Recently Clem Ryan, a history teacher in Scoil Mhuire came to me with a number of letters which came into his possession some years ago. He was anxious to trace the owners of the letters and his best efforts in that regard had proved less than successful. Two of those letters concern a young man named Anthony Ovington who died in France on 13 November 1916. A Corporal in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers he was born at Woodfield, Co. Wicklow and was apparently known to his friends and acquaintances as Tony. One of the letters is a copy of the original and is dated 9 December [presumably 1916]. It was from a fellow soldier who served in France with Tony Ovington and was addressed to Mrs. Ovington, whether Tony’s mother or wife, I do not know. The letter writer was Sgt. T. Priest who was apparently well known to the Ovington family. In his letter of 9 December Priest refers to Mrs. Ovington's letter of seven days previously and continues.
“I regret to say I have bad news for you about poor Tony. It was only yesterday I heard definitely the very sad news that he was dead. Until then I hoped that he might be only wounded and in hospital but alas my hopes were not realized. Tony and I went into action on the 13th November and I came out of it without a scratch, but poor Tony was knocked out. I don’t know how I came out of it safely. It was a perfect hell. I am feeling awfully lonely after Tony and indeed so is everyone in the company. He was loved and admired by all for his simple and jovial manner, but none of them can miss him as I do as he was a true and faithful comrade, but we must all die sooner or later and I think there is no one more prepared for death than a person going into battle. I have no doubt that poor Tony is quite happy now. Needless to say Mrs. Ovington you and your family have my deepest sympathy in the irreparable loss which you have sustained in the death of dear Tony.”
The second letter, also from Sgt. Priest, is an original letter dated 12 January 1917 and sent from “Somewhere in France” to those whom he addressed as “My dear fellas”. After acknowledging a letter received from them Sgt. Priest continued.
“I know that Tony has been reported as missing but he is now reported as killed on the 13th November. Well you would like to hear something about the battle. I cannot tell you very much. It commenced about 6.00 a.m. on the morning of the 13th November and was practically over the next day. I saw Tony immediately after the start but I never saw him afterwards although I searched the ground we had captured two or three days after the attack but I could not find him. One fellow states he saw Tony dead on the German front lines in a dugout. His pay book and identification disc have been sent into the orderly room which shows that he must have been found and buried. Yes we were expecting that the attack was coming off but did not know the exact date until the day before it actually came off. Tony was not with the machine guns in the attack. Any letters you have sent to him will probably be returned to you by Head Quarters if the address of the sender is known. Yes, if I get back to Ireland I shall certainly call to see you”.
He concludes with a reference to his friends father, mother, brothers and sisters before signing off as “your sincere friend”.
The battle referred to, in which Tony Ovington died, was the Battle of Ancre which started on Monday, 13 November 1916. Part of the extended Somme battlefield the engagement at Ancre resulted in the capture of Beaucourt. On the same day as Tony Ovington died upwards of 360 German soldiers of the 62nd Regiment were buried alive when a 30,000 lb. mine was detonated by the British at Hawthorn Crater. On 13 November James Dunne, the 20 year old son of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Dunne of 3 Offaly Street, Athy like Tony Ovington a member of the 10th Batallion Dublin Fusiliers was also killed on the Somme. [I believe James had a brother and one sister who later became a nun]. The bodies of Tony Ovington and James Dunne were never identified and their names are recorded on the Thiepval Memorial in France. This Memorial to the missing of the Somme, records the names of more than 72,000 men who died on the Somme up to 20 March 1918 and who have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916.
Sergeant Priest whose letters would indicate a friendship with the family of Tony Ovington, was from Knockroe in Co. Roscommon. How Priest and Ovington came to know each other becomes apparent when their regimental numbers are checked. Priest had the Regimental Number 25462 while Tony Ovington had the next number 25463. Both men had obviously enlisted on the same day. Was this the first time they met or were they workmates who decided to enlist together? Probably Tony Ovington, on weekend leave home from the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Barracks in Naas or elsewhere was at one time or another accompanied by his friend Thomas Priest who later corresponded with the Ovington family when the 10th Battalion went overseas.
Thomas Priest, the kindly Sergeant who survived the battle of Ancre in which his friend Tony Ovington died, was killed in action in France on Sunday, 11 February 1917. He never did get the opportunity to return to Ireland or to re-visit his friend’s family. Priest is buried in Ancre Cemetery, Beaumont-Hamel near the Somme which was enlarged after the Armistic of 1918. The majority of those buried in that cemetery died on 1 July, 3 September or 13 November 1916 and of the 2540 graves, 1335 contain the remains of unidentified soldiers. It is possible, that the two Irishmen, Tony Ovington and Thomas Priest, two friends who died within three months of each other, may have been reunited in death in the cemetery of Ancre on the Somme?
Who were the Ovington family and where did they live? I would be delighted to get any information which would help to give us a better understanding of the young man and his friend Thomas Priest who died more than 85 years ago. The letters passed on to me by Clem Ryan will be returned to the descendants of Tony Ovington if they wish to contact me. Otherwise they will be retained in the Heritage Centre where so many relics and mementos of the Great War are kept for display and for future research purposes.
As I mentioned in the book published last year on Athy Urban District Council, that Council ordered that a list be compiled of Athy men who enlisted to fight in World War I and those killed or wounded in action. The list if compiled cannot be traced and I have tried for sometime to put together details of those men. I would welcome any information from any source to allow a comprehensive record of Athy’s involvement in World War I to be put together.
Thursday, April 11, 2002
Thursday, April 4, 2002
St. John's Lane / Mrs. Peg English
There has been a huge response to the recent Eye on the Past dealing with the forthcoming class re-union for those with whom I spent many happy school days up to 1960. Sadly at least two former classmates mentioned in that article have passed away, while the whereabouts of a few more have yet to be traced. I am looking forward to hearing from anyone who can help to track down those former pupils of the Christian Brothers School in St. John’s Lane, no matter how far they have moved away from the banks of the River Barrow.
Mention of St. John’s Lane recalls for me the many many times I passed up and down that same lane for upwards of 12 years while attending the Primary School and afterwards the Secondary School in the 1950’s and the ‘60’s. It’s many years since I walked up or down what remains of St. John’s Lane since the car park was laid out and the public space thereby created was named Edmund Rice Square. The Town Council’s decision to charge an hourly rate to use the car park which rate payers’ monies provided in the first instance prompted many, including myself, to move up St. John’s Lane to find an alternative parking space.
It’s over 40 years, since as a pedestrian, I used that same stretch of laneway, passing what was once the Christian Brother’s Monastery on the way to the gated entrance of the school yard. As a teenager, living in an era when there was respect for the institutions of Church and State I always blessed myself when passing a Church and that included the Christian Brother’s Monastery in St. John’s Lane. Would you believe that after the lapse of almost 40 years while recently walking past what was once the doorway to the Christian Brother’s Monastery, but now a private house, my right hand instinctively began to make the sign of the cross. I chuckled and ruefully acknowledged that a habit developed in youth is difficult to lay aside and marveled how it was triggered by walking past a building which was familiar to me so many years ago.
St. John’s Lane now starts and ends, depending on your direction, at the corner of where St. John’s Cemetery joins Edmund Rice Square. At one time the lane turned at that point and bounded by buildings on both sides headed in a straight line to meet Duke Street at a point directly opposite Herterich’s Pork Butchers. As one walked down the lane on leaving the Christian Brothers School, Carbery’s Carpentry and Joinery Works was immediately on the right, with St. John’s Cemetery on the left. At the turn, Carbery’s private house was on the left, with an entrance to their building yard directly in front as one faced the River Barrow. Turning right and heading towards Duke Street the first building on the left belonged to the Defence Forces and housed the local L.D.F. Centre. Immediately adjoining that was Vernal’s forge and beyond the forge the side of Mrs. Haslam’s house which faced out onto the small square fronting Duke Street. [Has anyone ever seen a photograph of that same square? I have searched for years for a reproduction of a scene which was once so familiar to thousands of young school goers, but as yet without any success]. On the right hand side of St. John’s Lane as you turned the corner and headed towards Duke Street was a high wall shielding a yard at the rear of Shaws and beyond it one small house occupied by the English family immediately before Shaws shop, which if I’m correct, extended to just two shop windows on that side of the lane.
Mrs. Peg English lived in that small house with her children, Frank, Ann and Tommy. The latter was named after his father who was known to everybody in Athy as Tommy “Buggy” rather than Tommy English as he was born. Tommy “Buggy” was reared by the Buggy family and the name stuck, particularly during Tommy’s time as a fine Gaelic footballer with the local club in the early 1940’s. He was a member of the Athy senior team which won the Kildare County Senior Championships in 1942. Like many others from Athy he emigrated to England in the late 1940’s to work on the building construction sites. His wife Peg and his young family continued to live in St. John’s Lane and theirs was the only house on that part of St. John’s Lane during the 1950’s.
The history of emigration from the town of Athy in the 1940’s is the story of men like Paddy “Gussler” Croake of St. John’s Lane, John “Parnell” Rochford, Johnny Day, Denis “Bunny” Chanders, his brother William “Skinner” Chanders and many others who found work overseas where none was to be had in their hometown. Some returned to Athy in later years, but many others like Peter Twomey of Barrack Yard who died in Luton in his 90th year spent the remainder of their lives amongst the sometimes inhospitable atmosphere of English towns. The Irish in those days were favoured for the hard rough building work which was shunned by men born on the English mainland, even if the boarding houses of Bradford and Leeds like many other English towns oftentimes bore evidence of the discrimination which allowed “No Irish need apply” signs to proliferate. But that’s a story for another day.
Peg English, the one time resident of St. John’s Lane died last week and her passing revived for me memories of the time when I passed her door four times a day going to and coming from school. I got to know Peg English after she moved to St. Patrick’s Avenue, because of my friendship with her eldest son Frank. She and her sister Kitty O’Mara, who died some years ago, were members of an old Athy family and in sharp contrast to the oft repeated claim that Athy is a settlers town of West Brits, Peg English was an Irish Republican and a staunch and unflinching supporter of the political party born out of the anti-Treaty side following the Civil War. She was a lady of indomitable spirit who loved a cigarette, even though she knew it was bad for a constitution already weakened by the debilitating effects of asthma. As a fellow sufferer, but a non-smoker, I often gently chided her about her smoking habit, but in truth it provided a comfort and a form of relaxation which her age and spirit entitled her to have. I was reminded of my own father, a non-smoker throughout his working life, who on retiring liked nothing more than to drag on a cigarette with an awkwardness which clearly demonstrated previous decades of abstinence.
The funeral Mass for Peg English was celebrated by a family friend, Fr. John Paul Sheridan who nine years ago left the Athy parish after a curacy of three years to return to the Ferns dioceses. With Peggy English’s death passed the last link with that part of St. John’s Lane which was so familiar to me during the 1950’s. Carbery’s, Vernal’s and the Christian Brothers Monastery and School have long departed and the small house which was home to the English family now forms part of Shaw’s Department Store. Edmund Rice Square today has no visible evidence of that period in our lives and memories alone hold the fading reflections of youthful school trips down St. John’s Lane.
Mention of St. John’s Lane recalls for me the many many times I passed up and down that same lane for upwards of 12 years while attending the Primary School and afterwards the Secondary School in the 1950’s and the ‘60’s. It’s many years since I walked up or down what remains of St. John’s Lane since the car park was laid out and the public space thereby created was named Edmund Rice Square. The Town Council’s decision to charge an hourly rate to use the car park which rate payers’ monies provided in the first instance prompted many, including myself, to move up St. John’s Lane to find an alternative parking space.
It’s over 40 years, since as a pedestrian, I used that same stretch of laneway, passing what was once the Christian Brother’s Monastery on the way to the gated entrance of the school yard. As a teenager, living in an era when there was respect for the institutions of Church and State I always blessed myself when passing a Church and that included the Christian Brother’s Monastery in St. John’s Lane. Would you believe that after the lapse of almost 40 years while recently walking past what was once the doorway to the Christian Brother’s Monastery, but now a private house, my right hand instinctively began to make the sign of the cross. I chuckled and ruefully acknowledged that a habit developed in youth is difficult to lay aside and marveled how it was triggered by walking past a building which was familiar to me so many years ago.
St. John’s Lane now starts and ends, depending on your direction, at the corner of where St. John’s Cemetery joins Edmund Rice Square. At one time the lane turned at that point and bounded by buildings on both sides headed in a straight line to meet Duke Street at a point directly opposite Herterich’s Pork Butchers. As one walked down the lane on leaving the Christian Brothers School, Carbery’s Carpentry and Joinery Works was immediately on the right, with St. John’s Cemetery on the left. At the turn, Carbery’s private house was on the left, with an entrance to their building yard directly in front as one faced the River Barrow. Turning right and heading towards Duke Street the first building on the left belonged to the Defence Forces and housed the local L.D.F. Centre. Immediately adjoining that was Vernal’s forge and beyond the forge the side of Mrs. Haslam’s house which faced out onto the small square fronting Duke Street. [Has anyone ever seen a photograph of that same square? I have searched for years for a reproduction of a scene which was once so familiar to thousands of young school goers, but as yet without any success]. On the right hand side of St. John’s Lane as you turned the corner and headed towards Duke Street was a high wall shielding a yard at the rear of Shaws and beyond it one small house occupied by the English family immediately before Shaws shop, which if I’m correct, extended to just two shop windows on that side of the lane.
Mrs. Peg English lived in that small house with her children, Frank, Ann and Tommy. The latter was named after his father who was known to everybody in Athy as Tommy “Buggy” rather than Tommy English as he was born. Tommy “Buggy” was reared by the Buggy family and the name stuck, particularly during Tommy’s time as a fine Gaelic footballer with the local club in the early 1940’s. He was a member of the Athy senior team which won the Kildare County Senior Championships in 1942. Like many others from Athy he emigrated to England in the late 1940’s to work on the building construction sites. His wife Peg and his young family continued to live in St. John’s Lane and theirs was the only house on that part of St. John’s Lane during the 1950’s.
The history of emigration from the town of Athy in the 1940’s is the story of men like Paddy “Gussler” Croake of St. John’s Lane, John “Parnell” Rochford, Johnny Day, Denis “Bunny” Chanders, his brother William “Skinner” Chanders and many others who found work overseas where none was to be had in their hometown. Some returned to Athy in later years, but many others like Peter Twomey of Barrack Yard who died in Luton in his 90th year spent the remainder of their lives amongst the sometimes inhospitable atmosphere of English towns. The Irish in those days were favoured for the hard rough building work which was shunned by men born on the English mainland, even if the boarding houses of Bradford and Leeds like many other English towns oftentimes bore evidence of the discrimination which allowed “No Irish need apply” signs to proliferate. But that’s a story for another day.
Peg English, the one time resident of St. John’s Lane died last week and her passing revived for me memories of the time when I passed her door four times a day going to and coming from school. I got to know Peg English after she moved to St. Patrick’s Avenue, because of my friendship with her eldest son Frank. She and her sister Kitty O’Mara, who died some years ago, were members of an old Athy family and in sharp contrast to the oft repeated claim that Athy is a settlers town of West Brits, Peg English was an Irish Republican and a staunch and unflinching supporter of the political party born out of the anti-Treaty side following the Civil War. She was a lady of indomitable spirit who loved a cigarette, even though she knew it was bad for a constitution already weakened by the debilitating effects of asthma. As a fellow sufferer, but a non-smoker, I often gently chided her about her smoking habit, but in truth it provided a comfort and a form of relaxation which her age and spirit entitled her to have. I was reminded of my own father, a non-smoker throughout his working life, who on retiring liked nothing more than to drag on a cigarette with an awkwardness which clearly demonstrated previous decades of abstinence.
The funeral Mass for Peg English was celebrated by a family friend, Fr. John Paul Sheridan who nine years ago left the Athy parish after a curacy of three years to return to the Ferns dioceses. With Peggy English’s death passed the last link with that part of St. John’s Lane which was so familiar to me during the 1950’s. Carbery’s, Vernal’s and the Christian Brothers Monastery and School have long departed and the small house which was home to the English family now forms part of Shaw’s Department Store. Edmund Rice Square today has no visible evidence of that period in our lives and memories alone hold the fading reflections of youthful school trips down St. John’s Lane.
Thursday, March 28, 2002
Education in Athy in 18th Century
During the reign of Charles II, Parliament enacted that “all schoolteachers should take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and be licensed by the Ordinary”. Intended to place education under the control of the Established Church, the Act served to deprive Irish Catholics of educational opportunities within their own country. One legislative loophole, which allowed the children of wealthy Catholic families to be educated abroad, was closed during the reign of William III. At the same time the Church of Ireland authorities pressed for stricter compliance with the Act of 1537 which required their clergy to establish and maintain parish schools.
Until the 1790’s the working class children of Athy received no formal education. The Established Church did not have a parish school in the town while no Catholic teacher was licensed to teach his co-religionists. The children of well-to-do families were able to attend fee paying private schools. Athy is recorded as having such a school as early as 1670. About that time Isaac Dalton operated a Latin school in the town which in 1717 had John Garnet as headmaster.
The following contemporary account is taken from the Autobiography of Pole Cosby of Stradbally, Queens County :
“In 1716 when we came over from England my father got one, the Rev. Mr. West, to live in the house to be my Tutor, and so I was in the house learning Latin from Mr. West till Witsontide 1717, and then my father finding me not improve, he sent me to one Mr. John Garnet who kept the Latin School in Athy, and was just then come to Athy, and succeeded Mr. Issac Dalton who had kept school there for about 40 years. I lodged at said Mr. Daltons who used to examine and instruct me after school time. I lodged with him till 1718 when Mr. Garnet married and went to housekeeping, and then I went and lodged with him and continued with him while I stayed in Athy, the chief of my schoolfellows whilst I was here at school were Thomas Keightin (Keating) son of Col. Thos. K. of Narraghmore, Robert Pinsent now a Minister, Jr. Doyle now a Minister, and Schoolmaster of Athy, Emerson Peirce son of Col. H.P. of Seskin in ye county of Wicklow, Warner Westenra, Billy, Dick, and Ben Fish of Toberogan, Joe Ash now of Ashfield in the County of Meath and Dillon his brother, Saywell Stubber’s brother Meredith, Hector and Billy Vaughan of Golden Grove, Charly Willington of ye Kings County, Cox. Billy Welldon, and Geo. Welldon brother of Arthur Welldon of Rahin, Dick Nuttall and Joe his brother, Billy and Tom Bunbury of y County Carlow and Harry Bunbury who married Miss Pinsent, Harry Ecklin, bro. to Sir Arthur, Joseph Paul of Rathmore in the County Carlow, Elias and Weaver Best, Hutty Barnet, Ned Armstrong, who married Miss Holmes, John Short of Grange in the Q.C, six sons, all Gerald Fitzgerald sons of Coolenoule in the Q.C., Noll Grace of Skehanagh and two or three of his brothers, Ned and Murray Lyndon, James Lewis, Nehemiah Laban, John King now a Minister, Frank Cosby of Vicarstown, Tom and Ralph Pilsworth, Graham Bradford, Ben Bradford, Tom Thompson now a Minister, John Bradford, Arthur Newburg son of Col. N. of Ballyheys in the county of Cavan, Thomas Brook grandson to Ben. Burton the Banker.
While I was at the school of Athy I did constantly learn to write the first year, of one Mr. Milam and after of one Mr. Ternan Rourke. I also learnt to dance one quarter of one Mr. Michael Commons, afterwards he married at Ballymannus, and another quarter of one Mr. Gold. Whilst I was at this school I frequently used to go (to Coz. Meredith at Shrowland, and the widow Lewis of Tullgory) of a Saturday and stay till Monday, and used often come home to my prejudice as to learning.”
In the 1781/82 Parliamentary session an Act was passed permitting Catholic teachers to teach in local schools. However, the inevitable sting in the tail provided that Catholics could not teach their co-religionists unless they were licensed by clergy of the Established Church. Understandably Catholics were reluctant to seek the necessary permission while the Established Church clergy were equally reluctant to accede to such requests when made. This restriction was finally removed about 10 years later thereby paving the way for the introduction of Catholic Schools for the first time since the Reformation.
Depositions taken in May 1798 during the rebellion of that year included references to James Delahunty, Schoolmaster, Athy and James Robinson, Schoolmaster, Foxhill. Their Irish names and their involvement with the United Irishmen suggest Catholic backgrounds. If this is correct then it probably indicates that Athy had a Catholic School at that time, whether a free or a fee paying school we cannot now say.
In 1791 the town had a boarding school for boys provided by a Mr. Ashe. One of the pupils that year was Thomas Lefroy, a future local Chief Justice of Ireland. Another pupil was his brother, Ben Lefroy born in 1782 who married a Miss La Nouse from County Cavan and settled at Cardenton House, Athy, which remained in the family until 1946. In 1793 Anthologica Hibernica referred to the existence in Athy of a public school for the classics with a teaching salary of £40 a year paid by the Duke of Leinster, Athy Borough Council and representatives of the Weldon family. The Select Committee in the House of Commons on Foundation Schools set up in 1857 investigated the alleged endowment of this school. It reported :-
“No such school exists or as far as the Assistant Commissioner could learn, ever did exist.”
In the Minute Book of the Athy Borough Corporation for June 24th 1779, there appears the following entry:
“That it was agreed to give £15 a year to a schoolmaster, for the said Borough, which is to be ratified by an act of assembly of the said Borough.”
The Corporation’s Minute Book does not indicate that the necessary confirmation was ever made and perhaps more conclusive is the fact that no payment was ever made on foot of the decision. In Rawson’s Statistical Survey of County Kildare, published in 1807, Athy is credited with having a Classical School and two female Boarding Schools. No evidence has been found to support Rawson’s claim for the two Boarding Schools, but since he was an Athy resident it may be assumed that this information was accurate.
Until the 1790’s the working class children of Athy received no formal education. The Established Church did not have a parish school in the town while no Catholic teacher was licensed to teach his co-religionists. The children of well-to-do families were able to attend fee paying private schools. Athy is recorded as having such a school as early as 1670. About that time Isaac Dalton operated a Latin school in the town which in 1717 had John Garnet as headmaster.
The following contemporary account is taken from the Autobiography of Pole Cosby of Stradbally, Queens County :
“In 1716 when we came over from England my father got one, the Rev. Mr. West, to live in the house to be my Tutor, and so I was in the house learning Latin from Mr. West till Witsontide 1717, and then my father finding me not improve, he sent me to one Mr. John Garnet who kept the Latin School in Athy, and was just then come to Athy, and succeeded Mr. Issac Dalton who had kept school there for about 40 years. I lodged at said Mr. Daltons who used to examine and instruct me after school time. I lodged with him till 1718 when Mr. Garnet married and went to housekeeping, and then I went and lodged with him and continued with him while I stayed in Athy, the chief of my schoolfellows whilst I was here at school were Thomas Keightin (Keating) son of Col. Thos. K. of Narraghmore, Robert Pinsent now a Minister, Jr. Doyle now a Minister, and Schoolmaster of Athy, Emerson Peirce son of Col. H.P. of Seskin in ye county of Wicklow, Warner Westenra, Billy, Dick, and Ben Fish of Toberogan, Joe Ash now of Ashfield in the County of Meath and Dillon his brother, Saywell Stubber’s brother Meredith, Hector and Billy Vaughan of Golden Grove, Charly Willington of ye Kings County, Cox. Billy Welldon, and Geo. Welldon brother of Arthur Welldon of Rahin, Dick Nuttall and Joe his brother, Billy and Tom Bunbury of y County Carlow and Harry Bunbury who married Miss Pinsent, Harry Ecklin, bro. to Sir Arthur, Joseph Paul of Rathmore in the County Carlow, Elias and Weaver Best, Hutty Barnet, Ned Armstrong, who married Miss Holmes, John Short of Grange in the Q.C, six sons, all Gerald Fitzgerald sons of Coolenoule in the Q.C., Noll Grace of Skehanagh and two or three of his brothers, Ned and Murray Lyndon, James Lewis, Nehemiah Laban, John King now a Minister, Frank Cosby of Vicarstown, Tom and Ralph Pilsworth, Graham Bradford, Ben Bradford, Tom Thompson now a Minister, John Bradford, Arthur Newburg son of Col. N. of Ballyheys in the county of Cavan, Thomas Brook grandson to Ben. Burton the Banker.
While I was at the school of Athy I did constantly learn to write the first year, of one Mr. Milam and after of one Mr. Ternan Rourke. I also learnt to dance one quarter of one Mr. Michael Commons, afterwards he married at Ballymannus, and another quarter of one Mr. Gold. Whilst I was at this school I frequently used to go (to Coz. Meredith at Shrowland, and the widow Lewis of Tullgory) of a Saturday and stay till Monday, and used often come home to my prejudice as to learning.”
In the 1781/82 Parliamentary session an Act was passed permitting Catholic teachers to teach in local schools. However, the inevitable sting in the tail provided that Catholics could not teach their co-religionists unless they were licensed by clergy of the Established Church. Understandably Catholics were reluctant to seek the necessary permission while the Established Church clergy were equally reluctant to accede to such requests when made. This restriction was finally removed about 10 years later thereby paving the way for the introduction of Catholic Schools for the first time since the Reformation.
Depositions taken in May 1798 during the rebellion of that year included references to James Delahunty, Schoolmaster, Athy and James Robinson, Schoolmaster, Foxhill. Their Irish names and their involvement with the United Irishmen suggest Catholic backgrounds. If this is correct then it probably indicates that Athy had a Catholic School at that time, whether a free or a fee paying school we cannot now say.
In 1791 the town had a boarding school for boys provided by a Mr. Ashe. One of the pupils that year was Thomas Lefroy, a future local Chief Justice of Ireland. Another pupil was his brother, Ben Lefroy born in 1782 who married a Miss La Nouse from County Cavan and settled at Cardenton House, Athy, which remained in the family until 1946. In 1793 Anthologica Hibernica referred to the existence in Athy of a public school for the classics with a teaching salary of £40 a year paid by the Duke of Leinster, Athy Borough Council and representatives of the Weldon family. The Select Committee in the House of Commons on Foundation Schools set up in 1857 investigated the alleged endowment of this school. It reported :-
“No such school exists or as far as the Assistant Commissioner could learn, ever did exist.”
In the Minute Book of the Athy Borough Corporation for June 24th 1779, there appears the following entry:
“That it was agreed to give £15 a year to a schoolmaster, for the said Borough, which is to be ratified by an act of assembly of the said Borough.”
The Corporation’s Minute Book does not indicate that the necessary confirmation was ever made and perhaps more conclusive is the fact that no payment was ever made on foot of the decision. In Rawson’s Statistical Survey of County Kildare, published in 1807, Athy is credited with having a Classical School and two female Boarding Schools. No evidence has been found to support Rawson’s claim for the two Boarding Schools, but since he was an Athy resident it may be assumed that this information was accurate.
Thursday, March 21, 2002
Sisters of Mercy Mission to Australia
There are many links between Australia and our home town of Athy, not all of which have been identified to date. Prisoners from the town jail forged many of those earlier connections but it was the 1860’s which provided the most enduring link between this part of Ireland and Australia. In 1861 Fr. Andrew Quinn, then Parish Priest of Athy asked Mother Teresa Maher of the local Convent of Mercy for nuns willing to volunteer for missionary work in Australia. The Parish Priest, a native of west Wicklow was the brother of two Australian-based Bishops, Dr. James Quinn of the dioceses of Brisbane and Dr. Matthew Quinn of the dioceses of Bathurst and it was for Brisbane that the nuns were sought.
Mother Teresa was first cousin of Dr. Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin and daughter of Patrick Maher of Kilrush. Born in 1820 she arrived in Athy from the Mercy Convent in Carlow in 1855 with Sr. Xavier Downey to take charge of the local convent following the departure of Mother Vincent Whitty who was the first Superior of Athy’s Sisters of Mercy. Mother Teresa agreed to receive and train in the Athy Convent young ladies for the Australian mission and the first girl to enter the convent for that purpose was from Portarlington, County Laois. Catherine Flanagan, born on 1st September 1844, the daughter of Denis and Mary Flanagan entered Athy Convent on 10th August 1861, was received into the Mercy Order on 11th February of the following year and professed on 21st February 1864. Her name in religion was Sr. Rose and she left Athy for the Brisbane mission arriving there on 11th November 1865. She died in Brisbane on 1st July 1879.
On 2nd November 1866 five more young Irish women arrived in Brisbane, Australia having journeyed from the Convent of Mercy in Athy. Sr. Columba was born Honoria Griffin on 10th March 1840 in Ballintubbert, Co. Roscommon to John and Elizabeth Griffin. She entered the Athy Convent on 24th February 1865, receiving the habit of the Sisters of Mercy on 10th September of the same year and was professed in Brisbane in 1868. Margaret Bergan, daughter of Edward and Catherine Bergin of Portlaoise was born on 6th February 1842 and entered the Athy Convent on 2nd July 1865. She was received on 28th December of the same year and professed as Sr. Julianna in Brisbane on 31st March 1869. Julia Quirke, a native of Clashmore, Co. Waterford born on 5th October 1843 to Thomas and Julia Quirke, took the name Sr. Regis when she entered the Athy Convent on 31st August 1865. Another passenger on the long boat trip to Australia which ended in Brisbane on 2nd November 1866 was Sr. Borgia, otherwise Jane Byrne of Arron Quay, Dublin. Born on 16th September 1843 to Thomas and Mary Byrne, she entered the Convent at Athy on 8th September 1865 and her profession took place in Brisbane on 31st March 1869. She lived until 1928.
Within another two years five young postulants set out from the Convent of Mercy in Athy to travel to Brisbane. They journeyed on the Zealandia which left England on 24th April 1868. Mary-Ann Hartley, born to John and Katherine Hartley of Youghal, Cork on 24th July 1845 entered the Athy Convent on 21st November 1866 where she received the Mercy habit on 21st May the following year. She left the Mercy Order without being professed after her arrival in Australia, as did her companion Elizabeth Friary of Templemichael, Co. Longford. Elizabeth who was born on 25th July 1847 to Andrew and Mary Friary had joined the Mercy Order in Athy on 15th February 1867. She was to leave the Sisters of Mercy in January 1873 without apparently having been professed.
Two other postulants on that trip were Sr. Cecilia and Sr. Lignori, the former from Dysart, Co. Louth where she was born to Thomas and Bridget Carney on 26th June 1846. Sr. Lignori was a native of Nenagh, Co. Tipperary where she was born on 15th January 1848, the daughter of William and Mary-Ann Kealy. Like Sr. Cecilia she had joined the Athy Convent of Mercy during the Famine years. Sr. Cecilia died in Brisbane in 1889, while Sr. Lignori lived for another 33 years, dying on 13th May 1923.
The fifth postulant to travel on the ship which arrived in Australia on 4th July 1868 was Sr. Mary Patrick who had entered the Athy Convent on 8th June 1866. The daughter of James and Elizabeth Potter of Killashee, Co. Longford, Sr. Mary Patrick was professed in Brisbane on 6th July 1869. Sister Patrick joined the staff of All Hallows School in Brisbane after a few years in Australia and she was to be associated with that school for the next 50 years. In 1879 she was elected Superior of the Sisters of Mercy Congregation and was re-elected to that office on several occasions until her death in 1927. In all she was Superior for 30 years and assistant to the Superior for another 18 years. Under her guidance and leadership the Sisters of Mercy Congregation in Brisbane, Australia grew to over 500 and she was instrumental in establishing Mercy convents and schools in many outlying areas of Queensland. Another of her many achievements was the establishment of Mater Hospitals in Australia.
The five postulants who arrived in Australia in July 1868 were the last missionaries to leave the Convent of Mercy Athy for the dioceses of Brisbane. Difficulties arose between the Sisters of Mercy and Bishop James Quinn which may have affected the continuation of the Brisbane Mission Scheme initiated in 1861. Mother Vincent Whitty who was the first Superior of the Convent of Mercy when it opened in 1852 had been replaced by Mother Teresa Maher. Eight years later Mother Vincent left Ireland for the Australian missions and was accompanied on the sea trip to the Southern hemisphere by Dr. James Quinn. She was to share with Bishop Quinn responsibility for establishing the Catholic system of education in the then developing colony of Queensland. However difficulties soon arose between the Bishop and Mother Vincent. The Bishop who had been appointed to the Queensland Episcopacy in 1858 wished to bring the Catholic schools established by the Sisters of Mercy under the control of the Queensland Board of Education. Mother Vincent feared that such a move would lead to a dilution of the schools’ religious ethos. She resisted Bishop Quinn’s plans and this resulted in a disharmonious relationship between the Bishop and the Sisters of Mercy, news of which soon percolated back to the Convent in Athy.
Further conflict arose following Bishop Quinn’s attempt to extend his Episcopal authority over the Mercy Convents in his dioceses so as to supersede the Rule of the Foundress of the Order of Mercy. A number of diocesan priests also fell foul of Bishop James Quinn and six Irish priests left the Brisbane dioceses in 1867 following which news of the ongoing disharmony in the Brisbane diocese reached Ireland. The last Missionaries from the Convent of Mercy Athy left for Queensland the following year.
The story of the nuns and postulants who left Athy for the Australian Missions between 1865 and 1868 needs further research, particularly in the Brisbane archives of the Sisters of Mercy. For the moment their story can only be touched on to give us a glimpse of the extraordinary courage and determination of the young religious females of 140 years ago.
Mother Teresa was first cousin of Dr. Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin and daughter of Patrick Maher of Kilrush. Born in 1820 she arrived in Athy from the Mercy Convent in Carlow in 1855 with Sr. Xavier Downey to take charge of the local convent following the departure of Mother Vincent Whitty who was the first Superior of Athy’s Sisters of Mercy. Mother Teresa agreed to receive and train in the Athy Convent young ladies for the Australian mission and the first girl to enter the convent for that purpose was from Portarlington, County Laois. Catherine Flanagan, born on 1st September 1844, the daughter of Denis and Mary Flanagan entered Athy Convent on 10th August 1861, was received into the Mercy Order on 11th February of the following year and professed on 21st February 1864. Her name in religion was Sr. Rose and she left Athy for the Brisbane mission arriving there on 11th November 1865. She died in Brisbane on 1st July 1879.
On 2nd November 1866 five more young Irish women arrived in Brisbane, Australia having journeyed from the Convent of Mercy in Athy. Sr. Columba was born Honoria Griffin on 10th March 1840 in Ballintubbert, Co. Roscommon to John and Elizabeth Griffin. She entered the Athy Convent on 24th February 1865, receiving the habit of the Sisters of Mercy on 10th September of the same year and was professed in Brisbane in 1868. Margaret Bergan, daughter of Edward and Catherine Bergin of Portlaoise was born on 6th February 1842 and entered the Athy Convent on 2nd July 1865. She was received on 28th December of the same year and professed as Sr. Julianna in Brisbane on 31st March 1869. Julia Quirke, a native of Clashmore, Co. Waterford born on 5th October 1843 to Thomas and Julia Quirke, took the name Sr. Regis when she entered the Athy Convent on 31st August 1865. Another passenger on the long boat trip to Australia which ended in Brisbane on 2nd November 1866 was Sr. Borgia, otherwise Jane Byrne of Arron Quay, Dublin. Born on 16th September 1843 to Thomas and Mary Byrne, she entered the Convent at Athy on 8th September 1865 and her profession took place in Brisbane on 31st March 1869. She lived until 1928.
Within another two years five young postulants set out from the Convent of Mercy in Athy to travel to Brisbane. They journeyed on the Zealandia which left England on 24th April 1868. Mary-Ann Hartley, born to John and Katherine Hartley of Youghal, Cork on 24th July 1845 entered the Athy Convent on 21st November 1866 where she received the Mercy habit on 21st May the following year. She left the Mercy Order without being professed after her arrival in Australia, as did her companion Elizabeth Friary of Templemichael, Co. Longford. Elizabeth who was born on 25th July 1847 to Andrew and Mary Friary had joined the Mercy Order in Athy on 15th February 1867. She was to leave the Sisters of Mercy in January 1873 without apparently having been professed.
Two other postulants on that trip were Sr. Cecilia and Sr. Lignori, the former from Dysart, Co. Louth where she was born to Thomas and Bridget Carney on 26th June 1846. Sr. Lignori was a native of Nenagh, Co. Tipperary where she was born on 15th January 1848, the daughter of William and Mary-Ann Kealy. Like Sr. Cecilia she had joined the Athy Convent of Mercy during the Famine years. Sr. Cecilia died in Brisbane in 1889, while Sr. Lignori lived for another 33 years, dying on 13th May 1923.
The fifth postulant to travel on the ship which arrived in Australia on 4th July 1868 was Sr. Mary Patrick who had entered the Athy Convent on 8th June 1866. The daughter of James and Elizabeth Potter of Killashee, Co. Longford, Sr. Mary Patrick was professed in Brisbane on 6th July 1869. Sister Patrick joined the staff of All Hallows School in Brisbane after a few years in Australia and she was to be associated with that school for the next 50 years. In 1879 she was elected Superior of the Sisters of Mercy Congregation and was re-elected to that office on several occasions until her death in 1927. In all she was Superior for 30 years and assistant to the Superior for another 18 years. Under her guidance and leadership the Sisters of Mercy Congregation in Brisbane, Australia grew to over 500 and she was instrumental in establishing Mercy convents and schools in many outlying areas of Queensland. Another of her many achievements was the establishment of Mater Hospitals in Australia.
The five postulants who arrived in Australia in July 1868 were the last missionaries to leave the Convent of Mercy Athy for the dioceses of Brisbane. Difficulties arose between the Sisters of Mercy and Bishop James Quinn which may have affected the continuation of the Brisbane Mission Scheme initiated in 1861. Mother Vincent Whitty who was the first Superior of the Convent of Mercy when it opened in 1852 had been replaced by Mother Teresa Maher. Eight years later Mother Vincent left Ireland for the Australian missions and was accompanied on the sea trip to the Southern hemisphere by Dr. James Quinn. She was to share with Bishop Quinn responsibility for establishing the Catholic system of education in the then developing colony of Queensland. However difficulties soon arose between the Bishop and Mother Vincent. The Bishop who had been appointed to the Queensland Episcopacy in 1858 wished to bring the Catholic schools established by the Sisters of Mercy under the control of the Queensland Board of Education. Mother Vincent feared that such a move would lead to a dilution of the schools’ religious ethos. She resisted Bishop Quinn’s plans and this resulted in a disharmonious relationship between the Bishop and the Sisters of Mercy, news of which soon percolated back to the Convent in Athy.
Further conflict arose following Bishop Quinn’s attempt to extend his Episcopal authority over the Mercy Convents in his dioceses so as to supersede the Rule of the Foundress of the Order of Mercy. A number of diocesan priests also fell foul of Bishop James Quinn and six Irish priests left the Brisbane dioceses in 1867 following which news of the ongoing disharmony in the Brisbane diocese reached Ireland. The last Missionaries from the Convent of Mercy Athy left for Queensland the following year.
The story of the nuns and postulants who left Athy for the Australian Missions between 1865 and 1868 needs further research, particularly in the Brisbane archives of the Sisters of Mercy. For the moment their story can only be touched on to give us a glimpse of the extraordinary courage and determination of the young religious females of 140 years ago.
Thursday, March 14, 2002
St. Joseph's School Roll Book
I recently had the opportunity to inspect the roll book of St. Joseph’s School for 1946 and was pleasantly surprised to find that on 13th May of that year two young lads started their first day in school. They were the only pupils enrolled that particular day. Frank English and myself were unaware until now that our paths had crossed at such an early age for it was the two Frank’s who stepped over the threshold of St. Joseph’s for the first time on that day 56 years ago. For one it was the day after his 4th birthday, while the other young fellow had taken a little longer to ease himself out of nappies! I won’t tell you which of us was the precocious one.
Those of us who went through St. Joseph’s School, the Christian Brothers primary school and later the secondary school may have a little difficulty in immediately recognising the name “Frank” English because in those far off days my good friend was universally known as “Harry” English. Frank or Harry and myself were just two of the many young lads who over the following 14 years or so came together as school colleagues in an educational system which for many ended before those 14 years had expired. All of us had gone from the Christian Brothers secondary school in St. John’s Lane by the end of 1960. Over the years there were many names and many faces which came and went, some disappearing on the tide of emigration. Others sadly passed away long before they had reached their prime. No matter how long or how short the period we shared together as schoolboys, the bonds of friendship created survived the advancing years. Some of us have not met for over 40 years. Others can be seen among the familiar surroundings of our hometown on a regular basis.
This year quite a lot of those old school pals who spent so many years together as young fellows will reach the grand age of six score. Whisper it softly for my still youthful mind finds it hard to fathom the physical cruelties of the galloping years which so ungallantly outstrip my zest for life. So what’s all this about then I hear you ask? Simply the advancing years have sounded a bugle call to remind a couple of former school pals to get together and arrange a reunion of those with whom we shared our young school days between 1946 and 1960.
Brendan McKenna, now retired and enjoying his hard earned pension, together with Seamus Ryan still working and living in China, and Michael Robinson, he of the hedonistic lifestyle in Australia, have joined with Frank English and myself to organise a reunion scheduled for Athy next September. The intention is to get everyone back to Athy for the weekend of 20th to 22nd September to meet, talk, eat, drink and make merry. It will be our first time to meet since we all left school and given the grey streaks lining the more hirsute amongst us it will probably be our first and last such meeting.
A list of those with whom we attended school, whether in St. Joseph’s, the National or Secondary School is understandably incomplete, but the most recent head count identifies 59 former school colleagues. Addresses have been found for most of them but there are a few whose whereabouts are not yet known. I would like to hear from anyone who knows the current whereabouts of Peter Allen, formerly of Meeting Lane, Des Byrne formerly of Moone, Eamon Dunphy formerly of the Bleach and Joe Gordan from the Dublin Road. My classmates will recall Theo Kavanagh of the Bleeding Horse but I am looking for his current address, as well as that of Johnny Mulhall, formerly of Geraldine Road and Frank Power whose father was a bank official. Jim Vincent, formerly of Woodstock Street and Christy Southwell are two others I would like to contact. What about Brian Fitzsimons, Leo Dempsey, Paddy Maher or Paddy O’Keeffe? One last name is that of Colin Seabrook who spent some time in Athy in the 1950’s.
If anyone out there can help locate any of the above or indeed if you remember sharing a classroom with Frank English or any of the others mentioned, give me a call or drop me a line. We want to make sure that as many as possible will have the opportunity to attend the reunion which will start on Friday, 20th September with a reception and get-together in the Leinster Arms Hotel. The first night will be given over to the men only with a buffet reception and drinks, accompanied by music from the 1950’s and 1960’s.
The Heritage Centre will host a school photographic exhibition over that weekend and on Saturday afternoon a presentation in the Town Council Chambers will be followed by a reception in Scoil Eoin, Rathstewart. Later that evening a dinner will be held in Kilkea Golf Club Restauant for the past pupils, together with their wives and partners. It is hoped to have as special guests on that night some of our old teachers. On Sunday a service of thanksgiving will be conducted in the old school yard in St. John’s, followed by a tree planting ceremony in Edmund Rice Square. The weekend proceedings will close with a buffet reception on Sunday afternoon.
You would expect someone like myself who writes of times past every week to remember the names of all the teachers who taught me over the years. Fortunately I can always rely on the likes of Teddy Kelly or John Mealy to recall the detail which I can never seem to remember, and both of them confirm our teachers in St. Joseph’s School as Sr. Bernadette, Sr. Brendan and Sr. Alberta. In the Primary School we had Brother Candy who was replaced by Brother Sullivan, then Brother O’Laughlin or Loughran, with Brother O’Flaherty in sixth class. There is confusion about the 4th or 5th class teachers as some recall Brother Smith, others Bob Martin, neither of which taught me so far as I can recall.
Secondary school, which in the 1950’s consisted of three classrooms at the top of the metal staircase leading from the St. John’s Lane school yard was easier to remember. The teaching staff consisted of two Christian Brothers, the school Principal Brother Burke and his colleague Brother Keogh, commonly known as “Johnny Boris” with Paddy Riordan, then a young man from Cork and the legendary Bill Ryan. Today’s secondary school re-located some years ago to Rathstewart and now restyled Scoil Eoin has 23 teachers on its staff.
At least forty two years have passed since the young fellows who joined St. Joseph’s School in 1946 passed out of the Irish education system. Hopefully next September we can all come together to renew old acquaintances and catch up on the years which have slipped away in the meantime.
Those of us who went through St. Joseph’s School, the Christian Brothers primary school and later the secondary school may have a little difficulty in immediately recognising the name “Frank” English because in those far off days my good friend was universally known as “Harry” English. Frank or Harry and myself were just two of the many young lads who over the following 14 years or so came together as school colleagues in an educational system which for many ended before those 14 years had expired. All of us had gone from the Christian Brothers secondary school in St. John’s Lane by the end of 1960. Over the years there were many names and many faces which came and went, some disappearing on the tide of emigration. Others sadly passed away long before they had reached their prime. No matter how long or how short the period we shared together as schoolboys, the bonds of friendship created survived the advancing years. Some of us have not met for over 40 years. Others can be seen among the familiar surroundings of our hometown on a regular basis.
This year quite a lot of those old school pals who spent so many years together as young fellows will reach the grand age of six score. Whisper it softly for my still youthful mind finds it hard to fathom the physical cruelties of the galloping years which so ungallantly outstrip my zest for life. So what’s all this about then I hear you ask? Simply the advancing years have sounded a bugle call to remind a couple of former school pals to get together and arrange a reunion of those with whom we shared our young school days between 1946 and 1960.
Brendan McKenna, now retired and enjoying his hard earned pension, together with Seamus Ryan still working and living in China, and Michael Robinson, he of the hedonistic lifestyle in Australia, have joined with Frank English and myself to organise a reunion scheduled for Athy next September. The intention is to get everyone back to Athy for the weekend of 20th to 22nd September to meet, talk, eat, drink and make merry. It will be our first time to meet since we all left school and given the grey streaks lining the more hirsute amongst us it will probably be our first and last such meeting.
A list of those with whom we attended school, whether in St. Joseph’s, the National or Secondary School is understandably incomplete, but the most recent head count identifies 59 former school colleagues. Addresses have been found for most of them but there are a few whose whereabouts are not yet known. I would like to hear from anyone who knows the current whereabouts of Peter Allen, formerly of Meeting Lane, Des Byrne formerly of Moone, Eamon Dunphy formerly of the Bleach and Joe Gordan from the Dublin Road. My classmates will recall Theo Kavanagh of the Bleeding Horse but I am looking for his current address, as well as that of Johnny Mulhall, formerly of Geraldine Road and Frank Power whose father was a bank official. Jim Vincent, formerly of Woodstock Street and Christy Southwell are two others I would like to contact. What about Brian Fitzsimons, Leo Dempsey, Paddy Maher or Paddy O’Keeffe? One last name is that of Colin Seabrook who spent some time in Athy in the 1950’s.
If anyone out there can help locate any of the above or indeed if you remember sharing a classroom with Frank English or any of the others mentioned, give me a call or drop me a line. We want to make sure that as many as possible will have the opportunity to attend the reunion which will start on Friday, 20th September with a reception and get-together in the Leinster Arms Hotel. The first night will be given over to the men only with a buffet reception and drinks, accompanied by music from the 1950’s and 1960’s.
The Heritage Centre will host a school photographic exhibition over that weekend and on Saturday afternoon a presentation in the Town Council Chambers will be followed by a reception in Scoil Eoin, Rathstewart. Later that evening a dinner will be held in Kilkea Golf Club Restauant for the past pupils, together with their wives and partners. It is hoped to have as special guests on that night some of our old teachers. On Sunday a service of thanksgiving will be conducted in the old school yard in St. John’s, followed by a tree planting ceremony in Edmund Rice Square. The weekend proceedings will close with a buffet reception on Sunday afternoon.
You would expect someone like myself who writes of times past every week to remember the names of all the teachers who taught me over the years. Fortunately I can always rely on the likes of Teddy Kelly or John Mealy to recall the detail which I can never seem to remember, and both of them confirm our teachers in St. Joseph’s School as Sr. Bernadette, Sr. Brendan and Sr. Alberta. In the Primary School we had Brother Candy who was replaced by Brother Sullivan, then Brother O’Laughlin or Loughran, with Brother O’Flaherty in sixth class. There is confusion about the 4th or 5th class teachers as some recall Brother Smith, others Bob Martin, neither of which taught me so far as I can recall.
Secondary school, which in the 1950’s consisted of three classrooms at the top of the metal staircase leading from the St. John’s Lane school yard was easier to remember. The teaching staff consisted of two Christian Brothers, the school Principal Brother Burke and his colleague Brother Keogh, commonly known as “Johnny Boris” with Paddy Riordan, then a young man from Cork and the legendary Bill Ryan. Today’s secondary school re-located some years ago to Rathstewart and now restyled Scoil Eoin has 23 teachers on its staff.
At least forty two years have passed since the young fellows who joined St. Joseph’s School in 1946 passed out of the Irish education system. Hopefully next September we can all come together to renew old acquaintances and catch up on the years which have slipped away in the meantime.
Thursday, March 7, 2002
Alice Myles
“If you can get your stockings on in the morning, then you know you’re alright.” Words of empirical wisdom from a woman who has lived for 96 years and who celebrated her birthday last week with a night out with her extended family. Alice Myles was born in 1906, the second child of Daniel Lacey, a carpenter from Ballintubbert, and Ellen Donohue, a seamstress from Tankardstown. Dan worked for Hosies of Coursetown, while Ellen served her time as a seamstress with Murphy’s Commercial House in Emily Square. Alice and her younger sister Helen Conway who is living in Inch just outside Athy have a combined age of 189 years. Longevity is clearly a family trait, as evidenced by the fact that their other sister Mary was 96 years of age when she passed away three years ago.
I met Alice Myles last week in the comfortable house which has been her home for the past 17 years. She moved there from “Woodlands” which was one half of the old Fever Hospital on the Stradbally road and where she had lived with her late husband and family for many years. Alice who was born at Farmerstown attended the Sisters of Mercy School in Athy until she was 16 years of age. Her school days coincided with the War of Independence and that dark period in our history when the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries terrorised so many local Irish communities. She remembers the days of fear following the killing of William Connors and Jim Lacey at Barrowhouse on 16th May, 1921.
On leaving school she took up employment as a child minder with Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Minch at Cardenton. There she was to remain for five years, caring for the Minch’s only child Claire, recalling one occasion when she brought Claire to the birthday party held for Joe O’Neill, then the very young son of the local doctor, Jeremiah O’Neill. The Minch’s had two other indoor staff, Molly Keogh of Rheban who was the family cook and Margaret Moloney of Coursetown who was the parlor maid. Alice remembers attending dances in the mid 1920’s with her friend and work colleague Molly Keogh at Churchtown National School, and also an occasional cross roads dance at Kilcrow. This was a time long before laws were passed to regulate and control public dancing in Ireland.
A period of four years was spent by Alice as a child’s nanny for the Browne’s of Dun Laoghaire before she returned to marry her childhood sweetheart William Myles who was chauffeur and general worker with Matt Minch of Rockfield House. Alice and Bill lived in a tied house [now demolished] at Rockfield, one of several small cottages provided by the Minch’s for their workmen. It was here that the Myles family lived until about 1952 when they moved to “Woodlands” on the Stradbally road. Times were hard during the 1930’s and the 1940’s but especially so during Bill Myles’ prolonged illnesses in the early 1940’s. There was little money to pay the food bills and what was available was invariably passed across the counter of Miss Murphy’s small grocery shop in William Street. It was around that period that Bill Myles was admitted to Kildare District Hospital where he remained for many weeks in a serious condition. Alice recalls cycling from Athy to Kildare several times to visit her husband, a journey which caused her little thought as the bicycle was the only reliable mode of transport in those war years. Bill Myles who spent his entire working life with the Minch’s of Rockfield House died in 1975, aged 73 years.
Alice and Bill Myles had eight children, the eldest Betty who recently retired from a stockbroking firm in New York where she has lived since 1965. Paschal lives in London, as does his brother Oliver who is married to Maura Keeffe of Convent View. The other sons of the family are Paul, who is also living in England, Cyril who lives in Tankardstown and Noel, the youngest of the family who lives in Athy and works in Minch Nortons. Also in Athy are Martha who married Jack Kenny of Dunbrin and Helen who married Joe Phillips of Tankardstown. Helen will be remembered as the assistant in Mrs. Hughes’ shop in Leinster Street where she worked for over forty years until the business closed two years ago.
Alice Myles’ memories of her years in Dublin include Croke Park on All Ireland day, 31st September 1928 when she watched Kildare beat Cavan by one point to become the first holders of the Sam Maguire Cup. [While on the subject of the 1928 final can anyone tell me whether Paddy Fitzpatrick who at one time captained the Rheban football team played for Kildare in that final?]. The first scheduled airplane flight out of Dublin was also recalled by Alice who had a view of the plane as she stood on O’Connell Bridge. With a little bit of prompting from her grand-daughter, Alice also included amongst her Dublin memories the occasion where she went out with Paddy Moloney, whose son and namesake has fronted the musical group The Chieftans since its formation.
Alice’s recall of the 1928 All Ireland final is indicative of her abiding interest in Gaelic football, an interest which was crowned by the selection of her youngest son Noel and that of her nephew Ned Conway for the Kildare County senior team. Ned, son of her younger sister Helen, played for Kildare in 1954, while Noel whom she proudly acknowledges was a very good player, appeared in a Lily White jersey between 1973 and 1976. Indeed Noel was a member of the Kildare senior team which lost heavily to Dublin in the 1975 Leinster final, thereby disappointingly failing to add to the under-21 Leinster final medal which he had won with the county team in 1967.
The Myles family moved to “Woodlands” which was one part of the old Fever Hospital in or about 1952. Their neighbours in the other half of the building which was built in 1841 out of funds collected locally in Athy town were the Moylad sisters, Bridget, Sarah and Annie who had originated from the Kildangan area. Mention of the old Fever Hospital prompted Alice to recall the death of her uncle Johnny Donoghue while a patient in the Fever Hospital at the turn of the last century. Another uncle, Paddy Donohue, a private in the Royal Irish Regiment and a native of Coolroe, died of wounds in France on 31st May 1915. He was one of the many Athy men who perished during the 1914/1918 War. His brother, Tom Donohue, died as a young boy some years previously when he fell into the River Barrow at Levitstown.
Alice who is an extraordinary youthful 96 years of age travelled extensively once her family was reared. She has been to the United States on no less than 12 occasions, her last trip undertaken when she was 88 years of age. England, Lourdes, the Holy Land and even The Bahamas have all been visited by Alice, who with some reluctance now acknowledges that she will probably not go on any more overseas trips.
It was a real pleasure to talk and listen to Alice Myles who has seen her native town of Athy rise from the poverty and misery of the early decades of the last century. Her memories of times passed are tinged with some sad memories, but are also overlaid with a great deal of happiness shared with her children and grand-children who form a large but close-knit family group of which she is justifiably proud.
I met Alice Myles last week in the comfortable house which has been her home for the past 17 years. She moved there from “Woodlands” which was one half of the old Fever Hospital on the Stradbally road and where she had lived with her late husband and family for many years. Alice who was born at Farmerstown attended the Sisters of Mercy School in Athy until she was 16 years of age. Her school days coincided with the War of Independence and that dark period in our history when the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries terrorised so many local Irish communities. She remembers the days of fear following the killing of William Connors and Jim Lacey at Barrowhouse on 16th May, 1921.
On leaving school she took up employment as a child minder with Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Minch at Cardenton. There she was to remain for five years, caring for the Minch’s only child Claire, recalling one occasion when she brought Claire to the birthday party held for Joe O’Neill, then the very young son of the local doctor, Jeremiah O’Neill. The Minch’s had two other indoor staff, Molly Keogh of Rheban who was the family cook and Margaret Moloney of Coursetown who was the parlor maid. Alice remembers attending dances in the mid 1920’s with her friend and work colleague Molly Keogh at Churchtown National School, and also an occasional cross roads dance at Kilcrow. This was a time long before laws were passed to regulate and control public dancing in Ireland.
A period of four years was spent by Alice as a child’s nanny for the Browne’s of Dun Laoghaire before she returned to marry her childhood sweetheart William Myles who was chauffeur and general worker with Matt Minch of Rockfield House. Alice and Bill lived in a tied house [now demolished] at Rockfield, one of several small cottages provided by the Minch’s for their workmen. It was here that the Myles family lived until about 1952 when they moved to “Woodlands” on the Stradbally road. Times were hard during the 1930’s and the 1940’s but especially so during Bill Myles’ prolonged illnesses in the early 1940’s. There was little money to pay the food bills and what was available was invariably passed across the counter of Miss Murphy’s small grocery shop in William Street. It was around that period that Bill Myles was admitted to Kildare District Hospital where he remained for many weeks in a serious condition. Alice recalls cycling from Athy to Kildare several times to visit her husband, a journey which caused her little thought as the bicycle was the only reliable mode of transport in those war years. Bill Myles who spent his entire working life with the Minch’s of Rockfield House died in 1975, aged 73 years.
Alice and Bill Myles had eight children, the eldest Betty who recently retired from a stockbroking firm in New York where she has lived since 1965. Paschal lives in London, as does his brother Oliver who is married to Maura Keeffe of Convent View. The other sons of the family are Paul, who is also living in England, Cyril who lives in Tankardstown and Noel, the youngest of the family who lives in Athy and works in Minch Nortons. Also in Athy are Martha who married Jack Kenny of Dunbrin and Helen who married Joe Phillips of Tankardstown. Helen will be remembered as the assistant in Mrs. Hughes’ shop in Leinster Street where she worked for over forty years until the business closed two years ago.
Alice Myles’ memories of her years in Dublin include Croke Park on All Ireland day, 31st September 1928 when she watched Kildare beat Cavan by one point to become the first holders of the Sam Maguire Cup. [While on the subject of the 1928 final can anyone tell me whether Paddy Fitzpatrick who at one time captained the Rheban football team played for Kildare in that final?]. The first scheduled airplane flight out of Dublin was also recalled by Alice who had a view of the plane as she stood on O’Connell Bridge. With a little bit of prompting from her grand-daughter, Alice also included amongst her Dublin memories the occasion where she went out with Paddy Moloney, whose son and namesake has fronted the musical group The Chieftans since its formation.
Alice’s recall of the 1928 All Ireland final is indicative of her abiding interest in Gaelic football, an interest which was crowned by the selection of her youngest son Noel and that of her nephew Ned Conway for the Kildare County senior team. Ned, son of her younger sister Helen, played for Kildare in 1954, while Noel whom she proudly acknowledges was a very good player, appeared in a Lily White jersey between 1973 and 1976. Indeed Noel was a member of the Kildare senior team which lost heavily to Dublin in the 1975 Leinster final, thereby disappointingly failing to add to the under-21 Leinster final medal which he had won with the county team in 1967.
The Myles family moved to “Woodlands” which was one part of the old Fever Hospital in or about 1952. Their neighbours in the other half of the building which was built in 1841 out of funds collected locally in Athy town were the Moylad sisters, Bridget, Sarah and Annie who had originated from the Kildangan area. Mention of the old Fever Hospital prompted Alice to recall the death of her uncle Johnny Donoghue while a patient in the Fever Hospital at the turn of the last century. Another uncle, Paddy Donohue, a private in the Royal Irish Regiment and a native of Coolroe, died of wounds in France on 31st May 1915. He was one of the many Athy men who perished during the 1914/1918 War. His brother, Tom Donohue, died as a young boy some years previously when he fell into the River Barrow at Levitstown.
Alice who is an extraordinary youthful 96 years of age travelled extensively once her family was reared. She has been to the United States on no less than 12 occasions, her last trip undertaken when she was 88 years of age. England, Lourdes, the Holy Land and even The Bahamas have all been visited by Alice, who with some reluctance now acknowledges that she will probably not go on any more overseas trips.
It was a real pleasure to talk and listen to Alice Myles who has seen her native town of Athy rise from the poverty and misery of the early decades of the last century. Her memories of times passed are tinged with some sad memories, but are also overlaid with a great deal of happiness shared with her children and grand-children who form a large but close-knit family group of which she is justifiably proud.
Thursday, February 28, 2002
Afforestation in South Kildare
Sawyerswood, Brackney Wood, Blackwood, Rathconnell Wood, the last remains of the vast woods which in medieval times and earlier cloaked the Irish countryside, or are they a more recent addition to the Irish landscape? Undoubtedly they are ancient woods, but how old we do not know. Perhaps they were planted with the help of bounties paid by the Dublin Society towards the end of the 18th century. In 1783 over 65,000 trees were propagated in Ireland under the Dublin Society Scheme, and seven years later the number of trees propagated with the assistance of bounties increased to over 3,750,000. The bounties offered for tree planting were paid out of funds made available by the Irish Parliament. This scheme unfortunately was discontinued following the passing of the Act of Union.
Kildare County Council which was set up following the enactment of the Local Government Act of 1898 was one of the first Local Authorities in Ireland to take up the question of afforestation. In 1906 the Council then, as now, based in the county capital of Naas sought to compliment the State forestry efforts by adopting a county based afforestation programme which was intended to be funded by the Council itself. The County Council tried to secure two sites regarded as suitable for experimental tree planting at Brackney [known locally as Brackna], just three miles outside Athy on the Stradbally road and at Kingswood Bog Common, a place which I have not been able to locate. The latter commons consisted of almost 600 acres but because of claims in relation to ancient grazing rights made by local farmers the County Council were not able to pursue their plans for tree planting in that area. This left Brackney then covered in scrub and extending to about 100 acres which was owned by Lord Gough. He was willing to vest the property in the County Council but nevertheless protracted negotiation took place before the deal was finalised in 1907. The County Council, despite having indicated that it would fund the scheme itself, then approached the Department for financial assistance towards the cost of the afforestation scheme and succeeded in securing a grant of £500, subject however to the County Council providing a similar sum from its own resources. The Council agreed to proceed on that basis and a rate of half a penny in the pound over the entire county was struck which brought in a total of £677=3=2. The County Committee of Agriculture gave a grant of £75 towards the Scheme, and Lord Gough made a contribution of £235 which was the price which the County Council had agreed to pay for the land. Thus a tree planting fund of £1,487=3=2 was available to the County Council.
Kildare County Council had at its disposal the expertise of a forestry expert, Mr. A.C. Forbes who worked for the Department and on his advice it was decided to clear and plant ten acres of the ground in Brackney every year so that in ten years time the entire 100 acres would be under wood. The cost of clearing the scrub land and planting it with trees was estimated to cost £100 each year with little or no expense arising thereafter. A mixture of European Larch, Beech, Austrian and Corsican Pines, Douglas and Silver firs were planted in December 1907, but by June of the following year Mr. Forbes had to report that while the trees were on the whole doing well, upwards of two thirds of the European Larch had died.
The success of the scheme led to the Duke of Leinster giving as a free gift to the County Council, Corballis Hill near Ballitore for the purpose of afforestation and a further 30 acres were acquired for planning at Pollardstown. Kildare County Council having led the way in county based afforestation programmes handed over responsibility for the scheme to the County Committee of Agriculture. Brackney Wood as we know it today clearly owes its continued existence as a forest to the County Council Scheme which started 95 years ago. Even before the County Council acquired the 100 acre site it was known as Brackney Wood, a fact which is confirmed by a perusal of the earliest Ordnance Survey maps for the county. Quite clearly the scrub land which was revitalised under the County Council Tree Planting Scheme of 1907 was only then being restored to its former wooded state which had endured for centuries previously.
Some weeks ago I got a phone call from Professor Fox of University College Cork who was making enquiries about Canon Richard Bagot, one time Rector of Fontstown. The Reverend Canon, whose father and grandfather in their day also had the living of Fontstown Parish, was a pioneer of dairy reform in 19th century Ireland. In fact he established the first creamery in Ireland in Hospital, Co. Limerick and published a handbook on creameries and a further book entitled “Easy Lessons in Dairying”. Cannon Bagot who died in 1894 at the relatively young age of 65 years is one of the great men of another generation whose contribution to Irish life is now almost forgotten. Some of you may remember his daughters, Elizabeth and Olivia, two elderly spinsters who lived at Shamrock Lodge on the Kildare Road into the 1950’s. I hope to write of Cannon Richard Bagot and the Bagot family in a future article but in the meantime today’s National newspapers bring news of another local person who has created a piece of history insofar as Athy is concerned.
Clare O’Flaherty who was born in Athy to Jim O’Flaherty and Carmel Glespen, formerly of Duke Street, has just been named as the new Irish Ambassador to Finland. She is the first Athy-born person to achieve such an important post within the Department of Foreign Affairs. Our congratulations go to Clare, whose sister Colette is a senior member of the National Library staff in Dublin and whose parents Jim and Carmel are living in Greystones, Co. Wicklow. Jim will be remembered as an official in the local Post Office for many years and a founder member of the Credit Union office in Athy before leaving to become Post Master in Greystones in the late 1960’s.
Kildare County Council which was set up following the enactment of the Local Government Act of 1898 was one of the first Local Authorities in Ireland to take up the question of afforestation. In 1906 the Council then, as now, based in the county capital of Naas sought to compliment the State forestry efforts by adopting a county based afforestation programme which was intended to be funded by the Council itself. The County Council tried to secure two sites regarded as suitable for experimental tree planting at Brackney [known locally as Brackna], just three miles outside Athy on the Stradbally road and at Kingswood Bog Common, a place which I have not been able to locate. The latter commons consisted of almost 600 acres but because of claims in relation to ancient grazing rights made by local farmers the County Council were not able to pursue their plans for tree planting in that area. This left Brackney then covered in scrub and extending to about 100 acres which was owned by Lord Gough. He was willing to vest the property in the County Council but nevertheless protracted negotiation took place before the deal was finalised in 1907. The County Council, despite having indicated that it would fund the scheme itself, then approached the Department for financial assistance towards the cost of the afforestation scheme and succeeded in securing a grant of £500, subject however to the County Council providing a similar sum from its own resources. The Council agreed to proceed on that basis and a rate of half a penny in the pound over the entire county was struck which brought in a total of £677=3=2. The County Committee of Agriculture gave a grant of £75 towards the Scheme, and Lord Gough made a contribution of £235 which was the price which the County Council had agreed to pay for the land. Thus a tree planting fund of £1,487=3=2 was available to the County Council.
Kildare County Council had at its disposal the expertise of a forestry expert, Mr. A.C. Forbes who worked for the Department and on his advice it was decided to clear and plant ten acres of the ground in Brackney every year so that in ten years time the entire 100 acres would be under wood. The cost of clearing the scrub land and planting it with trees was estimated to cost £100 each year with little or no expense arising thereafter. A mixture of European Larch, Beech, Austrian and Corsican Pines, Douglas and Silver firs were planted in December 1907, but by June of the following year Mr. Forbes had to report that while the trees were on the whole doing well, upwards of two thirds of the European Larch had died.
The success of the scheme led to the Duke of Leinster giving as a free gift to the County Council, Corballis Hill near Ballitore for the purpose of afforestation and a further 30 acres were acquired for planning at Pollardstown. Kildare County Council having led the way in county based afforestation programmes handed over responsibility for the scheme to the County Committee of Agriculture. Brackney Wood as we know it today clearly owes its continued existence as a forest to the County Council Scheme which started 95 years ago. Even before the County Council acquired the 100 acre site it was known as Brackney Wood, a fact which is confirmed by a perusal of the earliest Ordnance Survey maps for the county. Quite clearly the scrub land which was revitalised under the County Council Tree Planting Scheme of 1907 was only then being restored to its former wooded state which had endured for centuries previously.
Some weeks ago I got a phone call from Professor Fox of University College Cork who was making enquiries about Canon Richard Bagot, one time Rector of Fontstown. The Reverend Canon, whose father and grandfather in their day also had the living of Fontstown Parish, was a pioneer of dairy reform in 19th century Ireland. In fact he established the first creamery in Ireland in Hospital, Co. Limerick and published a handbook on creameries and a further book entitled “Easy Lessons in Dairying”. Cannon Bagot who died in 1894 at the relatively young age of 65 years is one of the great men of another generation whose contribution to Irish life is now almost forgotten. Some of you may remember his daughters, Elizabeth and Olivia, two elderly spinsters who lived at Shamrock Lodge on the Kildare Road into the 1950’s. I hope to write of Cannon Richard Bagot and the Bagot family in a future article but in the meantime today’s National newspapers bring news of another local person who has created a piece of history insofar as Athy is concerned.
Clare O’Flaherty who was born in Athy to Jim O’Flaherty and Carmel Glespen, formerly of Duke Street, has just been named as the new Irish Ambassador to Finland. She is the first Athy-born person to achieve such an important post within the Department of Foreign Affairs. Our congratulations go to Clare, whose sister Colette is a senior member of the National Library staff in Dublin and whose parents Jim and Carmel are living in Greystones, Co. Wicklow. Jim will be remembered as an official in the local Post Office for many years and a founder member of the Credit Union office in Athy before leaving to become Post Master in Greystones in the late 1960’s.
Thursday, February 21, 2002
Yates Family and Tobacco Growing in South Kildare
It started with a photograph from the 1940’s which showed a number of farm workers harvesting tobacco leaves on a South Kildare farm. What an unusual sight you might think and certainly one not normally to be seen outside those countries where warm climates afford the ideal growing conditions for growing tobacco plants. But this was during the hard economic days of the Second World War when Ireland’s merchant navy was beset by belligerent U-boats and dangerous cross Atlantic trips were justifiable only when the cargo was life giving food products. Tobacco, that noxious weed so beloved of film stars and star gazers alike, in those distant days, was a luxury item which found little space in the holds of ships which then crossed and re-crossed the war torn seas and oceans of the world. It was the resulting shortage of tobacco leaves which saw a number of enterprising farmers in South Kildare undertake the growing of a crop which was previously foreign to our soil.
But let me return to the reason why the photo was shown to me in the first place. I was intrigued by the story of a young Church of Ireland family who left Ballincarrig, Co. Offaly at the start of the 1900’s and came to these parts of County Kildare to take over three separate farms. The young men and their sisters all bore the name Yates and to Grangemellon House arrived Jonathan Yates and his sisters Phoebe and Sarah. The last named was the only member of the triumvirate to marry when in 1915 she wed Jack McCullagh of Sawyerswood, both of whom later emigrated to Canada. Her brother Jonathan, a single man had died two years previously and he was buried in Kilberry where his sister Phoebe was to join him in January 1924. When the Yates’ came to Grangemellon, their brother Tom took up the tenancy of a farm at Lipstown, Narraghmore and it was from there that Tom Yates came to Grangemellon following the death of his brother Jonathan in 1913. The photograph mentioned at the start of this article captured a scene on Tom Yates farm in Grangemellon approximately 30 years later.
Another brother, William Yates came from County Offaly as the tenant of a farm at Ballycullane and it was he who patented in 1908, the Yates hay lifter, a model of which is to be seen in the local Heritage Centre in the Town Hall. William married a Miss Jackson and later moved to Leinster Lodge which he sold on retiring in the late 1930’s. Two other male members of the County Offaly Yates family were James, a civil servant who moved to Belfast and Henry a Minister in the Church of Ireland who later became Archdeacon of Killaloe.
Why was it that three branches of the Yates family set up homes in South Kildare at the turn of the last Century? Was it an extension of the policy first put in place by the Duke of Leinster in the 1850’s to strengthen the established Church in South Kildare by giving farm tenancies to members of that Church or was it merely a co-incidence that most of the best farmlands in South Kildare passed from one Church of Ireland tenant to another? The question raises issues which could form the basis of an interesting study of the relationship between land succession and religious adherences in South Kildare during the later half of the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th Century. Howsoever the various Yates family members from County Offaly came to live in close proximity to each other in South Kildare, the unfolding history of their lives saw Ballycullane passing out of their hands when William Yates left for Leinster Lodge. The Lipstown Narraghmore lands initially farmed by Tom Yates subsequently passed to his eldest son Garret. He it was who eventually sold on those lands to Willie Fennin leaving the Grangemellon holdings as the only farmland still in the ownership of the Yates family. It was Tommy Yates Junior who took over Grangemellon from his father in 1961. He was the youngest member of the five children of Tom Yates and Annette Hewitt of County Longford who married in 1926. Of Tom’s three sisters, Freda is a retired School Teacher, Sheila is married to Billy Shaw of Carlow while Joan who married Dan Connolly of Ballyfoyle has passed away.
The farm at Grangemellon has an imposing residence. Grangemellon House was built probably in the middle of the 18th Century. The farm land was a mixed farm of about 200 acres with cattle, sheep and tillage requiring a workforce of five or six men in the 1930’s and a complement of six horses. Tobacco growing in the early 1940’s was perhaps one on the more unusual farming activities of the time. Tom Yates Senior propagated tobacco plants in glass protected hot beds of which he had about twenty during those years. The plants grown from seed were bedded in clay enriched with horse manure and when strong enough, the plants were sold on to neighbouring farmers. As well as propagating tobacco plants, the Yates farm was also involved in growing and harvesting tobacco leaves. The young plants were transplanted to drills of about 36 inches wide and during the growing season they were treated in much the same way as tomato plants. When the tobacco plants reached maturity, their leaves were harvested and drawn into the tobacco house. In the photograph accompanying this article, the leaves are shown hanging from the frame of a horse drawn dray. When the frames were full, the dray was returned to the tobacco house where the frames and the hanging leaves were lifted off and left to hang in a wood lined drying room. Coal braziers were lit to dry the leaves and when that primary drying process was finished, the leaves were sold onto Greene’s of Kilkea Lodge where they underwent further drying. It was there that the Excise men graded the tobacco leaves for the purpose of quantifying the duty payable. The finished plant was then sold onto the factories to provide the raw material for the Irish Tobacco Industry.
Tom Yates Junior who married Shirley Armstrong from Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim some years after she came to work in Shaw’s of Athy is with his son Bruce, the present occupiers of Grangemellon Farm. Tom has seen many changes in his time and recalls the farming emergency of 1947 when the weather caused a national crisis and threatened that years harvest. The mixed farming of earlier years has given way to agricultural specialization while the combustion engine signaled the death knell of both the farm labourer and the farm horse alike. Times have changed but the unfolding story of life on an Irish farm is a never ending one where memories of tobacco growing days in the 1940’s provide a unique insight into the ingenuity and foresight of the men who worked the soil.
But let me return to the reason why the photo was shown to me in the first place. I was intrigued by the story of a young Church of Ireland family who left Ballincarrig, Co. Offaly at the start of the 1900’s and came to these parts of County Kildare to take over three separate farms. The young men and their sisters all bore the name Yates and to Grangemellon House arrived Jonathan Yates and his sisters Phoebe and Sarah. The last named was the only member of the triumvirate to marry when in 1915 she wed Jack McCullagh of Sawyerswood, both of whom later emigrated to Canada. Her brother Jonathan, a single man had died two years previously and he was buried in Kilberry where his sister Phoebe was to join him in January 1924. When the Yates’ came to Grangemellon, their brother Tom took up the tenancy of a farm at Lipstown, Narraghmore and it was from there that Tom Yates came to Grangemellon following the death of his brother Jonathan in 1913. The photograph mentioned at the start of this article captured a scene on Tom Yates farm in Grangemellon approximately 30 years later.
Another brother, William Yates came from County Offaly as the tenant of a farm at Ballycullane and it was he who patented in 1908, the Yates hay lifter, a model of which is to be seen in the local Heritage Centre in the Town Hall. William married a Miss Jackson and later moved to Leinster Lodge which he sold on retiring in the late 1930’s. Two other male members of the County Offaly Yates family were James, a civil servant who moved to Belfast and Henry a Minister in the Church of Ireland who later became Archdeacon of Killaloe.
Why was it that three branches of the Yates family set up homes in South Kildare at the turn of the last Century? Was it an extension of the policy first put in place by the Duke of Leinster in the 1850’s to strengthen the established Church in South Kildare by giving farm tenancies to members of that Church or was it merely a co-incidence that most of the best farmlands in South Kildare passed from one Church of Ireland tenant to another? The question raises issues which could form the basis of an interesting study of the relationship between land succession and religious adherences in South Kildare during the later half of the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th Century. Howsoever the various Yates family members from County Offaly came to live in close proximity to each other in South Kildare, the unfolding history of their lives saw Ballycullane passing out of their hands when William Yates left for Leinster Lodge. The Lipstown Narraghmore lands initially farmed by Tom Yates subsequently passed to his eldest son Garret. He it was who eventually sold on those lands to Willie Fennin leaving the Grangemellon holdings as the only farmland still in the ownership of the Yates family. It was Tommy Yates Junior who took over Grangemellon from his father in 1961. He was the youngest member of the five children of Tom Yates and Annette Hewitt of County Longford who married in 1926. Of Tom’s three sisters, Freda is a retired School Teacher, Sheila is married to Billy Shaw of Carlow while Joan who married Dan Connolly of Ballyfoyle has passed away.
The farm at Grangemellon has an imposing residence. Grangemellon House was built probably in the middle of the 18th Century. The farm land was a mixed farm of about 200 acres with cattle, sheep and tillage requiring a workforce of five or six men in the 1930’s and a complement of six horses. Tobacco growing in the early 1940’s was perhaps one on the more unusual farming activities of the time. Tom Yates Senior propagated tobacco plants in glass protected hot beds of which he had about twenty during those years. The plants grown from seed were bedded in clay enriched with horse manure and when strong enough, the plants were sold on to neighbouring farmers. As well as propagating tobacco plants, the Yates farm was also involved in growing and harvesting tobacco leaves. The young plants were transplanted to drills of about 36 inches wide and during the growing season they were treated in much the same way as tomato plants. When the tobacco plants reached maturity, their leaves were harvested and drawn into the tobacco house. In the photograph accompanying this article, the leaves are shown hanging from the frame of a horse drawn dray. When the frames were full, the dray was returned to the tobacco house where the frames and the hanging leaves were lifted off and left to hang in a wood lined drying room. Coal braziers were lit to dry the leaves and when that primary drying process was finished, the leaves were sold onto Greene’s of Kilkea Lodge where they underwent further drying. It was there that the Excise men graded the tobacco leaves for the purpose of quantifying the duty payable. The finished plant was then sold onto the factories to provide the raw material for the Irish Tobacco Industry.
Tom Yates Junior who married Shirley Armstrong from Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim some years after she came to work in Shaw’s of Athy is with his son Bruce, the present occupiers of Grangemellon Farm. Tom has seen many changes in his time and recalls the farming emergency of 1947 when the weather caused a national crisis and threatened that years harvest. The mixed farming of earlier years has given way to agricultural specialization while the combustion engine signaled the death knell of both the farm labourer and the farm horse alike. Times have changed but the unfolding story of life on an Irish farm is a never ending one where memories of tobacco growing days in the 1940’s provide a unique insight into the ingenuity and foresight of the men who worked the soil.
Thursday, February 14, 2002
Aidan Tierney
Aidan Tierney visited Athy last August on a quick trip from his home in New Zealand where he has lived for over 25 years. Aidan’s parents Patrick and Edith Tierney lived at Salisbury House just outside Athy on the Monasterevin side of the town from the late 1920’s. It was from there that Aidan attended the Christian Brother’s School in St. John’s lane where he was a pupil with the likes of Jimmy Bradbury, Leopold Kelly, Jimmy Bolger, Michael May, Mickey Quinn, John Dunphy, Tom Pender, Ger Byrne and John Behan of Rathstewart. When he left school, Aidan worked on the family farm and was soon involved with the local branch of Macra Na Feirme organisation. In 1963 he was appointed Honorary Secretary of Macra, a position which he was to hold for the following three years. During the early 1960’s he was also a member of the original co-operative buying group which under the late Fred Henderson of Ardmore subsequently developed into the Farmers Co-op now restyled Liffey Mills and which still operates out of premises on the Kildare Road.
During his time in Ireland, Aidan was a member of the National Farming Association and amongst the members then he recalls Frank Jackson, Ivan Bergin, Bill Diamond, Dermot Mullan, Bill Hendy, Tim Fennin, Charlie Chambers, Dermot Doyle and Jack Kingston.
In 1966 Aidan was sent as part of a herd testing team from Ireland to help out the New Zealand Dairy Board on a two year contract. He did not return to Athy at the end of his two year contract as in the meantime he met his future wife, Roselia Potroz a lady of Polish extraction whom he married in New Zealand in 1969. Following the birth of their first son Kevin, Aidan and his wife Roselia came to Ireland in 1971. While living in Athy from November 1972, Aidan was involved with the Mullinahown Cooperative Society in setting up in Ireland a cattle tagging agency. The Allflex Cattle Ear Tag System which he had first encountered in New Zealand after his arrival in 1966 is now a multi-million pound business employing over 50 people and supplying the entire Irish farming industry.
Aidan and Roselia with their young son Colm who was born in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Athy and his New Zealand born sibling Kevin, finally left Athy and South Kildare towards the end of 1975 to return to New Zealand. Aidan purchased a Dairy Farm with 160 acres at Taranaki on the western side of the North Island of New Zealand. Unlike the dairy farms of England and Ireland, the warm climate of the Southern Hemisphere allows the animals to remain on grass all year round ruling out the need for sheds, slurry disposal and many of the hundred and one jobs involved in maintaining winter stock in Ireland. Aidan continued to farm at Taranaki until 1990 when he bought a farm of about 320 acres further north on the Island which allowed him to increase his stock levels to 250 cows. At the same time he had a 20 acre kiwi fruit farm and harvested a fruit delicacy which first made its appearance on Irish supermarket shelves over 20 years. In the meantime the Tierney family had expanded with the arrival of Allana, Paul, Liam and Stephanie. Aidan retired from full time farming in 1997 having combined his agricultural responsibilities for nineteen and a half years as a Marketing Consultant for a local newspaper, The Farming Independent. He is now part of a partnership which operates a 50 acre Kiwi Fruit Farm in his adopted country, New Zealand.
When Aidan and his wife returned to Athy last August, they did so as part of a round the world trip which saw them journeying to Youghal in Co. Cork for the wedding of their Athy born son Colm to an Irish girl. For the man born at Salisbury, Athy, Co. Kildare over sixty years ago, New Zealand has been a pleasant and a happy land. While the Islands of New Zealand are wetter than Australia, they nevertheless provide a pleasant temperate climate where the cost of agricultural production is far less than that in Ireland. There is little meal fed to cattle and no shed work in New Zealand unlike Ireland where costs are substantially higher. One of the many contrasts between Irish and New Zealand farming is that provided by the free market economy of the latter as contrasted with the subsidy based agricultural life of Ireland. The New Zealand farmer operates without the benefit of any subsidies but is also free of the restrictive quotas such as that relating to milk production in Ireland.
There is no surprise to find that one and half million of those living in New Zealand are of Irish extraction. Taranaki has its Irish Social Club with up to three hundred members of second and third generation Irish and in New Zealand as elsewhere, Irish pubs are springing up everywhere. Amongst Aidan Tierney’s near neighbours are Athy folk John Alcock and his sister Sheila who is married to a Galway man. John is now retired and living in the beach area of the Bay of Plenty. Recent visitors to that part of the world included John Doyle formerly of the Heath and Anna May McHugh who with Breda Ovington met Aidan in New Zealand while on a recent visit. P.J. Kirwan of K. Gardens was another one who renewed acquaintances with Aidan while visiting his brother Noel who is also living in New Zealand.
The Tierney farm at Salisbury is now farmed by Aidan’s brother Philip, but for Aidan the Christian Brother educated man from Athy, New Zealand is now his home. He is part of the Irish diaspora which over the centuries has helped to create an overseas Irish world, which we who remain on the island of Ireland, can be immeasurably proud.
The History and Family Research Centre based in Newbridge is hosting a Local History Seminar on Thursday, 28th February at 8.00pm in the Newbridge Arts Centre. The purpose of the Seminar is to acquaint people with the current state of the Local Studies Collection and to address concerns over access to that material and research facilities. It is also intended to outline the plans for the development of the History and Family Research Centre which incorporates Local Studies, Archives and the Kildare Heritage and Genealogy Project. Anyone with an interest in local history or in genealogy will find the Seminar of interest.
During his time in Ireland, Aidan was a member of the National Farming Association and amongst the members then he recalls Frank Jackson, Ivan Bergin, Bill Diamond, Dermot Mullan, Bill Hendy, Tim Fennin, Charlie Chambers, Dermot Doyle and Jack Kingston.
In 1966 Aidan was sent as part of a herd testing team from Ireland to help out the New Zealand Dairy Board on a two year contract. He did not return to Athy at the end of his two year contract as in the meantime he met his future wife, Roselia Potroz a lady of Polish extraction whom he married in New Zealand in 1969. Following the birth of their first son Kevin, Aidan and his wife Roselia came to Ireland in 1971. While living in Athy from November 1972, Aidan was involved with the Mullinahown Cooperative Society in setting up in Ireland a cattle tagging agency. The Allflex Cattle Ear Tag System which he had first encountered in New Zealand after his arrival in 1966 is now a multi-million pound business employing over 50 people and supplying the entire Irish farming industry.
Aidan and Roselia with their young son Colm who was born in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Athy and his New Zealand born sibling Kevin, finally left Athy and South Kildare towards the end of 1975 to return to New Zealand. Aidan purchased a Dairy Farm with 160 acres at Taranaki on the western side of the North Island of New Zealand. Unlike the dairy farms of England and Ireland, the warm climate of the Southern Hemisphere allows the animals to remain on grass all year round ruling out the need for sheds, slurry disposal and many of the hundred and one jobs involved in maintaining winter stock in Ireland. Aidan continued to farm at Taranaki until 1990 when he bought a farm of about 320 acres further north on the Island which allowed him to increase his stock levels to 250 cows. At the same time he had a 20 acre kiwi fruit farm and harvested a fruit delicacy which first made its appearance on Irish supermarket shelves over 20 years. In the meantime the Tierney family had expanded with the arrival of Allana, Paul, Liam and Stephanie. Aidan retired from full time farming in 1997 having combined his agricultural responsibilities for nineteen and a half years as a Marketing Consultant for a local newspaper, The Farming Independent. He is now part of a partnership which operates a 50 acre Kiwi Fruit Farm in his adopted country, New Zealand.
When Aidan and his wife returned to Athy last August, they did so as part of a round the world trip which saw them journeying to Youghal in Co. Cork for the wedding of their Athy born son Colm to an Irish girl. For the man born at Salisbury, Athy, Co. Kildare over sixty years ago, New Zealand has been a pleasant and a happy land. While the Islands of New Zealand are wetter than Australia, they nevertheless provide a pleasant temperate climate where the cost of agricultural production is far less than that in Ireland. There is little meal fed to cattle and no shed work in New Zealand unlike Ireland where costs are substantially higher. One of the many contrasts between Irish and New Zealand farming is that provided by the free market economy of the latter as contrasted with the subsidy based agricultural life of Ireland. The New Zealand farmer operates without the benefit of any subsidies but is also free of the restrictive quotas such as that relating to milk production in Ireland.
There is no surprise to find that one and half million of those living in New Zealand are of Irish extraction. Taranaki has its Irish Social Club with up to three hundred members of second and third generation Irish and in New Zealand as elsewhere, Irish pubs are springing up everywhere. Amongst Aidan Tierney’s near neighbours are Athy folk John Alcock and his sister Sheila who is married to a Galway man. John is now retired and living in the beach area of the Bay of Plenty. Recent visitors to that part of the world included John Doyle formerly of the Heath and Anna May McHugh who with Breda Ovington met Aidan in New Zealand while on a recent visit. P.J. Kirwan of K. Gardens was another one who renewed acquaintances with Aidan while visiting his brother Noel who is also living in New Zealand.
The Tierney farm at Salisbury is now farmed by Aidan’s brother Philip, but for Aidan the Christian Brother educated man from Athy, New Zealand is now his home. He is part of the Irish diaspora which over the centuries has helped to create an overseas Irish world, which we who remain on the island of Ireland, can be immeasurably proud.
The History and Family Research Centre based in Newbridge is hosting a Local History Seminar on Thursday, 28th February at 8.00pm in the Newbridge Arts Centre. The purpose of the Seminar is to acquaint people with the current state of the Local Studies Collection and to address concerns over access to that material and research facilities. It is also intended to outline the plans for the development of the History and Family Research Centre which incorporates Local Studies, Archives and the Kildare Heritage and Genealogy Project. Anyone with an interest in local history or in genealogy will find the Seminar of interest.
Thursday, February 7, 2002
John O'Donovan - Antiquarian
There is something unremitting about rain in the early spring that can weary even the most determined traveler. Much less can one imagine the motivation of a man who would travel the length and breadth of Kildare in the harsh and unforgiving winter months.
One such man was the antiquarian and historian John O’Donovan. Almost single-handedly through his researches in Irish history and archaeology he revitalised the then dormant interest in the Irish language and the history of people and place in Ireland.
As a scholar his achievements were of monumental significance. His editing and publication of the Annals of the Irish Four Masters would be sufficient to distinguish him amongst the scholars and writers of the last century. Added to this work he traveled the length and breadth of the country in the employ of the Ordnance Survey from 1830 to 1842. From October to December of 1837 O’Donovan spent his days and nights by horse and by foot travelling the highways and byways of the county of Kildare. On his travels he sought out every bit of historical or archaeological information that he could find. He began his researches in Maynooth on October 18th, 1837. In that one day he traversed “the Parishes of Leixlip, Confey, Donaghmore and Kilmacreddock and took notice of all the remarkable things connected with them that came under my observation”. He noted a well called Shaughlin’s Well in the Parish of Maynooth. The well had been a popular place for locals to visit and was a place where he was told that many miraculous cures had been effected. He wrote
“There was for many years an iron cup appended to a chain at it for the use of those who frequented it which some sacrilegious hand coveting took off a few years ago.”
Two days later he could be found in the Parishes of Kildrought, Doneycomper and Stacummey where he obtained as much information as he possibly could about the local English pronunciations and the names. He regretted to note that there was no possibility of getting it pronounced in Irish for the language had become almost entirely extinct in this part of the country.
O’Donovan was in the habit of communicating his discoveries on a daily basis to the Ordnance Survey in Dublin, with detailed descriptions of the places he went to and the people he met, while at the same time casting a critical eye over previous histories of the areas and the local traditions that he had encountered. In his endeavours O’Donovan was often times accompanied by T. O’Connor and J. O’Keeffe who did parallel researches in areas adjoining O’Donovans. From the Ordnance Survey letters there is an impression of great urgency about the work that O’Donovan and his colleagues were doing and a sense that much of the information that they were recording would be lost were they not out there collecting it on a day-to-day basis.
In many ways the works they were doing were not appreciated. O’Connor described their arrival in Clane on November 3rd, 1837. Thus :-
“We just arrived and with the greatest possible difficulty found a reception which, from its badness, will, I fear, prove injurious at least to me, as I feel on this evening rather discreetly affected with a cold arising from the very cold wettings I got in Carbery. This is a most wretched village, though it is a post town.”
The flurry of letters which the Ordnance Survey received on a day-to-day basis recorded not only the works done but often the frustrations and the limitations of the fieldwork. O’Donovan constantly wrote to the Ordnance Survey in Dublin in search of further materials, which would aid him in his field works. Often his letters would contain detailed instructions to his contemporaries in the Ordnance Survey including such men as Eugene O’Curry, his brother-in-law, the great social historian of ancient Ireland whose book on the Manners and Customs of Ancient Ireland was regarded as a classic in its day.
Sometimes in O’Donovan’s letters there is this underlying tension between his ambition to record as much as possible and the difficulty in coping with the inclement weather conditions in winter. Travelling by canal boat from Mullingar to Dublin O’Donovan arrived in the early hours of the morning of 12th November, finding himself exhausted and sleepy and unable to travel to Naas to meet up with his colleagues O’Connor and O’Keeffe to complete their works there.
Even though he found himself physically unable to make the journey he was anxious to assess the works they had done. O’Donovan showed a touching concern for his colleagues in the field while writing from Athy on November 20th, 1837. He recommended that his friend O’Keeffe be returned to Dublin for a while. He noted the weather was very severe and might injure O’Keeffe instead of improving his health. For a week in late November 1837 O’Donovan and his colleagues used Athy as a base in which to conduct their researches in the areas surrounding it. By the end of November they moved to Kildare town to explore the north of the county. His enthusiasm for his works seem to have dimmed somewhat towards the end of the year and he had developed a very poor opinion of the people and places in that part of Kildare. Visiting Monasterevin on December 3rd, 1837 he wrote as follows :-
“I visited Monasterevin yesterday but could find no feature or tradition there to throw any light on its history. The people are entirely anglicised and have lost all their ancient traditions. I long to get to Connaught again, as those of my own province are not only exceedingly ignorant on the subject of my enquiry, but also boorish and unobliging.”
The period spent in Kildare town seemed to be a difficult one for O’Donovan. Of his future plans he wrote :-
“If I can get over the writing for Kildare I think we might be able to finish the Kings County in about six weeks, but the wretched town of Kildare nearly killed me and I am now so nervous that I can scarcely hold the pen.”
Towards the end of December he visited the Moate of Ardscull a couple of miles outside of Athy. In recording his thoughts on that Moate he referred to James Hardiman’s history of Ardscull and surroundings. The errors and contradictions of Hardiman’s writings infuriated O’Donovan. He noted cantankerously :-
“It is astonishing that such a man, ‘a man of keen, discerning and of clear intellect and of vast information’ as Hardiman could insult the public by such glaring nonsense. If Hardiman knew that I wrote in this manner about his book he would become my most bitter enemy. But I don’t care about the feelings of any man, friend or foe. Nothing for me but plain honest truth. No quibbling, equivocating, disguising or suppression. No confounding of names or periods. No assumption without proof. No conjecture in the shape of positiviness! You will say that I am getting mad again. This weather is so sublime that it will throw one back three centuries.”
O’Donovan completed his work in Kildare by the end of 1837. O’Donovan died in Dublin 1862 from rheumatic fever which his friends and colleagues believed was brought on due to the many years he had spent in inclement weather on outdoor work for the Ordnance Survey.
One such man was the antiquarian and historian John O’Donovan. Almost single-handedly through his researches in Irish history and archaeology he revitalised the then dormant interest in the Irish language and the history of people and place in Ireland.
As a scholar his achievements were of monumental significance. His editing and publication of the Annals of the Irish Four Masters would be sufficient to distinguish him amongst the scholars and writers of the last century. Added to this work he traveled the length and breadth of the country in the employ of the Ordnance Survey from 1830 to 1842. From October to December of 1837 O’Donovan spent his days and nights by horse and by foot travelling the highways and byways of the county of Kildare. On his travels he sought out every bit of historical or archaeological information that he could find. He began his researches in Maynooth on October 18th, 1837. In that one day he traversed “the Parishes of Leixlip, Confey, Donaghmore and Kilmacreddock and took notice of all the remarkable things connected with them that came under my observation”. He noted a well called Shaughlin’s Well in the Parish of Maynooth. The well had been a popular place for locals to visit and was a place where he was told that many miraculous cures had been effected. He wrote
“There was for many years an iron cup appended to a chain at it for the use of those who frequented it which some sacrilegious hand coveting took off a few years ago.”
Two days later he could be found in the Parishes of Kildrought, Doneycomper and Stacummey where he obtained as much information as he possibly could about the local English pronunciations and the names. He regretted to note that there was no possibility of getting it pronounced in Irish for the language had become almost entirely extinct in this part of the country.
O’Donovan was in the habit of communicating his discoveries on a daily basis to the Ordnance Survey in Dublin, with detailed descriptions of the places he went to and the people he met, while at the same time casting a critical eye over previous histories of the areas and the local traditions that he had encountered. In his endeavours O’Donovan was often times accompanied by T. O’Connor and J. O’Keeffe who did parallel researches in areas adjoining O’Donovans. From the Ordnance Survey letters there is an impression of great urgency about the work that O’Donovan and his colleagues were doing and a sense that much of the information that they were recording would be lost were they not out there collecting it on a day-to-day basis.
In many ways the works they were doing were not appreciated. O’Connor described their arrival in Clane on November 3rd, 1837. Thus :-
“We just arrived and with the greatest possible difficulty found a reception which, from its badness, will, I fear, prove injurious at least to me, as I feel on this evening rather discreetly affected with a cold arising from the very cold wettings I got in Carbery. This is a most wretched village, though it is a post town.”
The flurry of letters which the Ordnance Survey received on a day-to-day basis recorded not only the works done but often the frustrations and the limitations of the fieldwork. O’Donovan constantly wrote to the Ordnance Survey in Dublin in search of further materials, which would aid him in his field works. Often his letters would contain detailed instructions to his contemporaries in the Ordnance Survey including such men as Eugene O’Curry, his brother-in-law, the great social historian of ancient Ireland whose book on the Manners and Customs of Ancient Ireland was regarded as a classic in its day.
Sometimes in O’Donovan’s letters there is this underlying tension between his ambition to record as much as possible and the difficulty in coping with the inclement weather conditions in winter. Travelling by canal boat from Mullingar to Dublin O’Donovan arrived in the early hours of the morning of 12th November, finding himself exhausted and sleepy and unable to travel to Naas to meet up with his colleagues O’Connor and O’Keeffe to complete their works there.
Even though he found himself physically unable to make the journey he was anxious to assess the works they had done. O’Donovan showed a touching concern for his colleagues in the field while writing from Athy on November 20th, 1837. He recommended that his friend O’Keeffe be returned to Dublin for a while. He noted the weather was very severe and might injure O’Keeffe instead of improving his health. For a week in late November 1837 O’Donovan and his colleagues used Athy as a base in which to conduct their researches in the areas surrounding it. By the end of November they moved to Kildare town to explore the north of the county. His enthusiasm for his works seem to have dimmed somewhat towards the end of the year and he had developed a very poor opinion of the people and places in that part of Kildare. Visiting Monasterevin on December 3rd, 1837 he wrote as follows :-
“I visited Monasterevin yesterday but could find no feature or tradition there to throw any light on its history. The people are entirely anglicised and have lost all their ancient traditions. I long to get to Connaught again, as those of my own province are not only exceedingly ignorant on the subject of my enquiry, but also boorish and unobliging.”
The period spent in Kildare town seemed to be a difficult one for O’Donovan. Of his future plans he wrote :-
“If I can get over the writing for Kildare I think we might be able to finish the Kings County in about six weeks, but the wretched town of Kildare nearly killed me and I am now so nervous that I can scarcely hold the pen.”
Towards the end of December he visited the Moate of Ardscull a couple of miles outside of Athy. In recording his thoughts on that Moate he referred to James Hardiman’s history of Ardscull and surroundings. The errors and contradictions of Hardiman’s writings infuriated O’Donovan. He noted cantankerously :-
“It is astonishing that such a man, ‘a man of keen, discerning and of clear intellect and of vast information’ as Hardiman could insult the public by such glaring nonsense. If Hardiman knew that I wrote in this manner about his book he would become my most bitter enemy. But I don’t care about the feelings of any man, friend or foe. Nothing for me but plain honest truth. No quibbling, equivocating, disguising or suppression. No confounding of names or periods. No assumption without proof. No conjecture in the shape of positiviness! You will say that I am getting mad again. This weather is so sublime that it will throw one back three centuries.”
O’Donovan completed his work in Kildare by the end of 1837. O’Donovan died in Dublin 1862 from rheumatic fever which his friends and colleagues believed was brought on due to the many years he had spent in inclement weather on outdoor work for the Ordnance Survey.
Thursday, January 31, 2002
Athy Way - Magazine June 1974
“Athy Way - News, View, Features” produced by Junior Chamber, Athy bears the price 12p on its front cover under the oft photographed view of Athy’s most famous landmark, the Barrow Bridge. The twenty eight page magazine does not have a date of issue but it apparently appeared shortly before the local elections of June 1974. The editorial staff was headed by Fr. R. Mitchell with John Jennings as Production Manager, Ann O’Mara as Assistant editor and Publicity and Sales under the control of Eileen Connolly and Angela Jennings.
Junior Chamber Athy was founded 1973 with membership open to everyone between the ages of 18 and 40 years. The magazine “Athy Way” was the Junior Chambers contribution to the Community Week Festival which I believe was held in Athy in the Spring of 1974. The first Chairman of the Junior Chamber was John Jennings with Raymond Pelin and Michael O’Gorman as Vice-Presidents. Ann O’Mara was the Honorary Secretary while the purse strings were in the capable hands of Barry Spring. Members of the Executive Committee of the Chamber were Charles Chambers, Pat Carroll, Eileen Reen, Moira Finnegan and Nicholas Walsh.
The magazine, which I had never previously seen, was recently sent to me from New Zealand. It consists of an interesting series of articles on Clubs and Associations in and about the South Kildare Town. Martina Dunne gave an account of “Fanfare For Youth” an organisation founded in September 1973 following a meeting between members of Aontas Ogra and Paul Stafford. Sponsored by the Bleach and District Community Association, “Fanfare for Youth” was specifically for young adults, with the objective of fostering cooperation between different art groups and improving the public image of young people. It was not a club as such, rather a youth service. The first officers were Paul Stafford, Chairman, J.O’Neill, Treasurer and Denis Whelan P.R.O.
Kathleen Dooley wrote of Ballyroe twenty six years ago in a piece headed “Ballyroe - a lively spot”. In it she dealt with the Community Centre created a year previously out of the vacant old National School, where several clubs in the area met on a regular basis. The Gaelic Football Club, the I.C.A. as well as the local dance group and a youth committee where just some of those whose activities were boosted by the newly opened centre.
Sheila Gleeson wrote a brief account of Aontas Ogra, the organisation founded eighteen years previously, of which she was then the Chairman. Colette Doran was secretary with Peter Murphy as Treasurer while Teresa McFadden, Stephanie O’Toole, Peter Kehoe, Michael Aldridge, Denis Whelan and Danny McEvoy comprised the Aontas Ogra Committee. Its members were encouraged to take an active part in community activity and indeed had taken on the responsibility of maintaining the fountain in Emily Square and cutting the grass along the banks of the Canal and River Barrow. I wonder for how long that lasted?
Scattered throughout the “Athy Way” magazine, was details of the various candidates standing in the Urban Council elections for 1974. Enda Kinsella was an independent candidate who wanted to have ground rents abolished and medical cards assessed on basic wages rather than taking overtime into account. The magazine editor wrote “he says that South Kildare will not be like the lad that fell out of the plane concerning footpaths, roads and general improvements”. I wonder what was intended by that claim?
Angela Jennings wrote a tongue and cheek piece which she called “In Defense of Housewives” where she explored ways and means of cutting down on the housewives working hours. It all boiled down to doing less as for example with the washing up, where the housewife was encouraged to “keeping dumping everything into the sink until no more will fit and then do a complete wash up, thereby saving your time and saving money on detergents”. It occurs to me that this labour saving method was discovered by the men folk many years ago!
Mary Grufferty gave a short contribution headed “Kilmead has its Queen” but managed to sign off before telling us who that was, while Mary Lacey wrote of community action in Barrowhouse. The Barrowhouse Community Committee was set up in September 1973 following the closure of the local National School. The teachers were transferred to Ballyroe School and plans were made to bus the pupils to the same school. However, under the Chairmanship of William Malone, the Community Committee employed substitute teachers and kept the Barrowhouse School open. Following a meeting with the Minister for Education, Richard Burke T.D., it was agreed that the School could be re-opened provided the two teachers already transferred to Ballyroe were prepared to return to Barrowhouse and the local Committee carried out repairs to the existing school building at their own expense and without the aid of State funding. The action group set about decorating the old School building and installed heaters and toilet facilities before Barrowhouse School then re-opened with 43 pupils on the rolls. Isn’t it quite extraordinary to think that a generation ago, a Government Minister expected a local group to fund the installation of toilets and other facilities in a National School. Times certainly have changed!
Joanne Evans wrote an account of “Athy Girls Friendly Society” which was organised by the local rector’s wife. Girls from three different age groups ranging from four to twelve years met on Saturday afternoons in the local parochial hall, to be taught dancing, skipping and action songs as well as undertaking bible study.
Moyra Troute gave details of the St. Vincent de Paul Junior Conference which met every Friday night at No. 81 Leinster Street while Athy’s first Community Week Festival was put under the microscope by Charles Chambers. More than twenty local clubs took part in the festival which was regarded as reasonably successful even if some felt it lacked variety. Michael Reen was the author of an essay on the duty an responsibility of “Youths and Adults in Society”. Robin Greene wrote of “Farming in South Kildare”, Jim McEvoy of the “Urban Council in Athy” and John Jennings wrote a piece on “The White Paper on Wealth Tax”. There were brief details of two other independent candidates in the local elections, one of whom, Jack MacKenna was a past pupil of the C.B.S. with fourteen years membership of Kildare County Council and seven years as an Urban Councillor. A member of Fianna Eireann before 1921, he was an adjutant in the Local Defence Forces in 1937. The other candidate, Gearoid May had lived in Athy for twenty years and was employed locally. He was active in Aontas Ogra, Fanfare for Youth, Knights of Malta and Athy and District Schoolboys Soccer League.
“Athy Way” was sponsored by Byrne’s Supermarket, DKL Limited and the Cock Robin Cabaret Rooms both of Leinster Street. Neither are in business in Athy today and the Junior Chamber has long disappeared from the Community Agenda. How many issues of “Athy Way” were published I cannot say, but perhaps someone out there can answer that question as well as identifying those responsible for producing the magazine and the various contributors to that first issue of twenty six years ago.
Junior Chamber Athy was founded 1973 with membership open to everyone between the ages of 18 and 40 years. The magazine “Athy Way” was the Junior Chambers contribution to the Community Week Festival which I believe was held in Athy in the Spring of 1974. The first Chairman of the Junior Chamber was John Jennings with Raymond Pelin and Michael O’Gorman as Vice-Presidents. Ann O’Mara was the Honorary Secretary while the purse strings were in the capable hands of Barry Spring. Members of the Executive Committee of the Chamber were Charles Chambers, Pat Carroll, Eileen Reen, Moira Finnegan and Nicholas Walsh.
The magazine, which I had never previously seen, was recently sent to me from New Zealand. It consists of an interesting series of articles on Clubs and Associations in and about the South Kildare Town. Martina Dunne gave an account of “Fanfare For Youth” an organisation founded in September 1973 following a meeting between members of Aontas Ogra and Paul Stafford. Sponsored by the Bleach and District Community Association, “Fanfare for Youth” was specifically for young adults, with the objective of fostering cooperation between different art groups and improving the public image of young people. It was not a club as such, rather a youth service. The first officers were Paul Stafford, Chairman, J.O’Neill, Treasurer and Denis Whelan P.R.O.
Kathleen Dooley wrote of Ballyroe twenty six years ago in a piece headed “Ballyroe - a lively spot”. In it she dealt with the Community Centre created a year previously out of the vacant old National School, where several clubs in the area met on a regular basis. The Gaelic Football Club, the I.C.A. as well as the local dance group and a youth committee where just some of those whose activities were boosted by the newly opened centre.
Sheila Gleeson wrote a brief account of Aontas Ogra, the organisation founded eighteen years previously, of which she was then the Chairman. Colette Doran was secretary with Peter Murphy as Treasurer while Teresa McFadden, Stephanie O’Toole, Peter Kehoe, Michael Aldridge, Denis Whelan and Danny McEvoy comprised the Aontas Ogra Committee. Its members were encouraged to take an active part in community activity and indeed had taken on the responsibility of maintaining the fountain in Emily Square and cutting the grass along the banks of the Canal and River Barrow. I wonder for how long that lasted?
Scattered throughout the “Athy Way” magazine, was details of the various candidates standing in the Urban Council elections for 1974. Enda Kinsella was an independent candidate who wanted to have ground rents abolished and medical cards assessed on basic wages rather than taking overtime into account. The magazine editor wrote “he says that South Kildare will not be like the lad that fell out of the plane concerning footpaths, roads and general improvements”. I wonder what was intended by that claim?
Angela Jennings wrote a tongue and cheek piece which she called “In Defense of Housewives” where she explored ways and means of cutting down on the housewives working hours. It all boiled down to doing less as for example with the washing up, where the housewife was encouraged to “keeping dumping everything into the sink until no more will fit and then do a complete wash up, thereby saving your time and saving money on detergents”. It occurs to me that this labour saving method was discovered by the men folk many years ago!
Mary Grufferty gave a short contribution headed “Kilmead has its Queen” but managed to sign off before telling us who that was, while Mary Lacey wrote of community action in Barrowhouse. The Barrowhouse Community Committee was set up in September 1973 following the closure of the local National School. The teachers were transferred to Ballyroe School and plans were made to bus the pupils to the same school. However, under the Chairmanship of William Malone, the Community Committee employed substitute teachers and kept the Barrowhouse School open. Following a meeting with the Minister for Education, Richard Burke T.D., it was agreed that the School could be re-opened provided the two teachers already transferred to Ballyroe were prepared to return to Barrowhouse and the local Committee carried out repairs to the existing school building at their own expense and without the aid of State funding. The action group set about decorating the old School building and installed heaters and toilet facilities before Barrowhouse School then re-opened with 43 pupils on the rolls. Isn’t it quite extraordinary to think that a generation ago, a Government Minister expected a local group to fund the installation of toilets and other facilities in a National School. Times certainly have changed!
Joanne Evans wrote an account of “Athy Girls Friendly Society” which was organised by the local rector’s wife. Girls from three different age groups ranging from four to twelve years met on Saturday afternoons in the local parochial hall, to be taught dancing, skipping and action songs as well as undertaking bible study.
Moyra Troute gave details of the St. Vincent de Paul Junior Conference which met every Friday night at No. 81 Leinster Street while Athy’s first Community Week Festival was put under the microscope by Charles Chambers. More than twenty local clubs took part in the festival which was regarded as reasonably successful even if some felt it lacked variety. Michael Reen was the author of an essay on the duty an responsibility of “Youths and Adults in Society”. Robin Greene wrote of “Farming in South Kildare”, Jim McEvoy of the “Urban Council in Athy” and John Jennings wrote a piece on “The White Paper on Wealth Tax”. There were brief details of two other independent candidates in the local elections, one of whom, Jack MacKenna was a past pupil of the C.B.S. with fourteen years membership of Kildare County Council and seven years as an Urban Councillor. A member of Fianna Eireann before 1921, he was an adjutant in the Local Defence Forces in 1937. The other candidate, Gearoid May had lived in Athy for twenty years and was employed locally. He was active in Aontas Ogra, Fanfare for Youth, Knights of Malta and Athy and District Schoolboys Soccer League.
“Athy Way” was sponsored by Byrne’s Supermarket, DKL Limited and the Cock Robin Cabaret Rooms both of Leinster Street. Neither are in business in Athy today and the Junior Chamber has long disappeared from the Community Agenda. How many issues of “Athy Way” were published I cannot say, but perhaps someone out there can answer that question as well as identifying those responsible for producing the magazine and the various contributors to that first issue of twenty six years ago.
Thursday, January 24, 2002
Ballylinan Carnival 1937
A gift received recently from Mary Donohue of programmes sold in connection with the 1937 and 1939 Carnivals held in Ballylinan prompts this article. I have previously written of the local businesses which advertised in the 1937 Carnival Programme but today I want to deal with the background to the Carnivals and those who participated in them.
The condemnation of the old school building in Ballylinan in the early 1930’s necessitated the building of a new school for the 240 or so youngsters who each day attended classes in the village. That earlier school building had been erected in 1842 to replace a small thatched one room school building which in its time catered for 100 youngsters. The Parish Priest in the early 1930’s was Reverend J. Killian whose brother was the Archbishop of Adelaide. With the willing help of the local Parishioners Fr. Killian set about the task of raising over £2,000.00 which with the Department of Education Grant of £3,600.00 was required to fund the building cost of the new school. But first a suitable site had to be got and John Hovenden’s field on the Athy side of the village was secured. It required a considerable amount of preliminary work including leveling and many of the local men with either horses and carts or lorries gave freely of their time to draw material to the site. Building work started in the Autumn of 1933 with Carbery Building Contractors of Athy, a firm involved with many, if not, most of the major building contracts in South Kildare during the 20th Century. Work continued apace and in July 1934 the foundation stone of the new St. Patrick’s School was laid by the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Dr. M. Cullen.
Raising the local contribution of £2,000.00 which was the shortfall in the school building costs was a daunting task, but one to which the Parishioners of Arles, wherein lies the village of Ballylinan, committed themselves. I have been able to confirm that the Carnivals started in 1935 and were held every second year up to and including 1939. Looking through the programme for the 1937 programme, one is struck by the variety and quality of the artists hired for the two weeks of the event. The Carnival ran from the 15th to the 29th August and assigned to itself the claim of being “Ireland’s Greatest Inland Carnival”.
The Adelaide Melody Band, reputed to be the “largest resident dance band in Ireland”, played at the opening Carnival Dance in the new school under the baton of its leader Vincent Rogers. The Ballylinan Ceile Band played in what was referred to as the “Ballylinan Club” and like the Adelaide Melody Band had a six hour stint until three o’clock each morning. I wonder who were the members of the Ceile Band on that occasion? Earlier on the opening Sunday, the Number 3 Army Band played a selection of music before leading a parade to the Carnival grounds where McDonald’s Amusements were in full swing. A fireworks display was held on Sunday night and throughout the entire period of the Carnival, “the wonderful and weird exploits of Yuga” were demonstrated to an audience who obviously knew more than I do about his power of necromrancy. A visit to the Oxford Dictionary was necessary to confirm that his exploits were in the Art of Prediction by supposed communication with the dead.
Ballroom and Ceile dancing took place every night and must have brought an enormous number of revellers to Ballylinan by hackney car, bike and foot during that Summer fortnight of 65 years ago. The musical tastes of all and sundry were well catered for by the many bands which performed during the Carnival. These included Castlecomers Brass and Reed Band, Doonanes Pipers Band, Churchtowns Pipers Band and the Arles Brass and Reed Band. Add to all that activity, a gymnastics display, a whist drive, a boxing tournament, a tug of war competition and a mini golf competition and you have a fortnight of fun which must be given huge enjoyment during those gloomy days of the Economic War.
The third and last Ballylinan Carnival was held from the 4th to the 18th June 1939, just a short time before the outbreak of World War Two. The 1939 Carnival Programme was priced at three pence whereas one paid four times that sum for the programme produced two years earlier. That earlier programme had one hundred and twelve pages while the pre-war edition was a slim volume of forty eight pages. The events organised for the two weeks of June 1939 consisted of Ballroom dancing each night in what the programme called “The Ballroom” where Mantovani and his London sextet provided the music. Was the Ballroom again in St. Patrick’s School? The Ceiles were held on Sunday and Thursday evenings only, unlike the previous Carrnival when the Ballylinan Ceile Band was on call every night of the two weeks. The Carnival Amusements were again the main stay of the Carnival grounds with the added attraction of “The Great Morell” who entertained the crowd from atop his one hundred and twenty foot high perch. If you did not have a head for heights, you could always make an appointment to see Princess Owonga of the Cherokee Tribe who would tell your fortune or if you preferred your horoscope for the rather princely sum of two and six. During the second week of the Carnival, “Risko the greatest and most daring trapeze artist of the age” was engaged to entertain the Carnival revellers as were an Indian troop from the Pleasure Beach of Blackpool, England.
A Boxing Tournament and what was billed as “The Match of the Year” between Leix and Offaly was the highlight of the last Sunday’s activities. I was intrigued to find amongst the list of boxers at featherweight “J. O’Neill of the C.B.S. Boxing Club”. Assuming this was our local Christain Brothers School who was J. O’Neill?
Organising a Carnival of such magnitude every second year was a particularly difficult task for a village committee but looking through the list of Steward and Committee Members for 1937 and 1939, I am struck by the consistency of the commitment given over those years. With few exceptions, the same names are found in both programmes working under the chairmanship of John Murphy and Treasurers, Thomas Roche and Mary Bambrick. The secretary in 1937 was Laurence Dunne whom I believe was a teacher in the local school and two years later the local curate, Reverend W. Dowling had the job.
The Ballylinan Carnivals of the 1930’s are still recalled by a generation of Athy elders who as young men and women travelled by Hackney car, bicycle or indeed on foot to the village three miles away to enjoy themselves. On many occasions, Mantovani’s name has been mentioned to me as a highlight of those Carnivals, which became part of the folklore of our time as the memories of those enjoyable days and nights in Ballylinan were again and again revisited.
The condemnation of the old school building in Ballylinan in the early 1930’s necessitated the building of a new school for the 240 or so youngsters who each day attended classes in the village. That earlier school building had been erected in 1842 to replace a small thatched one room school building which in its time catered for 100 youngsters. The Parish Priest in the early 1930’s was Reverend J. Killian whose brother was the Archbishop of Adelaide. With the willing help of the local Parishioners Fr. Killian set about the task of raising over £2,000.00 which with the Department of Education Grant of £3,600.00 was required to fund the building cost of the new school. But first a suitable site had to be got and John Hovenden’s field on the Athy side of the village was secured. It required a considerable amount of preliminary work including leveling and many of the local men with either horses and carts or lorries gave freely of their time to draw material to the site. Building work started in the Autumn of 1933 with Carbery Building Contractors of Athy, a firm involved with many, if not, most of the major building contracts in South Kildare during the 20th Century. Work continued apace and in July 1934 the foundation stone of the new St. Patrick’s School was laid by the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Dr. M. Cullen.
Raising the local contribution of £2,000.00 which was the shortfall in the school building costs was a daunting task, but one to which the Parishioners of Arles, wherein lies the village of Ballylinan, committed themselves. I have been able to confirm that the Carnivals started in 1935 and were held every second year up to and including 1939. Looking through the programme for the 1937 programme, one is struck by the variety and quality of the artists hired for the two weeks of the event. The Carnival ran from the 15th to the 29th August and assigned to itself the claim of being “Ireland’s Greatest Inland Carnival”.
The Adelaide Melody Band, reputed to be the “largest resident dance band in Ireland”, played at the opening Carnival Dance in the new school under the baton of its leader Vincent Rogers. The Ballylinan Ceile Band played in what was referred to as the “Ballylinan Club” and like the Adelaide Melody Band had a six hour stint until three o’clock each morning. I wonder who were the members of the Ceile Band on that occasion? Earlier on the opening Sunday, the Number 3 Army Band played a selection of music before leading a parade to the Carnival grounds where McDonald’s Amusements were in full swing. A fireworks display was held on Sunday night and throughout the entire period of the Carnival, “the wonderful and weird exploits of Yuga” were demonstrated to an audience who obviously knew more than I do about his power of necromrancy. A visit to the Oxford Dictionary was necessary to confirm that his exploits were in the Art of Prediction by supposed communication with the dead.
Ballroom and Ceile dancing took place every night and must have brought an enormous number of revellers to Ballylinan by hackney car, bike and foot during that Summer fortnight of 65 years ago. The musical tastes of all and sundry were well catered for by the many bands which performed during the Carnival. These included Castlecomers Brass and Reed Band, Doonanes Pipers Band, Churchtowns Pipers Band and the Arles Brass and Reed Band. Add to all that activity, a gymnastics display, a whist drive, a boxing tournament, a tug of war competition and a mini golf competition and you have a fortnight of fun which must be given huge enjoyment during those gloomy days of the Economic War.
The third and last Ballylinan Carnival was held from the 4th to the 18th June 1939, just a short time before the outbreak of World War Two. The 1939 Carnival Programme was priced at three pence whereas one paid four times that sum for the programme produced two years earlier. That earlier programme had one hundred and twelve pages while the pre-war edition was a slim volume of forty eight pages. The events organised for the two weeks of June 1939 consisted of Ballroom dancing each night in what the programme called “The Ballroom” where Mantovani and his London sextet provided the music. Was the Ballroom again in St. Patrick’s School? The Ceiles were held on Sunday and Thursday evenings only, unlike the previous Carrnival when the Ballylinan Ceile Band was on call every night of the two weeks. The Carnival Amusements were again the main stay of the Carnival grounds with the added attraction of “The Great Morell” who entertained the crowd from atop his one hundred and twenty foot high perch. If you did not have a head for heights, you could always make an appointment to see Princess Owonga of the Cherokee Tribe who would tell your fortune or if you preferred your horoscope for the rather princely sum of two and six. During the second week of the Carnival, “Risko the greatest and most daring trapeze artist of the age” was engaged to entertain the Carnival revellers as were an Indian troop from the Pleasure Beach of Blackpool, England.
A Boxing Tournament and what was billed as “The Match of the Year” between Leix and Offaly was the highlight of the last Sunday’s activities. I was intrigued to find amongst the list of boxers at featherweight “J. O’Neill of the C.B.S. Boxing Club”. Assuming this was our local Christain Brothers School who was J. O’Neill?
Organising a Carnival of such magnitude every second year was a particularly difficult task for a village committee but looking through the list of Steward and Committee Members for 1937 and 1939, I am struck by the consistency of the commitment given over those years. With few exceptions, the same names are found in both programmes working under the chairmanship of John Murphy and Treasurers, Thomas Roche and Mary Bambrick. The secretary in 1937 was Laurence Dunne whom I believe was a teacher in the local school and two years later the local curate, Reverend W. Dowling had the job.
The Ballylinan Carnivals of the 1930’s are still recalled by a generation of Athy elders who as young men and women travelled by Hackney car, bicycle or indeed on foot to the village three miles away to enjoy themselves. On many occasions, Mantovani’s name has been mentioned to me as a highlight of those Carnivals, which became part of the folklore of our time as the memories of those enjoyable days and nights in Ballylinan were again and again revisited.
Thursday, January 17, 2002
Pig Fair - Woodstock Street
“When are you going to write about us here on this side of the Barrow Bridge?” The questioner, a good friend of mine, looked quizzically at me with a smile, slowly breaking into a bout of laughter. “It’s a throw back to his young days” offered the third member of the company as we stood in the amber sunlight of a Saturday morning in what was once the L.D.F. Yard [to you and me it’s now part of the car park re-named some years ago to honour Edmund Rice, the founder of the Irish Christian Brothers]. “You know how the young fellows from Offaly Street were always afraid of crossing the bridge - it’s hard to beat old habits, even after 50 years.” It was my time to laugh, remembering the daily journey I made across that same bridge and up St. John’s Lane for 12 or 13 years while I was a less than willing student in the Christian Brothers Primary and Secondary Schools.
Thinking back on that conversation I was amazed to recall that my memories of Athy beyond O’Rourke-Glynn’s Corner [now the Corner Newstand] are few and far between. Understandably so because I can seldom recall venturing as a young lad far beyond that same corner into what was then known as Barrack Street. Do we still have Barrack Street as a street name in Athy? It was to my knowledge that part of the street lying past Woodstock Street and extending beyond Barrack Lane. The lane and street were so called because both lead to the British Army Barracks which was located close to Woodstock Castle. The lane still exists and now leads to the Greenhills Estate.
If as a young lad I rarely ventured into Woodstock Street and its near neighbour Barrack St., therein lies the explanation for my own lack of personal memories of the Pig Fair which was held in Woodstock Street on the first Tuesday of every month up to the early 1960’s. The fair extended on both sides of the street from O’Rourke-Glynn’s Corner to the Methodist Church on the east side and from Crawley’s to Doyle’s Pub on the opposite side. Pigs on the hoof were to be found on Doyle’s side of the street where the local farmers corralled their charges awaiting the pig dealers. The bonhams sold on for the most part to other farmers were kept in creeled carts on the Methodist Church side of the street where from early morning the farmers congregated.
The dealers arrived during the morning and the firms of Brennans of Carlow, Denehys of Waterford and Bowe Brothers of that same city were regularly represented at what was at one time one of the largest pig fairs in the Irish Midlands.
The business generated in the town on Pig Fair Day was not confined to the buying and selling of pigs, nor indeed the local public houses which, as might be expected, did a busy bar trade. The farmers and dealers had to eat as well as drink and apart from Dunnes, Lawlers and Doyles, three publicans in Woodstock Street providing food on Fair Day there was also Mrs. Davis who from No. 2 Woodstock Street, supplied meals to farmers and dealers. Her little house, later occupied by Bachelors, still retains the old style half door, the only example of its kind in the town of Athy. It was from here that her husband Joe Davis operated a secondhand clothes shop or “cast clothes” as the locals still call them, and like the other businesses he was particularly busy when the farmers came to town.
Next door to the Davis’ at No. 1 Woodstock Street was Tom May, boot and shoe maker and repairer who also benefited from the activity which took place on the street outside his shop on the first Tuesday of every month. Boots and shoes had to be repaired for the farmers who left them in to be collected on Fair Day the following month. Across the street, Delaney’s of Wolfhill set up their lime cart, offering for sale the lime which farmers and townspeople alike needed to whitewash their houses. Just beyond them and nearer to Doyle’s Pub could be found Barney Sheridan who lived in digs with Lizzie Maher and who in later years was to take over Tom Brogan’s Blacksmiths Forge in Green Alley. On Pig Fair Day, Barney could often be seen carrying out running repairs on the animals which had come into town earlier that morning pulling the cart loads of pigs and bonhams for the local Pig Fair.
In the 1940’s and into the 1950’s the street entertainers could occasionally be seen at the corner of Woodstock Street and Shrewleen Lane, energetically practising their unusual talents in return for the few pence, sometimes, but not always, collected from those who stood to watch. Balancing a ladder on one’s chin or alternatively a bicycle vied with lying on a bed of broken glass as the principal attraction of the street entertainers who travelled around from provincial fair to town market throughout the length and breath of Ireland.
The local Pig Fair also attracted the tinsmiths who practised their skills while sitting on the pavement repairing the pots, pans and kettles for the locals and the farmers in town for the day. The McInerneys and the Stokes families were the tinsmiths of the day and it was from their occupational abilities with tin that I understand the now politically incorrect name “tinker” first came. The tinsmiths hammer beat a steady rhythm which accompanied the raised voices of farmers and dealers as their talk and their laughter mingled with the squeal of pigs and bonhams to create a symphony of sound which was peculiar to the Pig Fair of yesteryear. Dealing started early in the morning and continued until about 4 o’clock in the afternoon when everyone dispersed, either to the pubs or home.
A menagerie of pigs, bonhams, horses and asses, the first two captives for the day, the latter two enjoying a lazy, leisurely day between morning arrival and an evening trip back to the farm provided its own excitement for the Athy youngsters for whom Woodstock Street on Fair Day was the nearest thing to a local zoo. As the fair closed, the pigs sold to the dealers were brought to the Railway Station to commence the last stage of their journey to the bacon factories in Waterford or Dublin. Each pig was roped by the back leg and paraded on hoof through Duke Street and Leinster Street to reach the Railway Station where they were corralled until the trains arrived.
Do you remember the Pig Fair in Woodstock Street? Were you a young boy or girl who disobeyed your mother’s instructions to stay away from the fair “as you’ll only get your clothes dirty”. I can imagine the warnings given as the youngsters left for school on Pig Fair Day in Woodstock Street. Doesn’t it now seem like another age - all so long ago. Thanks to Leo Byrne for his help with this article. Now that “the man from the Pale” has ventured across the Barrow Bridge (and not for the first time), can I look forward to renewed clerical approval from the Reverend Paddy?
Thinking back on that conversation I was amazed to recall that my memories of Athy beyond O’Rourke-Glynn’s Corner [now the Corner Newstand] are few and far between. Understandably so because I can seldom recall venturing as a young lad far beyond that same corner into what was then known as Barrack Street. Do we still have Barrack Street as a street name in Athy? It was to my knowledge that part of the street lying past Woodstock Street and extending beyond Barrack Lane. The lane and street were so called because both lead to the British Army Barracks which was located close to Woodstock Castle. The lane still exists and now leads to the Greenhills Estate.
If as a young lad I rarely ventured into Woodstock Street and its near neighbour Barrack St., therein lies the explanation for my own lack of personal memories of the Pig Fair which was held in Woodstock Street on the first Tuesday of every month up to the early 1960’s. The fair extended on both sides of the street from O’Rourke-Glynn’s Corner to the Methodist Church on the east side and from Crawley’s to Doyle’s Pub on the opposite side. Pigs on the hoof were to be found on Doyle’s side of the street where the local farmers corralled their charges awaiting the pig dealers. The bonhams sold on for the most part to other farmers were kept in creeled carts on the Methodist Church side of the street where from early morning the farmers congregated.
The dealers arrived during the morning and the firms of Brennans of Carlow, Denehys of Waterford and Bowe Brothers of that same city were regularly represented at what was at one time one of the largest pig fairs in the Irish Midlands.
The business generated in the town on Pig Fair Day was not confined to the buying and selling of pigs, nor indeed the local public houses which, as might be expected, did a busy bar trade. The farmers and dealers had to eat as well as drink and apart from Dunnes, Lawlers and Doyles, three publicans in Woodstock Street providing food on Fair Day there was also Mrs. Davis who from No. 2 Woodstock Street, supplied meals to farmers and dealers. Her little house, later occupied by Bachelors, still retains the old style half door, the only example of its kind in the town of Athy. It was from here that her husband Joe Davis operated a secondhand clothes shop or “cast clothes” as the locals still call them, and like the other businesses he was particularly busy when the farmers came to town.
Next door to the Davis’ at No. 1 Woodstock Street was Tom May, boot and shoe maker and repairer who also benefited from the activity which took place on the street outside his shop on the first Tuesday of every month. Boots and shoes had to be repaired for the farmers who left them in to be collected on Fair Day the following month. Across the street, Delaney’s of Wolfhill set up their lime cart, offering for sale the lime which farmers and townspeople alike needed to whitewash their houses. Just beyond them and nearer to Doyle’s Pub could be found Barney Sheridan who lived in digs with Lizzie Maher and who in later years was to take over Tom Brogan’s Blacksmiths Forge in Green Alley. On Pig Fair Day, Barney could often be seen carrying out running repairs on the animals which had come into town earlier that morning pulling the cart loads of pigs and bonhams for the local Pig Fair.
In the 1940’s and into the 1950’s the street entertainers could occasionally be seen at the corner of Woodstock Street and Shrewleen Lane, energetically practising their unusual talents in return for the few pence, sometimes, but not always, collected from those who stood to watch. Balancing a ladder on one’s chin or alternatively a bicycle vied with lying on a bed of broken glass as the principal attraction of the street entertainers who travelled around from provincial fair to town market throughout the length and breath of Ireland.
The local Pig Fair also attracted the tinsmiths who practised their skills while sitting on the pavement repairing the pots, pans and kettles for the locals and the farmers in town for the day. The McInerneys and the Stokes families were the tinsmiths of the day and it was from their occupational abilities with tin that I understand the now politically incorrect name “tinker” first came. The tinsmiths hammer beat a steady rhythm which accompanied the raised voices of farmers and dealers as their talk and their laughter mingled with the squeal of pigs and bonhams to create a symphony of sound which was peculiar to the Pig Fair of yesteryear. Dealing started early in the morning and continued until about 4 o’clock in the afternoon when everyone dispersed, either to the pubs or home.
A menagerie of pigs, bonhams, horses and asses, the first two captives for the day, the latter two enjoying a lazy, leisurely day between morning arrival and an evening trip back to the farm provided its own excitement for the Athy youngsters for whom Woodstock Street on Fair Day was the nearest thing to a local zoo. As the fair closed, the pigs sold to the dealers were brought to the Railway Station to commence the last stage of their journey to the bacon factories in Waterford or Dublin. Each pig was roped by the back leg and paraded on hoof through Duke Street and Leinster Street to reach the Railway Station where they were corralled until the trains arrived.
Do you remember the Pig Fair in Woodstock Street? Were you a young boy or girl who disobeyed your mother’s instructions to stay away from the fair “as you’ll only get your clothes dirty”. I can imagine the warnings given as the youngsters left for school on Pig Fair Day in Woodstock Street. Doesn’t it now seem like another age - all so long ago. Thanks to Leo Byrne for his help with this article. Now that “the man from the Pale” has ventured across the Barrow Bridge (and not for the first time), can I look forward to renewed clerical approval from the Reverend Paddy?
Thursday, January 10, 2002
Athy's Newspapers 1849
Last week I wrote of one half of the newspaper industry which had a short life in Athy in the early part of 1849. The Irish Eastern Counties Herald was printed in Athy and its first issue was brought out on the 13th February 1849 for the sole purpose of undermining a newspaper which was planned to be published and printed in Athy to compete with the Maryboro printed Leinster Express. The Talbot Family were Proprietors of the Leinster Express and they moved quickly to protect their readership from any inroads which might be made by The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle which first appeared on the 17th February 1849. Frederick Kearney of Emily Square, Athy was the proprietor and editor of The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle which he claimed would be the only newspaper printed and published in Athy. The Talbot’s of Portlaoise moved speedily to bring out an Athy edition of the Leinster Express which was restyled as The Irish Eastern Counties Herald.
The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle priced at five pence consisted of four pages and like all local newspapers of the time was a mixture of advertisements, items of local interest with news and parliamentary reports culled from London newspapers. Kearney’s newspapers styled itself as the nationalist newspaper in contrast with the Talbot Family production which had a definite Establishment or Unionist leaning. Interesting then to identify the local businessmen who supported Kearney’s newspaper. These included James Dowling of Leinster Street, T. Fagan of the Tea Warehouse and Fogarty’s of Leinster Street.
Dowling described as “Proprietor of a Grocery, Tea, Wine and Spirit Warehouse” offered for sale five varieties of black tea, four varieties of green tea, five varieties of coffee as well as the usual assortment of Wines, Spirits, Ales and Porter in his advertisement. Not to be outdone, the Tea Warehouse operated by T. Fagan advertised “tea for sale by retail at wholesale prices”. One of the more interesting advertisements was inserted by William Fogarty who advised all and sundry that he had adopted “the Dublin system of baking” and would sell bread at “Dublin weight and Dublin prices”. Obviously there was an advantage in this for the consumer but what it was I have not yet worked out. In any event Fogarty’s was an old established bakery where you could buy a four pound loaf of bread for six and a half pence and a two pound loaf for three and a quarter pence.
That first issue of the Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle reported that Captain Henry was to make a tour through several Poor Law Unions including Athy to select young females for the Workhouse Emigration Scheme to South Australia. The Chairman of the local Union, Caption Lefroy caused some merriment amongst the normally staid members of the Workhouse Board when he claimed “Captain Henry will not restrict himself as to numbers, but will probably take away all the pretty girls”.
The Editor of the Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle in his first editorial referred to the “artful dodge resorted to by issuing nominally for the County of Kildare a reprint of a newspaper produced in Maryboro ….. a subterfuge too palpable, too flagrant, to blindfold the patriotic and enlightened inhabitants of the County”. Quite clearly Frederick Kearney was drawing the battle lines with the Talbots of Maryboro who sought to torpedo his fledging newspaper by rushing through their own plans for what they described as an Athy newspaper. The second issue of the Kildare and Wicklow Chonicle on the 20th February 1849 carried an extract from John Dalton’s “History of County Kildare” which had previously appeared in a number of publications including The Carlow Sentinal.
The third and final issue of the newspaper which could truthfully claim to be the only newspaper edited, published and printed in Athy was dated Saturday, 3rd March 1849. It carried a Report of the Narraghmore emigration meeting of the 26th February presided over by W. Pelan P.L.G. which agreed to strike a rate of ten pence in the pound to send sixteen local girls to Australia from the Athy Workhouse.
Frederick Kearney unable to get advertising for The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle from the public institutions of County Kildare or even from the local workhouse, found himself unable to continue his newspaper beyond its third issue. On March 6th, The Irish Eastern Counties Herald under the headline “Sudden death of the Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle” reported
“After a miserable career of three weeks, the above journal has ceased to exist. The melancholy intelligence was communicated to us yesterday by its disconsolate parent. The bantling - a sickly peevish creature from its birth - never exhibited any promise of maturity although very strenuous efforts were made to preserve its existence by a few (but indeed a very few) incompetent-quacks, in the town of Athy, who formed an overweening estimate of their capabilities”.
Only one local newspaper appeared on the streets in Athy that weekend and on March 13th, The Irish Eastern Counties Herald announced to its readers
“The principal object for which this journal was established having being effected, many of our friends very reasonably concluded that upon the demise of the so called “Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle” its publication would cease. We have already explained the immediate occasion of the Herald having been commenced in connection with the Leinster Express - viz for the purposes of meeting upon equal terms a new competitor , which we were led to believe would have engaged considerable talent, great influence and large capital. We anticipate a contest of some duration and from our regard for Kildare and the honour we feel in representing at the Press such a county, we prepared to dispute every inch with any candidate for public favour; but we must confess that if we had known the wretched opponent we would have had to encounter, we would have allowed him to test the power and severity of his friends - as it would not require any obstruction from us, to satisfy the most sanguine that there was not the least possibility of the success of the speculation.”
With its fifth and final issue, the Irish Eastern Counties Herald ended Athy’s short involvement in the Irish Provincial Press Industry.
The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle priced at five pence consisted of four pages and like all local newspapers of the time was a mixture of advertisements, items of local interest with news and parliamentary reports culled from London newspapers. Kearney’s newspapers styled itself as the nationalist newspaper in contrast with the Talbot Family production which had a definite Establishment or Unionist leaning. Interesting then to identify the local businessmen who supported Kearney’s newspaper. These included James Dowling of Leinster Street, T. Fagan of the Tea Warehouse and Fogarty’s of Leinster Street.
Dowling described as “Proprietor of a Grocery, Tea, Wine and Spirit Warehouse” offered for sale five varieties of black tea, four varieties of green tea, five varieties of coffee as well as the usual assortment of Wines, Spirits, Ales and Porter in his advertisement. Not to be outdone, the Tea Warehouse operated by T. Fagan advertised “tea for sale by retail at wholesale prices”. One of the more interesting advertisements was inserted by William Fogarty who advised all and sundry that he had adopted “the Dublin system of baking” and would sell bread at “Dublin weight and Dublin prices”. Obviously there was an advantage in this for the consumer but what it was I have not yet worked out. In any event Fogarty’s was an old established bakery where you could buy a four pound loaf of bread for six and a half pence and a two pound loaf for three and a quarter pence.
That first issue of the Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle reported that Captain Henry was to make a tour through several Poor Law Unions including Athy to select young females for the Workhouse Emigration Scheme to South Australia. The Chairman of the local Union, Caption Lefroy caused some merriment amongst the normally staid members of the Workhouse Board when he claimed “Captain Henry will not restrict himself as to numbers, but will probably take away all the pretty girls”.
The Editor of the Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle in his first editorial referred to the “artful dodge resorted to by issuing nominally for the County of Kildare a reprint of a newspaper produced in Maryboro ….. a subterfuge too palpable, too flagrant, to blindfold the patriotic and enlightened inhabitants of the County”. Quite clearly Frederick Kearney was drawing the battle lines with the Talbots of Maryboro who sought to torpedo his fledging newspaper by rushing through their own plans for what they described as an Athy newspaper. The second issue of the Kildare and Wicklow Chonicle on the 20th February 1849 carried an extract from John Dalton’s “History of County Kildare” which had previously appeared in a number of publications including The Carlow Sentinal.
The third and final issue of the newspaper which could truthfully claim to be the only newspaper edited, published and printed in Athy was dated Saturday, 3rd March 1849. It carried a Report of the Narraghmore emigration meeting of the 26th February presided over by W. Pelan P.L.G. which agreed to strike a rate of ten pence in the pound to send sixteen local girls to Australia from the Athy Workhouse.
Frederick Kearney unable to get advertising for The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle from the public institutions of County Kildare or even from the local workhouse, found himself unable to continue his newspaper beyond its third issue. On March 6th, The Irish Eastern Counties Herald under the headline “Sudden death of the Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle” reported
“After a miserable career of three weeks, the above journal has ceased to exist. The melancholy intelligence was communicated to us yesterday by its disconsolate parent. The bantling - a sickly peevish creature from its birth - never exhibited any promise of maturity although very strenuous efforts were made to preserve its existence by a few (but indeed a very few) incompetent-quacks, in the town of Athy, who formed an overweening estimate of their capabilities”.
Only one local newspaper appeared on the streets in Athy that weekend and on March 13th, The Irish Eastern Counties Herald announced to its readers
“The principal object for which this journal was established having being effected, many of our friends very reasonably concluded that upon the demise of the so called “Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle” its publication would cease. We have already explained the immediate occasion of the Herald having been commenced in connection with the Leinster Express - viz for the purposes of meeting upon equal terms a new competitor , which we were led to believe would have engaged considerable talent, great influence and large capital. We anticipate a contest of some duration and from our regard for Kildare and the honour we feel in representing at the Press such a county, we prepared to dispute every inch with any candidate for public favour; but we must confess that if we had known the wretched opponent we would have had to encounter, we would have allowed him to test the power and severity of his friends - as it would not require any obstruction from us, to satisfy the most sanguine that there was not the least possibility of the success of the speculation.”
With its fifth and final issue, the Irish Eastern Counties Herald ended Athy’s short involvement in the Irish Provincial Press Industry.
Thursday, January 3, 2002
Athy's Newspapers 1849
I visited the British Library’s Newspaper in Colindale, London last summer so that I could see for the first time the few printed copies of two local newspapers which were sold on the streets of Athy in 1849. Many years ago I had inspected microfilm of The Irish Eastern Counties Herald and its competitor The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle in the National Library in Dublin, but the trip to Colindale in the outer suburbs of London gave me the opportunity to hold two newspapers which were printed and published in Athy just a few months after the Great Famine had passed its peak.
Every copy of these two newspapers bears a stamp showing that the relevant newspaper tax had been paid and each is signed at the bottom of the last page by its editor. In the case of The Irish Eastern Counties Herald this was J. Leech Talbot, whose paper was first issued on Tuesday, the 13th February 1849 and sold for the yearly subscription of £1.1.8. It consisted of four pages with a mixture of local news and advertisements supplemented by what appears to be material culled from the London newspapers of the day. An advertisement under the name of J.B. Pilsworth, Clerk of the Union, Athy, advised that:
“A Meeting of the rate-payers of the electoral division of Narraghmore will be held at Narraghmore Schoolhouse on the 26th day of February 1849 at the hour of twelve o’clock for the purpose of taking into consideration an application for the raising of a rate to assist emigration.”
This is the earliest reference I have found to the orphan emigration scheme subsequently put into place whereby young female inmates of the Athy workhouse were sent to Australia.
Another advertisement inserted by Capt. Chegwin of Ballylinan was for the sale of coal and culm from Modubeagh and Ballylehane collieries, ‘now fully at work’. There were references to Athy’s Literary and Scientific Institute and to the Ballytore Agricultural Society which was holding its twelfth annual ploughing match in James Kavanagh’s field at Crookstown. An advertisement for ‘Athy Drug Hall and General Seed-Ware House, S. Connelly, Proprietor’ was also in the first issue of the newspaper, alongside the following notice of a concert :
“For one night only, extraordinary musical attraction at the Courthouse, Athy, on Wednesday the 14th of February 1849 … Celebrated cantatrice and pianist Madame Castaglione, assisted by Mr. William Macarthy, national Irish ballads. Doors open 7.30. Concert 8pm. Boxes 2 shillings. Stalls 1 shilling. School and children half price.”
The second issue, dated the 20th of February, gave the following account of the concert, which was:
“Numerously attended. The entertainers were received with great eclat and seemed to give much satisfaction to the audience. Madame Castaglione’s voice is a great contralto over which she has considerable power but we think somewhat more feeling might be infused into her style of singing with effect. Mr. Macarthy’s Irish humour added not a little to the night’s amusements.”
An interesting news item was that relating to John Kelly, described as: ‘an industrious and struggling eccentric who eked out a scanty subsistence through the means of his favourite ass drawing mould and turf from the bog’. Apparently, Kelly left his ass in a field on the Friday and returned on the following Sunday to find it dead with its throat cut. He reported the matter to Bert Police Barracks and Constable Brownlow kept watch over the dead ass, late at night witnessing: ‘Jack Gorman, an Athy ragman … who skinned the ass, put the pelt into his bag … flayed the flesh off the bones, making several piles of it …’ before the constable put an end to his nocturnal activities by arresting him.
The Irish Eastern Counties Herald of the 20th of February reported another animal killing: ‘On Saturday night two sheep, the property of Lewis Perrin, Leinster Lodge, were killed, the entrails left behind and the carcasses taken away’. The Great Famine had not then run its final course and the desperation and sense of helplessness engendered by poverty can be readily understood by anyone who has watched television images of famine in today’s world.
The Athy workhouse statistics for the weekend of the 10th of February 1849 which were published in the local newspaper show that there were 1,334 inmates of the workhouse, with 212 persons confined to the workhouse infirmary and a further twelve in the adjoining fever hospital. Seven deaths were recorded that week in the workhouse, while a total of 951 persons were receiving outdoor relief in the Athy Poor Law Union area. Figures published for the week ending the 7th of January 1849 reported thirteen deaths in the workhouse, of which two were persons over sixty years, one was aged forty-six years, and the remaining ten were children aged between two and six years. Dr. Kynsey of the local workhouse was reported as saying that: ‘Most of the deaths occurred amongst those who came in with smallpox, measles, dysentry, etc. caused by their having remained out [of the workhouse] until they were in a state of starvation’. Another report of the 5th of March hints at the desperation of a hungry people: ‘Michael Butler and Pat Nolan were sent forward to the Assizes charged with breaking open a potato pit, the property of William Caulfield, of Levitstown, and taking potatoes.” Evidence was given that the offence was committed on the night of February the 21st and that on February the 26th a workman found some potatoes concealed in a fox cover, which on examination he knew to be the same as those stolen. He lay in wait and arrested Butler and Nolan as they were carrying the potatoes away.
The third issue of the newspaper, dated the 27th of February 1849, referred briefly to the ‘Athy Readings Rooms’, which may also have been known as ‘Athy Newsrooms’. A report of its doings appeared under the latter title in The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle of the 23rd of February 1849:
“On Monday night last the members of the society had an excellent supper in their rooms in Stanhope Cottage. About thirty gentlemen sat down and evidently with good relish partook of oysters, wild fowl, ham and concomitants. Mark Cross occupied the Chair and A.G. Judge acted as Vice-Chair. The supper things being removed and the ‘sparkling glasses’ introduced, the wit and friendship seemed to reign supreme in the hearts of all present and of course produced the usual happy effects as pleasure beamed from their eyes and humour flowed from their lips. Some comic and other national songs were sung in capital style and the company separated at a late hour, highly delighted with the festivities they enjoyed and determined to uphold the Newsroom and place it on a more permanent and, if possible, better basis than heretofore.”
What a contrast that makes with the reports of deaths in the local workhouse, of animals killed in the fields, with accounts of potato pits raided at night by a hungry and desperate people.
There were only five issues of The Irish Eastern Counties Herald - the first dated the 13th of February 1849 and the last issue appearing on Tuesday, the 13th of March 1849. All were published from the “General Printing Office”, which I now know was located at Market Square, Athy.
Every copy of these two newspapers bears a stamp showing that the relevant newspaper tax had been paid and each is signed at the bottom of the last page by its editor. In the case of The Irish Eastern Counties Herald this was J. Leech Talbot, whose paper was first issued on Tuesday, the 13th February 1849 and sold for the yearly subscription of £1.1.8. It consisted of four pages with a mixture of local news and advertisements supplemented by what appears to be material culled from the London newspapers of the day. An advertisement under the name of J.B. Pilsworth, Clerk of the Union, Athy, advised that:
“A Meeting of the rate-payers of the electoral division of Narraghmore will be held at Narraghmore Schoolhouse on the 26th day of February 1849 at the hour of twelve o’clock for the purpose of taking into consideration an application for the raising of a rate to assist emigration.”
This is the earliest reference I have found to the orphan emigration scheme subsequently put into place whereby young female inmates of the Athy workhouse were sent to Australia.
Another advertisement inserted by Capt. Chegwin of Ballylinan was for the sale of coal and culm from Modubeagh and Ballylehane collieries, ‘now fully at work’. There were references to Athy’s Literary and Scientific Institute and to the Ballytore Agricultural Society which was holding its twelfth annual ploughing match in James Kavanagh’s field at Crookstown. An advertisement for ‘Athy Drug Hall and General Seed-Ware House, S. Connelly, Proprietor’ was also in the first issue of the newspaper, alongside the following notice of a concert :
“For one night only, extraordinary musical attraction at the Courthouse, Athy, on Wednesday the 14th of February 1849 … Celebrated cantatrice and pianist Madame Castaglione, assisted by Mr. William Macarthy, national Irish ballads. Doors open 7.30. Concert 8pm. Boxes 2 shillings. Stalls 1 shilling. School and children half price.”
The second issue, dated the 20th of February, gave the following account of the concert, which was:
“Numerously attended. The entertainers were received with great eclat and seemed to give much satisfaction to the audience. Madame Castaglione’s voice is a great contralto over which she has considerable power but we think somewhat more feeling might be infused into her style of singing with effect. Mr. Macarthy’s Irish humour added not a little to the night’s amusements.”
An interesting news item was that relating to John Kelly, described as: ‘an industrious and struggling eccentric who eked out a scanty subsistence through the means of his favourite ass drawing mould and turf from the bog’. Apparently, Kelly left his ass in a field on the Friday and returned on the following Sunday to find it dead with its throat cut. He reported the matter to Bert Police Barracks and Constable Brownlow kept watch over the dead ass, late at night witnessing: ‘Jack Gorman, an Athy ragman … who skinned the ass, put the pelt into his bag … flayed the flesh off the bones, making several piles of it …’ before the constable put an end to his nocturnal activities by arresting him.
The Irish Eastern Counties Herald of the 20th of February reported another animal killing: ‘On Saturday night two sheep, the property of Lewis Perrin, Leinster Lodge, were killed, the entrails left behind and the carcasses taken away’. The Great Famine had not then run its final course and the desperation and sense of helplessness engendered by poverty can be readily understood by anyone who has watched television images of famine in today’s world.
The Athy workhouse statistics for the weekend of the 10th of February 1849 which were published in the local newspaper show that there were 1,334 inmates of the workhouse, with 212 persons confined to the workhouse infirmary and a further twelve in the adjoining fever hospital. Seven deaths were recorded that week in the workhouse, while a total of 951 persons were receiving outdoor relief in the Athy Poor Law Union area. Figures published for the week ending the 7th of January 1849 reported thirteen deaths in the workhouse, of which two were persons over sixty years, one was aged forty-six years, and the remaining ten were children aged between two and six years. Dr. Kynsey of the local workhouse was reported as saying that: ‘Most of the deaths occurred amongst those who came in with smallpox, measles, dysentry, etc. caused by their having remained out [of the workhouse] until they were in a state of starvation’. Another report of the 5th of March hints at the desperation of a hungry people: ‘Michael Butler and Pat Nolan were sent forward to the Assizes charged with breaking open a potato pit, the property of William Caulfield, of Levitstown, and taking potatoes.” Evidence was given that the offence was committed on the night of February the 21st and that on February the 26th a workman found some potatoes concealed in a fox cover, which on examination he knew to be the same as those stolen. He lay in wait and arrested Butler and Nolan as they were carrying the potatoes away.
The third issue of the newspaper, dated the 27th of February 1849, referred briefly to the ‘Athy Readings Rooms’, which may also have been known as ‘Athy Newsrooms’. A report of its doings appeared under the latter title in The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle of the 23rd of February 1849:
“On Monday night last the members of the society had an excellent supper in their rooms in Stanhope Cottage. About thirty gentlemen sat down and evidently with good relish partook of oysters, wild fowl, ham and concomitants. Mark Cross occupied the Chair and A.G. Judge acted as Vice-Chair. The supper things being removed and the ‘sparkling glasses’ introduced, the wit and friendship seemed to reign supreme in the hearts of all present and of course produced the usual happy effects as pleasure beamed from their eyes and humour flowed from their lips. Some comic and other national songs were sung in capital style and the company separated at a late hour, highly delighted with the festivities they enjoyed and determined to uphold the Newsroom and place it on a more permanent and, if possible, better basis than heretofore.”
What a contrast that makes with the reports of deaths in the local workhouse, of animals killed in the fields, with accounts of potato pits raided at night by a hungry and desperate people.
There were only five issues of The Irish Eastern Counties Herald - the first dated the 13th of February 1849 and the last issue appearing on Tuesday, the 13th of March 1849. All were published from the “General Printing Office”, which I now know was located at Market Square, Athy.
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