Official Opening of newly developed Emily Square

It was wonderful to see the official opening of Athy’s plaza coinciding with the completion of two excellent murals on the walls of O’Brien’s pub and Osborne’s solicitors, which have been part of Athy’s commercial life for more than 100 years. It is marvellous that we can now enjoy the works of two talented artists, courtesy of those property owners, the artists and Kildare County Council. Congratulations to Shauna Blanchfield and Emily Rainsford, the artists involved. The official opening of Athy’s plaza was an event which caught the local community’s interest, and despite the poor weather it attracted a sizeable crowd of locals. Did I imagine it or were there nine or ten speakers on the platform, all giving us the same message? Thankfully the speeches were relatively short, despite the impression that we were attending a County Council meeting! I enjoyed all the fine music that day, but would also have liked to see Athy’s Comhaltas Ceoltóirí on stage. The entire event was a memorable one and was a fitting end to the first-class work in the remodeling of Emily Square. There is one area of the Council’s work with which I must, however, disagree. The 1798 memorial should have been positioned where the Duke of Leinster’s fountain is now located. The fountain, which no longer works, is of no architectural importance and might have been better transferred to the People’s Park which was gifted by the Duke of Leinster to the people of Athy in the 1850s. After all, it was in the square in Athy that triangles were erected and where local men were flogged during the 1798 Rebellion. I hope that the clock in the Town Hall, soon to re-open as the ‘Shackleton Experience’, will be operational before long. Can someone in Kildare County Council confirm this? I have what is perhaps an unusual request to make in relation to the bell which hangs over the clock. The bell was made for the Church of Ireland church located in the back square in 1682, and it was transferred to the Town Hall when that church was demolished following the opening of the present St. Michael’s Church of Ireland in 1840. Would it be possible to have the bell ring at noon every day? I believe that if the three hundred-year old bell is rung at noon every day it would be a reminder of our heritage and history, and a unique feature of today’s Athy. What about it, Kildare County Council? Following the reopening of the Square, which I now call the ‘plaza’, a ceremony took place on the following day in St. Michael’s Church on the Carlow Road to celebrate the reopening of the church. This followed a three-month closure to facilitate improvement works. The ceremony, organised by the Select Vestry members and the Rector, Rev. Conor O’Reilly, was attended by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Michael Jackson and the Parish Priest of St. Michael’s Catholic Church, Fr. Liam Rigney. It was wonderful to see Fr. Rigney’s presence and his involvement in the ceremony. It reminded me of the time many decades ago when we Catholics were actively discouraged from entering Protestant churches, and I am sure Protestants were discouraged from attending Catholic churches. How ridiculous it was in stopping either side from attending neighbours’ funerals, for example. Can you recall the members of the Irish government standing outside the railings of St. Patrick’s, Dublin while the funeral service of our first president, Douglas Hyde, was taking place inside the cathedral? Great to see Fr. Rigney giving a talk during the ceremony and participating in the service. Well done to Carol Coyle, organist, and the ‘Stedfast’ band who provided music during the service. While writing of the ‘Stedfast’ band I am reminded of a query I had from an amateur musician recently arrived in Athy who is keen to join an ensemble, having played with the Butter Exchange Brass and Reed Band in Cork. I am surprised that Athy with its rich history of pipe bands, marching bands and showbands has not at present a local brass band. Are there, I wonder, any musicians interested in coming together to form a band? If so please contact me. On musical matters, I was sorry to learn that ‘Shepherd’s Watched’ will not be performed before Christmas, as it has been for the last 35 years. I gather this is because the Athy Musical and Dramatic Society is currently inactive, which is a pity given the honorable legacy of Athy’s musical and dramatic societies going back over many decades. However, I believe that Capella Productions Athy are currently in rehearsal, under their musical director Joseph Gorman, for a Christmas production in the Parish Church in December. Another loss to Athy is the annual art exhibition which gave local artists, as well as artists from Carlow and elsewhere, the opportunity to display and sell their work. Could we hope that both the Musical and Dramatic Society and the Athy Art Group can be revived? I cannot finish this week’s Eye without congratulating the Clanard Court Hotel management team and staff on being declared amongst the best 100 hotels in Ireland. This is a wonderful achievement when one considers that there are more than 700 hotels in the country. Remember, the Lions Club’s Book Fair takes place in the A.R.C.H. on Saturday 4th October, starting at 11am and finishing at 4pm.

Tour of St. Michael's Cemetery led by Michael Donovan and Clem Roche (2)

The tour of the ancient cemetery of St. Michael’s by Michael Donovan and Clem Roche concluded with a visit to the graves of the six Athy men and one woman who enlisted and died during World War I. They found a last resting place in their home town unlike many others who lie buried in foreign soil. The bodies of many of those unfortunate men were never found while other Athy men were laid to rest in military cemeteries as far apart as France, Belgium, Turkey, Iraq and Germany. The 1914-18 War saw more men from Athy enlisting than any other town in County Kildare. Athy also suffered the greatest casualties in the war with more than one hundred and twenty deaths. How sad it must have been for James and Mary Kelly of 4 Chapel Lane to receive a telegram from the War Office advising of the death of their twenty-year-old son John in Netley Hospital England on the 23rd May 1915. John had enlisted on the same day as his brother Owen who aged twenty-one years was killed in action on the 1st August 1915 and is buried in France. The Kelly parents John and his wife, the former Mary Haslem were to receive a third War Office telegram following the death of another son on the 30th September 1918. Denis Kelly was only twenty years of age and he is buried in Belgium. One can only imagine the sadness which surrounded the Kelly family following the loss of three young sons. It was a sadness which was also felt by John and Margaret Curtis of Kilcrow who like the Kellys received telegrams from the War Office advising of the death of their sons Patrick and John. A telegram advising of the death of another son was sent to the wife of Laurence Curtis who had married and lived in Glasgow. Patrick ,who had enlisted in the British Army in 1909, was killed on the 5th November 1914 aged twenty-six years. His brother John who worked in Glasgow was killed in action on the 9th January 1917 aged twenty-four years while his other brother Laurence Curtis died of wounds on the 4th December 1917 aged thirty-four years. Their brother Ted who served during the war survived. Another Chapel Lane family to suffer the a loss of three sons were the Byrnes who later resided at 11 James’s Place, Athy. James Byrne, a shoemaker and his wife Bridget, lost two sons, Joseph killed in action on the 26th April 1915 aged twenty-one years and Antnony, killed in action two days later, aged seventeen years. Another son, James, was killed in action on the 30th March 1916 aged twenty-four years. Athy families who lost sons during World War I included the Stafford family of Butler’s Row who lost son Edward, a reservist recalled to the ranks in August 1914. He died of wounds on the 24th September 1914 aged twenty-eight years, while his brother Thomas was killed in action in France on the 6th September 1916 aged twenty-five years. Both were survived by another brother Frank who also served during World War I. Some years ago when I was Chairman of Athy U.D.C. I received a letter from Mrs. Mae Vagis who lived in America and who recalled her father Edward Stafford leaving his home in Butler’s Row to join the British Army. She was then seven years old and recalled the sadness in the Stafford household when the telegram arrived advising of her father’s death. That same sadness pervaded the Heydon family of Churchtown when two Heydon brothers were killed in action. Both Patrick Heyden and Aloysius Heyden enlisted in Liverpool and Patrick was killed in France on the 4th September 1914 aged thirty-one years. His brother Aloysius was killed in France on the 27th November 1917 aged twenty-six years. The Heritage Centre was presented many years ago with a beautiful memorial to the Heydon brothers made of spent ammunition by their comrades in the Irish Guards. Another family who suffered the loss of two sons were the Flynn family of Whitebog, Athy. Their sons Thomas, who enlisted in the Connaught Rangers, died of T.B in the Athy workhouse on the 26th February 1915 aged 23 years. Another son Patrick was killed in action in France on the 14th September 1916 aged 21 years. Thomas Flynn is buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery and his grave was visited during the cemetery tour. Both Thomas and Patrick enlisted on the same day and uniquely both were members of Churchtown National Volunteers. The Hannon families suffered the deaths of four sons during World War I. Henry Hannon, who enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, was killed in action near Ypres on the 9th June 1916 aged twenty-four years. He was a cousin of John Coulson Hannon who was killed in action on the 18th August 1916 aged twenty-four years and his brother Norman Leslie who was killed in action on the 14th May 1915 aged twenty years. Both John and Norman were the sons of John and Martha Hannon of Ardreigh House from where I am writing this Eye. Another cousin, Thomas Hannon who died of his wounds on the 1st December 1917 aged twenty years, was born in Ardreigh House, the only child of Georgina Hannon whose husband died two weeks before the birth. The deaths of over 120 men from Athy who enlisted in the British Army during World War I is perhaps an indication of the poverty which marked the lives of so many Athy families. One family had eight sons who enlisted. They were the sons of Michael Delaney, a labourer and his wife, the former Margaret Curtis who lived in Ballytore. Two sons Andrew and William died, Andrew of gas poisoning in Netley Hospital on the 31st May 1916 aged thirty-six years and William killed in action on the 13th March 1916 aged twenty-two years. Andrew was buried in Crookstown while his brother rests in Flanders. Andrew Delaney’s story and his war documents are featured on a video in Athy’s Heritage Centre. The graves of World War I soldiers buried in St. Michael’s, Michael Byrne of Green Alley, James Dwyer of Canal Side, Martin Hyland of Offaly Street, John Lawler of Ardreigh, Michael O’Brien of Meeting Lane and that of Eleanor Orford of Foxhill, were visited during the tour. Thanks to Michael Donovan and Clem Roche for remembering the Athy men and Eleanor Orford who died during World War I.

Tour of St. Michael's Cemetery led by Michael Donovan and Clem Roche (1)

One of the highlights of the Heritage Week lectures here in Athy was the tour of Old St. Michael’s Cemetery given by Michael Donovan and Clem Roche. The cemetery which has been used for centuries surrounds a stone-built church, the foundation date of which is uncertain. However, we know that the church was referred to in 1297 and the cemetery is still in use today almost seven hundred and thirty years later. When the small church was built, it was located well away from the Anglo-Norman village of Athy which had developed around the first Woodstock Castle erected on the west side of the River Barrow. The French speaking Anglo Normans were Catholics, as were the native Irish and the settlers religious needs were catered for by the Crouched Friars’ monastery of St. John’s and the Dominican Friary on the east bank of the River Barrow. It is believed that the native Irish who provided labour and services for the settlers built their own small church now located in the middle of old St. Michael’s Cemetery. The tour started at the entrance gate of the cemetery where a lych gate once stood. That was a common feature in all cemeteries of the medieval age and later and consisted of a covered gateway with a wooden bench upon which the corpse was rested while the priest conducted the initial part of the service. In post medieval times, the deceased was brought to the cemetery in a parish coffin and it was at the lych gate that the corpse was removed and buried in a shroud or sheet while the coffin was returned to its base. A parish coffin was extensively used during the burial of workhouse deceased during the Great Famine. Just a few yards to the right of St. Michael’s cemetery gate is the grave of Paddy Johnson who lived in one of the small cottages at Bothair Bui which were demolished to facilitate the entry of railway line into Athy. Paddy who later died had the extraordinary coincidence of being buried IN what was once his own back yard. Michael Donovan, who produced a handsome written account of his cemetery talk, next dealt with the grave of 15-year-old Alexander Henry who died on the 1st October 1849. His father was John Henry of Glenbawn, Athy who wrote “Athy and its recollections” in 1850. John emigrated to Australia with his wife and their six children a year later but tragically his wife Anne and a young child Andrew died during the journey. Their son Richard who died in 1929 was the curator and caretaker of the world’s first island sanctuary for birds on Resolution Island on the southwest corner of the southern island of New Zealand. Next the tour went to Dominican burials, which I must confess I was not previously aware of. The grave slab records that Fr. Thomas Cummins who died October 1788 spent forty years as a Dominican Priest in the town of Athy. Also buried there was Fr. James Dunne who died in 1704 allegedly aged 115 years and Fr. Michael McMahon a young Dominican who died aged 29 years. The departure of the Dominican’s from Athy on the 22nd November 2015 after almost 750 years in the town was one of the saddest ever losses by the people of Athy. A grave which was restored some years ago by representatives of the Latvian community in Ireland following a long period of neglect was of Latvian revolutionary, socialist and civil engineer Konrad Peterson. Peterson fled to Ireland following his part in the Latvian revolt against Russia and soon became involved in Irish national politics. He returned to the Independent Latvia which was subsequently invaded by both Germany and Russia during World War II. He met C.S. Andrews Chief Executive Officer of Bord Na Mona at a conference in Sweden who invited him to take up an appointment with Bord Na Mona at their factory in Kilberry. On retirement he lived with his daughter who was married to Dr. Sean Murphy in Athy. He died aged 93 years in 1981. Following an Eye on the Past I wrote on Konrad some years ago, the Latvian Ambassador contacted me and arranged for a delegation of Latvian officials to come to Athy for a commemorative ceremony at Konrad’s graveside. In the Presbyterian section of St. Michael’s Cemetery are the Campbell and Hannon family graves. Charles Campbell was a Scottish soccer player who was a key player for Queen Park Club and the Scottish National team. He won 8 Scottish Cup winner medals with Queen Park and 8 International caps with Scotland. At the end of his footballing career, he was elected President of Queen Park club and in 1889 was elected President of the Scottish Football Association. His parents came to Kilkea in the mid-19th century to take over a farm and Charles later took up ownership of the Campbell farm where he died in 1927. Nearby is the grave of John Alexander Hannon and his wife Martha who lost two sons John Coulson, known as Ion, and Norman Leslie in the First World War. John was the owner of Prumplestown and Ardreigh. His son Gordan was ordained a Minister in the Church of Ireland in 1917. Gordan’s wedding arranged for April 1923 in Ballymoney went ahead, despite his father’s death by suicide some days previously in his residence at Ardreigh House. Gordan’s son Brian was also ordained and finished his clerical career as Bishop of Clogher. His son Neil is the notable singer and songwriter. …………………. TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

Rev. Samuel Cotton (Part 2)

Rev. Samuel Cotton after 14 years as Rector of Kilberry Parish transferred to Caragh Parish following the appointment of the previous incumbent Rev. Arthur Archer to the Parish of Donard. This occurred in 1862 but some years previously Cotton married a Kilberry woman, Elizabeth Johnson, daughter of Major Henry Johnson of the 25th Royal Welsh Fusiliers. There was no glebe house in Caragh and for the first four or five years of his Caragh vicarage Rev. Cotton is believed to have lived in Dublin. It was while in Dublin that he joined the Dublin Protestant Orphanage Society and became it’s Assistant Secretary in 1864. He resigned a year later and immediately sought funds to build a Glebe House in Caragh and also an orphanage. The lack of popularity which Rev. Cotton experienced with his parishioners in Kilberry appears to have repeated itself with his Caragh parishioners. He himself noted having called vestry meetings in 1864, 1866 and 1868 which no parishioners attended. The orphanage in Caragh appears to have been opened in 1865. Why did Cotton open the orphanage? One can only surmise that the Church of Ireland fundamentalist saw it as an opportunity to secure Roman Catholic infants and young children to be brought up as members of the Church of Ireland. Very soon after the opening of the orphanage Rev. Cotton was asked to admit six children belonging to a Protestant mother and a Catholic father. Two of the children were forcibly abducted by the deceased father’s relations and those relations were subsequently charged at the Naas Assizes following a complaint by Rev. Cotton. The Rev. Cotton was himself before Robertstown petty sessions in 1869 for allegedly shooting at some individuals who taunted him on the public road. Evidence was given that persons passing the Glebe House frequently shouted out at the Vicar. On the charge of discharging his pistol Cotton was found not guilty but the publicity added to the public’s growing awareness of the difficult Vicar. A week later the orphanage was attacked by a number of men but their efforts to break in were not successful. Rev Cotton was involved in a number of other Court cases none of them relating to the orphanage but rather the Vicar’s unusual behaviour. The next Court case concerned the orphanage involving the case of 10 year old Elizabeth Daly who escaped from the orphanage in October 1871. Rev. Cotton had her charged with stealing the rags which she was wearing. The outcome is unknown while Elizabeth was returned to the orphanage. A few years later a young mother, Kate Kelly, with her twin babies was refused admission to the orphanage. Kate was destitute and had 5 children all under the age of 6. Her request to admit the two babies was refused and on leaving the orphanage the distraught mother with her two babies walked back towards Naas. It was while on that journey that she drowned the children in the canal for which she was subsequently charged and sentenced to death. The death sentence was then commuted to one of imprisonment. Rev. Cotton immediately following the trial wrote to the press explaining the financial difficulties which led to rejecting the admission of the two infants. Within a few months the press carried the story of four children aged 12 years and under who escaped from the orphanage. They were found by an Royal Irish Constabulary constable near Kilmeague in a hungry, unkempt state and dressed in rags. The discovery of the children in such a dishevelled and malnourished state prompted the RIC Head Constable to call unannounced to the Caragh orphanage. He found some children whose legs were chained to timber logs. Rev. Cotton’s explanation was that the children in question had attempted to escape from the orphanage. Rev. Cotton was subsequently charged with aggravated assault of four orphan children. He was found guilty and he later filed an appeal which was heard at Naas quarter sessions in October 1883. Acting for the State during that appeal was Athy Solicitor, Edward Lorde, whose name today is recalled in “Lords Island” which he had one time owned. The original fine imposed on Rev. Cotton was reduced on appeal by half. It was the next case involving Caragh orphanage which led to a prison sentence for the Caragh Rector. Rev. John Wilson, a Church of Ireland Rector in County Armagh, arranged for seven children to be taken into the orphanage. After some weeks Rev. Wilson visited the children who he found to be neglected. Sometime later he revisited the orphanage with inspectors from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children following which the children were removed from Caragh. Rev. Cotton was charged with wilful neglect and mistreatment of the children and was arrested in Dublin on charge of manslaughter of 8 year old William Browne who had died in the orphanage in December 1879. Rev. Cotton was later charged with the manslaughter of another child. The trial was scheduled for Carlow assizes in December 1891 and the Rev. Cotton engaged Edward Carson to defend him. The Carlow jury could not agree on a verdict and the case was referred for rehearing to the Queens Bench in Belfast. The manslaughter charges were subsequently withdrawn and following a full hearing of the mistreatment within the Caragh orphanage Rev. Cotton was found guilty and sentenced to six months imprisonment with a fine of £400. He served his sentence in Mountjoy Jail and was released in January 1893. Within a few months a complaint was made that Rev. Cotton was again operating the orphanage in Caragh where two malnourished children were found. Rev. Cotton appeared before Robertstown petty sessions and was returned for trial to the Naas Assizes. The Naas jury returned a guilty verdict and a 12 month prison sentence in Kilkenny Prison was imposed. Cotton was relieved of his clerical status and on his release from Kilkenny Prison in July 1885 he spent the rest of his days living in Green Park, Bray where the former Athy curate and Kilberry Vicar died on the 31st of August 1900. His wife Elizabeth died on the 4th of September 1914.

Athy's Tenants Defence Association

The passing of the Land Act in 1870 was the first success of the Irish tenant farmers in their long struggle against Irish landlordism. This Gladstonian enactment gave the tenant farmers the right to be compensated in the event of eviction and for improvements carried out during their tenancy. However it did not secure for these hard pressed people the security of tenure which they had so long sought. Moreover the much heralded Land Act enabled Landlords to contract out of its provisions, thereby leaving their tenants without even the limited benefits of Gladstone’s measure. The Athy and County Kildare landlord, the Duke of Leinster, was amongst the first of the Irish landlords to attempt to defeat his tenants’ rights under the 1870 Act. The Leinster Lease, as it became known, a model of legal ingenuity was presented by the Duke’s agents to his various tenants. Prepared with the Duke’s interest in mind, it totally and cruelly side-stepped the 1870 Act which the tenant farmers had so recently welcomed. Local opposition to the terms of the Leinster Lease saw the foundation of the Tenants’ Defence Association in Athy. This was the first such association formed in Ireland after the original Tenant’s Defence association declined following the passing of the 1870 Land Act of Isaac Butt’s Tenant League of 1868. The Athy Tenants’ Association held its first meeting on Tuesday, 19 November 1872 with Captain Morgan of Rahinderry in the chair. Local man Thomas P. Kynsey J.P. acted as Secretary to the meeting. In the years immediately following the foundation of the Tenants’ Defence Association in Athy, the Duke of Leinster succeeded in overcoming local opposition to the terms of the Leinster Lease. Some of the Association’s leaders were themselves to accept the terms of the Lease, undoubtedly under the threat of eviction. One such signatory was James Leahy, Chairman of Athy Town Commissioners, who admitted signing the Leinster Lease for his farm at Ardscull. In 1878 the Duke submitted the Lease to Athy Board of Guardians in respect of some land held by them as tenants of the Leinster estate. At a special Board meeting on 1 January 1879, the Guardians declined to execute the Lease indicating “that this Board, as the representatives of the people decline to give their signatories to a document directly opposed to the provisions of the Land Act of 1870.” Opposition to the Leinster Lease was maintained at a low key throughout 1879 and 1880 but evictions in September 1880 of tenants of the Verschoyle Estate prompted the formation of a local branch of the Land League. Public agitation in Athy took on a new and more fervent pitch under the guidance of local land league organiser Michael Boyton. On Sunday, 10 October 1880, the first Land League meeting was held in Athy. Addressed by Michael Boyton, the assembled crowd was told that he had come to Athy “commissioned by Charles Stewart Parnell to establish the Athy branch of the Land League.” The Athy Land League had Dr. Patrick O’Neill as Vice President, Timothy Byrne as Treasurer and John Cantwell as Secretary. On 8 January 1881 The Kildare Observer reported a Land League meeting in the Market Square, Athy during which Michael Boyton burnt a copy of the Leinster Lease. However, within a few weeks local public support for the Land League was seriously undermined by a clerical instigated tenants’ agreement to accept a 20% rent reduction offered by the Duke of Leinster. The Land League was not mentioned at the meeting chaired by Rev. Dr. Kavanagh which accepted the new rents and Dr. Patrick O’Neill, the League’s Vice President, resigned because “the acceptance of the Duke’s offer had broken the backbone of the local Land League.” During the period of the Tenants’ Defence Association and the Land League one finds no evidence in the minutes of Athy Town Commissioners of support for the tenant farmers. The Commissioners silence probably owed much to the servile attitude adopted by successive Commissioners over many years to the town’s landlord – the Duke of Leinster. The first indication of their deviation from the subservience of their predecessors was the passing of a resolution on 6 June 1881, requesting the extension of the provisions of the Land Bill to Leaseholders as well as yearly tenants. This innocuous enough request was to be followed on 2 January, 1882 by support for Charles Stewart Parnell in a resolution which called on the Government to release Parnell “and the other prisoners confined under the Coercion Act.” Further evidence of the more independent and nationalistic line adopted by Athy Town Commissioners was given on Sunday, 5 Jul 1885 with the presentation to Michael Davitt of an address by the Commissioners Chairman, Michael Doyle, on the occasion of Davitt’s visit to Athy. While Land League activity throughout the country went on a pace throughout the 1880’s, Athy, which in 1872 had given Ireland the first of the new wave Tenants’ Defence Associations, was little concerned with the nation’s struggle. All was to change with the advent of land problems in the little village of Luggacurran in 1886.

Concrete Bridge across River Barrow

Foundations for what was the then longest reinforced concrete bridge in Ireland were laid in June 1917. It was part of the work on the Athy Wolfhill railway line which had been authorised by the British government under the 1871 Defence of the Realm Act to relieve wartime scarcity of fuel. Work had started on extending the railway line to the Wolfhill coalmines from months previously. Men from Dublin and Belfast were brought to Athy to join the local workers with the promise of 30 shillings per week and free bed for a 60 hour week. The Dubliners soon went on strike, seeking a wage increase of 8 shillings per week and a reduction in the working hours. The Athy men did not join the strike which was eventually settled when the workmen agreed to terms of 5 shillings and 6 pence per day, with some reduction in the work hours. By September 1917 with so many local men, encouraged by the generous separation allowances, having enlisted in the British Army, the local Urban District Council petitioned the chief engineer on the railway project to release 200 men for a short period to help farmers during the harvest. The bridge across the River Barrow was nearing completion in January 1918 but as the entire railway line extension project neared completion on 14th February 1918 the workers went on strike again. Up to 200 men marched through Athy in what was an unsuccessful attempt to get the Athy workers to join the strike. Following the intervention of Denis Kilbride M.P. and his colleague P.J. Meehan of Portlaoise the strike was called off in order to allow the Board of Trade to decide on the workers’ demands. The work continued in time for the Athy Wolfhill line to be opened on 24th September 1918. Operated by the Great Southern and Western Railway Company, the Wolfhill line was in constant use for only a few months as the 10 mile long railway line gave access to the coal pits at Gracefield and Modubeagh. With the end of the Great War the anthracite from the Wolfhill pits and from the Deerpark colliery in Castlecomer, which latter coalmine was served by a newly built railway line from Kilkenny became less commercial to mine. The Castlecomer railway line which opened approximately one year after the Wolfhill line, was the last substantial standard gauge branch line to be built in Ireland. Both railway lines were in charge of the English Board of Works until 1921 when British Government control of the Irish railways ended. In 1924 the Irish Free State government required the different Irish railway companies to amalgamate and the Great Southern and Western railway company which operated the Dublin Waterford line and its various branches became the largest partner in the newly formed Great Southern railway. The railway line to Wolfhill was taken out of use on 12th July 1930, while rail services to Ballylinan continued until 1st April 1963. With the opening of the cement factory in Mullery’s field in 1936 a small branch line was opened to serve the factory which was supplied with material from its sister factory in Drogheda. This branch line closed a few years ago on a date which I would like any of my readers to confirm. Last week the new bridge over the River Barrow as part of the outer relief road began to take shape. Two massive steel girders were moved into place on the south side of the old railway bridge 104 years after the workmen of 1919 had completed their work. It created an enormous amount of interest, with photographs and videos appearing on Facebook and elsewhere recording what is a local historic event. It made me think back to the Planning Appeal hearing in March 2005 to consider objections to Kildare County Council’s plan to erect a bridge across the River Barrow at the rear of the Courthouse as part of the inner relief road project. I engaged with the Planning Inspector and the County Council’s expert witnesses for more than a week during the hearing as I presented a case for the outer relief road, rather than the inner relief road planned by the Council. The County Council inner relief road proposal was to many people in Athy, but not to all, a hopeless attempt to solve the increasingly difficult traffic problems in the town. The outer relief road was the preferred option of the majority of people in Athy, but the County Council would not listen to the local people and with the assistance of a slim majority on the Urban District Council insisted on pressing ahead with a road which would have left all traffic including huge HGV’s travelling through the centre of our town. An Bord Pleanala accepted the strength of the arguments regarding the preference for the outer relief road and for the first time in planning history rejected a local authority’s road plan. It has taken almost 50 years to get the relief road in place and with it comes an opportunity for local businesses to make Athy’s town centre an attractive place to visit and to shop. Writing of bridges reminds me that it is almost 30 years since the issue of a pedestrian bridge from Woodstock across the Barrow to its east side was first raised. Since then the Athy schools on the east side have increased to include all the schools, primary and secondary, in the town. There is an urgent pressing need for a pedestrian bridge to be put in place. Can we look forward to having this essential structure put in place before too long.

Anna Edith Duthie

Anna Breakey was 24 years old when she came to live and work in Athy 74 years ago. She was a native of Ballybay, Co. Monaghan, the third of four children born to farmer James Breakey and his wife Edith. Anna would spend all but the last three years of her life in the south Kildare town. She arrived in Athy three years after the ending of World War II to work in Shaws Department store in Duke Street and lived over the store with the other female assistants until she married in 1953. She had met local man, Albert Duthie, whose late father, William Thomas Duthie, had taken over the watchmaking and jewellery business of William O’Connor in 1905. That business, located at 30 Leinster Street, would continue to operate under the name W.T. Duthie & Son until Anna Duthie, formerly Anna Breakey, retired in 2013. One of my many treasured memories of Athy in the 1950s was the nodding Santa Claus figure high up in Albert Duthie’s shop window in the weeks prior to Christmas. As youngsters my friends and I approached the window in the darkening gloom of winter evenings to bask in the simple belief that anything we asked for would somehow magically appear on Christmas morning. As we grew older and innocent beliefs disappeared, the nodding Santa Claus still attracted our attention, but now as a reminder of the forthcoming Christmas festivities and the school holidays which we looked forward to with eager anticipation. I left Athy in January 1961, spending years in several different towns including Monaghan town, not too far away from Ballybay. I found Monaghan folk to be friendly and helpful and on my return to Athy 21 years later I found Mrs. Anna Duthie displaying the same qualities. During the 1960s and the 1970s I returned to Athy on a regular basis and got to know Anna’s husband Albert. I shared with him an appreciation of all that is good in Athy and Albert shared with me his efforts to highlight the story of his native town. He did this by frequently photographing events and buildings in Athy and also by commissioning the town’s coat of arms which he used on various items sold in his shop. Albert sadly passed away in 1979 at 54 years of age and Anna who had celebrated with him their silver wedding jubilee a year previously would spend the next 45 years without her loving partner. Anna Duthie, like her late husband Albert, always exhibited a great interest in and appreciation of all things Athy. She was a wonderful help to me in relation to unravelling the history of the Presbyterian Church in Athy and always displayed a willingness to share with me information on different aspects of Athy’s story in which generations of the Duthie family once played a prominent part. Anna was particularly helpful in the making of arrangements which saw the first performance of John MacKenna’s Oratorio ‘Still and Distant Voices’ in the Presbyterian Church in the early 1990s. This work which remembered and commemorated the young Athy men who died in World War I was perhaps one of the first times that this long-forgotten aspect of Athy’s history was brought to the public’s attention. Following her husband’s untimely passing Anna Duthie continued the business at 30 Leinster Street. Duthie’s, as it was known by the local people, was an important part of the commercial streetscape of Athy, presided over by the ever friendly and kind lady behind the counter. Anna Duthie continued in business until she retired in 2013 at 89 years of age. I believe that the Duthie family name first appeared in Athy when William Thomas Duthie’s parents arrived here from Perthshire, Scotland with other Scottish families in the early 1850s. It was William Thomas Duthie’s brother James who partnered with Harry Large of Rheban to establish the firm of Duthie Larges. That firm, once a substantial employer in Athy, is no more and the final Duthie link with Athy has now been severed with the sad passing of Anna Edith Duthie. Last Tuesday family and friends gathered in the Presbyterian Church on the Dublin Road for Anna’s funeral service conducted by Rev. Stephen Rea. Anna’s son Alistair and daughter Heather spoke fondly of their mother and father reminding us of a happy family life and Anna’s passion for nature, especially flowers. Anna Duthie and her husband Albert will be remembered with fondness, especially by the older generations in Athy until as John Ellerton wrote ‘The day you gave us, Lord, is ended’.

Rev. Nicholas Ashe and Athy in time of Rebellion 1798

In August 1782, the Irish antiquarian Austin Cooper, following a visit to Athy, wrote “Athy is a small town situated on the River Barrow over which there is a bridge of arches with a small square castle adjoining on the east side. Here is a market house, church and county Courthouse, nothing remarkable in elegance of building. On the north west side of the town is a plain horse barracks and near it another castle”. Two hundred and forty years later all that remains of the buildings mentioned by Cooper is a much altered town hall (then the courthouse) Whites Castle and Woodstock Castle. Also gone are the many small private schools which were a common feature of Irish towns in the 18th and early 19th centuries. One such school was that of Nicholas Ashe where we find a mention in 1791 of one of his pupils, Thomas Lefroy, who would become the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Nicholas Ashe was a Church of England Minister who served as Sovereign of Athy following his election to that position in 1797. I am uncertain as to whether Ashe was a member of Athy Borough Council in 1792 when a measure of relief for Irish Catholics from some elements of the penal laws was proposed in the Irish Parliament. Those measures which eventually culminated in the Catholic Relief Act of 1793 were supported by the Duke of Leinster which prompted the Protestant members of Athy Borough Council to instruct their two parliamentary representatives to oppose the relief Bill. Rev. Nicholas Ashe appears from all accounts to have been a man of peace who found himself the subject of harsh treatment by the local yeomanry. Local yeomanry corps were formed after 1796 with membership confined almost exclusively to Protestants. Athy had two yeomanry units, the infantry and the cavalry. The Athy cavalry was formed in 1796 and was officered by Thomas Fitzgerald, a Catholic from Geraldine House, Athy although the corps was largely comprised of local Protestant gentry. The cavalry unit was disbanded in 1798 following the arrest of Thomas Fitzgerald and a humiliating standing down ceremony in Emily Square. This was done during Nicholas Ashe’s time as the town Sovereign. Some months earlier in January 1798 Ashe had written to the Duke of Leinster expressing his concerns at a possible rebel outbreak following claims of an ammunition plot. He expressed the hope that Athy would not be proclaimed and reported how he had liberated boat men arrested and detained by the local army commander. He wrote “Athy proved it’s loyalty last year by entertaining 1100 men over night and giving them money and provisions to assist them on their march to Bantry”. In that same letter Ashe recounted some of the acts of terrorism by members of the 9th Dragoons who were stationed in the local calvary barracks and also by the Cork Loyal Militia who had recently arrived in the town. A few weeks later Ashe forwarded a further letter to the Duke of Leinster expressing shame that while standing alone “against a most virulent party I suffer more than I can express”. In his attempts as town Sovereign not to have Athy proclaimed he had directed that all shops were to shut at 9.00pm. However a Mr. Willock who he claimed “pretended great loyalty to the King and aversion to papists kept his shop open in defiance”. He expressed annoyance at Willock’s action and that of his co religionist Carey – “two Protestants I never saw in church”. Ashe having discovered that Willock sold without licence had him committed to the local jail whereupon Willock hung out his hat with a paper on it which read “Willock was put in jail for his loyalty”. Ashe was extremely upset at what he described as the atrocities committed by the soldiers and having complained about their behaviour found himself “a victim to their malice”. The Duke of Leinster passed on Ashe’s complaint to Sir Ralph Abercromby, Commandeering Chief of the army, who promised to send another regiment into County Kildare. In the meantime Nicholas Ashe complained that his school was destroyed but despite this he continued to seek a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict between the authorities and the Irish rebels. Because he was successful in securing the surrender of a large number of pikes in the Athy area the local army commander felt that Ashe must have had links with the rebels and so quartered sixty soldiers with him. As a result the Reverend gentleman was so impoverished that the Duke of Leinster claimed “Ashe was obliged to do his duty as the magistrate in the streets in his slippers”. The brutal and systematic suppression of the people of Athy during 1798 was not confined to one religious group. Reverend Nicholas Ashe, Anglican churchman, first citizen of Athy in 1798 and a man of peace was victimised by local loyalists because of his attempts to advance what he described in his letters as “truth and humanity”. FRANK TAAFFE

Quakers and the Quaker Meeting House in Athy

This year we celebrate the centenary of the establishment of the civic guards later named the Garda Siochana. The new Irish police force was founded following the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary and in its early years by and large followed the RIC organisational structure. Like the RIC the early civic guards were armed. On the 17th of August 1922 the last RIC men left Dublin Castle to be replaced by civic guards. The first recruits to the civic guards were paid three pounds and three shillings per week and even as they entered the service they were regarded with suspicion by the anti treaty side. Indeed Austin Stack, the former minister for home affairs stated that the setting up of the force was not calculated to promote order but rather suspicion, discontent and disorder. Recruits to the civic guards had to have specific height and chest measurements and most significantly had to have a reference from a clergy man. This latter requirement must have continued for some years as my father, a farmers son from north County Longford when he joined the gardai in 1925 did so on foot of a reference given by his Parish priest, Fr. . By 1924 they were 6,300 members of the force which by virtue of the Garda Siochana (temporary provisions) Act 1923 were now officially called “Garda Siochana”. When the first contingent of the newly appointed civic guards arrived in Athy was until recent times uncertain. The late Sergeant John Shaw who joined the civic guards on the 17th of August 1922 wrote to me from Portarlington in September 1980. In that letter he wrote that on the 15th of August 1922 civic guards were sent to Portarlington, Monasterevin, Rathanagan and as far as he knew Athy in order to protect the railway lines and the canal routes to Dublin. He also referenced an incident in Athy on the 26th of August of that year when armed civil guards disarmed C.I.D. men in the town. Another piece of information he passed on to me in that letter was that Sergeant Duggan, who was then the local Sergeant charged three men in a special Court on the 23rd of September. The nature of the offence was not stated but it may have arisen as a result of an armed attack on the premises which was then occupied by the civic guards. I also have a copy letter written by the same Sergeant William Duggan in 1950 which confirms that the civic guards took up duty in Athy on the 15th of August 1922 but he also explains that prior to that a party of 16 armed civic guards were stationed at a protection post in Bert. This I assume resulted from ongoing land disputes in the area resulting from evictions on the versicle estate. Sergeant Duggan’s letter names the 16 men as Michael O’Connor, Peter Curley, Thomas Concannon, Joseph Walton, John Kelly, Joseph McNamara, John Ryan, Michael Summers, Patrick Fitzgerald, John O’Neill, James Dwyer, John Hanley, Peter Tracey, Thomas Kirwan, Michael Hassett and Sergeant William Duggan. The police records once retained at divisional level at An Garda Siochana showed that the first Sergeant in Athy was Coriolanus Lillis who was replaced by Sergeant Ed. O’Loughlin on the 1st of May 1924 who in turn was replaced by Sergeant William Duggan (the letter writer) on the 1st of August 1924. When the civic guards first arrived in Athy they were accommodated in the Town Hall before transferring to the old RIC barracks off in Barrack Lane after it was vacated by the free state army. When the barracks was attacked and damaged during the civil war the police men moved to a hotel in Leinster Street. Sergeant Duggan claimed that it was the Leinster Arms Hotel. However I have a note of being informed many years ago that the hotel in question was the Hibernian Hotel which is now Bradbury’s premises. This year the centenary of the founding of An Garda Siochana is being marked by various events throughout the country. Athy’s Art Centre will be the venue for a lecture on the history of An Garda Siochana with particular reference to Athy as part of a history lecture series which starts on Tuesday, 20th September. Details of that lecture will be published later. The first lecture on the 20th of September will be given by Nessa O’Mara Cardiff on the Barrowhouse ambush in which James Connor and William Lacey lost their lives. This lecture and all the future lectures are free and will be held in the Arts Centre at Woodstock Street.

Early years of Garda Siochana in Athy

This year we celebrate the centenary of the establishment of the Civic Guards later named the Garda Siochana. The new Irish police force was founded following the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary and in it’s early years by and large followed the RIC organisational structure. Like the R.I.C. the early Civic Guards were armed. On the 17th of August 1922 the last R.I.C. men left Dublin Castle to be replaced by the newly appointed Irish police men. The first recruits to the Civic Guards were paid three pounds and three shillings per week and even as they entered the service they were regarded with suspicion by the anti treaty side. Indeed Austin Stack, the former Minister for Home Affairs stated that the setting up of the force was not calculated to promote order but rather suspicion, discontent and disorder. Recruits to the Civic Guards had to have specific height and chest measurements and most significantly had to have a reference from a clergy man. This latter requirement must have continued for some years as my father, a farmers son from north County Longford when he joined the gardai in 1925 did so on foot of a reference given by his Parish priest, Fr. E. Mahon. By 1924 they were 6,300 members of the force which by virtue of the Garda Siochana (Temporary Provisions) Act 1923 were now officially called “Garda Siochana”. When the first contingent of the newly appointed Civic Guards arrived in Athy is still uncertain. The late Sergeant John Shaw who joined the force on the 17th of August 1922 wrote to me from Portarlington in September 1980. In that letter he wrote that on the 15th of August 1922 Civic Guards were sent to Portarlington, Monasterevin, Rathanagan and as far as he knew Athy in order to protect the railway lines and the canal routes to Dublin. He also referenced an incident in Athy on the 26th of August of that year when armed Civic Guards disarmed C.I.D. men in the town. Another piece of information he passed on to me in that letter was that Sergeant Duggan, whom he claimed was then the Athy Sergeant charged three men in a special Court on the 23rd of September. The nature of the offence was not stated but it may have arisen as a result of an armed attack on the premises which was then occupied by the Civic Guards. I also have a copy letter written by the same Sergeant William Duggan in 1950 which confirms that the Civic Guards took up duty in Athy on the 15th of August 1922 but he also explains that prior to that a party of 16 armed Civic Guards were stationed at a protection post in Bert. This I assume was because of ongoing land disputes in the area resulting from evictions on the Verschoyle estate. Sergeant Duggan’s letter names the 16 men as Michael O’Connor, Peter Curley, Thomas Concannon, Joseph Walton, John Kelly, Joseph McNamara, John Ryan, Michael Somers, Patrick Fitzgerald, John O’Neill, James Dwyer, John Hanley, Peter Tracey, Thomas Kirwan, Michael Hassett and himself. The police records once retained at divisional level in the An Garda Siochana showed that the first Sergeant in Athy was Cornelius Lillis who was replaced by Sergeant Ed. O’Loughlin on the 1st of May 1924 and who in turn was replaced by Sergeant William Duggan (the letter writer) on the 1st of August 1924. Sergeant Lillis was accompanied by Civic Guards John Hanley, John Kelly, Patrick Fitzgerald and Joseph McNamara. The records retained by the Garda Siochana, particularly relating to its early years are not as complete as one might expect. The records from which I gleaned the information relating to Sergeant Lillis and his successors were compiled in 1930. When the civic guards first arrived in Athy I understand they were accommodated in the Town Hall before transferring to the old RIC barracks off in Barrack Lane after it was vacated by the Free State army. It has been claimed that the policemen left the old R.I.C. barracks after it had been attacked by anti-treaty forces. I have been unable to verify this although I have an unverified note of an I.R.A. active service unit being caught up in crossfire in August 1922 during an attack on the police barracks in Athy. The police men later moved to a hotel in Leinster Street. Sergeant Duggan claimed that it was the Leinster Arms Hotel. However I have a note of being informed many years ago that the hotel in question was the Hibernian Hotel which is now Bradbury’s premises. This year the centenary of the founding of An Garda Siochana is being marked by various events throughout the country. Athy’s Art Centre will be the venue for a lecture on the history of An Garda Siochana with particular reference to Athy as part of a history lecture series which starts on Tuesday, 20th September at 8pm. Details of the Garda Siochana lecture will be published later. The first lecture on the 20th of September will be given by Nessa O’Mara Cardiff on the Barrowhouse ambush in which James Connor and William Lacey lost their lifes. This lecture and all the future lectures are free and will be held in the Arts Centre at Woodstock Street. FRANK TAAFFE

Annual Remembrance Sunday Service4 in St. Michael's Cemetery and the Casual Trading Byelaws passed by Kildare County Council

The annual Remembrance Sunday ceremony for the men from Athy who died during World War I will take place in St. Michael’s old cemetery on Sunday, 9th November commencing at 3pm. It was approximately 35 years ago when the novelist John MacKenna, David Walsh (now Athy correspondent for this newspaper) and myself arranged the first Remembrance Sunday event in St. Michael’s Cemetery. That first year’s attendance largely consisted of members of our own families. It was around the same time that a weekend of remembrance took place which featured a World War I exhibition in the museum in the Town Hall and a performance by the Mend and Makedo Theatre Company of ‘The Fallen’, a voice play of the Great War by John MacKenna. This was held in the Town Hall on Saturday evening and on the following day, which was Remembrance Sunday, a ceremony for the laying of crosses on World War I graves in St. Michael’s Cemetery took place. In the afternoon a series of lectures were held in the Town Hall on World War I themes. These included ‘The British Army and the Curragh Camp 1855-1922’ given by Con Costello, ‘Kildare Casualties in World War I’ by Pat Casey and ‘Men of the Dublin Fusiliers Killed in World War I’ by Kevin Myers. The final lectures were ‘The Forgotten Women of World War I’ by Josephine Cashman and Jane Leonard’s lecture on ‘How Catholic Ireland Commemorated World War I’. Following the start of World War I the ranks of the National Volunteers in Athy were heavily depleted. This was because so many Athy men having enlisted in the National Volunteers accepted John Redmond’s advice to join the British Army and thereby guarantee Home Rule. The National Volunteers were formed in the South Kildare town on 9th May 1914, followed two months later by the setting up of a local branch of Cumann na mBan. In August 1914 Athy youth group ‘Fianna Eireann’ was established in the town. Apart from the Athy casualties in the First World War casualties also occurred in Ireland during the War of Independence and the Civil War. The first I.R.A. casualty in this area was John Byrne who suffered fatal burns while part of an I.R.A. group attacking Luggacurran R.I.C. barracks on 20th April 1920. Three months later Athy Courthouse was burned down by a lone I.R.A. attacker whose actions were not authorised and who found himself court martialled as a result. The ambush at Barrowhouse on 16th May 1921 resulted in the killing of I.R.A. Volunteers William Connor and James Lacey. The Civil War, which would start with the seizure of the Four Courts in Dublin on 13th April 1922 and lasted for 14 months, saw more casualties in the South Kildare area than in the almost 3½ years of the War of Independence. Thomas Dunne was killed in Castledermot on 16th May 1922, while Laurence Sweeney and Sylvester Sheppard died on the same day, 5th July 1922. Sweeney was killed in Castledermot and Sheppard died in an ambush at Grangemellon. The Graney ambush of 24th October 1922 resulted in the killing of three young Free State soldiers, Edward Byrne, Patrick Allison and James Murphy. I am prompted to suggest that Remembrance Sunday commemorations in the future should be extended to include remembrance not only of Athy’s dead in World War I, but also those who died in our War of Independence and the subsequent Civil War. What do you think? On Tuesday last Kildare County Council published a notice advising of the making of Casual Trading Byelaws for the municipal district of Athy. I was one of several persons who on the published invitation of the Senior Executive Officer of the Corporate Services Department of Kildare County Council, filed a submission with the Council regarding the proposed Byelaws. In essence, my submission favoured the retention of the existing market rights which were granted by Henry VIII but repositioning them in part in the Back Square and the lands attached to the former Abbey house. I was surprised not to receive any acknowledgement of my submission and even more surprised that the final decision of the Council was not communicated to persons, who like myself, made submissions. I am awaiting a copy of the Casual Trading Byelaws 2025 as approved by the five Councillors of Athy Municipal Council on 20th October. It would appear that the Council have effectively attempted to kill off the Tuesday market by requiring stallholders to have public liability insurance as well as valid Tax Clearance Certificates. The Market Byelaws review was in my opinion an opportunity for the Council to improve the market, which generations of Athy folk stretching back over 500 years have enjoyed. It is a pity that the County Council did not take that opportunity rather than kill it off with a series of bureaucratic requirements. I will write further about this in next week’s article as questions may arise about the legality of the decisions made by or on behalf of Kildare County Council. In the meantime, I note a comment on social media claiming that four Municipal Councillors attended the meeting which passed the Parking Byelaws, while one Councillor in attendance abstained. Do you know who they were?

Athy's G.F.C. Victory in 2025 Senior County Championship Final and Memories of past victories

What a wonderful victory Athy Senior footballers achieved over the footballers of Naas in the Kildare Senior Championship Final of 2025. The Naas champions had won the County Final for the previous four years and were understandably firm favourites to add a fifth consecutive championship title to their record. Athy last played Naas in a Senior County Championship final which was played on the 4th May 1924 in Newbridge. Naas won on that occasion scoring 2:5 against the Athy teams’ failure to raise a green or white flag during the game. I was puzzled when I first saw the scoreline knowing that Athy had won the Junior Championship in 1907 and lost the junior title final in 1913 to Naas by four points. My puzzlement was understandable when one considers the good footballers who played for Athy in that 1923 Senior Final. Players such as Eddie ‘Sapper’ O’Neill who later captained a New York team which defeated All Ireland Champions Kerry. ‘Sapper’, it was claimed, was also a sub on the County Kildare Senior team defeated in the 1919 All Ireland. He continued to play for the County until April 1923. Myra Grant, Jim Clancy, Tom Forrestal and the Moore brothers Tom and John, all good players, were also members of the Athy team in 1924. Michael Mahon who also played that day is believed to have been a sub on the 1919 All Ireland winning Kildare County team. The 1923 County Final defeat remains a mystery, and it is perhaps explained in a subsequent press report which read ‘The performance of the Athy Jazz Band who paraded in fancy dress before the match was more memorable than that of the injury hit football team.’ That defeat of almost 100 years ago is now laid to rest with Athy’s wonderful victory in Newbridge last week. I have not so far been able to confirm Michael Mahon’s All Ireland medal which I’m told was given to a relation who lived in Kilcullen after he emigrated to America. If Michael’s All Ireland medal is confirmed, he was one of only two Athy Club players to have possibly won Senior All Ireland medals prior to last Sunday. This year’s Athy Championship winning team included an All-Ireland winner in Cathal McCarron who played for Tyrone in the successful All Ireland Championship win of 2008. Cathal, who was a defender on the Athy team on Sunday, played a hugely important part in Athy’s victory scoring two points from play. Another All-Ireland medal holder was Brian Smith, a member of the Louth All Ireland Winning Team of 1957 who lived and worked in Athy for a number of years. However, he played his local football with Castlemitchell. Unfortunately, we don’t have any local All Ireland medal holders except possibly the earlier mentioned Eddie ‘Sapper’ O’Neill and Michael Mahon. We do, however, have wonderful footballers, many of whom have family links with previous generations who also played with Athy. In my article which appeared a week or so before this year’s final, I referred to those family connections. Amongst those I mentioned was Pat Dunne, a member of the Athy management team. Pat’s grand uncle Barney Dunne was the winner of four Senior County Championship medals while playing for Athy in the 1930’s. His teammate Paul Matthews was also the winner of four Championship medals although I was not aware of this until quite recently. Both men, now deceased, were important leaders of the Athy Senior teams during the club’s goldens age of the 1930s which saw Athy win Senior Championship Finals in 1933, 1934, 1937 and 1942. The Athy club subsequently went through lean years which saw Athy defeated in the opening rounds of the Senior County Championships every year between 1947 and 1953. The club lost it’s senior status soon afterwards and would play at junior and intermediate level for some years. The club would wait for 45 years to win another Senior Championship with a win in the 1987 final when the team led by Mick Fennelly beat Johnstown Bridge on the score 2:9 to 0:9. The next time we saw success was in 2011 when the Athy team was captained by Michael Foley, an All Star player, followed by a welcome victory in 2020 when the team Captain was David Hyland who also captained this year’s team. The family links between the members of this year’s winning team and past teams is well defined and recognised. One such link is that of young Colm Moran whose father also called Colm played for Athy and County Kildare for many years. I mention Colm Junior because of his extraordinary scoring record in the quarter finals of this year’s Championship when he scored an incredible three goals and eight points. Congratulations to all the players on the Athy football panel, whether you played in the final or not. You were all an important part of the team throughout the Championship and during training. Congratulations also to the team’s management of Conor Ronan, Paddy Dunne, Ross Bell and James Eaton.

Provision of escalator at Athy Railway Station reminds us of fatal accident at the Station on 5 February, 1884

Work on the escalator to facilitate rail passengers changing platforms at Athy Railway Station seems to be complete. It is the latest improvement to the railway station which was first opened in 1846 with the arrival of a through train on its journey from Dublin to Carlow. For some time in the latter part of the 19th century the local railway station had considerable trouble with newsboys, amongst whom there was great rivalry and who were constantly attempting to cross the railway lines on the arrival of newspaper trains from Dublin. On 5th February 1884 tragedy struck at Athy Railway Station when a young news vendor was killed while attempting to cross the tracks. At that time the station had no footbridge, forcing persons to climb down onto the railway lines to reach the opposite platform. Local newspapers reported the accident and noted that local outrage reached Westminster Parliament where the matter was raised on 4th March 1886. The President of the Board of Trade confirmed to his fellow Parliamentarians that a footbridge was already being erected at the Athy Station. It came too late for 20-year-old John Hamilton who was killed by the Kilkenny train within 20 yards of the railway bridge at approximately 5 minutes to 9 on the morning of Friday, 5th February 1884. He suffered serious injuries and was immediately brought to the station’s first-class waiting room where he was attended by the two local doctors, Dr. Patrick O’Neill, Dr. Kilbride and F.J. Minchin, a local chemist. The injured man’s right arm was amputated while in the waiting room, following which he was transferred to the local workhouse infirmary that evening. He died on Saturday night and the inquest into his death was held in the Workhouse Master’s Office the following Monday afternoon. Dr. Patrick O’Neill, who was Coroner for South Kildare, and also physician and surgeon to the workhouse, was legally incapacitated from acting as Coroner on this occasion and Dr. Smith, Coroner for North Kildare, sas appointed in his place. The Coroners Court heard that as the Dublin train arrived with newspapers, John Hamilton attempted to cross the railway lines as the train was entering the station. Hamilton was seemingly unaware of the approach of the Kilkenny train which struck him. Sergeant Griffin of the local R.I.C. gave evidence of being at the railway station on Friday morning. He was standing on the steps leading to the platform and the station master, Mr. J. O’Connor, was near him. As the train from Dublin was coming into the station the deceased was standing on the steps a few feet in front of him. When the train arrived Hamilton ran to get behind it after one or two of the carriages had passed. Hamilton was obliged to go down to the platform to get behind the train. As the Kilkenny train arrived Sergeant Griffin saw Hamilton wavering on the edge of the platform and stooping forward as if he could not recover himself. He fell forward and the train buffer struck Hamilton before he got on the rail tracks. The Coroner said he understood the deceased was a poor lad and the only support of his mother. It was a wonder to him that more deaths did not occur. It seemed strange, he said, that a very important and a prosperous town like Athy should not be treated in a more liberal way by the railway company. The jury, the foreman of which was T. Byrne, Town Commissioner, gave as its verdict ‘that the deceased John Hamilton died from paralysis caused by a blow from the buffer of the railway engine at Athy station on Friday, 5th February. We consider that the railway company have not at present provided proper provision for the protection of life at Athy station and that therefore a bridge crossing should be erected without delay.’ The proposal to build a foot bridge at Athy station was apparently before the Directors of the Railway Company for a considerable period and we are told that soon following the accident a contract was entered into for the erection of a foot bridge. The bridge was constructed in Germiston, Glasgow by the Arrol Brothers Iron Works and installed at Athy station sometime in 1886. Another Arrol link with Athy is the Arrol Johnson motor car of 1903 vintage which is on display in the Shackleton Museum. John Hamilton, having died in the local workhouse, was more than likely buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery where he rests in an unmarked grave amongst hundreds of deceased workhouse inmates and a lesser number of deceased patients from St. Vincent’s Hospital.

Clonmullion A.F.C., Grangenolvin G.F.C. and Athy G.F.C. - Winners All

Sport wise it has been a remarkably good few weeks for clubs in south Kildare. Clonmullion A.F.C. are once again Lumsden Cup champions after a two goal to one goal victory over Kildare town. The club, founded in 1995, has brought professionalism to the playing of soccer which has attracted praise and excited supporters for quite some time. I recall writing an article some years ago on Clunmullion’s key player, Cody Mulhall, who continues to play and star with the club. He has been joined by many other excellent players who have combined to make the club one of the best provincial soccer clubs in the midlands. Our neighbours, Grangenolvin Gaelic Football Club, recently won the Junior Championship final. I visited the Grangenolvin club grounds recently to watch two of my granddaughters play in a Gaelic football match. I was impressed by the playing facilities in Grangenolvin, even if to my disappointment the local team were obliterated by a very skilful Leixlip team. I could not but recall three great Grangenolvin players of the past who are still remembered by older generations. Mick Carolan, whose first appearance on the Kildare senior team was in 1958 in the N.F.L. divisional final played in Carlow against Tipperary, was a Grangenolvin club member. Other superb footballers from the same club were the late Johnny Morrissey who sadly passed away at a relatively young age and the late Johnny Miller. An unusual aspect of this year’s Grangenolvin winning team was the number of brothers on the team and on the panel. The four Bergins, Oran, Cillian, Fionn and Conall, were joined by two Doyles, two Cullens, two Dooleys and two Bowens, making what I believe is a unique team combination. Indeed, I doubt if there is any Gaelic team in rural Ireland consisting of four brothers who have won a championship final. The man of the match award went to Conall Bergin. St. Laurence’s Gaelic Football Club clenched their first title since 2016 when the club’s ladies won the Kildare L.G.F.A. senior title. At the same time the club’s men’s footballers qualified for the intermediate final against Sallins. The club won it’s first Kildare senior football title in 2009 after losing four senior finals between 1982 and 2005. Athy Gaelic senior players’ success against Sarsfields in this year’s county championship semi-final was perhaps the story of the week, for an Athy ‘blow in’ at least. Athy faces Naas in the final, with the latter club chasing five in a row county titles, which undoubtedly puts Naas in the position of favourites to win out. Let’s hope the young Colm Moran who scored a whopping 3 goals and 8 points in the quarter final is at the top of his form. Colm’s father, also named Colm, played in the Kildare County team and was on the Athy team which won the championship in 1987. Also on the 1987 winning team was Sean McGovern, whose two sons, Shane and Liam, feature on this year’s panel, as do Niall, Barry and Brian Kelly, whose father Joe also won a championship medal alongside Sean McGovern. Ben Purcell is a son of Shane Purcell and Tony Gibbons’ father, of the same name as the player, completes the link between the winning team of 1987 and the finalists, hopefully the winners, of 2025. David Hyland, who captained the 2020 winning Athy team, and who captains this year’s team, is joined on the Athy senior team by his brother Mark. The team management consists of Ross Bell, Conor Ronan, James Eaton and Patrick Dunne, all of whom won senior champion medals in 2011. Patrick is the grand-nephew of the legendary Barney Dunne who was the only Athy player to win four senior championship medals while playing for Athy in the 1930s. Two of the most famous footballers who played for Athy were the late Danny Flood and Mick Carolan. Mick had started at juvenile level for Athy and was on the Athy team which won the minor championship in 1956 and the league in 1957. He was selected for the county senior team in 1957 and remained a county team member until 1974. He made 134 county appearances for Kildare seniors over 17 years and played alongside Athy players Danny Flood, Brendan Kehoe, Liam O’Shea and Mick Coughlan. He won two Railway Cup medals with Leinster, but sadly did not win a Leinster medal playing on the losing Kildare teams in 1966 and three subsequent Leinster finals. The Athy club was in the doldrums for much of Mick’s football career, but he assisted the club to regain club status in 1974. Mick also played for Grangenolvin for a short period and was perhaps the most famous footballer ever to don the Grangenolvin jersey. It's a remarkable sporting coincidence which sees four sporting clubs from South Kildare doing so well this year. The Clonmullion Soccer Club are well accustomed to winning trophies but for Athy G.F.C., St. Laurence’s G.F.C. and Grangenolvin G.F.C. it is not a regular feature. Let’s hope the Gods are kind to Athy on the day of the final as I write this article a few days before the match is played. Good luck to David Hyland and his team mates.

The story of Athy's Museum Society and the establishment of the Shackleton Museum

On Friday, 10th October at 11.00 a.m., the Shackleton Museum will officially be opened by the Minister for Rural Community Development and the Gaeltacht Dara Calleary T.D. whose Department provided substantial funding for the redevelopment of the Town Hall. It was in February 1983 that a public meeting, called for the courthouse, resulted in the setting up of Athy’s Museum Society. The vast majority of those who attended that meeting and who paid the membership fee of ten pounds each are no longer with us. It is important that the names of those original members of Athy Museum Society should be recorded and their contribution to the development of our understanding of Athy’s cultural and heritage past be acknowledged. Those persons who came together over forty years ago were Pat Mulhall, Ger Moriarty, Dick Norris, Patsy O’Neill, Mick Rowan, Megan Maguire, Frank English, Pat Doyle, Noreen Ryan, Denis Smyth, Joe May, Thomas Prendergast, Donal Murphy, Michael Wall and Jack Lawler. Following a lecture in the Leinster Arms Hotel on the 21st March 1983, further locals joined the Society including Tommy Keegan, Ken Sale, Dermot Murphy, John Mahon and his family, Claire Behan, Jens Priesler and his wife May. The above are the people who gave their support when it was most needed, for without their support there would have been no heritage town status, no museum in the various venues used over the years and certainly no Shackleton Museum. The contribution of Kildare County Council officials cannot be overlooked. It was Gerry Ward, Kildare County Manager, who in response to my letter replied on the 20th July 1983 confirming that he was prepared to recommend to the Council that a room in the Town Hall be made available to the Museum Society. He proved true to his word for some years later the Town Hall caretaker’s accommodation became free and the Society’s Museum, which up to then was located in a vacant classroom of Mount St. Mary’s, transferred to the Town Hall building. The kindness of the Sisters of Mercy in providing the Mount St. Mary’s room free of charge must be acknowledged. The Museum Society’s involvement in obtaining ‘Heritage Town’ status for Athy is well known, as was the use by the Society and Kildare County Council of the monies then awarded by the Department in the redevelopment of the ground floor of the Town Hall. It was at this stage of the Museum’s development that the Museum Society, a voluntary organisation, gave way to a company limited by guarantee, Athy Heritage Company Limited. It’s Directors were still volunteers. It was those volunteers, who in conjunction with the Shackleton Autumn School, embarked on the next stage of the Museum’s development as the Shackleton Museum. Going through my papers, I was interested to find reports from Patrick Shaffrey, Architect and Town Planner, and another report from Paul Kane, Consulting Engineer regarding Athy’s Town Hall. The Shaffrey Report dated September 1982 showed his concern that the building ‘now presents a rather sorry appearance’ and that ‘the demolition of such a fine building would be a sad and irreplaceable loss to the architectural heritage of Athy and would change radically the appearance of the centre of the town.’ The Kane Structural Report sought by the local branch of An Taisce noted that while the building had deteriorated while occupied by the fire brigade and Athy Urban District Council, it was generally structurally sound with minor problems, all related to the maintenance of the roof. It is quite possible that use of the Town Hall as a Heritage Centre and later on as a Museum saved the Town Hall because Athy Urban District Council had previously discussed its demolition to create more parking spaces in the town centre. Throughout this article, I have consistently referred to the Shackleton Museum, although Kildare County Council now reference the ‘Shackleton Experience’. To me it will always be the Shackleton Museum. Despite this, I must acknowledge the excellent work done by several heads of Kildare County Council in relation to the museum. First amongst those officials was the late Gerry Ward, County Manager, who believed in the Museums Society’s drive for a museum in Athy and who helped whenever he could. Peter Carey, whom I invited to open the Shackleton Autumn School soon after he took up the position of C.E.O. of Kildare County Council, was extremely helpful and facilitated the financing and erection of the Shackleton statue, the purchase of the ship cabin in which Shackleton died, and several other Shackleton artefacts which now form part of the museum’s display material. The current Chief Executive, Sonya Kavanagh, and her senior staff took the opportunity to take over responsibility of financing and running the Shackleton Museum from the volunteers who had held administrative control for over forty years. The journey which started in February 1983 continues today. Sadly, many of the men and women I have mentioned earlier who shared a dream did not live to see this day.

Lions Club Book Fair and the closure of Bradbury's Bakery

I have been attending book fairs for many years and I have always enjoyed the experience. I never dreamed that Athy would become a book fair venue, but it has now become a favourite provincial town fair due to the initiative of Athy’s Lion’s Club. The club which has given us the Lion's Club book shop almost 16 years ago joined the book fair organisation three years ago. We have now held two book fairs a year since then, availing of the exceptional facilities in Athy’s Recreational Community Hall on the Kilkenny Road. Our next book fair takes place on Saturday, 4th October from 11am to 4pm. Insert logo: Of particular interest to Athy readers is the range of local publications which will be on sale at the book fair. These include Volumes 2, 3 and 4 of ‘Eye on Athy’s Past’, together with the following, all written by Frank Taaffe. CHRISTIAN BROTHERS ATHY 1861 – 1994 150 YEARS OF CARING – A HISTORY OF ST. VINCENT’S HOSPITAL, ATHY EYE ON ATHY’S PAST VOL. 2 EYE ON ATHY’S PAST VOL. 3 EYE ON ATHY’S PAST VOL. 4 ATHY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL ATHY GOLF CLUB 1906 – 2006 WHO FEARS TO SPEAK OF ’98 Athy Lion’s Club is the owner of the A.R.C.H. which was initially purchased many years ago by St. Michael’s Parish and the Lion’s Club. In recent years the parish gifted its share of the ownership to the Lion’s Club and the Club arranged for improvements to be carried out on the early 1960s dance hall which many of us will remember as Dreamland Ballroom. I hope to see a big crowd at the book fair on Saturday next. I just learned that Bradbury’s of Leinster Street will no longer operate a bakery which was started by the present owner’s father, Tom Bradbury, in 1938. The Bradbury cakes were very famous during my young days in Offaly Street. In 1988 the famous bakery, then located in a new factory on the Kildare Road, closed down. However, in late 1988 Johnny Bradbury and his wife Clare purchased the Bradbury business in Leinster Street and re-opened the baker there later that year. The closure of Bradbury’s bakery is a sad loss to Athy.

Grave Memorials in St. Michael's Cemetery Athy

It’s almost 40 years ago when with the assistance of FAS, the Industrial Training Authority, I organised a project intended to record all the headstones and grave memorials in the original St. Michael’s Cemetery. Regretfully it was a project which was not completed until many years later. The mammoth task of recording and mapping all the memorials in St. Michael’s Cemetery was eventually done by Michael Donovan, who is one of the unsung heroes of Athy and South Kildare. Michael has devoted many years of his life to recording cemetery memorials, not only in and around the immediate environs of Athy, but also further afield. To date he has completed 42 graveyard surveys, the results of which will be handed over to Kildare County Council to be made available to the general public. For many years tombstone inscriptions were an untapped source of Irish genealogy. They were largely unnoticed, except by those looking for obituary details. The work of copying tombstone inscriptions requires patience and attention to detail and Michael Donovan has spent years in recording memorial inscriptions and by doing so preserving for future generations details of families whose names are no longer familiar to us. He has also photographed the memorials and to date for the 42 cemeteries surveyed he has amassed a collection of almost 6,000 photographs. These, together with the mapping and numbering of graves in the cemetery surveys, ensure the ready identification of the location of every memorial. Grave memorials are an important part of a community’s heritage. They record lives from the past and the various types of monuments or memorials represent in many cases Irish folk art which has survived over the years. A headstone is the only piece of sculpture that most people will ever commission. In Victorian times cemeteries for the rich were gardens of stone, while the buried poor were seldom marked or noted. The local iron foundries provided metal crosses, many of which can still be seen in St. Michael’s Cemetery. The most common iron memorial comprised a cross within a circle with space for a painted inscription. Unfortunately these memorials tend to lose their painted inscription after some years. St. Mary’s Cemetery, where the remains of Workhouse inmates were laid, had quite a number of metal crosses, all of which regrettably were in recent years removed from the graves they marked. In St. Michael’s Cemetery and St. John’s Cemetery, which Michael has also surveyed, there are many fine examples of altar tombs and chest tombs. In St. John’s Cemetery he discovered a small gravestone, previously unrecorded, marking the grave of William Watson who died in 1637. Tankardstown graveyard, which surrounds the original Tankardstown Parish Church, has two 17th century memorials. Throughout St. Michael’s Cemetery can be found many elaborate monuments, mostly the work of 19th century carvers and stone masons. The practice of erecting headstone memorials did not develop until the latter part of the 18th century. Before that many graves were not marked, or if they were it was by footstones, so called as they were small plain stones placed at the bottom of graves. The Shackleton Museum holds two medieval grave slabs, believed to be of the 14th century, which were removed from St. Michael’s Cemetery for safekeeping some years ago. Monumental inscriptions to be found in St. Michael’s cemetery are generally of the genealogical epitaph type where family relationships and dates of birth are outlined. Michael has also recorded interesting supplementary details, generally quotations of a religious nature. One interesting grave memorial located within the medieval church, known locally as ‘the Crickeen’, reads:- ‘This venerable and justly loved Christian died in the 82nd year on 25th November 1849. She closed her edifying life by the fervent practice of those religious duties that ever marked her holy career. Her remains were accompanied to this earthly dwelling by an immense number of every class and creed of the entire neighbourhood which she so long adorned by her eminent and unostentatious virtue. She expired, consoled by her cherished text, from the 6th chap. 55th V of St. John. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood had everlasting life and I will raise him up on the last day.’ In addition to his survey and recording work Michael Donovan, together with Clem Roche, have just completed recording the names of the 3,891 inmates who died in Athy Workhouse or the Fever Hospital between 1871 and 1921. Theirs is a work of great importance, rivalled only by Michael’s extraordinary solitary work in mapping and recording so many cemetery memorials in and around this area. Michael Donovan’s plans for this year are to survey cemeteries in Ballybracken, Kileen Cormac, Kildangan, Timogue, Harristown and Crookstown.

Memories of St. Joseph's infants Boys School

My youngest grandson, Ben, who recently moved with his parents from Cork to Athy started school during the week. This followed a few weeks in Montessori in Athy following on two years in Montessori in Cork. Aged five and a half years when he started in junior infants in the local Gael Scoil it made me reflect on when I started in the all-boys St. Joseph’s School in Rathstewart, almost 80 years ago. I joined my first class on the day of my fourth birthday and was pleasantly surprised to discover a few years ago, on examining the school’s roll books, that another young boy who started that same day was the late Frank English who was six months older than myself. Frank was my closest friend in adulthood, and we shared many holidays abroad including a never to be forgotten trip when we thumbed our way around Northern France in 1962. Nowadays the educational campus on the Monasterevin Road boasts three primary schools while the historic Scoil Mhichil Naofa is located off of Kirwans Lane, where it has always been. What fascinates me is the fact that in my time every youngster made his or her entry to school without any previous schooling experience. No Montessori or creche in those days while today’s youngsters have both. Although I wonder if the infants’ school at St. Joseph’s, in which there were three classes, was in terms of years spent prior to primary school the equivalent of modern pre-school facilities. Since writing the above I have learnt that the three years spent in St. Joseph’s comprised junior and senior infant classes and the first year of Primary School. When we passed to the Christian Brothers Primary School, we immediately entered the second year class. So, St. Joseph’s school opened by the Sisters of Mercy on a date unknown to me was an early example of a pre-primary school facility. Memories of my first year in St Joseph’s are uncertain although I can remember my father collecting me and bring me home on his bike after I had a little personal accident. I was told in later years that my next door neighbour Loy Hayden brought me to school on a regular basis, although I cannot remember what may have been many trips to St. Joseph’s. One memory which I return to often was how Sister Brendan, who taught the second year senior infants’ class, prepared us to receive Holy Communion. She lined up the young boys up around the classroom and got us to stick out our tongues which she would softly touch with a scissors which hung from her waistband. Another memory I have is of the class of boys being marched to the Christian Brother’s School in St. John’s as we left St. Joseph’s for the last time. My memories were of my Dad whom I saw dressed in his Garda Sergeant uniform standing on the footpath opposite Carolan’s (now Winkles) as we passed by. I was obviously delighted to see my father, on what was a proud day for me. St. Joseph’s School founded by the Sisters of Mercy was where they exclusively taught young boys in a three-classroom school which was pulled down when the construction of the former St. Michael’s Church commenced in or around 1960/61. On the day we were brought to the Christian Brothers School we walked in procession by the side of Canon McDonnell’s fine house and the Malt House which was immediately on the Town Hall side of the Canon’s garden. With the passage of time the shops and businesses we passed on the way to the St. John’s Lane School have all changed names or disappeared like the Malt House. The boys of St. Joseph’s School, having gone through junior infants and senior infants, were in first class when they made their First Communion. The preparation for First Communion was done in Sister Brendan’s second year senior infants’ class with the solemn ceremony performed in St. Michael’s Parish Church when we were in the first year of primary school. Communion Day was an important day then as it is today. After the formal Church ceremony we were entertained in the local Convent, although I wonder if my memory in that regard is correct as it may have been the Convent meal provided after Confirmation, that I remember. But of course, the most important part of the First Communion Day was the never to be forgotten coin collection visits to well-known neighbours. If like me you were a “blow in” you had no relations near, so I missed out on the “easy targets” for collecting coins. There was no question in those days of receiving notes as money was scarce for all the families in Offaly Street. My grandson, Ben, continues his education in the Gael Scoil, an unheard of facility in Athy 80 years ago. What a wonderful opportunity it presents to him and his classmates, boys and girls alike, to learn and speak our native tongue, something I was not able to do despite Brother Keogh’s best efforts in secondary school. Education as ever is recognised as a vitally important character builder and current facilities including free books, acceptable pupil teacher ratios and the often-claimed free education are reminders of how far education today has progressed. Contrast this with the 1940s when families stricken by unemployment and emigration found it so difficult to let their children take full advantage of the educational opportunities of their time. How well I remember classmates leaving school at the age of 13 or 14 years of age to take up employment in the local asbestos factory and sometimes as messenger boys in local shops. Life in the meantime has changed and nowhere more so than in the schools once founded and staffed by the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers. Today’s schools, both primary and secondary, are co-educational, unlike the schools of my time when the boys and girls were strictly segregated. Here in Athy the nuns arrived in 1851 and the Christian Brothers in 1860 and over the next 150 years or so provided a first-class education for thousands of boys and girls who otherwise would not have had the opportunity to reach their full potential. We owe a huge debt to the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers. My grandson, Ben will pass through his school years without being taught as I was by Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers. No doubt Ben will have memories to equal those of his Grandpa and I wish him and all the others boys and girls starting school this year every happiness and every good wish for the future.

Athy's Tuesday Market and the making of Market Bye Laws

Now that work on Athy’s plaza is finished, Kildare County Council are preparing to make bye-laws in relation to the control, regulation, supervision and designation of casual trading in the town. For more than 500 years a market has been held in Athy every Tuesday by virtue of a charter granted by King Henry VIII in 1515. The place for holding the market was determined by the Earl of Kildare, while the village Provost was required to regulate the market. We look upon the former Market Square, now Emily Square, as the site of the market, but in fact the Earl’s initial choice was somewhere in the vicinity of Woodstock Castle where the medieval village of Athy was located in the 16th century. It was only in the latter years of the 17th century that the village of Athy moved to the eastern side of the River Barrow following continuous attacks by the Irish on the Woodstock settlement. White’s Castle was built to protect the River Barrow crossing and the new market square was developed, possibly at the same time as the Market House was built. The Tuesday market transferred across the river and we can presume that the then Earl of Kildare approved the move. The power of the Provost to regulate the market passed to his successor, the Town Sovereign, and subsequently to the Mayor of Athy Borough Council, then to the Chairman of Athy Town Commissioners, the Chairman of Athy Urban District Council and more recently the Mayor of Athy Municipal Council. The Casual Trading Act 1995 gives extensive powers to a County Council to provide for the control and regulation of casual trading. It also provides for the extinguishment of ancient market rights if certain conditions are met by the County Council. The County Council can extinguish the market right but only if alternative facilities are provided for the traders in the vicinity of the existing market right. The Council must also provide in the new market place sufficient accommodation for all the stall holders who were previously catered for under the market right. Only then can the Council enact bye-laws which the stall holders must comply with. The major question which Kildare County Council must answer is whether the return of the market to the newly designated plaza is appropriate. The map which accompanied the public notice issued by Kildare County Council in relation to the market bye-laws showed eleven pitches in the plaza and eight pitches on Barrow Quay. These numbers were considerably less than those used by the traders before work on the plaza started. The Casual Trading Act only allows the market right to be extinguished by the Council if the alternative market site is in the same vicinity, and after facilities offered reasonably correspond in all respects to the previous market size. The alternative site, cited in the Council’s draft bye-laws, using the back Square and the Barrow Quay would not meet the requirements of the Casual Trading Act. However, land to the south side of the Courthouse, formerly the grounds of ‘The Abbey’, would be a suitable site for the Tuesday market. This site, if acquired by the Council, would allow the market to continue every Tuesday and the site could also be used for car parking every other day. That latter point is important, bearing in mind the loss of car parking due to the development of the plaza. Additional parking will also be required when the Shackleton Museum opens. Kildare County Council should move to acquire this plot of ground, whether by compulsory purchase order or otherwise, as it is uniquely located in the centre of the town. The market, at present, is not a very attractive one. I’m reminded of what the authorities in Shoreham-by-Sea in Sussex did to make the weekly market more attractive by providing stalls and awnings for the traders, which the Council set up the evening before each market. I understand that the traders pay a small fee for renting the Council’s equipment and the colourful scene provided a pleasant backdrop to the market. I appeal to Kildare County Council not to endanger the town’s plaza and allow it to be a pleasant meeting point for locals and visitors alike seven days a week. The alternative site which I have suggested for the market meets with all the requirements of the Casual Trading Act. It would be foolish for the Council not to seize the opportunity to protect the town’s market, even if it continues not as a market right but as an ordinary market. Personally, I am in favour of the continuation of the Tuesday market in Athy in a casual trading area selected by the Council nearer to Emily Square, even if the present market right is extinguished. This would allow the Council to regulate the new designated casual trading area. The passing of casual trading bye-laws will be an opportunity for Kildare County Council to make the market much more attractive, not least by providing standard colourful stalls and awnings for the traders to use. What I do not want to happen is to witness the death of the Tuesday market. Now is the time for senior Council officials and the public representatives to show vision and courage.

Shackleton Museum receives visitors from the Falkland Islands

The first overseas visitors to arrive at the Shackleton Museum did so last week. These visitors were from the Falkland Islands situated a few hundred miles off the eastern coast of Argentina. Their trip required a flight from Port Stanley, capital of the Falklands to Ascension Island and from there to Brize Norton in the UK. The visitors were four young students, winners of a school essay competition in which they were required to write of the Irish Polar Explorer, Ernest Shackleton. The four young students, Ruby Marsh, Alice May Curtis, Benjamin Goodwin and Theo Young were accompanied by Emma Brook, Falkland College Manager and Sandra Alazia outreach assistant with the Falkland Island Museum. The Shackleton Museum, which is currently being fitted out, was specially opened for the Falkland visitors where they were greeted by the museum curator, Aline Fitzgerald and two directors of the museum board. I was among a number of others who were also invited to give us our first glimpse of what awaits those visiting the museum after its official opening on the 10th of October. As someone who is familiar with the previous history and use of the Town Hall stretching back over 70 years or more I was very impressed with the design and workmanship which has left us with an extraordinary fine interior, a mixture of the old and the new. The impressive early 18th Century building has been transformed internally and restored externally to give a magnificent backdrop to our newly developed Town Plaza. Work on fitting out the museum with exhibits was not completed on the day of our visit and indeed Sven Habermann of Conservation Letterfrack and his team were scheduled to be on site this week and for sometime thereafter to complete the task. However there was sufficient evidence in the exhibits already in place to confirm that Athy’s Shackleton Museum will be of national and international importance. The subject of Shackleton’s life and achievements have gained an importance in the last few decades and with it has brought recognition of Athy’s importance in the telling of his story. I doubt if anyone visiting the museum when it opens will be disappointed with the range of exhibits and participatory media. . The Falklands students and the adults who accompanied them were very impressed by what they saw in the former Town Hall. Thanks must go to the museum curator for making arrangements to allow the overseas visitors and a few others the privilege of seeing at first hand the early development of the world’s most important Ernest Shackleton Museum. The management of the museum is now controlled by a board of five members on behalf of Kildare County Council. The curator, who was appointed some months ago, served in the same position for several years in the 1916 museum in Dublin’s GPO in O’Connell Street. As mentioned earlier the official opening of the museum will take place on October, 10th but I am uncertain as to whether the museum will be open to the public before then. Good luck to everyone involved with the Shackleton Museum which comes to us as a result of a public meeting which set up Athy’s Museum Society forty two years ago. Let’s hope that the acquisition, preservation and subsequent development of White’s Castle as a Fitzgerald and Town Museum does not take as long. I have had some feedback from last week’s Eye on the Past on the adoption of Market Byelaws with a small number of people agreeing with my suggestion as to the best way of protecting and developing the Tuesday market. My suggestion involved the protection of the town’s newly developed Plaza to facilitate its use seven days per week by visitors and locals alike. To do this will involve the expense of acquiring the Abbey grounds but incurring that expense will give Athy the advantage of replacing the lost carparking in Emily Square and meeting the additional carparking required for the Shackleton Museum visitors. I would hope that Kildare County Council would see the advantage of doing so and thereby ensuring adequate Athy centre parking facilities and the preservation of a Tuesday market.