History of Athy in 25 objects (4)

Continuing the story behind the 25 objects chosen to tell the history of Athy I start this week with the bell which once rang out in the Convent of Mercy Athy.  It is now part of the exhibition in the Heritage Centre devoted to the town’s religious diversity. 

The bell hung over the main stairway in the convent with a large rope reaching down to the hall floor.  It was rung to summon the nuns to prayer and to alert individual nuns when they were required to greet visitors in the nuns’ parlour.  Each nun had her own unique bell call and for the 40 or more nuns in the Convent there was a bewildering range of long and short peals of the bell to identify each nun in the Convent. 

The extraordinary impact that the Sisters of Mercy had on the town of Athy, beginning with their arrival here in 1852, has yet to be fully told.  Educating young children and tending to the poor was the mission of the Sisters of Mercy and one to which successive generations of nuns dedicated themselves over many decades.  With their departure some years ago from the local Convent which had been built on part of Clonmullin commons of old, the bell and some other artefacts from the Convent were presented to the Heritage Centre.  The bell, now silent, is a small reminder of that noble band of women whose work among generations of Athy folk encouraged and enabled so many to take advantage of life’s opportunities. 

A small wooden bird cage which once belonged to Ernest Shackleton is one of several Shackleton related items on display in the Heritage Centre.  I have chosen the bird cage, rather than any of the other perhaps more important Shackleton artefacts, as its everyday simplicity brings a human dimension to the Arctic explorer whose exploits excited the world 100 years ago.  Shackleton is perhaps the most widely known man to come from South Kildare and the exhibition space devoted to him in the Heritage Centre is believed to be the only permanent Shackleton Exhibition anywhere in the world.  It is of course appropriate that Athy boasts of its Shackleton connection for the man whose Antarctic exploits were headline news at the beginning of the 20^th century was born in Kilkea House just a few miles from the town. 

Looking back on the history of Athy there are a number of key events which stand out.  These include the Confederate Wars, the ’98 Rebellion and the Great Famine but amongst them must also be included happier occasions such as the Gordon Bennett Race of 1903 and the Eucharistic Congress of 1932.  Both events had a huge and lasting impact on the people of Athy and like the night of the Big Wind of 1829 were for many locals a reference point in lives unfettered by calendars or time pieces.  Amongst the exhibits in the Heritage Centre are a number of items linked to the Gordon Bennett Race and I have chosen the Arrol Johnston motor car to tell the story behind Ireland’s most famous road race.  The Arrol Johnston was presented to Athy Heritage Centre by Honor McCulloch in memory of her father William Ringwood McCulloch who as a young boy, then living in Sawyerswood, was a spectator at the Gordon Bennett Race of 1903.  His lifelong interest in cars stemmed from that event and about 31 years later, having discovered a derelict car abandoned on a Scottish farm, negotiated its acquisition and set about its restoration.  It took him three years to restore the Arrol Johnston which had been first purchased as new by Lord Cochrane of Fife in Scotland in 1902.  The car, when restored, was driven in the Empire Exhibition run between Glasgow and Edinburgh in 1938 and also took part in the celebrated London to Brighton run in 1970.  The Arrol Johnston motor car which was previously on display in the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu between 1993 and 2000 is now, due to the generosity of Honor McCulloch, one of the highlights of Athy’s Heritage Centre.

A handball, made by local man Bill Aldridge, is the next item selected to tell another aspect of the townspeople’s story.  Bill was a champion handballer with Athy Handball Club which in the 1920s and earlier had such exceptional players amongst its ranks as John Delaney, Tom Aldridge, George Robinson and Jack Delaney.  Bill was in later years a maker of handballs and an example of his handcraft was purchased by me many years ago.  It’s a reminder of a sport which was very popular in Athy up to a few decades ago.  The town once had two handball alleys, the Barrack Lane court, located next to the Army Barracks, while Leinster Street also had a handball court behind a public house.  The Barrack Lane court survived up to the 1970s and was replaced by a newly built court, provided by Athy U.D.C., which however remained unused and was demolished after a few years.

..... TO BE CONTINUED

History of Athy in 25 objects (3)

Continuing the list of 25 objects illustrative of Athy’s history I put forward as the fifth object a book whose rarity suggests that it is probably known to very few people.  The 1798 Rebellion is now recalled in Athy since the official unveiling of the ’98 monument a year ago.  Much of our knowledge of those troubled days comes from the pen of Patrick O’Kelly who in 1842 published his ‘General History of the Rebellion of 1798’.  Kelly, being a local man, recounted in some detail the events of that year in Athy and so his small volume must be the fifth object in our list of twenty five.

I have previously mentioned the single page document recently found in Australia and copied to the local Heritage Centre which issued on the occasion of the laying of the cornerstone of Athy’s gaol by the Duke of Leinster on 20^th June 1826.  The gaol opened in 1830 and housed many prisoners, both male and female, before its closure on the centralisation of prison services on a county basis in the mid 19^th century.  The punishment accorded in that time to what we would regard now as minor offences was extremely severe and many local men and women were held in the Carlow Road Prison prior to being transported to Van Diemen’s land.  The Athy Gaol Certificate must be our sixth object.

The Great Famine which erupted on the Irish countryside in 1845 left its mark even here amongst the rich farmlands of South Kildare.  Athy was the location of a Workhouse opened a short time before the potato crop first failed and consequently many hundreds came from the neighbouring countryside into the town of Athy during the period of the famine.  When I was asked some years ago by the then Eastern Health Board to write a history of St. Vincent’s Hospital I was disappointed to find that the records of its predecessor, the Workhouse, had been destroyed just a few years previously.  When I had completed my work I was contacted by a local man who gave me the first Minute Book used by the Workhouse Board of Guardians when the Workhouse opened in 1841.  That Minute Book must then be included as one of the 25 objects as it more than anything else opens up for us the dark years of the Great Famine which took so many Irish lives in the 1840s.

The next object chosen is a Quaker bonnet now somewhat fragile which I came across many years ago.  It was the headdress of a Quaker woman who professed the religious beliefs first expounded by George Fox in the 17^th century.  Not so many years after the Society of Friends was founded a small Quaker settlement was set up in Athy.  1671 was the year a Quaker meeting was first noted in Athy.  The Quakers are now long gone from the town but they left us their Meeting House and the lane where it was located, now known as Meeting Lane. 

A small 17^th century Athy trade token is the item chosen by me to illustrate the development of the settlers town on the southern border of Kildare County in the 17^th century and later.  The Confederate Wars of the 1640s which brought the English Civil War to these shores was played out in many parts of Ireland.  Athy town figured quite prominently in that war and was attacked, taken and re-taken by the different warring factions over the eight years of that conflict.  When the war ended it brought with it a measure of prolonged peace which the Irish countryside had not previously enjoyed.  The development of the town of Athy as an important market town was a result of those relatively peaceful times and the influx of further settlers to the town which had been a settler’s town for nearly 500 years.  The trade token which was issued in 1659 is evidence of the town’s commercial importance in the 17^th century and beyond.

The commercial success of the settlers town was in part dependent on maintaining a municipal corporation which ensured order within the town’s boundaries.  Athy’s Borough Council, first chartered by Henry VIII, was one of Ireland’s infamous ‘rotten Boroughs’ whose members were appointed by the town landlord, the Earl of Kildare, without any reference to the wishes of the local people.  Nevertheless the Corporation provided a stable enough social and political environment for the development of commerce, thereby allowing the urban settlement to grow throughout the 17^th and 18^th century.  The Minute Books of the Borough Council going back to the mid 1700s are extant, with the oldest Minute Book now reposing in the Archives Office in Belfast.  For me the Minute Book chosen to represent the Municipal history of Athy must be that which records the appointment in 1783 of Lord Edward Fitzgerald as Member of Parliament to represent the Borough Council and the people of Athy.

..... TO BE CONTINUED

History of Athy in 25 objects (2)

When I wrote some weeks ago inviting the readers to suggest 25 objects through which the history of Athy could be explained I little expected the arguments it would raise.  Using the dictionary definition of an object as ‘a material thing that can be seen or touched’ I had included in my possible 25 objects local buildings such as the Town Hall and Whites Castle and other historically important local buildings.  One of my correspondents felt that this was inappropriate on the grounds that the objects chosen should be portable and capable of being displayed in our local Heritage Centre.

Another reader, unconscientiously perhaps, lent weight to that argument when she sent me a copy of a small booklet produced by Cornwall’s Museum Development Team.  It was called ‘A History of Cornwall in 100 Objects’, being an exploration of Cornwall’s heritage through objects housed in the county’s museums, heritage sites, art galleries and historic houses.  No buildings were included amongst the 100 Cornish objects, although a mine engine from Levant Mine near Pendeer was gazetted as the oldest mine engine in existence. 

To highlight the history of Athy in 25 portable objects makes my task extremely difficult as I must find replacements for such history highlighting elements such as the local castles of Woodstock and Whites.

The story of the pre settlement years of the future South Kildare area when it was a 2^nd century battlefield for the warring Munstermen and the men of Leinster must inevitably be told by reference to the ancient swords found in the bed of the River Barrow during the Barrow Drainage Scheme of the 1920s.  The items found are in the National Museum in Dublin. 

Another 800 years or so were to pass before there was any further reference in Irish history to the South Kildare area and again it was the warring factions of Munster and Leinster which came to be recorded.  The Munster men returning from the Battle of Clontarf fell foul of the Leinster men and the waters of the River Barrow flowed crimson with the blood of wounded warriors.  The artefacts dredged from the river bed almost 90 years ago probably bear witness to that conflict and bring us to the founding and early development of the town we call Athy.

As I embark on the town’s history trail which starts at the end of the 12^th century I find it difficult to identify an object which can be verifiably associated with the town’s foundation.  We know that the Anglo Norman village of Athy was the location of two monasteries very soon after the first settlers came here.  The Dominicans arrived in 1257, some years after the founding of the Monastery of St. Thomas and the Hospital of St. Johns.  It was this latter religious settlement, established near to the first castle structure erected at Woodstock, which gave its name in later years to St. John’s Lane and nearby St. John’s Street.  There is in the local Heritage Centre a carved head of a monk discovered more than 100 years ago in the grounds of St. John’s House which adjoins St. John’s Cemetery.  Was this carving a relic of the monastic settlement of St. Thomas which was disbanded even before the Reformation closed the nearby Friary of St. Dominic’s.  I cannot be sure of this but even if it is not contemporary with the Monastery of St. Thomas, the rough carving is sufficiently associated with that ancient site to warrant inclusion as our third object.

To illustrate the Confederate Wars of the 1640s we have the fireplace pieces taken from Woodstock Castle and now presently in the local Heritage Centre.  The castle, the walls of which are still standing, was not the first fortified building erected on the site by the Anglo Norman settlements.  It was more than likely preceded by a wooden structure which served as a defensive fortress against the marauding Irish who constantly attacked the settlement during the 13^th and 14^th centuries.  The present stone building is believed to be of the 14^th century and figured prominently in the Confederate Wars, as did the nearby Whites Castle.

The 5^th object to be chosen must be the 8 page pamphlet printed in London in 1641 with the title ‘Treason in Ireland’, with several subtitles including ‘With a plot discovered at Athigh’.  It gives an account of Ireland’s involvement in the English Civil War and is particularly important for the pictorial depiction of the mid 17^th century town shown surrounded by town walls.  The pamphlet was printed for Mr. Hierone ‘Minister of God’s Word at Athigh in Ireland’. 

TO BE CONTINUED ..............................

History of Athy in 25 objects

‘History of the World in One Hundred Objects’ was the title of a recent bestselling book which enlivened the retelling of history in an interesting and novel way.  It soon gave way to a series currently running in the Irish Times of the ‘History of Ireland in One Hundred Objects’, the objects in this case being artefacts to be found in the National Museum.  I wasn’t surprised therefore to be presented recently with a challenge by my eldest son Seamus to write of the History of Athy by reference to a limited number of objects.  It struck me that if 100 objects were sufficient to deal with world history, or indeed the history of Ireland, then surely the history of our relatively small urban settlement on the banks of the river Barrow could be more than adequately covered by say twenty five objects.  And so having arbitrarily set this figure of twenty five as the appropriate one for telling the story of Athy I set about identifying the objects which would be the best vehicles to carry the text of a town’s history from foundation to modern times. 

Firstly, the word ‘object’ would have to be defined and its dictionary definition ‘a material thing that can be seen or touched’ more than adequately met my requirements, it allows me to utilise buildings and documents or artefacts as visual props to highlight aspects of the town’s history.  Now the difficult part of the task facing me was identifying the twenty five objects which of necessity must have a connection with Athy and its people.  The period to be covered stretched back eight hundred years to the time of the foundation of the village of Athy and even further if one was to relate the story of the river crossing which was the forerunner of the first settlement.

Perhaps the easiest part of the task would be identifying local buildings, existing or in ruins.  The compiling of a list of possible inclusions in the final twenty five objects must, of course, give us many entries later to be discarded.  So the initial list of objects should be far wider than the final twenty five and so in terms of  buildings, I could include several such as Woodstock Castle, White’s Castle, Crom-a-Boo Bridge, St. Vincent’s Hospital etc. 

There are many more buildings or parts thereof which could or perhaps should be included and I await readers suggestions as to further inclusions.

Identifying suitable ‘material things which can be seen or touched’ is likely to pose greater problems than that posed by the identifying of appropriate buildings.  One such object which came to my notice within the past few weeks was a document which issued following the laying of the cornerstone of Athy’s Jail on the Carlow Road by the Duke of Leinster on the 20^th day of June 1826.  It was returned to Athy from Australia and added significantly to what I already knew about the Town Jail which was opened in 1830. 

Other documents appropriate for inclusion in the list of twenty five are the pamphlets published in the 1640s concerning Ireland’s involvement in the English Civil War.  First amongst those pamphlets is one printed in London in 1641 which as the title page states was ‘Sent into England by Mr. Hierome, Minister of God at Athigh in Ireland’. The eight page pamphlet includes a pictorial depiction of ‘Athigh’ surrounded by town walls and in the background a Church.

But the objects to be chosen for the list while having to be historically significant do not have to be rare or indeed immeasurable in terms of cost.  For instance, World War 1 death plaques of which over two hundred were received in homes in the South Kildare area must, I feel, be one of the final twenty five chosen objects.  It would allow the story of the 1914-1918 War to be told and how that war impacted on Athy and district.

There are so many other objects for consideration and inclusion in the final list of the twenty five that it would seem appropriate to seek the assistance of everyone interested in history to help compile that list.

Let me have your suggestions as to objects which bearing in mind the definition should be included in the list of twenty five objects to tell the story of the Town of Athy.  Give me a list of any number of objects and all suggestions received before the end of January will be included in a future article before the twenty five final objects are chosen and are written about.