Joey Carbery and Jeremy Loughman

My reference last week to the absence of community notice boards in Athy prompted a quick response from several readers who like me bemoaned the information vacuum which surrounds many events held in the town. It just wasn’t the need for notice boards which attracted the public’s attention. Many queried why it was so difficult to find out what organisations, clubs, associations and societies existed in the town. It prompted me to think to a time some decades ago when Athy’s Junior Chamber of Commerce published a town directory. Such a publication would today be of immeasurable benefit to the many young families who came to live in Athy in recent years. Unfortunately Athy no longer has a Chamber of Commerce as a result of a regrettable decision some years ago to amalgamate with the County Chamber of Commerce. I wonder if the local Municipal Council would take on the responsibility of employing a person to undertake the task of compiling a much-needed town directory. The past week also saw two former members of Athy’s rugby club win international caps as members of Ireland’s rugby team. This was a unique occurrence and one seldom enjoyed, if ever, by an Irish provincial rugby club. Joey Carbery and Jeremy Loughman are former pupils of Ardscoil na Tríonóide, successors to my old Christian Brothers School of St. John’s Lane. Both attended the Athy’s secondary school at the same time and figured on the same local rugby club team. Their achievements as rugby players give all of us here in Athy further reason to be proud of our town. The Carbery and Loughman family names go back many generations and my older readers particularly will remember Joey’s great grandparents, Joe and Betty Carbery and Jeremy’s grandparents, David and Pauline Loughman. Achievements on the playing field, whether that of Clonmullin AFC or the Athy GFC underage teams, have been noteworthy this year. Great strides have been made over the years by various sporting clubs in Athy to provide facilities for the young people of the town. A few generations ago Athy offered little by way of recreational sporting activities for its young people. These were the same youngsters whom we honoured on Remembrance Sunday as we stood in the shadow of St. Michael’s Medieval Church to honour the memory of the Athy men who died in wars, especially the Great War of 1914-18. When that war ended a substantial part of the town’s younger adult generation had died fighting overseas. 144 men and one woman from Athy have been identified as fatal casualties of the Great War. The ceremony on Remembrance Sunday at which the names of the Athy dead were read aloud brought home to those gathered in St. Michael’s Cemetery the futility of war. It also helped to remind us of the consequential family and wider social problems which inevitably resulted from the loss of fathers, sons, husbands and brothers. How can we imagine did parents, James and Brigid Byrne of 3 Chapel Lane, overcome the loss of three sons in war between April 1915 and March 1916. Their next door neighbours John and Mary Kelly of 4 Chapel Lane also lost three sons in that war between May 1915 and September 1916. They were not the only Athy families to lose three sons in the 1914-18 war, a sad experience suffered by the Curtis family of Quarry Farm and the Doyle/Reilly family of Athy. With a population of less than 4,000 at the start of the war the loss of so many young persons brought hardships which affected some local families for generations thereafter. St. Michael’s Cemetery with its ruined medieval church is perhaps our most honoured and respected reminder of Athy’s past. Woodstock Castle and the White Castle are medieval companions of the cemetery where recent preservation work on the church has been completed. The cemetery holds the remains of seven participants in the Great War and their family members stretching back over several generations. It also holds the remains of various Carbery and Loughman families, including the great grandparents and grandparents I mentioned earlier. The past week has been a time to enjoy and take pride in the achievements of two young men of a generation separated by more than 100 years from an earlier lost generation. Athy is a town where families suffered hardships for many years as a result of deaths on the battlefields of France and Flanders. It is now a town which has recovered and takes pride in the successful sporting careers of Joey Carbery and Jeremy Loughman, while at the same time remembering with pride the young men who did not have the means or the opportunities to enjoy sporting lifes so many years ago.

Joey Carbery Irish Rugby International

Irish rugby has a new sporting hero.  Joey Carbery made his international debut on the Irish rugby team last week during Ireland’s first win over New Zealand.  The Soldier’s Field in Chicago was the scene of Joey’s entry to the ranks of an Irish international player. 

The New Zealand fifteen whom the one time Athy club player lined out against shared with Joey a country of birth.  A New Zealander by birth Joey has however lived a large part of his young life in the South Kildare town where the Carbery family links stretch back to the dark oppressive years of the Luggacurran evictions.

It was his great great grandfather Dan Carbery, who evicted from his small holding in Luggacurran in June 1889 by agents of Lord Lansdowne set up home in Athy.  It was here that Dan Carbery established the business which on his death in 1896 was continued and expanded by his 31-year-old son, also named Dan.  The Carbery building legacy is to be found in several local schools, numerous housing estates in and around the town of Athy and in the more recent refurbishment by the Carlow branch of the firm of the local Courthouse.

The name Joe Carbery has passed down through several generations of the Carbery family, the last four generations of which have been actively involved with Athy rugby football club.  Joe Carbery, great grandfather of the current rugby star, was a playing member of the club in the 1920s, as was his cousin Donal.  Joe continued to play through the 1930s and was club captain in 1933/’34 and played on the provincial club team of 1938.  Twenty years after his club captaincy he was elected president of Athy Rugby Club for 1953/’54.

The next generation Joe was also a stalwart of Athy rugby club.  A veterinary surgeon by profession he played, as did his brother Jerry, for the Athy club in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  Joe Carbery and his clubmate Jack Ryan were members of the Leinster Junior squad in 1961/’62.  Joe Carbery emigrated to New Zealand for a period and on returning to Ireland played for Naas rugby club and in 1981/’82 trained what is now regarded as one of Athy club’s most successful teams.  It was the third team which hold the unique distinction of not having lost a match while Joe Carbery was their trainer. 

The name Joe and the involvement in rugby passed on to the next Carbery generation.  This was Joey’s father who was born in Athy.  As a young child, he moved to New Zealand with his parents, but now lives in the south Kildare town where he is employed by the Irish Rugby Football Union as a youth coach.  He is also coach to the Athy senior rugby team.  His son Joe, known to the media and public alike as Joey, is the fourth generation of the Carbery family to have had an association with Athy rugby club.  Educated in Athy and Blackrock College he played underage rugby for Athy and later with Blackrock College and with the Clontarf senior team. 

We have to look back many decades to find another Athy player who reached the high status of Irish international senior team player.  The only one I have located is John B. Minch, son of Matthew and Elizabeth Minch of Rockfield House who was born in 1880.  John’s father Matt Minch was elected a Member of Parliament for South Kildare in 1882 and remained an M.P. for the following 21 years.  John B. Minch, like Joey Carbery, also attended and played for Blackrock College.  He won the first of his five international caps playing for Ireland against South Africa at Lansdowne Road on 30^th November 1912.  The following year he was capped twice, playing against England at Lansdowne Road on 8^th February 1913 and against Scotland in Edinburgh on 22^nd February.  His final two caps were earned in internationals against England at Twickenham on 14^th February 1914 and against Scotland at Lansdowne Road two weeks later.

Joey Carbery, Irish rugby international, follows in the proud footsteps of a father, grandfather and great grandfather, all bearing the name Joe and all associated players with Athy’s rugby football club.  The Carbery family association with Athy R.F.C. is one which was mirrored by the family’s active involvement with Athy Golf Club.  That association started with Dan Carbery, eldest son of the Carbery father who was evicted from Luggacurran.  Dan was captain of Athy Golf Club on six occasions between 1915 and 1932 and was followed in that position by three other Carbery family members including Joe Carbery, great grandfather of the rugby international.  Both the aforesaid Dan and his son Joe also held the position of Golf Club President each on three occasions.

The people of Athy and district rejoice in having a rugby player of the calibre of Joey Carbery whom they can say is one of their own, as is that other international sportsman, boxer Eric Donovan who won his second professional fight on the same night as Joey Carbery earned his first international cap.

Joey Carbery Irish Rugby International

Irish rugby has a new sporting hero.  Joey Carbery made his international debut on the Irish rugby team last week during Ireland’s first win over New Zealand.  The Soldier’s Field in Chicago was the scene of Joey’s entry to the ranks of an Irish international player. 

The New Zealand fifteen whom the one time Athy club player lined out against shared with Joey a country of birth.  A New Zealander by birth Joey has however lived a large part of his young life in the South Kildare town where the Carbery family links stretch back to the dark oppressive years of the Luggacurran evictions.

It was his great great grandfather Dan Carbery, who evicted from his small holding in Luggacurran in June 1889 by agents of Lord Lansdowne set up home in Athy.  It was here that Dan Carbery established the business which on his death in 1896 was continued and expanded by his 31-year-old son, also named Dan.  The Carbery building legacy is to be found in several local schools, numerous housing estates in and around the town of Athy and in the more recent refurbishment by the Carlow branch of the firm of the local Courthouse.

The name Joe Carbery has passed down through several generations of the Carbery family, the last four generations of which have been actively involved with Athy rugby football club.  Joe Carbery, great grandfather of the current rugby star, was a playing member of the club in the 1920s, as was his cousin Donal.  Joe continued to play through the 1930s and was club captain in 1933/’34 and played on the provincial club team of 1938.  Twenty years after his club captaincy he was elected president of Athy Rugby Club for 1953/’54.

The next generation Joe was also a stalwart of Athy rugby club.  A veterinary surgeon by profession he played, as did his brother Jerry, for the Athy club in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  Joe Carbery and his clubmate Jack Ryan were members of the Leinster Junior squad in 1961/’62.  Joe Carbery emigrated to New Zealand for a period and on returning to Ireland played for Naas rugby club and in 1981/’82 trained what is now regarded as one of Athy club’s most successful teams.  It was the third team which hold the unique distinction of not having lost a match while Joe Carbery was their trainer. 

The name Joe and the involvement in rugby passed on to the next Carbery generation.  This was Joey’s father who was born in Athy.  As a young child, he moved to New Zealand with his parents, but now lives in the south Kildare town where he is employed by the Irish Rugby Football Union as a youth coach.  He is also coach to the Athy senior rugby team.  His son Joe, known to the media and public alike as Joey, is the fourth generation of the Carbery family to have had an association with Athy rugby club.  Educated in Athy and Blackrock College he played underage rugby for Athy and later with Blackrock College and with the Clontarf senior team. 

We have to look back many decades to find another Athy player who reached the high status of Irish international senior team player.  The only one I have located is John B. Minch, son of Matthew and Elizabeth Minch of Rockfield House who was born in 1880.  John’s father Matt Minch was elected a Member of Parliament for South Kildare in 1882 and remained an M.P. for the following 21 years.  John B. Minch, like Joey Carbery, also attended and played for Blackrock College.  He won the first of his five international caps playing for Ireland against South Africa at Lansdowne Road on 30^th November 1912.  The following year he was capped twice, playing against England at Lansdowne Road on 8^th February 1913 and against Scotland in Edinburgh on 22^nd February.  His final two caps were earned in internationals against England at Twickenham on 14^th February 1914 and against Scotland at Lansdowne Road two weeks later.

Joey Carbery, Irish rugby international, follows in the proud footsteps of a father, grandfather and great grandfather, all bearing the name Joe and all associated players with Athy’s rugby football club.  The Carbery family association with Athy R.F.C. is one which was mirrored by the family’s active involvement with Athy Golf Club.  That association started with Dan Carbery, eldest son of the Carbery father who was evicted from Luggacurran.  Dan was captain of Athy Golf Club on six occasions between 1915 and 1932 and was followed in that position by three other Carbery family members including Joe Carbery, great grandfather of the rugby international.  Both the aforesaid Dan and his son Joe also held the position of Golf Club President each on three occasions.

The people of Athy and district rejoice in having a rugby player of the calibre of Joey Carbery whom they can say is one of their own, as is that other international sportsman, boxer Eric Donovan who won his second professional fight on the same night as Joey Carbery earned his first international cap.