Quakers and the Quaker Meeting House in Athy

This year we celebrate the centenary of the establishment of the civic guards later named the Garda Siochana. The new Irish police force was founded following the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary and in its early years by and large followed the RIC organisational structure. Like the RIC the early civic guards were armed. On the 17th of August 1922 the last RIC men left Dublin Castle to be replaced by civic guards. The first recruits to the civic guards were paid three pounds and three shillings per week and even as they entered the service they were regarded with suspicion by the anti treaty side. Indeed Austin Stack, the former minister for home affairs stated that the setting up of the force was not calculated to promote order but rather suspicion, discontent and disorder. Recruits to the civic guards had to have specific height and chest measurements and most significantly had to have a reference from a clergy man. This latter requirement must have continued for some years as my father, a farmers son from north County Longford when he joined the gardai in 1925 did so on foot of a reference given by his Parish priest, Fr. . By 1924 they were 6,300 members of the force which by virtue of the Garda Siochana (temporary provisions) Act 1923 were now officially called “Garda Siochana”. When the first contingent of the newly appointed civic guards arrived in Athy was until recent times uncertain. The late Sergeant John Shaw who joined the civic guards on the 17th of August 1922 wrote to me from Portarlington in September 1980. In that letter he wrote that on the 15th of August 1922 civic guards were sent to Portarlington, Monasterevin, Rathanagan and as far as he knew Athy in order to protect the railway lines and the canal routes to Dublin. He also referenced an incident in Athy on the 26th of August of that year when armed civil guards disarmed C.I.D. men in the town. Another piece of information he passed on to me in that letter was that Sergeant Duggan, who was then the local Sergeant charged three men in a special Court on the 23rd of September. The nature of the offence was not stated but it may have arisen as a result of an armed attack on the premises which was then occupied by the civic guards. I also have a copy letter written by the same Sergeant William Duggan in 1950 which confirms that the civic guards took up duty in Athy on the 15th of August 1922 but he also explains that prior to that a party of 16 armed civic guards were stationed at a protection post in Bert. This I assume resulted from ongoing land disputes in the area resulting from evictions on the versicle estate. Sergeant Duggan’s letter names the 16 men as Michael O’Connor, Peter Curley, Thomas Concannon, Joseph Walton, John Kelly, Joseph McNamara, John Ryan, Michael Summers, Patrick Fitzgerald, John O’Neill, James Dwyer, John Hanley, Peter Tracey, Thomas Kirwan, Michael Hassett and Sergeant William Duggan. The police records once retained at divisional level at An Garda Siochana showed that the first Sergeant in Athy was Coriolanus Lillis who was replaced by Sergeant Ed. O’Loughlin on the 1st of May 1924 who in turn was replaced by Sergeant William Duggan (the letter writer) on the 1st of August 1924. When the civic guards first arrived in Athy they were accommodated in the Town Hall before transferring to the old RIC barracks off in Barrack Lane after it was vacated by the free state army. When the barracks was attacked and damaged during the civil war the police men moved to a hotel in Leinster Street. Sergeant Duggan claimed that it was the Leinster Arms Hotel. However I have a note of being informed many years ago that the hotel in question was the Hibernian Hotel which is now Bradbury’s premises. This year the centenary of the founding of An Garda Siochana is being marked by various events throughout the country. Athy’s Art Centre will be the venue for a lecture on the history of An Garda Siochana with particular reference to Athy as part of a history lecture series which starts on Tuesday, 20th September. Details of that lecture will be published later. The first lecture on the 20th of September will be given by Nessa O’Mara Cardiff on the Barrowhouse ambush in which James Connor and William Lacey lost their lives. This lecture and all the future lectures are free and will be held in the Arts Centre at Woodstock Street.