Memorial, plaques and signs in and around South Kildare

Kildare County Council has recently embarked on a survey of memorials, plaques and signs throughout the County of Kildare.  They are part of our cultural heritage, marking as they do people of the past, historic events or heritage landmarks of town and countryside.  This is the first attempt to collect this information and when the project is completed it is intended to make its results available to the general public.  In turn the public’s help in identifying and recording local memorials, plaques and signs is sought.

The Heritage Officer of Kildare County Council has prepared guidelines for the survey.  While advising that graveyard memorials are not included almost every other form of commemorative memorial or plaque is deemed worthy of recording.  Even what the guidelines describe as ‘significant street names and laneways’ are to be included.  Interestingly bench marks, armorial plaques and mile markers also come within the ambit of the survey.  The Council’s Heritage Officer Bridget Loughlin who is overseeing the survey would like to get the following information.  The memorial/plaque name, where it is located, a brief description with any background information and a photograph, although I suspect the latter while helpful is not essential. 

In recent years probably more plaques have gone up in or around Athy than in any other time in the past.  Nelson Street has a plaque to Johnny Lynch, musician, while the Dominicans are honoured with a plaque on the entrance wall to the former Dominican Church.  The Christian Brothers are remembered with a handsome memorial in Edmund Rice Square, while the Sisters of Mercy have the riverside car park opposite the Parish Church dedicated to their Order.

Until recent years the Town Hall had a large plaque commemorating the founding of Macra na Feirme and its founder Stephen Cullinane but it was removed when the Macra monument was unveiled by President Robinson some years ago.  I wonder where that plaque is today?  The impressive Town Hall has in more recent years received plaques honouring the local men who fought in the 1914-18 war, as well as a plaque honouring Ernest Shackleton, the polar explorer.  This year as part of the centenary commemorations of the 1916 Rising a plaque was affixed to the west wall of the Town Hall. 

A few years ago the Enterprise Centre arranged for tourist plaques to be placed on the more important buildings in the town.  Whites Castle, Canal Harbour, Crom a Boo Bridge, St. Michael’s Church of Ireland church, Methodist church, St. Vincent’s Hospital are but some of the buildings highlighted in this way.

Bench marks will be seldom recognised but offhand I can recall bench marks on the Town Hall, Crom a Boo Bridge and St. Vincent’s Hospital.  There are a few more around the town awaiting to be identified.  Memorials are less scarce and in the main square of the town we have the water fountain presented to the people of Athy by the Duke of Leinster.  Just behind it is the more recently unveiled memorial to the men and women from the locality who in 1798 sought religious and civil liberty. 

Would the stone archway taken from the ruins of the cavalry barracks in Barrack Lane and reassembled in Woodstock Street come within the definition of a memorial?  I would think so, as undoubtedly will the superb canal lock gate which adorns the roundabout on the Dublin Road.  The various pieces of sculpture provided by Kildare County Council under the percentage scheme for major capital projects must also be included in this survey.  Examples are to be found at the Flinters Field site, at Butlers Row and the Fairgreen housing site.

What the Council refers to as ‘significant street names’ may pose problems when it comes to their inclusion or exclusion from the survey.  I cannot imagine that any one street name is any less or more significant than another.  Our principal street names commemorate members of the Duke of Leinster’s family, while many of the laneways bear the names of long forgotten property owners.  The building boom of the Celtic years which came somewhat later to Athy than elsewhere resulted in the creation of a lot of housing estates with names which do not resonate historically or otherwise with the ancient town on the River Barrow. 

If you can help the County Council in its countywide survey of memorials, plaques and signs do contact Bridget Loughlin, Heritage Office at the Council Offices, Naas, ph. (045) 980791 or email Bloughlin@kildarecoco.ie. 

Another project recently initiated by Kildare County Council is a building survey of the county which seeks to identify buildings of historical interest or architectural merit.  Athy has a wealth of such buildings and indeed in the opinion of many is the most interesting town in the county of Kildare in terms of its layout and architecture.  If you are contacted by the team involved in the building survey do give them every help in identifying and recording the building which may be your home or your business address.  It is purely an architectural survey and is in no way connected with property tax, rating systems or anything that is detrimental to your interests.  Your cooperation with the survey team would be much appreciated and will undoubtedly be reflected in the quality of the survey teams final report

Unionised Farm Workers of South Kildare

Prior to the First World War various attempts had been made to organise the landless farm labourers of Ireland.  The Irish Land and Labour Association founded towards the end of the 19^th century was perhaps the most successful in that regard.  Like most of its predecessors however, it’s aims were too diffuse to guarantee success, seeking as it did houses and land for the farm labourers as well as wage increases.

The Dublin Lockout of 1913 raised the profile of trade unionism at a time when there was an acceptance of the need for legislation to provide for the well being of the farm labourers, in much the same way as the Wyndham Land Act had catered for the tenant farmers.  The rush to arms during the 1914-18 war saw upwards of 250,000 Irishmen enlist to fight, creating an inevitable shortage of labour where previously labour scarcities were unknown.  The farmers of south Kildare and elsewhere throughout the rich farmlands of the midlands now had to compete on the open market for the available labour.  The shortage of farm workers led to the establishment of a Migratory Labour Scheme operated by the Department of Agriculture.  Advertised in the local Press, the scheme made available ploughmen at 25 shillings per week including board and lodgings, while farm labourers could be hired for 15 shillings per week.

The start of work on the new Wolfhill railway line in April 1917 was another cause of concern for local farmers who feared that part-time workers already reduced in numbers by the war recruitment effort would be further reduced by the better paid work on the railway.  To prevent locals abandoning their traditional working routine, employment on the railway project was confined to men registered for national service.  Farm labourers were to be discouraged from applying for such work so as not to aggravate the already worsening labour situation on local farms.

The scarcity of labour witnessed in the early years of the war did not reflect itself in any substantial improvement in wage levels.  In February 1917 the Nationalist Newspaper would report that “wages have not kept pace with the abnormal increases that have taken place in the price of provisions.”

This was the background to the emergence of unionised agriculture labour in May 1917 when the public in south Kildare first became aware of Land and Labour Associations in Ballyadams, Monasterevin and Vicarstown.  Their stated aim was to protect farm workers and to press for minimum wage legislation.  By November 1917 the local farmers had themselves organised and a branch of the Irish Farmers Union was started in Athy with W.J. Fennel as President and Thomas J. Bodley as Secretary.  Coincidentally both men occupied the same positions on the Athy Agricultural Show Committee.  Within a month a Wages Board was established for south Kildare with four workers representatives, four employers representatives, with two members of Athy Urban District Council, Councillors Michael Malone and P.P. Doyle.

On Sunday 23^rd December 1917 a meeting was held at Burtown cross-roads to form a labour union.  Reported in the local press as “a great success” a committee was elected, although significantly no membership details were given in the Press Report.  By now, as a national newspaper noted, “a sign of the times is the establishment of labour associations or unions throughout the country.”  Within a few weeks of its formation the Burtown Labour Union called on the Wages Board to withdraw the middle grades for agricultural workers. 

In the same week as the closure of Fontstown Post Office was announced after almost 66 years in existence a Land and Labour Association was formed in the Ballyroe Churchtown area.  It’s officers were announced as Thomas Day [President], W. Bambrick [Vice President], M. Dillon [Secretary] and Thomas Byrne [Treasurer].  In early February 1918 a labour meeting was held in Ballitore, again comprised of farm workers.  It was soon thereafter to amalgamate with other local associations to form the South Kildare Labour Union.  The secretary of the Union was Christopher Supple of Foxhill who a week or two before the amalgamation had announced at a meeting at Penchers Cross, Grangenolvin, “I have met with the farmers and they are willing to meet our demands”.  What these demands were is not known but with the formation of the South Kildare Labour Union Supple was now in a strong position to negotiate on behalf of the farm labourers of the area.

The committee of the first Labour Union in this part of County Kildare was comprised of many whose names were not generally known.  For the record they were T. Cullen, Ballycullane [President], Michael Fenlon, Millbrook [Vice President], Christopher Supple, Foxhill [Secretary], James Loughman, Castleroe [Assistant Secretary], J. Dalton, Foxhill [Treasurer], William Sherlock, Foxhill [Assistant Treasurer].  The Committee comprised James Doyle of Ballindrum, Christy Wright of Bray, Ed Calahan of Foxhill, John Supple of Ballycullane, Phil Horan of Foxhill, John Buggy of Burtown, P. Conway of Ballyroe, Thomas Supple of Burtown and S. Travers of Kilkea. 

On Sunday, 19^th March 1918 a public meeting was held in the square in Castledermot to call attention to what the Sinn Fein organisers called a system under which vast tracts of lands were held by landlords.  It was addressed by Laurence Ginnell M.P., as well as Kevin Higgins of Stradbally whose brother had been killed fighting in World War I and Peter P. Doyle of Athy.  The opposition to the “ranching system” in south Kildare had earlier led to cattle being driven off lands in and around Castledermot but there is no evidence to suggest that the emerging Labour Union was in any way involved.

By now the Dublin based Irish Transport Union was intensifying its efforts to take over the Labour Associations throughout the country and on Sunday 24^th March 1918 the South Kildare Labour Union held a public meeting in Emily Square which was to be addressed by William O’Brien who had been secretary of the Lockout Committee in 1913.  An organiser for the Transport Union, O’Brien spoke of the need to organise on a national level and with his encouragement the meeting chaired by Michael Mooney of Grangemellon agreed to affiliate to the Transport Union.  Reports of the meeting claimed that large numbers of farm labourers paraded prior to the meeting in Emily Square behind the Ballylinan Band.

The stage was now set for the Transport Union to take on the South Kildare Farmers Union and local man Christopher Supple of Foxhill would be to the forefront of any such negotiations.  The first dispute arose in May 1918 when a number of local farmers sacked workers who had failed to turn up for work on 23^rd April.  This had been designated by the Irish Trades Congress as a day of protest against military conscription, an issue which was then causing great concern throughout Ireland.  A settlement appears to have been affected as there is no record of the subsequent strike.  The relationship between the Farmers Union and the Transport Union appears to have been better than one might expect as the request for farm labourers to be allowed off two hours each Saturday to facilitate shopping was granted after minimum negotiation.  In return for this concession the workers agreed during harvesting and haymaking to continue working until the crops were saved.  Within a few months the Farmers Union had again agreed to a union demand for an increase in wages, allowing the farm workers an extra 2/6 a week to bring their wages to 27/6 a week for a 60 hour week.  Now the Transport Union sought to take on the publicans of Athy whom it claimed were overcharging its members (and presumably everybody else) for drink.  Posters printed by the Transport Union were put up about the town calling on members of the Transport Union to boycott local pubs until the price of drink was reduced.  Christy Supple wrote to the local Urban District Council advising of the farm labourers resolution to boycott the local public houses prompting local publican and Councillor Michael “Crutch” Malone to declare “higher wages and cheaper porter seems to be this gentleman’s programme”.

World War I and South Kildare

On Sunday, 10th November, a short ceremony will take place in St. Michael’s Cemetery at 3.00 o’clock in the afternoon. Its purpose will be to remember those local men who died in World War I on what will be the 84th anniversary of the end of that war.

There is no truly accurate account of the worldwide casualties suffered during the conflict which started in August 1914 and ended in November 1918. The number of men and women killed or injured will never be known as compiling records during warfare was understandably never easy. The best records available to us indicate that in excess of 8½ million men were killed in action or died of wounds or gas poisoning during the 52 months of the war. A staggering 21 million or so men were wounded. There was not a town or village in Ireland which did not contribute some measure of its youthful generation to the grim slaughter which was the Great War.

County Kildare suffered a loss of at least 567 men whose deaths are recorded, while the south Kildare area sustained proportionately greater losses than the rest of the county. Over the years I have often written of Athy men who died in the 1914/18 war, but it was not until this year when I visited Flanders that I came to realise the magnitude of the human slaughter which we rather oddly refer to as The Great War. There was nothing great about the war cemeteries which pitted the Flanders landscape with stone memorials to the dead. The regularity with which one came across war cemeteries was frankly upsetting, while the small Commonwealth grave markers over each grave bore testimony to the sad and awesome harvest of death reaped during the war.

Following the war, here and there throughout Ireland local committees compiled lists of soldiers from their area who had been killed. In Castledermot such a list was compiled, while I have in front of me a Roll in Honour of those from Longford town and county who fell in the Great War. I have mentioned in previous articles that the Urban District Council of the time agreed to compile a list of Athy men who fought in the War. The list if it was ever compiled was not published and indeed a record of the soldiers from this area who served in the War has not survived.

There were few Athy families unaffected by the War and while I have identified about 105 townsmen and a further 83 men from the Athy rural area who died in World War I, no doubt my list is incomplete. Who recalls Edward Conlon of Brackna, a private in the Leinster Regiment who died at sea on Sunday, 20th October 1918. William Corrigan, a Private in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers was another unlucky Athy man killed in the last days of the war on 14th October 1918. Alfred Coyle from Nicholastown was only 22 years old when he died from gas poisoning on 21st August, 1917. Was he any relation of Thomas Coyle of Nurney aged 28 years who was killed in action at St. Quintin in France on 25th August 1918?

The story of Andrew Delaney of Crookstown who died of gas poisoning in Netley Hospital on 31st May 1915 forms part of the World War I display in the local Heritage Centre. A married man, his body was brought home for burial in the local cemetery. He is the only World War I casualty in the Crookstown cemetery, although the former Parish Priest, Fr. Stafford, who was an army chaplain during the war is also buried there. I have been trying for a long time to get information on Fr. Stafford, and would welcome hearing from anyone who could help me. Was Andrew Delaney in any way related to William Delaney, also of Crookstown who was killed in France on 13th March 1916?

The list of names of Athy men killed in the war is like a role call of present day families in the area. Alcock, Bell, Byrne, Connell, Corcoran, Corrigan, Coyle, Cullen, Curtis, Delaney, Devoy, Dillon, Dooley. The list goes on and on, all the time recalling the local family names with which we are so well acquainted.

Earlier this year in company with teachers and students from Wellington College, New Zealand I visited war graves and battle sites in France and Flanders. On looking over the names of the war dead from Athy and district I was intrigued to find one man who had enlisted in the First Battalion of the Wellington Regiment from New Zealand. He was Gilbert Kelly known to his friends as Bertie who was killed in action on 25th September 1916. He was from Ballintubbert and being a Kelly was quite possibly a descendent of Rev. Thomas Kelly who founded the Kellyites in the early years of the 19th century. Bertie Kelly had emigrated to New Zealand but even there he could not avoid the conflict which was raging in Europe. The chances of war in all probability brought him into contact with other men from his hometown of Athy. It was the Battle of the Somme which ultimately claimed Kelly’s life as it did so many others whose early years had been spent in the fields around south Kildare.

Last week I mentioned the Memorial which hopefully will soon be erected by the Town Council to commemorate the townspeoples’ part in the 1798 Rebellion. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful gesture if the Council erected a Memorial to the generation of Athy men who over 80 years ago lost their lives in World War I. It would be a timely gesture and one which would go some way to redressing the awfully sad way in which mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters felt compelled to mourn in private their loved ones who were for so long written out of Irish history.

I can recall it was nine years ago that Athy Museum Society hosted a seminar in the Town Hall on World War I, with particular reference to its impact on County Kildare. It was probably the first time that an Irish provincial town had commemorated its World War dead in that way. Kevin Myers of the Irish Times said at the time “it does no disservice to our nation or what we believe in that we should remember the World War I dead here today”. How right he was and how right it is that we should not forget the men whose last view of Athy was from a train pulling out of the railway station on the first leg of a journey which would end in a foreign grave.

Next Sunday at 3.00pm some of us will gather in St. Michael’s cemetery to remember the young men who lost their lives in World War I. I hope you can join us.