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.