Goodbye Offaly Street

Seventy years ago Offaly Street was a vibrant family friendly street. Today the same street is unrecognisable from that of its predecessor. The families of the 1950s have died out or moved elsewhere, while the commercial heart of the street represented by the cinema, John W. Kehoe’s pub, Kitty Webster’s and Mona Sylvester’s sweet shops have closed. Offaly Street today is not so much a street as a traffic route out of Athy leading to an extended southern suburb which has developed over the years. The young families that once brought life and enjoyment to the street are no longer there. It was in Offaly Street that I was reared and where I and my young friends and neighbours lived our lives of exploration and enquiry before entering the adult world. The families living in Offaly Street were a community even before we were able to identify ourselves as a smaller component of the larger community which represented the entire town of Athy. Offaly Street may well have been known as the ‘Peelers’ Street of Athy for it housed the families of three members of the local police force. Garda James Kelly and Garda Mick Tuohy lived opposite the house of my father, who was the local Garda Sergeant. Garda Johnny McMahon and Garda Mick O’Connell passed through Offaly Street on their way home to St. Patrick’s Avenue. It was a friendly street at a time when housewives were exactly that, the only wage earner generally being the male partner. Traffic wise, it was a very quiet street. The only local cars I recall were that of Dr. Joe O’Neill and Canon McGinley, the Church of Ireland Rector. Football was regularly played by the Offaly Street boys on the street with little or no interruption by passing traffic. We referred to ourselves as the Offaly Street gang, to differentiate ourselves from the St. Patrick’s Avenue youngsters of the same age and the Leinster Street fellows. The term gang does not indicate any criminal background and indeed the only activity that could be questionable was the summertime orchard robberies in which we indulged. Mona Sylvester’s orchard at the top of Butler’s Row was our principal target. I have recounted previously the occasion when my younger brother Seamus was caught by Mona as he was unable to clear the orchard wall while his friends scrambled to safety. Mona held him by the collar and walked him down Butler’s Row to 5 Offaly Street to confront my mother with the apple thief. It was a very lucky day for Seamus for our Aunt Mary from County Mayo had just arrived for a short visit and whatever punishment might have been expected never materialised. Friendships forged in my young days brought a lifelong friendship with Teddy Kelly, my best friend in those years. Mylie Cash, Basil and Andrew White, Leopold Kelly, Willie Moore and Tom Webster were all part of the Offaly Street gang with Leopold, who was later ordained a priest for the American Diocese, as the leader. He was a wonderful sportsman, and I had the opportunity to serve his last Mass in the Dominican Church a very short time before he died. All but Willie Moore and myself have passed on and while Willie and myself have health issues, I expect to join my long departed young friends before too long. Our favourite playground was the Peoples Park donated in the 1840s by the Duke of Leinster to the people of Athy. We were lords of the manor insofar as the park was concerned and, under the leadership of Leopold Kelly, we once built a wooden hut in the park. It lasted two or three days before the Duke of Leinster had it removed. The grass in the park was cut once a year and the grass left on the ground for a few days provided one of the highlights of our time in the park. Ours was a simple life, but an enjoyable one. One of our great pleasures was to attend matinees in the local cinema which was managed by Bob Webster who lived at the top of Offaly Street. Bob was the nearest to an upper class person living in our humble street. This was, I believe, because he was regularly visited by the Parish Priest, Fr. McDonnell, whose car parked outside Bob’s house told of his arrival. The Rev. Father did not visit any other household in Offaly Street. Bob Webster was once subjected to stone throwing by our gang as he walked by the unfinished building site at the end of Offaly Street and he banned us, the Offaly gang, from attending future matinees. It was a desperate time for us as we enjoyed sitting in the ‘God’s’ to watch the latest film release. The ban continued for some time until we decided to make an apology for the attack. We got back to the matinees again where Mattie Brennan always gave us a bench seat in front of the screen. Offaly Street housed a number of persons whose important past I was not aware of until they had passed away. My next door neighbour Joe Murphy, a worker on the railway, was an old IRA man. Garda Mick Tuohy, whose involvement with the old IRA in County Clare, was another man whose story I did not get. Garda James Kelly, a member of a County Mayo old IRA regiment, had like many other IRA members joined the Gardai on the establishment of the Free State. Paddy Garrett, a resident of number 1 Offaly Street was, like John Murphy in Number 4, a great footballer who won championship medals with Athy. Theirs were many of the stories I missed during my young days while living in Offaly Street. Goodbye Offaly Street.

Athy's Hurling Club

‘A Kilkenny man exiled in Kildare’ is a phrase I have used on many occasions to explain my background, but never have I had the opportunity to share the joy of Kildare and Kilkenny hurling matches in Croke Park on the same day. The Kildare/Laois and Kilkenny/Galway hurling finals were a joyful occasion for me. I must confess I had not previously seen the Kildare senior hurlers at play. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of their hurling. The Kildare/Laois match was most enjoyable insofar as I was concerned, far more enjoyable than the Cork/Limerick match the previous day. That in my view was a brutalised form of hurling where the player catching the ball aloft found himself when back on ground surrounded by three or four opponents with encircling arms and hurleys, making him a prisoner. Why is it not a foul against the players using their arms and hurleys in this way is something which puzzles me? Two great results gave me much joy on Sunday and irrespective of what happens to Kildare in the coming weekend, the skill and sportsmanship of the Kildare team members will stay with me forever. Athy is not regarded as a hurling town, but records show that as early as 1887 a hurling club was formed in the town and Dan Whelan of Fontstown was making hurleys for the club. An Athy hurling team played a Rathdowney selection in 1898 and suffered defeat on a score of 3-13 to no score. A previous reference I came across in relation to hurling in Athy was a match played in 1890. Athy’s first hurling club would appear to have faded away for I next find in 1906 the Catholic Young Men’s Society establishing Athy’s C.Y.M.S. hurling and football club. The present G.A.A. grounds in Geraldine Park were first used by the club for club games and inter county games after 1906. It would appear the C.Y.M.S. Hurling and Football Club was subsequently replaced by a town-based club whose first major success was in the 1928 County Senior Hurling Final when Athy defeated Johnstown Bridge. Athy contested the county final the following year but lost to McDonagh Barracks of the Curragh. Athy defeated Broadford to win the 1936 Senior Championship. The same team reached the County Final the following year but lost by 2 points to Maynooth. That same year an Athy junior team won the Junior County Championship following the lodgment of an objection against Kill who had defeated Athy 6-4 to 1-4 in the final. The local Christian Brothers School organised a hurling team in 1934 on the arrival of Brother P.P. Farrell to Athy. Success arrived two years later when Athy C.B.S. defeated Kilkenny C.B.S. in the first round of the Leinster College Junior Championship. The Athy school team went on to defeat O’Connell school Dublin in Croke Park that same year. The team comprised all local young lads including Des Hurley, Tadhg Brennan, Dinny Fox, Jim Malone, Joe Gibbons, Paddy Garrett, Joe O’Neill, Lal Murray, Eddie Purcell, Jack Dunne, John Gannon, Frank Kelly, Pat Smyth, Noel Blanchfield, Dick Davis and Munsie Purcell. The Athy Club junior hurlers were crowned champions in 1950 but the club appears to have gone into decline until revived in 1957 by John Dooley of St. Patrick’s Avenue. John, a native of Paulstown, Co. Kilkenny, came to Athy in 1930. A keen and ardent follower of hurling, he was one of the driving forces behind the club for many years. He was a playing member until 1937 and won a senior hurling championship medal with the club in 1936. Under his guidance hurling in Athy flourished. In 1934 John was Chairman of the Kildare Hurling Board and he represented Athy at the Kildare conventions and County Board meetings. He retired from administrative duties with the Athy club in 1968. I remember John’s enthusiasm for hurling and his encouragement to youngsters like myself who in the mid-1950s practiced their hurling in the fields at Chanterlands. My hurling career was shortened by the engagement of a hurley to my forehead during one of the Chanterlands practice matches. A lack of skill on my part resulted in a split forehead, courtesy of a hurley yielded by my friend Mick Rowan and a rush to the local doctor who stitched the wound. My retirement from hurling was inevitable. Athy senior team were defeated in a county final in 1964 and the club now has an under 16 hurling team which was promoted from the 15-year age group last year. A county junior championship was won in 1989 which resulted in the club being promoted to senior level. The club with such a glorious history is now operating at junior level. Tadhg Brennan drew up a constitution for Athy Hurling and Football Club in 1945 and I have a leaflet from a later date headed ‘Geraldine Hurling and Football Club’. I am told that hurling and football are no longer operated under the same club name, but operate as separate clubs. Why is it that the Gaelic teams of hurling and football should not come under the same club name, ‘Geraldine Hurling and Football Club’?

World War II and Lowly Maher

A simple ceremony enacted in a canvas tent on the heath at Lüneburg in Germany in May 1945 marked the end of World War II in Europe where Germany formally surrendered to the allied forces. Back in neutral Ireland the Irish people went about their business as usual. In the coalmining town of Castlecomer a young Garda sergeant and his family were preparing to move house yet again. He had done this four times since getting married, but this was to be the last occasion of packing furniture and belongings into a hired lorry to journey to a new town. The Garda sergeant was my father, John Taaffe, who in May 1945 brought my mother Kathleen and her five young sons to Athy. The transfer was at his request, as he could get his sons into a secondary school where none were supposed to be had in Castlecomer. The short journey to Athy ended at No. 6 Offaly Street in a two up two down terraced house rented from Myles Whelan, and it was not until 1954 that the Taaffes moved into No. 5 Offaly Street. May 1945 of course was more momentous for those men of Athy who found themselves scattered across the world, fighting in the war. Among them was Joe ‘Lowly’ Walsh from Barrack Street, Athy. The son of master tailor Joseph Walsh and Teresa Byrne, at the outbreak of World War II Joe ‘Lowly’, like many Athy men, called to the local Garda Station to enlist in the Irish Army. When I interviewed him almost 30 years ago, his abiding memory of the three years he spent in the Irish Army was what he recalled was ‘the scandalous army food’. Conditions in the Army were so bad that there was almost wholesale desertion by many disenchanted recruits who travelled by train to Belfast to join the British Army. ‘Lowly’ followed that same path and in 1942 he joined the R.A.F. He served in France, Belgium and Holland as a member of Motor Transport Light Repair Unit. He passed through Caen where he recalled that even the graveyards had been destroyed by bombing. He eventually ended up in Berlin where he stayed two weeks in the city which had hosted the Olympic Games in 1936. He also recalled visiting the Reich Chancellery where Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker in May 1945. Other Athy men were further afield such as Dr. Gerry O’Neill, the third son of Dr. Jeremiah O’Neill of Mount Offaly House, Athy. Gerry was serving as a Major in the British Army in Malaya when in January 1942 the Japanese invaded. After being cut off from his unit with five other British soldiers, Gerry spent almost three and a half months trekking through 2,000 miles of dense undergrowth and dangerous jungle trying to reach the British lines at Singapore. Captured by the Japanese, Gerry subsequently spent three and a half years incarcerated in appalling conditions, with his incarceration only ending in August 1945 with the surrender of Japan. His story is one of enormous courage, barely hinted at in the headlines of the local newspapers on his return to Athy following his release - ‘Back from the Grave – Athy man’s terrible ordeal.’ Not all those who went to war returned. Two grandsons of John Holland of Model Farm, Athy were lost. Major Nigel Holland, fighting with the 4th/5th Maharatta Light infantry, Indian Army, was killed in Burma in June 1944 at the age of 25 years, while Sergeant William Holland served in the Royal Air Force, dying in Italy at the age of 19 years of age in 1945. Both are commemorated in St. Michael’s Cemetery, Athy. Another Athy man, Terence H.K. Hosie of the Royal Engineers, was killed in action in Italy in 1943 and he is remembered in the Presbyterian Church on the Dublin Road, opposite Old St. Michael’s Cemetery. It is unfortunate that the service of the Athy men in World War Two is little recorded and I have yet to come across a published account of any Athy man’s service in the war. The closest thing we have to that is the ‘Wings on the Cross’, published by Fr. Philip Pollock. Fr. Pollock was instrumental as a Dominican Father, based in Athy, in the commissioning, design and construction of the modern architectural gem, St. Dominics (now the town library). Prior to coming to Athy he had served as a chaplain, with the Royal Air Force in England, North Africa, Sicily and Italy recounting his war experiences in his bestselling book. For Pollock the end of the war was a time of reflection. In his final chapter he wrote: ‘The horrors of the North African campaign came back vividly to his mind as he thought of the wounded lying in military hospitals. They would not be celebrating V.E (Victory in Europe) night but would be remembering the day they were wounded. Yes, V.E night was a night of memories’

Changes in the Town Hall as the Shackleton Museum develops

I was privileged during the week to have a guided tour of the interior of the future Shackleton Museum. What I saw was very impressive and indicated the quality of workmanship which I am afraid did not appear in the ancient building I was so familiar with over the years. I cannot remember when I first saw the interior of the Town Hall, but it was I believe sometime in the mid-1950s when Paddy Wright, Teddy Kelly and I gained access to an upper floor room, while a dance was in its early stages in the ballroom. Denis Cogan, the former County Architect for Kildare, writing in the Kildare Archaeological Society Journal of 1991, suggested that Athy Town Hall may have been the first of the Palladian style civic style buildings built in Ireland. The original Town Hall was built in the second or third decade of the 18th century. Bishop Pococke on his tour of Ireland in 1752 made reference to the ‘new market house in Athy’. Rocque’s map of Athy prepared for the Earl of Kildare four years after Pococke’s visit to Athy, shows a T shaped building which Denis Cogan believes was an open cross vaulted market house on the ground floor, with a courtroom and assembly rooms overhead. Nicholas Sheaff, Director of the Irish Architectural Archives, in his report of 1984 stated his belief that the square in front of the Town Hall was laid out at the same time as the Town Hall’s construction, with the Town Hall designed as the architectural focus. The style of the building reflected, according to Sheaff, a sophisticated Palladian classicalism on the part of the designer, suggesting that the design came from the offices of Richard Cassels, the leading Irish Palladian architect of the 18th century. The Town Hall has been much altered over the years, with extensions both in front and rear of the original building. The mid-19th century extension to the front of the building was the most important extension and consisted of rubble masonry walls, with tooled limestone string course. In 1913 a further alteration was made to the Town Hall when the earlier extension to the front of the building was raised by a storey, as was the 18th century centre section, making the entire façade three stories high. The much-altered building was again the subject of building work when in 1969 the central part of the ground floor was adopted for use as a fire station. With the building of the new Town Council offices in Rathstewart in 1985 the Town Hall became vacant and fell into a derelict state. Kildare County Council, which had earlier purchased the property from the Duke of Leinster, subsequently restored the building under an AnCO training scheme which was completed in May 1990. One of the oldest elements of the Town Hall is a bell which originally hung from a frame which stood in the roof of the two-storey centre section before it was heightened in the mid-18th century. The bell came from the Church of Ireland Parish Church which stood in the rear square behind the Town Hall before it was demolished following the building of St. Michael’s Church at the top of Offaly Street in 1840. Macra na Feirme, which was established by local men Paddy Kehoe, Stephen Cullinane, Juan Greene, E. Minch and A. Spiers, established its headquarters in the Town Hall room vacated by the Athy Mechanics Institute in 1947. The first library in the town of Athy opened in the Town Hall on 1st December 1927. It was operated by Kildare County Council. A local Library Committee was set up and was intended to comprise the local Parish Priest Canon Mackey, his three curates, Rev. Dunlop of the Church of Ireland and the Reverend Meek of the Presbyterian Church. The six clerics and its fellow committee members, five local Urban District Councillors and the Town Clarke, James Lawler who acted as the library secretary, made up the Committee By the time I became aware of the local building amongst which I played on a daily basis, the Town Hall’s ground floor was still used as a market place. To the rear of the building was a weighing scales, managed by Jim Dempsey who lived in Offaly Street. His offices were still at use until the Fire Brigade moved into the ground floor of the Town Hall There were many uses of the Town Hall over the centuries, including the location of the Free Masons Club in the building over many decades. The Parish School, operated by the Church of Ireland, was reported in 1824 to have 157 pupils on its roll, with an average attendance of 50 boys and 35 girls. Located in the Town Hall the headmaster of the school was James Hunter and the headmistress Lydia Hunter. In February 1917 Athy Hibernian Players put on a play in the Town Hall and the subsequent press reports give the names of those involved whom it is said stood to attention for the singing of ‘A Nation Once Again’. Those named were the first publicly identified Nationalist sympathisers in Athy and many of them figured prominently in the local Sinn Fein Club which was formed in June 1917. On 19th July 1917 Athy’s newly established Sinn Fein Club organised a concert in the Town Hall in aid of the families of those killed in the Easter Rising. The audience was addressed by Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Fein. Another famous visitor to the Town Hall was Charles Stewart Parnell who arrived in Athy in 1880 to chair the parliamentary nomination for the upcoming election. James Leahy, a farmer from Ardscull and one time Chairman of Athy Town Commissioners, was nominated despite Parnell’s early objection as he felt that Leahy: ‘this fat man will be of no use, he will fall asleep in the House’. Having cross examined the prospective candidate, Parnell was apparently satisfied and allowed the nomination to go ahead. Leahy was to have a constant if unspectacular presence in the House of Commons until 1895. The story of Athy’s Town Hall tells us more of the history of the organisations and the people who used the Town Hall over the years. Their story will hopefully be told on another day, but in the meantime we welcome the adoption of the Town Hall for use exclusively as a Shackleton Museum.

Athy's Building Enhancement Financial Scheme

Revitalise, rejuvenate, redevelop, refurbish. These were some of the words in the ether in the Clanard Court hotel on Tuesday last. The hotel was the venue for the launch, by Kildare County Council, of the ‘Athy Building Enhancement Financial Scheme’. While I normally have an aversion to ‘buzz words and grandiloquent project titles the County Council’s plans for the ongoing development and improvement of Athy are impressive and heartening. The evening began with a three-minute montage video produced by the Council focusing on the town and its attributes narrated by our own Jack L. It was a timely reminder of the many attractions of the town and the significant development that has occurred here in the last ten to fifteen years. There was a natural focus on the now to be named ‘Shackleton Experience’ (formerly the Shackleton Museum) which I understand will be opening at the end of the summer. The projected visitors for the first year are 30,000 per year, rising to 60,000 per year over the next few years. The video was followed by a presentation by a Simon Wall who is a senior architect with Mayo County Council. He has been to the forefront of the rejuvenation of Westport over the past 25 years and his presentation was an informative insight into the targeted, yet holistic, approach to improving the built environment in a small country town, making it more attractive for both visitors and for the community who live there. There is no doubt that the enhanced works currently taking place in Emily Square and the refurbishment of the museum are going to lift the town in both a social, cultural and economic sense. It was heartening to see such a significant representation of local businesses at the presentations and clearly there is a ‘buy in’ from the local business community. It does however behove all the business owners to meet the challenges of the development of the town with purpose and innovation. We can’t rely entirely on Kildare County Council to give the town the much-needed economic fillip which these enhancements can help deliver. A lot of the enhancements now being proposed/promoted by Kildare County Council build on the regeneration strategy that was initiated in 2015 with the support of local bodies such as the Athy Lions Club, the Leader Partnership, Athy Enterprise Centre and Kildare Chamber of Commerce. A key part of any development strategy has to be the provision of residential properties in the heart of the town. I understand that a government grant is on the way in relation to assisting shop owners to redevelop the upper stories of their town centre properties to provide residential accommodation. This is a much-needed addition to the depleted housing stock in the town. As recently as the 1980’s many shop owners lived above their premises, and this is an under-utilised resource which needs to be accessed. All these improvements will be driven by a partnership between our local authority and the town community. Improvements have always driven Athy’s development. We take for granted the provision of water in our domestic settings, but Athy only received its first piped water scheme in 1907. Work on the scheme commenced in October 1906 and was completed in April 1907. How many modern infrastructural projects can boast such a short time frame! Following the successful completion of Athy’s first water scheme the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association presented two troughs to the town in 1907, one placed in Woodstock Street opposite Higginson’s Lane, the other in Leinster Street (where it remains to today). At the same time the Duke of Leinster presented a fountain for the use of the people of Athy which was positioned at the front of Emily Square and that self-same fountain was temporarily removed from the square during the current improvement works, but as I understand it will be returning to its original position with the completion of the works in or about June of this year. Horse troughs met a basic but very necessary need for the many horses which passed through the streets of Athy in the 19th century. The Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, the equivalent of the modern S.P.C.A., provided water troughs at the roadsides for use by horses, cattle and other animals. Charles Dickens Junior, in his Dickens’ Dictionary of London in 1879, wrote of the fountains provided by the Association in London that a single trough supplied the wants of 1,800 horses in one period of 24 hours. Horses are long gone from our streets but their replacement, the motor vehicle, has for too long dominated our public spaces and the re-ordering of Emily Square marks a welcome return to its proper purpose as a civic space and amenity to be enjoyed by all.

Senator Bernie Sanders' visit to Athy and the song 'Johnny I hardly knew you'

I was unable to attend the recent events in Athy held to honour the visit of Senator Bernie Sanders and his wife, Dr. Jane Sanders, but by all accounts it was a resounding success. The United States Senator from the State of Vermont received a warm and fulsome greeting from the people of Athy. Events commenced in the Athy Library in the former Dominican Church where local musicians Jack L and Joe Byrne treated the visitors to renditions of both ‘Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye’ and ‘The Curragh of Kildare’. I understand that the State flag of Vermont flew proudly in Emily Square and the Senator even had an opportunity to meet former residents of Vermont, now living in Athy, who had voted for him in the senatorial elections! After the conclusion of the events in the library the main feature of the day was the unveiling of the ‘Made of Athy’ plaque to the anti-war song ‘Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye’. There was a substantial crowd at the war memorial in Old St. Michael’s Cemetery to witness the unveiling, blessed somewhat by the brief outbreak of sunshine between the showers on Sunday afternoon. The plaque itself is finely worded and gives an interesting context to the song and its place in our culture. The song seems to have been composed sometime around the 1800s or possibly earlier. The song itself refers to soldiers’ service in Ceylon, modern day Sri Lanka, and indeed it seems possible to place some men from Athy who served in the army in Ceylon in and around the 1790s. In the early summer of 1796 the troops of the First Madras European Regiment landed on the shores of Ceylon. This Regiment formed part of the East India company’s private army. The company was established in London in the early 1600s to exploit the commercial opportunities which India appeared to offer to the fledging British empire. In advancing it’s aggressive commercial expansion in India and the Far East the company founded it’s own private army to protect and advance it’s interests. The regiments in this army, particularly the Madras European Regiment, had a strong Irish presence in it’s ranks, particularly in the lower ranks. At the time the regiment was garrisoned in Ceylon we know that at least two Athy men were in the regiment’s ranks, James Byrnes and John Eustace. We know little about these two men but for the fact that they are both originally from Athy and they both enjoyed an unusual long army service. James Byrnes would serve with various regiments of the East Indian and British Army and he was discharged in 1823 at the age of 56, while John Eustace would leave the army in 1811 at the age of 53. They were the exceptions. The attrition rates amongst troops serving in India and Ceylon to disease and death were appalling and few survived the rigours of foreign service as long as Byrnes and Eustace did. The song itself marks the return of a soldier to his home town of Athy after the vicissitudes of military service and it is quite visceral in its description of the damage wrought by the war on the body of the returning soldier. ‘Ye haven’t an arm and you haven’t a leg, Ye’re an eyeless, boneless, chickenless, egg, Ye’ll have to be left with a bowl to beg.’ The song’s ultimate origins are obscured by its longevity and popularity during the centuries. To Americans it is known as ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’ or ‘Johnny Fill Up the Bowl’ and during the American Civil War it was one of the most popular songs sung by the Union troops. Perhaps the ultimate recognition of its acceptance into the pantheon of American martial music was the adaption of the song’s title for a Hollywood movie directed by the Irish American director, John Ford, called ‘When Willie Comes Marching Home’, a story about the experience of a callow American youth at war. While I did not have the opportunity of meeting Senator Bernie Sanders last week, it did remind me of my first trip to the United States in 1981 when my path crossed with President Richard Nixon, then in retirement. Nixon had previously visited his ancestral home in Timahoe, Counry Kildare in 1970 possibly with an eye on the Irish-American voters for the 1972 presidential elections. My cousin was then working for Nixon in his private office and I returned home with a signed copy of his memoirs and a signed photograph which hangs in my study to this day. Perhaps the closest an American President, sitting or otherwise, will ever get to Athy!