Change from Heritage Company to Shackleton Museum

Road closures were the subject of some angry comments on Facebook during the past week. They coincided with the publication of a notice regarding the closure of Offaly Street for a number of weeks to facilitate work on the redevelopment of the Town Hall. However, the comments related to the half day closure of part of the Carlow Road during the running of the Athy Race last Sunday. It is rather a pity that the event which attracted a lot of runners gave rise to these comments. The event was by all accounts very successful and hopefully the organisers will have learned the value of earning and retaining community support by giving appropriate advance notice of race routes, times, etc. As to the lengthy closure to traffic of Offaly Street I can only claim that it’s a sacrifice which will be well rewarded when work on the Shackleton Museum is completed. It is anticipated that the Museum should be ready for opening in the summer of 2025. Within the next few weeks work will start on assembling the glass iceberg shaped extension to the rear of the Town Hall. Before that work commences the ship’s cabin in which the Kilkea-born Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton died, will be brought from Letterfrack, Co. Galway and positioned on the first floor of the Town Hall building. It will be transported in a protective casing which will remain in place until building work in the Town Hall is completed. Another important exhibit which in time will be moved into the building is a full scale replica of the James Caird boat which the three Irishmen, Shackleton, Tom Crean and Tim McCarthy with three other companions travelled over 800 miles across the Weddell Sea in the first stage of a heroic and successful attempt to save the lives of 22 of their companions who were marooned on Elephant Island. On Monday evening, 15th April, the last meeting of the current directors of the Shackleton Museum was held in the Clanard Court Hotel. What had started out 41 years ago as a local Museum Society with ambitions to open a small local museum in Athy has evolved as a museum of national, if not international importance. Many of those volunteers in the early years of the Museum Society have passed on. Amongst them were the late Pat Mulhall, Bertie Doyle, Ken Sales, Noreen Ryan and Tommy Pender who are remembered with gratitude and fondness for the part they played in a magnificent local project. Kildare County Council will hereafter take over the management and control of the Shackleton Museum, thereby ensuring its financial viability and stability which could not be guaranteed long term by volunteers. To all those men and women who have given of their time, expertise and energy to making Athy Heritage Centre and later the Shackleton Museum a rousing success I extend my heartfelt thanks. Side by side with the Shackleton Museum stands the Shackleton Autumn School, now in its 24th year, which has made a huge contribution to the acceptance at international level of the Shackleton interest in Athy. The voluntary committee members who have organised the Autumn School in recent years and made it the most popular annual Polar event anywhere in the world will continue to do so. What is being created amongst the hallowed walls of Athy’s 18th century Town Hall is a reminder to all of us of what can be achieved when ambition, initiative and will to do come together in locals willing to work to improve their own place. I wrote recently of the neglectful, almost derelict state of many buildings on our high street and bemoaned the absence of a local association ready to tackle the resulting problems. The success of the Shackleton Museum demonstrates what can be achieved by local people coming together. Is it too much to hope that people in business in Athy would come together to help rescue, before it is too late, the commercial heart of our proud town? The next meeting of the newly formed Athy’s History Society will be held in the local Community Arts Centre on Thursday, 9th May commencing at 7.30pm. The meeting will elect officers of the society for the coming year and a discussion will take place on the future of both Whites Castle and Woodstock Castle. The appointment of the Bishop of Achonry, Paul Dempsey, as second auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, alongside Bishop Donal Dunne, is wonderful news for Athy where Bishop Dempsey grew up. We can look forward to Athy youngsters being confirmed by a man who as a young boy attended our local schools. He will be following in the footsteps of Cardinal Paul Cullen who was born in Prospect House near Ballitore and who performed confirmations in Athy, although he attended the Quaker School in Ballitore at a time when there were then no schools in Athy such as we have today.

'How We Danced', an engaging show by Kevin O'Neill

Have you supported or attended any of the recent events in Athy’s Community Arts Centre? It is a question I put to many acquaintances as I attempt to gauge the level of support for the Arts Centre which has been run by volunteers for more than fifteen years. Last year the Community Arts Centre was open for two hundred and fifty days showcasing a variety of concerts, events and exhibitions. Last week Athy’s History Society hosted an unusual lecture/musical event as part of it’s winter series of lectures. “How We Danced” was the title of Kevin O’Neill’s engaging lecture which he interspersed with musical performances. The evening event was a celebration of local pride and identity which was hugely enjoyed by a capacity audience. Kevin, a master of many musical instruments and our own Joe Byrne opened the evening’s proceedings with both playing marching tunes on bagpipes as they paraded through the hall to the stage. It was a treat to see two first class musicians who at various times during the evening played bagpipes, violin, tin whistle and saxophone. Athy’s musical tradition gave Athy from the 1880’s onwards, marching bands, the first of which I have noted was the C.Y.M.S. Band. That band appears not to have lasted for very long. It’s successors, the Leinster Street Fife and Drum band and the Barrack Street Band were representatives of two different sides of Irish political life during the Home Rule period. Folklore would have us believe that the ex-soldier members of the Barrack Street Band fought many a battle on Crom-a-boo Bridge with the Leinster Street Band members. Memories of the legendary Casey Dempsey were revived when the Dempsey Ceili Band comprising Casey’s nephew Patsy, his two nieces Mary and Liz and Patsy’s wife Paula played on stage. Kevin spoke of the Ceili band era when Molly Cully’s Ceili Band from Levitstown blazed a trail, later travelled by the Gallowglass and the Ardellis Ceili bands. Kevin spoke of the South Kildare pipe band tradition which gave us pipe bands in Castledermot, Narraghmore, Kilberry, Churchtown, Castlemitchell and Athy. Dances in the Town Hall and from the mid 1930’s in the Social Club in St. John’s Lane featured performances by Earnest O’Rourke Glynn’s Cabaret Band. I have for many years searched without success for a record made by Ernest in a Dublin studio in the 1930’s. Another band of the early 1940’s was Mona Sylvester’s Ivy League Band. I recall Sylvester’s Sweet Shop in Emily Row presided over by Mona and her elderly mother. The Ivy Band was gone by the 1950’s, however, Mona played a significant part in the musical training of Joe O’Neill who would go on to lead the Stardust Band for many years. A songster of a later period, her voice was heard during Kevin O’Neill’s talk was the late Maisie Dooley. Maisie’s record of Irish Ballads was released in America and thanks to Bill Giltrap the record, purchased in Boston many years ago, was played to the Arts Centre audience. He was also able to play for the interested audience a hitherto unknown record made by the St. Joseph’s Fife and Drum Band in or around 1954. That youth band and it’s successor, the St. Joseph’s Brass and Reed Band was founded and trained by Joe O’Neill and his associates from St. Joseph’s Terrace. As Athy’s musical story extended into the 1940’s and 1950’s, that story was taken up by Joe O’Neill’s Stardust Band, Padden’s Murphy’s Sorrento Orchestra and Alex Kelly and the Four Aces. The band members while working locally in day jobs travelled the length and breadth of Ireland fulfilling dancehall engagements several days a week. On the opening night of Dreamland Ballroom, the Sorrento Orchestra was the support act for Victor Sylvesters Orchestra. On stage at the Community Arts Centre, Paddens Murphy’s son Paul and Joe O’Neill’s son Kevin played duets and solos on saxophones reminding us of their late fathers contribution to a never to be forgotten local musical tradition. The nights entertainment ended with a roll call of local showbands of the 1960s and the 1970’s with pride of place going to the Adelaide Showband whose members comprising John Kelly , Pat O’Keeffe, John Scully, John Lawler, Robert Eston, Denis Chanders and Jim Leigh are remembered with affection. “How We Danced” was a wonderful night of music and reminiscences provided and presented by Kevin O’Neill whose father Joe contributed so much musically and otherwise to the town “he loved so well”. The Irish Patchwork Society’s national exhibition which takes place every two years will this year be on display in Athy’s Community Arts Centre from the 6th to the 20th April. It will showcase the creativity and talent of the Society’s members from all around Ireland and abroad. This years exhibition theme “A Common Thread”- St. Brigid “ challenges the patchwork society members to explore what it is about Brigid that continues to resonate with people across the world. Admission to the Exhibition is free.

Business decline in Athy

Glassealy resident, Thomas Rawson, wrote in 1807 ‘the extensive town of Athy ….. holds out much invitation to English capital and English industry ….. (yet) it is full of unemployed inhabitants. Athy is neglected, is in poverty’. Thirty-one years later an unidentified correspondent writing in the Athy Literary Magazine of March 1838 castigated ‘the spiritless and inept beings that form the more elevated circle (here in Athy)’. He continued ‘those persons who should be active in conceiving measures for the amelioration and adopting useful schemes for the improvement and comforts of the distressed and hard working poor never think at all about them ….. there is not a town in Ireland so completely neglected as Athy in every particular.’ I was reminded of these two references when I began to reflect on the present state of Athy’s main shopping streets. The heart of Athy is being carved out as we watch business after business close doors. It’s not just in Athy for the same problem is being experienced by so many other Irish provincial towns. Irish social and community habits have and are changing and this is nowhere more apparent than in the very Irish community practice of meeting friends and neighbours in a local public house. The local public house business is going through decades of change which has witnessed the closure of many town and country pubs. It’s a sobering thought to recall the pubs lost on the west side of Crom a Boo bridge. What was Michael Cunningham’s pub, near to Augustus Bridge, closed it’s doors over two decades ago, while the pub at the corner of Green Alley, last known as ‘The Goalpost’ closed more recently. Further down Duke Street the Dublin Bar shut it’s doors over sixty years ago, while on the opposite side of the road the legendary Barney Dunne’s pub closed after his death in 2007. With the loss of these four pubs Athy’s high street on the west side of Crom a Boo bridge is left with four public houses. Doyles and Dunnes in Woodstock Street, The Duke on Duke Street and the Auld Shebeen on Upper William Street. They are the sole representatives of a once thriving public house business on the west side of the River Barrow. Across the bridge built 220 years ago for horse and carriage traffic, but still meeting the demands of modern-day traffic, the second leg of Athy’s high street, Leinster Street shows the scars of closed public houses. What was once Mulhalls public house in the shadows of White Castle, is now used exclusively for weekend functions, while directly opposite is a newly opened coffee shop which once housed McCauley’s public house. Around the corner in Barrow Quay was ‘Chopsie’ Dillon’s pub, formerly Stirlings, more recently The Emigrant, now closed. In Emily Square two of the most prominent Athy pubs, O’Briens and Andersons are still to the good, as is Ann’s Place, formerly Lalors opposite the closed Duthies Jewellers and Watchmakers. Off the main street on Offaly Street, what was once Dowlings pub, later John W. Kehoes pub, has been closed for some years. On the opposite side of Leinster Street in Stanhope Street the once thriving Michael Noonans public house is vacant and sadly showing its age. Progressing up Leinster Street Des Noonan’s pub is no more, having suffered the same fate as Jim Nelson’s pub next door. Jim had moved to another premises further up Leinster Street, but those premises too are also now gone. The most famous pub in Athy, Bapty Mahers, has been closed for several years. McLaughlins public house is no more while Kanes, formerly Floods, is no longer open for business. A very substantial public house at the corner of Meeting Lane, most recently Murphy’s The Oasis, has been closed for several years and like so many closed business premises on the main streets of Athy is showing its age. Opposite Murphys was the Cock Robin pub which no longer operates. Breretons and McGoverns and Brian Smiths further up Leinster Street have closed their doors in recent times, while Nortons, Clancys and McEvoys at the corner of Mount Hawkins show a resilience in the face of changing social habits and increasing awareness of the legal restrictions on drinking and driving. The vacant public house premises in Athy present a sad appearance in the heart of our town and one which might conjure up images suggested by Rawson and that unidentified correspondent of almost 200 years ago. It is not just the public houses which have closed. So many other business premises have closed their doors presenting a picture of a decrepit and ill kept streetscape which speaks of developing neglect and dereliction. The problem of empty business premises is not confined to Athy. It is a national problem, clearly evidenced as we travel through Irish provincial towns. There is an urgent need to address the business decline in provincial Ireland. Here in Athy the government and its local government partner, Kildare County Council, must make available incentives to help the business life of town centres to thrive once again. For some time I have questioned the value of prohibitive car parking charges and the pressing need for more car parking spaces. Shoppers need to be encouraged to increase the footfall in town centres. Not enough is being done to bring back life to the commercial heart of Athy’s town centre. The absence of a local Chamber of Commerce or a town development association is something that needs to be addressed if further closure of local businesses in Athy is to be stopped and new business encouraged to set up in the heart of the town which was once described as the best market town in Leinster.

Republican Female Activists from Athy mentioned in 'Rebel Hearts' by Karl Kiely

‘Rebel Hearts’, a biographical list of Republican women activists from County Kildare during the period 1913-1923 was published recently by the County Kildare Decade of Commemoration Committee. Written by the County Kildare archivist Karl Kiely, it is another outstanding contribution to our understanding of the county’s early 20th century revolutionary period. In the Foreword to the work which owes much to Karl’s research amongst the pension and medal applications in the military archives there is a significant and for me a proud claim that the first County Kildare branch of Cumann na mBan was formed in Athy. This followed the founding of Athy’s Sinn Fein Club, whose chairman was the Duke Street shopkeeper Michael Dooley. The book records details of the Athy women who either as Cumann na mBan members or Republican sympathisers furthered the struggle for Irish independence. Mary Anne Brennan was the officer commanding the Maganey Cumann na mBan and following her marriage to Monasterevin Republican Fintan Brennan, both came to live in Athy. Fintan was the District Court Clerk for the District Courts in Athy, Castledermot and Monasterevin and served for a period as President of the Leinster G.A.A. Council. Mary Anne, who died in 1960, is buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery. Alice Lambe was a sister of I.R.A. members Frank and Peter Lambe who lived at Upper William Street. Alice, who worked as a dressmaker, was treasurer of Athy’s Cumann na mBan. She later married James Cowman and was living at No. 7 Bleach Cottages when she died in 1959. Mary Heffernan who was born in Leinster Street, Athy, operated the Prince of Wales Hotel in Newbridge, which during the War of Independence was a venue for meetings of Republican activists and a safe haven for Republicans on the run. Bridget Darby, with an address in Leinster Street, served as principal of Churchtown National School. A member of Athy Cumann na mBan she was also active in the Irish Language Movement and served as secretary of the local Gaelic League branch. Miss Darby, as she was always called, served for many years as a member of Athy Urban District Council and Kildare County Council. Her house at Leinster Street and Bapty Maher’s cycle shop in Duke Street were attacked and damaged by rampaging local ex-British soldiers in July 1919. Mary Hayden of Maganey was a member of Moone Cumann na mBan. She married Garda Michael Darcy in Castledermot in 1932 and died in England 43 years later. The Dooley family of Athy provided more members of the local Cumann na mBan than any other family. Mother of the family was the former Julia Bradley, who like her daughters Hester, Katherine and Julia, was a member of Athy’s Cumann na mBan. Julia Bradley married Michael Dooley, a one-time farmer and later shopkeeper of Duke Street, who was the first Chairman of Athy’s Sinn Fein Club. Her daughter Hester married Joe May who had been imprisoned in Arbour Hill and Ballykinler Internment Camp in 1921. Hester had a distinguished career, serving as Secretary to Oscar Traynor, Officer Commanding Dublin Brigade and later worked for the Director of I.R.A. Intelligence, Colonel J.J. O’Connell. Her sister Julia, known as ‘Gypsy’, also a member of Athy’s Cumann na mBan, later married Bill O’Neill whose father I believe was Station Master here in Athy. Her sister Katherine married Eamon Malone, one-time Commanding Officer of the Carlow Kildare I.R.A. Brigade. The Dooley name is recalled today in the name of the housing estate Dooley’s Terrace, named in honour of Michael Dooley, father of Hester, ‘Gypsy’, and Katherine. A short distance from Dooley’s Terrace another great Irish Republican is remembered in the name Malone Terrace, named after Eamon Malone, husband of Katherine Dooley. The Dooley name remains prominent today in local Athy affairs following the election to Kildare County Council of Brian Dooley, great grandson of the Sinn Fein chairman Michael Dooley. Another extended family connection was made when Cumann na mBan member Julia Bradley, sister of Republican activists John and James Bradley, married Michael May, a founding member of Athy Sinn Fein Club. Michael was a brother of Joe May who married the earlier mentioned Hester Dooley. Also connected was the Republican activist Margaret Byrne, whose husband was Thomas May, a shoemaker based in Woodstock Street, and who were the parents of the brothers Joe and Michael May. Sisters Kathleen and Rose McDonnell were members of the Cumann na mBan in Athy. Unfortunately there is no available information about the McDonnell sisters. Perhaps one of the most intriguing records of a Cumann na mBan member is that relating to Sara Curran, who was a native of Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny. She moved to Athy with her husband a few years after marrying the R.I.C. Constable Francis Murphy. They lived in Townparks and Sara was a member of the Barrowhouse Cumann na mBan. Captain of the Cumann na mBan in Athy was Christina Malone, a native of Barrowhouse and sister of Eamon Malone who for a period served as Officer Commanding the Carlow/Kildare I.R.A. Brigade. Soon after I returned to Athy in 1982 after an absence of 21 years I made the acquaintance of Christina Phelan, as she then was, who lived in No. 1 Convent View. She died in 1987 and to my subsequent embarrassment and regret, despite meeting her several times, I did not realise her connection with Eamon Malone or her leadership of Athy’s Cumann na mBan. It was one of my great regrets that I missed the opportunity of interviewing Christina Phelan. ‘Rebel Hearts’ is a role of honour of women from the County of Kildare who played a part in the struggle for Irish independence. It is sad to relate that while many of these women lived in the same community as ourselves we knew nothing of their involvement in helping to create the freedom we enjoy today. Karl Kiely’s book will help to open our thoughts and our hearts to those brave women who served the emerging Republic with courage and with little expectation of recognition for their contributions.

Aughaboura Creamery of the 1930s

On the railway side of Aughaboura bridge and separated from the ‘plots’ by the railway track leading to Ballylinan was a building which in the 1950s was used as a garage. Despite that, it was still known as ‘The Creamery’, while the ‘plots’ were allotments rented out by the Railway Company to locals wishing to grow their own vegetables. My father had one of those plots, the one nearest to the railway station, which was still quite a distance away and almost directly opposite ‘The Creamery’. It was around that building that my Offaly Street pals and I were to be found playing on many occasions. Always on weekends when the garage was closed. I had often wondered why it was called ‘The Creamery’ or more precisely the ‘Aughaboura Creamery’. The story was told in numerous local newspaper reports of the late 1920s and the early 1930s where I came across references to Kildare and Laois Co-op Creameries Limited. Apparently the co-operative company was agreed to be formed following the holding of a public meeting in Athy’s Town Hall in August 1929. The farmers who attended that meeting decided to establish a creamery in Athy and arrangements were made to canvass other farmers in the locality to get their support and agreement to supply the new creamery with milk. Apparently to make the creamery viable the milk of at least 600 cows was required to be guaranteed. By March 1930 the call on the requisite number of shares in the company having been paid up arrangements were made for the registration of the Creamery Society. Plans for the necessary alterations of the previous Railway Company premises were prepared and once completed work on installing the creamery equipment was to proceed. In May 1930 it was agreed to register creameries at Athy and Stradbally as a single society under the name ‘Kildare and Laois Co-op Creameries’. That same month work started on the reconstruction and fitting out of the Athy creamery. The Leinster Express reported that the Athy Creamery opened for milk reception in May 1931. The Athy plant which was called a central creamery was initially only in position to separate milk and send it to Castlecomer for churning. It was planned to engage in butter making at a later date. Difficulties in sourcing sufficient milk supplies proved problematic for the creamery. Of the 500 shareholders only 160 supplied milk to the creamery and many of those only provided a portion of the milk they originally promised. With many shareholders holding back on supplying the creamery with milk several court cases were taken by the society against farmers/shareholders who subscribed for shares in the society but did not pay the first moiety or subsequent calls for funding. Despite initially opening in May 1931 the creamery appears to have closed for periods due to insufficient milk supplies. The Athy Creamery was listed as a scheduled creamery in the 1932 Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Act which meant it was identified as a marginal operation. This was due to a combination of falling milk prices and high reconstruction and fitting out costs. The creamery reopened on 1st June 1933 but closed the following year. The Nationalist and Leinster Times carried an advertisement for the sale of the Athy creamery in June 1935. The creamery building reverted back to the Railway Company and with the founding of Córas Iompair Éireann in 1945 it was used as a C.I.E. garage under the management of Andrew Conlon. The garage closed some time in the 1960s and Andrew, who was for so long associated with the Aughaboura garage, bought Paddy McEvoy’s shop in Leinster Street which his daughter Mary managed for many years. Andrew Conlon is pictured in the accompanying photograph.