Martin Brennan and Education in Athy

Just a few weeks ago as I was leaving my office I met Martin Brennan for the last time. Martin was standing alone on the pavement and I stopped to talk to him as we had always enjoyed chats about what many would regard as the good old times. However, shorn of the romanticism which pervades all our youthful memories, those times were in fact days of hardship for many. Martin was a well known man around town, indeed some might say one of the town’s great characters who helped define and characterise the town of Athy. I enjoyed Martin’s company whenever we met as he always made a point of having a chat about some local matter or persons of interest. Our last conversation was briefer than usual as Martin was not well. His breathing was laboured and he explained with a courageous degree of acceptance why it was so. His death earlier this week brought an end to a life which was notable for strong family ties nurtured by Martin and his sons, Anthony, Timmy, Joseph, Michael, Martin, his late son John Paul and his late wife Bridget. I will miss Martin who joins my classmate Pat Flinter who died a few days earlier. Pat was one of the class of eleven who sat their Leaving Cert. in the local Christian Brothers school in 1960. He was dogged with ill health during his school days and was absent from school for almost six months in the leadup to the exam. Despite that Pat did well in the Leaving Cert., a tribute to his ability, his intelligence and his dedication to study. He reached the highest rung on the ladder of industry when appointed Managing Director of Tegral Metal Forming Limited here in his hometown. It was a remarkable achievement and one which confirmed Pat’s undoubted brilliance as a businessman. Sometime in the early or middle 1950’s four young fellows were ferried in Tosh Doyle’s hackney car to Kildare town to sit Kildare County Council scholarship examinations. The purpose was to get a grant from the County Council to cover secondary school fees. All of us were pupils from the same class in the local CBS where the annual fees were a modest £4 10 shillings. Pat Flinter and Mick Robinson, now in Australia were successful in getting the scholarships while Ted Wynne and myself were the unsuccessful candidates. The first class primary and secondary education facilities which are today to be found in Athy are successors to the foundations opened by the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers in the years following the Great Famine. Both arrived in Athy at a time when there was no legal requirement for young people to attend school and where the “poor school” as it was called and the small private boarding schools of Athy provided little opportunity for the majority of the local children. The education provided by the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers were of immense importance to the town. However, attitudes to education changed ever so slowly and even 100 years after the arrival of the Sisters of Mercy a majority of the young people of the town left school before their 14th birthday. My first day in school was on the 12th of May 1946, the day that I later discovered was also Frank English’s first time in the classroom of St. Joseph’s School. The class comprised 40 or 50 youngsters who were together as classmates for the next 8 or 9 years. The numbers remained constant as we moved to the primary school with the Christian Brothers but as we were preparing to sit the Primary Certificate exam some classmates had left. The slippage became an avalanche as the class transferred to the three room secondary school in St. John’s Lane. By the time we became the Leaving Cert. class of 1959/60 our numbers had fallen to eleven which was the largest ever Leaving Cert. class in that school. Pat Flinter was in that class. About three years ago as many of the Leaving Cert. class of 1960 as were available joined me for a get together for our classmate Seamus Ryan who was on a flying visit from Australia. Sadly since then our numbers have been reduced with the deaths of Kerry O’Sullivan, Teddy Kelly and now Pat Flinter. These classmates of 61 years ago are remembered with fondness and great sadness. Martin Brennan like many of his friends and neighbours had not climbed the iron stairs to the secondary school classrooms. He like so many others had left school at an early age and never had the opportunity to take full advantage of his God given right to complete his education. Martin’s family emigrated to Manchester when he was young. He started work at a young age and on his return to Athy he worked in Minch Nortons. His story and that of Pat Flinter mirror the life stories of so many from Athy. Difficult times in the post World War II years forced many local families to take the emigrant boat and those who remained faced a difficult life which often necessitated young boys and girls being taken out of school to work. The Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy provided the first step in securing educational opportunities for all. The Minster for Education, Donagh O’Malley, advanced another step by ensuring free second level education for all. The days of young teenagers or even pre-teens leaving schools for ill paid jobs is now long gone. However, the memories of those days still linger and are a reminder of how much we in Athy owe to the religious and lay teachers of the past.