Rev. Nicholas Ashe and Athy in time of Rebellion 1798

In 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 bridge of arches with a small square castle adjoining 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 castle”. Two hundred and forty years later all that remains of the buildings mentioned by Cooper is a much altered town hall (then the courthouse) Whites Castle and Woodstock Castle. Also gone are the many small private schools which were a common feature of Irish towns in the 18th and early 19th centuries. One such school was that of Nicholas Ashe where we find a mention in 1791 of one of his pupils, Thomas Lefroy, who would become the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Nicholas Ashe was a Church of England Minister who served as Sovereign of Athy following his election to that position in 1797. I am uncertain as to whether Ashe was a member of Athy Borough Council in 1792 when a measure of relief for Irish Catholics from some elements of the penal laws was proposed in the Irish Parliament. Those measures which eventually culminated in the Catholic Relief Act of 1793 were supported by the Duke of Leinster which prompted the Protestant members of Athy Borough Council to instruct their two parliamentary representatives to oppose the relief Bill. Rev. Nicholas Ashe appears from all accounts to have been a man of peace who found himself the subject of harsh treatment by the local yeomanry. Local yeomanry corps were formed after 1796 with membership confined almost exclusively to Protestants. Athy had two yeomanry units, the infantry and the cavalry. The Athy cavalry was formed in 1796 and was officered by Thomas Fitzgerald, a Catholic from Geraldine House, Athy although the corps was largely comprised of local Protestant gentry. The cavalry unit was disbanded in 1798 following the arrest of Thomas Fitzgerald and a humiliating standing down ceremony in Emily Square. This was done during Nicholas Ashe’s time as the town Sovereign. Some months earlier in January 1798 Ashe had written to the Duke of Leinster expressing his concerns at a possible rebel outbreak following claims of an ammunition plot. He expressed the hope that Athy would not be proclaimed and reported how he had liberated boat men arrested and detained by the local army commander. He wrote “Athy proved it’s loyalty last year by entertaining 1100 men over night and giving them money and provisions to assist them on their march to Bantry”. In that same letter Ashe recounted some of the acts of terrorism by members of the 9th Dragoons who were stationed in the local calvary barracks and also by the Cork Loyal Militia who had recently arrived in the town. A few weeks later Ashe forwarded a further letter to the Duke of Leinster expressing shame that while standing alone “against a most virulent party I suffer more than I can express”. In his attempts as town Sovereign not to have Athy proclaimed he had directed that all shops were to shut at 9.00pm. However a Mr. Willock who he claimed “pretended great loyalty to the King and aversion to papists kept his shop open in defiance”. He expressed annoyance at Willock’s action and that of his co religionist Carey – “two Protestants I never saw in church”. Ashe having discovered that Willock sold without licence had him committed to the local jail whereupon Willock hung out his hat with a paper on it which read “Willock was put in jail for his loyalty”. Ashe was extremely upset at what he described as the atrocities committed by the soldiers and having complained about their behaviour found himself “a victim to their malice”. The Duke of Leinster passed on Ashe’s complaint to Sir Ralph Abercromby, Commandeering Chief of the army, who promised to send another regiment into County Kildare. In the meantime Nicholas Ashe complained that his school was destroyed but despite this he continued to seek a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict between the authorities and the Irish rebels. Because he was successful in securing the surrender of a large number of pikes in the Athy area the local army commander felt that Ashe must have had links with the rebels and so quartered sixty soldiers with him. As a result the Reverend gentleman was so impoverished that the Duke of Leinster claimed “Ashe was obliged to do his duty as the magistrate in the streets in his slippers”. The brutal and systematic suppression of the people of Athy during 1798 was not confined to one religious group. Reverend Nicholas Ashe, Anglican churchman, first citizen of Athy in 1798 and a man of peace was victimised by local loyalists because of his attempts to advance what he described in his letters as “truth and humanity”. FRANK TAAFFE