Official Opening of newly developed Emily Square

It was wonderful to see the official opening of Athy’s plaza coinciding with the completion of two excellent murals on the walls of O’Brien’s pub and Osborne’s solicitors, which have been part of Athy’s commercial life for more than 100 years. It is marvellous that we can now enjoy the works of two talented artists, courtesy of those property owners, the artists and Kildare County Council. Congratulations to Shauna Blanchfield and Emily Rainsford, the artists involved. The official opening of Athy’s plaza was an event which caught the local community’s interest, and despite the poor weather it attracted a sizeable crowd of locals. Did I imagine it or were there nine or ten speakers on the platform, all giving us the same message? Thankfully the speeches were relatively short, despite the impression that we were attending a County Council meeting! I enjoyed all the fine music that day, but would also have liked to see Athy’s Comhaltas Ceoltóirí on stage. The entire event was a memorable one and was a fitting end to the first-class work in the remodeling of Emily Square. There is one area of the Council’s work with which I must, however, disagree. The 1798 memorial should have been positioned where the Duke of Leinster’s fountain is now located. The fountain, which no longer works, is of no architectural importance and might have been better transferred to the People’s Park which was gifted by the Duke of Leinster to the people of Athy in the 1850s. After all, it was in the square in Athy that triangles were erected and where local men were flogged during the 1798 Rebellion. I hope that the clock in the Town Hall, soon to re-open as the ‘Shackleton Experience’, will be operational before long. Can someone in Kildare County Council confirm this? I have what is perhaps an unusual request to make in relation to the bell which hangs over the clock. The bell was made for the Church of Ireland church located in the back square in 1682, and it was transferred to the Town Hall when that church was demolished following the opening of the present St. Michael’s Church of Ireland in 1840. Would it be possible to have the bell ring at noon every day? I believe that if the three hundred-year old bell is rung at noon every day it would be a reminder of our heritage and history, and a unique feature of today’s Athy. What about it, Kildare County Council? Following the reopening of the Square, which I now call the ‘plaza’, a ceremony took place on the following day in St. Michael’s Church on the Carlow Road to celebrate the reopening of the church. This followed a three-month closure to facilitate improvement works. The ceremony, organised by the Select Vestry members and the Rector, Rev. Conor O’Reilly, was attended by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Michael Jackson and the Parish Priest of St. Michael’s Catholic Church, Fr. Liam Rigney. It was wonderful to see Fr. Rigney’s presence and his involvement in the ceremony. It reminded me of the time many decades ago when we Catholics were actively discouraged from entering Protestant churches, and I am sure Protestants were discouraged from attending Catholic churches. How ridiculous it was in stopping either side from attending neighbours’ funerals, for example. Can you recall the members of the Irish government standing outside the railings of St. Patrick’s, Dublin while the funeral service of our first president, Douglas Hyde, was taking place inside the cathedral? Great to see Fr. Rigney giving a talk during the ceremony and participating in the service. Well done to Carol Coyle, organist, and the ‘Stedfast’ band who provided music during the service. While writing of the ‘Stedfast’ band I am reminded of a query I had from an amateur musician recently arrived in Athy who is keen to join an ensemble, having played with the Butter Exchange Brass and Reed Band in Cork. I am surprised that Athy with its rich history of pipe bands, marching bands and showbands has not at present a local brass band. Are there, I wonder, any musicians interested in coming together to form a band? If so please contact me. On musical matters, I was sorry to learn that ‘Shepherd’s Watched’ will not be performed before Christmas, as it has been for the last 35 years. I gather this is because the Athy Musical and Dramatic Society is currently inactive, which is a pity given the honorable legacy of Athy’s musical and dramatic societies going back over many decades. However, I believe that Capella Productions Athy are currently in rehearsal, under their musical director Joseph Gorman, for a Christmas production in the Parish Church in December. Another loss to Athy is the annual art exhibition which gave local artists, as well as artists from Carlow and elsewhere, the opportunity to display and sell their work. Could we hope that both the Musical and Dramatic Society and the Athy Art Group can be revived? I cannot finish this week’s Eye without congratulating the Clanard Court Hotel management team and staff on being declared amongst the best 100 hotels in Ireland. This is a wonderful achievement when one considers that there are more than 700 hotels in the country. Remember, the Lions Club’s Book Fair takes place in the A.R.C.H. on Saturday 4th October, starting at 11am and finishing at 4pm.

Tour of St. Michael's Cemetery led by Michael Donovan and Clem Roche (2)

The tour of the ancient cemetery of St. Michael’s by Michael Donovan and Clem Roche concluded with a visit to the graves of the six Athy men and one woman who enlisted and died during World War I. They found a last resting place in their home town unlike many others who lie buried in foreign soil. The bodies of many of those unfortunate men were never found while other Athy men were laid to rest in military cemeteries as far apart as France, Belgium, Turkey, Iraq and Germany. The 1914-18 War saw more men from Athy enlisting than any other town in County Kildare. Athy also suffered the greatest casualties in the war with more than one hundred and twenty deaths. How sad it must have been for James and Mary Kelly of 4 Chapel Lane to receive a telegram from the War Office advising of the death of their twenty-year-old son John in Netley Hospital England on the 23rd May 1915. John had enlisted on the same day as his brother Owen who aged twenty-one years was killed in action on the 1st August 1915 and is buried in France. The Kelly parents John and his wife, the former Mary Haslem were to receive a third War Office telegram following the death of another son on the 30th September 1918. Denis Kelly was only twenty years of age and he is buried in Belgium. One can only imagine the sadness which surrounded the Kelly family following the loss of three young sons. It was a sadness which was also felt by John and Margaret Curtis of Kilcrow who like the Kellys received telegrams from the War Office advising of the death of their sons Patrick and John. A telegram advising of the death of another son was sent to the wife of Laurence Curtis who had married and lived in Glasgow. Patrick ,who had enlisted in the British Army in 1909, was killed on the 5th November 1914 aged twenty-six years. His brother John who worked in Glasgow was killed in action on the 9th January 1917 aged twenty-four years while his other brother Laurence Curtis died of wounds on the 4th December 1917 aged thirty-four years. Their brother Ted who served during the war survived. Another Chapel Lane family to suffer the a loss of three sons were the Byrnes who later resided at 11 James’s Place, Athy. James Byrne, a shoemaker and his wife Bridget, lost two sons, Joseph killed in action on the 26th April 1915 aged twenty-one years and Antnony, killed in action two days later, aged seventeen years. Another son, James, was killed in action on the 30th March 1916 aged twenty-four years. Athy families who lost sons during World War I included the Stafford family of Butler’s Row who lost son Edward, a reservist recalled to the ranks in August 1914. He died of wounds on the 24th September 1914 aged twenty-eight years, while his brother Thomas was killed in action in France on the 6th September 1916 aged twenty-five years. Both were survived by another brother Frank who also served during World War I. Some years ago when I was Chairman of Athy U.D.C. I received a letter from Mrs. Mae Vagis who lived in America and who recalled her father Edward Stafford leaving his home in Butler’s Row to join the British Army. She was then seven years old and recalled the sadness in the Stafford household when the telegram arrived advising of her father’s death. That same sadness pervaded the Heydon family of Churchtown when two Heydon brothers were killed in action. Both Patrick Heyden and Aloysius Heyden enlisted in Liverpool and Patrick was killed in France on the 4th September 1914 aged thirty-one years. His brother Aloysius was killed in France on the 27th November 1917 aged twenty-six years. The Heritage Centre was presented many years ago with a beautiful memorial to the Heydon brothers made of spent ammunition by their comrades in the Irish Guards. Another family who suffered the loss of two sons were the Flynn family of Whitebog, Athy. Their sons Thomas, who enlisted in the Connaught Rangers, died of T.B in the Athy workhouse on the 26th February 1915 aged 23 years. Another son Patrick was killed in action in France on the 14th September 1916 aged 21 years. Thomas Flynn is buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery and his grave was visited during the cemetery tour. Both Thomas and Patrick enlisted on the same day and uniquely both were members of Churchtown National Volunteers. The Hannon families suffered the deaths of four sons during World War I. Henry Hannon, who enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, was killed in action near Ypres on the 9th June 1916 aged twenty-four years. He was a cousin of John Coulson Hannon who was killed in action on the 18th August 1916 aged twenty-four years and his brother Norman Leslie who was killed in action on the 14th May 1915 aged twenty years. Both John and Norman were the sons of John and Martha Hannon of Ardreigh House from where I am writing this Eye. Another cousin, Thomas Hannon who died of his wounds on the 1st December 1917 aged twenty years, was born in Ardreigh House, the only child of Georgina Hannon whose husband died two weeks before the birth. The deaths of over 120 men from Athy who enlisted in the British Army during World War I is perhaps an indication of the poverty which marked the lives of so many Athy families. One family had eight sons who enlisted. They were the sons of Michael Delaney, a labourer and his wife, the former Margaret Curtis who lived in Ballytore. Two sons Andrew and William died, Andrew of gas poisoning in Netley Hospital on the 31st May 1916 aged thirty-six years and William killed in action on the 13th March 1916 aged twenty-two years. Andrew was buried in Crookstown while his brother rests in Flanders. Andrew Delaney’s story and his war documents are featured on a video in Athy’s Heritage Centre. The graves of World War I soldiers buried in St. Michael’s, Michael Byrne of Green Alley, James Dwyer of Canal Side, Martin Hyland of Offaly Street, John Lawler of Ardreigh, Michael O’Brien of Meeting Lane and that of Eleanor Orford of Foxhill, were visited during the tour. Thanks to Michael Donovan and Clem Roche for remembering the Athy men and Eleanor Orford who died during World War I.

Tour of St. Michael's Cemetery led by Michael Donovan and Clem Roche (1)

One of the highlights of the Heritage Week lectures here in Athy was the tour of Old St. Michael’s Cemetery given by Michael Donovan and Clem Roche. The cemetery which has been used for centuries surrounds a stone-built church, the foundation date of which is uncertain. However, we know that the church was referred to in 1297 and the cemetery is still in use today almost seven hundred and thirty years later. When the small church was built, it was located well away from the Anglo-Norman village of Athy which had developed around the first Woodstock Castle erected on the west side of the River Barrow. The French speaking Anglo Normans were Catholics, as were the native Irish and the settlers religious needs were catered for by the Crouched Friars’ monastery of St. John’s and the Dominican Friary on the east bank of the River Barrow. It is believed that the native Irish who provided labour and services for the settlers built their own small church now located in the middle of old St. Michael’s Cemetery. The tour started at the entrance gate of the cemetery where a lych gate once stood. That was a common feature in all cemeteries of the medieval age and later and consisted of a covered gateway with a wooden bench upon which the corpse was rested while the priest conducted the initial part of the service. In post medieval times, the deceased was brought to the cemetery in a parish coffin and it was at the lych gate that the corpse was removed and buried in a shroud or sheet while the coffin was returned to its base. A parish coffin was extensively used during the burial of workhouse deceased during the Great Famine. Just a few yards to the right of St. Michael’s cemetery gate is the grave of Paddy Johnson who lived in one of the small cottages at Bothair Bui which were demolished to facilitate the entry of railway line into Athy. Paddy who later died had the extraordinary coincidence of being buried IN what was once his own back yard. Michael Donovan, who produced a handsome written account of his cemetery talk, next dealt with the grave of 15-year-old Alexander Henry who died on the 1st October 1849. His father was John Henry of Glenbawn, Athy who wrote “Athy and its recollections” in 1850. John emigrated to Australia with his wife and their six children a year later but tragically his wife Anne and a young child Andrew died during the journey. Their son Richard who died in 1929 was the curator and caretaker of the world’s first island sanctuary for birds on Resolution Island on the southwest corner of the southern island of New Zealand. Next the tour went to Dominican burials, which I must confess I was not previously aware of. The grave slab records that Fr. Thomas Cummins who died October 1788 spent forty years as a Dominican Priest in the town of Athy. Also buried there was Fr. James Dunne who died in 1704 allegedly aged 115 years and Fr. Michael McMahon a young Dominican who died aged 29 years. The departure of the Dominican’s from Athy on the 22nd November 2015 after almost 750 years in the town was one of the saddest ever losses by the people of Athy. A grave which was restored some years ago by representatives of the Latvian community in Ireland following a long period of neglect was of Latvian revolutionary, socialist and civil engineer Konrad Peterson. Peterson fled to Ireland following his part in the Latvian revolt against Russia and soon became involved in Irish national politics. He returned to the Independent Latvia which was subsequently invaded by both Germany and Russia during World War II. He met C.S. Andrews Chief Executive Officer of Bord Na Mona at a conference in Sweden who invited him to take up an appointment with Bord Na Mona at their factory in Kilberry. On retirement he lived with his daughter who was married to Dr. Sean Murphy in Athy. He died aged 93 years in 1981. Following an Eye on the Past I wrote on Konrad some years ago, the Latvian Ambassador contacted me and arranged for a delegation of Latvian officials to come to Athy for a commemorative ceremony at Konrad’s graveside. In the Presbyterian section of St. Michael’s Cemetery are the Campbell and Hannon family graves. Charles Campbell was a Scottish soccer player who was a key player for Queen Park Club and the Scottish National team. He won 8 Scottish Cup winner medals with Queen Park and 8 International caps with Scotland. At the end of his footballing career, he was elected President of Queen Park club and in 1889 was elected President of the Scottish Football Association. His parents came to Kilkea in the mid-19th century to take over a farm and Charles later took up ownership of the Campbell farm where he died in 1927. Nearby is the grave of John Alexander Hannon and his wife Martha who lost two sons John Coulson, known as Ion, and Norman Leslie in the First World War. John was the owner of Prumplestown and Ardreigh. His son Gordan was ordained a Minister in the Church of Ireland in 1917. Gordan’s wedding arranged for April 1923 in Ballymoney went ahead, despite his father’s death by suicide some days previously in his residence at Ardreigh House. Gordan’s son Brian was also ordained and finished his clerical career as Bishop of Clogher. His son Neil is the notable singer and songwriter. …………………. TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

Rev. Samuel Cotton (Part 2)

Rev. Samuel Cotton after 14 years as Rector of Kilberry Parish transferred to Caragh Parish following the appointment of the previous incumbent Rev. Arthur Archer to the Parish of Donard. This occurred in 1862 but some years previously Cotton married a Kilberry woman, Elizabeth Johnson, daughter of Major Henry Johnson of the 25th Royal Welsh Fusiliers. There was no glebe house in Caragh and for the first four or five years of his Caragh vicarage Rev. Cotton is believed to have lived in Dublin. It was while in Dublin that he joined the Dublin Protestant Orphanage Society and became it’s Assistant Secretary in 1864. He resigned a year later and immediately sought funds to build a Glebe House in Caragh and also an orphanage. The lack of popularity which Rev. Cotton experienced with his parishioners in Kilberry appears to have repeated itself with his Caragh parishioners. He himself noted having called vestry meetings in 1864, 1866 and 1868 which no parishioners attended. The orphanage in Caragh appears to have been opened in 1865. Why did Cotton open the orphanage? One can only surmise that the Church of Ireland fundamentalist saw it as an opportunity to secure Roman Catholic infants and young children to be brought up as members of the Church of Ireland. Very soon after the opening of the orphanage Rev. Cotton was asked to admit six children belonging to a Protestant mother and a Catholic father. Two of the children were forcibly abducted by the deceased father’s relations and those relations were subsequently charged at the Naas Assizes following a complaint by Rev. Cotton. The Rev. Cotton was himself before Robertstown petty sessions in 1869 for allegedly shooting at some individuals who taunted him on the public road. Evidence was given that persons passing the Glebe House frequently shouted out at the Vicar. On the charge of discharging his pistol Cotton was found not guilty but the publicity added to the public’s growing awareness of the difficult Vicar. A week later the orphanage was attacked by a number of men but their efforts to break in were not successful. Rev Cotton was involved in a number of other Court cases none of them relating to the orphanage but rather the Vicar’s unusual behaviour. The next Court case concerned the orphanage involving the case of 10 year old Elizabeth Daly who escaped from the orphanage in October 1871. Rev. Cotton had her charged with stealing the rags which she was wearing. The outcome is unknown while Elizabeth was returned to the orphanage. A few years later a young mother, Kate Kelly, with her twin babies was refused admission to the orphanage. Kate was destitute and had 5 children all under the age of 6. Her request to admit the two babies was refused and on leaving the orphanage the distraught mother with her two babies walked back towards Naas. It was while on that journey that she drowned the children in the canal for which she was subsequently charged and sentenced to death. The death sentence was then commuted to one of imprisonment. Rev. Cotton immediately following the trial wrote to the press explaining the financial difficulties which led to rejecting the admission of the two infants. Within a few months the press carried the story of four children aged 12 years and under who escaped from the orphanage. They were found by an Royal Irish Constabulary constable near Kilmeague in a hungry, unkempt state and dressed in rags. The discovery of the children in such a dishevelled and malnourished state prompted the RIC Head Constable to call unannounced to the Caragh orphanage. He found some children whose legs were chained to timber logs. Rev. Cotton’s explanation was that the children in question had attempted to escape from the orphanage. Rev. Cotton was subsequently charged with aggravated assault of four orphan children. He was found guilty and he later filed an appeal which was heard at Naas quarter sessions in October 1883. Acting for the State during that appeal was Athy Solicitor, Edward Lorde, whose name today is recalled in “Lords Island” which he had one time owned. The original fine imposed on Rev. Cotton was reduced on appeal by half. It was the next case involving Caragh orphanage which led to a prison sentence for the Caragh Rector. Rev. John Wilson, a Church of Ireland Rector in County Armagh, arranged for seven children to be taken into the orphanage. After some weeks Rev. Wilson visited the children who he found to be neglected. Sometime later he revisited the orphanage with inspectors from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children following which the children were removed from Caragh. Rev. Cotton was charged with wilful neglect and mistreatment of the children and was arrested in Dublin on charge of manslaughter of 8 year old William Browne who had died in the orphanage in December 1879. Rev. Cotton was later charged with the manslaughter of another child. The trial was scheduled for Carlow assizes in December 1891 and the Rev. Cotton engaged Edward Carson to defend him. The Carlow jury could not agree on a verdict and the case was referred for rehearing to the Queens Bench in Belfast. The manslaughter charges were subsequently withdrawn and following a full hearing of the mistreatment within the Caragh orphanage Rev. Cotton was found guilty and sentenced to six months imprisonment with a fine of £400. He served his sentence in Mountjoy Jail and was released in January 1893. Within a few months a complaint was made that Rev. Cotton was again operating the orphanage in Caragh where two malnourished children were found. Rev. Cotton appeared before Robertstown petty sessions and was returned for trial to the Naas Assizes. The Naas jury returned a guilty verdict and a 12 month prison sentence in Kilkenny Prison was imposed. Cotton was relieved of his clerical status and on his release from Kilkenny Prison in July 1885 he spent the rest of his days living in Green Park, Bray where the former Athy curate and Kilberry Vicar died on the 31st of August 1900. His wife Elizabeth died on the 4th of September 1914.

Athy's Tenants Defence Association

The passing of the Land Act in 1870 was the first success of the Irish tenant farmers in their long struggle against Irish landlordism. This Gladstonian enactment gave the tenant farmers the right to be compensated in the event of eviction and for improvements carried out during their tenancy. However it did not secure for these hard pressed people the security of tenure which they had so long sought. Moreover the much heralded Land Act enabled Landlords to contract out of its provisions, thereby leaving their tenants without even the limited benefits of Gladstone’s measure. The Athy and County Kildare landlord, the Duke of Leinster, was amongst the first of the Irish landlords to attempt to defeat his tenants’ rights under the 1870 Act. The Leinster Lease, as it became known, a model of legal ingenuity was presented by the Duke’s agents to his various tenants. Prepared with the Duke’s interest in mind, it totally and cruelly side-stepped the 1870 Act which the tenant farmers had so recently welcomed. Local opposition to the terms of the Leinster Lease saw the foundation of the Tenants’ Defence Association in Athy. This was the first such association formed in Ireland after the original Tenant’s Defence association declined following the passing of the 1870 Land Act of Isaac Butt’s Tenant League of 1868. The Athy Tenants’ Association held its first meeting on Tuesday, 19 November 1872 with Captain Morgan of Rahinderry in the chair. Local man Thomas P. Kynsey J.P. acted as Secretary to the meeting. In the years immediately following the foundation of the Tenants’ Defence Association in Athy, the Duke of Leinster succeeded in overcoming local opposition to the terms of the Leinster Lease. Some of the Association’s leaders were themselves to accept the terms of the Lease, undoubtedly under the threat of eviction. One such signatory was James Leahy, Chairman of Athy Town Commissioners, who admitted signing the Leinster Lease for his farm at Ardscull. In 1878 the Duke submitted the Lease to Athy Board of Guardians in respect of some land held by them as tenants of the Leinster estate. At a special Board meeting on 1 January 1879, the Guardians declined to execute the Lease indicating “that this Board, as the representatives of the people decline to give their signatories to a document directly opposed to the provisions of the Land Act of 1870.” Opposition to the Leinster Lease was maintained at a low key throughout 1879 and 1880 but evictions in September 1880 of tenants of the Verschoyle Estate prompted the formation of a local branch of the Land League. Public agitation in Athy took on a new and more fervent pitch under the guidance of local land league organiser Michael Boyton. On Sunday, 10 October 1880, the first Land League meeting was held in Athy. Addressed by Michael Boyton, the assembled crowd was told that he had come to Athy “commissioned by Charles Stewart Parnell to establish the Athy branch of the Land League.” The Athy Land League had Dr. Patrick O’Neill as Vice President, Timothy Byrne as Treasurer and John Cantwell as Secretary. On 8 January 1881 The Kildare Observer reported a Land League meeting in the Market Square, Athy during which Michael Boyton burnt a copy of the Leinster Lease. However, within a few weeks local public support for the Land League was seriously undermined by a clerical instigated tenants’ agreement to accept a 20% rent reduction offered by the Duke of Leinster. The Land League was not mentioned at the meeting chaired by Rev. Dr. Kavanagh which accepted the new rents and Dr. Patrick O’Neill, the League’s Vice President, resigned because “the acceptance of the Duke’s offer had broken the backbone of the local Land League.” During the period of the Tenants’ Defence Association and the Land League one finds no evidence in the minutes of Athy Town Commissioners of support for the tenant farmers. The Commissioners silence probably owed much to the servile attitude adopted by successive Commissioners over many years to the town’s landlord – the Duke of Leinster. The first indication of their deviation from the subservience of their predecessors was the passing of a resolution on 6 June 1881, requesting the extension of the provisions of the Land Bill to Leaseholders as well as yearly tenants. This innocuous enough request was to be followed on 2 January, 1882 by support for Charles Stewart Parnell in a resolution which called on the Government to release Parnell “and the other prisoners confined under the Coercion Act.” Further evidence of the more independent and nationalistic line adopted by Athy Town Commissioners was given on Sunday, 5 Jul 1885 with the presentation to Michael Davitt of an address by the Commissioners Chairman, Michael Doyle, on the occasion of Davitt’s visit to Athy. While Land League activity throughout the country went on a pace throughout the 1880’s, Athy, which in 1872 had given Ireland the first of the new wave Tenants’ Defence Associations, was little concerned with the nation’s struggle. All was to change with the advent of land problems in the little village of Luggacurran in 1886.

Concrete Bridge across River Barrow

Foundations for what was the then longest reinforced concrete bridge in Ireland were laid in June 1917. It was part of the work on the Athy Wolfhill railway line which had been authorised by the British government under the 1871 Defence of the Realm Act to relieve wartime scarcity of fuel. Work had started on extending the railway line to the Wolfhill coalmines from months previously. Men from Dublin and Belfast were brought to Athy to join the local workers with the promise of 30 shillings per week and free bed for a 60 hour week. The Dubliners soon went on strike, seeking a wage increase of 8 shillings per week and a reduction in the working hours. The Athy men did not join the strike which was eventually settled when the workmen agreed to terms of 5 shillings and 6 pence per day, with some reduction in the work hours. By September 1917 with so many local men, encouraged by the generous separation allowances, having enlisted in the British Army, the local Urban District Council petitioned the chief engineer on the railway project to release 200 men for a short period to help farmers during the harvest. The bridge across the River Barrow was nearing completion in January 1918 but as the entire railway line extension project neared completion on 14th February 1918 the workers went on strike again. Up to 200 men marched through Athy in what was an unsuccessful attempt to get the Athy workers to join the strike. Following the intervention of Denis Kilbride M.P. and his colleague P.J. Meehan of Portlaoise the strike was called off in order to allow the Board of Trade to decide on the workers’ demands. The work continued in time for the Athy Wolfhill line to be opened on 24th September 1918. Operated by the Great Southern and Western Railway Company, the Wolfhill line was in constant use for only a few months as the 10 mile long railway line gave access to the coal pits at Gracefield and Modubeagh. With the end of the Great War the anthracite from the Wolfhill pits and from the Deerpark colliery in Castlecomer, which latter coalmine was served by a newly built railway line from Kilkenny became less commercial to mine. The Castlecomer railway line which opened approximately one year after the Wolfhill line, was the last substantial standard gauge branch line to be built in Ireland. Both railway lines were in charge of the English Board of Works until 1921 when British Government control of the Irish railways ended. In 1924 the Irish Free State government required the different Irish railway companies to amalgamate and the Great Southern and Western railway company which operated the Dublin Waterford line and its various branches became the largest partner in the newly formed Great Southern railway. The railway line to Wolfhill was taken out of use on 12th July 1930, while rail services to Ballylinan continued until 1st April 1963. With the opening of the cement factory in Mullery’s field in 1936 a small branch line was opened to serve the factory which was supplied with material from its sister factory in Drogheda. This branch line closed a few years ago on a date which I would like any of my readers to confirm. Last week the new bridge over the River Barrow as part of the outer relief road began to take shape. Two massive steel girders were moved into place on the south side of the old railway bridge 104 years after the workmen of 1919 had completed their work. It created an enormous amount of interest, with photographs and videos appearing on Facebook and elsewhere recording what is a local historic event. It made me think back to the Planning Appeal hearing in March 2005 to consider objections to Kildare County Council’s plan to erect a bridge across the River Barrow at the rear of the Courthouse as part of the inner relief road project. I engaged with the Planning Inspector and the County Council’s expert witnesses for more than a week during the hearing as I presented a case for the outer relief road, rather than the inner relief road planned by the Council. The County Council inner relief road proposal was to many people in Athy, but not to all, a hopeless attempt to solve the increasingly difficult traffic problems in the town. The outer relief road was the preferred option of the majority of people in Athy, but the County Council would not listen to the local people and with the assistance of a slim majority on the Urban District Council insisted on pressing ahead with a road which would have left all traffic including huge HGV’s travelling through the centre of our town. An Bord Pleanala accepted the strength of the arguments regarding the preference for the outer relief road and for the first time in planning history rejected a local authority’s road plan. It has taken almost 50 years to get the relief road in place and with it comes an opportunity for local businesses to make Athy’s town centre an attractive place to visit and to shop. Writing of bridges reminds me that it is almost 30 years since the issue of a pedestrian bridge from Woodstock across the Barrow to its east side was first raised. Since then the Athy schools on the east side have increased to include all the schools, primary and secondary, in the town. There is an urgent pressing need for a pedestrian bridge to be put in place. Can we look forward to having this essential structure put in place before too long.