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.

'The Black and Tans 1920/'21' and 'The World War 1 Dead of Co. Kildare'

Two important books arrived on my desk in the last week, both of them with listings of men who served our neighbouring country at a time when Ireland was an unwilling part of the British empire. The first book was Jim Herlihy’s latest publication, ‘The Black and Tans 1920 – 1921’, which added to his impressive list of previously published works makes him the outstanding author of policing before and during Ireland’s War of Independence. Subtitled ‘A complete Alphabetical List, Short History and Genealogical Guide’, the book is a complete listing of the 7,684 men who enlisted in the Royal Irish Constabulary Special Reserve, or as they were better known the Black and Tans. The Black and Tans were recruited to compensate for the shortfall in R.I.C. members, resulting from the IRA campaign against the police which forced so many policemen to resign. Between 6th January 1920 and 7th July the following year 7,684 men were recruited in Britain and brought to Ireland to join the R.I.C. Special Reserve. Amongst their numbers were 381 native Irishmen, including 9 from County Kildare, 6 from County Laois and 5 from County Carlow. The Black and Tans, so called because they dressed in black trousers and tan tunics, were initially trained in the R.I.C. Depot at Phoenix Park, but later in the Hare Park Camp on the Curragh before ending up in September of 1920 in Gormanstown Camp, Co. Meath. On completion of their one month training the R.I.C. Special Reserve were transferred to R.I.C. Barracks around the country. Athy, while not regarded as an active rebel town, had a small number of Black and Tans stationed in the old Cavalry Barracks at Woodstock Street. While recruiting for the Special Reserves stopped on 7th July 1921 the members of that force only began to leave Ireland in January of the following year. At least one member of the Black and Tans who was based in Athy remained in the town or later returned, which I do not know, for he married a local girl. The story of the Black and Tans is one which we Irish remember as one of killings and atrocities by men who were a law unto themselves. Jim Herlihy’s book is a comprehensive listing of the men who during the 18 months they were in Ireland suffered 143 casualties. During their time in Ireland they earned the outrage of Irish men and women who regarded them as terrorists. The second book published by the County Kildare Decade of Commemoration Committee is titled ‘Remembrance: The World War 1 Dead of Co. Kildare’. Compiled by Karel Kiely, James Durney and Mario Corrigan it lists the 753 men and 1 woman from the County of Kildare who served and died during World War I. The research for this book has uncovered 9 Athy men not previously identified who died during the war. Three of them were from Offaly Street, two brothers James and Thomas Connell and Joseph Breen. As a young lad growing up in Offaly Street I remember the brothers Mick and Johnny Connell lived in Crampton House opposite what is now the Credit Union in Offaly Street, while another brother Lar lived in Stanhope Street. They were the brothers of the two World War 1 soldiers, James who died on 17th April 1915 and Thomas who died on 9th September 1916. Further up Offaly Street during my youth lived Tom Breen and his family, whose daughter Nan died within the last year or two while she was still living in the family home. Tom’s brother Joseph, a soldier in the Royal Army Service Corps, died aged 32 years, less than two weeks before the end of the war. He was born in Janeville and his younger brother Tom at the time of his brother’s death was living with his grandmother Julia Bradley in Offaly Street. Two other soldiers of whom I was not previously aware are identified as William Dooley of Castlemitchell and his namesake whose brother James Dooley lived at Rathstewart Cottage, Athy. Other Athy soldiers who died in the war but whom I was unaware of until they were included in the new book were 22-year-old Christopher Doran of St. John’s Lane, 33-year-old Michael Davis of Kelly’s Lane and later Chapel Hill, Patrick O’Mara of Chapel Hill, and the Vigors brothers, Arthur and Charles, whose father Charles Vigors was a shopkeeper in Market Square in the 1890s and later. The book lists the deaths of 120 men born in Athy, by far the highest number of any town in the county, the next highest being the Curragh with 67 and Naas with 64. An additional 19 names must be added to Athy’s World War I casualty list, representing men not born in the town but who lived there either when they enlisted or sometime earlier. For many years it was believed that they were on the wrong side of history, that is until Kevin Myers, John MacKenna and later Clem Roche and others wrote of Athy’s men’s sacrifices with pride and gratitude. Here in Athy we arranged the first Armistice Day Sunday Service nearly 30 years ago as part of a weekend of remembrance which featured a seminar in the Town Hall, with lectures by Con Costello, Pat Casey, Kevin Myers, Josephine Cashman and Jane Leonard, followed by a performance of ‘The Fallen’, a voice play of the Great War by John MacKenna. This was the first awakening of an important part of our town’s story and one which now finds another retelling of part of that story in the new book ‘Remembrance: The World War I Dead of Co. Kildare’. Congratulations to Karel Kiely and her colleagues James Durney and Mario Corrigan for a magnificent new publication on Kildare’s World War I dead.

St. Vincent de Paul Society and Athy Lions Club Presidents Everest challenges

During twelve months of lockdown we have witnessed a catastrophic change in the commercial life of our town and district. Local businesses have suffered badly, and business owners and workers alike have felt the financial repercussions of a local economy which is closed down. Families which have always managed to face up to life’s trials now find themselves facing an ever more uncertain future. There is an increasing number of families and individuals experiencing financial difficulties who, for perhaps the first time, have to rely on the charity of others. In Athy we are very fortunate to have an active branch of the St Vincent de Paul Society which, for more than 100 years, has been helping local families and individuals in need. Historically that help was availed of by those whose poverty was the result of long-term unemployment. Today, the Vincent de Paul Society is called upon to help those no longer able to cope financially as a result of the Covid lockdown. Reliance on the Vincent de Paul Society is a new experience for many. Their needs are all the greater as the psychological impact of the national lockdown is felt by parents and children alike. The local branch of the St Vincent de Paul Society is made up of a small number of men and women who quietly and discreetly help local people in need. The demands on their time and on the resources of the local branch are in normal times quite high. However, with the ongoing Covid lockdown demands for help have increased enormously. More money than ever before is required to meet the urgent needs of those in want. Athy Lions Club, recognising the crisis facing many people in Athy and district, have decided to organise a fundraising event to help the St Vincent de Paul Society. Called the Everest Challenge, it will feature an attempt by the Lions Club president, 45-year old Brian Dooley, to ascend 39,340 steps representing the height of Mount Everest. The world’s highest mountain is located on the crest of the great Himalayas of Southern Asia, between Nepal and Tibet. It was believed to be 29,028 feet high when first climbed by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. However, a recent American survey found that it is 29,035 feet high. The extra seven feet will mean a little extra work for Athy Lions president, who will not only walk up 39,340 steps but also descend the same number of steps. He will get no credit for steps descended, but will find a little relief going down before facing into another upward advance. The challenge will start on Saturday, 1st May and continue the next day and into a third day, if necessary, until the target is reached. As I write this Eye, Brian Dooley is practising his stairclimbing techniques to ensure the fitness levels necessary to keep climbing for eight hours on the opening day, and on each day thereafter. It will all take place on the Athy Rugby Club fire escape, which is a sturdy metal stairs, ten feet four inches high, with fourteen steps. The Lions Club president is undertaking this challenge in return for donations which will be divided between Athy St Vincent de Paul Society and Pieta House, which provides counselling to people who are in suicidal distress. Donations can be made online at www.idonate.ie/athylionsclubeverestchallenge or at the Everest Challenge site on any of the days the intrepid Brian Dooley is “stepping it out”. I would hazard a guess that there is not another Lions Club president in Ireland who could match our Lions president’s vision and stamina. If and when Brian successfully makes the 39,340 upward steps, and reaches the summit of the virtual Everest, it will mark an extraordinary personal effort by him. We will all wish him well on the day, or days, of the climb beginning on the 1st of May. In the meantime, remember the two charities which will benefit: St Vincent de Paul Society, Athy and Pieta House. Your donations, no matter how small, will help both organisations continue to offer assistance to all those in need during these difficult times.

Whites Castle and the early years of medieval Athy

Last week’s Kildare Nationalist carried a news item concerning White’s Castle and an announcement of the forthcoming auction of what was described as a 2.5 acre development site in the centre of Athy. It was an unusual coincidence which highlighted on the same paper two important elements of Athy’s past history, even if the development site description might not immediately signal any historical significance. But in fact the site located off Emily Square has a history which predates that of White’s Castle by over 150 years or more. The site was correctly identified in the notice as being located within the old ‘Abbey lands’, a reminder that a few years ago it was the site of the Abbey, a fine 18th century house which was pulled down overnight. The name came down to us over the years because it was the site of the first Dominican Abbey or Friary founded in 1257. The French speaking Anglo Normans who sailed up the river Barrow and opened settlements at various locations in the Barrow valley founded one of their most important settlements at the Ford of Ae. They built a fortified castle at Woodstock around which the medieval village of Athy developed. Within a few years the Crouched Friars founded a monastery on the west bank of the River Barrow in the area still known to this day as St. Johns. A few years later the Dominicans founded their monastery on the opposite bank of the river in the area which the auction notice called the ‘Abbey lands’. The Dominicans occupied their monastery until the Reformation when Henry VIII suppressed the Irish and English monasteries and sequestered the Abbey property which was leased to Martin Pelles, constable of the castle of Athy. The Abbey consisted of a church with a bell tower, a chapter house, dormitory, kitchen, rooms and two halls in addition to an open cloister, a cemetery, an orchard and a garden. The buildings were in time destroyed and levelled to the ground leaving only, I believe, traces underground. The Abbey site has an important story awaiting to be told and it is a story which can only be fully explained after a comprehensive archaeological survey of the site has been carried out. Following the Battle of Ardscull on 26th January 1316 when the Scottish troops under Edward Bruce defeated the Anglo Normans, the Book of Howth records that ‘of the Scot side were slain Lord Fergus Anderson, Lord Walter More and many others whose bodies were buried in the Abbey of the Friars Preachers Athy.’ Also buried there were the Dominican Friars who in the first 300 years of the Abbey’s existence lived, worshipped, and prayed in Athy’s Abbey. This important historical site needs to have an archaeological assessment and investigation carried out as a matter of urgency. White’s Castle recently purchased for the third time in recent years by a private individual without any interest being expressed by Kildare County Council, has been awarded funding under the Community Monuments Fund. I understand the purpose of the funding is to help protect the historical building and facilitate access to it by the general public. White’s Castle is an iconic building at the heart of our town which stands not alone but is twinned with the adjoining Crom a Boo bridge to provide a symbolic representation of the town’s ancient history. Picture Athy in your mind’s eye and almost certainly images of the castle and the bridge will come into view. For so long at the heart of town life in Athy the Castle, as a garrison fortress, as a prison and as a police barracks has witnessed the passing of so many different generations stretching back over 600 years. I had hoped that White’s Castle would again become an integral part of community life in Athy with its development as a heritage centre/museum to complement the Shackleton Museum in the former market house. I don’t know what plans the new owner has for the castle but the successful application for Community Monument funding is an encouraging sign that private enterprise might yet take up the challenge which Kildare County Council and Athy Town Council so abysmally failed to do in the past.

Fr. Philip Dennehy

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

Kildare Archaeological Society's Visit to Athy

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

Michael Day, boxer, footballer and emigrant

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

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

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

The Doctors O'Neill

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

Barrowhouse Ambush May 1921

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

Festival Athy 1979

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

Thomas Reynolds 1798 Informer

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

Michael Devoy's history of Athy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Great Famine and Athy

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

The fight for Athy Outer Relief Road

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