Athy's Women Shed

Lunchtime on Thursday gave me an opportunity to visit local exhibitions by two talented artists whose work has benefited from grants provided by Kildare County Council under the Council’s Heritage Scheme and the Creative Arts Scheme. My first port of call was to the local library to see Marie Hopkins’ depiction of five element of Athy’s built heritage. Marie has created in acrylic a unique display showing the Town Hall, the Courthouse, the Methodist Church, Whites Castle and the former Dominican Church, now our town library. Her work highlighted what I imagine would generally be accepted by many as architecturally the more important buildings in Athy. We pass them by every day, seldom, if ever, giving a thought to the workmanship of the masons of past years whose talents and skills are mirrored in the buildings they built. My next visit was to Athy Arts Centre located in the town’s Methodist Church, which is one of the buildings captured in Marie Hopkins’ earlier mentioned exhibition. I was expecting to review the paintings produced by participants in the Brigid 1500 Art Project which was led by local artist Cathy Callan. Cathy is one of several superb artists living and working in the South Kildare area. On arrival in the Arts Centre I was met not only by the work of the Brigid 1500 Art Project participants as well as several excellent pictures by Cathy herself, but also by the sight and sounds of a Christmas fair organised by Athy Women’s Shed group. The tables were choc a bloc with Christmassy fare, but my attention was diverted to a discussion taking place in the centre/church led by Eilish Langton, Creative Art Organiser. On stage was the artist Cathy Callan taking questions about her art, during which she explained how in good weather she likes to paint outside as drawing and painting directly from life are experiences she treasures. The jolly women in the former classroom of the Methodist Church were enjoying themselves as they manned their Christmas stalls. I decided there and then to write of the Women’s Shed in this week’s Eye and asked if some background information could be emailed to me. Low and behold within a few hours Breda Gavagan, Chairperson of Athy’s Women’s Shed, sent me an extensive note and it is from here that I give over this week’s Eye to Breda Gavagan and her group. ‘The Athy Women's Shed was founded with just five members in February 2022 in a community house in Townspark. The goal of the shed is to reduce isolation among women. especially after Covid. It provides a safe, inclusive space for women to learn and connect through sharing stories, experiences and knowledge. There are currently 40 members, the shed operates on a Tuesday morning for 3 hours (11am-2pm). Members come from Athy and the surrounding areas, some come from as far afield as Carlow and Kildare town. The membership is currently closed. Activities include creative arts and crafts projects, horticulture, healthy food made easy cookery classes, jewellery making classes, ceramics, basket weaving, dragon boating, walking club, aqua aerobics, and women's health demonstrations and talks. The Chill Out Choir is also part of the Women Shed and they sing coming up to Christmas in Cloverlodge Nursing Home, St. Vincents Day Care Centre, Whitewater Shopping Centre Newbridge, etc. We collaborate with other groups such as Creative Places Athy for art projects, the community education programme, Kildare Sports Partnership and the Athy Alternative Project. Since we started, we have packed in a lot, we participated in two St. Patrick’s Day Parades, a Bring and Share for International Women’s Day, and two Dragon boat days on the River Barrow, one of which was with the Naas Men’s Shed, a Breast Cancer Awareness talk, two trips to Bloom in the Phoenix Park and the Shackleton Needs a New Hat project, which raised funds for the Athy Family Resource Centre. We visited the Dail which was organised through Senator Mark Wall and the Seanad, which was recorded on the minutes of the Seanad, which will forever be in the history of Ireland. Four committee members met President Michael Higgins and his wife Sabina at a Garden Party in Áras an Uachtaráin, organised for individuals who have dedicated their lives to make a positive impact in their communities. We have given back to the community by donating knitted blankets to St. Vincent’s Hospital Athy and St. Brigid's Hospice in the Curragh. We did a Fundraising day for the Ukraine Appeal with The Irish Red Cross. For our mental health and well-being, we have run Yoga workshops with Margareta Kal and Sound Healing and meditation with Kiera Geoghan. We have done a boat trip in Kilkenny with Cliff Reid, a tour of Kilkenny Castle, the Shackleton Museum tour, the Military Museum tour in the Curragh, a tour of the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery of Ireland, both in Dublin, and historical walks around Athy town. We participated in the Healthy Eating course run by Healthy Ireland. We collaborated with several artists such as Cathy Callan, Claire Murphy, Nasrim Golden and Orla Mc Donagh on projects. We have created our manifesto with artist Nasrim Golden and some of our art with Cathy Callan was displayed at Electric Picnic. We participated in our first event with the Kildare yarn bombers during the June Fest in Newbridge. We participated in the Brigid 1500 project with artist Cathy Callan, a year-long project that ended with an exhibition which is currently on view in the Athy Community Arts Centre.’ The members of the Women’s Shed are to be congratulated for their impressive work in encouraging the exchange of experiences, knowledge and friendship.

Poverty in Athy of old and Athy's Workhouse

With Christmas time fast approaching our thoughts turn to festive celebrations. Sadly, the festive season offers no respite from the daily struggle facing many households. The local St. Vincent de Paul Society which tries to help out families in need throughout the year, makes extra special efforts to bring some comfort to many at Christmas time. Last weekend the local Lions Club held it’s annual food appeal collecting funds to enable the St. Vincent de Paul Society to offer some extra help to needy families during the Christmas period. Athy, despite its impressive history as a market town of regional importance, a position which it held up to fifty years ago, was always home to a substantial number of poor families living in the laneways and alleyways of pre-slum clearance days. The two roomed and one roomed hovels built by private landlords in the 18th and 19th centuries were still part of Athy’s townscape up to the mid-1930s. It was the Slum Clearance Programmes of the third decade of the last century which did away with many of the town’s unfit and unhealthy slum dwellings. It is quite revealing to look back at Athy of 1846 and to see the enormous progress the town had made following the opening of the Canal in 1792 and the expected opening of the railway line to Athy the following year. Athy had adopted the commercial sophistication of a prosperous market town with an impressive number of craft persons trading in the town. Bakers, blacksmiths, boot and shoemakers, butchers, carpenters, saddlers, tailors with a tin plate worker and a tanner spoke of a thriving commercial town life existing side by side with many for whom the prospect of work was limited to seasonal farm work or summer work in the local brick yards. Athy’s economic lifeline in the early years of the 19th century were its fairs and markets, with its weekly market of particular importance. There was substantial unemployment in all Irish provincial towns during the 19th century and here in Athy with a history as a fortified garrison town inevitably the lure of army life saw many Athy men enlisting in the English army. The Crimean War saw many Athy men joining up, while the Boer War and especially the First World War saw high numbers enlisting. The unemployed men enlisted during times when State aid was not yet in place to assist the unemployed. Indeed, in the absence of State involvement the philanthropy of what was identified as the ‘gentry and clergy’ of the time established a dispensary system in Athy in 1818 to meet the medical needs of the poor. Those same people would later help fund the building of a fever hospital at a time when cholera outbreaks presented great risks for the general public and not just those living in unfit houses bereft of sewerage facilities and served by streetside water pumps supplying contaminated drinking water. A letter published in the Athy Literary Magazine in March 1838 claimed that Athy was ‘completely neglected ….. sickness and starvation visited alike the able bodies and the aged poor.’ The Workhouse in Athy planned to accommodate 360 adults and 240 children was opened on 9th January 1844. Within a few years two auxiliary workhouses had to be opened to accommodate the 1528 starving men, women and children who towards the end of the Great Famine sought shelter and food within the high walls of the Workhouse. Nowadays we do not have the same level of poverty as that witnessed by our predecessors of earlier centuries. What we have is deprivation and in many cases hunger which can only be helped by neighbours or community members coming together and working through charitable organisations such as the St. Vincent de Paul. If you missed the opportunity to make a donation during the Lions Club Food Appeal, you can still drop your contributions into the local St. Vincent de Paul shop in William Street. While writing of the Workhouse I was reminded that it is now almost four years since the then chairman of Kildare County Council agreed to my request for a suitable memorial to be erected in St. Mary’s Cemetery to honour the memory of the more than 1200 unfortunate Workhouse inmates who died during the Great Famine. A recent report in this newspaper would seem to indicate that any memorial to be erected was intended to highlight the deaths of women and children in the Workhouse which one Councillor seems to regard as a Mother and Child Home. Athy’s Workhouse, later the County Home, was never part of the Mother and Child Home regime. It was the Workhouse where sick and hungry men women and children from Athy and district died. The memory of the Famine dead who now lie in unmarked graves in St. Marys cemetery should never be forgotten. A stand-alone Famine memorial should be put in place without further delay.

The Death of Manager

The news of Margaret Walsh’s sad death was an unexpected blow to her family and friends and those of us associated with the Athy Heritage Centre/Shackleton Museum where Margaret was Manager for the last 19 years or so. I interviewed Margaret and several other candidates for that position, not having met her or known her previously. She was a very private person but at the same time she was someone who endeared herself to the Museum visitors and especially those who came each year to the annual Shackleton Autumn School. That event held over an October weekend since 2001 was I believe in its fourth year when Margaret joined the Heritage Centre. For the years that followed Margaret became the contact person for the Irish and overseas visitors who travelled to Athy for the Autumn School. The high regard those visitors had for Margaret was borne out by many messages of sympathy received from America, Norway and our near neighbour the UK following her death. Margaret, who was ill for the past two years, tried valiantly to keep to the high work standards she had set for herself in previous years. Her work in securing official Museum status for Athy Heritage Centre in 2016 was of the highest quality and enabled the Heritage Centre to move ahead of many other local centres/museums. It is tragic that Margaret passed away the same week as the building contractor moved into Athy’s Town Hall to start the long-awaited development of the Shackleton Museum. Margaret was part of the team that worked so hard over several years to secure the successful transition of the local Heritage Centre to become a museum of national, if not, international importance. The Shackleton Museum when opened will represent the third stage of a development which started with the opening of a one room local museum which was manned voluntarily for three hours every Sunday. Forty years have now passed since that first Sunday opening. The subsequent opening of the Heritage Centre in the Town Hall by Minister Charlie McCreevy in June 1998 followed on the appointment of the Centre’s first Manager in November of the previous year. Mark McLoughlin from Kildare town was the Centre’s first mManager and he remained in that position until January 2001. Margaret O’Riordan was next to take up the roll as Heritage Centre Manager and it was during her tenure that the Shackleton Autumn School was started. Margaret O’Riordan left to join the staff of University College Galway in early 2004 and following interviews the same year Margaret Walsh from Monasterevin took over as Manager. Managing the Heritage Centre with limited funds and very few staff was a difficult job. However, Margaret and her staff together with the Board members, all of whom were and still are volunteers, did an excellent job over many years. The success which is today marked by the multi-million euro redevelopment of the Town Hall building owes much to the work of everyone involved in the Heritage Centre project over many years. Margaret Walsh’s contribution and dedication was acknowledged and recognised by the staff members, Board members, volunteers and Shackleton Autumn School attendees who attended her funeral Mass in Monasterevin and later walked with the funeral cortege to Margaret’s last place of rest with her deceased parents. Margaret was the public face of the Shackleton Autumn School and she built a rapport with the many visitors to the annual October event which was reflected in the many messages of sympathy received from abroad and throughout Ireland following her death. Once such message from Northern Ireland read:- ‘For almost 20 years we have been regular attenders at the Shackleton Autumn School and Margaret was always our friendly gateway to the weekend. She dealt with all our queries and bookings in a calm, efficient, friendly and familiar manner and always made us so welcome when we arrived for the weekend.’ Another annual visitor writing from England wrote to me. ‘The Autumn School will not seem the same without Margaret; she was a special lady.’ Margaret fell ill approximately two years ago but being the private person she was she sought to continue working. Just the day before the last Shackleton Autumn School was to start, she received an urgent call to return to hospital but despite her worsening condition she insisted on attending for work the following day with the opening of the Autumn School. The next day at the school dinner I shared a table with Margaret and there was little hint of what lay ahead as we talked of the Museum redevelopment work which was to start the following week. Margaret would not live to see the commencement of the work. She had played her part as did many others in fulfilling a dream which in time to come will make Athy and the Shackleton Museum an important part of the worldwide polar network. Margaret will be sadly missed by us all. Ar dhéis Dé go raibh a anam.

The Role of History Societies in retrieving County Kildare's lost history

When I was growing up in Athy in the 1950s history was a school subject, loathed by some, studied by many, even if disliked, as a necessary subject which faced us as we sat our Intermediate or Leaving Certificate examinations. If truth be told our history lessons were dull affairs as we learned of battles in Europe and the oft told tales of Irish rebellions and Irish martyrs. The only text book available in those days was that written by Hayden & Noonan, University professors in Dublin, which was published in the 1930s or thereabouts. All Irish history finished insofar as secondary school students were concerned with the execution of the leaders of the 1916 rebellion. There was no local Athy element in any of the history lessons delivered in the local Christian Brothers School. After we bounded up the iron stairs to the three classrooms on the first floor of the school building, we learned of the Great Famine and its devastating affect on the people of West Cork and the counties on the western seaboard. No mention however of Athy’s Workhouse or of the more than 1,200 lifeless bodies carted from the Workhouse across the nearby canal bridge to be buried in unmarked graves in St. Mary’s Cemetery. The famine dead of the Athy Poor Law Union were never part of our history school lessons. A similar loss of community memory saw the events and hangings here in Athy during the 1798 Rebellion ignored for many generations. Another aspect of the town’s story which was similarly forgotten was the involvement of Athy men in the First World War. It is only in recent decades that Ireland’s and South Kildare’s local histories have been retrieved. For this we must acknowledge the extraordinary growth in the formation of local history societies in recent years. Here in South Kildare we have history societies in Athy, in Castledermot and in Ballitore, while there are few, if any, towns or villages throughout Ireland without similar voluntary groups seeking to unearth their local histories. The oldest such society in County Kildare is the Kildare Archaeological Society founded in 1891. Its first president was the Duke of Leinster. In the intervening years the Society has published a journal containing articles relating to the history and archaeology of County Kildare. In addition, the Society initially met three times a year, twice for lectures and once for an excursion to a place of archaeological interest in the county. The society now continues to hold outings, generally six or seven per year, while the Journal is published every second year. The 2022-2023 Journal was launched a few weeks ago at the society’s annual dinner held in nearby Kilkea Castle. That annual event was planned for the former home of Lord Walter Fitzgerald, who it is generally accepted was the moving force in the founding of the Kildare Archaeological Society. The current President of the Society is Siobhan McNulty of Athy whose maternal grandfather was the legendary Tom Moore of Offaly Street. Tom was for more than half a century secretary of Rheban Gaelic Football Club, which with his brother John and others helped establish in 1929. Siobhan’s paternal grandfather was Peter McNulty whose involvement in the War of Independence as a member of Frank Aiken’s Flying Column was little known until a few years ago. Sadly his contribution during the War of Independence, like that of so many others, was not known or acknowledged during his lifetime. Siobhan McNulty’s election to the Presidency of the Kildare Archaeological Society was the first time an Athy person holds that position. Interesting to note that the Athy connection was highlighted in the Society’s recently published Journal with a photograph of Athy’s courthouse on its front cover. The photograph was taken by local photographer Peadar Doogue, whose photographic work over many years has shown him to be a photographer of the highest standard. Membership of the Kildare Archaeological Society is open to everyone and especially anyone wanting to learn more about the history and archaeology of County Kildare. Persons wishing to join the Society should contact its membership secretary, Mr. G. Connolly, Newington House, Christianstown, Co. Kildare. The final history lecture for this year was held in the Community Arts Centre on Tuesday last. Thanks to Dr. Sharon Greene for a very interesting talk on Stephen Le Scrope who died during a plague outbreak in Castledermot during the 15th century. The story of his connection with Castledermot supported the view that the medieval walled town of Castledermot, the location of early meetings, now regarded as the first Irish Parliaments, was in many respects a more important outpost than its near neighbour, Athy. Our town, situated on the Marches of Kildare, was primarily a fortress town, garrisoned as the first line of defence to protect those living within the Pale. Our town’s past, whether socially or militarily, provides us with stories which need to be recorded and passed on. Unlike the history lessons of my generation there is a wealth of information now available to us thanks in many ways to the growing interest in local history and the formation of local history societies throughout Ireland.

Work starts next week on the Shackleton Museum

The contractor appointed to undertake the development of the Shackleton Museum will start work within the next week. It is expected that the construction work and the fitting out of the museum will take approximately one and a half years. The internal modifications and external alterations to the Town Hall building will be the third time that the building has undergone changes over the last 300 years. The first market house built in or about 1720 contained on the ground floor level an open arcaded structure intended for use by market dealers during Athy’s market days. The first floor housed the offices of the Borough Council and the courtroom where the Petty Sessions and Quarter Sessions were held. That small courtroom was where Wolfe Tone as a newly qualified barrister attended the Athy Quarter Sessions. It was also the courtroom where the notorious hanging judge, Lord Norbury, sat on a few occasions. The original relatively small Town Hall was extended at a later unknown date to occupy a larger footprint between the houses in the front square and the Church of England church at its rear. Early at the start of the 20th century an additional storey was added to the front of the town hall and a Lawrence photograph taken some time before 1900 shows the town hall façade before it was the subject of that work. The Town Hall, which the members of Athy Urban District Council considered demolishing in the 1970s in order to provide extra car parking in the town centre, survived largely due to the efforts of the local branch of An Taisce. That organisation helped save one of the most important buildings in the town at a time when strange decisions were being taken by local Councils throughout Ireland. Athy is fortunate to have a town centre which is graced by a large open square in front of the 18th century Town Hall. Another quite unusual and architecturally beautiful building is the Courthouse located in the back square. Erected a few years after the devastating famine of the 1840s it served for a very short time as the town’s corn exchange. It now houses the town’s District Court and the quarterly Circuit Court. The Courthouse and the Town Hall, both within a short distance of each other, present a superb reminder of the value and importance of Athy’s built heritage. It is expected that while work on the Town Hall proceeds a start will soon be made on regenerating Emily Square as part of a public realm improvement scheme. What is proposed, is not to my knowledge finally decided. When it comes we must expect a re-designed town plaza which hopefully will add appreciatively to our enjoyment of our town centre. During the week I had an unexpected telephone call from a businessman well known nationally whom I had never met. He questioned me about the commercial life of the town and expressed a view that with the opening of the bypass an opportunity now presents itself for businesses on the main streets to grow. He wanted to know how the local Chamber of Commerce was doing and was surprised to learn that Athy, like other towns in County Kildare, no longer had a local Chamber of Commerce. His surprise at that news later prompted me to question why the local commercial interest in the town do not come together to agree on coordinated action for improving businesses in Athy. The town needs a positive and proactive input from the shopkeepers of the town and there is surely amongst the young shopkeepers of Leinster Street and Duke Street the will, the energy and the initiative to recover Athy’s long lost title of ‘the best market town in Leinster’. The local Lions Club book fair scheduled for the A.R.C.H. (formerly Dreamland ballroom) on next Saturday, 18th November, is yet another praiseworthy initiative by the Club, which recently organised the never to be forgotten concert in St. Michael’s Parish Church. The Lions Club, with a small but energetic membership, has been responsible for organising a number of events which have attracted a lot of support from the local community, while adding enormously to the recreational and cultural life of the town. The success of the Lions Club is a reminder of what the business people of Athy could achieve if they came together to act cooperatively for the benefit of the town. The Book Fair will host a number of book dealers from around the country, with a stock of books of all types from the rare and expensive to the out of print, as well as interesting books of lower value. The Lions Club book shop will have a stall dedicated to the sale of children’s books, while copies of my own books, including Volume IV of Eye on Athy’s Past, will also be on sale that day.

Two book launches and the Opening of Athy's Outer Relief Road

Two book launches and one road opening. That was the week that was! Or so it seemed until I started to write this week’s Eye on the Past. The first book launch was that of Adrian Kane which the Cork based SIPTU officer had arranged for the Teachers Club in Dublin. Adrian, the youngest son of the late Paddy and Ruby Kane of Avondale Drive, has written a book which examines the current state of Trade Unionism, the reason for the decline of the Trade Union Movement and how the movement can be revitalised. Launched by Eoin O’Broin, the Sinn Fein T.D. and housing spokesman, it brought together what anyone of liberal tendencies might described as agents of collective activism. It was an interesting evening with speeches by Trade Unionists who acknowledged the difficulties facing Trade Unions as they seek to attract young workers in the fight to protect the hard-earned rights of workers. The second book launch took place in Newbridge’s Keadeen Hotel a few days later. ‘Who Said Love Honour and Carry Water’ was the intriguing title of a book written by John Hynes in which he told the story of his involvement in completing Group Water Supply Schemes in all but four counties of the Republic over a 45 year period from 1968. John has written a detailed account of his involvement in Ireland’s Group Water Supply Schemes which like the Rural Electrification Scheme, started almost twenty years previously, brought huge benefits for rural folk. The successful completion of so many group water schemes was a major factor in the improvement of rural households and the easing of hardships for thousands of rural women folk. It brought about a transformation which was especially welcomed by the women folk and no doubt helped nurture the confidence and self-reliance which has become the hallmark of country folk. The successful completion of so many Group Water Supply Schemes required a business approach coupled with a cooperative community involvement. John’s accounts of his contacts with local community groups goes far to explain why engagement with the men and women forming the Group Scheme Committees were essential ingredients for success. His is an interesting story which in latter years was marred by an unidentified and unresolved problem between John’s company and some senior officials in the Department of Local Government. The mysterious stand-off effectively brought John’s involvement in Ireland Group Water Schemes to a premature end. Here in County Kildare the seventy-seven Group Schemes finalised by John’s company included Narraghmore, Barrowhouse, Clongorey, Kilkea and Leinster Lodge. The book is a good read with important details of one man’s contribution to the improvement of life in rural Ireland in the days before the Celtic tiger rose from its slumber. Before the second book launch the Outer Relief Road, which officials now call the Southern Distributor Road, was opened by the Taoiseach. The new relief road has caught the public’s favourable attention and is clearly seen as a most welcome addition to the town’s roads infrastructure. An unexpected bonus is the pathways which link the Blueway, the Barrow towpaths and the pathways on the new road. The Blueway, which for the immediate future ends in Athy, will see the development of a Blueway hub in or around the former Dominican grounds. If and when it’s constructed, the hub will enhance Athy’s attraction as a waterway’s town. A number of events happening this month include Dr. Sharon Greene’s lecture on Tuesday, 14th November at 8pm in the Community Arts Centre organised by Athy’s Historical Society. The lecture comes two days after another event organised by members of the Society. This is the annual commemorative event in St. Michael’s Cemetery on Remembrance Sunday, 12th November at 3pm to honour the Athy service men and women who died in World War I. On Remembrance Sunday we continue to remember not only the World War I victims but also all Athy men and women who died in war wherever and whenever they occurred. It’s a ceremony which has helped develop over the years the local community’s awareness and acceptance of the difficulties experienced by so many local families in the aftermath of the 1914-18 war. On Saturday, 11th November the World War I dead from Castledermot and district will be remembered with the unveiling of a memorial in the grounds of Scoil Diarmada. The much-awaited Lions Club Book Fair will be held in the ARCH Centre on the Kilkenny Road on Saturday, 18th November commencing at 10am and finishing at 4pm. There will be a stand offering children’s books, old and new, for sale together with a number of book dealers with a variety of interesting books for sale. The fair will offer a wonderful opportunity to get your Christmas presents well in advance of the festive season.

Athy's streetscape as noted in 1782

On the 8th 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 plain bridge of arches with a low square castle 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 old castle”. The Market House referred to was the still unaltered building erected in or around 1720 which served not only as a Market House but also as the Borough Councils administrative centre or Town Hall as well as the towns Courtroom. The plain bridge mentioned by Cooper was replaced fourteen years later by the present Crom a Boo Bridge with its classical Palladian features. Constructed of cut limestone, the five arch bridge was but a few hundred yards from its near neighbour, “the horse bridge” which was built in 1791 to allow horses pulling canal boats to cross from the canal towpath to the left bank of the River Barrow. On the Castlecomer Road leading out of Athy another new bridge was built over the Grand Canal, the third bridge in the town where once there had been but one bridge. The opening of the Grand Canal to Athy in March 1791 and the building of the Horse bridge and Augustus Bridge brought in its wake huge benefits for the commercial life of the town. The Canal was the first planned major intervention in the town’s streetscape which up to then had been dominated by streets and roads laid down in medieval times. John Roque’s maps of Athy dated 1756 and 1768 were the earliest records of the town’s street patterns and later cartographers were to record the arrival of the canal and later still that of the railway. The opening of the railway line from Dublin to Carlow in August 1846 was only the second ever major planned alteration to the centuries old towns streetscape. Houses at Bothair Bui had to be demolished to allow the railway line and Athy’s fourth bridge to be built. The medieval linear main streets of the town by the mid part of the 19th century featured bridges over the railway line, the River Barrow and the Grand Canal. From the earliest medieval times the navigable River Barrow was the principal, and at most times the only link between the early settlers in Athy and the outside world. The bridge on the Barrow and the fortified building on its eastern side were garrisoned to protect the river crossing from the warlike Irish on the west side of the Marches of Kildare. The Grand Canal facilitated the development of Athy as a market town in peaceful times while the railway line to Athy and beyond was the final confirmation of Athy’s position as a progressive market town. The story and the symbolism of the Athy bridges are fascinating indicators that river, canal and railway each in turn brought immeasurable benefits to the ancient town at different times in its life. Today, 31st October, the third major infrastructural change in the town’s streetscape will be officially opened. The outer relief road is intended to relieve traffic congestion and lessen traffic delays on Athy’s main streets with the expected removal of heavy vehicles from the town’s centre. The new roadway should make a seismatic change in the volume of traffic passing down Duke Street and Leinster Street and when it does, it will bring with it a gradual but steady improvement in the town centres footfall. On Tuesday, 14th November, the Arts Centre in Woodstock Street will be the venue for a Lecture by Dr. Sharon Greene titled ‘Shakespeare, Scrope and Castledermot’. Did you know that a Shakespeare character died in Castledermot? Stephen Le Scrope lived during the late 14th century, the third son of a prominent English family was depicted briefly in one of Shakespeare’s history plays. Sharon, who will tell Le Scrope’s story, is the former editor of Archaeology Ireland and has made a huge contribution to the protection and preservation of many archaeological sites and artefacts in the South Kildare area. The lecture starts at 8p.m. with free admission. That same week Athy Lions Club’s second Book Fair will be held in the Arch on the Kilkenny Road on Saturday, 18th November opening at 10.00 a.m. Further details about the Book Fair next week.

Shackleton Autumn School 2023 (Part 2)

The Shackleton Autumn School is just two days away as I began to write this week’s Eye on the Past. It has been a particularly busy week, with a huge amount of work finalising arrangements for the arrival of lecturers and visitors from overseas. This year the Autumn School celebrates 23 years in existence, during which time it has grown from strength to strength. The first Autumn School was planned and arranged with the help of Bob Headland who was then working in the Scots Polar Institute in Cambridge. The Polar Institute, based in the university city of Cambridge, was established to further understanding of the polar regions through research and publications and Bob was the Curator of the Institute when I contacted him in 1999. He generously guided my first faltering steps in organising the first Autumn School, named after the Kilkea-born explorer, Ernest Shackleton. Bob has attended every one of the Autumn Schools since then, apart from the Covid period schools which were held on Zoom. Alexandra Shackleton, granddaughter of Ernest Shackleton, attended the second Autumn School in 2001 and has been present every year since then. The success of the Shackleton Autumn School at international level is something that is perhaps not readily appreciated. In truth, the provincial town in the south of the county of Kildare has been established as the location of one of the most popular annual polar events held anywhere in the world. The continued success of the Autumn School which operates as an ‘offspring’ of the Shackleton Museum, is due to the work of a small committee comprising Kevin Kenny of Naas, Mark McClean of Wexford and Seamus Taaffe of Athy. They took on the task of organising the annual school some years ago and with the assistance of the museum staff have improved on the original Autumn School model, making it one of the great events in the Kildare County tourism calendar. At the opening of the Autumn School on the Friday evening of 20th October I will have the great honour of announcing that funding for the redevelopment of the Shackleton Museum is in place and that work on the redevelopment of the museum will commence shortly. That work will on completion give the town a first-class museum designed to attract a lot of visitors from overseas. It is a major coup for Athy and one which I could not have envisaged when founding the Athy Museum Society in 1983. The purpose of the society was to open a local museum highlighting the town’s story, its people and its history. My discovery of Shackleton’s birthplace in nearby Kilkea prompted the telling of his story with a panel or two in that local museum devoted to Shackleton. The Autumn School followed much later and the success of the school prompted the thought of a museum dedicated to the polar explorer given the tourism possibilities that could create. Kildare County Council through it’s then executive Peter Carey, recognising the cultural and tourism opportunities involved, played a major part in securing the Shackleton statue and the cabin in which the polar explorer died. The drive for a dedicated Shackleton Museum would not have been possible without the County Council’s backing and Kildare County Council has now agreed to take over the financing and management of the Shackleton Museum when it reopens. This will ensure the financial stability which the museum will require for the future. The volunteers who have been part of the museum project stretching back over forty years have helped to create a wonderful cultural asset, with the possibility of adding to the commercial well-being of the town through tourism and visitors generally. Shortly the present Board of Directors of the Shackleton Museum will gather for the last time and resign as directors in order to allow Kildare County Council to appoint a new Board. I will be vacating my position as chairman of the Board, happy in the belief and knowledge that the dream I had forty years ago of a museum in Athy will be in good hands when Kildare County Council take over. If I had dreams in the past, I also had nightmares and that of the loss of Whites Castle is my recurring nightmare. The development of Whites Castle as a town/Fitzgerald Museum is my next dream. What better way to make Athy a tourist destination rather than a stopover on the way to Kilkenny or elsewhere than having two museums of different interests, one telling the Shackleton story, the other outlining the story of a historic town with a rich past. I am afraid I don’t have forty years left in me to fulfil that dream. It must however come for Whites Castle can never be allowed to fall into dereliction. The Castle and Crom a Boo bridge are the acknowledged symbols of Athy and must be protected, preserved and eventually used for the benefit of the people of Athy.

Shackleton Autumn School 2023 (Part 1)

As summer greens turn to winter browns it is only natural that our thoughts turn to the festive season in December. However, there has been one fixture on the town’s calendar for the last twenty-three years and that is the Shackleton Autumn School which returns on the weekend of the 20th – 22nd October. With the Museum at the Town Hall closed for renovations for the next 18 months the Autumn School has found itself a new home in the Abbey, formerly the Convent of Mercy, Athy. It’s an exciting departure for the Shackleton Autum School as it has a greater range of facilities and spaces available to the attendees and lecturers than in the old Town Hall. After piloting the Autumn School through two years of online events during Covid the Autumn School returned with its best ever attendance last year and the committee hopes that the attendance at this year’s Autumn School will surpass those record numbers in 2022. The committee have worked hard to put in place a programme for the local primary and secondary schools and students will participate in a number of workshops on Friday, 20th October involving the sculptor Mark Richards who created the superb Shackleton statue in the back square. Mike Robinson, the Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society will lead a workshop on climate change. Primary school students will be immersed in the polar world with presentations and workshops involving representatives of the U.K Antarctic Heritage Trust who will share with the students a virtual reality experience giving the students the opportunity to experience an Antarctic base 80 years ago. Donald Lamont of the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust will address the students on the recent discovery of Shackleton’s ship ‘Endurance’. Finally Hugh Turner, the grand-nephew of the explorer Apsley Cherry Garrard, author of the polar classic – The Worst Journey in the World - will speak to students about what it is like to be a polar explorer. The Autumn school itself will be launched at 7.30p.m. in The Abbey on Friday, 20th October and all our welcome to attend. As ever we can expect attendees from all over the world including the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Australia and even Singapore. Attendees will be treated to a variety of lectures which include the Scottish pilot Doug Cochrane who will speak about his time flying in the Antarctic followed by the Norwegian archaeologist Synnove Strosvag who will talk about explorers and how they break down barriers in life. The distinguished Antarctic historian Dr. Michael Rosove who will speak of the hundred years that have passed since the first biography of Shackleton was published. Nick Cox, a 30 year veteran of both the Arctic and the Antarctic, will talk about the development of polar clothing and equipment, while the Autum School is delighted to welcome back Mensun Bound, one of the discoverers of The Endurance who will talk about the history of Shackleton’s most famous ship. Other lectures will include Caitlin Brandon on Dr Alexander Macklin who as well as participating on two of Shackleton’s expeditions attended upon Shackleton on his death bed. There are a number of side events which the committee have been able to develop this year given the additional space available in the Abbey including a polar market hall which will host a variety of sellers of polar books, arts and crafts. Everyone is welcome to attend the polar market hall to see the interesting items for sale. The most important part of the weekend for many of the participants and local people is the social side of the Autumn School and as ever O’Brien’s pub in Emily Square will be an important focal point for those attending. The Autumn School is pleased to be associated with the Athy Lions Club hosting of ‘South, Always South’ in St. Michael’s Parish Church Athy at 7.30pm on Sunday 22nd October. This is the story in music, words and pictures of Ernest Shackleton’s life, his Endurance expedition and his extraordinary legacy. It is composed and performed by Brian Hughes (Uilleann piper and whistle) with the County Kildare Orchestra, scripted and narrated by John MacKenna and conducted by Lorcan Daly. All proceeds of the performance will be going to Athy Lions Club and it will be a wonderful opportunity to enjoy local artists in a local setting and tickets can be brought from Winkles newsagents or any Lions Club member or from the offices of Taaffe & Co. Solicitors.

Closure of business premises in Offaly Street, Sylvesters, Kitty Websters, Kehoe's pub and Moore's

Treasured memories of the past were recalled as I drove down Offaly Street on the way to my office early last week. As I passed what in my young days was John W. Kehoe’s pub I saw across the entrance to Butler’s Row workers had started to remove the shop windows of Kitty Websters. Kitty’s was the local sweet and ice cream shop for the youngsters who, like myself, lived in Offaly Street over seventy years ago. It was the place where I can vividly remember spending my one penny pocket money in return for a toffee slab. Kitty with her sister Patty operated the shop, but it was called Kitty Websters, and it was Kitty who as we grew into our early teens was more than willing to break open a packet of Woodbine cigarettes to sell one cigarette to any of the local youngsters. I don’t know what age I was when I first ventured to smoke a cigarette in the People’s Park, far from the prying eyes of parents and other adults. We youngsters knew it simply as the Park, and it was there that the young fellows from Offaly Street spent many hours of the day, especially during school holiday periods. Smoking a cigarette was the sign of an independent minded youngster, aping the habits of an adult. So it was that Kitty’s was my Woodbine supplier until the day, I can still recall, when too much pulling on the noxious weed made me very sick. That was my last ever cigarette. Kitty Websters and Kitty herself were an important part of my youthful background. I can’t remember when Kitty’s closed but my own young children were still crossing the road from their grandmother’s house in Offaly Street in the late seventies to purchase sweets and other delights from Kitty’s. The removal of the windows to be replaced by small windows signalled the change from sweet shop to dwelling house or apartment status. It was as if history had moved in the same way, that many years previously when the communal oven in Kitty’s back yard available for local women to bake bread fell out of use. The once bustling public house owned by the G.A.A. stalworth, John W. Kehoe, just across the laneway from Kitty’s has been shuttered and closed for a number of years. Mona Sylvester’s shop next door to what was Moore’s grocery shop at the corner of the back square has also been converted for use as an apartment. Moore’s grocery shop, presided over by the brothers Michael and Eddie Moore, is now a travel agency. Moore’s honey, harvested by Michael Moore, was one of the many delightful items available in that corner shop. The present owners have had the plaster removed from the exterior walls to reveal the cut stone and window surrounds of brick. It presents a very attractive appearance displaying the workmanship of masons of an earlier age. It was at the one end of a street enlivened by young families who lived there, while the other end near to St. Michael’s Church of Ireland was the Savoy cinema managed by Bob Webster. That cinema in Offaly Street was once a hive of activity every night of the week. The once lively street awaits a regeneration but when it comes Kitty’s of fond memory will have passed into history. Writing of history I’m reminded of a number of queries which have been received during the past week. Can anyone help me to trace Patrick Moore who in 1977 lived in Geraldine when his mother Mary died. His father was Francis Moore who fought in World War I as a Dublin Fusilier and won a D.C.M. military honour, second only to the Victoria Cross. If you can help please contact me. Another query relates to the Miss Mylods who had a boarding house in the old Fever Hospital in the 1960s. Sisters Sarah and Bridget, I believe, came from Shercock, Co. Cavan. Can anyone give me any information as to their background and time in Athy. Athy Lions Club will be promoting a concert in St. Michael’s Parish Church on Sunday 22nd October featuring the Kildare Orchestra with Brian Hughes and John MacKenna in a musical work composed by Brian and scripted by John. Tickets at €25 each can be bought from any Lions Club member, Winkles shop and Eventbrite. Tickets can also be purchased in my office. All proceeds of the concert will go to the Lions Club local charities. It is a good cause and promises to be a great event which incidentally has been arranged as part of this year’s Shackleton Autumn School. The photo exhibition, Identifying the Past’, continues in Athy’s Art Centre in Woodstock Street from 2-5 each day but must finish on Friday, 13th October. It’s a unique exhibition of photos of Athy people taken in the town’s street taken over 70 years ago. Do visit the exhibition to see if you can identify the men, women and children who were part of the local community so many years ago. A final question – can anyone tell me where was Couse Hill, said in 1752 to have been about 1½ miles from Athy? Nearby was, I understand, a mill and the house of a John La Couse, a French Huguenot who fought on the side of King William at the battle of the Boyne.

Culture Night in Athy 2023

Culture Night has come and gone. There were twelve events held in Athy giving us all the opportunity to learn how a diverse range of cultural activities can expand our understanding and appreciation of the arts. Last year I questioned why all the events local, regional and national had to occur on the one night rather than being spread over an entire week. It was again very difficult to attend all the local events and impossible to reach on events held outside the town. A culture week would make more sense and encourage greater public involvement in the various arts. I was sorry to miss local artist Cathy Callan’s painting event in the Irish Wheelchair Association premises at St. Vincent’s Hospital. Cathy is a very talented artist whose work I have admired for some time. My first visit on Culture Night was to Clancy’s bar in Leinster Street to view John Coffey’s photographs of renowned Irish folk musicians. It was wonderful to see that he had captured on film a fine portrait of the late Liam O’Flynn, Ireland’s greatest uilleann piper. It was significant that both of Athy’s current master pipers, Brian Hughes and Joe Byrne, also featured amongst the renowned Irish folk musicians of today. Memories were stirred as I looked at the photograph of the late Anthony O’Byrne, the Donegal man who was one of the founders of the weekly Clancy traditional music sessions and after whom the Tony O’Byrne GAA Park in Ballyadams is named. The town library was the venue for the unique, “The Prado on the Barrow” exhibition featuring the work of some members of Athy’s photographic club. The club borrowed an idea from the main Spanish National Art Museum in Madrid which during the covid lockdown encouraged Spanish families to recreate in real life some of the classic paintings in their collection and to share photographs of their recreations on the internet. The Athy club members were asked to repeat that exercise and twelve of their photographs were chosen for the exhibition. The paintings recreated included works by El Greco, William Leech, Leonardo de Vinci, Van Gogh and several other great masters. “The Prado on the Barrow” was a fascinating exhibition combining fine photography, exceptional costume arrangement and design. Unfortunately, it was limited in terms of exhibition time as it was followed at 6 o’clock by the celebration in song and story of the Johnny Cash visit to Athy sixty years ago. The Arts Centre which has taken on an exciting life post covid was my next port of call. Two events were based in the Arts Centre, the earliest being the exhibition of Athy photographs by the travelling photographer Frank Goggin. He captured on film over 800 local persons on the streets of Athy in 1948 and 1949. The photographs are of a time and a people long past but present family members of those photographed can revisit long forgotten memories as they view friends, family and relations whose images were captured over 70 years ago. The exhibition had been opened in the town Library on the day before Culture Night and transferred to the Arts Centre where it will remain open each day except Sunday from 2.00 – 5.00pm for two weeks. The Arts Centre was also the venue for a production centred on the songs of Burt Bacharach. “Anyone who had a Heart” was a joyful musical tribute to the legendary American songwriter who gave us such timeless songs as “What the World needs now” and “Raindrops keeping falling on my head” amongst many many more. The Arts Centre in Woodstock Street is an excellent music venue and Athy Musical and Dramatic Society with David Walsh as Director and Carmel Day as Musical Director gave the audience on Culture Night, and three other nights as well, a first class show. I could not get around to the six other events but the large number of cultural events on the one night in Athy was a wonderful indication of a culture awareness which augurs well for the future. As Horace the Roman poet once wrote “no one is so far unreclaimed that he cannot become civilised, if only he will lend a patient ear to culture”.

Barbara Sheridan, Retired Editor of Kildare Nationalist

Barbara Sheridan, the Editor of the Kildare Nationalist when that paper first appeared following the separation of the Nationalist and Leinster Times into Carlow, Laois and Kildare editions, retired last week. I first became aware of Barbara, then a young local journalist when I returned to Athy 41 years ago. I wrote a few historical articles which made their appearance in both the Leinster Leader and the Nationalist and Leinster Times. With my election to Athy Urban District Council in 1985 my appearances in the local press became much more frequent. These appearances owed nothing to my penmanship but to Barbara’s acute reporting on Council meetings in the local Council chamber. At those meetings I always sat in the same seat facing the press reporters who overlooked the sunken chamber where the elected representatives and Council officials sat. My choice of seating was determined not by any anxiety on my part to help the press catch my every word but rather by my decision to sit directly opposite Council Paddy Wright. The Sinn Fein Councillor’s words and actions were always likely to create controversy in the Council chamber. I must admit I often ignited the flames of controversy while persistently attacking some might say goading the Sinn Feinner. Reporting on the monthly rows between Paddy and myself gave Barbara the reporter many a good headline. “Orgies held at derelict Athy site said Councillor” was one of many claims made by Paddy who said that the building was owned by the Council chairman, Frank Taaffe. The building according to Paddy was used for “cider parties, orgies and everything”. The pity was I never got invited and never found out what “everything” was. The Council years reported by Barbara Sheridan gave the Nationalist and Leinster Times readers front page headlines such as “Athy UDC row erupts in violence” and “Athy UDC clash ends in walkout”. The offending parties came back for more every month and surprising despite all the rows much good was done during our time on the Council. I stepped down from the Council in 1999 to lead the opposition to the inner relief road and to fight for the outer relief road. The Kildare Nationalist had emerged in 1992 and shortly afterwards Barbara approached me about the possibility of writing a weekly article for the new paper. My first article appeared in September 1992 and that short piece ended with the line “Eye on the past will each week deal with a topic of interest from the history of South Kildare when we will delve into the rich vein of local history which remains to be discovered and related in future articles”. Barbara who started me on the columnist’s journey, which still continues, did me the honour of launching Eye on Athy’s Past Volume III in 2007. She wrote in the foreword of that book how she invited me to contribute a regular column to the Nationalist. The brief she claimed was broad – it was to be something on local history – nothing too serious – and it had to be readable. I thank you Barbara for the opportunity you gave me to tell the story of a town steeped in history and of a people rightly proud of the place we call our own. I call myself a Kilkenny man exiled in Kildare despite having spent the vast majority of my years in the shortgrass county. My early working life was in Naas where I knew Barbara’s father, Brinsley Sheridan as one of the stalwarts of the Moat Club. My first and only appearance on stage was in a play put on by a newly formed county council drama group. The play was performed in Naas and Caragh sometime in the early 1960’s and Brinsley Sheridan was the stage manager and set designer for that play. His daughter, Barbara continues the family connection with the Moat Club in Naas this time as a director. Congratulations and best wishes to Barbara on her retirement. This auld fella will continue on the road Barbara opened up for him for another while.

The Campaign for the Outer Relief Road

The outer relief road, or bypass road, is nearing completion. When opened it should make a huge difference in relieving town centre traffic congestion. Almost half a century has passed since the then Athy Urban District Council considered proposals to lessen anticipated traffic congestion in the town. Traffic was anticipated to increase over the following years and quite rightly the local authority officials in the mid-1970s set about planning for the future. Looking back to a time when the value of the built heritage of our town was largely unappreciated and ignored, it was no surprise that the Council’s consulting engineers engaged to plan for the town’s traffic future proposed an inner relief road as an immediate relief measure. An outer relief road was also recommended as a long-term solution. The inner relief road was planned to run parallel to Leinster Street on the south side, exiting at Meeting Lane and across the back square, bypassing the rear of the Courthouse. The road which was planned to have six-foot-high walls on either side would also require an elevated road from the square to the new bridge a short distance south of Crom a Boo bridge. That inner relief road as planned was the desired development favoured by the County Council officials and it gained the unanimous support of the elected members of Athy Urban District Council in the mid-1970s. It is difficult to imagine nowadays how anyone could have approved the traffic plan, the effect of which was the partial destruction of the finest public space in the county of Kildare. It was the election of a new Council in the mid-1980s which prompted a close look at the inner relief road proposal adopted by a previous Council. It is hard to believe that any town planner or engineer would suggest the construction of a new road just a few yards from the town centre, with walls on both side of the new road. It was that part of the extraordinary incompetent road plan which was first dropped. As a sweetener for the supporters of the inner relief road the Council’s consultants indicated that shopping development along the length of the new roadway would be encouraged, but not so as to infringe on the existing businesses on Duke Street and Leinster Street. How this was to be developed was never explained. Indeed as I look today at the number of vacant shop premises on the town’s main streets I dread to think what might have happened if an inner relief road gave rise to the emergence of further business premises. The inner relief road was opposed by what I believe was the majority of the local townspeople, but despite this the local Councillors by a slim majority supported the County Council officials in their drive for that road. It was not to be as the Planning Appeal Board for the very first time in its history refused permission for a local authority road plan. The Board’s notice of refusal cited the more appropriate development as the outer relief road which is what we are to get later this year or early next year. The townspeople of Athy who campaigned for the outer relief road and opposed the inner relief road got it right. The County Council officials and the public representatives who chose the inner relief road got it wrong. It is well to note that none of the present-day Council officials or public representatives were involved in the outer relief road versus the inner relief road struggle. It was a struggle which went on for several years and involved the call for a plebiscite which was rejected, the holding of public meetings in Emily Square and a door to door canvas for support for the outer relief road. The campaign ended with the six-day public hearing held in the Stand House Hotel on the Curragh, which months later gave the result which the local people had championed. What the campaign taught the local people is that public officials, while claiming to listen to the voice of the people, for the most part ignored the people they serve. Official opinions, I acknowledge, are more often than not in line with those of the general public, but too often we come across instances where the differences between the general public and the officials cannot be merged. The anti-inner relief road campaign is a case in point where the Council officials by various devious means over a long period of time sought to thwart the will of the people. Most notable was the persistent failure of the Council officials to acknowledge the correct count of HGV vehicles passing through the town centre. The true figure which was much larger than that previously stated on numerous occasions by the officials was only finally revealed at the public enquiry. The campaign for the outer relief road and rejection of the inner relief road uncovered institutional arrogance which should have had no part in 20th century local government. Institutional arrogance was the hallmark of the landlord dominated local authorities of the 19th century. The passing of the Local Government Act in 1898 extended the right to vote in local elections and put local government on a truly representative basis which led to the virtual disappearance of the landlord class from local administration. Subsequent changes in local government law saw the emergence of the county manager with executive powers, while the elected members of the councils exercised reserve functions. The initial unhappiness of elected members with the new managerial system led to some changes in the managerial role, but were never completely resolved. However, the lack of autonomy and the weakened power of county councils resulting from departmental control is a continuing issue which makes local government less local than it should be. Despite these shortcomings our long-awaited outer relief road is nearing completion, despite decades of frustration on the part of the local people and many examples of institutional arrogance by former Kildare County Council executives.

A journey to Monaghan and Kells while visiting Derry / Remembering Eileen Tuohy

I was on a journey of remembrance last week as I travelled to and from Derry where I spent a few days within the walls of that ancient city. On the way northwards I stopped over in Monaghan town where I spent a few happy years more than fifty years ago. I went to Monaghan in November 1967 as the new Town Clerk on promotion from a similar position in Kells, Co. Meath. I was newly married and lived in a second storey flat overlooking the Diamond in Monaghan town. My two sons were born in the Beech Hill Nursing Home which has since closed and is now the site of a secondary school. It was in Monaghan that, with the help of a County Council loan, I bought my first house for the princely sum of £750. A three bedroomed end of terrace house, number 4 Dr. MacKenna Terrace was the Taaffe home for two years or more. Great memories were recalled as Breege and myself revisited sites and scenes of young lives spent amongst the wonderfully friendly Monaghan people. The town’s streetscape has not changed much even if new business names showed how the passage of time reveals the almost inevitable generational changes we have come to expect. Monaghan has a strong commercial heart evidenced by the lack of too many charity shops. It’s success is re-enforced when you find Dunnes Stores and an Easons book shop in the town. These two businesses follow success and help to ensure its continuity. The commercial strength of Monaghan town owes much to the local authority’s decision to provide parking throughout the town at very reasonable rates. Monaghan’s car parking rates of one euro for two hours is an encouragement to local shoppers and visitors alike to do business in the town centre. Other towns I have visited recently in County Cork allowed parking for two hours free of charge which is a parking regime first successfully trialled in Steyning West Sussex many years ago. The Monaghan parking rates I found were similarly imposed in Omagh and Strabane and confirmed the savvy northerners acceptance of the wisdom of not discouraging town centre shopping by imposing revenue gathering charges. The local council here in Athy informed us when parking charges were first introduced that they were intended to better regulate parking in the town and were not intended as a revenue collection exercise. Soon after they were implemented, the fee paying parking areas were extended widely throughout the town. This has damaged Athy’s commercial life. Monaghan has several easily accessible car parks in and around the centre of the town including all day parking for one euro in designated areas. Clearly, the town fathers recognised that encouraging footfall in the town’s centre was far more important than creating an income generating scheme to bolster local rates. As I travelled northwards from Monaghan, I found the rural villages of Bready, Magheramason and New Buildings all within a short distance of each other and near to Derry City flying Union Jacks and Ulster flags on every available electricity pole. The message was clear and for a visitor from the South somewhat discomforting. Derry itself was flag free insofar as I could see and the people there were very friendly and reassuring. I spent a few hours on a guided tour of the Bogside led by Paul Doherty whose father Pat was one of the thirteen men shot dead by members of the Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday, 3rd January 1972. The Bogside is festooned with murals which remind us of the difficulties faced by the locals during the Troubles. Listening to the guide, it was clear that decades of discrimination and gerrymandering which effectively disenfranchised the majority still shapes the minds and hearts of the local people. The following day I visited the much publicised Derry Girls Exhibition in the Tower Museum as my son Francis, one of the Monaghan youngster’s, was the Art Director on the T.V. series. In the same building was an extensive exhibition telling the story of Derry City. It was one of the best Exhibitions of its kind I have ever seen and is well worth a visit if you are ever in Derry. On our return journey we called to Kells, where in May 1967 I took up duty as a Town Clerk and where after marrying we lived for two months at the end of a one and a half year term in the job. The Town Hall where I had my office is now an Auctioneers but otherwise like Monaghan the streetscape shows few changes. Kells held many memories for me. It was there that a small group of us living in digs played football almost every evening in St. Colmcille’s Park. Amongst those were the legendary footballers Des Ferguson and Greg Hughes who were living in Kells at that time. They appeared once or twice a week while the rest of us haunted the playing pitch every evening. I recalled those whose company I enjoyed while working in Kells and also in Monaghan and as I walked the once familiar streets of both towns, the fading memories of 50 years or more ago returned. The friends and acquaintances have in many cases passed on but they are still remembered with fondness. During the week, a one time resident of Offaly Street passed away. Eileen Tuohy lived in No. 22 Offaly Street with her parents Michael and Annie and with her older brother Tommy and younger sister Mary. Michael was an old IRA man from East Clare who served as a Garda in Athy for many years. He died in 1972 and his wife Annie whom he married while he was stationed in Tullow, died four years later. Mary, the youngest of the family died in London in 2015 and six years later. her brother Tommy, a Marist priest, died. Eileen who was born in 1936 was the last of the Tuohy family which formed part of the strong family based community which existed in Offaly Street in the 1940’s and beyond. The street is no longer home to any of the families who lived there during my young days. Sadly, the local shops Kitty Websters and Sylvesters as well as Moore’s on Emily Square corner are no more while even the local pub and Bobs Cinema are long closed. Friendships and acquaintances forged in younger days are constantly being lost as old age gathers more and more of us in its grip. My journey of remembrance which started in Monaghan followed by a visit to Kells ended this week with a funeral to St. Michael’s cemetery to bid farewell to an old neighbour.

Duthie's Jewellers Athy

After 105 years the name W.T. Duthie may soon disappear from the local streetscape as the sale of the jeweller shop has been completed and new owners take possession. The Duthie family, like so many others, in decades past, lived over the shop in Athy’s Main Street. Were they I wonder the last family to do so? I called to 30 Leinster Street a few days ago after Heather Duthie phoned me to say that with her brother Alistair, she was clearing the premises of Duthie family items and shop records and equipment. I was interested in preserving as much as possible the artefacts identifiable with the Duthie family business which was first established by Willoughby O’Connor sometime in the 19th Century. Albert Duthie’s father William Thomas Duthie worked for O’Connor in the Leinster Street business and succeeded him when he died in 1903. The name W.T. Duthie was retained as the business name even after W.T. died in 1949 to be succeeded by his son Albert who had joined his father a few years previously after a five year apprenticeship in Dublin. I have previously written of Albert Duthie who passed away at a young age in 1979, describing him as a passionate promoter of Athy Town. I first got to know him well when I was living in Dublin in the 1970’s. I called on Albert on a few occasions while visiting Athy seeking help with various Athy related questions. He was always very helpful and extremely knowledgeable in relation to local matters. I know he promoted the town as much as he possibly could and to this end he had the Athy crest embossed on cups and other items sold in his shop. Older generations will remember with fondness the Santa Claus which appeared in the Duthie Shop window in the weeks before Christmas. The nodding Santa Claus was the acknowledged forerunner of the festive season and was cherished by the youngsters in the town. Following Albert’s death, his wife Anna, a native of Ballybay in County Monaghan continued in the business until finally the shop closed for the last time on the 31st July 2013. Heather Duthie and her brother Alistair have kindly donated many items from the iconic jewellers shop to the local Heritage Centre. Included amongst those items were account books kept by Albert in which he recorded watch and jewellery items left in for repair. Looking through some of those earlier books, I came across names once very familiar in Athy. Names such as Miss Dallon and Mr. Hickey of Emily Square, Miss Breen of Offaly Street and Miss Stynes of Leinster Street prompted reminders of persons we knew over half a century ago. Another interesting item donated was a watch rack hanging with watches which had been left in for repairs over the years but never collected. An unusual item I received on behalf of the Heritage Centre was a trout caught by Albert in the River Barrow which he had preserved and mounted for display in the shop. That fish was recognised by the Irish Specimen Fish Committee as a specimen river trout having weighed 5lbs ½ oz and was recorded in the Associations returns for 1963 as having been caught by A. A. Duthie on the 27th May 1963. An interesting note which Albert prepared as a member of Athy’s Angling Club during 1964 gave the following details of fish caught by club members. Tommy Gray of Kilmoroney caught a Pike weighing 10lbs while Patrick Brennan of Belview captured a Bream weighing 3lbs, 7oz. A trout of 3lbs, 1oz was caught by Patrick Conway of Ballyroe and George Chatfield of St. Joseph’s Terrace caught the largest perch weighed 1lb, 7oz. The final entry referred to the 1lb rudd which was caught by Nicholas Cahill of Pairc Bhride. Albert Duthie was a dedicated member of the Angling Club and acted as Secretary of the Club for many years. In one of the watch repair books, I found a postcard advertising “St. John’s Reliance Lever Watch” printed on behalf of C.H. St. John of 3 Duke Street who was described as a Watchmaker, Jeweller and Optician. The 1913 Irish Directory lists the local watchmakers and jewellers as W.T. Duthie, W.P. St. John and E. Higginson, the last two located in Duke Street. As Charles Henry St. John of Duke Street died in 1947 aged 73 years, I wonder if the Directory reference to Higginson is correct. The items generously donated by the Duthie family to the Heritage Centre will be retained for future use/display while the business records will be forwarded to the Kildare County Archives. The photograph shows W.T. Duthie, Albert’s father who put his name over the shop door after he took over from W. O’Connor in 1905.

South Kildare Agricultural Progress 1861 / Patrick McCaffrey, Athy man executed 1861

I am an inveterate reader of our daily national papers. I have put this lifelong habit to good effect when mining the archives of newspapers for those historical titbits which often slip through the cracks of our town’s history. Lately I have been delving into the online digital archives of The Times newspaper of London. In The Times issue of 3rd September 1861 it’s special correspondent was reporting from Athy that August under the title ‘Ireland’s Agricultural Progress’. The anonymous writer gave a detailed account of farming activity in south Kildare and particularly agricultural activity around Athy. He paid particular attention to the lands owned by the Duke of Leinster who he described as having somewhere in and around seventy thousand acres in his ownership. Describing Athy as the ‘corn market and livestock mart of southern Kildare’ he noted it held an agricultural fair almost every six weeks, with a showing of between two thousand and three thousand head of cattle and many sheep. He noted the impact of the Scottish farming settlers brought over by the Duke of Leinster and their effect on the farming practices in the area. He wrote: ‘When Mr. Alexander, the Duke’s steward came, seventeen years ago, not a single cow or bullock was stall fed in winter in this district; now, the Irish farmers, like the settlers, universally practice turnip growing and stall feeding, even the man with only two milch cows being sure to tie one up and fatten her when milked dry.’ As to agricultural labourers in the area he found wages as being very low where men were paid three shillings a day for mowing and up to four to five shillings for urgent work, while women were paid one shilling and six pence for tying corn. The hours of labour were from six o’clock in the morning to six o’clock in the evening, with an hours rest at breakfast and another at dinner time. The chief diet, of the agricultural peasantry, was coarse wheaten bread and potatoes. It is clear that only a few short years after the famine had devastated the county, that life as an agricultural labourer was still tough and a driving force in seeing so many emigrate to both Britain and America. One such emigrant was Patrick McCaffery, and his short and sad life was the subject of a detailed report in the issue of The Times of 13th January 1862. He was born in Athy but his life story prior to his appearance in The Times is not entirely clear, but no doubt he and his family, like many others, were drawn to the industrial heartlands of Britain. Before enlisting in the Army he spent 18 months working in the cotton mills of Manchester or ‘Cottonopolis’. By 1861 McCaffery was a private soldier in the 32nd Regiment of Foot, stationed in Fulwood Barracks just outside Preston, Lancashire, thirty miles from Manchester. McCaffery’s notoriety arose from an incident on Saturday 14th September 1861 in the barracks. McCaffery shot and killed Colonel Hugh Denis Crofton and also Captain John Hanham. The incident appeared to have arisen from a dispute that McCaffery had with his captain whom he clearly intended to hurt or kill, while at the same time accidentally killing the colonel. His trial received significant coverage in both British and Irish papers of the time. McCaffery was represented by the barrister Charles Russell, later Baron Russell of Killowen, a native Irishman who would later distinguish himself in the Home Rule movement as a Member of Parliament in Westminster. Russell later represented Charles Stewart Parnell at the Parnell Commission hearings in 1888-1889. His participation in the tribunal, including an eight-day speech in defence of Parnell was crucial to exposing the forgeries of the fraudster Richard Pigot. But the outcome of the trial was never in dispute and McCaffery was hung at Kirkdale Gaol, Preston in front of a reported crowd of 30,000 people. While McCaffery’s life was short and his ending brutal, the story inspired a folk song which in it’s various iterations has been recorded by a succession of folk singers including Ewan McColl and the Dubliners. It clearly had a resonance down through the centuries and was often sung to the air of ‘The Croppy Boy’. It is a lament for a short life ending in violence replete with regret: ‘At Liverpool Assizes my trial I stood And I held my courage as best I could Then the old judge said, Now, McCaffery Go prepare your soul for eternity I had no father to take my part No loving mother to break her heart I had one friend and a girl was she Who'd lay down her life for McCaffery So come all you officers take advice from me And go treat your men with some decency For it's only lies and a tyranny That have made a murderer of McCaffery’

Athy's Building Heritage

Athy is home to many fine buildings, some more important than others because of their history and their links with the town’s story, stretching back in some cases for centuries. Understandably, we can all take pride in the best laid out square or plaza in the County of Kildare with the backdrop of the early 18th century Town Hall. That fine building has survived despite an attempt by some members of the local Urban Council in the 1970s to have it demolished in order to provide additional parking facilities in the town centre. Other buildings which once were important in the context of a developing medieval village are Woodstock Castle and the church built outside the town walls which we now know as the ‘Crickeen’. Both buildings have suffered from the ravages of time, with the castle at Woodstock mercifully fenced off in recent years to protect what remains of an important part of our medieval built heritage. The ‘Crickeen’, through the good offices of Kildare County Council using taxpayers money and business rates, was the subject of recent conservation work which will ensure the preservation of Athy’s first secular church for the immediate future. Woodstock Castle needs similar attention and hopefully the Heritage Office of Kildare Co. Co. in conjunction with the National Monuments Committee of that Council will give the conservation of Woodstock Castle some priority. The Town Hall, Woodstock Castle and the ‘Crickeen’ are important buildings in terms of Athy’s historical past, but none of them can equal the importance of Athy’s most iconic building – Whites Castle or the White Castle, depending on which authority you rely. The town’s trademark is the castle and the bridge, one standing on the east bank of the river Barrow, the other the only access way to the ‘wild Irish’ on the Laois side of the county. The bridge, built in 1796 by the master mason James Delehunt and his team of helpers, figured prominently, as did Whites Castle, during the 1798 rebellion. Seven young men who were jailed in Whites Castle at the start of the rebellion were marched over the newly built bridge and hanged at the basin of the Grand Canal. Two of them were beheaded and their heads put on the top of Whites Castle. The local militia during the summer of ’98 apparently amused themselves by firing at the two heads from the middle of the bridge. As you pass Whites Castle today take a look at the Earl of Kildare’s coat of arms carved on a large stone slab and placed there when the bridge was opened. The militia in 1798 smashed the flagstone bearing the coat of arms and the damage is still visible today. Five years later at the start of the Robert Emmet rebellion, Nicholas Grey, a Wexford man who was then living in nearby Rockfield House, was arrested and lodged in Whites Castle jail. He had been appointed by Robert Emmet to lead the County Kildare men to Dublin, but was arrested before he could do so. Whites Castle has been involved in so many other important events in Irish history. The Confederate War saw the Royalists, the Confederates and the Parliamentarians vying for control of Athy and the castle protecting the bridge over the river Barrow. This meant that Whites Castle and Woodstock Castle were under constant attack. That the castle survived is in itself a miracle, although Woodstock Castle was effectively abandoned following the Confederate War. Whites Castle was repaired after it was badly damaged during the same war and in or about 1800 was extended to provide additional accommodation including prison cells. Our castle on the bridge has stood for over 600 years, but sadly it is today looking neglected. It looks unsafe with early 19th century chimney stacks looking positively unstable. The building remains closed having been purchased in recent years. I was contacted by the purchaser soon after she bought the castle and given her previous involvement in the restoration of another important building in the south of the country, I was hopeful that the same would happen here. I have been disappointed on so many occasions when it comes to Whites Castle. I had hoped that when the castle first came on the market that the then Urban District Council would acquire it. The Council members publicly expressed interest, but regrettably the matter was not pursued. The castle came on the market again a few years later and despite a huge reduction in the asking price the Town Council again failed to act to ensure public ownership of Athy’s most important building. It was resold for the third time in recent years, with again no attempt this time by Kildare County Council to acquire Whites Castle. It is rather shameful that none of the local authorities acted on any of the three occasions to acquire Whites Castle and allow it to be developed as a local museum, cum Fitzgerald Museum. This iconic building must not be allowed to become a ruin. It lies idle while the possible development of the town centre castle as another element of the town’s tourist development remains unfulfilled.

Paddy Doyle

Paddy Doyle was in the audience for the O.N.E. concert in the Arts Centre on Monday night, 17th July. There was a capacity attendance that night to hear local musicians and singers give proof, if such was needed, that the musical tradition in Athy is very strong. By the following morning Paddy had passed away just short of his 90th birthday. It was, in a way, a happy coincidence that Paddy, a talented singer and a long time member of the Parish choir, should enjoy his last evening in his beloved town of Athy in the company of fellow singers. I had known Paddy for many years, initially during his time with Minch Nortons and in more recent years as an experienced and helpful electrician. Paddy was the quintessential Athy man whose love for Athy knew no bounds. His father served in, and survived, the First World War. However, it was not without some consequences for as Paddy told me when I interviewed him several years ago, his father, known to all as “Barracks” Doyle, throughout his post war life suffered from the consequences of seeing the bodies of his fellow soldiers mangled and torn in the French trenches. Paddy was one of the most kind hearted persons one could hope to meet. He was generous with his time, generous with his good humour and generous with his wonderful singing voice which saw him as a member of the Parish choir for many decades. He was a person who epitomised all that was good in the best of us. I never saw Paddy without a smile, a good word or a laugh. He was an ever cheerful person whose very presence was guaranteed to lift the mood of the most dour amongst us. It was therefore pleasing to see that Paddy’s funeral Mass was a celebration of a wonderful life lived simply but with great affection for his neighbours and his wider community. It was a celebration marked by what I feel was the most exquisite singing I had ever heard in St. Michael’s Parish Church. Paddy’s companions in the Parish choir performed wonderfully in bidding their final farewell to a well loved friend, but the singing of Paddy’s son Dermot was absolutely wonderful. I have never been so moved by a singer or a song as I was at Paddy’s funeral Mass as I listened to the wonderful voice of his son Dermot. It was for me so unexpected and a real joy to hear such a masterful performance in the church. Paddy would have been very proud of his son Dermot as he filled the church with a beautiful rendition of ‘The Lark in the Clear Air’, accompanied on the viola by Noelle Robinson. The ceremony ended with Dermot singing ‘Annies Song’, this time accompanied by Justin Kelly on the flute. Dermot’s contribution to the celebration of his father’s life was extraordinarily powerful. Paddy’s second son Ciaran continued the celebration of a well lived life with a charming eulogy which included what would have been his father’s own account of growing up in Athy. Paddy had recounted how it was beside the Moneen River that his father James and his mother Elizabeth made their family home after they married. Paddy was the eldest of five children and the Doyle family lived in a two roomed mudwalled cottage with a thatched roof and clay floors. This was the lot of so many families in Athy and elsewhere in the country in the years before the Slum Clearance Programme initiated by De Valera’s government in the early 1930s. Until he was 13 years of age Paddy assisted his mother by bringing home two buckets of water every day from a well over a mile away from the Doyle cottage. In 1953 the Doyle family moved to a newly built house at Coneyboro. Paddy married Patricia Donegan from Carlow in 1969 and having lived in Avondale Drive for a few years moved to their new home on the Castledermot Road six years later. It was there that Paddy and Patricia reared their three children, Ciaran, Dermot and Kathryn. At the Mass special mention was made of their mother Patricia described with fondness “as a beautiful caring mother of principle and truth”. It was a great privilege to be part of the congregation which gathered in St. Michael’s Church to say goodbye to a good man. That same venue where I saw Paddy on his last night will on Monday, 14th August host a photographic and video exhibition of the canal boatmen and their boats who once plied their trade on the Barrow line and the Grand Canal. Lots of Athy folk will feature. The exhibition will be open until the 25th August from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. each day excluding Sundays.

Athy's Library in the 1950s

When I was a young pupil attending the Christian Brother’s secondary school in St. John’s Lane a welcome evening break in the ever constant routine of studying and working on school homework was a weekly visit to the local library. It was an evening visit as the library in the 1950’s was not opened during the day. The Librarian at that time was the well known and well liked Kevin Meaney who lived in St. Patrick’s Avenue. Kevin’s day job was clerk to the town engineer, Mossie Sullivan but it is as the town librarian that he is best remembered after the passage of so many years. The library was located in the Town Hall in a small room next to the Ballroom and when I measured it last week, I found it to be seventeen feet by twenty feet. It was accessed by a stairs with a doorway onto the street directly opposite Mrs. Gibbon’s house. The fact that library users had to exit from that doorway directly onto the street gives some inkling of the scarcity of vehicular traffic in those days. Kevin Meaney and his brothers Danny and Dermot all of whom lived in St. Patrick’s Avenue had a great affection for Athy. Danny who worked in a local factory was a keen photographer and he amassed during his lifetime an important archive of photographs and videos of Athy town and its people. I can recall attending a showing of videos by Danny in Mulhall’s public house next to White’s Castle a short while after I returned to Athy in 1982. Danny’s photographic record of Athy’s past was and hopefully remains a rich vein of Athy’s cultural history and a wonderful insight into the lives of the local people, many of whom have passed from memory. Danny’s brother Kevin was a local historian in the sense that he knew of the towns past and shared his knowledge with others. Unfortunately, like so many others he did not commit his recollections to paper. My weekly visit to the library was in search of Zane Grey novels but somewhere in between, for whatever reason I cannot now remember, Kevin once spoke to me of Patrick O’Kelly’s book on the 1798 Rebellion. O’Kelly, was a local young man who in the revolutionary years was one of the leaders of the United Irishmen in this area. His accounts of events in Athy and the surrounding area during the 1798 Rebellion and the Emmet Rebellion five years later was first published in 1842. The book was never available in the library but Kevin having alerted me to its very existence prompted a successful search for a copy many years later. I have often wondered was it that contact with Kevin Meaney, the librarian, all those years ago which would later put me on the history trail. The importance of local libraries cannot be over emphasised for it is there that young people start on a life’s journey through the written world. That small library of the 1950’s was a pre-cursor to the magnificent local library which is today housed in the former Dominican Church which was constructed in the early years of the 1960’s. Athy in the past was a town with a literary background which recalls a time when it was home to printing works operated by a John Richardson and later in the 1830’s a printing and publishing concern owned by W.H. Talbot. Successful members of the Talbot family were involved in printing and publishing in Athy over subsequent years. Indeed, Thomas French published the Athy Literary Magazine, a weekly magazine which ended with its 25th edition in February 1838. As the effects of the Great Famine eased in 1849, Athy boasted of two rival local newspapers, The Kildare and the Wicklow Chronicle and the Irish Eastern County Herald. Sadly the press war between the two newspapers only lasted a few weeks as the Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle ceased publication after four or five issues. The first library in Athy opened in the Town Hall in 1927 in the same room where I found it thirty years later. In those days reading material was heavily censored not only by the Ireland’s state censor but also by a library committee comprising the Parish Priest, three Catholic Curates, the Church of Ireland Rector and the Presbyterian Minister as well as five members of the Urban District Council. The first librarian was Mr. B. Bramley of Emily Square who opened the library one evening a week from 7.00pm – 9.00pm but soon thereafter, the opening times were increased to two days a week. I have written in the past of how a library is a cultural investment for the future and how our highly praised local library in providing a variety of community activities, as well as book lending is serving us well.

Kilkea Castle and the Earls of Kildare

Kilkea Castle, much altered over the centuries, is believed to be Ireland’s oldest habitable castle. Built in the latter end of the 12th century by the Anglo Norman Hugh de Lacy in what was later described as the Marches of Kildare, it formed part of the fortresses which provided protection for that part of the countryside centred around Dublin which was controlled by the early Anglo-Norman settlers. The Castle is within 4 miles of the village of Castledermot where the first gathering in Irish history to be called a Parliament was held in 1264. Twenty-six knights came together for that first parliamentary session and ten more Irish parliaments would be held in the rural village of Castledermot between 1269 and 1404. That first Irish parliament was held just 27 years after King Henry III’s Great Council met in the Great Chamber of the medieval palace of Westminster. That is generally accepted as the first gathering in English history to be called a Parliament. The Castle of Kilkea was once one of the homes of the most powerful family in Ireland, the Fitzgeralds, later Earls of Kildare and from the latter part of the 18th Century Dukes of Leinster. Several Earls of Kildare served as Lord Deputy of Ireland, a role which involved placating the rebellious Irish tribes who did not accept the King’s rule in Ireland. Gearoid Mór, the 8th Earl of Kildare and Governor of Ireland for over 30 years was wounded while leading his men against the Irish Tribe of the O’Mores at Leap Castle and he succumbed to his wounds in the town of Athy. His son, Gearoid Óg the 9th Earl of Kildare, succeeded as Lord Deputy, but Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII chief advisor and Chancellor of the Exchequer concerned by the usurpation of Royal power by the Irish Lords had the Earl called to London for alleged treason. He would die in the Tower of London while his son Thomas, known in Irish history as Silken Thomas, rebelled and marched on Dublin. He too ended up in the Tower of London with five of his uncles where they were all beheaded. This so called Kildare Rebellion prompted the Crown to take the governorship of Ireland out of the hands of the Earls of Kildare to be replaced by direct rule by an English governor. The title Earl of Kildare was forfeited and the family’s estates including Kilkea Castle confiscated, but were restored 15 years later when Silken Thomas’s half-brother, also called Thomas, a self-proclaimed loyal subject of the King was recognised as Earl of Kildare. He made his principle residence in Kilkea Castle. However, following the Desmond rebellion of 1569 which involved a related Fitzgerald family in the south of the country, Thomas, the 11th Earl, was arrested and brought to London. This time unlike his predecessors, he was not confined to the Tower of London, but spent long periods in the 1570s and 1580s under house arrest. He died in London in 1585. Subsequent Earls of Kildare continued to live in Kilkea Castle and were resident here during the Civil War which broke out in 1641 between the native Irish and Catholic gentry on the one side and Puritans on the other. Later it became a three sided conflict between the native Irish, the Catholic Royalists and the Puritans. The Catholic Confederate leaders Owen Roe O’Neill and Thomas Preston stayed in Kilkea Castle for a time, as did the Papal Nuncio Scarampo during the Civil War, commonly referred to as the Confederate War. Apart from playing hosts for a short while to some of the Catholic leaders involved in the war, Kilkea Castle did not figure hugely in the terrible events of the Confederate Wars or Cromwell’s reign of terror. If the 16th century Earls of Kildare were regarded as unfaithful to the English Crown, a very real rebel was found in Lord Edward Fitzgerald, one time Member of Parliament for Athy and brother of the first Duke of Leinster. He led the United Irishmen in his native county of Kildare in preparation for the 1798 rebellion. Lord Edward had served in the British forces in America during the American Revolution and was later an admirer of the French Revolution and an associate of Thomas Paine. He joined the United Irishmen on returning from America but was captured before the rebellion started and died as a result of a stab wound inflicted while being arrested. He is still remembered today as one of the most passionate Irish Revolutionaries of the 18th Century. Lord Edward and his wife Pamela had three children and their daughter Pamela married Sir Guy Campbell, a distinguished Scottish soldier who had played an active part in suppressing the Irish rebels during the 1798 Rebellion and who was later Lieutenant Governor of Gibraltar during the critical years of the Peninsular War. Their daughter Madeline married Percy Wyndham, son of the Earl of Egremont and their son, the great grandson of the Irish rebel, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, would become the Secretary of State for Ireland under Arthur Balfour’s premiership. George Wyndham was described as a hardened Tory and an indefatigable defender of the Union. He is remembered for the Wyndham Land Act of 1903 which effectively brought an end to the Irish Land War campaigns of the 1880s while his great grandfather Lord Edward, the most famous son of Kilkea Castle, is remembered as one of the most admired Irish radical revolutionaries of the past.

Memories of attending C.B.S. Athy in the 1950s

My class passed from the 6th class in primary school following our primary certificate examination into the C.B.S. secondary school in 1955. The primary school and the secondary school in St. John’s Lane shared the same yard with the secondary school occupying three classrooms over part of the primary school accessed by an outside iron stairway. The shortage of classroom space may have accounted for several pupils, including myself, skipping first year and beginning our secondary education in the second-year classroom. The entire secondary school teaching staff at that time consisted of two members of the Christian Brothers and two lay teachers. Around the time we started in secondary school, or perhaps just before that, the leaving certificate class consisted of only one student. By the time my class sat the Leaving Certificate examination in 1960 the class of eleven students had become the largest leaving certificate class in the school’s history. The 1950’s was a period when unemployment was rife, wages were low and free secondary education was unknown. The Christian Brothers had arrived in Athy in 1861 and in keeping with their mission opened schools for the young boys of the town. Education, both primary and secondary, was available to all who wanted it, but the Christian Brothers did seek a small payment from parents who could afford to contribute to school expenses. We attended school five and a half days a week, finishing our school week on Saturday midday. Wednesday afternoons were devoted to Gaelic football practice in Geraldine Park. No other sport was played, and the school’s only competitive team was the Gaelic football team which unfortunately had no success whatsoever during the 1950s. Our teachers were Brother J.D. Brett who arrived in 1955, the year I joined the secondary school. With him was Brother Sylvanus Keogh who had arrived in 1952. He was known to his many pupils as ‘Johnny Borris’. How or why no one appears to have known. Liam Ryan and Paddy Riordan were the lay teachers. Liam came to Athy from County Tipperary sometime in the 1930s and was a well-loved teacher who encouraged and inspired his pupils. As the class of 1955 progressed, many of my schoolmates left school. Some left at 14 years of age to take up jobs around Athy. I still remember how I envied a classmate who left school to become a telegram boy attached to Naas Post Office. Our collective ambitions were limited but were occasionally sharply focused when the Christian Brothers recruiting for the Order attended the school once a year. Many of us indicated a willingness to join the Christian Brothers, but either parents or common sense intervened in many cases to save us for the outside world. A yearly written religious examination was another feature of secondary school life in the 1950’s. It was, I believe, organised by the Diocesan authorities, and was regarded by us youngsters as a day off from the rigours of everyday school. We sat the Intermediate Certificate examination in 3rd year and some, like myself, repeated in 4th year. The 1960 Leaving Certificate examination was the first year of the oral Irish examination. Irish was my worst subject and following the inspector’s oral examination of the leaving certificate class students which took place in the nearby Christian Brothers monastery, Brother Keogh announced to us afterwards; ‘All of you but one did well’ – as he looked directly at me with a resigned look. None of us who sat the Leaving Certificate in 1960 had any thought of going to university. It was never mentioned as a possibility, but some of us did subsequently attend university and obtain degrees after attending night classes. My classmates of the 1950’s endured, rather than enjoyed, school. It was not unpleasant, but youthful enjoyment was measured by post school activities. However, sometimes school time and afterschool life combined to leave us with wonderful memories. One such was the intermediate class meeting addressed by fellow pupil Michael O’Neill, a Kerry lad, which lead to the founding of CARA, later renamed Aontas Ogra. This Irish language club brought together local boys and girls in a range of pleasant activities which we remember as part of our enjoyable school years. I and my classmates left school in 1960 to join the working world where so many of those who had started junior school with us approximately 14 years earlier were already committed to a working life. The Christian Brothers secondary school of the 1950’s is a distant early memory likely to be crowded out by the gathered memories of a long life. However, those school memories will always remain part of my treasured past.