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.