Athy's Social Club Players

Last week I wrote of the many vacant, sometimes derelict shop premises on Athy’s main streets and questioned why Kildare County Council had not put in place some form of financial incentives such as a rates or property tax abatement scheme to encourage the occupation and use of vacant premises. I was delighted to read in the same newspaper an advertisement by Kildare County Council announcing a Commercial Rates Incentive Grants Scheme whereby a business premises vacant for at least two years can get a three-year grant to encourage the reoccupation of a vacant premises. This is a good start to the planned regeneration of Athy’s main street, but only if the Enterprise Department of the same Council works hand in hand with prospective independent shop owners who are interested in re-occupying existing vacant premises. My article last week commenced with the question if one could remember the differences of life in Athy in the 1950s and today. It was during the course of my own memory recall that I remembered the town’s Social Club Players. They were a dramatic group based in the Social Club in St. John’s Lane. My first memory of the Social Club Players stems from a performance in the Town Hall to which I was brought by my brother Jack in February 1953 when I was not yet 11 years old. I cannot remember any details of the play. All I can recall after 72 years was where we were sitting, approximately halfway down the hall on the right hand side. The subsequent press report on the play ‘The Barretts of Wimpole Street’ described it as ‘the Society’s most ambitious production to date.’ Veteran actors such as Liam Ryan, Tadhg Brennan, Tommy Walsh, Ken Reynolds, Tom Fox, Florrie Lawler, May Fenelon and Nellie Fox impressed the newspaper reporter immensely in their various roles. The Social Club Players’ first production, so far as I am aware, was ‘Cupboard Love’, performed in the Town Hall in April 1943. I have originals or copies of 16 programmes of plays put on by the Social Club Players between 1943 and 1959. How many programs I am missing I cannot say, but if there is anyone out there who has Social Club Players programmes I would welcome the opportunity of getting photocopies of same. Looking through the programmes I have, it is sad to think that all of the men and women who performed on the local stage so many years ago are no longer with us. Jo Lawler, May Fenelon, Claire Moore, Maureen Walsh, Florrie Lawler, Christy Burke, Nellie Fox, Frances Fenelon, Kitty McLaughlin, May Ward and Betty May were the actresses who participated in several of the Society’s productions over the years. The actors included Liam Ryan, Tadhg Brennan, Pat Mulhall, Ken Reynolds, D.S. Walsh, Freddie Moore, Tommy Walsh, Tommy Fleming, Johnny Mee, Tommy Doyle, Joe Martin, John Dolan, James O’Doherty, Tom Fox, Fergus Hayden and Patsy O’Neill. These were the men and women who gave of their time and talents to entertain their fellow community members over a 16-year period. Their legacy was captured in programmes and photographs of cast members of various plays in which they participated. The plays included ‘Cupboard Love’ (April 1943), ‘Paul Twyning’ (December 1943), ‘Look at the Heffernans’ (March 1945), ‘The Far Off Hills’ (April 1947), ‘They got what they wanted’ (1948), ‘The Righteous are Bold’ (1949), ‘The White Steed’ (April 1950), ‘The White Headed Boy’ (January 1951), ‘The Shop at Sly Corner’ (1952), ‘The Barretts of Wimpole Street’ (February 1953), ‘The Far Off Hills’ (1954), ‘The Righteous are Bold’ (1954) , ‘The Clock Ticks Dusk’ (1955), ‘Twenty Years Awooing’ (1955-’56), ‘The Devil came from Dublin’ (1956), ‘My Wife’s Family’ (1956), ‘The Devil came from Dublin’ (November 1956), ‘Mungo’s Mansion’ (March 1958), ‘The Turn of the Wheel’ (February 1959). I was intrigued to come across a copy of the Society’s accounts for ‘Look at the Heffernans’ which was performed in the Town Hall in March 1945. The sum of thirteen shillings and six pence was paid to John Eaton for ‘bill posting and bell’. This was a time when local events and shows were publicised by the local bell man who walked through the main streets ringing a bell and announcing, as in this case, the upcoming performance of the Society’s play. I have listed the actors and actresses of the Social Club Players so that any future local historian/researcher can easily access what I hope can be regarded as a local archive devoted to the forgotten people of Athy. For the same reason I set out the plays which the Social Club Players put on in the Town Hall insofar as I can verify them between 1943 and 1959. I wonder if there could be a revival of the theatrical tradition of the past which was once such an important part of the social fabric of Athy? The recent death of Kieran Hickey brought back memories of over sixty years ago when I joined Kildare County Council as a clerical officer. On joining the Council I learned that Kieran and Joe Gavin, both of whom were clerical officers like myself, were attending the final year of a three year B. Comm. degree course at nighttime in U.C.D. Motivated by what they were doing I attended the same degree course the following year with the benefit of a ‘lift to Dublin’ after work and bussing to the Naas Road to ‘thumb’ a lift back to Naas after the lectures. My brother Jack, who was also a clerical officer in Kildare County Council at the time, on seeing my involvement with U.C.D. decided to study for various diplomas. The studies stood Joe, Kieran and my brother Jack in good stead as all ended up at the top of their professions, Joe Gavin as County Manager in Monaghan, Jack Taaffe as County Manager in Westmeath and Kieran Hickey as C.E.O. of the Eastern Health Board. Many of the people I worked with in Kildare County Council over five years in the 1960s are now dead. Like the members of Athy Social Club Players they are the forgotten people of an earlier generation whose memories deserve remembrance by later generations.