He was at different times in his life a footballer, a balladeer, an actor, a public representative, a political activist and a guest of the nation. To the people of South Kildare George “Mossy” O’Reilly was as local as one can become. Yet he was a man apart, defined by his allegiances as were many others who took the same path at different times in Irish history.
About four years ago, conscious of Mossy’s unique talents as a balladeer, I encouraged him to put on tape the ballads which he had composed over the years. It was obviously a task he was reluctant to undertake but I persevered and gave him a tape recorder to encourage him. Time passed and as the years added up Mossy, possibly embarrassed at my persistent enquiries as to how the taping was progressing, eventually got down to the task. Just three months ago the completed tapes were given to me by Mossy. As I listened again last night to Mossy singing his own compositions I could not but smile at his spoken introduction where he claimed, “I would like to say that I have been forced at gunpoint to make this tape.”
I mentioned at the start of this piece that Mossy had once been a guest of the nation. If you are not familiar with the title of one of Frank O’Connor’s stories, it may be necessary to explain that Mossy spent time in prison for membership of the I.R.A. This was something which was well known to those who knew Mossy. Less well known however was the fact that he was imprisoned in Mountjoy for 31 days as a result of a conviction arising out of the aftermath of a football match between Athy and Castlemitchell in 1970. I had forgotten this and was only reminded of it when listening to Mossy’s tape. The first ballad he sang on tape concerned “the wrong I was done by a club called Athy”. Clearly the matter rankled with Mossy and throughout the ballad it was obvious that he felt he had been unfairly treated, both by officials of Athy G.F.C. and the courts.
“As I look back now I think once again
Of the games that we played against Grange and Rheban
Against Sarsfields and Towers how the fists they would fly
But still no one ever was sent to Mountjoy.”
Concluding the ballad Mossy named individuals he blamed for his incarceration in Mountjoy and expressed the view:
“Oh, as long as they live they’ll not look back with joy
On the day they swore lies to send me to Mountjoy.”
Perhaps the most famous and best known ballad associated with Mossy was “The Row in Athy”, the opening lines of which read:
“Oh one night in October in the streets of Athy
Sure a battle took place as I chanced to pass by
Some say that this battle started off in a pub
But sure I know it started in Athy Social Club.”
The narrative goes on for fourteen stanzas as the row progressed down Duke Street as far as Crom-a-boo Bridge where my late father features in the lines:
“So then Sergeant Taaffe leads his men up the street
And you’d swear it was Bulganin with his old Russian fleet
And they got into action with batons held high
But this mob beat them back down to Duke Street Athy.”
The year of the big row was 1957 and some, but not all of the participants ended up in the local District Court where:
“The Judge takes all in and he sits like a mute
And then passes sentence you can hear not a sound
Once he opens his mouth its six months or ten pounds.”
Perhaps one of Mossy’s earliest forays into the world of ballad making was the ballad he composed to mark Castlemitchell’s victory in the intermediate football final of 1953. Mossy was a member of that team which brought the first county championship to the Castlemitchell Club fourteen years after its foundation. Played in Newbridge on 18th October 1953 against Young Emmets the Castlemitchell team won on the score of 3-4 to 0-4. Their victory was marked by Mossy’s ballad in which he played tribute to his teammates. I’ll quote just one stanza from the 1953 victory song.
“Here’s to our three half forwards they starred on the day
Ed Conway was outstanding and a star was Paddy May
If they were in trouble they always thought to cross
To O’Reilly on the other wing who’s better known as Moss.”
Joe Bermingham was Secretary of Castlemitchell Football Club in that year, having taken over from founder member Jim Connor who had been club secretary from 1939 to 1952. Following a dispute Bermingham resigned from the club and started up a rival football team, St. Michael’s, which however was short-lived. Mossy O’Reilly took over as club secretary in 1954 and he remained in that position for the following nineteen years. As club secretary and a playing member of the club, Mossy played a vital role in the continuing success of Castlemitchell G.F.C. His footballing abilities were acknowledged by the County Board mentors when he was chosen to play for the County Kildare senior team which at different times featured his club teammates Jimmy Curtis, Peadar Dooley, Paddy Wright and Ned Conway.
Mossy was a long time member of the Republican Movement and for several years was on the run. This coincided with his time as a member of Athy Urban District Council and because he was unable to attend meetings he subsequently lost his seat on the Council. However, he was re-elected at the following local elections and fulfilled his role as a public representative for many years thereafter.
Mossy devoted his life to the cause of Irish Republicanism. In time that part of his life story may be told but for now we remember the man whose name in so many ways was synonymous with the small but vibrant community of Castlemitchell. Ar dhéis Dé go raibh a anam.
Colm McNulty, back in Athy for a sabbatical year, from his teaching position in Wellington New Zealand is planning to lead a World War 1 battlefield and cemetery trip to France and Flanders next August. The seven day trip will take place from 6th to 12th August and presents an opportunity for Athy folk to visit the sites associated with the men from South Kildare who were involved in the 1914-18 war. Research has shown that more than 2000 men from Athy and district enlisted to fight in the First World War and I have identified 219 men from the same area who died during that war. In war graves throughout France and Flanders are buried the remains of many of those men. However, for many more the only record of their involvement are their names carved on memorials such as the Menin Gate and Thiepval memorial which records those killed in battle but whose bodies were never found.
There will be a maximum of 45 places available on the August trip so anyone interested should contact Colm McNulty immediately at Ph. (059) 8631089 or by logging on to his website leinsterww1tours.sitesled.com. I am told bookings will be made on a first come basis so prompt booking is essential if you would like to make this trip.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Eye on the Past No. 755
The name Harland and Wolff conjures up many images. Tragedy hovers on the fringes of many of those images. It was in the sprawling shipyard of Harland and Wolff that the Titanic was built by Belfast workers. The White Star Liner was launched on 31st May 1911 but in less than a year the most awesome ship ever to come out of the Belfast shipyard would sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Bruce Ismay was chairman of the White Star Line which commissioned the liner and his name I came across many times in the mid-1960’s when I frequented the beautiful countryside around Connemara. Ismay left the stricken Titanic in controversial circumstances after it struck an iceberg on the night of 14th April 1912. Criticised for doing so, although exonerated by the British enquiry into the disaster, Ismay withdrew from public life and spent a lot of his time at his fishing lodge at Costelloe in County Galway. However, long after his death which occurred in 1937, the Connemara locals were critical of Ismay, the millionaire ship owner who survived the sinking of the Titanic while the majority of the third class passengers including several Connemara men and women, perished.
Harland and Wolff came to mind with the recent announcement by Athy Lions Club of a concert planned for the Dominican Church in Athy on Saturday, 28th April in aid of local Lions charities. Topping the bill for the concert is the Harlandic Voice Choir. The choir was founded in 1944 in the Harland and Wolff shipyard by a group of approximately 20 shipyard workers. During the past 63 years the choir has had many successes at music festivals in England, Scotland and of course Ireland and in 1983 came second in Europe, competing against 200 other choirs in the “Let the People Sing” competition. The choir has appeared many times on television featuring on programmes on the BBC, UTV and RTE alongside such stars as Harry Seacombe, Moira Anderson, Joseph Locke and Stuart Burrows. The musical repertoire of the Harlandic Voice Choir ranges from operatic choruses to Broadway musical hits and the performance in St. Dominic’s Church will mark the choir’s first visit to Athy. It promises to be a wonderful musical experience and because Athy Lions Club is promoting the concert for local charities a “full house” can be expected on the evening of 28th April. Tickets can be purchased in The Gem, Winkles or in Martin Mullins office at Leinster Street.
I had intended to write of Athy Boy Scouts which their notepaper claims as the “5th Kildare Unit Athy Scouts”. The local troop celebrated its 30th anniversary this month and Aidan Prendergast who has been involved with scouting all of those years was to be the focus of whatever was to be put in writing. However, the best laid plans don’t always materialise and I have to confine myself to extending good wishes to Aidan Prendergast and the team of adult volunteers who have dedicated themselves to maintaining scouting in South Kildare over the years. The Scout Centre at St. John’s is located on the site of the Old Comrades Hall which was built as a clubhouse for ex British soldiers following the first World War. It later became the centre of the local Social Club, which in its heyday in the 1940’s and 1950’s had an extraordinary powerful influence on the cultural and social development of the middle class of this area. The Old Comrades Hall, or the Social Club as it was known in later years, is no more. The scouting den of the 5th Kildare Unit now occupies the site and the wish is that the next 30 years will bring even more success to the local scouts.
I had a phone call from Riga in Latvia a few days ago seeking information on Konrad Peterson who was manager of the Bord na Mona peat factory in Kilberry from 1947. I am sure many will remember Peterson who lived in Church Road. He emigrated to live with his only daughter in Newfoundland following his retirement and the extended family returned to live in Athy sometime in the 1970’s. Konrad Peterson died in 1981 and is buried in Old St. Michael’s Cemetery. He was a man with an interesting past, involved as he was in the Latvian Revolution of 1907, and if it is to be believed, was also involved in Dublin’s Easter Rebellion of 1916. If you have any information on Konrad Peterson or a photograph of him I would be delighted to hear from you.
The amalgamation of the boys and girls secondary schools will take place later this year. Scoil Eoin, formerly the Christian Brothers School, will hold a week of events to celebrate its past which I gather will conclude with a celebratory dinner in the Clanard Hotel on 12th May. The Annals of the Christian Brothers Monastery commenced in 1861 with an entry dealing with the history of the house at St. John’s Lane which would later be refurbished as the Brother’s Monastery. The Annals continued and I quote:
“Reverend Andrew Quinn P.P. Athy and Canon of the Archdiocese of Dublin subsequently built two schoolrooms with the aid of the parishioners and a few friends, but chiefly with the assistance of the generous and truly charitable Mr. Pat Maher of Kilrush in this county who principally at the suggestion of his eldest daughter Mrs. Mary Teresa Maher, Superioress of the Convent of Mercy, St. Michael’s, Athy gave £400. When the schools were finished in the August of 1861, three brothers, viz John Stanislaus Flanagan, director; Francis Luke Holland, sub-director and John Patrick Sheely, lay brother were sent by our Very Rev. Brother Michael Paul O’Riordan, superior general to conduct the establishment which was put into the possession of the brothers on the 8th of August 1861 ..... the Brothers commenced the school on 19th August 1861.”
In the intervening years thousands of young boys have passed through the Christian Brothers School in St. John’s Lane and its successors, Scoil Eoin in Rathstewart and St. Patrick’s National School in Greenhills. Following the amalgamation of the two secondary schools the Christian Brothers will no longer have any involvement with secondary education in Athy. Theirs was a long and fruitful engagement with education in Athy and South Kildare and the only reminder we will have of the Christian Brothers past links with this area is in the name Edmund Rice Square, given to the newest public space created in the centre of Athy some years ago.
The Christian Brothers, like the Sisters of Mercy, made an enormous contribution to improving the life and aspirations of the people of Athy and district following the dreadful years of the Great Famine. The Sisters of Mercy came to Athy just a few years after the Famine, while the Christian Brothers arrived nine years later. The educational facilities afforded to boys and girls of this area following the arrival of the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy brought advantages both educational and social which had been denied to previous generations. The new secondary school to be opened in September will be a far cry from the two schoolrooms which John Stanislaus Flanagan and his colleagues first opened to boys 146 years ago. I would hope that at some early date there can be a joint celebration for both the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy.
Harland and Wolff came to mind with the recent announcement by Athy Lions Club of a concert planned for the Dominican Church in Athy on Saturday, 28th April in aid of local Lions charities. Topping the bill for the concert is the Harlandic Voice Choir. The choir was founded in 1944 in the Harland and Wolff shipyard by a group of approximately 20 shipyard workers. During the past 63 years the choir has had many successes at music festivals in England, Scotland and of course Ireland and in 1983 came second in Europe, competing against 200 other choirs in the “Let the People Sing” competition. The choir has appeared many times on television featuring on programmes on the BBC, UTV and RTE alongside such stars as Harry Seacombe, Moira Anderson, Joseph Locke and Stuart Burrows. The musical repertoire of the Harlandic Voice Choir ranges from operatic choruses to Broadway musical hits and the performance in St. Dominic’s Church will mark the choir’s first visit to Athy. It promises to be a wonderful musical experience and because Athy Lions Club is promoting the concert for local charities a “full house” can be expected on the evening of 28th April. Tickets can be purchased in The Gem, Winkles or in Martin Mullins office at Leinster Street.
I had intended to write of Athy Boy Scouts which their notepaper claims as the “5th Kildare Unit Athy Scouts”. The local troop celebrated its 30th anniversary this month and Aidan Prendergast who has been involved with scouting all of those years was to be the focus of whatever was to be put in writing. However, the best laid plans don’t always materialise and I have to confine myself to extending good wishes to Aidan Prendergast and the team of adult volunteers who have dedicated themselves to maintaining scouting in South Kildare over the years. The Scout Centre at St. John’s is located on the site of the Old Comrades Hall which was built as a clubhouse for ex British soldiers following the first World War. It later became the centre of the local Social Club, which in its heyday in the 1940’s and 1950’s had an extraordinary powerful influence on the cultural and social development of the middle class of this area. The Old Comrades Hall, or the Social Club as it was known in later years, is no more. The scouting den of the 5th Kildare Unit now occupies the site and the wish is that the next 30 years will bring even more success to the local scouts.
I had a phone call from Riga in Latvia a few days ago seeking information on Konrad Peterson who was manager of the Bord na Mona peat factory in Kilberry from 1947. I am sure many will remember Peterson who lived in Church Road. He emigrated to live with his only daughter in Newfoundland following his retirement and the extended family returned to live in Athy sometime in the 1970’s. Konrad Peterson died in 1981 and is buried in Old St. Michael’s Cemetery. He was a man with an interesting past, involved as he was in the Latvian Revolution of 1907, and if it is to be believed, was also involved in Dublin’s Easter Rebellion of 1916. If you have any information on Konrad Peterson or a photograph of him I would be delighted to hear from you.
The amalgamation of the boys and girls secondary schools will take place later this year. Scoil Eoin, formerly the Christian Brothers School, will hold a week of events to celebrate its past which I gather will conclude with a celebratory dinner in the Clanard Hotel on 12th May. The Annals of the Christian Brothers Monastery commenced in 1861 with an entry dealing with the history of the house at St. John’s Lane which would later be refurbished as the Brother’s Monastery. The Annals continued and I quote:
“Reverend Andrew Quinn P.P. Athy and Canon of the Archdiocese of Dublin subsequently built two schoolrooms with the aid of the parishioners and a few friends, but chiefly with the assistance of the generous and truly charitable Mr. Pat Maher of Kilrush in this county who principally at the suggestion of his eldest daughter Mrs. Mary Teresa Maher, Superioress of the Convent of Mercy, St. Michael’s, Athy gave £400. When the schools were finished in the August of 1861, three brothers, viz John Stanislaus Flanagan, director; Francis Luke Holland, sub-director and John Patrick Sheely, lay brother were sent by our Very Rev. Brother Michael Paul O’Riordan, superior general to conduct the establishment which was put into the possession of the brothers on the 8th of August 1861 ..... the Brothers commenced the school on 19th August 1861.”
In the intervening years thousands of young boys have passed through the Christian Brothers School in St. John’s Lane and its successors, Scoil Eoin in Rathstewart and St. Patrick’s National School in Greenhills. Following the amalgamation of the two secondary schools the Christian Brothers will no longer have any involvement with secondary education in Athy. Theirs was a long and fruitful engagement with education in Athy and South Kildare and the only reminder we will have of the Christian Brothers past links with this area is in the name Edmund Rice Square, given to the newest public space created in the centre of Athy some years ago.
The Christian Brothers, like the Sisters of Mercy, made an enormous contribution to improving the life and aspirations of the people of Athy and district following the dreadful years of the Great Famine. The Sisters of Mercy came to Athy just a few years after the Famine, while the Christian Brothers arrived nine years later. The educational facilities afforded to boys and girls of this area following the arrival of the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy brought advantages both educational and social which had been denied to previous generations. The new secondary school to be opened in September will be a far cry from the two schoolrooms which John Stanislaus Flanagan and his colleagues first opened to boys 146 years ago. I would hope that at some early date there can be a joint celebration for both the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy.
Athy Traffic Management Plan
I am very loathe to pass judgment in public on the new Traffic Management Plan prepared for Athy Town Council which was recently on public display prior to being presented to meetings of Kildare County Council and Athy Town Council. However, my reluctance in that regard vanishes in the face of yet a further potential waste of public funds should the plan be implemented. I am advised that the Traffic Plan cost in excess of €100,000 to produce and its implementation cost can be measured in millions of euro. Given the rather poor state of Local Government finances at this time I am afraid it is money we can ill afford to waste.
The Traffic Management Plan proposes a number of radical changes to the existing road layout in the town, the first of which is at the Dublin Road end of Leinster Street. The existing wall between the two road levels is to be removed and replaced with a new wall to allow two way traffic on the Lidl side of the widened road. On the People’s Park side of the wall it is proposed to have a pedestrian access route to the railway station and inside that again a road leading from St. Michael’s Terrace to a new road to be built through the People’s Park giving access to the Park Crescent estate from Church Road. Church Road will be straightened and re-graded to allow access directly onto the Dublin Road via a new junction at the top of the Railway Bridge.
Another major change centres on Emily Square where further pedestrianisation of the rear Square will effectively reduce the parking facilities there. However, it is the proposed re-routing of traffic coming from the Carlow Road direction which now turns at the traffic lights onto Leinster Street to go towards Dublin which may create more traffic problems than it can help solve. Dublin Road bound traffic coming down Offaly Street will have to divert across the rear Square and turn right at Barrow Quay onto Leinster Street. The traffic planner who came up with this idea has an obvious liking for turning traffic at the bottom of humpbacked bridges as he also proposes a somewhat similar manoeuvre at the Canal Bridge on the Kilkenny Road. Traffic coming from Stradbally intending to turn onto the Kilkenny Road must go via Nelson Street and hopefully make a safe exit from there onto William Street. Vehicles will stop on Nelson Street just yards from the Canal Bridge where the sight distance is very limited and will then have to exit smartly and speedily if there is to be any hope of avoiding a collision with traffic coming over the bridge into the town. Similarly traffic from Kilkenny going towards Stradbally must turn into Nelson Street.
There are a number of other changes, all of which I cannot now recall having attended the information evening in the Carlton Abbey Hotel a few weeks ago. The overall impression I have of the Traffic Management Plan however is not helped by the use of a plan which has the Courthouse building described as the Town Library. There are I’m afraid compelling reasons why this latest Traffic Management Plan is unsuitable for Athy, not least being the price tag which accompanies the changes proposed. I only wish the planners and our Town Fathers would concentrate on the Outer Relief Road which I see is now being described as ‘the Southern Distribution Route’. It alone can help solve the traffic problems which beset Athy’s town centre and the sooner Council officials and public representatives alike accept this the sooner we can press ahead with this much needed road project.
Incidentally despite the Minister’s clear advice to Athy Town Council and officials of Kildare County Council to make up their minds as to whether they wanted an Inner Relief Road or an Outer Relief Road, the local Council still persists in retaining the Inner Relief Road as an objective in the Town Development Plan. Apparently the decisions of the Planning Appeal Board and the High Court have had little influence on either party and the Minister’s advice has been ignored. It’s no wonder then that the Minister has not to date made any funds available for the construction of the Outer Relief Road. As a consequence we find ourselves today in the unhappy position of attempting to apply what can only be described as ineffective measures to a chronic traffic situation which is crying out for the only viable solution – an Outer Relief Road.
As I came out into the foyer of the Carlton Abbey on Wednesday evening Liam Dunne of the Irish Farmers Association and his team were manning their alternative traffic plan for Athy. It proposes a much simpler solution to the town’s traffic problems. Roundabouts at Leinster Street/Stanhope Street junction, at Barrow Quay/Leinster Street junction, at Leinster Street/Woodstock Street junction and at the junction of the Bleach and Kilkenny Road are the mainstay of the I.F.A. proposals. In addition pedestrian crossings utilising zebra crossings rather than the existing pelican crossings have been suggested by the Farmers Group as a necessary measure to allow traffic to flow as easily as possible. However, I am aware that pelican crossings are more favoured by wheelchair users.
I have to say that the I.F.A. plan seemed reasonable and practical and certainly less costly than the Council Plan. Given the limited costs involved the general feeling of those who examined the two traffic plans at the Carlton Abbey Hotel is that the I.F.A. plan is worthy of further detailed consideration.
I learned recently of the death of Michael May whom I remember well as a pupil in the Christian Brothers School here in Athy in the 1950s. Michael was usually two classes ahead of me and the ginger haired well built young man was an extremely popular member of the school population of that time. Michael, a retired Garda Sergeant, was the son of Hester and Joe May who lived in the Gate Lodge at St. Vincent’s Hospital where Joe May was the hospital administrator. Michael’s parents were part of that great band of Irish men and women who during the War of Independence and later gave so much of themselves so that future generations could enjoy the fruits of a self governing democracy.
Ar dhéis Dé go raibh a anam.
The Traffic Management Plan proposes a number of radical changes to the existing road layout in the town, the first of which is at the Dublin Road end of Leinster Street. The existing wall between the two road levels is to be removed and replaced with a new wall to allow two way traffic on the Lidl side of the widened road. On the People’s Park side of the wall it is proposed to have a pedestrian access route to the railway station and inside that again a road leading from St. Michael’s Terrace to a new road to be built through the People’s Park giving access to the Park Crescent estate from Church Road. Church Road will be straightened and re-graded to allow access directly onto the Dublin Road via a new junction at the top of the Railway Bridge.
Another major change centres on Emily Square where further pedestrianisation of the rear Square will effectively reduce the parking facilities there. However, it is the proposed re-routing of traffic coming from the Carlow Road direction which now turns at the traffic lights onto Leinster Street to go towards Dublin which may create more traffic problems than it can help solve. Dublin Road bound traffic coming down Offaly Street will have to divert across the rear Square and turn right at Barrow Quay onto Leinster Street. The traffic planner who came up with this idea has an obvious liking for turning traffic at the bottom of humpbacked bridges as he also proposes a somewhat similar manoeuvre at the Canal Bridge on the Kilkenny Road. Traffic coming from Stradbally intending to turn onto the Kilkenny Road must go via Nelson Street and hopefully make a safe exit from there onto William Street. Vehicles will stop on Nelson Street just yards from the Canal Bridge where the sight distance is very limited and will then have to exit smartly and speedily if there is to be any hope of avoiding a collision with traffic coming over the bridge into the town. Similarly traffic from Kilkenny going towards Stradbally must turn into Nelson Street.
There are a number of other changes, all of which I cannot now recall having attended the information evening in the Carlton Abbey Hotel a few weeks ago. The overall impression I have of the Traffic Management Plan however is not helped by the use of a plan which has the Courthouse building described as the Town Library. There are I’m afraid compelling reasons why this latest Traffic Management Plan is unsuitable for Athy, not least being the price tag which accompanies the changes proposed. I only wish the planners and our Town Fathers would concentrate on the Outer Relief Road which I see is now being described as ‘the Southern Distribution Route’. It alone can help solve the traffic problems which beset Athy’s town centre and the sooner Council officials and public representatives alike accept this the sooner we can press ahead with this much needed road project.
Incidentally despite the Minister’s clear advice to Athy Town Council and officials of Kildare County Council to make up their minds as to whether they wanted an Inner Relief Road or an Outer Relief Road, the local Council still persists in retaining the Inner Relief Road as an objective in the Town Development Plan. Apparently the decisions of the Planning Appeal Board and the High Court have had little influence on either party and the Minister’s advice has been ignored. It’s no wonder then that the Minister has not to date made any funds available for the construction of the Outer Relief Road. As a consequence we find ourselves today in the unhappy position of attempting to apply what can only be described as ineffective measures to a chronic traffic situation which is crying out for the only viable solution – an Outer Relief Road.
As I came out into the foyer of the Carlton Abbey on Wednesday evening Liam Dunne of the Irish Farmers Association and his team were manning their alternative traffic plan for Athy. It proposes a much simpler solution to the town’s traffic problems. Roundabouts at Leinster Street/Stanhope Street junction, at Barrow Quay/Leinster Street junction, at Leinster Street/Woodstock Street junction and at the junction of the Bleach and Kilkenny Road are the mainstay of the I.F.A. proposals. In addition pedestrian crossings utilising zebra crossings rather than the existing pelican crossings have been suggested by the Farmers Group as a necessary measure to allow traffic to flow as easily as possible. However, I am aware that pelican crossings are more favoured by wheelchair users.
I have to say that the I.F.A. plan seemed reasonable and practical and certainly less costly than the Council Plan. Given the limited costs involved the general feeling of those who examined the two traffic plans at the Carlton Abbey Hotel is that the I.F.A. plan is worthy of further detailed consideration.
I learned recently of the death of Michael May whom I remember well as a pupil in the Christian Brothers School here in Athy in the 1950s. Michael was usually two classes ahead of me and the ginger haired well built young man was an extremely popular member of the school population of that time. Michael, a retired Garda Sergeant, was the son of Hester and Joe May who lived in the Gate Lodge at St. Vincent’s Hospital where Joe May was the hospital administrator. Michael’s parents were part of that great band of Irish men and women who during the War of Independence and later gave so much of themselves so that future generations could enjoy the fruits of a self governing democracy.
Ar dhéis Dé go raibh a anam.
Tribute to the late Frank English
Several people have contacted me over the last few days looking for copies of the tribute paid to Frank English at his funeral mass last week. One individual asked that it be published as an Eye and I am taking the opportunity of doing so this week, despite the fact that some of the material may be duplicating what appeared in last week’s article.
‘With the death of Frank English Athy has lost a good man and I have lost a good friend. A family man, a Town Councillor, a community activist and a Fianna Fáil politician, Frank gave of his best for the town of his birth. For Frank was an Athy man, born, educated and worked all his life in the town which he grew to love so much and the people of Athy grew to love Frank for he was of a local family with a background similar to so many other families in the town. His grandfather served in the 1st World War, while his father had to take the emigrant boat to England in 1948. These were common experiences for many families as we grew up in Athy and it was against this background of shared experiences that made Frank’s involvement in politics and community affairs so uniquely relevant. For 42 years he served the people of Athy as an Urban Councillor and tried all he could within the limits of the inadequate Local Government system to help improve the town of Athy and the lives of the people who lived here.
Outside of the Town Council he served on the Community Council and was a founder member of Athy Credit Union and of Aontas Ogra. A long time member of the Vocational Educational Committee he was at one time a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, a member of the Parish Choir, served in the Knights of Malta and in recent years taught many hundreds of young children to swim. An avid G.A.A. supporter he followed his beloved Lilywhites with unchallenged enthusiasm and gave freely of his time for the local football club.
His contribution to the town of Athy is beyond measure and he has left us a legacy of community service which we will always treasure.
Frank participated in politics with a sense of purpose, reserving his political allegiance for the party founded by Eamon de Valera. However, he never allowed political differences to mar his relationships with others. He was a devoted and energetic member of the Fianna Fáil party and in that respect followed a path first set out by his mother Peg. She was his greater supporter, that is until the daughter of a onetime Labour Councillor from Westport, Mary O’Grady, came from the west and captured his heart. It was then that Frank English added another dimension to his energetic commitment as a politician and a community activist.
For it was as a family man that Frank achieved his greatest success. Nothing could compare to the satisfaction of bringing into the world five children, all of whom grew up to bring honour on themselves and on their parents. That above all is Franks and Marys greatest legacy, but for Frank who was justifiably proud of his children and his grandchildren, it brought him enormous satisfaction and contentment that Conor, Cathal, Gráinne, Tomás and Ciarán were able to have the educational and work opportunities which were not available to him in the Ireland of the 1950s.
I will remember Frank as a friend. We both attended school for the first time on 12th May 1946. We shared a classroom for the next 12 years or so, Frank leaving school after his Inter Cert, while I continued on for a bit longer. We holidayed together for several years until the demands of married life put a temporary stay on our trips abroad. In 1962 we first went overseas together, thumbing our way around France, staying in hostels and experiencing the delights of Paris. Over the next few years we visited London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels and quite a few other places, some more exotic than others, but all offering a unique insight for two relatively inexperienced young men from provincial Ireland.
In more recent years we resumed our journeys and enjoyed together the sights and sounds of New York, indeed so much so that a return visit was necessary some time later. These visits abroad provided Frank and myself with great memories and forge bonds of friendship between us which have only now been broken with Frank’s passing.
His was a friendship I treasured, for Frank above all was a considerate and courteous man whose zest for life was fashioned from an appreciation of the difficulties we all face, week in week out. Indeed Frank was a friend to many, for his friendly outgoing nature combined with his innate courtesy, good humour and consideration for others, marked him as a man apart.
Frank and I went to the west of Ireland to find wives. He to Westport, myself to Connemara. As a result both of us have strong links with Connaught and last night, mindful of the great number of people who came to Church Road to pay tribute to Frank, I thought of Padraic Colum’s poem, ‘A Connachtman’. I re-read the poem this morning and felt that with some changes to the placenames mentioned to take account of Frank’s Kildare connections it was appropriate for the man we are honouring today.
It’s my fear that my wake won’t be quiet,
Nor my wake house a silent place;
For who would keep back the hundreds
Who would touch my breast and my face?
For the good men were always my friends,
From Kilcullen back into Kildare;
In strength, in sport, and in spending,
I was foremost at the fair;
In music, in song, and in friendship,
In contests by night and by day,
By all who knew it was given to me
That I bore the branch away.
The old men will have their stories
Of all the deeds in my days,
And the young men will stand by the coffin,
And be sure and clear in my praise.
The hundreds who turned up to attend Frank’s wake, the hundreds who turned up for the removal of his remains to St. Michael’s Church and the great crowd here this morning confirm, if confirmation was needed, that the people of Athy and those further afield who knew Frank, are in the words of Padraic Colum sure and clear in their praise of a great man.
I will miss him. We will all miss him.
Ar dhéis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.’
‘With the death of Frank English Athy has lost a good man and I have lost a good friend. A family man, a Town Councillor, a community activist and a Fianna Fáil politician, Frank gave of his best for the town of his birth. For Frank was an Athy man, born, educated and worked all his life in the town which he grew to love so much and the people of Athy grew to love Frank for he was of a local family with a background similar to so many other families in the town. His grandfather served in the 1st World War, while his father had to take the emigrant boat to England in 1948. These were common experiences for many families as we grew up in Athy and it was against this background of shared experiences that made Frank’s involvement in politics and community affairs so uniquely relevant. For 42 years he served the people of Athy as an Urban Councillor and tried all he could within the limits of the inadequate Local Government system to help improve the town of Athy and the lives of the people who lived here.
Outside of the Town Council he served on the Community Council and was a founder member of Athy Credit Union and of Aontas Ogra. A long time member of the Vocational Educational Committee he was at one time a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, a member of the Parish Choir, served in the Knights of Malta and in recent years taught many hundreds of young children to swim. An avid G.A.A. supporter he followed his beloved Lilywhites with unchallenged enthusiasm and gave freely of his time for the local football club.
His contribution to the town of Athy is beyond measure and he has left us a legacy of community service which we will always treasure.
Frank participated in politics with a sense of purpose, reserving his political allegiance for the party founded by Eamon de Valera. However, he never allowed political differences to mar his relationships with others. He was a devoted and energetic member of the Fianna Fáil party and in that respect followed a path first set out by his mother Peg. She was his greater supporter, that is until the daughter of a onetime Labour Councillor from Westport, Mary O’Grady, came from the west and captured his heart. It was then that Frank English added another dimension to his energetic commitment as a politician and a community activist.
For it was as a family man that Frank achieved his greatest success. Nothing could compare to the satisfaction of bringing into the world five children, all of whom grew up to bring honour on themselves and on their parents. That above all is Franks and Marys greatest legacy, but for Frank who was justifiably proud of his children and his grandchildren, it brought him enormous satisfaction and contentment that Conor, Cathal, Gráinne, Tomás and Ciarán were able to have the educational and work opportunities which were not available to him in the Ireland of the 1950s.
I will remember Frank as a friend. We both attended school for the first time on 12th May 1946. We shared a classroom for the next 12 years or so, Frank leaving school after his Inter Cert, while I continued on for a bit longer. We holidayed together for several years until the demands of married life put a temporary stay on our trips abroad. In 1962 we first went overseas together, thumbing our way around France, staying in hostels and experiencing the delights of Paris. Over the next few years we visited London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels and quite a few other places, some more exotic than others, but all offering a unique insight for two relatively inexperienced young men from provincial Ireland.
In more recent years we resumed our journeys and enjoyed together the sights and sounds of New York, indeed so much so that a return visit was necessary some time later. These visits abroad provided Frank and myself with great memories and forge bonds of friendship between us which have only now been broken with Frank’s passing.
His was a friendship I treasured, for Frank above all was a considerate and courteous man whose zest for life was fashioned from an appreciation of the difficulties we all face, week in week out. Indeed Frank was a friend to many, for his friendly outgoing nature combined with his innate courtesy, good humour and consideration for others, marked him as a man apart.
Frank and I went to the west of Ireland to find wives. He to Westport, myself to Connemara. As a result both of us have strong links with Connaught and last night, mindful of the great number of people who came to Church Road to pay tribute to Frank, I thought of Padraic Colum’s poem, ‘A Connachtman’. I re-read the poem this morning and felt that with some changes to the placenames mentioned to take account of Frank’s Kildare connections it was appropriate for the man we are honouring today.
It’s my fear that my wake won’t be quiet,
Nor my wake house a silent place;
For who would keep back the hundreds
Who would touch my breast and my face?
For the good men were always my friends,
From Kilcullen back into Kildare;
In strength, in sport, and in spending,
I was foremost at the fair;
In music, in song, and in friendship,
In contests by night and by day,
By all who knew it was given to me
That I bore the branch away.
The old men will have their stories
Of all the deeds in my days,
And the young men will stand by the coffin,
And be sure and clear in my praise.
The hundreds who turned up to attend Frank’s wake, the hundreds who turned up for the removal of his remains to St. Michael’s Church and the great crowd here this morning confirm, if confirmation was needed, that the people of Athy and those further afield who knew Frank, are in the words of Padraic Colum sure and clear in their praise of a great man.
I will miss him. We will all miss him.
Ar dhéis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.’
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The late Frank English
With the death of Frank English we have lost a good man and I have lost a good friend.
Ours was a friendship which had its origin in St. Joseph’s boys school which both of us first attended on the same day. It was the 12th of May 1946, my 4th birthday, when I was brought to infant school for the first time, the same day chosen by Frank’s parents to bring their 4½ year old eldest son to school. Sr. Benignus, faced with the need to differentiate between the two Franks, decided to call my future pal ‘Harry’, a name by which he was known by all his contemporaries until well into his teen years. He had been christened Henry Francis English after his grandfather, but his mother Peg preferred to call him Frank and so presented a dilemma for Sr. Benignus which lead to his temporary re-naming. We shared the same class for the next 12 or 13 years until Frank left school after his Inter Cert. to work in Minch Norton’s laboratory.
Soon after I went to work in Kildare County Council we joined up for holidays abroad, starting with a memorable trip to France in the summer of 1962. We thumbed our way from Cherbourg to Paris and up through Normandy, two inexperienced Irish lads whose time in the Parisian city was to provide an education in life, as well as a talking point for years to come. In those days hostelling was the only possible way of meeting our accommodation needs and meeting and greeting similar age groups from the Continent and from America was an education in itself. We spent another holiday in London enjoying the domestic delights of an Earls Court hostel, with the eye boggling delights of the early 1960s central London scene. We were ready for the world, or so we thought, but nothing prepared us for the charms of Berlin and Amsterdam which were our last holiday destinations while we both enjoyed the single life. The Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie were but a year or so in place when we arrived in the German capital via Brussels and Hanover. Crossing into east Berlin to see the contrast between the bleak soviet controlled part of the city and the western ‘Free’ was an unforgettable experience.
Married life put an end, temporarily at least, to our gallivanting but we did manage once children had stopped appearing to make acquaintenances with New York on two occasions. Sharing a room over the famous McSorley’s Ale House was an experience which we had hoped to recreate again. It is not to be.
Frank was an extraordinary likeable man whose consideration for others was unlimited. His family shared with many Athy families common experiences going back over the generations. His grandfather Henry Francis English, although born in Kilkea, lived in Athy and like so many others in the town served in the British Army. He later became a hackney driver and was tragically killed in a road traffic accident on the Dublin Road. Frank’s grandmother had earlier died during the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918. Frank’s father Tommy trained as a barber but the economic difficulties of post war Ireland forced him as it did so many others in Athy to emigrate in the late 1940s to seek work in England. Military service overseas during World War 1 and the emigrant trail were common features in the lives of many Athy families when Frank and I were going to school.
It was against that background of shared experiences that made Frank’s involvement in politics and community activities uniquely relevant. He was an Athy man – the town where he was born, reared, schooled and worked was for him the centre of his political and community life. He was a founder member of Athy Credit Union and of Aontas Ogra, as well as being a one time active member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Knights of Malta and the choir of St. Michaels Parish Church. In more recent years he was a member of Athy Community Council and a swimming coach who gave swimming lessons to hundreds of children from Athy and the surrounding area. It was as a public representative for 42 years that he is possibly best known. First elected to Athy Urban District Council in 1967 as a Fianna Fáil Councillor he successfully contested eight local elections until he stepped down as a Councillor last year. He served as the Chairman of the Council on four, if not five occasions and proved himself an able and conscientious member of that body.
I was his colleague on the Council for some years and came to see at first hand how he sought to get results by consultation and agreement rather than by headline seeking contributions in the Council Chamber. We did not always agree on how effective the Council was and I can remember one occasion when he took grave exception to my criticism of the Council which he as a Councillor felt was a personal reflection on himself. Frank tried as best he could within the limits of the inadequate Local Government system to improve the town of Athy and he never gave up on that objective.
The political passion which ruled Frank’s entire life was to see him champion the cause of the party founded by Eamon de Valera in 1926. Fianna Fáil was Frank’s second home. His mother Peg was a passionate Fianna Fáil supporter and no doubt she was largely responsible for his unquestioning and unquenchable allegiance to the party which when Frank was first elected as a councillor was still being lead by Eamon de Valera. He was proud of his party membership and the party was proud of him. The young lad who in 1967 joined the then doyens of the local Fianna Fáil party M.G. Nolan and Paddy Dooley on the local Council would 42 years later step down as a Councillor having in the interim become the father of the Council and indeed the father of the local Fianna Fáil Cumann.
His contribution to the community life of his hometown was enormous and over the decades he made a difference to the lives of many people. But most important of all was his good nature, exemplified in his courtesy and his consideration for others. His affability allowed him to meet and greet friends and strangers alike with a pleasant word and a smile. Frank never allowed political differences to intrude into his personal relationships with others and he never allowed differences of opinion to mar those same relationships.
In his role as a Peace Commissioner he called to my offices on a regular basis to sign documents and always partook of a cup of coffee and the opportunity to have a chat. His easy going manner made him a great favourite and nothing pleased him more than recounting the details of Kildare’s latest, if sometimes scarce, football successes. For Frank was an avid supporter of Gaelic football and followed the Lilywhites from venue to venue. It was I think one of his greatest disappointments that he had not played football in his young days, but made up for that by his wholehearted support for the County team and for the local G.A.A. Club in Geraldine Park.
His legacy of dedicated service for the people of Athy is second only to his most cherished legacy. He has left behind his wife Mary and his five children, Conor, Cathal, Gráinne, Tomás and Ciarán, all of whom have brought honour and respect to the family name. He was justifiably proud of Mary and their children and as I visited him in hospital during the last weeks of his life I came to understand and appreciate that he had passed on to his children some of those exceptional qualities which had endeared Frank to those who knew him.
Frank was a family man, a community activist and a Fianna Fáil politician who gave of his best for the town of his birth. He has left us a legacy of dedicated service for the people of Athy and the most cherished legacy of all, the family of whom he was justifiably proud.
Ar dhéis Dé go raibh a anam.
Ours was a friendship which had its origin in St. Joseph’s boys school which both of us first attended on the same day. It was the 12th of May 1946, my 4th birthday, when I was brought to infant school for the first time, the same day chosen by Frank’s parents to bring their 4½ year old eldest son to school. Sr. Benignus, faced with the need to differentiate between the two Franks, decided to call my future pal ‘Harry’, a name by which he was known by all his contemporaries until well into his teen years. He had been christened Henry Francis English after his grandfather, but his mother Peg preferred to call him Frank and so presented a dilemma for Sr. Benignus which lead to his temporary re-naming. We shared the same class for the next 12 or 13 years until Frank left school after his Inter Cert. to work in Minch Norton’s laboratory.
Soon after I went to work in Kildare County Council we joined up for holidays abroad, starting with a memorable trip to France in the summer of 1962. We thumbed our way from Cherbourg to Paris and up through Normandy, two inexperienced Irish lads whose time in the Parisian city was to provide an education in life, as well as a talking point for years to come. In those days hostelling was the only possible way of meeting our accommodation needs and meeting and greeting similar age groups from the Continent and from America was an education in itself. We spent another holiday in London enjoying the domestic delights of an Earls Court hostel, with the eye boggling delights of the early 1960s central London scene. We were ready for the world, or so we thought, but nothing prepared us for the charms of Berlin and Amsterdam which were our last holiday destinations while we both enjoyed the single life. The Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie were but a year or so in place when we arrived in the German capital via Brussels and Hanover. Crossing into east Berlin to see the contrast between the bleak soviet controlled part of the city and the western ‘Free’ was an unforgettable experience.
Married life put an end, temporarily at least, to our gallivanting but we did manage once children had stopped appearing to make acquaintenances with New York on two occasions. Sharing a room over the famous McSorley’s Ale House was an experience which we had hoped to recreate again. It is not to be.
Frank was an extraordinary likeable man whose consideration for others was unlimited. His family shared with many Athy families common experiences going back over the generations. His grandfather Henry Francis English, although born in Kilkea, lived in Athy and like so many others in the town served in the British Army. He later became a hackney driver and was tragically killed in a road traffic accident on the Dublin Road. Frank’s grandmother had earlier died during the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918. Frank’s father Tommy trained as a barber but the economic difficulties of post war Ireland forced him as it did so many others in Athy to emigrate in the late 1940s to seek work in England. Military service overseas during World War 1 and the emigrant trail were common features in the lives of many Athy families when Frank and I were going to school.
It was against that background of shared experiences that made Frank’s involvement in politics and community activities uniquely relevant. He was an Athy man – the town where he was born, reared, schooled and worked was for him the centre of his political and community life. He was a founder member of Athy Credit Union and of Aontas Ogra, as well as being a one time active member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Knights of Malta and the choir of St. Michaels Parish Church. In more recent years he was a member of Athy Community Council and a swimming coach who gave swimming lessons to hundreds of children from Athy and the surrounding area. It was as a public representative for 42 years that he is possibly best known. First elected to Athy Urban District Council in 1967 as a Fianna Fáil Councillor he successfully contested eight local elections until he stepped down as a Councillor last year. He served as the Chairman of the Council on four, if not five occasions and proved himself an able and conscientious member of that body.
I was his colleague on the Council for some years and came to see at first hand how he sought to get results by consultation and agreement rather than by headline seeking contributions in the Council Chamber. We did not always agree on how effective the Council was and I can remember one occasion when he took grave exception to my criticism of the Council which he as a Councillor felt was a personal reflection on himself. Frank tried as best he could within the limits of the inadequate Local Government system to improve the town of Athy and he never gave up on that objective.
The political passion which ruled Frank’s entire life was to see him champion the cause of the party founded by Eamon de Valera in 1926. Fianna Fáil was Frank’s second home. His mother Peg was a passionate Fianna Fáil supporter and no doubt she was largely responsible for his unquestioning and unquenchable allegiance to the party which when Frank was first elected as a councillor was still being lead by Eamon de Valera. He was proud of his party membership and the party was proud of him. The young lad who in 1967 joined the then doyens of the local Fianna Fáil party M.G. Nolan and Paddy Dooley on the local Council would 42 years later step down as a Councillor having in the interim become the father of the Council and indeed the father of the local Fianna Fáil Cumann.
His contribution to the community life of his hometown was enormous and over the decades he made a difference to the lives of many people. But most important of all was his good nature, exemplified in his courtesy and his consideration for others. His affability allowed him to meet and greet friends and strangers alike with a pleasant word and a smile. Frank never allowed political differences to intrude into his personal relationships with others and he never allowed differences of opinion to mar those same relationships.
In his role as a Peace Commissioner he called to my offices on a regular basis to sign documents and always partook of a cup of coffee and the opportunity to have a chat. His easy going manner made him a great favourite and nothing pleased him more than recounting the details of Kildare’s latest, if sometimes scarce, football successes. For Frank was an avid supporter of Gaelic football and followed the Lilywhites from venue to venue. It was I think one of his greatest disappointments that he had not played football in his young days, but made up for that by his wholehearted support for the County team and for the local G.A.A. Club in Geraldine Park.
His legacy of dedicated service for the people of Athy is second only to his most cherished legacy. He has left behind his wife Mary and his five children, Conor, Cathal, Gráinne, Tomás and Ciarán, all of whom have brought honour and respect to the family name. He was justifiably proud of Mary and their children and as I visited him in hospital during the last weeks of his life I came to understand and appreciate that he had passed on to his children some of those exceptional qualities which had endeared Frank to those who knew him.
Frank was a family man, a community activist and a Fianna Fáil politician who gave of his best for the town of his birth. He has left us a legacy of dedicated service for the people of Athy and the most cherished legacy of all, the family of whom he was justifiably proud.
Ar dhéis Dé go raibh a anam.
Dictionary of Irish Biography
The nine volume Dictionary of Irish Biography was published just before Christmas. A collaborative project between Cambridge University Press and the Royal Irish Academy it has been many years in preparation and may well prove to be one of the most important publishing enterprises ever undertaken in this country. The dictionary gives the background on Irish men and women who are identified as having made a significant contribution in Ireland or abroad, as well as those born overseas who had noteworthy careers in Ireland.
Up to now anyone interested in the biographical details of Irishmen and women had to rely on a number of different publications, the first of which was James Wills six volumes, ‘Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen’ published in 1847. Alfred Webb was the Author of ‘Compendium of Irish Biography’ published by Gills of Dublin in 1878 and half a century later John S. Crone was the author of ‘A Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography’. A more up to date work was Henry Boylan’s ‘A Dictionary of Irish Biography’ first published in 1978 and now in its third edition.
In the intervening years other specialised biographical dictionaries relating to the Irish have been produced, including Richard Hayes’ ‘Biographical Dictionary of Irishmen in France’ and Louis McRedmond’s ‘Modern Irish Lives’, not forgetting the nine volumes produced to date in Irish of ‘Beathaisnéis’ under the editorship of Maíre Ní Mhurchú and Diarmuid Breathnach.
The newly published Dictionary of Irish Biography is truly the most comprehensive and authoritative biographical dictionary yet published in relation to Irish persons. Containing 9,014 biographical articles covering a time span from the beginning of written records to the end of 2002 it does not include biographies of any persons living after that latter date.
I spent the Christmas period going through the nine volumes with a view to noting those persons with Athy connections. I ended with a list of 58 names, some of which had slight enough links with the town such as Patrick Delaney, Clergyman and writer born in 1685 who was educated in Athy. He was a friend of Sheridan and Swift and his second wife was the artist Mary Graville who as Mrs. Delaney wrote her autobiography which remains a valuable source of information about the social history of her time. Delaney himself became Dean of Down and as a writer produced several publications. His bust is in the Long Room in Trinity College.
His namesake, Malachy Delaney, from Ballitore is also included in the Biographical Dictionary. Delaney was a prosperous farmer who left Ireland and enlisted in the Austrian Army to escape punishment for some crime or other but who later returned to join the United Irishmen. As leader of the Rebels in the Ballitore area he lead the ambush of the Tyrone Militia on the Narraghmore Road in 1798 and following the collapse of the Rebellion escaped capture by going into the Wicklow hills. He later took part in Emmet’s Rebellion and served time in Kilmainham Jail before being released in or about 1805. He died in March 1807 aged about 50 years.
Lettice Digby, the only child of Lord Offaly and grandchild of Gerald, 11th Earl of Kildare, is also included in the dictionary and her relevance to Athy arises out of her possession of the manors of Woodstock and Athy.
Ownership of property in this or any other area did not concern Johnny Doran, uilleann piper and a member of the travelling community. Johnny was a celebrated musician who often passed through and in all probability played his uilleann pipes in the town of Athy. He was camped near Athy when his health broke down in the autumn of 1949 and had to be admitted to St. Vincent’s Hospital. There he remained under the care of Sr. Dominic and her staff until he died on 19th January 1950 and it was in St. Vincent’s Hospital that the legendary Johnny Doran played the uilleann pipes for the last time.
One man whose links with South Kildare were previously unknown to me was George Downes, born 1790, died 1846. Described in the dictionary as a travel writer and topographer, he was educated in Ballitore school after being befriended by the Shackletons. He later entered Trinity College from where he graduated with an M.A. in 1823. Downes wrote a number of books on his travels throughout Europe and later worked with George Petrie on the Ordnance Survey and assisted him in his published work on ‘The Round Towers of Ireland’. As a poet he was noted in the ‘Poets of Ireland’ by D.J. O’Donoghue. Downes, who was unmarried, died in Dublin in 1846 and is buried in the Quaker graveyard at Ballitore.
William Harvey Du Cros was another South Kildare man whose story is told in the Dictionary of Irish Biography. Born in Moone during the Great Famine Du Cros was a sportsman who won honours in fencing, boxing and captained Bective Rangers Rugby Club to win an Irish championship. As President of the Irish Cyclists Association he was approached in 1889 by associates of John Dunlop, the inventor of the pneumatic tyre, following which Du Cros established a company to produce the new tyres. This eventually led to the founding of the Dunlop Rubber Company in England which was headed up by Du Cros. He was in part responsible for the introduction of taxi cabs in London but failed due to the opposition of the Dublin jarveys to have similar cabs brought into the Irish capital. He died in Dublin just a month after the ending of World War 1.
One entry in the new dictionary has solved a mystery which has puzzled me for some time. William Grace, the first Catholic Mayor of New York, an office he held from 1880 to 1882 and again from 1884 to 1886, was noted in all previous accounts of his life as having been born in Cork. Sometime ago I came across a reference in one of the Athy Urban District Council Minute Books of a letter from an American woman seeking information on Mayor Grace whom she claimed was born just outside Athy in County Laois. My research tended to show that Grace was from Gracefield, yet the many references to his Cork background left me in some doubt. The dictionary confirms that he was born in 1832 in Riverstown, Co. Cork, while his parents James and Ellen Grace from County Laois were on holidays. William Grace died in New York in 1904 and the company he founded still operates in America as a leading player in the chemical industry.
I intend to return to the Dictionary of Irish Biography as time allows over the next few weeks to deal with more of the men and women from this area whose stories are included in this new publication.
Up to now anyone interested in the biographical details of Irishmen and women had to rely on a number of different publications, the first of which was James Wills six volumes, ‘Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen’ published in 1847. Alfred Webb was the Author of ‘Compendium of Irish Biography’ published by Gills of Dublin in 1878 and half a century later John S. Crone was the author of ‘A Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography’. A more up to date work was Henry Boylan’s ‘A Dictionary of Irish Biography’ first published in 1978 and now in its third edition.
In the intervening years other specialised biographical dictionaries relating to the Irish have been produced, including Richard Hayes’ ‘Biographical Dictionary of Irishmen in France’ and Louis McRedmond’s ‘Modern Irish Lives’, not forgetting the nine volumes produced to date in Irish of ‘Beathaisnéis’ under the editorship of Maíre Ní Mhurchú and Diarmuid Breathnach.
The newly published Dictionary of Irish Biography is truly the most comprehensive and authoritative biographical dictionary yet published in relation to Irish persons. Containing 9,014 biographical articles covering a time span from the beginning of written records to the end of 2002 it does not include biographies of any persons living after that latter date.
I spent the Christmas period going through the nine volumes with a view to noting those persons with Athy connections. I ended with a list of 58 names, some of which had slight enough links with the town such as Patrick Delaney, Clergyman and writer born in 1685 who was educated in Athy. He was a friend of Sheridan and Swift and his second wife was the artist Mary Graville who as Mrs. Delaney wrote her autobiography which remains a valuable source of information about the social history of her time. Delaney himself became Dean of Down and as a writer produced several publications. His bust is in the Long Room in Trinity College.
His namesake, Malachy Delaney, from Ballitore is also included in the Biographical Dictionary. Delaney was a prosperous farmer who left Ireland and enlisted in the Austrian Army to escape punishment for some crime or other but who later returned to join the United Irishmen. As leader of the Rebels in the Ballitore area he lead the ambush of the Tyrone Militia on the Narraghmore Road in 1798 and following the collapse of the Rebellion escaped capture by going into the Wicklow hills. He later took part in Emmet’s Rebellion and served time in Kilmainham Jail before being released in or about 1805. He died in March 1807 aged about 50 years.
Lettice Digby, the only child of Lord Offaly and grandchild of Gerald, 11th Earl of Kildare, is also included in the dictionary and her relevance to Athy arises out of her possession of the manors of Woodstock and Athy.
Ownership of property in this or any other area did not concern Johnny Doran, uilleann piper and a member of the travelling community. Johnny was a celebrated musician who often passed through and in all probability played his uilleann pipes in the town of Athy. He was camped near Athy when his health broke down in the autumn of 1949 and had to be admitted to St. Vincent’s Hospital. There he remained under the care of Sr. Dominic and her staff until he died on 19th January 1950 and it was in St. Vincent’s Hospital that the legendary Johnny Doran played the uilleann pipes for the last time.
One man whose links with South Kildare were previously unknown to me was George Downes, born 1790, died 1846. Described in the dictionary as a travel writer and topographer, he was educated in Ballitore school after being befriended by the Shackletons. He later entered Trinity College from where he graduated with an M.A. in 1823. Downes wrote a number of books on his travels throughout Europe and later worked with George Petrie on the Ordnance Survey and assisted him in his published work on ‘The Round Towers of Ireland’. As a poet he was noted in the ‘Poets of Ireland’ by D.J. O’Donoghue. Downes, who was unmarried, died in Dublin in 1846 and is buried in the Quaker graveyard at Ballitore.
William Harvey Du Cros was another South Kildare man whose story is told in the Dictionary of Irish Biography. Born in Moone during the Great Famine Du Cros was a sportsman who won honours in fencing, boxing and captained Bective Rangers Rugby Club to win an Irish championship. As President of the Irish Cyclists Association he was approached in 1889 by associates of John Dunlop, the inventor of the pneumatic tyre, following which Du Cros established a company to produce the new tyres. This eventually led to the founding of the Dunlop Rubber Company in England which was headed up by Du Cros. He was in part responsible for the introduction of taxi cabs in London but failed due to the opposition of the Dublin jarveys to have similar cabs brought into the Irish capital. He died in Dublin just a month after the ending of World War 1.
One entry in the new dictionary has solved a mystery which has puzzled me for some time. William Grace, the first Catholic Mayor of New York, an office he held from 1880 to 1882 and again from 1884 to 1886, was noted in all previous accounts of his life as having been born in Cork. Sometime ago I came across a reference in one of the Athy Urban District Council Minute Books of a letter from an American woman seeking information on Mayor Grace whom she claimed was born just outside Athy in County Laois. My research tended to show that Grace was from Gracefield, yet the many references to his Cork background left me in some doubt. The dictionary confirms that he was born in 1832 in Riverstown, Co. Cork, while his parents James and Ellen Grace from County Laois were on holidays. William Grace died in New York in 1904 and the company he founded still operates in America as a leading player in the chemical industry.
I intend to return to the Dictionary of Irish Biography as time allows over the next few weeks to deal with more of the men and women from this area whose stories are included in this new publication.
Athy Gaelic Football team 1956
For the past two weeks, prompted by the illness of a close friend, I have been thinking more and more of times past and especially the halcyon times associated with Athy and my now long past teenage years. Those carefree days lived out, in otherwise harsh times, bring back wonderful memories of youthful friendships, football and girls. The order in which they appear is not indicative of our preferences, for at different stages of my youth, each played a more prominent part than the others. Youthful memories are refocused by photographs of the time and in the nature of things, it is almost inevitable that football leaves plenty of photographic evidence for future enjoyment.
The Christian Brothers were noted for promoting Gaelic games in their schools and here in Athy Gaelic football, rather than hurling, was the more favoured. There was no question in the 1950s of either soccer or rugby being part of the school sporting activity. Each Wednesday afternoon the boys of the Christian Brothers Secondary School took off what we enthusiastically referred to as a half day when in fact it was perhaps only an hour or so, to walk to Geraldine Park for a game of football. Football was the sport enthusiastically taken up by most youngsters in those days and nowhere was that enthusiasm more pronounced than in a provincial Ireland devoid of sporting facilities other than playing fields of varying sizes and quality.
My first involvement in a Gaelic football team was with the Under 14 school team when I played at left full back for three years. Recently I was given a copy photograph of the Athy Christian Brothers Under 14 team which I’m assured was taken in 1956. That photo which is reproduced here shows from left to right at back:-
Francis Webb, Paul Cunningham, Michael Rowan, Frank Taaffe, Brian Finn, Mick O’Neill, J. Murphy, Mick Cardiff, Donal Barr and Moses Doyle.
In the front row are:-
Pat Timpson, Eddie Hearns, Johnny Miller, Edmund Loughman, Peter Archibald, Oliver Moran, Hugh McDonnell, Niall Fingleton and Johnny Hoare.
Sadly Frank Webb, Mick Cardiff and Niall Fingleton have passed away. Several of that team are still in the Athy area but I wonder to where life has brought the other youngsters of 50 years ago?
I see from last week’s newspaper that the long awaited Outer Relief Road, now renamed the Southern Distributor Route, has been advanced with the preparation of the Compulsory Purchase Order and the Environmental Impact Study. There is nothing however to show that funding is available for the road and it would appear that construction work on the road may have to be attempted in three different phases. In the meantime the spur road from the N9 continues to be built and will be completed shortly. If the Southern Distributor Road had been incorporated into the N9 spur road at the planning and approval stages, we would be facing into the exciting prospect of having the local traffic problems solved during the course of this year.
Instead we are facing into more traffic studies, the latest of which appears to want to deal with the traffic situation by creating a number of strange new roadways and by imposing restrictions on current routes.
A new road is proposed to be built through the Peoples Park to facilitate access to houses at Park Crescent. I wonder is it also to provide an entrance to land locked pieces of property purchased some years ago in anticipation of the building of the Inner Relief Road
The realignment of Church Road to link it directly with Dublin Road at the Railway Bridge is another element of the plan which would seem to be somewhat strange.
I am puzzled at what is proposed in the new Traffic Management Plan for Athy and feel that the Council are yet again failing to grasp the importance of concentrating all their resources on getting the Outer Relief Road in place.
Vocational Education Continued
Following my article last week on vocational education in Athy I was contacted by the parent of a young Athy student who recently finished his primary schooling in the town, but found himself unable to get a place in Árdscoil na Tríonóide. That school with the new Community College make up the town’s post primary educational facilities and Árdscoil na Tríonóide came into being on the amalgamation of Scoil Eoin, the former Christian Brothers school and Scoil Mhuire which was operated by the Sisters of Mercy.
I attended the local primary school and secondary school in Athy at a time when they were operating as part of the extensive network of Christian Brothers Schools in Ireland. In common with my classmates and many thousands who passed through the Christian Brothers School system I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my teachers who taught in the old schools in St. John’s Lane.
As someone living in Athy my parents in common with every other parents of school going children at that time assumed, and rightly so, that their children would be automatically accepted as pupils in the local secondary school. It is an expectation which I gather can no longer be made given a recent decision of the Board of Management of Árdscoil na Tríonóide which has resulted in secondary school places for some Athy youngsters being the subject of a lottery.
I find it quite extraordinary that youngsters graduating from the local primary schools cannot be guaranteed a place in the local secondary school. If not successful in gaining entry to Árdscoil na Tríonóide their options are Athy Community College or a secondary school outside the town.
It was on 8th August 1861 that the first Christian Brothers arrived in Athy in response to a request from the Archbishop of Dublin, Ballitore-born Paul Cullen to set up a school in the town. Brother Stanislaus O’Flanagan, Luke Hyland and lay brother Patrick Sheely arrived by train at the local railway station which had been opened just a few years previously. The local townspeople had prepared Greenhills House in St. John’s Lane, the former residence of Judge Hellen, as the Christian Brothers Monastery and had built a two room school house nearby.
Eleven days after the arrival of the Christian Brothers the school opened and 120 local boys presented themselves as pupils. Before long the numbers on the roll had increased so much that a third teacher was required. A former pupil of those early years was later to write:- ‘Our school was divided into two sections, one being known as the Greeks and the other as the Romans. The boys who raised the greatest number of merit marks were awarded the keeping of the school banner at the end of the week.’
Educating the young men of Athy was the mission undertaken by the Christian Brothers in 1861 and they applied themselves unselfishly to that task for almost 150 years. In a tribute I wrote for my former teacher Brother Brett in 1993 I said, ‘For over 160 years the order founded by Edmund Rice has provided the bedrock upon which the future of young Irishmen has been secured. Their work commenced in times of poverty and ultimately famine but throughout good times and bad the Christian Brothers gave of themselves and their resources to help Irishmen to achieve their full potential..... their work is not yet done but it is to other men and women unburdened by clerical vows that their responsibility must now pass.’ I am disappointed and saddened that local parents may now find themselves troubled by the failure of their children to gain a place in Árdscoil na Tríonóide, a school whose history is grounded on the pioneering work in Athy of the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy.
It is manifestly unfair. Why should young citizens of this town not have the right to enter on his or her secondary school education in a secondary school of their choice in their own town? A local school should give priority to young people from the town and parish of Athy and where there is difficulty in that regard due either to staff numbers or space restrictions, appropriate remedial action should be speedily taken to rectify the situation. If this problem is not tackled immediately it’s quite likely that education will become, like our Health Services, an embarrassing disservice.
Shortly before Christmas John Neavyn passed away in his 93rd year. John during his time in Athy was intrinsically linked with the Order of St. Dominic and his proud boast was that at 92 years of age he was the oldest mass server in Ireland. A charming and courteous gentleman John came to Athy in 1951 to work in the offices of Minch Nortons from where he retired as office manager long before that once great family firm became part of the Greencore Group. His involvement with the Dominican Friary went back many decades and included such diverse rolls as Mass server, choir master, as well as Church organist. The Dominican Pennybank which was set up in the late 1970s on the suggestion of Donal Murphy was in its early years organized by Donal, the late Ivan Bergin and John Neavyn and John’s involvement with the Bank continued over several decades. His Christian outlook found further expression in his membership of the local St. Vincent de Paul Society and he was President of the local Conference for many years. As well as being organist in the local Dominican Church he fulfilled the same role in Moone Parish Church where he accompanied that fine singer Tony Prendergast of Grangecon, a brother of the late Charlie Prendergast of Prussellstown who was himself a singer of renown.
He was predeceased by his wife Martha who died in 1982 and both are buried in St. Michael’s cemetery. Ar dhéis Dé go raibh a anam.
Do you remember McHugh’s Foundry in Janeville Lane at the back of Offaly Street? Now long gone, as are the men who worked there, I came across a photograph this week which will bring back memories for many of you. It shows Tom McHugh, Robbie Lynch and Tommy McHugh posing outside the foundry sometime in the 1950s.
I attended the local primary school and secondary school in Athy at a time when they were operating as part of the extensive network of Christian Brothers Schools in Ireland. In common with my classmates and many thousands who passed through the Christian Brothers School system I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my teachers who taught in the old schools in St. John’s Lane.
As someone living in Athy my parents in common with every other parents of school going children at that time assumed, and rightly so, that their children would be automatically accepted as pupils in the local secondary school. It is an expectation which I gather can no longer be made given a recent decision of the Board of Management of Árdscoil na Tríonóide which has resulted in secondary school places for some Athy youngsters being the subject of a lottery.
I find it quite extraordinary that youngsters graduating from the local primary schools cannot be guaranteed a place in the local secondary school. If not successful in gaining entry to Árdscoil na Tríonóide their options are Athy Community College or a secondary school outside the town.
It was on 8th August 1861 that the first Christian Brothers arrived in Athy in response to a request from the Archbishop of Dublin, Ballitore-born Paul Cullen to set up a school in the town. Brother Stanislaus O’Flanagan, Luke Hyland and lay brother Patrick Sheely arrived by train at the local railway station which had been opened just a few years previously. The local townspeople had prepared Greenhills House in St. John’s Lane, the former residence of Judge Hellen, as the Christian Brothers Monastery and had built a two room school house nearby.
Eleven days after the arrival of the Christian Brothers the school opened and 120 local boys presented themselves as pupils. Before long the numbers on the roll had increased so much that a third teacher was required. A former pupil of those early years was later to write:- ‘Our school was divided into two sections, one being known as the Greeks and the other as the Romans. The boys who raised the greatest number of merit marks were awarded the keeping of the school banner at the end of the week.’
Educating the young men of Athy was the mission undertaken by the Christian Brothers in 1861 and they applied themselves unselfishly to that task for almost 150 years. In a tribute I wrote for my former teacher Brother Brett in 1993 I said, ‘For over 160 years the order founded by Edmund Rice has provided the bedrock upon which the future of young Irishmen has been secured. Their work commenced in times of poverty and ultimately famine but throughout good times and bad the Christian Brothers gave of themselves and their resources to help Irishmen to achieve their full potential..... their work is not yet done but it is to other men and women unburdened by clerical vows that their responsibility must now pass.’ I am disappointed and saddened that local parents may now find themselves troubled by the failure of their children to gain a place in Árdscoil na Tríonóide, a school whose history is grounded on the pioneering work in Athy of the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy.
It is manifestly unfair. Why should young citizens of this town not have the right to enter on his or her secondary school education in a secondary school of their choice in their own town? A local school should give priority to young people from the town and parish of Athy and where there is difficulty in that regard due either to staff numbers or space restrictions, appropriate remedial action should be speedily taken to rectify the situation. If this problem is not tackled immediately it’s quite likely that education will become, like our Health Services, an embarrassing disservice.
Shortly before Christmas John Neavyn passed away in his 93rd year. John during his time in Athy was intrinsically linked with the Order of St. Dominic and his proud boast was that at 92 years of age he was the oldest mass server in Ireland. A charming and courteous gentleman John came to Athy in 1951 to work in the offices of Minch Nortons from where he retired as office manager long before that once great family firm became part of the Greencore Group. His involvement with the Dominican Friary went back many decades and included such diverse rolls as Mass server, choir master, as well as Church organist. The Dominican Pennybank which was set up in the late 1970s on the suggestion of Donal Murphy was in its early years organized by Donal, the late Ivan Bergin and John Neavyn and John’s involvement with the Bank continued over several decades. His Christian outlook found further expression in his membership of the local St. Vincent de Paul Society and he was President of the local Conference for many years. As well as being organist in the local Dominican Church he fulfilled the same role in Moone Parish Church where he accompanied that fine singer Tony Prendergast of Grangecon, a brother of the late Charlie Prendergast of Prussellstown who was himself a singer of renown.
He was predeceased by his wife Martha who died in 1982 and both are buried in St. Michael’s cemetery. Ar dhéis Dé go raibh a anam.
Do you remember McHugh’s Foundry in Janeville Lane at the back of Offaly Street? Now long gone, as are the men who worked there, I came across a photograph this week which will bring back memories for many of you. It shows Tom McHugh, Robbie Lynch and Tommy McHugh posing outside the foundry sometime in the 1950s.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
New chapter in vocational education
Athy is soon to have a new post primary school built at a cost of €8 million with a capacity to cater for upwards of 400 pupils. It will replace the school building on the Carlow Road which was opened by the then Minister for Education Tomás O’Deirg on 3rd December 1940. As a youngster growing up in Offaly Street in the 1950s I was familiar with the ‘Technical School’ as it was then called, before it was renamed St. Brigid’s Post Primary School in 1978.
Technical or vocational education first became the subject of State involvement with the passing of the Technical Instruction Act of 1889. At a time when Home Rule and the demands of the Irish Land League were hogging the headlines, the 1889 Act represented a move away from the laissez-faire theory of non-State involvement in the country’s economic development. Ireland then and for many decades thereafter was an agricultural based economy and here in Athy the only industry of note was brick manufacture which provided badly needed employment for males and females, particularly during the summer months. The Industrial Revolution which had marked England’s progress during the 19th century had by and large bypassed Irish provincial towns. The intention of the 1889 Act was to provide technical education for young people in an attempt to grow an undeveloped Irish industrial base.
The local Board of Guardians which had been established in the years immediately prior to the Great Famine to direct, inter alia, the affairs of the Athy Workhouse, were empowered under the 1889 Act to expend the produce of one penny rate in providing technical instruction in Athy. The local guardians appear not to have exercised their powers in that regard and it was not until the passing of the Technical Instruction Act of 1889 that technical or vocational instruction first came to be provided in the South Kildare town. That Act gave local County Councils and Urban District Councils the powers to establish technical committees and the newly established Athy Urban District Council moved to adopt the Act on 24th September 1900. At the same time it was agreed to set up a Committee ‘comprised of six members of the Urban Council and six gentlemen in the town and neighbourhood to carry out the provisions of the Act.’
By the following November the 12 members of the Technical Instruction Committee had been appointed. The Council’s appointees were M.J. Minch M.P., Chairman of the Urban Council and his fellow Councillors Thomas Hickey, Thomas Plewman, Daniel Carbery, Michael Malone and J.P. Whelan. The ‘gentlemen’ brought onto the Committee were the local Parish Priest Canon Germaine, Rev. E. Waller, Church of Ireland Rector, Fr. William Duggan C.C., Stephen Telford of Barrowford, P.J. Murphy of Emily Square and W. Whelan of Duke Street. Five years later the Urban Council sent four representatives to the County Kildare Joint Technical Committee. Thomas Hickey and P.J. Murphy were Urban Councillors, while the other representatives were local Catholic clergymen, Fr. Joseph O’Keeffe P.P. and Fr. William Duggan C.C.
Initially the classes which were conducted under the aegis of the County Technical Committee rather than the local Committee were held in the Christian Brothers Schools in St. John’s Lane. In early 1902 accommodation was rented in the C.Y.M.S. rooms at the corner of Stanhope Street and Stanhope Place for the sum of €25.00 per year. The classes initially attracted about 25 students. The local papers reported that ‘drawing classes were progressing satisfactorily and that the subjects being studied were designed with a view to their usefulness.’ A Mr. Michael Mor was mentioned as a lecturer in the as yet unnamed school.
In March 1904 the local curate, Fr. William Duggan, brought a resolution of the Athy Techical Committee to a meeting of the County Committee seeking a reduction in the fees charged for morning classes in Athy. The six week courses consisted of three demonstrations/lectures followed by three practical classes for which the Athy Committee felt a fee of five shillings was more than sufficient.
In May 1906 the local Urban District Council noted that the local people were not taking advantage of the local Technical Instruction classes. ‘At present we have a very competent instructress Miss O’Donnell in cooking and hygiene, but only one person attends the morning classes and only two persons the evening classes. An attendance of 12 persons was recorded at the same time for the poultry classes conducted by Miss Stafford.’
Twelve months later a further report submitted to the Urban Council acknowledged that the technical classes ‘were not proving a success.’ The evening class attendance during the winter of 1906/1907 was only one. This despite the fact that the absence of industry and the lack of employment opportunities in the Athy area in the first decade of the 1900s was amply demonstrated by a letter in November 1908 from Naas Military Barracks Commander which drew the local Council attention ‘to the Special Reserve (of the British Army) as a means of mitigating the distress amongst the unemployed of the district.’ Following the outbreak of war in August 1914 the Technical Instruction Committee gave use of his classrooms for the setting up of a war hospital supply depot where voluntary workers made splints, bed rests, bed trays and crutches for injured soldiers.
Taking its name from the Act under which it was established the Technical School continued to operate from the corner site in Stanhope Place until 1940. The Vocational Education Act of 1930 replaced the 1898 Act and provided for the setting up of County Vocational Education Committees to provide education to Leaving Certificate standards through subjects directly related to work. The first purpose-built Vocational School was provided in Newbridge in 1937 and three years later Tomás O’Derig, Minister for Education officially opened Athy’s new school. The new Athy Vocational School had 40 pupils on its roll, with T.C. Walsh of Stanhope Street as Headmaster. Tom O’Donnell who lived in McDonnell Drive was appointed Headmaster in 1950 and he was replaced in 1976 by John Doyle. John retired as Headmaster in 1993 to be replaced by Richard Daly who is currently in charge of the school.
Over the past 70 years the number of pupils has increased substantially from the 1940 level of 40, necessitating extensions to the school building in 1962, 1981 and again in 1989. Enrolment in 1989 reached an all time high of 435 pupils. Today there are approximately 300 pupils attending classes which since 1966 include courses for the Intermediate (now Junior Certificate) examinations and Leaving Certificate courses since 1968.
The opening of a new Vocational School on the educational campus on the Monasterevin Road, to be known as Athy Community College, represents a missed opportunity for the amalgamation of all the post primary schools in Athy. The former C.B.S. school and the Convent School have amalgamated and the inclusion of the V.E.C. School in that process would, I feel, have provided huge benefits for the future development of post primary education in Athy. The opportunity however has been missed but hopefully the fact that both post primary schools will be in close proximity to each other keeps open the possibility of future beneficial cooperation between both schools.
It has taken 110 years to progress from the temporary accommodation in a C.Y.M.S. room in Stanhope Place to the modern purpose built school building which will be opened shortly. The journey was one on which many teachers and perhaps thousands of pupils travelled for part of the time – some still with us, others not so, some not recalled or forgotten, while others are remembered. All of them made a contribution to vocational or technical education in South Kildare and for this we must express our gratitude.
Technical or vocational education first became the subject of State involvement with the passing of the Technical Instruction Act of 1889. At a time when Home Rule and the demands of the Irish Land League were hogging the headlines, the 1889 Act represented a move away from the laissez-faire theory of non-State involvement in the country’s economic development. Ireland then and for many decades thereafter was an agricultural based economy and here in Athy the only industry of note was brick manufacture which provided badly needed employment for males and females, particularly during the summer months. The Industrial Revolution which had marked England’s progress during the 19th century had by and large bypassed Irish provincial towns. The intention of the 1889 Act was to provide technical education for young people in an attempt to grow an undeveloped Irish industrial base.
The local Board of Guardians which had been established in the years immediately prior to the Great Famine to direct, inter alia, the affairs of the Athy Workhouse, were empowered under the 1889 Act to expend the produce of one penny rate in providing technical instruction in Athy. The local guardians appear not to have exercised their powers in that regard and it was not until the passing of the Technical Instruction Act of 1889 that technical or vocational instruction first came to be provided in the South Kildare town. That Act gave local County Councils and Urban District Councils the powers to establish technical committees and the newly established Athy Urban District Council moved to adopt the Act on 24th September 1900. At the same time it was agreed to set up a Committee ‘comprised of six members of the Urban Council and six gentlemen in the town and neighbourhood to carry out the provisions of the Act.’
By the following November the 12 members of the Technical Instruction Committee had been appointed. The Council’s appointees were M.J. Minch M.P., Chairman of the Urban Council and his fellow Councillors Thomas Hickey, Thomas Plewman, Daniel Carbery, Michael Malone and J.P. Whelan. The ‘gentlemen’ brought onto the Committee were the local Parish Priest Canon Germaine, Rev. E. Waller, Church of Ireland Rector, Fr. William Duggan C.C., Stephen Telford of Barrowford, P.J. Murphy of Emily Square and W. Whelan of Duke Street. Five years later the Urban Council sent four representatives to the County Kildare Joint Technical Committee. Thomas Hickey and P.J. Murphy were Urban Councillors, while the other representatives were local Catholic clergymen, Fr. Joseph O’Keeffe P.P. and Fr. William Duggan C.C.
Initially the classes which were conducted under the aegis of the County Technical Committee rather than the local Committee were held in the Christian Brothers Schools in St. John’s Lane. In early 1902 accommodation was rented in the C.Y.M.S. rooms at the corner of Stanhope Street and Stanhope Place for the sum of €25.00 per year. The classes initially attracted about 25 students. The local papers reported that ‘drawing classes were progressing satisfactorily and that the subjects being studied were designed with a view to their usefulness.’ A Mr. Michael Mor was mentioned as a lecturer in the as yet unnamed school.
In March 1904 the local curate, Fr. William Duggan, brought a resolution of the Athy Techical Committee to a meeting of the County Committee seeking a reduction in the fees charged for morning classes in Athy. The six week courses consisted of three demonstrations/lectures followed by three practical classes for which the Athy Committee felt a fee of five shillings was more than sufficient.
In May 1906 the local Urban District Council noted that the local people were not taking advantage of the local Technical Instruction classes. ‘At present we have a very competent instructress Miss O’Donnell in cooking and hygiene, but only one person attends the morning classes and only two persons the evening classes. An attendance of 12 persons was recorded at the same time for the poultry classes conducted by Miss Stafford.’
Twelve months later a further report submitted to the Urban Council acknowledged that the technical classes ‘were not proving a success.’ The evening class attendance during the winter of 1906/1907 was only one. This despite the fact that the absence of industry and the lack of employment opportunities in the Athy area in the first decade of the 1900s was amply demonstrated by a letter in November 1908 from Naas Military Barracks Commander which drew the local Council attention ‘to the Special Reserve (of the British Army) as a means of mitigating the distress amongst the unemployed of the district.’ Following the outbreak of war in August 1914 the Technical Instruction Committee gave use of his classrooms for the setting up of a war hospital supply depot where voluntary workers made splints, bed rests, bed trays and crutches for injured soldiers.
Taking its name from the Act under which it was established the Technical School continued to operate from the corner site in Stanhope Place until 1940. The Vocational Education Act of 1930 replaced the 1898 Act and provided for the setting up of County Vocational Education Committees to provide education to Leaving Certificate standards through subjects directly related to work. The first purpose-built Vocational School was provided in Newbridge in 1937 and three years later Tomás O’Derig, Minister for Education officially opened Athy’s new school. The new Athy Vocational School had 40 pupils on its roll, with T.C. Walsh of Stanhope Street as Headmaster. Tom O’Donnell who lived in McDonnell Drive was appointed Headmaster in 1950 and he was replaced in 1976 by John Doyle. John retired as Headmaster in 1993 to be replaced by Richard Daly who is currently in charge of the school.
Over the past 70 years the number of pupils has increased substantially from the 1940 level of 40, necessitating extensions to the school building in 1962, 1981 and again in 1989. Enrolment in 1989 reached an all time high of 435 pupils. Today there are approximately 300 pupils attending classes which since 1966 include courses for the Intermediate (now Junior Certificate) examinations and Leaving Certificate courses since 1968.
The opening of a new Vocational School on the educational campus on the Monasterevin Road, to be known as Athy Community College, represents a missed opportunity for the amalgamation of all the post primary schools in Athy. The former C.B.S. school and the Convent School have amalgamated and the inclusion of the V.E.C. School in that process would, I feel, have provided huge benefits for the future development of post primary education in Athy. The opportunity however has been missed but hopefully the fact that both post primary schools will be in close proximity to each other keeps open the possibility of future beneficial cooperation between both schools.
It has taken 110 years to progress from the temporary accommodation in a C.Y.M.S. room in Stanhope Place to the modern purpose built school building which will be opened shortly. The journey was one on which many teachers and perhaps thousands of pupils travelled for part of the time – some still with us, others not so, some not recalled or forgotten, while others are remembered. All of them made a contribution to vocational or technical education in South Kildare and for this we must express our gratitude.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Shrine is a link with our past
The Marian Shrine at Rathstewart is a constant reminder of the great community spirit which saw the men and women of St. Joseph’s Terrace coming together in what were difficult times to commemorate the Marian year of 1954. Throughout the past 55 years the shrine has been maintained exceptionally well and no tribute of mine can be sufficiently conscious of the dedicated work undertaken over the decades by many local people in that area.The stone used in building the Marian Shrine was originally part of the main entrance of Lamberton House in Timahoe, Co. Laois and was donated by P.J. Hume Auctioneer Portlaoise. John Murphy of St. Michael’s Terrace erected the stone, as he did the entrance to St. Dominic’s Church and both remain a lasting testimony to his skill and craftsmanship.
Maynooth College presented the statute, while Matt McHugh of Offaly Street designed and made the gates in his Janeville Lane Foundry. Many others, including Tom Daly of Stanhope St. and Frank O’Brien Snr. Of Emily Square donated items for the Shrine. Fr. Vincent Steen, Parish Priest, donated the holy water font and the cross and also some shrubs from the grounds of St. Michael’s Parish Church. This Church was subsequently demolished and the surrounding ground cemented over so the shrubs still thriving in the Marian Shrine are a link with our treasured past. It’s of interest to note that when St. Michael’s Parish Church was demolished in 1960 grass sods were removed from the Church grounds and transplanted to the Shrine. The cross on the top of the Shrine also came from the old Parish Church.
The photograph of the Shrine was, I believe, taken on the occasion of the official opening and blessing which took place on Ascension Thursday in May 1955. I was a mass server that day and with a lot of my mass serving colleagues took part in the ceremony. Work on the Shrine had been delayed due to the cement strike and hence the time lag in blessing the Shrine some months after the Marian year had ended. The original Marian Shrine Committee included Jim Fleming, Paddy Doyle, Tony Byrne, Eddie Delahunt and Joe O’Neill. There were many more men and women involved in the venture and perhaps my readers can help me compile a full list of those who over the years were part of the Marian Shrine Committee.
The second photograph is a fine interior view of St. Michael’s Church which was built in 1808. It was in this Church that the first mission in Ireland was held by the Vincentian Fathers in 1842. The side altars were the gifts of Mrs. Hayden of Cardenton, grandmother of M.P. Minch of Rockfield House and of his grandfather. The stations of the cross were presented by Michael Lawler, Park House, while the pulpit on the left of the picture was gifted in 1904 by the local parishioners to mark the Golden Jubilee of the ordination of their Parish Priest Canon Germaine. The Church demolished in 1960 will be remembered by many, while the Marian Shrine in Rathstewart, now in its 55th year, maintains a constant link with that Church which served the people of Athy for 152 years.Happy Christmas and a happy New Year to my readers.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
When old images trigger reflections on times past
I am always delighted to be shown photographs of times past in South Kildare and am particularly pleased when given the opportunity of copying photographs such as that which appears with today’s article.
Nowadays with modern gismos such as scanners and computers, photographs can be scanned in seconds, while someone as far away as Australia can download the results via computer email.
Today’s photograph shows a happy group of bakery workers. They were employed in Bradbury’s Bakery which was established by Tom Bradbury in his Stanhope Street premises in 1938. Those photographed were confectioners and they produced the magnificent fancies and cakes for which Bradbury’s were famous throughout the length and breadth of Leinster.
The photograph which I am told was taken in the small back yard of the original Bradbury Bakery premises in Stanhope Street shows from the left at the rear Betty Whelan, Denis Prendergast, Nancy O’Rourke, Louise Harrington and Paddy Prendergast. In front from left are Mary Harrington and on the right Mary O’Rourke.
The man in the centre of the front row has not been positively identified, some claiming it was Laurence Church, others believing it to be a Murphy from Offaly Street. Strange to relate that the photograph shows no less than three sets of siblings, the Prendergast brothers from Milltown, the Harrington sisters from Woodbine and the O’Rourke sisters from Stanhope Street. Betty Whelan was from the Carlow Road where her father who worked on the railway lived with his family in the railway crossing gate cottage.
Old photographs can be difficult to date and sometimes nearly impossible to identify in terms of location and those photographed. Even as I wrote the opening lines of this piece I began to have doubts as to the accuracy of the claims made in relation to the photograph being of Stanhope Street vintage, rather than of the later Leinster Street bakery to where Bradburys moved in 1950 or thereabouts.
Paddy Prendergast I’m told was born in 1930 and he looks very much like a 20 or 21 year old in the photograph which would date it to 1950 or 1951. If either date is correct then undoubtedly the photograph was taken in the vicinity of the Leinster Street bakery. No doubt someone out there can solve the questions regarding the date and location of the photograph.
Recently I came across a reference to Henry Bettesworth Phillips, impresario and owner of the Carl Rosa Opera Company, who operated a piano and music business in Derry and Belfast for many years. He was born in Athy on 23rd December 1866, the third child of Henry St. John Phillips and his wife Jane who were both members of the Church of Ireland. His father Henry was the local Station Master and his son’s birthplace was recorded in the local Church records as Athy Railway Station. The Great Western and Southern Railway had been extended to Athy and beyond just 20 years previously.
Uniquely the Station Master with the double barrel name of St. John Phillips was described in the Birth Certificates of some of his ten children as a Station Master, Watchmaker and Jeweller. What connection, if any, had he with the St. John family who were jewellers and watchmakers in Athy?
The young Henry won a scholarship as a boy soloist in the Choir of the Church of Ireland Cathedral in Derry in 1877 and it was in that city that he finished his education. He soon became the head choir boy and on Christmas Eve 1881 he took the solo soprano role in a performance of the first part of Handel’s Messiah. A local newspaper described him as having “a voice of extraordinary sweetness”.
After leaving school he became apprenticed to a music business in Derry before setting up business on his own account in that city in 1891. Phillips Piano and Music Warehouse would remain an important part of the Derry business scene for many decades. In 1907 he opened a second music shop in Belfast just a short distance from the famous Ulster Hall. Henry promoted concerts in Belfast, Derry and Dublin and one of his first such ventures featured the visit Hallé Orchestra with Hans Richter.
He also brought eminent soloists such as Kreisler, Clara Butt and John McCormack to the Belfast stage but perhaps the high point of his impresario career was the performance he promoted in Belfast in 1909 of the world’s greatest tenor Enrico Caruso.
Following the outbreak of World War 1 Henry Phillips founded an opera company which however ran into financial difficulties before being taken over by the well established and more famous Carl Rosa Company. A few years later Phillips gained control of the company which he ran until his death in 1950. He had moved to England in 1911 but kept on the Derry and Belfast shops, the latter however he sold at the end of the war.
Henry Phillips continued his concert promotion work after the War and in 1935 and 1936 achieved great success with a number of concerts put on in Derry given by John McCormack, violinist Fritz Kreisler and American singer Paul Robeson. The impresario and opera company owner Henry B. Phillips who first saw life in the Station Master’s house in Athy in 1866 passed away in London in 1950.
Nowadays with modern gismos such as scanners and computers, photographs can be scanned in seconds, while someone as far away as Australia can download the results via computer email.
Today’s photograph shows a happy group of bakery workers. They were employed in Bradbury’s Bakery which was established by Tom Bradbury in his Stanhope Street premises in 1938. Those photographed were confectioners and they produced the magnificent fancies and cakes for which Bradbury’s were famous throughout the length and breadth of Leinster.
The photograph which I am told was taken in the small back yard of the original Bradbury Bakery premises in Stanhope Street shows from the left at the rear Betty Whelan, Denis Prendergast, Nancy O’Rourke, Louise Harrington and Paddy Prendergast. In front from left are Mary Harrington and on the right Mary O’Rourke.
The man in the centre of the front row has not been positively identified, some claiming it was Laurence Church, others believing it to be a Murphy from Offaly Street. Strange to relate that the photograph shows no less than three sets of siblings, the Prendergast brothers from Milltown, the Harrington sisters from Woodbine and the O’Rourke sisters from Stanhope Street. Betty Whelan was from the Carlow Road where her father who worked on the railway lived with his family in the railway crossing gate cottage.
Old photographs can be difficult to date and sometimes nearly impossible to identify in terms of location and those photographed. Even as I wrote the opening lines of this piece I began to have doubts as to the accuracy of the claims made in relation to the photograph being of Stanhope Street vintage, rather than of the later Leinster Street bakery to where Bradburys moved in 1950 or thereabouts.
Paddy Prendergast I’m told was born in 1930 and he looks very much like a 20 or 21 year old in the photograph which would date it to 1950 or 1951. If either date is correct then undoubtedly the photograph was taken in the vicinity of the Leinster Street bakery. No doubt someone out there can solve the questions regarding the date and location of the photograph.
Recently I came across a reference to Henry Bettesworth Phillips, impresario and owner of the Carl Rosa Opera Company, who operated a piano and music business in Derry and Belfast for many years. He was born in Athy on 23rd December 1866, the third child of Henry St. John Phillips and his wife Jane who were both members of the Church of Ireland. His father Henry was the local Station Master and his son’s birthplace was recorded in the local Church records as Athy Railway Station. The Great Western and Southern Railway had been extended to Athy and beyond just 20 years previously.
Uniquely the Station Master with the double barrel name of St. John Phillips was described in the Birth Certificates of some of his ten children as a Station Master, Watchmaker and Jeweller. What connection, if any, had he with the St. John family who were jewellers and watchmakers in Athy?
The young Henry won a scholarship as a boy soloist in the Choir of the Church of Ireland Cathedral in Derry in 1877 and it was in that city that he finished his education. He soon became the head choir boy and on Christmas Eve 1881 he took the solo soprano role in a performance of the first part of Handel’s Messiah. A local newspaper described him as having “a voice of extraordinary sweetness”.
After leaving school he became apprenticed to a music business in Derry before setting up business on his own account in that city in 1891. Phillips Piano and Music Warehouse would remain an important part of the Derry business scene for many decades. In 1907 he opened a second music shop in Belfast just a short distance from the famous Ulster Hall. Henry promoted concerts in Belfast, Derry and Dublin and one of his first such ventures featured the visit Hallé Orchestra with Hans Richter.
He also brought eminent soloists such as Kreisler, Clara Butt and John McCormack to the Belfast stage but perhaps the high point of his impresario career was the performance he promoted in Belfast in 1909 of the world’s greatest tenor Enrico Caruso.
Following the outbreak of World War 1 Henry Phillips founded an opera company which however ran into financial difficulties before being taken over by the well established and more famous Carl Rosa Company. A few years later Phillips gained control of the company which he ran until his death in 1950. He had moved to England in 1911 but kept on the Derry and Belfast shops, the latter however he sold at the end of the war.
Henry Phillips continued his concert promotion work after the War and in 1935 and 1936 achieved great success with a number of concerts put on in Derry given by John McCormack, violinist Fritz Kreisler and American singer Paul Robeson. The impresario and opera company owner Henry B. Phillips who first saw life in the Station Master’s house in Athy in 1866 passed away in London in 1950.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Barrow reminds us of her presence
The River Barrow had cut a channel through this part of the country long before there was any settlement here. It was the ability to travel by boat from the sea up the river which brought the first Anglo Normans to these parts. What was essentially a forested area soon became a medieval village located on the west bank of the river near to where the river was fordable at its shallowest point. The subsequent development of the village overcame many vicissitudes including war before it blossomed in more peaceful times as an incorporated borough and an important market town.
The River Barrow was an important element in that early development, offering as it did the only reliable channel of communication and transport to and from the south Kildare settlement. The arrival of the Grand Canal in 1791 brought great economic benefits to the town of Athy which by dint of its geographical location now found itself as one of the great centres of commerce on the transport route between Dublin and the southern ports of New Ross and Waterford. It was an advantage which depended on the continuing success of canal trade, which success was fortunately duplicated when the railway came to Athy in August 1846. The steam train became the popular carrier of passengers and freight, replacing the slower canal boat and again Athy was ideally positioned to take advantage of the new development in transport.
The early importance of the River Barrow was a matter of historical interest only as the 19th and 20th century passed. By then it no longer fulfilled any worthwhile role as a channel of transport but instead came into its own as a location for sporting activities. Rowing contests on the River Barrow were an important mid-19th century activity and extensive newspaper reports of the time confirmed the river’s undisputed relevance in terms of the social life of the local townspeople. Thomas Rawson in compiling his Statistical Survey of County Kildare published by the Dublin Society in 1807 wrote that the Barrow ‘gave a great supply of salmon 20 or 30 being frequently caught at the bridge of Athy and all the Spring season when meat was scarce and dear, salmon could be had for three half pence and two pence a pound’.
The boating activities of a few decades later brought added attention to the River Barrow. The Athy Regatta which took place on the river on 15 August 1856 was a revival of an earlier regatta which had lapsed some years previously. Amongst the prizes that day was a silver challenge cup on offer for the winners of a two-oared boat race confined to Athy residents. A press report of the regatta two years later noted that ‘the embankments presented a thronged and animated appearance’. The following year Athy’s Regatta Ball was held in the local town hall where a string band entertained from 9.30 pm while ‘Mr. Doyle, Professor of Dancing, Baltinglass’ acted as MC. The success of the local regatta moved the editor of the Leinster Express to write in his paper of 30 July 1859 ‘there is not in Ireland an inland town that can boast a more public spirit than Athy’. What a wonderful compliment for a community just ten years after the Great Famine had weakened, if not destroyed, large elements of Irish community life.
The normally benign river passing silently and endlessly through the town sometimes show a different side of its nature. In the height of winter its banks are more often than not insufficient to hold the high volume of water which flows downstream. It is then that here in Athy we take notice of the river as its banks overflow and the river waters cascade across the town Square and further downstream envelops Lords Island and other low lying lands in a watery grave.
During the week I had to drive through Rathstewart and found the road at Lower St Joseph’s Terrace submerged in water. Reading back on newspaper accounts of winter floods of the past, Rathstewart always figured prominently amongst the areas affected. Indeed until this year’s flooding of Corran Ard housing estate, flooding problems in Athy have in the past generally been confined to the Rathstewart area. Urban councillors over the years have been faced with demands to take action in relation to flooding at Rathstewart, but in practical terms nothing could ever be done. When the urban council purchased two acres of land for £180 from the Sisters of Mercy in 1932 as a site on which to build houses to replace those condemned as part of the slum clearance programme, the flood problems associated with the Rathstewart area were already well known. Messrs Duggan Brothers of Templemore built the St Joseph Terrace houses using Athy brick and as can be seen today the foundation for the houses were raised above the level of the roadway and hopefully sufficiently high to escape the perennial winter floods which always affect the area. Nevertheless over the years since the houses were first occupied in January 1936 there have been many occasions where the locals have experienced enormous difficulties due to flooding on the River Barrow.
The last great flood in Athy was experienced in February 1990 when the River Barrow again burst its banks to leave the houses in St Joseph’s Terrace cut off. At the same time the courthouse in Emily Square presented a scene I had not previously witnessed as swans swam around the building. The River Barrow never allows us to forget its presence and usually takes the opportunity each winter to remind us of the care we must exercise in terms of maintaining flood plains and other natural forms of runoffs from Irish rivers.
During the week I came across a reference to ‘Shamrock Road’. It arose in 1902 at a time when the then urban council was attempting to secure lands at the rear of old St Michael’s Cemetery as an extension to the overcrowded cemetery. The entrance to the lands identified as owned by Hollands was to be through St Michaels or ‘if feasible, to be made from Shamrock Road’. It would seem that ‘Shamrock Road’ was what we know as ‘Kildare Road’. Can anyone throw light on the subject? Finally I had a query during the week from an overseas reader regarding ‘Pipers Amusements’ which used to travel around Ireland 70 or so years ago.
I have found one reference to ‘Pipers’ in an urban council minutes of a meeting in October 1933 when mention was made of ‘living vans’ (presumably caravans) in the Pound Field. Does anyone remember Pipers Amusements or indeed any of the other travelling shows or amusements which visited Athy over the years?
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Treasure unearthed in London book shop
‘A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever’.
I can’t recall who penned these words but they strike a chord with me given my interest in books and the printed word. Over the years I have discovered many great books and some not so good, but all of them nevertheless gave enjoyment, while sometimes proving useful and informative. Earlier this year while on a visit to a second-hand book shop in Charing Cross Road, London I came across the two volume set of Kitty O’Shea’s book, ‘Charles Stewart Parnell, his Love Story and Political Life’.
I first purchased a copy of these volumes in Greene’s bookshop in Clare Street, Dublin perhaps 35 years or so ago. I was working then in Baggot Street and Greene’s bookshop and Parson’s book shop on Baggot Street Bridge where May O’Flaherty held court, were almost daily ports of call.
Despite already having a copy of Kitty O’Shea’s book I decided to buy the set on sale at the Charing Cross Road book shop. The book was very reasonably priced and was a nice copy, despite some adoring mother having inscribed a dedication on the fly leaf.
Some months later a copy of the same book was for auction in England. The book was inscribed by Kitty O’Shea, using her married name Katherine Parnell and with it was a letter signed by Gladstone, the British Prime Minister addressed to Captain O’Shea MP. I have always had a high regard for William Ewart Gladstone, the first British Prime Minister ever to take a considerate view to what the British call ‘The Irish Question’.
He drew up the first Home Rule Bill and resigned in 1886 when many of his own party voted against the measure, thereby ensuring its defeat. One of the longest serving Westminster politicians, Gladstone finally resigned from politics in 1894 when he was 84 years of age. His espousal of the cause of Irish Home Rule was just one of the many causes which marked his as the greatest political career of the 19th century.
Gladstone’s letter, coupled with Kitty O’Shea’s inscribed book, was the prize I succeeded in securing at the auction and some weeks later both items arrived in Athy. Katherine Parnell had inscribed Volume 1 of her book to ‘T.S. Curtis with kind regards’. Her writing looked familiar and I wondered where I had seen it before. I turned to the other recently acquired volumes of the same book and there in the same hand with obviously the same pen was the inscription ‘Norah, with dearest love from mother.’ It was Kitty O’Shea’s handwriting and she had signed the volumes published in 1914 to her daughter Norah. You can imagine my delight at such an unexpected find.
Kitty O’Shea married Charles Stewart Parnell just five months before he died in Brighton on 6 October 1891. Their relationship which began soon after they met in 1880 resulted in the birth of three children, the first of whom died soon after birth, while the other two daughters of Parnell lived until 1909 and 1947 respectively. Both married and his daughter Clare had an only daughter who died in 1941. There is no surviving direct descendant of Parnell.
Norah, to whom Kitty O’Shea inscribed her book, was her second child by Captain O’Shea and was born seven years before Parnell met her mother. Norah continued to live with her mother Kitty following Parnell’s death and they moved house on several occasions over the years, always living on the south coast of England, before returning to Brighton.
The book, ‘Charles Stewart Parnell, his Love Story and Political Life’, was published in 1914 at a time when Katherine Parnell was in dire financial straits and is believed to have been edited by her son Gerard O’Shea. Reviewed by the national newspapers of the day the book was lambasted by many, although the London Times in its review gave an accurate resume of the book and commented that it gave a new insight into the Parnell O’Shea relationship which redeemed Captain O’Shea’s reputation from the previously made charge of connivance in his wife’s affair with Parnell.
The book sales allowed the impoverished Kitty to live in some comfort and shortly before she died in 1921 she moved to the seaside town of Littlehampton. Her daughter Norah, who had by then moved to London as her mother’s health and wealth improved, now returned to Littlehampton.
Katherine Parnell passed away on 5 February 1921, 30 years after the death of the Irish leader. In contrast to the huge funeral which Parnell was given in Dublin, his wife Kitty’s coffin was followed by only two horsedrawn carriages, one of which was empty as it passed slowly through the streets of Littlehampton to the local cemetery. Her grave is marked with a cross inscribed ‘To the beloved memory of Katherine, widow of Charles Stewart Parnell – born 30th January 1845. Died 5th February 1921, Fide et Amore.’
Kitty’s daughter Norah was penniless following her mother’s death and sought help from the Irish Parliamentarian TP O’Connor who got her a position as a nursery governess in a London hospital. She used the name Norah Woods, rather than O’Shea, because of the notoriety attached to her mother’s name which, even so many years after Parnell’s death, was still likely to lead to troublesome questions. Norah died aged 50 years on 16 July 1923 and was buried next to her mother at Littlehampton.
She left a box containing relics of her mother’s relationship with Parnell which in 1956 was passed to Sir Shane Leslie who eventually gave the contents to the Kilmainham Jail Museum in Dublin.
How the book inscribed by Kitty to her daughter Norah came to be in the second-hand bookshop in Charing Cross Road is a mystery. The happy coincidence of a book auction purchase of a book inscribed by Katherine Parnell allowed a book inscribed ‘To Norah from her mother’ to be identified as written by the former Kitty O’Shea whose love for the Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell had far reaching and lasting consequences for the political destiny of the Irish people.
Your own opportunity to buy books of interest comes with the Lions book sale scheduled to take place in the premises next to the Emigrant Pub at Barrow Quay on Saturday and Sunday, 28 and 29 November.
The premises have been kindly lent for the book sale by John Gallagher and books will be on sale on Saturday from 10am to 6pm and on Sunday from noon to 5p.m. All proceeds go to local charities and donations of good clean books are very welcome. Books can be left into the offices of Taaffe & Co. at Edmund Rice Square, Athy up to and including Friday and into the book sale premises on either Saturday and Sunday.
I can’t recall who penned these words but they strike a chord with me given my interest in books and the printed word. Over the years I have discovered many great books and some not so good, but all of them nevertheless gave enjoyment, while sometimes proving useful and informative. Earlier this year while on a visit to a second-hand book shop in Charing Cross Road, London I came across the two volume set of Kitty O’Shea’s book, ‘Charles Stewart Parnell, his Love Story and Political Life’.
I first purchased a copy of these volumes in Greene’s bookshop in Clare Street, Dublin perhaps 35 years or so ago. I was working then in Baggot Street and Greene’s bookshop and Parson’s book shop on Baggot Street Bridge where May O’Flaherty held court, were almost daily ports of call.
Despite already having a copy of Kitty O’Shea’s book I decided to buy the set on sale at the Charing Cross Road book shop. The book was very reasonably priced and was a nice copy, despite some adoring mother having inscribed a dedication on the fly leaf.
Some months later a copy of the same book was for auction in England. The book was inscribed by Kitty O’Shea, using her married name Katherine Parnell and with it was a letter signed by Gladstone, the British Prime Minister addressed to Captain O’Shea MP. I have always had a high regard for William Ewart Gladstone, the first British Prime Minister ever to take a considerate view to what the British call ‘The Irish Question’.
He drew up the first Home Rule Bill and resigned in 1886 when many of his own party voted against the measure, thereby ensuring its defeat. One of the longest serving Westminster politicians, Gladstone finally resigned from politics in 1894 when he was 84 years of age. His espousal of the cause of Irish Home Rule was just one of the many causes which marked his as the greatest political career of the 19th century.
Gladstone’s letter, coupled with Kitty O’Shea’s inscribed book, was the prize I succeeded in securing at the auction and some weeks later both items arrived in Athy. Katherine Parnell had inscribed Volume 1 of her book to ‘T.S. Curtis with kind regards’. Her writing looked familiar and I wondered where I had seen it before. I turned to the other recently acquired volumes of the same book and there in the same hand with obviously the same pen was the inscription ‘Norah, with dearest love from mother.’ It was Kitty O’Shea’s handwriting and she had signed the volumes published in 1914 to her daughter Norah. You can imagine my delight at such an unexpected find.
Kitty O’Shea married Charles Stewart Parnell just five months before he died in Brighton on 6 October 1891. Their relationship which began soon after they met in 1880 resulted in the birth of three children, the first of whom died soon after birth, while the other two daughters of Parnell lived until 1909 and 1947 respectively. Both married and his daughter Clare had an only daughter who died in 1941. There is no surviving direct descendant of Parnell.
Norah, to whom Kitty O’Shea inscribed her book, was her second child by Captain O’Shea and was born seven years before Parnell met her mother. Norah continued to live with her mother Kitty following Parnell’s death and they moved house on several occasions over the years, always living on the south coast of England, before returning to Brighton.
The book, ‘Charles Stewart Parnell, his Love Story and Political Life’, was published in 1914 at a time when Katherine Parnell was in dire financial straits and is believed to have been edited by her son Gerard O’Shea. Reviewed by the national newspapers of the day the book was lambasted by many, although the London Times in its review gave an accurate resume of the book and commented that it gave a new insight into the Parnell O’Shea relationship which redeemed Captain O’Shea’s reputation from the previously made charge of connivance in his wife’s affair with Parnell.
The book sales allowed the impoverished Kitty to live in some comfort and shortly before she died in 1921 she moved to the seaside town of Littlehampton. Her daughter Norah, who had by then moved to London as her mother’s health and wealth improved, now returned to Littlehampton.
Katherine Parnell passed away on 5 February 1921, 30 years after the death of the Irish leader. In contrast to the huge funeral which Parnell was given in Dublin, his wife Kitty’s coffin was followed by only two horsedrawn carriages, one of which was empty as it passed slowly through the streets of Littlehampton to the local cemetery. Her grave is marked with a cross inscribed ‘To the beloved memory of Katherine, widow of Charles Stewart Parnell – born 30th January 1845. Died 5th February 1921, Fide et Amore.’
Kitty’s daughter Norah was penniless following her mother’s death and sought help from the Irish Parliamentarian TP O’Connor who got her a position as a nursery governess in a London hospital. She used the name Norah Woods, rather than O’Shea, because of the notoriety attached to her mother’s name which, even so many years after Parnell’s death, was still likely to lead to troublesome questions. Norah died aged 50 years on 16 July 1923 and was buried next to her mother at Littlehampton.
She left a box containing relics of her mother’s relationship with Parnell which in 1956 was passed to Sir Shane Leslie who eventually gave the contents to the Kilmainham Jail Museum in Dublin.
How the book inscribed by Kitty to her daughter Norah came to be in the second-hand bookshop in Charing Cross Road is a mystery. The happy coincidence of a book auction purchase of a book inscribed by Katherine Parnell allowed a book inscribed ‘To Norah from her mother’ to be identified as written by the former Kitty O’Shea whose love for the Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell had far reaching and lasting consequences for the political destiny of the Irish people.
Your own opportunity to buy books of interest comes with the Lions book sale scheduled to take place in the premises next to the Emigrant Pub at Barrow Quay on Saturday and Sunday, 28 and 29 November.
The premises have been kindly lent for the book sale by John Gallagher and books will be on sale on Saturday from 10am to 6pm and on Sunday from noon to 5p.m. All proceeds go to local charities and donations of good clean books are very welcome. Books can be left into the offices of Taaffe & Co. at Edmund Rice Square, Athy up to and including Friday and into the book sale premises on either Saturday and Sunday.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Identification successfully complete
With the help of a number of readers and especially Matt Perse, the Athy players, officials and supporters whose photograph appeared here some weeks ago have now been identified. For the record the photograph is reproduced again, with all the names. The team’s goalkeeper, who now lives in Kill, believes that the photograph was taken in 1958, possibly on the occasion of a quarter final match against Raheens which Athy lost narrowly. However, he has since had second thoughts as he felt that Brendan Kehoe played in that match, yet Brendan is not included in the photograph. Can any of my readers identify when and where the photograph was taken?The photograph shows at the back from left Matt Murray, Tom Clandillon, Tony Taaffe, Eugene Deering, Mick Carolan, Joe Day, Hugh Moran, Joe McEvoy, John Sullivan, Sean Vernal, Tim O’Sullivan, Brendan McNulty, John Flood, Lazerian Kehoe, Harry Mulhall, Johnny Wynne, Noel Rochford and Derek Candy. In front from left are Anthony O’Sullivan, Ambrose McConville, Brendan Owens, Mick Dooley, Johnny Morrissey, Andy Smith, Danny Kavanagh and Terry Holligan. The two young boys are Matt Murray Junior and his brother Thomas.
I had a call recently from Denis Doyle of Letterkenny who worked for years in the tourism business in the northwest of the country. His father was Denis Doyle, a brother of Jim, Jackie, Joe and Pat Doyle, all members of an old Athy family. Denis married Kathleen Looney, daughter of John Looney of Woodstock Street, who survived the horrors of World War I in which he served as a stretcher bearer. Kathleen Looney worked as a dressmaker in Duke Street, while her brother Paddy married and lived in 16 Woodstock Street and another brother John emigrated to England. Her only sister Maisie married Joe Hanley, a Sergeant Major in the Irish Army, and they also lived in Woodstock Street for a time before moving to Dublin.
I would appreciate hearing from any of the readers of the column who know the Doyle or Looney families.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Events mark our maturing as a people
This past weekend Athy hosted a number of events, one of which brought us face to face with our distant past observed as never before by a mature and confident Irish people. The other event was in its own way a mark of our growing confidence as a nation and our belief in the importance of our native language. Remembering a lost generation destroyed during World War I on Remembrance Sunday in St. Michael’s Cemetery was in a sense recalling the town’s recent history as a ‘garrison town’. On the other hand the taking over by the Gaelscoil of the recently built school building at Rathstewart spoke of a growing confidence in the Irishness of a people living in what was once an Anglo Norman town.Our native language has been on the retreat for centuries. Indeed here in this part of County Kildare Irish has not been the everyday language of the local people for more than 200 years. Various attempts to revive the language were made over the years. The Gaelic League established in Dublin in 1893 as Conradh na Gaeilge opened a branch in Athy, when exactly I cannot say, but a contemporary note records that the Athy branch was ‘revived’ in January 1919. This was at a time when the anglicisation of Ireland was at its height and everything Irish was being thrust aside in favour of English ways. It was also a time when the law discriminated against the Irish language. Padraig Pearse in his only appearance before the Courts unsuccessfully defended a carter who insisted in putting his name on his cart in Irish rather than in English. Here in Athy an Irish teacher based in the newly opened Technical School in Stanhope Street was convicted and fined at the Petty Sessions held in the Courthouse for signing his name in Irish.
Brigid Darby, National school teacher, who lived with her mother in Leinster Street, was Treasurer of the Gaelic League, the Secretary being James Kealy, while Michael Dooley, shopkeeper of Duke Street, was the League President. The latter was also Chairman of the local Sinn Fein Club and the Gaelic League and Sinn Fein would appear to have shared many of the same members. The League put on Irish classes in the evening and employed James Tierney of Woodstock Street for that purpose, but for whatever reason the League appears to have discontinued operating in Athy in and around December 1921. It was revived again sometime in the late 1940s by Kevin Meany and others, but like its predecessors seems to have run out of steam after a few uneventful years. A further revival of the Gaelic League in the 1950s involving the late Paddy Walsh, Kevin Meany and others, also petered out after a while.
It was the setting up of Athy’s Glór na nGael in 1994 which in time proved to be the most successful Irish organisation in the town. The initiative came from Kathleen Robinson during her term as President of the local Chamber of Commerce. She organised the first Seachtain na nGaeilge. The aim was to encourage local shopkeepers to make use of the Irish language for one week in the year during the course of their business. Advertising signs in Irish, coupled with the effort to speak in Irish, was the aim of the Chamber of Commerce sponsored Seachtain na nGaeilge over the following few years. It was people such as Peadar O’Murchú, the late Paddy Walsh, Maisie Candy, David Murphy, John Watchorn and Kathleen Robinson who over the years kept the language movement alive here in Athy. Glór na nGael set up the first Gaelscoil in Athy in December 2004, using Aontas Ógra’s premises adjoining the former Dreamland Ballroom to accommodate its first Junior Infants Class. 21 young boys and girls enrolled that first week and their teacher was Michael O’Cuinneagain. The following November Sinead Ni Nualláin from Graiguecullen in Carlow joined the teaching staff and today Sinead is Principal of the seven teacher Gaelscoil Atha Í. In November 2005 the Gaelscoil moved from the Aontas Ogra premises to the Athy Soccer Clubhouse at the Showgrounds. There the classes expanded each year and were housed in the Soccer Clubhouse which accommodated two classes and in four prefabricated buildings.
The inter-denominational and co-educational school now caters for 144 pupils, with seven teachers. They are Sinead Ni Nualláin, Treasa Ni Earchaí, Fiona Nic Seon, Gobnait Bhreathnach, Doireann Ni Raghnaigh, Eamonn O’Ceidigh and Sorcha ni Mhisteil. The Gaelscoil is part of the Gaelscoil movement which operates under the Department of Education but its teachers are not part of the panel system operated by the Department. This is to ensure that only Irish speaking teachers are employed within the Gaelscoil system. Pupils start at junior infant level and by the end of their second year in senior infants most will have a marked proficiency in the Irish language. All subjects with the exception of English are taught through Irish.
Last Saturday I joined my first grandchild Rachel on the school’s Open Day which coincided with the transfer of the Gaelscoil from the Athy Soccer Club premises to the purpose-built school in Rathstewart. The building, just one year old, had previously housed part of St. Patrick’s Boys National School which has now transferred to another new building on the same campus. The Gaelscoil children, as you can imagine, were excited viewing their new school and parents and teachers alike shared in the excitement of their new premises. I was delighted to meet Sinead Ni Nualláin, School Principal, whose father Seamus and her grandfather Jim, who was in his time a member of Carlow Urban District Council, encouraged the use of Irish and so Sinead from a young age developed a proficiency in the speaking of our native tongue.
It is one of the great regrets of my life that despite fourteen years of primary and secondary education I was never able to speak the Irish language, other than badly. I blame the system of Irish teaching in vogue during my years in the Christian Brothers School. It was a system imposed by departmental mandarins whose lack of appreciation of what was required to develop Irish as a spoken language was indefensible. I left the educational system, like so many of my peers, disliking the Irish language, the teaching of which was so unappealing and quite frankly downright depressing. If, like me, you would like to repair the damage of an inadequate schooling in our native tongue, note that the Gaelscoil will be holding Irish language classes every Monday evening in its new school at Rathstewart, with beginners’ classes at 7 p.m. and improver classes at 8.15 p.m.
Two launches during the past week have given us here in Athy a cultural fillip, just in time for the forthcoming Christmas season. I missed the launch of ‘Skin’ Kelly’s book, ‘Winner alright – Skinner alright’, but made amends the following day by buying the book. I began reading it that same evening and enjoyed it so much that I did not put it down until the last page was reached. It is a delightful book, easy to read and well written. A thoroughly enjoyable book, it is highly recommended.
The Photographic Society’s exhibition in the Wet Paint Gallery (which used to be Miss Dallon’s shop combined with part of the old Leinster Arms Hotel) is a fine example of the artistic qualities of some of Athy’s finest photographers. Many of the Society’s members are truly artists with cameras, with the ability to capture and reproduce images as good as any created by artists working in different mediums. The Exhibition, which continues for a few weeks, is well worth a visit. The Photographic Society’s annual calendar is also on sale and it again shows twelve examples of the Society’s members best photographic work in and around Athy. It will make a wonderful gift for Christmas, especially for Athy people living abroad.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Remembering our war dead
Her mother wore a poppy every Remembrance Sunday. She wore it around the house but seldom ventured outside the door that particular Sunday as she would ordinarily do every other day of the year. ‘Why do you wear that thing mother?’ her young daughter asked, her enquiry born of curiosity as much as a growing awareness of a young Free Stater’s dislike of emblems of a failed empire.Some years were to pass before the mother explained to her daughter why she wore the poppy. ‘It’s to remember my young brother Michael – he was just 19 years of age when he died’. Michael Territt’s sister would continue to remember her long lost young brother, even as she grew into old age. For years she treasured the last poppy she was able to buy on the streets of Athy, keeping it for that one Sunday each year when with hundreds of other mothers and sisters her thoughts turned to a time when young men left Athy with high spirits never to return.
Michael Territt died of his wounds in Flanders on 22nd June 1916, aged 19 years. He had enlisted in the Dublin Fusiliers the previous year, exchanging the Territt family home in Chapel Lane, Athy for the Military Barracks in Naas. He landed in Gallipoli in October 1915 and left the following January for Alexandria before travelling on to France. Wounded at Mailly Wood, Flanders on 20th June 1916 he died two days later. Michael Territt is buried in Mailly – Maillet Communal Cemetery and the army records show that he was survived by his mother Mrs. M.A. Territt of Chapel Lane, Athy. There was no mention of his brothers or sisters.
The story of Michael Joseph Territt and his part in the first World War is the same story told and retold hundreds of times in every town and village in Ireland. The euphoria of war time exploits shorn of the depravity of death and mangled bodies was in itself sufficient encouragement for young Irish men to enlist after August 1914. The boredom of unemployment, coupled with the opportunity for travel overseas, was more than enough to encourage even the most reluctant to don the khaki and shoulder the much vaunted Lee Enfield. Much encouragement came from the local Church and civic leaders, who from a recruiting platform positioned under the Town Hall clock in Emily Square called on the young local men to join the ranks, ‘to fight the Hun’ – ‘to fight for the cause of little Belgium’. The Parish Priest and the Chairman of the Urban District Council led the call for local recruits and the local men joined up in their hundreds. Those who enlisted were paraded to the local railway station behind the Leinster Street Fife and Drum Band, cheered on by the women folk of the town. The people of Athy it seemed shared a common mission, seldom if ever before matched or ever again equalled. There were a few disapproving voices, but only a very small minority who caught up in the Gaelic League Movement saw little reason to support the country which had denied Home Rule to the Irish people.
No one questioned the decision of the young men who volunteered to serve abroad following the declaration of war. No one questioned their motives and certainly no one questioned their allegiance to the country of their birth. The young men of Athy left these shores with the support and with the good wishes of those they left behind.
What happened while they were away fighting and dying in the mud of Flanders fields to turn that support into disapproval, culminating at the end of war into denial? When those young men who were fortunate to survive the war returned home after November 1918 they came back to a country which had experienced the Easter Rebellion of 1916. This was soon followed by the execution of its leaders and a shift in support for the emerging Sinn Fein organisation left the returning soldiers isolated and cut adrift from the public support they had previously enjoyed. As they returned to their homes having spent up to four years experiencing the horrors of war torn Europe these battle hardened young men found themselves, not as war heroes as they might have expected, but as an embarrassing reminder of an earlier failed parliamentary movement for Home Rule.
I remember as a young lad a number of local men who decades after the war were still suffering the effects of gas poisoning and other injuries sustained in France and Flanders. They were a forgotten generation, forgotten not just by local Church and civic leaders who had encouraged them to enlist, but also forgotten, indeed positively ignored, by a townspeople, some of whom actively, most however passively, had supported the drive for Irish independence. If the War of Independence and the subsequent Civil War were difficult times for surviving Irish soldiers of World War I (some of whom were summarily executed), the post Independence period also brought its difficulties. The comradeship of war kept alive in British Legion halls throughout Ireland and by the annual Remembrance Sunday ceremonies held throughout the Free State in the 1920s disappeared soon after the election of the first Fianna Fáil government in 1932. De Valera’s nation building had no place of honour for the men of 1914-18.
It was a later generation, more tolerant and perhaps less prejudiced, which sought to recover for Irish history a past generation’s part in our common history. Twenty or so years ago it was inconceivable that any Irish person would wear a poppy in public on Remembrance Sunday or that any form of ceremony would be held in an Irish provincial town to commemorate the men who died in the First World War. But it did happen here in Athy and I am proud to say that I was part of a small group who publicly acknowledged the part that a past but forgotten generation of Athy men played in the ever developing history of Athy.
In St. Michael’s old Cemetery are the graves of six Athy soldiers who died at home during World War I. On next Sunday, 8th November at 3.00 p.m., a short ceremony will take place in St. Michael’s cemetery to honour the memory of all those men from Athy and district who died in the Great War. Many of those men have no known grave. Others like Michael Territt lie in graves close to where they died in battle. Remembrance Sunday is the one day in the yearly calendar when we can show our respects for our town’s war dead. I hope you can join in the Remembrance ceremony in St. Michael’s next Sunday at 3.30 p.m.
Last week Johnny Timpson passed away after a long battle with illness. He attended the Christian Brothers Schools in St. John’s Lane where he excelled as a Latin scholar and was a fine footballer in his day. Johnny came from an old Athy family and like many of those families he too had members of his extended family who fought and died in World War I.
Like me, Johnny was born of a generation which was not decimated by war. Michael Territt and his generation bore the brunt of war and in return got little or no appreciation for what they and their families suffered. We can still make amends for that omission.
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