Ribbon man activity in and around Athy

Two hundred years ago Athy, like many other parts of Ireland, was the scene of ribbon men type activity. The so called Ribbon Society was an agrarian secret society formed in opposition to the Irish landlords system. Their members got the name ribbon men from the green ribbon worn about the neck as they went about their nocturnal activities. It is uncertain whether ribbonism was organised in the South Kildare area or whether the various ribbon like actions were uncoordinated activities of unrelated local groups. Following the suppression of the 1798 Revolutionaries and the Emmett insurrectionist five years later the Irish countryside remained relatively peaceful for a decade or two. Overseas visitors felt sufficiently encouraged to visit Ireland and one such visitor was Rev. James Hall, a Church of England Minister who arrived in Ireland in 1813. He visited Athy having travelled from Dublin by the canal boat which berthed overnight at Cloneybeg. Travelling into Athy he first visited the Catholic chapel of St. Michael’s on the Monasterevin Road the building of which had started some years previously. In those days the Church of England adherents worshipped in churches while dissenters and the unreformed Catholic Church were designated as worshipping in chapels. Rev. Hall describes the Catholic Chapel as quite new but not yet finished. It had no seats or pews which he claimed was a common feature in Irish Roman Catholic chapels of the time. When he visited the Church of England church at the rear of the Town Hall he described it as “small and very ill attended”. He wrote “indeed as I afterwards found the Established clergy in this as well as many other parts of the country get their money for doing little better than nothing”. Athy was a poor town having suffered the loss of tanyards and the winding down of the local distilleries and breweries. Unemployment and wretched living conditions nourished the seeds of social discontent and criminality in the area. Thomas Rawson, captain of the Athy local yeomanry constantly reminded the officials in Dublin Castle of the need for vigilance for it was claimed by another local “the system of swearing in the lower classes is going forward”. Following the arrest of a number of men in Kildare the ever vigilant Thomas Rawson wrote to Dublin Castle in January 1814 requesting additional troops for Athy “as the Protestant minds of Athy are in great alarm”. The Dublin Castle authorities sent a company of infantry to join the 6th Dragoons and the members of the Clare militia who were already stationed in the town. Shortly afterwards Thomas Fitzgerald of Geraldine House forwarded a number of resolutions to Dublin Castle which had been passed at meetings of the local people of Athy in July 1814. The resolutions noted that “the towns people were annoyed at the idle, wicked and ill founded reports which were allowed to be circulated day after day following the Kildare’s men arrest”. In addition to the usual garrison Fitzgerald claimed a field officer party of the 6th Dragoons marched in while all night guards and sentries were posted at all the entrances to the town of Athy. This Fitzgerald said was unnecessary and only served to keep Athy in a state of alarm for upwards of ten days. The extra troops were removed from the town and around the same time the Peace Preservation Force (forerunners of today’s An Garda Siochana) was established. Its members took the place of the local yeomanry which was abolished. Within a year a number of incidents in or around Athy were the first indication of the resurgence of ribbon men activity in South Kildare. Attacks on the homes and buildings of local farmers were noted with concern and Thomas Rawson was again to the forefront in informing the Dublin Castle authorities of ribbon men activity in and around Athy. He informed the authorities in December 1822 of a meeting “in Murphy’s public house in Athy on Saturday, 21st of December at which there were 12 men who agreed to take up arms”. Rawson’s information was apparently correct for in a short time thereafter the farmhouse of a mill owner located within two miles of Athy was attacked by 15 men. The farmers servant was viciously assaulted and the dwellinghouse extensively damaged. Further reports noted the houghing of cattle belonging to the Duke of Leinster’s agent and that of Reverend Charles Bristow, the local Church of England curate. A local man Patrick Brady who was transported to Australia for stealing pigs in early 1825 wrote an account of the ribbon men activity in South Kildare. He claimed that William Murphy publican swore in men to take the life of Captain Lefroy. He named them as James Hutchinson, Thomas Ging, Michael Ryder, James Anderson, Daniel Bryan and Terry Neil. He further claimed that a committee calling themselves the Knights of St. Patrick’s met quarterly at Murphy’s public house and that their object was an uprising all over Ireland in 1825. What action the authorities took on foot of this letter is unclear but the successful prosecution of several local men for cattle houghing apparently had a salutary effect on the local ribbon men. The following years gave rise to only sporadic outbursts of ribbon men type activity such as the burning of the Athy residence of the Chief Constable Dolman in 1825 for which two local men, King and Hutchinson were arrested.