Passing of Kevin Maher

I was in Hay-on-Wye in the upper Wye Valley on the borders of England and Wales when news reached me of the death of Kevin Maher. Kevin was the subject of a previous Eye on the Past (No. 633) when I wrote of his immense contribution to the sporting and social history of Athy over many decades. A son of the legendary ‘Bapty’ Maher, Kevin, the sports man, graced the local golfing scene as the winner of the Captain’s Prize in Athy on two successive years, as well as the winner of numerous competitions over the years. He was a member of the Athy Golf Club Committee since 1947 and in later years was a trustee of the club. His sporting prowess extended to rugby and it was here that he suffered perhaps his greatest sporting disappointment when Athy lost the 1948 Provincial Towns Cup to Dundalk. The only score of that game was a penalty kicked by Frank Johnson for Drogheda, who for many years sat as a District Justice in Naas and Newbridge.

Kevin played a prominent part in the formation of the local Old Folks Committee and was responsible for the Committee’s subsequent acquisition of No. 82 Leinster Street which for many years served as the Old Folks Centre. A veterinary surgeon by profession, Kevin was elected Chairman of the Veterinary Benevolent Fund in 1981, a position which he continued to occupy for the next 23 years.

A gracious man, Kevin was intensely interested in his native town and I can recall many occasions when he wrote to me or contacted me by phone to clarify some matter or other the subject of one of my articles. His passing is a sad blow for his family and our sympathy goes to his wife Molly and to the Maher family.

I have been visiting the attractive market town of Hay-on-Wye, known simply by locals as ‘Hay’, for close on thirty years. My first visit was prompted by a television programme on the town and the role of Richard Booth in creating a book town out of the decaying economy of a Welsh market town. Booth opened his first book shop in Hay in 1961 in what was the old fire station. He was then just 23 years old and his success in acquiring libraries and book collections and selling on the books encouraged other book dealers to join him in Hay. Six or seven years later Booth purchased the town cinema and converted it into what was then and may still be the largest secondhand book shop in Britain. Today Hay-on-Wye boasts no less than 28 secondhand book shops in a town with a population of about 1,750.

The town’s success story, originally founded on book sales, has now been further strengthened with the continuing success of the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts. First started in 1988 the festival which runs from the last week of May to the first week in June attracts an enormous number of world class writers. It was said by Bill Clinton to be ‘the Woodstock of the mind’, a claim which thousands of visitors who attend the festival each year would support. To the extraordinary attraction of the Welsh book town must be added the unique attractiveness of the independently owned local shops which offer a range and diversity of products and goods not likely to be matched by any of the international conglomerates which are to be found today in every shopping centre in Britain and Ireland.

Hay-on-Wye, a onetime fortified town on the Marches of Wales as Athy was on the Marches of Kildare, has become the book capital of Britain. It is twinned with the Belgium book town of Redu which, encouraged by Richard Booth’s success in the 1960s, started up its own secondhand book shop enterprises in 1984. Books have energised Hay’s economy, a fact which I can confirm having witnessed the enormous improvements in the town during my visits over the last thirty years.

When I visit Hay I am always reminded of Herbert Armstrong, the local Solicitor who was hanged for the murder of his domineering wife in 1922. Armstrong, of diminutive stature, a retired Army officer and a member of the local Masonic Lodge, attempted to poison another local solicitor whose offices were directly opposite Armstrongs. The failed attempt prompted police to exhume Mrs. Armstrong’s body and it was found that she had died of arsenic poisoning. Armstrong was tried, convicted and hanged in nearby Gloucester Prison on 31st May 1922. His offices and those of his lucky colleague are still operating in Hay as solicitors’ practices.

If you ever get the opportunity to visit Hay-on-Wye seize the chance to enjoy one of the great little towns of either Britain or Ireland, even if arsenic and solicitors do not find favour with you.

James Croppers Irish Journey of 1824

On a recent visit to Hay-on-Wye, the Welsh border town noted for its second-hand and antiquarian bookshops, I came across an unusual tome. It consisted of extracts from letters of the late James Cropper, transcribed by his daughter Anne and richly leather-bound in book form. The copper plate writing comprised letters written between 1824 and 1840 by Cropper, a Quaker who visited the various Quaker meetings throughout Ireland during an extended tour in 1824. The book inscribed by Cropper’s daughter Anne to his grandchildren, was prepared in November 1841.

Arriving in Howth from Holyhead on 30th October, 1824 Cropper spent a few days in Dublin before setting out for Limerick. Writing from Mountmellick on 3rd November, 1824 he noted that
“for a few miles out of Dublin we could see very little difference between this country and England. But the scene gradually changed and as we got further into the country we could not but remark the great number of houses in a state of ruin and many with only the walls standing. These were mostly of a superior class to those inhabited by the poor and showed in our opinion the declined state of the country. The habitation of the poor was mostly miserable and dirty … those cottagers had some of them potato gardens attached to their dwellings …

We then came to Kildare and were struck with two fine buildings, one an infirmary, the other we were told was a coffee house but we could no way imagine what they could do with such a coffee house in so miserable a place. I soon found it was for the entertainment of the gentry at race time. I went into the pot house and spoke with the landlord about the condition of the country. He said things were getting worse and worse, the people were willing to work but could get none to do. From there we went to Monasterevin, we saw a large building which from its appearance we hoped had been a factory but on enquiry we found it was a distillery”.

In another letter from Limerick three days later Cropper wrote :-

“At Naas we stopped at the chief inn where no less than four chaises were before us changing horses. At the door of the Inn there was a great flock of miserable beings. I talked with them and asked them why did they not work. They declared that they would be very glad to work if they could get anything to do and many of them I really believed but there were in the group some miserable objects, old people unable to work but had no other provision than begging. I changed a shilling mostly in half-pence but though I divided it as wide as I could giving each of them a half penny, many of them fell short. In Naas there were two handsome buildings - one a prison and the other the Courthouse, one to try and another to punish those poor miserable creatures - surely the people at the head of affairs need punishment much worse.

We proceeded from Naas and then again soon saw a large resplendent building and a few miles further another - and what are these for? Why, they were barracks to keep those poor miserable creatures quiet with Bayonets instead of bread. The next fine building we saw in the Curragh of Kildare - it was a stand for the races. This Curragh is fine land with a good deal of gorse and is pastured by sheep.”

Writing of Portarlington Cropper described it as :-

“A neat town, the largest we have seen since we left Dublin and here the people are employed chiefly in weaving. What is the reason of this vast change, this bright spot in the very heart of so much misery? This is one of the earliest settlements of Friends in Ireland. There are 40 or 50 families of them and it is they who carry on all the manufacturers.”

Here Cropper was referring to the Society of Friends, commonly called the Quakers.

Unfortunately he did not travel to Athy during his extended tour of Ireland but his description of conditions in Naas no doubt held true for the South Kildare town. It is difficult to imagine the extent of the poverty and misery which prevailed in some Irish towns of that time, indeed the majority of Irish towns. Portarlington was, if anything, an exception and showed by comparison the distressing conditions prevailing in the towns and villages of County Kildare in 1824.