Alice Myles

When I started on this weeks “Eye on the Past” I planned to write an article in celebration of the life of Alice Myles who was born in 1906.  I interviewed Alice on the occasion of her 96^th birthday and found a delightfully active woman, full of wit and the joys of life.  Last week, preparations were in hand to celebrate her centenary with a birthday party in Athy Golf Club, which by a happy coincidence is this year also celebrating its own centenary.  Members of the Myles extended family arranged to travel from America and England for the planned celebrations, but even as some had arrived in Athy and others were in transit, news arrived of Alice’s unexpected death on Thursday night, just over one day short of her 100^th birthday. 

The centenary of a life is a lifespan few of us can ever hope to enjoy.  Alice Myles lived not only a long life, but also a happy contented life surrounded by her extended family, neighbours and friends.  She was born at a time when our country was still governed from Westminister and lived through periods of great change.  Born three years after the Gordon Bennett Race had brought racing cars on to the streets of Athy giving locals their first sight of motor cars, Alice would live to see the same town streets become an almost permanent traffic jam.  A school girl at the local convent schools which had opened in 1852, she witnessed the closure of the Convent of Mercy and the departure some years earlier of the Christian Brothers from the town of Athy. 

As a young girl of eight years she would have seen the young men from the town, who following behind one of the local bands, marched to the railway station to start the first leg of a journey, which for many of them, there was no return.  The year was 1914 and over the following four years as the numbers enlisting in the Army grew, the young girl would have noticed the frequency with which telegram boys from the local Post Office brought the dreaded news of another death to local families.

She remembered her mother’s brother, Patrick Donohue, who at the age of forty years went to war and died on the 31^st of May 1915 from the effects of gas poisoning.  She recalled her mother receiving a letter from an officer at the war front, with which he enclosed a photograph showing Patrick Donohue lying on what was to be his death bed, just an hour and a half before he died.  The photograph is one of the most unique wartime photographs I have ever seen and with the accompanying letter dated 9^th June with the line “I enclose a photograph I took about an hour and a half before your boy died”, is perhaps one of the most poignant reminders of a sad period in the history of our town.

I was reminded of Patrick Donohue and the many other Athy men who died in the 1914-18 war when I heard Jacinta O’Donnell’s wonderful rendition of Alice’s favourite song, “Bunch of Violets Blue” at her funeral mass on Friday last.

            “A soldier boy lay dying,

            Out in the battle field,

            A bunch of withered violets,

            On his breast were still to be seen,

            And turning to his comrades,

            With the life blood flowing fast,

            Take them to her and tell her that,

            I wore them to the last.”

Alice was a young girl of fifteen when the news of the shooting of Connor and Lacy in nearby Barrowhouse filtered back to Athy in the afternoon of 16^th May 1921.  The news created excitement and some fear amongst the locals who were becoming more and more aware of the changes in attitudes and allegiances in Ireland after the rebellion of 1916.  The Civil War came at a time when Alice worked as a childminder for Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Minch at Cardenton.  She was employed by them for five years, caring for the Minch’s only child Claire, and it was while working there that she met her future husband, William Myles, who was chauffeur to Eugene’s brother, Matthew P. Minch.  However, before she married, Alice spent four years working for another family in Dun Laoghaire, then known as Kingstown.  Returning to Athy in 1930 she married William and the Myles family moved to live in a small house in Rockfield which is part of the Minch’s estate.

It was in the early 1930’s that Alice witnessed the greatest changes ever made in the physical makeup of her home town.  The Slum Clearance Programmes initiated by the De Valera government first elected in 1932 saw the removal of many of the courtyards, alleys and laneways of the historic town.  Up to then Athy, like so many other Irish provincial towns, was a claustrophobic centre of life where Dickensian living conditions were to be found in the alleys and laneways which lead off the main thoroughfares of the town.  Families lived in the small substandard hovels which lined those darkened lanes and alleyways, prone to disease and illness and relying for water on public water pumps which were serviced from the piped water scheme completed by the local council just one year after Alice Myles was born.  Up to then the town population relied on nine wells which local medical officer, Dr. James Kilbride, claimed were “situated within closely inhabited areas and from their faulty construction are liable to contamination and permit of the access of surface water and percolation from drains.”  Prior to the provision of the towns pipe water scheme, which incidentally was opposed for several years by local ratepayers, the contaminated water from the towns wells resulted in several deaths from typhoid fever each year.

The destruction of the slum dwellings started in 1934 after the re-housing of families from Kelly’s Lane, Garden Lane, Chapel Lane, Barkers Row, Barrack Street, Shrewleen Lane and New Gardens.  The clearance programme continued until the last vestige of “old Athy” was gone with the demolition of houses in Janeville Lane and Butler’s Row, both lying on either side of Offaly Street or Preston’s Gate, as the lower section of the street was once called.

Over the years Alice, now the mother of a young family, witnessed the changes in the working life of Athy.  Where previously local men were dependent on farm work or the local brickyards for seasonal employment, the opportunities for full time employment became a reality by the 1930’s.  The I.V.I. and the newly opened Asbestos factory ushered in a period of industrial activity which the town had never before experienced.  It brought a welcome improvement in living standards for some but for many more, the emigration boat offered the only hope of breaking the perennial cycle of unemployment.

The Second World War followed and coincided with William Myles’ prolonged illness which required his confinement for several weeks in Kildare District Hospital.  Alice once told me of the many trips she made on a bike to Kildare hospital to see her husband and of the difficult times experienced by her young family during her husband’s prolonged illness.  Throughout it all Alice never lost heart or allowed her good humour to be submerged, an attitude which prevailed throughout her long happy life.  Her husband William who spent his working life with the Minch’s died 31 years ago aged 72.  By then the Myles family had moved to the old Fever Hospital on the Stradbally Road which they shared with the three Moyladd sisters.  The Fever Hospital was where another of her mother’s brothers, John Donohue, died some years before the First World War.  In telling me this, Alice was unconsciously perhaps, reaffirming how her own life resonated with history and the people who were part of that history.

Last week as Alice’s 100^th birthday approached her family and friends prepared to gather to celebrate the event in the surroundings of the other local centenarian, the Athy Golf Club.  The good humour which marked Alice’s long life was evident to the last.  Her nephew, Ned Conway, who spoke to her early on Wednesday morning and complimented her on her hair she had styled for the upcoming celebrations, received a quick response, “all I need now is a facelift”.  It was so typical of the quick-witted and pleasant lady whose passing later that same day was greeted with disbelief and sadness throughout the locality.

Her funeral to St. Michael’s Cemetery took place on the 100^th anniversary of her birth on 4^th March 1906.  As Alice Lacey, and later as Alice Myles, she lived through one hundred years of enormous changes in Irish life and society.  In that time Athy had undergone enormous changes including the eradication of the tenements and the laneways of impoverished urban life which marked its uneasy transition from a garrison town to one of the first industrialised provincial towns in Ireland.  It was sadly a leading role which Athy did not maintain in the face of a demand for industry from other Irish provincial towns over the decades. 

Alice Myles was privileged to live a long happy life and all who knew her were privileged to have shared in her good nature and shared in the sheer delight she enjoyed in the company of her 8 children, 33 grandchildren, 34 great grandchildren and 2 great great grandchildren..

Alice Myles

“If you can get your stockings on in the morning, then you know you’re alright.” Words of empirical wisdom from a woman who has lived for 96 years and who celebrated her birthday last week with a night out with her extended family. Alice Myles was born in 1906, the second child of Daniel Lacey, a carpenter from Ballintubbert, and Ellen Donohue, a seamstress from Tankardstown. Dan worked for Hosies of Coursetown, while Ellen served her time as a seamstress with Murphy’s Commercial House in Emily Square. Alice and her younger sister Helen Conway who is living in Inch just outside Athy have a combined age of 189 years. Longevity is clearly a family trait, as evidenced by the fact that their other sister Mary was 96 years of age when she passed away three years ago.

I met Alice Myles last week in the comfortable house which has been her home for the past 17 years. She moved there from “Woodlands” which was one half of the old Fever Hospital on the Stradbally road and where she had lived with her late husband and family for many years. Alice who was born at Farmerstown attended the Sisters of Mercy School in Athy until she was 16 years of age. Her school days coincided with the War of Independence and that dark period in our history when the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries terrorised so many local Irish communities. She remembers the days of fear following the killing of William Connors and Jim Lacey at Barrowhouse on 16th May, 1921.

On leaving school she took up employment as a child minder with Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Minch at Cardenton. There she was to remain for five years, caring for the Minch’s only child Claire, recalling one occasion when she brought Claire to the birthday party held for Joe O’Neill, then the very young son of the local doctor, Jeremiah O’Neill. The Minch’s had two other indoor staff, Molly Keogh of Rheban who was the family cook and Margaret Moloney of Coursetown who was the parlor maid. Alice remembers attending dances in the mid 1920’s with her friend and work colleague Molly Keogh at Churchtown National School, and also an occasional cross roads dance at Kilcrow. This was a time long before laws were passed to regulate and control public dancing in Ireland.

A period of four years was spent by Alice as a child’s nanny for the Browne’s of Dun Laoghaire before she returned to marry her childhood sweetheart William Myles who was chauffeur and general worker with Matt Minch of Rockfield House. Alice and Bill lived in a tied house [now demolished] at Rockfield, one of several small cottages provided by the Minch’s for their workmen. It was here that the Myles family lived until about 1952 when they moved to “Woodlands” on the Stradbally road. Times were hard during the 1930’s and the 1940’s but especially so during Bill Myles’ prolonged illnesses in the early 1940’s. There was little money to pay the food bills and what was available was invariably passed across the counter of Miss Murphy’s small grocery shop in William Street. It was around that period that Bill Myles was admitted to Kildare District Hospital where he remained for many weeks in a serious condition. Alice recalls cycling from Athy to Kildare several times to visit her husband, a journey which caused her little thought as the bicycle was the only reliable mode of transport in those war years. Bill Myles who spent his entire working life with the Minch’s of Rockfield House died in 1975, aged 73 years.

Alice and Bill Myles had eight children, the eldest Betty who recently retired from a stockbroking firm in New York where she has lived since 1965. Paschal lives in London, as does his brother Oliver who is married to Maura Keeffe of Convent View. The other sons of the family are Paul, who is also living in England, Cyril who lives in Tankardstown and Noel, the youngest of the family who lives in Athy and works in Minch Nortons. Also in Athy are Martha who married Jack Kenny of Dunbrin and Helen who married Joe Phillips of Tankardstown. Helen will be remembered as the assistant in Mrs. Hughes’ shop in Leinster Street where she worked for over forty years until the business closed two years ago.

Alice Myles’ memories of her years in Dublin include Croke Park on All Ireland day, 31st September 1928 when she watched Kildare beat Cavan by one point to become the first holders of the Sam Maguire Cup. [While on the subject of the 1928 final can anyone tell me whether Paddy Fitzpatrick who at one time captained the Rheban football team played for Kildare in that final?]. The first scheduled airplane flight out of Dublin was also recalled by Alice who had a view of the plane as she stood on O’Connell Bridge. With a little bit of prompting from her grand-daughter, Alice also included amongst her Dublin memories the occasion where she went out with Paddy Moloney, whose son and namesake has fronted the musical group The Chieftans since its formation.

Alice’s recall of the 1928 All Ireland final is indicative of her abiding interest in Gaelic football, an interest which was crowned by the selection of her youngest son Noel and that of her nephew Ned Conway for the Kildare County senior team. Ned, son of her younger sister Helen, played for Kildare in 1954, while Noel whom she proudly acknowledges was a very good player, appeared in a Lily White jersey between 1973 and 1976. Indeed Noel was a member of the Kildare senior team which lost heavily to Dublin in the 1975 Leinster final, thereby disappointingly failing to add to the under-21 Leinster final medal which he had won with the county team in 1967.

The Myles family moved to “Woodlands” which was one part of the old Fever Hospital in or about 1952. Their neighbours in the other half of the building which was built in 1841 out of funds collected locally in Athy town were the Moylad sisters, Bridget, Sarah and Annie who had originated from the Kildangan area. Mention of the old Fever Hospital prompted Alice to recall the death of her uncle Johnny Donoghue while a patient in the Fever Hospital at the turn of the last century. Another uncle, Paddy Donohue, a private in the Royal Irish Regiment and a native of Coolroe, died of wounds in France on 31st May 1915. He was one of the many Athy men who perished during the 1914/1918 War. His brother, Tom Donohue, died as a young boy some years previously when he fell into the River Barrow at Levitstown.

Alice who is an extraordinary youthful 96 years of age travelled extensively once her family was reared. She has been to the United States on no less than 12 occasions, her last trip undertaken when she was 88 years of age. England, Lourdes, the Holy Land and even The Bahamas have all been visited by Alice, who with some reluctance now acknowledges that she will probably not go on any more overseas trips.

It was a real pleasure to talk and listen to Alice Myles who has seen her native town of Athy rise from the poverty and misery of the early decades of the last century. Her memories of times passed are tinged with some sad memories, but are also overlaid with a great deal of happiness shared with her children and grand-children who form a large but close-knit family group of which she is justifiably proud.