early 1850s. It was William Thomas Duthie’s brother James who partnered with Harry Large of Rheban to establish the firm of Duthie Larges. That firm, once a substantial employer in Athy, is no more and the final Duthie link with Athy has now been severed with the sad passing of Anna Edith Duthie. Last Tuesday family and friends gathered in the Presbyterian Church on the Dublin Road for Anna’s funeral service conducted by Rev. Stephen Rea. Anna’s son Alistair and daughter Heather spoke fondly of their mother and father reminding us of a happy family life and Anna’s passion for nature, especially flowers. Anna Duthie and her husband Albert will be remembered with fondness, especially by the older generations in Athy until as John Ellerton wrote ‘The day you gave us, Lord, is ended’.

Rev. Nicholas Ashe and Athy in time of Rebellion 1798

In August 1782, the Irish antiquarian Austin Cooper, following a visit to Athy, wrote “Athy is a small town situated on the River Barrow over which there is a bridge of arches with a small square castle adjoining on the east side. Here is a market house, church and county Courthouse, nothing remarkable in elegance of building. On the north west side of the town is a plain horse barracks and near it another castle”. Two hundred and forty years later all that remains of the buildings mentioned by Cooper is a much altered town hall (then the courthouse) Whites Castle and Woodstock Castle. Also gone are the many small private schools which were a common feature of Irish towns in the 18th and early 19th centuries. One such school was that of Nicholas Ashe where we find a mention in 1791 of one of his pupils, Thomas Lefroy, who would become the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Nicholas Ashe was a Church of England Minister who served as Sovereign of Athy following his election to that position in 1797. I am uncertain as to whether Ashe was a member of Athy Borough Council in 1792 when a measure of relief for Irish Catholics from some elements of the penal laws was proposed in the Irish Parliament. Those measures which eventually culminated in the Catholic Relief Act of 1793 were supported by the Duke of Leinster which prompted the Protestant members of Athy Borough Council to instruct their two parliamentary representatives to oppose the relief Bill. Rev. Nicholas Ashe appears from all accounts to have been a man of peace who found himself the subject of harsh treatment by the local yeomanry. Local yeomanry corps were formed after 1796 with membership confined almost exclusively to Protestants. Athy had two yeomanry units, the infantry and the cavalry. The Athy cavalry was formed in 1796 and was officered by Thomas Fitzgerald, a Catholic from Geraldine House, Athy although the corps was largely comprised of local Protestant gentry. The cavalry unit was disbanded in 1798 following the arrest of Thomas Fitzgerald and a humiliating standing down ceremony in Emily Square. This was done during Nicholas Ashe’s time as the town Sovereign. Some months earlier in January 1798 Ashe had written to the Duke of Leinster expressing his concerns at a possible rebel outbreak following claims of an ammunition plot. He expressed the hope that Athy would not be proclaimed and reported how he had liberated boat men arrested and detained by the local army commander. He wrote “Athy proved it’s loyalty last year by entertaining 1100 men over night and giving them money and provisions to assist them on their march to Bantry”. In that same letter Ashe recounted some of the acts of terrorism by members of the 9th Dragoons who were stationed in the local calvary barracks and also by the Cork Loyal Militia who had recently arrived in the town. A few weeks later Ashe forwarded a further letter to the Duke of Leinster expressing shame that while standing alone “against a most virulent party I suffer more than I can express”. In his attempts as town Sovereign not to have Athy proclaimed he had directed that all shops were to shut at 9.00pm. However a Mr. Willock who he claimed “pretended great loyalty to the King and aversion to papists kept his shop open in defiance”. He expressed annoyance at Willock’s action and that of his co religionist Carey – “two Protestants I never saw in church”. Ashe having discovered that Willock sold without licence had him committed to the local jail whereupon Willock hung out his hat with a paper on it which read “Willock was put in jail for his loyalty”. Ashe was extremely upset at what he described as the atrocities committed by the soldiers and having complained about their behaviour found himself “a victim to their malice”. The Duke of Leinster passed on Ashe’s complaint to Sir Ralph Abercromby, Commandeering Chief of the army, who promised to send another regiment into County Kildare. In the meantime Nicholas Ashe complained that his school was destroyed but despite this he continued to seek a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict between the authorities and the Irish rebels. Because he was successful in securing the surrender of a large number of pikes in the Athy area the local army commander felt that Ashe must have had links with the rebels and so quartered sixty soldiers with him. As a result the Reverend gentleman was so impoverished that the Duke of Leinster claimed “Ashe was obliged to do his duty as the magistrate in the streets in his slippers”. The brutal and systematic suppression of the people of Athy during 1798 was not confined to one religious group. Reverend Nicholas Ashe, Anglican churchman, first citizen of Athy in 1798 and a man of peace was victimised by local loyalists because of his attempts to advance what he described in his letters as “truth and humanity”. FRANK TAAFFE

Quakers and the Quaker Meeting House in Athy

This year we celebrate the centenary of the establishment of the civic guards later named the Garda Siochana. The new Irish police force was founded following the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary and in its early years by and large followed the RIC organisational structure. Like the RIC the early civic guards were armed. On the 17th of August 1922 the last RIC men left Dublin Castle to be replaced by civic guards. The first recruits to the civic guards were paid three pounds and three shillings per week and even as they entered the service they were regarded with suspicion by the anti treaty side. Indeed Austin Stack, the former minister for home affairs stated that the setting up of the force was not calculated to promote order but rather suspicion, discontent and disorder. Recruits to the civic guards had to have specific height and chest measurements and most significantly had to have a reference from a clergy man. This latter requirement must have continued for some years as my father, a farmers son from north County Longford when he joined the gardai in 1925 did so on foot of a reference given by his Parish priest, Fr. . By 1924 they were 6,300 members of the force which by virtue of the Garda Siochana (temporary provisions) Act 1923 were now officially called “Garda Siochana”. When the first contingent of the newly appointed civic guards arrived in Athy was until recent times uncertain. The late Sergeant John Shaw who joined the civic guards on the 17th of August 1922 wrote to me from Portarlington in September 1980. In that letter he wrote that on the 15th of August 1922 civic guards were sent to Portarlington, Monasterevin, Rathanagan and as far as he knew Athy in order to protect the railway lines and the canal routes to Dublin. He also referenced an incident in Athy on the 26th of August of that year when armed civil guards disarmed C.I.D. men in the town. Another piece of information he passed on to me in that letter was that Sergeant Duggan, who was then the local Sergeant charged three men in a special Court on the 23rd of September. The nature of the offence was not stated but it may have arisen as a result of an armed attack on the premises which was then occupied by the civic guards. I also have a copy letter written by the same Sergeant William Duggan in 1950 which confirms that the civic guards took up duty in Athy on the 15th of August 1922 but he also explains that prior to that a party of 16 armed civic guards were stationed at a protection post in Bert. This I assume resulted from ongoing land disputes in the area resulting from evictions on the versicle estate. Sergeant Duggan’s letter names the 16 men as Michael O’Connor, Peter Curley, Thomas Concannon, Joseph Walton, John Kelly, Joseph McNamara, John Ryan, Michael Summers, Patrick Fitzgerald, John O’Neill, James Dwyer, John Hanley, Peter Tracey, Thomas Kirwan, Michael Hassett and Sergeant William Duggan. The police records once retained at divisional level at An Garda Siochana showed that the first Sergeant in Athy was Coriolanus Lillis who was replaced by Sergeant Ed. O’Loughlin on the 1st of May 1924 who in turn was replaced by Sergeant William Duggan (the letter writer) on the 1st of August 1924. When the civic guards first arrived in Athy they were accommodated in the Town Hall before transferring to the old RIC barracks off in Barrack Lane after it was vacated by the free state army. When the barracks was attacked and damaged during the civil war the police men moved to a hotel in Leinster Street. Sergeant Duggan claimed that it was the Leinster Arms Hotel. However I have a note of being informed many years ago that the hotel in question was the Hibernian Hotel which is now Bradbury’s premises. This year the centenary of the founding of An Garda Siochana is being marked by various events throughout the country. Athy’s Art Centre will be the venue for a lecture on the history of An Garda Siochana with particular reference to Athy as part of a history lecture series which starts on Tuesday, 20th September. Details of that lecture will be published later. The first lecture on the 20th of September will be given by Nessa O’Mara Cardiff on the Barrowhouse ambush in which James Connor and William Lacey lost their lives. This lecture and all the future lectures are free and will be held in the Arts Centre at Woodstock Street.

Early years of Garda Siochana in Athy

This year we celebrate the centenary of the establishment of the Civic Guards later named the Garda Siochana. The new Irish police force was founded following the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary and in it’s early years by and large followed the RIC organisational structure. Like the R.I.C. the early Civic Guards were armed. On the 17th of August 1922 the last R.I.C. men left Dublin Castle to be replaced by the newly appointed Irish police men. The first recruits to the Civic Guards were paid three pounds and three shillings per week and even as they entered the service they were regarded with suspicion by the anti treaty side. Indeed Austin Stack, the former Minister for Home Affairs stated that the setting up of the force was not calculated to promote order but rather suspicion, discontent and disorder. Recruits to the Civic Guards had to have specific height and chest measurements and most significantly had to have a reference from a clergy man. This latter requirement must have continued for some years as my father, a farmers son from north County Longford when he joined the gardai in 1925 did so on foot of a reference given by his Parish priest, Fr. E. Mahon. By 1924 they were 6,300 members of the force which by virtue of the Garda Siochana (Temporary Provisions) Act 1923 were now officially called “Garda Siochana”. When the first contingent of the newly appointed Civic Guards arrived in Athy is still uncertain. The late Sergeant John Shaw who joined the force on the 17th of August 1922 wrote to me from Portarlington in September 1980. In that letter he wrote that on the 15th of August 1922 Civic Guards were sent to Portarlington, Monasterevin, Rathanagan and as far as he knew Athy in order to protect the railway lines and the canal routes to Dublin. He also referenced an incident in Athy on the 26th of August of that year when armed Civic Guards disarmed C.I.D. men in the town. Another piece of information he passed on to me in that letter was that Sergeant Duggan, whom he claimed was then the Athy Sergeant charged three men in a special Court on the 23rd of September. The nature of the offence was not stated but it may have arisen as a result of an armed attack on the premises which was then occupied by the Civic Guards. I also have a copy letter written by the same Sergeant William Duggan in 1950 which confirms that the Civic Guards took up duty in Athy on the 15th of August 1922 but he also explains that prior to that a party of 16 armed Civic Guards were stationed at a protection post in Bert. This I assume was because of ongoing land disputes in the area resulting from evictions on the Verschoyle estate. Sergeant Duggan’s letter names the 16 men as Michael O’Connor, Peter Curley, Thomas Concannon, Joseph Walton, John Kelly, Joseph McNamara, John Ryan, Michael Somers, Patrick Fitzgerald, John O’Neill, James Dwyer, John Hanley, Peter Tracey, Thomas Kirwan, Michael Hassett and himself. The police records once retained at divisional level in the An Garda Siochana showed that the first Sergeant in Athy was Cornelius Lillis who was replaced by Sergeant Ed. O’Loughlin on the 1st of May 1924 and who in turn was replaced by Sergeant William Duggan (the letter writer) on the 1st of August 1924. Sergeant Lillis was accompanied by Civic Guards John Hanley, John Kelly, Patrick Fitzgerald and Joseph McNamara. The records retained by the Garda Siochana, particularly relating to its early years are not as complete as one might expect. The records from which I gleaned the information relating to Sergeant Lillis and his successors were compiled in 1930. When the civic guards first arrived in Athy I understand they were accommodated in the Town Hall before transferring to the old RIC barracks off in Barrack Lane after it was vacated by the Free State army. It has been claimed that the policemen left the old R.I.C. barracks after it had been attacked by anti-treaty forces. I have been unable to verify this although I have an unverified note of an I.R.A. active service unit being caught up in crossfire in August 1922 during an attack on the police barracks in Athy. The police men later moved to a hotel in Leinster Street. Sergeant Duggan claimed that it was the Leinster Arms Hotel. However I have a note of being informed many years ago that the hotel in question was the Hibernian Hotel which is now Bradbury’s premises. This year the centenary of the founding of An Garda Siochana is being marked by various events throughout the country. Athy’s Art Centre will be the venue for a lecture on the history of An Garda Siochana with particular reference to Athy as part of a history lecture series which starts on Tuesday, 20th September at 8pm. Details of the Garda Siochana lecture will be published later. The first lecture on the 20th of September will be given by Nessa O’Mara Cardiff on the Barrowhouse ambush in which James Connor and William Lacey lost their lifes. This lecture and all the future lectures are free and will be held in the Arts Centre at Woodstock Street. FRANK TAAFFE

Annual Remembrance Sunday Service4 in St. Michael's Cemetery and the Casual Trading Byelaws passed by Kildare County Council

The annual Remembrance Sunday ceremony for the men from Athy who died during World War I will take place in St. Michael’s old cemetery on Sunday, 9th November commencing at 3pm. It was approximately 35 years ago when the novelist John MacKenna, David Walsh (now Athy correspondent for this newspaper) and myself arranged the first Remembrance Sunday event in St. Michael’s Cemetery. That first year’s attendance largely consisted of members of our own families. It was around the same time that a weekend of remembrance took place which featured a World War I exhibition in the museum in the Town Hall and a performance by the Mend and Makedo Theatre Company of ‘The Fallen’, a voice play of the Great War by John MacKenna. This was held in the Town Hall on Saturday evening and on the following day, which was Remembrance Sunday, a ceremony for the laying of crosses on World War I graves in St. Michael’s Cemetery took place. In the afternoon a series of lectures were held in the Town Hall on World War I themes. These included ‘The British Army and the Curragh Camp 1855-1922’ given by Con Costello, ‘Kildare Casualties in World War I’ by Pat Casey and ‘Men of the Dublin Fusiliers Killed in World War I’ by Kevin Myers. The final lectures were ‘The Forgotten Women of World War I’ by Josephine Cashman and Jane Leonard’s lecture on ‘How Catholic Ireland Commemorated World War I’. Following the start of World War I the ranks of the National Volunteers in Athy were heavily depleted. This was because so many Athy men having enlisted in the National Volunteers accepted John Redmond’s advice to join the British Army and thereby guarantee Home Rule. The National Volunteers were formed in the South Kildare town on 9th May 1914, followed two months later by the setting up of a local branch of Cumann na mBan. In August 1914 Athy youth group ‘Fianna Eireann’ was established in the town. Apart from the Athy casualties in the First World War casualties also occurred in Ireland during the War of Independence and the Civil War. The first I.R.A. casualty in this area was John Byrne who suffered fatal burns while part of an I.R.A. group attacking Luggacurran R.I.C. barracks on 20th April 1920. Three months later Athy Courthouse was burned down by a lone I.R.A. attacker whose actions were not authorised and who found himself court martialled as a result. The ambush at Barrowhouse on 16th May 1921 resulted in the killing of I.R.A. Volunteers William Connor and James Lacey. The Civil War, which would start with the seizure of the Four Courts in Dublin on 13th April 1922 and lasted for 14 months, saw more casualties in the South Kildare area than in the almost 3½ years of the War of Independence. Thomas Dunne was killed in Castledermot on 16th May 1922, while Laurence Sweeney and Sylvester Sheppard died on the same day, 5th July 1922. Sweeney was killed in Castledermot and Sheppard died in an ambush at Grangemellon. The Graney ambush of 24th October 1922 resulted in the killing of three young Free State soldiers, Edward Byrne, Patrick Allison and James Murphy. I am prompted to suggest that Remembrance Sunday commemorations in the future should be extended to include remembrance not only of Athy’s dead in World War I, but also those who died in our War of Independence and the subsequent Civil War. What do you think? On Tuesday last Kildare County Council published a notice advising of the making of Casual Trading Byelaws for the municipal district of Athy. I was one of several persons who on the published invitation of the Senior Executive Officer of the Corporate Services Department of Kildare County Council, filed a submission with the Council regarding the proposed Byelaws. In essence, my submission favoured the retention of the existing market rights which were granted by Henry VIII but repositioning them in part in the Back Square and the lands attached to the former Abbey house. I was surprised not to receive any acknowledgement of my submission and even more surprised that the final decision of the Council was not communicated to persons, who like myself, made submissions. I am awaiting a copy of the Casual Trading Byelaws 2025 as approved by the five Councillors of Athy Municipal Council on 20th October. It would appear that the Council have effectively attempted to kill off the Tuesday market by requiring stallholders to have public liability insurance as well as valid Tax Clearance Certificates. The Market Byelaws review was in my opinion an opportunity for the Council to improve the market, which generations of Athy folk stretching back over 500 years have enjoyed. It is a pity that the County Council did not take that opportunity rather than kill it off with a series of bureaucratic requirements. I will write further about this in next week’s article as questions may arise about the legality of the decisions made by or on behalf of Kildare County Council. In the meantime, I note a comment on social media claiming that four Municipal Councillors attended the meeting which passed the Parking Byelaws, while one Councillor in attendance abstained. Do you know who they were?

Athy's G.F.C. Victory in 2025 Senior County Championship Final and Memories of past victories

What a wonderful victory Athy Senior footballers achieved over the footballers of Naas in the Kildare Senior Championship Final of 2025. The Naas champions had won the County Final for the previous four years and were understandably firm favourites to add a fifth consecutive championship title to their record. Athy last played Naas in a Senior County Championship final which was played on the 4th May 1924 in Newbridge. Naas won on that occasion scoring 2:5 against the Athy teams’ failure to raise a green or white flag during the game. I was puzzled when I first saw the scoreline knowing that Athy had won the Junior Championship in 1907 and lost the junior title final in 1913 to Naas by four points. My puzzlement was understandable when one considers the good footballers who played for Athy in that 1923 Senior Final. Players such as Eddie ‘Sapper’ O’Neill who later captained a New York team which defeated All Ireland Champions Kerry. ‘Sapper’, it was claimed, was also a sub on the County Kildare Senior team defeated in the 1919 All Ireland. He continued to play for the County until April 1923. Myra Grant, Jim Clancy, Tom Forrestal and the Moore brothers Tom and John, all good players, were also members of the Athy team in 1924. Michael Mahon who also played that day is believed to have been a sub on the 1919 All Ireland winning Kildare County team. The 1923 County Final defeat remains a mystery, and it is perhaps explained in a subsequent press report which read ‘The performance of the Athy Jazz Band who paraded in fancy dress before the match was more memorable than that of the injury hit football team.’ That defeat of almost 100 years ago is now laid to rest with Athy’s wonderful victory in Newbridge last week. I have not so far been able to confirm Michael Mahon’s All Ireland medal which I’m told was given to a relation who lived in Kilcullen after he emigrated to America. If Michael’s All Ireland medal is confirmed, he was one of only two Athy Club players to have possibly won Senior All Ireland medals prior to last Sunday. This year’s Athy Championship winning team included an All-Ireland winner in Cathal McCarron who played for Tyrone in the successful All Ireland Championship win of 2008. Cathal, who was a defender on the Athy team on Sunday, played a hugely important part in Athy’s victory scoring two points from play. Another All-Ireland medal holder was Brian Smith, a member of the Louth All Ireland Winning Team of 1957 who lived and worked in Athy for a number of years. However, he played his local football with Castlemitchell. Unfortunately, we don’t have any local All Ireland medal holders except possibly the earlier mentioned Eddie ‘Sapper’ O’Neill and Michael Mahon. We do, however, have wonderful footballers, many of whom have family links with previous generations who also played with Athy. In my article which appeared a week or so before this year’s final, I referred to those family connections. Amongst those I mentioned was Pat Dunne, a member of the Athy management team. Pat’s grand uncle Barney Dunne was the winner of four Senior County Championship medals while playing for Athy in the 1930’s. His teammate Paul Matthews was also the winner of four Championship medals although I was not aware of this until quite recently. Both men, now deceased, were important leaders of the Athy Senior teams during the club’s goldens age of the 1930s which saw Athy win Senior Championship Finals in 1933, 1934, 1937 and 1942. The Athy club subsequently went through lean years which saw Athy defeated in the opening rounds of the Senior County Championships every year between 1947 and 1953. The club lost it’s senior status soon afterwards and would play at junior and intermediate level for some years. The club would wait for 45 years to win another Senior Championship with a win in the 1987 final when the team led by Mick Fennelly beat Johnstown Bridge on the score 2:9 to 0:9. The next time we saw success was in 2011 when the Athy team was captained by Michael Foley, an All Star player, followed by a welcome victory in 2020 when the team Captain was David Hyland who also captained this year’s team. The family links between the members of this year’s winning team and past teams is well defined and recognised. One such link is that of young Colm Moran whose father also called Colm played for Athy and County Kildare for many years. I mention Colm Junior because of his extraordinary scoring record in the quarter finals of this year’s Championship when he scored an incredible three goals and eight points. Congratulations to all the players on the Athy football panel, whether you played in the final or not. You were all an important part of the team throughout the Championship and during training. Congratulations also to the team’s management of Conor Ronan, Paddy Dunne, Ross Bell and James Eaton.

Provision of escalator at Athy Railway Station reminds us of fatal accident at the Station on 5 February, 1884

Work on the escalator to facilitate rail passengers changing platforms at Athy Railway Station seems to be complete. It is the latest improvement to the railway station which was first opened in 1846 with the arrival of a through train on its journey from Dublin to Carlow. For some time in the latter part of the 19th century the local railway station had considerable trouble with newsboys, amongst whom there was great rivalry and who were constantly attempting to cross the railway lines on the arrival of newspaper trains from Dublin. On 5th February 1884 tragedy struck at Athy Railway Station when a young news vendor was killed while attempting to cross the tracks. At that time the station had no footbridge, forcing persons to climb down onto the railway lines to reach the opposite platform. Local newspapers reported the accident and noted that local outrage reached Westminster Parliament where the matter was raised on 4th March 1886. The President of the Board of Trade confirmed to his fellow Parliamentarians that a footbridge was already being erected at the Athy Station. It came too late for 20-year-old John Hamilton who was killed by the Kilkenny train within 20 yards of the railway bridge at approximately 5 minutes to 9 on the morning of Friday, 5th February 1884. He suffered serious injuries and was immediately brought to the station’s first-class waiting room where he was attended by the two local doctors, Dr. Patrick O’Neill, Dr. Kilbride and F.J. Minchin, a local chemist. The injured man’s right arm was amputated while in the waiting room, following which he was transferred to the local workhouse infirmary that evening. He died on Saturday night and the inquest into his death was held in the Workhouse Master’s Office the following Monday afternoon. Dr. Patrick O’Neill, who was Coroner for South Kildare, and also physician and surgeon to the workhouse, was legally incapacitated from acting as Coroner on this occasion and Dr. Smith, Coroner for North Kildare, sas appointed in his place. The Coroners Court heard that as the Dublin train arrived with newspapers, John Hamilton attempted to cross the railway lines as the train was entering the station. Hamilton was seemingly unaware of the approach of the Kilkenny train which struck him. Sergeant Griffin of the local R.I.C. gave evidence of being at the railway station on Friday morning. He was standing on the steps leading to the platform and the station master, Mr. J. O’Connor, was near him. As the train from Dublin was coming into the station the deceased was standing on the steps a few feet in front of him. When the train arrived Hamilton ran to get behind it after one or two of the carriages had passed. Hamilton was obliged to go down to the platform to get behind the train. As the Kilkenny train arrived Sergeant Griffin saw Hamilton wavering on the edge of the platform and stooping forward as if he could not recover himself. He fell forward and the train buffer struck Hamilton before he got on the rail tracks. The Coroner said he understood the deceased was a poor lad and the only support of his mother. It was a wonder to him that more deaths did not occur. It seemed strange, he said, that a very important and a prosperous town like Athy should not be treated in a more liberal way by the railway company. The jury, the foreman of which was T. Byrne, Town Commissioner, gave as its verdict ‘that the deceased John Hamilton died from paralysis caused by a blow from the buffer of the railway engine at Athy station on Friday, 5th February. We consider that the railway company have not at present provided proper provision for the protection of life at Athy station and that therefore a bridge crossing should be erected without delay.’ The proposal to build a foot bridge at Athy station was apparently before the Directors of the Railway Company for a considerable period and we are told that soon following the accident a contract was entered into for the erection of a foot bridge. The bridge was constructed in Germiston, Glasgow by the Arrol Brothers Iron Works and installed at Athy station sometime in 1886. Another Arrol link with Athy is the Arrol Johnson motor car of 1903 vintage which is on display in the Shackleton Museum. John Hamilton, having died in the local workhouse, was more than likely buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery where he rests in an unmarked grave amongst hundreds of deceased workhouse inmates and a lesser number of deceased patients from St. Vincent’s Hospital.

Clonmullion A.F.C., Grangenolvin G.F.C. and Athy G.F.C. - Winners All

Sport wise it has been a remarkably good few weeks for clubs in south Kildare. Clonmullion A.F.C. are once again Lumsden Cup champions after a two goal to one goal victory over Kildare town. The club, founded in 1995, has brought professionalism to the playing of soccer which has attracted praise and excited supporters for quite some time. I recall writing an article some years ago on Clunmullion’s key player, Cody Mulhall, who continues to play and star with the club. He has been joined by many other excellent players who have combined to make the club one of the best provincial soccer clubs in the midlands. Our neighbours, Grangenolvin Gaelic Football Club, recently won the Junior Championship final. I visited the Grangenolvin club grounds recently to watch two of my granddaughters play in a Gaelic football match. I was impressed by the playing facilities in Grangenolvin, even if to my disappointment the local team were obliterated by a very skilful Leixlip team. I could not but recall three great Grangenolvin players of the past who are still remembered by older generations. Mick Carolan, whose first appearance on the Kildare senior team was in 1958 in the N.F.L. divisional final played in Carlow against Tipperary, was a Grangenolvin club member. Other superb footballers from the same club were the late Johnny Morrissey who sadly passed away at a relatively young age and the late Johnny Miller. An unusual aspect of this year’s Grangenolvin winning team was the number of brothers on the team and on the panel. The four Bergins, Oran, Cillian, Fionn and Conall, were joined by two Doyles, two Cullens, two Dooleys and two Bowens, making what I believe is a unique team combination. Indeed, I doubt if there is any Gaelic team in rural Ireland consisting of four brothers who have won a championship final. The man of the match award went to Conall Bergin. St. Laurence’s Gaelic Football Club clenched their first title since 2016 when the club’s ladies won the Kildare L.G.F.A. senior title. At the same time the club’s men’s footballers qualified for the intermediate final against Sallins. The club won it’s first Kildare senior football title in 2009 after losing four senior finals between 1982 and 2005. Athy Gaelic senior players’ success against Sarsfields in this year’s county championship semi-final was perhaps the story of the week, for an Athy ‘blow in’ at least. Athy faces Naas in the final, with the latter club chasing five in a row county titles, which undoubtedly puts Naas in the position of favourites to win out. Let’s hope the young Colm Moran who scored a whopping 3 goals and 8 points in the quarter final is at the top of his form. Colm’s father, also named Colm, played in the Kildare County team and was on the Athy team which won the championship in 1987. Also on the 1987 winning team was Sean McGovern, whose two sons, Shane and Liam, feature on this year’s panel, as do Niall, Barry and Brian Kelly, whose father Joe also won a championship medal alongside Sean McGovern. Ben Purcell is a son of Shane Purcell and Tony Gibbons’ father, of the same name as the player, completes the link between the winning team of 1987 and the finalists, hopefully the winners, of 2025. David Hyland, who captained the 2020 winning Athy team, and who captains this year’s team, is joined on the Athy senior team by his brother Mark. The team management consists of Ross Bell, Conor Ronan, James Eaton and Patrick Dunne, all of whom won senior champion medals in 2011. Patrick is the grand-nephew of the legendary Barney Dunne who was the only Athy player to win four senior championship medals while playing for Athy in the 1930s. Two of the most famous footballers who played for Athy were the late Danny Flood and Mick Carolan. Mick had started at juvenile level for Athy and was on the Athy team which won the minor championship in 1956 and the league in 1957. He was selected for the county senior team in 1957 and remained a county team member until 1974. He made 134 county appearances for Kildare seniors over 17 years and played alongside Athy players Danny Flood, Brendan Kehoe, Liam O’Shea and Mick Coughlan. He won two Railway Cup medals with Leinster, but sadly did not win a Leinster medal playing on the losing Kildare teams in 1966 and three subsequent Leinster finals. The Athy club was in the doldrums for much of Mick’s football career, but he assisted the club to regain club status in 1974. Mick also played for Grangenolvin for a short period and was perhaps the most famous footballer ever to don the Grangenolvin jersey. It's a remarkable sporting coincidence which sees four sporting clubs from South Kildare doing so well this year. The Clonmullion Soccer Club are well accustomed to winning trophies but for Athy G.F.C., St. Laurence’s G.F.C. and Grangenolvin G.F.C. it is not a regular feature. Let’s hope the Gods are kind to Athy on the day of the final as I write this article a few days before the match is played. Good luck to David Hyland and his team mates.

The story of Athy's Museum Society and the establishment of the Shackleton Museum

On Friday, 10th October at 11.00 a.m., the Shackleton Museum will officially be opened by the Minister for Rural Community Development and the Gaeltacht Dara Calleary T.D. whose Department provided substantial funding for the redevelopment of the Town Hall. It was in February 1983 that a public meeting, called for the courthouse, resulted in the setting up of Athy’s Museum Society. The vast majority of those who attended that meeting and who paid the membership fee of ten pounds each are no longer with us. It is important that the names of those original members of Athy Museum Society should be recorded and their contribution to the development of our understanding of Athy’s cultural and heritage past be acknowledged. Those persons who came together over forty years ago were Pat Mulhall, Ger Moriarty, Dick Norris, Patsy O’Neill, Mick Rowan, Megan Maguire, Frank English, Pat Doyle, Noreen Ryan, Denis Smyth, Joe May, Thomas Prendergast, Donal Murphy, Michael Wall and Jack Lawler. Following a lecture in the Leinster Arms Hotel on the 21st March 1983, further locals joined the Society including Tommy Keegan, Ken Sale, Dermot Murphy, John Mahon and his family, Claire Behan, Jens Priesler and his wife May. The above are the people who gave their support when it was most needed, for without their support there would have been no heritage town status, no museum in the various venues used over the years and certainly no Shackleton Museum. The contribution of Kildare County Council officials cannot be overlooked. It was Gerry Ward, Kildare County Manager, who in response to my letter replied on the 20th July 1983 confirming that he was prepared to recommend to the Council that a room in the Town Hall be made available to the Museum Society. He proved true to his word for some years later the Town Hall caretaker’s accommodation became free and the Society’s Museum, which up to then was located in a vacant classroom of Mount St. Mary’s, transferred to the Town Hall building. The kindness of the Sisters of Mercy in providing the Mount St. Mary’s room free of charge must be acknowledged. The Museum Society’s involvement in obtaining ‘Heritage Town’ status for Athy is well known, as was the use by the Society and Kildare County Council of the monies then awarded by the Department in the redevelopment of the ground floor of the Town Hall. It was at this stage of the Museum’s development that the Museum Society, a voluntary organisation, gave way to a company limited by guarantee, Athy Heritage Company Limited. It’s Directors were still volunteers. It was those volunteers, who in conjunction with the Shackleton Autumn School, embarked on the next stage of the Museum’s development as the Shackleton Museum. Going through my papers, I was interested to find reports from Patrick Shaffrey, Architect and Town Planner, and another report from Paul Kane, Consulting Engineer regarding Athy’s Town Hall. The Shaffrey Report dated September 1982 showed his concern that the building ‘now presents a rather sorry appearance’ and that ‘the demolition of such a fine building would be a sad and irreplaceable loss to the architectural heritage of Athy and would change radically the appearance of the centre of the town.’ The Kane Structural Report sought by the local branch of An Taisce noted that while the building had deteriorated while occupied by the fire brigade and Athy Urban District Council, it was generally structurally sound with minor problems, all related to the maintenance of the roof. It is quite possible that use of the Town Hall as a Heritage Centre and later on as a Museum saved the Town Hall because Athy Urban District Council had previously discussed its demolition to create more parking spaces in the town centre. Throughout this article, I have consistently referred to the Shackleton Museum, although Kildare County Council now reference the ‘Shackleton Experience’. To me it will always be the Shackleton Museum. Despite this, I must acknowledge the excellent work done by several heads of Kildare County Council in relation to the museum. First amongst those officials was the late Gerry Ward, County Manager, who believed in the Museums Society’s drive for a museum in Athy and who helped whenever he could. Peter Carey, whom I invited to open the Shackleton Autumn School soon after he took up the position of C.E.O. of Kildare County Council, was extremely helpful and facilitated the financing and erection of the Shackleton statue, the purchase of the ship cabin in which Shackleton died, and several other Shackleton artefacts which now form part of the museum’s display material. The current Chief Executive, Sonya Kavanagh, and her senior staff took the opportunity to take over responsibility of financing and running the Shackleton Museum from the volunteers who had held administrative control for over forty years. The journey which started in February 1983 continues today. Sadly, many of the men and women I have mentioned earlier who shared a dream did not live to see this day.

Lions Club Book Fair and the closure of Bradbury's Bakery

I have been attending book fairs for many years and I have always enjoyed the experience. I never dreamed that Athy would become a book fair venue, but it has now become a favourite provincial town fair due to the initiative of Athy’s Lion’s Club. The club which has given us the Lion's Club book shop almost 16 years ago joined the book fair organisation three years ago. We have now held two book fairs a year since then, availing of the exceptional facilities in Athy’s Recreational Community Hall on the Kilkenny Road. Our next book fair takes place on Saturday, 4th October from 11am to 4pm. Insert logo: Of particular interest to Athy readers is the range of local publications which will be on sale at the book fair. These include Volumes 2, 3 and 4 of ‘Eye on Athy’s Past’, together with the following, all written by Frank Taaffe. CHRISTIAN BROTHERS ATHY 1861 – 1994 150 YEARS OF CARING – A HISTORY OF ST. VINCENT’S HOSPITAL, ATHY EYE ON ATHY’S PAST VOL. 2 EYE ON ATHY’S PAST VOL. 3 EYE ON ATHY’S PAST VOL. 4 ATHY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL ATHY GOLF CLUB 1906 – 2006 WHO FEARS TO SPEAK OF ’98 Athy Lion’s Club is the owner of the A.R.C.H. which was initially purchased many years ago by St. Michael’s Parish and the Lion’s Club. In recent years the parish gifted its share of the ownership to the Lion’s Club and the Club arranged for improvements to be carried out on the early 1960s dance hall which many of us will remember as Dreamland Ballroom. I hope to see a big crowd at the book fair on Saturday next. I just learned that Bradbury’s of Leinster Street will no longer operate a bakery which was started by the present owner’s father, Tom Bradbury, in 1938. The Bradbury cakes were very famous during my young days in Offaly Street. In 1988 the famous bakery, then located in a new factory on the Kildare Road, closed down. However, in late 1988 Johnny Bradbury and his wife Clare purchased the Bradbury business in Leinster Street and re-opened the baker there later that year. The closure of Bradbury’s bakery is a sad loss to Athy.

Grave Memorials in St. Michael's Cemetery Athy

It’s almost 40 years ago when with the assistance of FAS, the Industrial Training Authority, I organised a project intended to record all the headstones and grave memorials in the original St. Michael’s Cemetery. Regretfully it was a project which was not completed until many years later. The mammoth task of recording and mapping all the memorials in St. Michael’s Cemetery was eventually done by Michael Donovan, who is one of the unsung heroes of Athy and South Kildare. Michael has devoted many years of his life to recording cemetery memorials, not only in and around the immediate environs of Athy, but also further afield. To date he has completed 42 graveyard surveys, the results of which will be handed over to Kildare County Council to be made available to the general public. For many years tombstone inscriptions were an untapped source of Irish genealogy. They were largely unnoticed, except by those looking for obituary details. The work of copying tombstone inscriptions requires patience and attention to detail and Michael Donovan has spent years in recording memorial inscriptions and by doing so preserving for future generations details of families whose names are no longer familiar to us. He has also photographed the memorials and to date for the 42 cemeteries surveyed he has amassed a collection of almost 6,000 photographs. These, together with the mapping and numbering of graves in the cemetery surveys, ensure the ready identification of the location of every memorial. Grave memorials are an important part of a community’s heritage. They record lives from the past and the various types of monuments or memorials represent in many cases Irish folk art which has survived over the years. A headstone is the only piece of sculpture that most people will ever commission. In Victorian times cemeteries for the rich were gardens of stone, while the buried poor were seldom marked or noted. The local iron foundries provided metal crosses, many of which can still be seen in St. Michael’s Cemetery. The most common iron memorial comprised a cross within a circle with space for a painted inscription. Unfortunately these memorials tend to lose their painted inscription after some years. St. Mary’s Cemetery, where the remains of Workhouse inmates were laid, had quite a number of metal crosses, all of which regrettably were in recent years removed from the graves they marked. In St. Michael’s Cemetery and St. John’s Cemetery, which Michael has also surveyed, there are many fine examples of altar tombs and chest tombs. In St. John’s Cemetery he discovered a small gravestone, previously unrecorded, marking the grave of William Watson who died in 1637. Tankardstown graveyard, which surrounds the original Tankardstown Parish Church, has two 17th century memorials. Throughout St. Michael’s Cemetery can be found many elaborate monuments, mostly the work of 19th century carvers and stone masons. The practice of erecting headstone memorials did not develop until the latter part of the 18th century. Before that many graves were not marked, or if they were it was by footstones, so called as they were small plain stones placed at the bottom of graves. The Shackleton Museum holds two medieval grave slabs, believed to be of the 14th century, which were removed from St. Michael’s Cemetery for safekeeping some years ago. Monumental inscriptions to be found in St. Michael’s cemetery are generally of the genealogical epitaph type where family relationships and dates of birth are outlined. Michael has also recorded interesting supplementary details, generally quotations of a religious nature. One interesting grave memorial located within the medieval church, known locally as ‘the Crickeen’, reads:- ‘This venerable and justly loved Christian died in the 82nd year on 25th November 1849. She closed her edifying life by the fervent practice of those religious duties that ever marked her holy career. Her remains were accompanied to this earthly dwelling by an immense number of every class and creed of the entire neighbourhood which she so long adorned by her eminent and unostentatious virtue. She expired, consoled by her cherished text, from the 6th chap. 55th V of St. John. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood had everlasting life and I will raise him up on the last day.’ In addition to his survey and recording work Michael Donovan, together with Clem Roche, have just completed recording the names of the 3,891 inmates who died in Athy Workhouse or the Fever Hospital between 1871 and 1921. Theirs is a work of great importance, rivalled only by Michael’s extraordinary solitary work in mapping and recording so many cemetery memorials in and around this area. Michael Donovan’s plans for this year are to survey cemeteries in Ballybracken, Kileen Cormac, Kildangan, Timogue, Harristown and Crookstown.

Memories of St. Joseph's infants Boys School

My youngest grandson, Ben, who recently moved with his parents from Cork to Athy started school during the week. This followed a few weeks in Montessori in Athy following on two years in Montessori in Cork. Aged five and a half years when he started in junior infants in the local Gael Scoil it made me reflect on when I started in the all-boys St. Joseph’s School in Rathstewart, almost 80 years ago. I joined my first class on the day of my fourth birthday and was pleasantly surprised to discover a few years ago, on examining the school’s roll books, that another young boy who started that same day was the late Frank English who was six months older than myself. Frank was my closest friend in adulthood, and we shared many holidays abroad including a never to be forgotten trip when we thumbed our way around Northern France in 1962. Nowadays the educational campus on the Monasterevin Road boasts three primary schools while the historic Scoil Mhichil Naofa is located off of Kirwans Lane, where it has always been. What fascinates me is the fact that in my time every youngster made his or her entry to school without any previous schooling experience. No Montessori or creche in those days while today’s youngsters have both. Although I wonder if the infants’ school at St. Joseph’s, in which there were three classes, was in terms of years spent prior to primary school the equivalent of modern pre-school facilities. Since writing the above I have learnt that the three years spent in St. Joseph’s comprised junior and senior infant classes and the first year of Primary School. When we passed to the Christian Brothers Primary School, we immediately entered the second year class. So, St. Joseph’s school opened by the Sisters of Mercy on a date unknown to me was an early example of a pre-primary school facility. Memories of my first year in St Joseph’s are uncertain although I can remember my father collecting me and bring me home on his bike after I had a little personal accident. I was told in later years that my next door neighbour Loy Hayden brought me to school on a regular basis, although I cannot remember what may have been many trips to St. Joseph’s. One memory which I return to often was how Sister Brendan, who taught the second year senior infants’ class, prepared us to receive Holy Communion. She lined up the young boys up around the classroom and got us to stick out our tongues which she would softly touch with a scissors which hung from her waistband. Another memory I have is of the class of boys being marched to the Christian Brother’s School in St. John’s as we left St. Joseph’s for the last time. My memories were of my Dad whom I saw dressed in his Garda Sergeant uniform standing on the footpath opposite Carolan’s (now Winkles) as we passed by. I was obviously delighted to see my father, on what was a proud day for me. St. Joseph’s School founded by the Sisters of Mercy was where they exclusively taught young boys in a three-classroom school which was pulled down when the construction of the former St. Michael’s Church commenced in or around 1960/61. On the day we were brought to the Christian Brothers School we walked in procession by the side of Canon McDonnell’s fine house and the Malt House which was immediately on the Town Hall side of the Canon’s garden. With the passage of time the shops and businesses we passed on the way to the St. John’s Lane School have all changed names or disappeared like the Malt House. The boys of St. Joseph’s School, having gone through junior infants and senior infants, were in first class when they made their First Communion. The preparation for First Communion was done in Sister Brendan’s second year senior infants’ class with the solemn ceremony performed in St. Michael’s Parish Church when we were in the first year of primary school. Communion Day was an important day then as it is today. After the formal Church ceremony we were entertained in the local Convent, although I wonder if my memory in that regard is correct as it may have been the Convent meal provided after Confirmation, that I remember. But of course, the most important part of the First Communion Day was the never to be forgotten coin collection visits to well-known neighbours. If like me you were a “blow in” you had no relations near, so I missed out on the “easy targets” for collecting coins. There was no question in those days of receiving notes as money was scarce for all the families in Offaly Street. My grandson, Ben, continues his education in the Gael Scoil, an unheard of facility in Athy 80 years ago. What a wonderful opportunity it presents to him and his classmates, boys and girls alike, to learn and speak our native tongue, something I was not able to do despite Brother Keogh’s best efforts in secondary school. Education as ever is recognised as a vitally important character builder and current facilities including free books, acceptable pupil teacher ratios and the often-claimed free education are reminders of how far education today has progressed. Contrast this with the 1940s when families stricken by unemployment and emigration found it so difficult to let their children take full advantage of the educational opportunities of their time. How well I remember classmates leaving school at the age of 13 or 14 years of age to take up employment in the local asbestos factory and sometimes as messenger boys in local shops. Life in the meantime has changed and nowhere more so than in the schools once founded and staffed by the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers. Today’s schools, both primary and secondary, are co-educational, unlike the schools of my time when the boys and girls were strictly segregated. Here in Athy the nuns arrived in 1851 and the Christian Brothers in 1860 and over the next 150 years or so provided a first-class education for thousands of boys and girls who otherwise would not have had the opportunity to reach their full potential. We owe a huge debt to the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers. My grandson, Ben will pass through his school years without being taught as I was by Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers. No doubt Ben will have memories to equal those of his Grandpa and I wish him and all the others boys and girls starting school this year every happiness and every good wish for the future.

Athy's Tuesday Market and the making of Market Bye Laws

Now that work on Athy’s plaza is finished, Kildare County Council are preparing to make bye-laws in relation to the control, regulation, supervision and designation of casual trading in the town. For more than 500 years a market has been held in Athy every Tuesday by virtue of a charter granted by King Henry VIII in 1515. The place for holding the market was determined by the Earl of Kildare, while the village Provost was required to regulate the market. We look upon the former Market Square, now Emily Square, as the site of the market, but in fact the Earl’s initial choice was somewhere in the vicinity of Woodstock Castle where the medieval village of Athy was located in the 16th century. It was only in the latter years of the 17th century that the village of Athy moved to the eastern side of the River Barrow following continuous attacks by the Irish on the Woodstock settlement. White’s Castle was built to protect the River Barrow crossing and the new market square was developed, possibly at the same time as the Market House was built. The Tuesday market transferred across the river and we can presume that the then Earl of Kildare approved the move. The power of the Provost to regulate the market passed to his successor, the Town Sovereign, and subsequently to the Mayor of Athy Borough Council, then to the Chairman of Athy Town Commissioners, the Chairman of Athy Urban District Council and more recently the Mayor of Athy Municipal Council. The Casual Trading Act 1995 gives extensive powers to a County Council to provide for the control and regulation of casual trading. It also provides for the extinguishment of ancient market rights if certain conditions are met by the County Council. The County Council can extinguish the market right but only if alternative facilities are provided for the traders in the vicinity of the existing market right. The Council must also provide in the new market place sufficient accommodation for all the stall holders who were previously catered for under the market right. Only then can the Council enact bye-laws which the stall holders must comply with. The major question which Kildare County Council must answer is whether the return of the market to the newly designated plaza is appropriate. The map which accompanied the public notice issued by Kildare County Council in relation to the market bye-laws showed eleven pitches in the plaza and eight pitches on Barrow Quay. These numbers were considerably less than those used by the traders before work on the plaza started. The Casual Trading Act only allows the market right to be extinguished by the Council if the alternative market site is in the same vicinity, and after facilities offered reasonably correspond in all respects to the previous market size. The alternative site, cited in the Council’s draft bye-laws, using the back Square and the Barrow Quay would not meet the requirements of the Casual Trading Act. However, land to the south side of the Courthouse, formerly the grounds of ‘The Abbey’, would be a suitable site for the Tuesday market. This site, if acquired by the Council, would allow the market to continue every Tuesday and the site could also be used for car parking every other day. That latter point is important, bearing in mind the loss of car parking due to the development of the plaza. Additional parking will also be required when the Shackleton Museum opens. Kildare County Council should move to acquire this plot of ground, whether by compulsory purchase order or otherwise, as it is uniquely located in the centre of the town. The market, at present, is not a very attractive one. I’m reminded of what the authorities in Shoreham-by-Sea in Sussex did to make the weekly market more attractive by providing stalls and awnings for the traders, which the Council set up the evening before each market. I understand that the traders pay a small fee for renting the Council’s equipment and the colourful scene provided a pleasant backdrop to the market. I appeal to Kildare County Council not to endanger the town’s plaza and allow it to be a pleasant meeting point for locals and visitors alike seven days a week. The alternative site which I have suggested for the market meets with all the requirements of the Casual Trading Act. It would be foolish for the Council not to seize the opportunity to protect the town’s market, even if it continues not as a market right but as an ordinary market. Personally, I am in favour of the continuation of the Tuesday market in Athy in a casual trading area selected by the Council nearer to Emily Square, even if the present market right is extinguished. This would allow the Council to regulate the new designated casual trading area. The passing of casual trading bye-laws will be an opportunity for Kildare County Council to make the market much more attractive, not least by providing standard colourful stalls and awnings for the traders to use. What I do not want to happen is to witness the death of the Tuesday market. Now is the time for senior Council officials and the public representatives to show vision and courage.

Shackleton Museum receives visitors from the Falkland Islands

The first overseas visitors to arrive at the Shackleton Museum did so last week. These visitors were from the Falkland Islands situated a few hundred miles off the eastern coast of Argentina. Their trip required a flight from Port Stanley, capital of the Falklands to Ascension Island and from there to Brize Norton in the UK. The visitors were four young students, winners of a school essay competition in which they were required to write of the Irish Polar Explorer, Ernest Shackleton. The four young students, Ruby Marsh, Alice May Curtis, Benjamin Goodwin and Theo Young were accompanied by Emma Brook, Falkland College Manager and Sandra Alazia outreach assistant with the Falkland Island Museum. The Shackleton Museum, which is currently being fitted out, was specially opened for the Falkland visitors where they were greeted by the museum curator, Aline Fitzgerald and two directors of the museum board. I was among a number of others who were also invited to give us our first glimpse of what awaits those visiting the museum after its official opening on the 10th of October. As someone who is familiar with the previous history and use of the Town Hall stretching back over 70 years or more I was very impressed with the design and workmanship which has left us with an extraordinary fine interior, a mixture of the old and the new. The impressive early 18th Century building has been transformed internally and restored externally to give a magnificent backdrop to our newly developed Town Plaza. Work on fitting out the museum with exhibits was not completed on the day of our visit and indeed Sven Habermann of Conservation Letterfrack and his team were scheduled to be on site this week and for sometime thereafter to complete the task. However there was sufficient evidence in the exhibits already in place to confirm that Athy’s Shackleton Museum will be of national and international importance. The subject of Shackleton’s life and achievements have gained an importance in the last few decades and with it has brought recognition of Athy’s importance in the telling of his story. I doubt if anyone visiting the museum when it opens will be disappointed with the range of exhibits and participatory media. . The Falklands students and the adults who accompanied them were very impressed by what they saw in the former Town Hall. Thanks must go to the museum curator for making arrangements to allow the overseas visitors and a few others the privilege of seeing at first hand the early development of the world’s most important Ernest Shackleton Museum. The management of the museum is now controlled by a board of five members on behalf of Kildare County Council. The curator, who was appointed some months ago, served in the same position for several years in the 1916 museum in Dublin’s GPO in O’Connell Street. As mentioned earlier the official opening of the museum will take place on October, 10th but I am uncertain as to whether the museum will be open to the public before then. Good luck to everyone involved with the Shackleton Museum which comes to us as a result of a public meeting which set up Athy’s Museum Society forty two years ago. Let’s hope that the acquisition, preservation and subsequent development of White’s Castle as a Fitzgerald and Town Museum does not take as long. I have had some feedback from last week’s Eye on the Past on the adoption of Market Byelaws with a small number of people agreeing with my suggestion as to the best way of protecting and developing the Tuesday market. My suggestion involved the protection of the town’s newly developed Plaza to facilitate its use seven days per week by visitors and locals alike. To do this will involve the expense of acquiring the Abbey grounds but incurring that expense will give Athy the advantage of replacing the lost carparking in Emily Square and meeting the additional carparking required for the Shackleton Museum visitors. I would hope that Kildare County Council would see the advantage of doing so and thereby ensuring adequate Athy centre parking facilities and the preservation of a Tuesday market.

Richard Daly

He is a man who has made a difference. Not just in relation to his teaching role but also as regards the Athy community which he joined in 1977 as a young inexperienced teacher. Richard Daly joined the Technical School on the Carlow Road, then under the principalship of John J. Doyle, as an English and Mathematics teacher. Having graduated from University College Cork, he joined the many other graduates who sought employment in the Irish Vocational Education system which was then controlled by County Councils. It was a time when applicants for teaching positions had to travel the counties canvassing support from County Councillors who voted on teacher appointments. It must have been a demeaning exercise undertaken by young men and women of that time. Since the removal of responsibility for vocational education from County Councils to Training Boards, teacher appointments are made strictly on merit. The Vocational School on the Carlow Road was opened in 1939 and it replaced the part-time school which was located in what older readers will remember as the Catholic Young Men’s Society building on the corner of Stanhope Street and Stanhope Place. T.C. Walsh was Principal of the Carlow Road school when it opened and he remained the Principal for the following ten years. He was replaced by Tom O’Donnell. Nicholas Walsh was Principal in 1976 before transferring to Castledermot and John J. Doyle was Principal for the following seventeen years. The young Richard Daly, who came from County Tipperary to join the Vocational School staff seventeen years earlier and who held the Vice-Principalship from 1987, was then appointed Principal. Richard, who will retire on the 1st September, has been the longest serving Principal of the Athy School having served in that position for 32 years. In that time he has overseen huge changes. Plans for the stand-alone school were approved by the Department of Education in 1999, but delays prompted the Principal, Richard Daly, to arrange six years later for a well-publicised class to be taught in the ten-acre field which was intended as the site of the new school. The Principal took the class himself and expressed the hope that the Government would take notice of how the Athy Vocational School had been neglected by successive Government Ministers. In February 2008 the now unhappy Principal approached Derek Mooney of R.T.E. regarding the delay in building the long promised new school. The subsequent publicity on Mooney’s R.T.E. programme appears to have had an effect. Two years later the new school was officially opened by the Minister for Education, Mary Coughlan. ‘Athy College’, as the new school is now called, had pupil numbers of approximately 100 when it opened. Today it has in or about 700 pupils and approximately 80 staff. An extension to the school to accommodate an additional 200 pupils has been approved by the Department of Education. The College, under the guidance and leadership of Richard Daly, now caters for thirty-three different nationalities. It is a secular school where pupils, regardless of income, nationality or religion, can obtain a first-class education. Athy College has been welcoming students and teachers from Japan since January 2016. This unique relationship between Athy College and Japanese schools is due in large measure to Richard Daly who throughout his principalship has displayed enormous initiative and courage to advance his school’s standing. During his principalship, Richard Daly has extended the reach of the school far beyond that of the school pupils to the general public of Athy. Athy Film Society, organised by Claudia Reeves, holds regular film nights in the school theatre, thanks to the foresight of Richard Daly. Richard is particularly proud, and rightly so, of the part he and his team of volunteers play in the annual Darkness into Light event which is held in May each year to raise funds for Pieta House. Richard started this event ten years ago having failed, due to personal circumstances, to attend the Naas Darkness into Light event which he had done for years previously. Richard has the same team with him for the annual walk which include Pat Byrne, Tom Kelly, Jimmy Byrne, Sean O’Mahony, Frank Dobbyn and Patricia Berry. Sadly another valued member of the Darkness into Light team, Diarmaid Flynn, died in January 2024. I had quite forgotten until I did some research that Richard was a County Councillor and an Athy Urban District Councillor from 2004 to 2014. His political career started when with others he founded Young Fine Gael. He was elected as the first President of that Association and for two years was a member of the Fine Gael National Executive. He has long stepped aside from active involvement in National politics but still retains friendships and contacts with many of the political leaders of the past. Involved in Athy’s community initiatives over the years, Richard firmly believes that as school Principal it is part of his responsibility to be active in the town affairs. It’s an involvement he intends to continue. Richard formally retires on the 1st September and on his retirement he will be remembered as the most energetic and innovative Principal of a school which won the Trinity College 21st Century School of Distinction Award in 2018 and again in 2020. Many Athy College pupils have become pioneers in education and society. From music to media, academia to agriculture, many Athy College pupils of the past have won national acclaim. The Tipperary man, with a ready smile which so easily becomes a hearty laugh, is wished a long and happy retirement. I was delighted to see and hear on Facebook the twenty or so members of Athy's Comhaltas playing on the main gig rig at Wexford Fleadh Cheoil. Their appearance was a wonderful tribute to Jim Kelly and others who are providing teaching lessons for many young people interested in Irish music.

Henry Hosie and Irish Aviation

I have made reference in previous Eye on the Pasts to Henry Hosie, founder of Industrial Vehicles Ireland Limited known locally as I.V.I. in or about 1932 with Freddie Thompson of Carlow. His other commercial venture was the opening of Athy Picture Palace in Offaly Street some years earlier. He was then known as Captain Hosie having joined the English army in response to Kitchener’s call for recruits at the start of World War 1. He was sent to France in 1914 and was invalided back to Ireland in 1916. He later returned to army duties and was based in Scotland where he became Officer in Charge of machinery at the Scottish area forage Department. He was promoted to the rank of Captain during that time. He also served in World War II and was promoted to the rank of Major. In 1947 he relinquished his commission having passed the age limit for reserves and was granted the rank of Colonel. He was known thereafter as Colonel Hosie. His son Terence, who served in the Royal Engineers was killed in action in Italy on the 23rd November 1941 aged 26 year Following my references to Henry Hosie in previous Eye on the Pasts, I received a few years ago a very detailed email from a John King of London in relation to Hosie’s involvement with Irish Aviation and the part he played in the attempt to establish an airline company providing flights from Dublin to England. Hosie joined the Irish Aero Club which was formed in 1928 and four years later, he was responsible for organising an Irish Aero Club’s event in Cardenton, Athy. In the afternoon of Sunday, 14th August 1932, aeroplanes arrived for the first time in Athy landing in a field owned by the Minch family. Several hundred attended including the Lord Mayor of Dublin, the legendary Alfie Byrne, who had been flown from Baldonnel by the Chief Instructor of the Aero Club. There were three planes at the event which was reported as follows by the Kildare Observer, “ There were several events including crazy flying and the balloon bursting competition” …. The report noted “An amusing and exciting interlude when an old woman was seen to enter one of the planes and while the pilot (Captain Hosie) was getting his helmet adjusted, the machine was seen to stagger across the field and rise off the ground missing the hedge by inches. The spectators were then treated to an exhibition of crazy flying and after one or two attempts, the machine was brought back to terra firma”. On the 23rd September 1932, the weekly magazine “Flight” noted that Hosie’s company had been appointed agent in Ireland for the de Havilland company in Ireland. Three days later, Hosie was elected to the management committee of the Irish Aero Club. In March of the following year, he wrote on I.V.I. headed notepaper to the Department of Industry and Commerce enquiring about the availability of Collinstown, a disused pre-war military aerodrome, for use as commercial air service. The reply from the Department was not helpful . For several weeks from April 1933, Hosie was busy trying to make arrangements for the airline company Midland and Scottish to use the aerodrome at Cobh. The Cork Evening Echo recorded how Captain Hosie and the chief instructor of the Irish Aero Club played a flying visit to Cobh in one of the Club’s Gypsy Moth aircraft which landed at Ballincollig at 10.00 a.m. having left Athy at little over one and a half hours earlier. The newspaper report indicated that Hosie had arrived in Cork to inspect possible sites for a southern airport. He made a further visit to Cork, flying again to Ballincollig with officials from the UK to inspect possible sites for a Cork airport. They inspected sites at Ballincollig, Lakelands and near Cobh and had discussions with the Cork City Manager, Philip Monahan. Following this latest visit, Hosie was described in the Nationalist and Leinster Times as “well known in County Kildare and an esteemed Athy resident” asserting “that he deserved much credit for his work in the interest of aviation in Ireland”. That same month, Hosie was elected to the committee of the Irish Aero Club. By July 1933, Hosie was instrumental in completing arrangements for the Midland and Scottish Airline Company to open a twice daily air service from Cork to Dublin with a link to Brittain. The flight which lasted one hour and fifteen minutes cost one pound ten shillings on the 15th August 1933. This was the first attempt by an Irish citizen to give the country a regular air service. Not long afterwards, Hosie’s influence in the developing Irish air service began to be eclipsed by fellow member of the Irish Aero Club and Solicitor, Sean Ó’hUadhaigh. The latter had important political contacts which Hosie did not have. Ó’hUadhaigh would become Chairman of the Aero Club in 1935 and Chairman of Aer Lingus when it was formed in 1936. Hosie appears to have thereafter given more attention to his I.V.I. business for in August 1933, following correspondence in the Evening Herald regarding the value of pneumatic tyres to farm carts, he wrote a letter supporting the use of such tyres claiming that there had been no improvement for farm carts for the previous fifty years. Within four months, the Irish Times reported that rubber tyred farm carts were being built by the I.V.I. Company in Athy. He later disposed of his interest in the Athy Picture Palace to Holmes of Portlaoise who in turn sold out to the Roscrea Cinema company. The early years of the I.V.I. seemed to have concentrated on the supply of industrial vehicles and would appear to have developed the foundry business during the early years of the second world war. Colonel Hosie, who was a very important employer in Athy, died on the 26th October 1967.

Athy's Wallboard factory

One of my earliest memories is of walking with my older brothers to the huge fire which broke out at the Wallboard factory in April 1949. I was a month short of my seventh birthday when like so many other Athy folk we all gathered on the roadside at Barrowford to watch ricks of straw on fire. The Athy Fire Station master made the following entry in the station records; ‘I received a call to fire at Wallboard Factory on 14th April 1949. All members of the Brigade were present. When we arrived we discovered three ricks of straw on fire. We remained working until Saturday 16th May. The Curragh and Carlow Brigades were also there.’ A later entry for the month of May listed as fire members R. Webster, P. Delahunt, Thomas Fleming, Jas Fleming, J. Webster, P. Cowman and P. Doyle who attended a fire at Mrs. Quinn’s house in St. John’s Lane. The Wallboard Mills were located on a 17 acre site approximately one mile north of Athy. Irish Wallboard Co. Ltd. had been formed in 1939 to manufacture hardboard from straw but did not commence production until 1949. Two years later it began to use native timber as the basic raw material for the manufacture of the oil tempered hardboard which was marketed under the trade name ‘Lignatex’. The Irish company had become closely associated with the Bowater organisation in 1950. The timber used in the manufacturing process consisted of forest thinning, while steam power was generated by machine won turf supplied by Bord na Mona. Over 12,000 tons of turf was used each year while 3 or 4 weeks turf supply was always kept in reserve. A major expansion programme in 1957 increased the mill’s production capacity by almost 60% and a further expansion scheme, completed in 1966, trebled the capacity of the Wallboard factory in the space of fifteen years. A report in the Nationalist and Leinster Times of 15th January 1949 noted that while equipment installation work in the new factory was nearing completion two local men, Pat Doyle and Ed Hicks, spent some days at Clondalkin Paper Mills studying the working of the various machines in preparation for their duties at Athy’s new factory. I am uncertain as to whether the factory was in production when the fire started on 14th April 1949. Despite that early setback, with the use of timber rather than straw, and the expansion programmes initiated in 1957 the factory was able to produce 60 million square feet of board annually. Two thirds of the factory output was exported. A press report of the 1960s outlined the steps taken at the Wallboard factory to ensure the production of a high-quality product. The factory laboratory where samples from every part of the production process were tested was managed by Jim Flanagan, assisted by John Murphy, Terry Doyle and many others. Three quality controllers were constantly sampling during every stage of the manufacturing process. This was a responsibility of Pat Daly, John Murphy and Michael Ahern, while Kevin McNulty kept an eye on the quality of the turf and the finished board. In the chemical mixing department Arthur Kavanagh was employed in the preparation of approximately ten tons of aluminium sulphate solution each week. Another laboratory man was George Robinson who assisted the chief chemist Jim Flanagan in research and development. The first manager of the Wallboard factory was Richard Shackleton, while the initial production managers employed were Swedish, the fifth production manager was Andy Coughlan whom I understand was a former RAF flight engineer. With many other local factories the Wallboard staff participated in the annual parochial variety festivals which were initiated by the local curate, Fr. Joe Corbett. In 1964 the Wallboard Variety Show was reported in the local press as ‘a pleasant and colourful presentation which won loud applause from the audience.’ The performers included Ena, Joan and Frances Coughlan, Connie Stafford, M. Dooley, P. Dunleavy, N. Wright, M. Holohan, K. McNulty, T. Dooley, S. Fanning, P.J. Loughman, Tim Ryan, M. Rainsford, F. Ryan, S. Finnerty, B. Finnerty and B. Robinson. The laughter, songs and work stopped in December 1978 when the Wallboard factory closed down. Approximately 220 workers were made redundant when production of wallboard transferred to Sweden where it is today still carried on. When corresponding with my good friend Liam Kenny, doyen of Kildare local historians, I invariably refer to Athy as being in the deep south of the county. For a change this Eye comes from the deep south of the island of Ireland to where I have travelled to greet my latest grandchild, Hannah Rose, born just a few days ago in Cork city. Hannah was the name of her maternal great grandmother who was born and reared in Doneraile, Co. Cork. The circle has now been completed.

A look back over the past 1500 Eyes on the Past

It is close on 29 years ago that I penned my first Eye on the Past. This week the 1500th article is printed and I want to take the opportunity to reflect on past articles, the people and events that formed the subject of those articles and to acknowledge the help given to me by so many people over the years. The first article was a short piece of approximately 400 words in which I mentioned the publics growing interest in local history and the opening of what I referred to as “the new vastly improved library service in the Town Hall”. Subsequent articles grew in wordage to 800 words then 1,200 words and that latter figure was maintained until the Kildare Nationalist changed to tabloid form. Prior to my first article I had been researching the history of Athy and 29 years later that research is still ongoing and my long promised history of the town is still not ready for publication. As a “blow in” to Athy from just down the road in Castlecomer but having all my remembered youthful life experiences here in Athy it is understandable that my interest in history should be centred on Athy. It was an interest first encouraged by my teachers in the local Christian Brothers school, especially the late Bill Ryan who was a gentleman, a scholar and an encourager. While I was out of Athy for 22 years my interest in history saw me researching Athy’s past. That research opened up many unknown and some forgotten elements of the town’s story. Even while I had attended the local secondary school and studied history for my Leaving Certificate I had never encountered any significant references to Athy’s involvement in Irish national events. Nothing was ever related to me or my school mates of how the Great Famine affected the local people. We learned of the famine tragedies of the West and the South West of Ireland such as that reported in the United Irishmen newspaper of the 19th of February 1848 which quoting a correspondent of the Mayo Constitution claiming “we had been informed that within the last week upwards of 20 deaths have taken place from starvation in Ballintubbert”. We now know that our local workhouse was the last place of residence for hundreds of local men, women and children who died during the famine and whose remains were brought by cart across Lennons Bridge to be buried in paupers graves in St. Mary’s cemetery. As students we never learned of the young men from Athy who enlisted to fight overseas in World War or the great number of those men whose broken bodies disappeared into the blood-soaked soil of France and Flanders. I had never heard of John Vincent Holland whose act of bravery during that same war resulted in him being awarded the Victoria Cross. These were some of the towns past stories which had escaped the memory of later generations, and which were awaiting to be discovered, for without these stories and the many other stories of local events and local men and women our community’s shared past would be incomplete. In my first article I wrote “Eye on the Past will each week deal with a topic of interest from the history of South Kildare when we will delve into the rich vein of local history which remains to be discovered”. I didn’t know then what an overwhelming rich vein of history awaited to be discovered. I have been fortunate to be contacted personally, by phone, by letter and in more recent times via email by hundreds of persons interested in Athy’s history. Many have sought information of ancestors who once lived in the town or South Kildare while others had generously shared memories and knowledge of past events with me. Eithne Wall who first joined my office in 1982 has typed, with very few exceptions, the Eyes since 1992 and Noreen Day has provided the proof reading necessary to correct my mistakes. The availability of the Eyes on the Past on the internet has led to enquiries from many countries particularly America, Australia, New Zealand and as might be expected Great Britain. Those enquiries have brought home to me how generations of Athy folk can spread throughout the world and how information regarding the past of such a small town as Athy can be gleaned from sources throughout the globe. Our local history mirrors in many ways the national events of the time and we can get a better understanding of our country’s own history by knowing the history of the generations who have gone before us. I am pleased to acknowledge that today Athy people have a better understanding of their own history and this is reflected in a cultural reawakening which was not readily observable a few decades ago. We have a proud history whether it is recounting the men, women and events of the War of Independence or the story of those who went to war overseas during 1914/18. Part of that history is knowing that an international figure such as Polar Explorer Ernest Shackleton was born in nearby Kilkea and undoubtedly walked the same streets we walk today. But above all our towns history is the story of the local men and women, many of whom lived in the back streets and alleyways in Athy in houses which were demolished during the slum clearance programmes of the 1930’s. They were the workers in the brickyards and the foundries and the farm labourers who with their wives and children gave life to the Anglo Norman town founded over 800 years ago. I was privileged to have been able to share some of their stories even if at times I might have unintentionally offended someone’s delicate sensibilities. Yes, there had been a few occasions over the past 29 years when someone has objected to something I wrote or made a point of seeking a correction when none was justified. I remember one reader who sought to correct my research findings regarding the location of the Quaker Meeting House in Meeting Lane on the basis that her mother told her it was elsewhere. I couldn’t persuade her otherwise or indeed ameliorate the fury of the woman who felt I had insulted the former tenants of the soldiers houses in the Bleach by reciting the accommodation details as outlined in the War Office files of the 1920s. However it was not all conflict. The readers have been more than complimentary and I am ever grateful for the continued help afforded to me by so many with my research. A special thanks to one individual who has been writing to me for years with the most beautiful handwriting always drawing my attention to items or persons of interest. He has constantly provided me with additional information but always on the strict understanding that his name is never mentioned. I started off by stating my intention to reflect on past articles but my pen has galloped away without doing what I intended. I hope you have enjoyed the past 1,500 Eyes on the Past and here is hoping that time will be given to me to write some more Eyes and more importantly finish and publish my long promised history of Athy.

When Athy was the largest town in County Kildare

In 1841 Athy had the largest population of any town in County Kildare. With 4,980 persons living within the town boundaries, it exceeded the population of Naas by over 300. Newbridge was only a sizeable village with a population of 1,177 while nearby Portlaoise fell short of Athy’s population with 3,702 inhabitants. Ten years later Athy’s population had increased to 5,263 as a result of the workhouse numbers which masked an actual fall in the towns native population over the course of the Great Famine. Naas in the meantime had begun to match Athy in terms of population numbers with 5,184 inhabitants. Both towns were to show substantial population losses by 1911 when Athy was recorded with 3,535 inhabitants with Naas overtaking Athy as the largest town in the County with 3,842. In fact, the first time Naas showed a higher population figure than Athy was in 1871 with approximately 100 more residents than the South Kildare town. The ups and downs of urban population figures no doubt were reflected in the range and extent of local commercial activity. Here in Athy, we have witnessed even within the past two or three years several businesses which have changed hands or gone out of business. As I write this article, I can only recall two local business still operating in Athy as they were 100 years ago. Indeed, O’Brien’s of Emily Square was the name over the shop as early as two or three decades before the new century arrived, while Doyle’s of Woodstock Street opened many years later. Both pubs operated at a time when Athy with less than half the population it has today, was home to 44 public houses. One of their commercial colleagues at that time was A. Duncan & Son, Drapers and Outfitters of Duke Street which business was bought out by Sam Shaw in or about 1914 and which business is still the anchor tenant in Athy’s main shopping street. Many other firms now long forgotten once traded in our town. Who remembers James Reid & Son, Family Grocers and Publicans of Leinster Street or William Triston, Solicitor of Duke Street. Both carried on business in Athy in 1916 as did Henry Hannon & Sons, Millers of Duke Street and Columb Geraghty, Grocer and Publican of Market Square. Thomas Lumley merchant tailor worked in his workshop in Athy until he retired on the 23th July 1917. Amongst those who continued in business for some time after that were P.J. Corcoran, principal of the Athy Auctioneering Company and Daniel Toomey, Builder and Contractor. Many of today’s older generation will recall Glespens Carriage Builders who carried on business in 1917 and much later. In the 1950’s Glespens occupied premises in Duke Street but has anyone heard of John P. Glespen who in 1917 advertised himself as “Carriage Builder and Designer, Wheelwright, Harness Maker and Motor Car and Cycle Agent” with premises in Nelson Street and Offaly Street. Edward Vernal was plying his trade as a General Smith and Horseshoer in Leinster Street in 1907. The Vernal forge was located in St. John’s Lane immediately behind Mrs. Haslem’s house when I was attending the Christian Brothers School in the 1950’s John Blanchfield operated out of 26 Leinster Street as a pork butcher and sausage maker in 1916. Was he, I wonder, related to the saw milling Blanchfield family at the top end of Leinster Street. A business not previously known to me was that of the Miley Brothers who had the General Supply Store in Duke Street in 1916. Names still remembered today and found over business premises in Athy over 100 years ago include Duthies of Leinster Street. W.T. Duthie, Watchmaker, Jeweller and Optician had been in business for several years prior to 1917 and his son, Albert, would later take over the business. On the far side of Crom a Boo Bridge in 1917 was the Grocery Tea, Wine and Spirits Stores of Cantwell’s of Duke Street while George Dillon of 19 Leinster Street advertised Spiced Beef as a speciality to order. Michael Murphy carried on business in the Commercial House facing the Market Square as a Clothier, Hatter offering “ boots and shoes in great variety”. Around the corner in Stanhope Street was another Murphy, this time with the forename Patrick who ran a General Grocery and Provision Business. David Walsh, Family Grocer, Hardware, Seed and General Merchant “with a variety of Guns and Ammunition always in stock” had his premises at the corner of Chapel Lane and Leinster Street. Other businesses in Athy in the early years of the 20th century included Athy Gas Company, Hibernian Bank, Duthie Large Foundry and Iron Works, Leinster Arms Hotel, D&J Carbery Builders and Athy Tile and Brick Company. These firms are no longer in Athy and their absence reminds us that the ever changing needs of new generations require new and improved commercial outlets to serve their needs. 100 years ago the market town of Athy with a population of less that 4,000 boasted of 44 public houses. Today our main streets show a monopoly of hairdressing salons, betting shops, charity shops and fast food outlets. Times indeed are a changing.

Athy in the 1840s

The worst effects of the famine which had ravaged Ireland following the failure of the potato crop in 1845 had abated by the time 1853 arrived. William Byrne was then station master in Athy, a position he held for the previous four years and where he would remain for the next six years. Athy boasted many trades in 1853, including a Fack and Hook Maker, a trade practiced by Michael Cushian who found himself on the wrong side of the law on assault charges. Julia Bradley, dressmaker, was summoned by her mistress, Mrs. O’Neill, for leaving her indentures without fulfilling her term. She was ordered by the Court to return to her ‘master’, otherwise she would be jailed for the remainder of her apprenticeship. Also in trouble were the four paupers brought before the local petty sessions by the Master of the workhouse for refusing to work and disobeying the Master’s orders. They each got one month’s imprisonment with hard labour. Early in the year eight locals were summoned by order of the Town Commissioners for exhibiting turf for sale in a place other than that designated for such sales by the town fathers. Athy resident Mrs. Walsh was one of sixty passengers who drowned when the steamer, ‘Queen Victoria’, sank in Dublin Bay on Tuesday 15th February of that year. Forty passengers survived, including her husband. The Presbyterian families who had arrived the previous year from Perthshire Scotland to take up tenancies of the Duke of Leinster’s lands in the Athy area, gave public notice that their meeting house was a place of religious worship and registered for solemnising marriages. Controversy arose when the vacant position of Coroner for South Kildare prompted an advertisement to be inserted in the Leinster Express expressing ‘regret that the election of Coroner has endeavoured to be made a political and religious question’. The contest was between James Butler who although an Anglican had the support of the Roman Catholic voters and Dr. Carter, another Anglican, who was eventually appointed. Two years after the abolition of Athy Borough Council the newly elected Town Commissioners for Athy, numbering 21 in all, whose numbers included the Catholic Parish Priest Fr. John Lawler and the Anglican Rector, Rev. Frederick Trench, agreed to have a certain number of Catholics and Protestants as Town Commissioners and to have a Catholic and Protestant chairman on alternate years. Michael Lawler, who was Chairman of the Town Commissioners in 1853, wrote to the press in July 1858 stating that ‘we have never deviated from our original compact’. Michael Lawler was one of the 21 Town Commissioners who was sworn into office before Lord Downes and John Butler on 18th February 1842 at a ceremony held in Athy’s Courthouse which was then part of the Town Hall. During his long service as a Town Commissioner he was elected Chairman on three occasions, 1853, 1876 and 1890. Lawler who died on 20th October 1900 and was buried in Barrowhouse, started in business in Athy in and around 1840. He had a licenced premises in Leinster Street immediately adjoining Whites Castle which was subsequently purchased by Edward T. Mulhall in November 1900 for £500. Edward Mulhall was described in the press reports of the time as having worked in Lawlers licenced premises as ‘the foreman and manager’. Michael Lawler gave what the local press described as ‘a sumptuous entertainment to upwards of 60 persons on the advent of his inauguration to the chairmanship of the Town Commissioners. The dinner was given in a spacious room in Mr. Lawler’s private residence.’ Michael Lawler lived at Park House in Duke Street which was later acquired by McHugh’s chemist. Alexander Duncan, a local trader, in a speech to the dinner guests said ‘those gentlemen who had but lately seen the town, could not well appreciate the progress it had made in the last 20 years. If they were to know the sanitary conditions then and compare it with the present appearance, they would in the fullest acceptance of the word admit that Athy had progressed.’ Four months later an extraordinary meeting of Athy Dispensary Committee was held to consider the medical officers report regarding the filthy state of the town. It was an issue which Michael Lawler returned to the following October when he claimed ‘Athy is a different town to what it was 21 years ago. Then the streets were in ruts, the homes were falling, the best streets were interspersed with thatched houses ….. now we have a flourishing town ….. the houses and establishments second to none to any inland town in Ireland.’ Twenty years later an editorial in the Leinster Express under the heading ‘The water supply of Athy’ noted ‘we are now paying for our past neglect and for the carelessness of former generations ….. the water we have been consuming all our lives turns out to be polluted ….. our dwellings have been constructed without any regard to the health of the inhabitants ….. the sanitary conditions of the town are very bad.’ The editorial noted that a special meeting of the sanitary committee had been convened for that day to consider whether a pure water supply could be brought from a distance into the town by means of pipes. Thirty years were to elapse before a piped water supply was provided for the people of Athy. By comparison fifty-five years have passed since Athy’s outer relief road was first suggested in a consultants report presented to Athy U.D.C.