Sisters of Mercy Mission to Australia

There are many links between Australia and our home town of Athy, not all of which have been identified to date. Prisoners from the town jail forged many of those earlier connections but it was the 1860’s which provided the most enduring link between this part of Ireland and Australia. In 1861 Fr. Andrew Quinn, then Parish Priest of Athy asked Mother Teresa Maher of the local Convent of Mercy for nuns willing to volunteer for missionary work in Australia. The Parish Priest, a native of west Wicklow was the brother of two Australian-based Bishops, Dr. James Quinn of the dioceses of Brisbane and Dr. Matthew Quinn of the dioceses of Bathurst and it was for Brisbane that the nuns were sought.

Mother Teresa was first cousin of Dr. Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin and daughter of Patrick Maher of Kilrush. Born in 1820 she arrived in Athy from the Mercy Convent in Carlow in 1855 with Sr. Xavier Downey to take charge of the local convent following the departure of Mother Vincent Whitty who was the first Superior of Athy’s Sisters of Mercy. Mother Teresa agreed to receive and train in the Athy Convent young ladies for the Australian mission and the first girl to enter the convent for that purpose was from Portarlington, County Laois. Catherine Flanagan, born on 1st September 1844, the daughter of Denis and Mary Flanagan entered Athy Convent on 10th August 1861, was received into the Mercy Order on 11th February of the following year and professed on 21st February 1864. Her name in religion was Sr. Rose and she left Athy for the Brisbane mission arriving there on 11th November 1865. She died in Brisbane on 1st July 1879.

On 2nd November 1866 five more young Irish women arrived in Brisbane, Australia having journeyed from the Convent of Mercy in Athy. Sr. Columba was born Honoria Griffin on 10th March 1840 in Ballintubbert, Co. Roscommon to John and Elizabeth Griffin. She entered the Athy Convent on 24th February 1865, receiving the habit of the Sisters of Mercy on 10th September of the same year and was professed in Brisbane in 1868. Margaret Bergan, daughter of Edward and Catherine Bergin of Portlaoise was born on 6th February 1842 and entered the Athy Convent on 2nd July 1865. She was received on 28th December of the same year and professed as Sr. Julianna in Brisbane on 31st March 1869. Julia Quirke, a native of Clashmore, Co. Waterford born on 5th October 1843 to Thomas and Julia Quirke, took the name Sr. Regis when she entered the Athy Convent on 31st August 1865. Another passenger on the long boat trip to Australia which ended in Brisbane on 2nd November 1866 was Sr. Borgia, otherwise Jane Byrne of Arron Quay, Dublin. Born on 16th September 1843 to Thomas and Mary Byrne, she entered the Convent at Athy on 8th September 1865 and her profession took place in Brisbane on 31st March 1869. She lived until 1928.

Within another two years five young postulants set out from the Convent of Mercy in Athy to travel to Brisbane. They journeyed on the Zealandia which left England on 24th April 1868. Mary-Ann Hartley, born to John and Katherine Hartley of Youghal, Cork on 24th July 1845 entered the Athy Convent on 21st November 1866 where she received the Mercy habit on 21st May the following year. She left the Mercy Order without being professed after her arrival in Australia, as did her companion Elizabeth Friary of Templemichael, Co. Longford. Elizabeth who was born on 25th July 1847 to Andrew and Mary Friary had joined the Mercy Order in Athy on 15th February 1867. She was to leave the Sisters of Mercy in January 1873 without apparently having been professed.

Two other postulants on that trip were Sr. Cecilia and Sr. Lignori, the former from Dysart, Co. Louth where she was born to Thomas and Bridget Carney on 26th June 1846. Sr. Lignori was a native of Nenagh, Co. Tipperary where she was born on 15th January 1848, the daughter of William and Mary-Ann Kealy. Like Sr. Cecilia she had joined the Athy Convent of Mercy during the Famine years. Sr. Cecilia died in Brisbane in 1889, while Sr. Lignori lived for another 33 years, dying on 13th May 1923.

The fifth postulant to travel on the ship which arrived in Australia on 4th July 1868 was Sr. Mary Patrick who had entered the Athy Convent on 8th June 1866. The daughter of James and Elizabeth Potter of Killashee, Co. Longford, Sr. Mary Patrick was professed in Brisbane on 6th July 1869. Sister Patrick joined the staff of All Hallows School in Brisbane after a few years in Australia and she was to be associated with that school for the next 50 years. In 1879 she was elected Superior of the Sisters of Mercy Congregation and was re-elected to that office on several occasions until her death in 1927. In all she was Superior for 30 years and assistant to the Superior for another 18 years. Under her guidance and leadership the Sisters of Mercy Congregation in Brisbane, Australia grew to over 500 and she was instrumental in establishing Mercy convents and schools in many outlying areas of Queensland. Another of her many achievements was the establishment of Mater Hospitals in Australia.

The five postulants who arrived in Australia in July 1868 were the last missionaries to leave the Convent of Mercy Athy for the dioceses of Brisbane. Difficulties arose between the Sisters of Mercy and Bishop James Quinn which may have affected the continuation of the Brisbane Mission Scheme initiated in 1861. Mother Vincent Whitty who was the first Superior of the Convent of Mercy when it opened in 1852 had been replaced by Mother Teresa Maher. Eight years later Mother Vincent left Ireland for the Australian missions and was accompanied on the sea trip to the Southern hemisphere by Dr. James Quinn. She was to share with Bishop Quinn responsibility for establishing the Catholic system of education in the then developing colony of Queensland. However difficulties soon arose between the Bishop and Mother Vincent. The Bishop who had been appointed to the Queensland Episcopacy in 1858 wished to bring the Catholic schools established by the Sisters of Mercy under the control of the Queensland Board of Education. Mother Vincent feared that such a move would lead to a dilution of the schools’ religious ethos. She resisted Bishop Quinn’s plans and this resulted in a disharmonious relationship between the Bishop and the Sisters of Mercy, news of which soon percolated back to the Convent in Athy.

Further conflict arose following Bishop Quinn’s attempt to extend his Episcopal authority over the Mercy Convents in his dioceses so as to supersede the Rule of the Foundress of the Order of Mercy. A number of diocesan priests also fell foul of Bishop James Quinn and six Irish priests left the Brisbane dioceses in 1867 following which news of the ongoing disharmony in the Brisbane diocese reached Ireland. The last Missionaries from the Convent of Mercy Athy left for Queensland the following year.

The story of the nuns and postulants who left Athy for the Australian Missions between 1865 and 1868 needs further research, particularly in the Brisbane archives of the Sisters of Mercy. For the moment their story can only be touched on to give us a glimpse of the extraordinary courage and determination of the young religious females of 140 years ago.

St. Joseph's School Roll Book

I recently had the opportunity to inspect the roll book of St. Joseph’s School for 1946 and was pleasantly surprised to find that on 13th May of that year two young lads started their first day in school. They were the only pupils enrolled that particular day. Frank English and myself were unaware until now that our paths had crossed at such an early age for it was the two Frank’s who stepped over the threshold of St. Joseph’s for the first time on that day 56 years ago. For one it was the day after his 4th birthday, while the other young fellow had taken a little longer to ease himself out of nappies! I won’t tell you which of us was the precocious one.

Those of us who went through St. Joseph’s School, the Christian Brothers primary school and later the secondary school may have a little difficulty in immediately recognising the name “Frank” English because in those far off days my good friend was universally known as “Harry” English. Frank or Harry and myself were just two of the many young lads who over the following 14 years or so came together as school colleagues in an educational system which for many ended before those 14 years had expired. All of us had gone from the Christian Brothers secondary school in St. John’s Lane by the end of 1960. Over the years there were many names and many faces which came and went, some disappearing on the tide of emigration. Others sadly passed away long before they had reached their prime. No matter how long or how short the period we shared together as schoolboys, the bonds of friendship created survived the advancing years. Some of us have not met for over 40 years. Others can be seen among the familiar surroundings of our hometown on a regular basis.

This year quite a lot of those old school pals who spent so many years together as young fellows will reach the grand age of six score. Whisper it softly for my still youthful mind finds it hard to fathom the physical cruelties of the galloping years which so ungallantly outstrip my zest for life. So what’s all this about then I hear you ask? Simply the advancing years have sounded a bugle call to remind a couple of former school pals to get together and arrange a reunion of those with whom we shared our young school days between 1946 and 1960.

Brendan McKenna, now retired and enjoying his hard earned pension, together with Seamus Ryan still working and living in China, and Michael Robinson, he of the hedonistic lifestyle in Australia, have joined with Frank English and myself to organise a reunion scheduled for Athy next September. The intention is to get everyone back to Athy for the weekend of 20th to 22nd September to meet, talk, eat, drink and make merry. It will be our first time to meet since we all left school and given the grey streaks lining the more hirsute amongst us it will probably be our first and last such meeting.

A list of those with whom we attended school, whether in St. Joseph’s, the National or Secondary School is understandably incomplete, but the most recent head count identifies 59 former school colleagues. Addresses have been found for most of them but there are a few whose whereabouts are not yet known. I would like to hear from anyone who knows the current whereabouts of Peter Allen, formerly of Meeting Lane, Des Byrne formerly of Moone, Eamon Dunphy formerly of the Bleach and Joe Gordan from the Dublin Road. My classmates will recall Theo Kavanagh of the Bleeding Horse but I am looking for his current address, as well as that of Johnny Mulhall, formerly of Geraldine Road and Frank Power whose father was a bank official. Jim Vincent, formerly of Woodstock Street and Christy Southwell are two others I would like to contact. What about Brian Fitzsimons, Leo Dempsey, Paddy Maher or Paddy O’Keeffe? One last name is that of Colin Seabrook who spent some time in Athy in the 1950’s.

If anyone out there can help locate any of the above or indeed if you remember sharing a classroom with Frank English or any of the others mentioned, give me a call or drop me a line. We want to make sure that as many as possible will have the opportunity to attend the reunion which will start on Friday, 20th September with a reception and get-together in the Leinster Arms Hotel. The first night will be given over to the men only with a buffet reception and drinks, accompanied by music from the 1950’s and 1960’s.

The Heritage Centre will host a school photographic exhibition over that weekend and on Saturday afternoon a presentation in the Town Council Chambers will be followed by a reception in Scoil Eoin, Rathstewart. Later that evening a dinner will be held in Kilkea Golf Club Restauant for the past pupils, together with their wives and partners. It is hoped to have as special guests on that night some of our old teachers. On Sunday a service of thanksgiving will be conducted in the old school yard in St. John’s, followed by a tree planting ceremony in Edmund Rice Square. The weekend proceedings will close with a buffet reception on Sunday afternoon.

You would expect someone like myself who writes of times past every week to remember the names of all the teachers who taught me over the years. Fortunately I can always rely on the likes of Teddy Kelly or John Mealy to recall the detail which I can never seem to remember, and both of them confirm our teachers in St. Joseph’s School as Sr. Bernadette, Sr. Brendan and Sr. Alberta. In the Primary School we had Brother Candy who was replaced by Brother Sullivan, then Brother O’Laughlin or Loughran, with Brother O’Flaherty in sixth class. There is confusion about the 4th or 5th class teachers as some recall Brother Smith, others Bob Martin, neither of which taught me so far as I can recall.

Secondary school, which in the 1950’s consisted of three classrooms at the top of the metal staircase leading from the St. John’s Lane school yard was easier to remember. The teaching staff consisted of two Christian Brothers, the school Principal Brother Burke and his colleague Brother Keogh, commonly known as “Johnny Boris” with Paddy Riordan, then a young man from Cork and the legendary Bill Ryan. Today’s secondary school re-located some years ago to Rathstewart and now restyled Scoil Eoin has 23 teachers on its staff.

At least forty two years have passed since the young fellows who joined St. Joseph’s School in 1946 passed out of the Irish education system. Hopefully next September we can all come together to renew old acquaintances and catch up on the years which have slipped away in the meantime.

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.

Afforestation in South Kildare

Sawyerswood, Brackney Wood, Blackwood, Rathconnell Wood, the last remains of the vast woods which in medieval times and earlier cloaked the Irish countryside, or are they a more recent addition to the Irish landscape? Undoubtedly they are ancient woods, but how old we do not know. Perhaps they were planted with the help of bounties paid by the Dublin Society towards the end of the 18th century. In 1783 over 65,000 trees were propagated in Ireland under the Dublin Society Scheme, and seven years later the number of trees propagated with the assistance of bounties increased to over 3,750,000. The bounties offered for tree planting were paid out of funds made available by the Irish Parliament. This scheme unfortunately was discontinued following the passing of the Act of Union.

Kildare County Council which was set up following the enactment of the Local Government Act of 1898 was one of the first Local Authorities in Ireland to take up the question of afforestation. In 1906 the Council then, as now, based in the county capital of Naas sought to compliment the State forestry efforts by adopting a county based afforestation programme which was intended to be funded by the Council itself. The County Council tried to secure two sites regarded as suitable for experimental tree planting at Brackney [known locally as Brackna], just three miles outside Athy on the Stradbally road and at Kingswood Bog Common, a place which I have not been able to locate. The latter commons consisted of almost 600 acres but because of claims in relation to ancient grazing rights made by local farmers the County Council were not able to pursue their plans for tree planting in that area. This left Brackney then covered in scrub and extending to about 100 acres which was owned by Lord Gough. He was willing to vest the property in the County Council but nevertheless protracted negotiation took place before the deal was finalised in 1907. The County Council, despite having indicated that it would fund the scheme itself, then approached the Department for financial assistance towards the cost of the afforestation scheme and succeeded in securing a grant of £500, subject however to the County Council providing a similar sum from its own resources. The Council agreed to proceed on that basis and a rate of half a penny in the pound over the entire county was struck which brought in a total of £677=3=2. The County Committee of Agriculture gave a grant of £75 towards the Scheme, and Lord Gough made a contribution of £235 which was the price which the County Council had agreed to pay for the land. Thus a tree planting fund of £1,487=3=2 was available to the County Council.

Kildare County Council had at its disposal the expertise of a forestry expert, Mr. A.C. Forbes who worked for the Department and on his advice it was decided to clear and plant ten acres of the ground in Brackney every year so that in ten years time the entire 100 acres would be under wood. The cost of clearing the scrub land and planting it with trees was estimated to cost £100 each year with little or no expense arising thereafter. A mixture of European Larch, Beech, Austrian and Corsican Pines, Douglas and Silver firs were planted in December 1907, but by June of the following year Mr. Forbes had to report that while the trees were on the whole doing well, upwards of two thirds of the European Larch had died.

The success of the scheme led to the Duke of Leinster giving as a free gift to the County Council, Corballis Hill near Ballitore for the purpose of afforestation and a further 30 acres were acquired for planning at Pollardstown. Kildare County Council having led the way in county based afforestation programmes handed over responsibility for the scheme to the County Committee of Agriculture. Brackney Wood as we know it today clearly owes its continued existence as a forest to the County Council Scheme which started 95 years ago. Even before the County Council acquired the 100 acre site it was known as Brackney Wood, a fact which is confirmed by a perusal of the earliest Ordnance Survey maps for the county. Quite clearly the scrub land which was revitalised under the County Council Tree Planting Scheme of 1907 was only then being restored to its former wooded state which had endured for centuries previously.

Some weeks ago I got a phone call from Professor Fox of University College Cork who was making enquiries about Canon Richard Bagot, one time Rector of Fontstown. The Reverend Canon, whose father and grandfather in their day also had the living of Fontstown Parish, was a pioneer of dairy reform in 19th century Ireland. In fact he established the first creamery in Ireland in Hospital, Co. Limerick and published a handbook on creameries and a further book entitled “Easy Lessons in Dairying”. Cannon Bagot who died in 1894 at the relatively young age of 65 years is one of the great men of another generation whose contribution to Irish life is now almost forgotten. Some of you may remember his daughters, Elizabeth and Olivia, two elderly spinsters who lived at Shamrock Lodge on the Kildare Road into the 1950’s. I hope to write of Cannon Richard Bagot and the Bagot family in a future article but in the meantime today’s National newspapers bring news of another local person who has created a piece of history insofar as Athy is concerned.

Clare O’Flaherty who was born in Athy to Jim O’Flaherty and Carmel Glespen, formerly of Duke Street, has just been named as the new Irish Ambassador to Finland. She is the first Athy-born person to achieve such an important post within the Department of Foreign Affairs. Our congratulations go to Clare, whose sister Colette is a senior member of the National Library staff in Dublin and whose parents Jim and Carmel are living in Greystones, Co. Wicklow. Jim will be remembered as an official in the local Post Office for many years and a founder member of the Credit Union office in Athy before leaving to become Post Master in Greystones in the late 1960’s.

Yates Family and Tobacco Growing in South Kildare

It started with a photograph from the 1940’s which showed a number of farm workers harvesting tobacco leaves on a South Kildare farm. What an unusual sight you might think and certainly one not normally to be seen outside those countries where warm climates afford the ideal growing conditions for growing tobacco plants. But this was during the hard economic days of the Second World War when Ireland’s merchant navy was beset by belligerent U-boats and dangerous cross Atlantic trips were justifiable only when the cargo was life giving food products. Tobacco, that noxious weed so beloved of film stars and star gazers alike, in those distant days, was a luxury item which found little space in the holds of ships which then crossed and re-crossed the war torn seas and oceans of the world. It was the resulting shortage of tobacco leaves which saw a number of enterprising farmers in South Kildare undertake the growing of a crop which was previously foreign to our soil.

But let me return to the reason why the photo was shown to me in the first place. I was intrigued by the story of a young Church of Ireland family who left Ballincarrig, Co. Offaly at the start of the 1900’s and came to these parts of County Kildare to take over three separate farms. The young men and their sisters all bore the name Yates and to Grangemellon House arrived Jonathan Yates and his sisters Phoebe and Sarah. The last named was the only member of the triumvirate to marry when in 1915 she wed Jack McCullagh of Sawyerswood, both of whom later emigrated to Canada. Her brother Jonathan, a single man had died two years previously and he was buried in Kilberry where his sister Phoebe was to join him in January 1924. When the Yates’ came to Grangemellon, their brother Tom took up the tenancy of a farm at Lipstown, Narraghmore and it was from there that Tom Yates came to Grangemellon following the death of his brother Jonathan in 1913. The photograph mentioned at the start of this article captured a scene on Tom Yates farm in Grangemellon approximately 30 years later.

Another brother, William Yates came from County Offaly as the tenant of a farm at Ballycullane and it was he who patented in 1908, the Yates hay lifter, a model of which is to be seen in the local Heritage Centre in the Town Hall. William married a Miss Jackson and later moved to Leinster Lodge which he sold on retiring in the late 1930’s. Two other male members of the County Offaly Yates family were James, a civil servant who moved to Belfast and Henry a Minister in the Church of Ireland who later became Archdeacon of Killaloe.

Why was it that three branches of the Yates family set up homes in South Kildare at the turn of the last Century? Was it an extension of the policy first put in place by the Duke of Leinster in the 1850’s to strengthen the established Church in South Kildare by giving farm tenancies to members of that Church or was it merely a co-incidence that most of the best farmlands in South Kildare passed from one Church of Ireland tenant to another? The question raises issues which could form the basis of an interesting study of the relationship between land succession and religious adherences in South Kildare during the later half of the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th Century. Howsoever the various Yates family members from County Offaly came to live in close proximity to each other in South Kildare, the unfolding history of their lives saw Ballycullane passing out of their hands when William Yates left for Leinster Lodge. The Lipstown Narraghmore lands initially farmed by Tom Yates subsequently passed to his eldest son Garret. He it was who eventually sold on those lands to Willie Fennin leaving the Grangemellon holdings as the only farmland still in the ownership of the Yates family. It was Tommy Yates Junior who took over Grangemellon from his father in 1961. He was the youngest member of the five children of Tom Yates and Annette Hewitt of County Longford who married in 1926. Of Tom’s three sisters, Freda is a retired School Teacher, Sheila is married to Billy Shaw of Carlow while Joan who married Dan Connolly of Ballyfoyle has passed away.

The farm at Grangemellon has an imposing residence. Grangemellon House was built probably in the middle of the 18th Century. The farm land was a mixed farm of about 200 acres with cattle, sheep and tillage requiring a workforce of five or six men in the 1930’s and a complement of six horses. Tobacco growing in the early 1940’s was perhaps one on the more unusual farming activities of the time. Tom Yates Senior propagated tobacco plants in glass protected hot beds of which he had about twenty during those years. The plants grown from seed were bedded in clay enriched with horse manure and when strong enough, the plants were sold on to neighbouring farmers. As well as propagating tobacco plants, the Yates farm was also involved in growing and harvesting tobacco leaves. The young plants were transplanted to drills of about 36 inches wide and during the growing season they were treated in much the same way as tomato plants. When the tobacco plants reached maturity, their leaves were harvested and drawn into the tobacco house. In the photograph accompanying this article, the leaves are shown hanging from the frame of a horse drawn dray. When the frames were full, the dray was returned to the tobacco house where the frames and the hanging leaves were lifted off and left to hang in a wood lined drying room. Coal braziers were lit to dry the leaves and when that primary drying process was finished, the leaves were sold onto Greene’s of Kilkea Lodge where they underwent further drying. It was there that the Excise men graded the tobacco leaves for the purpose of quantifying the duty payable. The finished plant was then sold onto the factories to provide the raw material for the Irish Tobacco Industry.

Tom Yates Junior who married Shirley Armstrong from Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim some years after she came to work in Shaw’s of Athy is with his son Bruce, the present occupiers of Grangemellon Farm. Tom has seen many changes in his time and recalls the farming emergency of 1947 when the weather caused a national crisis and threatened that years harvest. The mixed farming of earlier years has given way to agricultural specialization while the combustion engine signaled the death knell of both the farm labourer and the farm horse alike. Times have changed but the unfolding story of life on an Irish farm is a never ending one where memories of tobacco growing days in the 1940’s provide a unique insight into the ingenuity and foresight of the men who worked the soil.

Aidan Tierney

Aidan Tierney visited Athy last August on a quick trip from his home in New Zealand where he has lived for over 25 years. Aidan’s parents Patrick and Edith Tierney lived at Salisbury House just outside Athy on the Monasterevin side of the town from the late 1920’s. It was from there that Aidan attended the Christian Brother’s School in St. John’s lane where he was a pupil with the likes of Jimmy Bradbury, Leopold Kelly, Jimmy Bolger, Michael May, Mickey Quinn, John Dunphy, Tom Pender, Ger Byrne and John Behan of Rathstewart. When he left school, Aidan worked on the family farm and was soon involved with the local branch of Macra Na Feirme organisation. In 1963 he was appointed Honorary Secretary of Macra, a position which he was to hold for the following three years. During the early 1960’s he was also a member of the original co-operative buying group which under the late Fred Henderson of Ardmore subsequently developed into the Farmers Co-op now restyled Liffey Mills and which still operates out of premises on the Kildare Road.

During his time in Ireland, Aidan was a member of the National Farming Association and amongst the members then he recalls Frank Jackson, Ivan Bergin, Bill Diamond, Dermot Mullan, Bill Hendy, Tim Fennin, Charlie Chambers, Dermot Doyle and Jack Kingston.

In 1966 Aidan was sent as part of a herd testing team from Ireland to help out the New Zealand Dairy Board on a two year contract. He did not return to Athy at the end of his two year contract as in the meantime he met his future wife, Roselia Potroz a lady of Polish extraction whom he married in New Zealand in 1969. Following the birth of their first son Kevin, Aidan and his wife Roselia came to Ireland in 1971. While living in Athy from November 1972, Aidan was involved with the Mullinahown Cooperative Society in setting up in Ireland a cattle tagging agency. The Allflex Cattle Ear Tag System which he had first encountered in New Zealand after his arrival in 1966 is now a multi-million pound business employing over 50 people and supplying the entire Irish farming industry.

Aidan and Roselia with their young son Colm who was born in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Athy and his New Zealand born sibling Kevin, finally left Athy and South Kildare towards the end of 1975 to return to New Zealand. Aidan purchased a Dairy Farm with 160 acres at Taranaki on the western side of the North Island of New Zealand. Unlike the dairy farms of England and Ireland, the warm climate of the Southern Hemisphere allows the animals to remain on grass all year round ruling out the need for sheds, slurry disposal and many of the hundred and one jobs involved in maintaining winter stock in Ireland. Aidan continued to farm at Taranaki until 1990 when he bought a farm of about 320 acres further north on the Island which allowed him to increase his stock levels to 250 cows. At the same time he had a 20 acre kiwi fruit farm and harvested a fruit delicacy which first made its appearance on Irish supermarket shelves over 20 years. In the meantime the Tierney family had expanded with the arrival of Allana, Paul, Liam and Stephanie. Aidan retired from full time farming in 1997 having combined his agricultural responsibilities for nineteen and a half years as a Marketing Consultant for a local newspaper, The Farming Independent. He is now part of a partnership which operates a 50 acre Kiwi Fruit Farm in his adopted country, New Zealand.

When Aidan and his wife returned to Athy last August, they did so as part of a round the world trip which saw them journeying to Youghal in Co. Cork for the wedding of their Athy born son Colm to an Irish girl. For the man born at Salisbury, Athy, Co. Kildare over sixty years ago, New Zealand has been a pleasant and a happy land. While the Islands of New Zealand are wetter than Australia, they nevertheless provide a pleasant temperate climate where the cost of agricultural production is far less than that in Ireland. There is little meal fed to cattle and no shed work in New Zealand unlike Ireland where costs are substantially higher. One of the many contrasts between Irish and New Zealand farming is that provided by the free market economy of the latter as contrasted with the subsidy based agricultural life of Ireland. The New Zealand farmer operates without the benefit of any subsidies but is also free of the restrictive quotas such as that relating to milk production in Ireland.

There is no surprise to find that one and half million of those living in New Zealand are of Irish extraction. Taranaki has its Irish Social Club with up to three hundred members of second and third generation Irish and in New Zealand as elsewhere, Irish pubs are springing up everywhere. Amongst Aidan Tierney’s near neighbours are Athy folk John Alcock and his sister Sheila who is married to a Galway man. John is now retired and living in the beach area of the Bay of Plenty. Recent visitors to that part of the world included John Doyle formerly of the Heath and Anna May McHugh who with Breda Ovington met Aidan in New Zealand while on a recent visit. P.J. Kirwan of K. Gardens was another one who renewed acquaintances with Aidan while visiting his brother Noel who is also living in New Zealand.

The Tierney farm at Salisbury is now farmed by Aidan’s brother Philip, but for Aidan the Christian Brother educated man from Athy, New Zealand is now his home. He is part of the Irish diaspora which over the centuries has helped to create an overseas Irish world, which we who remain on the island of Ireland, can be immeasurably proud.

The History and Family Research Centre based in Newbridge is hosting a Local History Seminar on Thursday, 28th February at 8.00pm in the Newbridge Arts Centre. The purpose of the Seminar is to acquaint people with the current state of the Local Studies Collection and to address concerns over access to that material and research facilities. It is also intended to outline the plans for the development of the History and Family Research Centre which incorporates Local Studies, Archives and the Kildare Heritage and Genealogy Project. Anyone with an interest in local history or in genealogy will find the Seminar of interest.

John O'Donovan - Antiquarian

There is something unremitting about rain in the early spring that can weary even the most determined traveler. Much less can one imagine the motivation of a man who would travel the length and breadth of Kildare in the harsh and unforgiving winter months.

One such man was the antiquarian and historian John O’Donovan. Almost single-handedly through his researches in Irish history and archaeology he revitalised the then dormant interest in the Irish language and the history of people and place in Ireland.

As a scholar his achievements were of monumental significance. His editing and publication of the Annals of the Irish Four Masters would be sufficient to distinguish him amongst the scholars and writers of the last century. Added to this work he traveled the length and breadth of the country in the employ of the Ordnance Survey from 1830 to 1842. From October to December of 1837 O’Donovan spent his days and nights by horse and by foot travelling the highways and byways of the county of Kildare. On his travels he sought out every bit of historical or archaeological information that he could find. He began his researches in Maynooth on October 18th, 1837. In that one day he traversed “the Parishes of Leixlip, Confey, Donaghmore and Kilmacreddock and took notice of all the remarkable things connected with them that came under my observation”. He noted a well called Shaughlin’s Well in the Parish of Maynooth. The well had been a popular place for locals to visit and was a place where he was told that many miraculous cures had been effected. He wrote

“There was for many years an iron cup appended to a chain at it for the use of those who frequented it which some sacrilegious hand coveting took off a few years ago.”

Two days later he could be found in the Parishes of Kildrought, Doneycomper and Stacummey where he obtained as much information as he possibly could about the local English pronunciations and the names. He regretted to note that there was no possibility of getting it pronounced in Irish for the language had become almost entirely extinct in this part of the country.

O’Donovan was in the habit of communicating his discoveries on a daily basis to the Ordnance Survey in Dublin, with detailed descriptions of the places he went to and the people he met, while at the same time casting a critical eye over previous histories of the areas and the local traditions that he had encountered. In his endeavours O’Donovan was often times accompanied by T. O’Connor and J. O’Keeffe who did parallel researches in areas adjoining O’Donovans. From the Ordnance Survey letters there is an impression of great urgency about the work that O’Donovan and his colleagues were doing and a sense that much of the information that they were recording would be lost were they not out there collecting it on a day-to-day basis.

In many ways the works they were doing were not appreciated. O’Connor described their arrival in Clane on November 3rd, 1837. Thus :-
“We just arrived and with the greatest possible difficulty found a reception which, from its badness, will, I fear, prove injurious at least to me, as I feel on this evening rather discreetly affected with a cold arising from the very cold wettings I got in Carbery. This is a most wretched village, though it is a post town.”

The flurry of letters which the Ordnance Survey received on a day-to-day basis recorded not only the works done but often the frustrations and the limitations of the fieldwork. O’Donovan constantly wrote to the Ordnance Survey in Dublin in search of further materials, which would aid him in his field works. Often his letters would contain detailed instructions to his contemporaries in the Ordnance Survey including such men as Eugene O’Curry, his brother-in-law, the great social historian of ancient Ireland whose book on the Manners and Customs of Ancient Ireland was regarded as a classic in its day.

Sometimes in O’Donovan’s letters there is this underlying tension between his ambition to record as much as possible and the difficulty in coping with the inclement weather conditions in winter. Travelling by canal boat from Mullingar to Dublin O’Donovan arrived in the early hours of the morning of 12th November, finding himself exhausted and sleepy and unable to travel to Naas to meet up with his colleagues O’Connor and O’Keeffe to complete their works there.

Even though he found himself physically unable to make the journey he was anxious to assess the works they had done. O’Donovan showed a touching concern for his colleagues in the field while writing from Athy on November 20th, 1837. He recommended that his friend O’Keeffe be returned to Dublin for a while. He noted the weather was very severe and might injure O’Keeffe instead of improving his health. For a week in late November 1837 O’Donovan and his colleagues used Athy as a base in which to conduct their researches in the areas surrounding it. By the end of November they moved to Kildare town to explore the north of the county. His enthusiasm for his works seem to have dimmed somewhat towards the end of the year and he had developed a very poor opinion of the people and places in that part of Kildare. Visiting Monasterevin on December 3rd, 1837 he wrote as follows :-
“I visited Monasterevin yesterday but could find no feature or tradition there to throw any light on its history. The people are entirely anglicised and have lost all their ancient traditions. I long to get to Connaught again, as those of my own province are not only exceedingly ignorant on the subject of my enquiry, but also boorish and unobliging.”

The period spent in Kildare town seemed to be a difficult one for O’Donovan. Of his future plans he wrote :-
“If I can get over the writing for Kildare I think we might be able to finish the Kings County in about six weeks, but the wretched town of Kildare nearly killed me and I am now so nervous that I can scarcely hold the pen.”

Towards the end of December he visited the Moate of Ardscull a couple of miles outside of Athy. In recording his thoughts on that Moate he referred to James Hardiman’s history of Ardscull and surroundings. The errors and contradictions of Hardiman’s writings infuriated O’Donovan. He noted cantankerously :-
“It is astonishing that such a man, ‘a man of keen, discerning and of clear intellect and of vast information’ as Hardiman could insult the public by such glaring nonsense. If Hardiman knew that I wrote in this manner about his book he would become my most bitter enemy. But I don’t care about the feelings of any man, friend or foe. Nothing for me but plain honest truth. No quibbling, equivocating, disguising or suppression. No confounding of names or periods. No assumption without proof. No conjecture in the shape of positiviness! You will say that I am getting mad again. This weather is so sublime that it will throw one back three centuries.”

O’Donovan completed his work in Kildare by the end of 1837. O’Donovan died in Dublin 1862 from rheumatic fever which his friends and colleagues believed was brought on due to the many years he had spent in inclement weather on outdoor work for the Ordnance Survey.

Athy Way - Magazine June 1974

“Athy Way - News, View, Features” produced by Junior Chamber, Athy bears the price 12p on its front cover under the oft photographed view of Athy’s most famous landmark, the Barrow Bridge. The twenty eight page magazine does not have a date of issue but it apparently appeared shortly before the local elections of June 1974. The editorial staff was headed by Fr. R. Mitchell with John Jennings as Production Manager, Ann O’Mara as Assistant editor and Publicity and Sales under the control of Eileen Connolly and Angela Jennings.

Junior Chamber Athy was founded 1973 with membership open to everyone between the ages of 18 and 40 years. The magazine “Athy Way” was the Junior Chambers contribution to the Community Week Festival which I believe was held in Athy in the Spring of 1974. The first Chairman of the Junior Chamber was John Jennings with Raymond Pelin and Michael O’Gorman as Vice-Presidents. Ann O’Mara was the Honorary Secretary while the purse strings were in the capable hands of Barry Spring. Members of the Executive Committee of the Chamber were Charles Chambers, Pat Carroll, Eileen Reen, Moira Finnegan and Nicholas Walsh.

The magazine, which I had never previously seen, was recently sent to me from New Zealand. It consists of an interesting series of articles on Clubs and Associations in and about the South Kildare Town. Martina Dunne gave an account of “Fanfare For Youth” an organisation founded in September 1973 following a meeting between members of Aontas Ogra and Paul Stafford. Sponsored by the Bleach and District Community Association, “Fanfare for Youth” was specifically for young adults, with the objective of fostering cooperation between different art groups and improving the public image of young people. It was not a club as such, rather a youth service. The first officers were Paul Stafford, Chairman, J.O’Neill, Treasurer and Denis Whelan P.R.O.

Kathleen Dooley wrote of Ballyroe twenty six years ago in a piece headed “Ballyroe - a lively spot”. In it she dealt with the Community Centre created a year previously out of the vacant old National School, where several clubs in the area met on a regular basis. The Gaelic Football Club, the I.C.A. as well as the local dance group and a youth committee where just some of those whose activities were boosted by the newly opened centre.

Sheila Gleeson wrote a brief account of Aontas Ogra, the organisation founded eighteen years previously, of which she was then the Chairman. Colette Doran was secretary with Peter Murphy as Treasurer while Teresa McFadden, Stephanie O’Toole, Peter Kehoe, Michael Aldridge, Denis Whelan and Danny McEvoy comprised the Aontas Ogra Committee. Its members were encouraged to take an active part in community activity and indeed had taken on the responsibility of maintaining the fountain in Emily Square and cutting the grass along the banks of the Canal and River Barrow. I wonder for how long that lasted?

Scattered throughout the “Athy Way” magazine, was details of the various candidates standing in the Urban Council elections for 1974. Enda Kinsella was an independent candidate who wanted to have ground rents abolished and medical cards assessed on basic wages rather than taking overtime into account. The magazine editor wrote “he says that South Kildare will not be like the lad that fell out of the plane concerning footpaths, roads and general improvements”. I wonder what was intended by that claim?

Angela Jennings wrote a tongue and cheek piece which she called “In Defense of Housewives” where she explored ways and means of cutting down on the housewives working hours. It all boiled down to doing less as for example with the washing up, where the housewife was encouraged to “keeping dumping everything into the sink until no more will fit and then do a complete wash up, thereby saving your time and saving money on detergents”. It occurs to me that this labour saving method was discovered by the men folk many years ago!

Mary Grufferty gave a short contribution headed “Kilmead has its Queen” but managed to sign off before telling us who that was, while Mary Lacey wrote of community action in Barrowhouse. The Barrowhouse Community Committee was set up in September 1973 following the closure of the local National School. The teachers were transferred to Ballyroe School and plans were made to bus the pupils to the same school. However, under the Chairmanship of William Malone, the Community Committee employed substitute teachers and kept the Barrowhouse School open. Following a meeting with the Minister for Education, Richard Burke T.D., it was agreed that the School could be re-opened provided the two teachers already transferred to Ballyroe were prepared to return to Barrowhouse and the local Committee carried out repairs to the existing school building at their own expense and without the aid of State funding. The action group set about decorating the old School building and installed heaters and toilet facilities before Barrowhouse School then re-opened with 43 pupils on the rolls. Isn’t it quite extraordinary to think that a generation ago, a Government Minister expected a local group to fund the installation of toilets and other facilities in a National School. Times certainly have changed!

Joanne Evans wrote an account of “Athy Girls Friendly Society” which was organised by the local rector’s wife. Girls from three different age groups ranging from four to twelve years met on Saturday afternoons in the local parochial hall, to be taught dancing, skipping and action songs as well as undertaking bible study.

Moyra Troute gave details of the St. Vincent de Paul Junior Conference which met every Friday night at No. 81 Leinster Street while Athy’s first Community Week Festival was put under the microscope by Charles Chambers. More than twenty local clubs took part in the festival which was regarded as reasonably successful even if some felt it lacked variety. Michael Reen was the author of an essay on the duty an responsibility of “Youths and Adults in Society”. Robin Greene wrote of “Farming in South Kildare”, Jim McEvoy of the “Urban Council in Athy” and John Jennings wrote a piece on “The White Paper on Wealth Tax”. There were brief details of two other independent candidates in the local elections, one of whom, Jack MacKenna was a past pupil of the C.B.S. with fourteen years membership of Kildare County Council and seven years as an Urban Councillor. A member of Fianna Eireann before 1921, he was an adjutant in the Local Defence Forces in 1937. The other candidate, Gearoid May had lived in Athy for twenty years and was employed locally. He was active in Aontas Ogra, Fanfare for Youth, Knights of Malta and Athy and District Schoolboys Soccer League.

“Athy Way” was sponsored by Byrne’s Supermarket, DKL Limited and the Cock Robin Cabaret Rooms both of Leinster Street. Neither are in business in Athy today and the Junior Chamber has long disappeared from the Community Agenda. How many issues of “Athy Way” were published I cannot say, but perhaps someone out there can answer that question as well as identifying those responsible for producing the magazine and the various contributors to that first issue of twenty six years ago.

Ballylinan Carnival 1937

A gift received recently from Mary Donohue of programmes sold in connection with the 1937 and 1939 Carnivals held in Ballylinan prompts this article. I have previously written of the local businesses which advertised in the 1937 Carnival Programme but today I want to deal with the background to the Carnivals and those who participated in them.

The condemnation of the old school building in Ballylinan in the early 1930’s necessitated the building of a new school for the 240 or so youngsters who each day attended classes in the village. That earlier school building had been erected in 1842 to replace a small thatched one room school building which in its time catered for 100 youngsters. The Parish Priest in the early 1930’s was Reverend J. Killian whose brother was the Archbishop of Adelaide. With the willing help of the local Parishioners Fr. Killian set about the task of raising over £2,000.00 which with the Department of Education Grant of £3,600.00 was required to fund the building cost of the new school. But first a suitable site had to be got and John Hovenden’s field on the Athy side of the village was secured. It required a considerable amount of preliminary work including leveling and many of the local men with either horses and carts or lorries gave freely of their time to draw material to the site. Building work started in the Autumn of 1933 with Carbery Building Contractors of Athy, a firm involved with many, if not, most of the major building contracts in South Kildare during the 20th Century. Work continued apace and in July 1934 the foundation stone of the new St. Patrick’s School was laid by the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Dr. M. Cullen.

Raising the local contribution of £2,000.00 which was the shortfall in the school building costs was a daunting task, but one to which the Parishioners of Arles, wherein lies the village of Ballylinan, committed themselves. I have been able to confirm that the Carnivals started in 1935 and were held every second year up to and including 1939. Looking through the programme for the 1937 programme, one is struck by the variety and quality of the artists hired for the two weeks of the event. The Carnival ran from the 15th to the 29th August and assigned to itself the claim of being “Ireland’s Greatest Inland Carnival”.

The Adelaide Melody Band, reputed to be the “largest resident dance band in Ireland”, played at the opening Carnival Dance in the new school under the baton of its leader Vincent Rogers. The Ballylinan Ceile Band played in what was referred to as the “Ballylinan Club” and like the Adelaide Melody Band had a six hour stint until three o’clock each morning. I wonder who were the members of the Ceile Band on that occasion? Earlier on the opening Sunday, the Number 3 Army Band played a selection of music before leading a parade to the Carnival grounds where McDonald’s Amusements were in full swing. A fireworks display was held on Sunday night and throughout the entire period of the Carnival, “the wonderful and weird exploits of Yuga” were demonstrated to an audience who obviously knew more than I do about his power of necromrancy. A visit to the Oxford Dictionary was necessary to confirm that his exploits were in the Art of Prediction by supposed communication with the dead.

Ballroom and Ceile dancing took place every night and must have brought an enormous number of revellers to Ballylinan by hackney car, bike and foot during that Summer fortnight of 65 years ago. The musical tastes of all and sundry were well catered for by the many bands which performed during the Carnival. These included Castlecomers Brass and Reed Band, Doonanes Pipers Band, Churchtowns Pipers Band and the Arles Brass and Reed Band. Add to all that activity, a gymnastics display, a whist drive, a boxing tournament, a tug of war competition and a mini golf competition and you have a fortnight of fun which must be given huge enjoyment during those gloomy days of the Economic War.

The third and last Ballylinan Carnival was held from the 4th to the 18th June 1939, just a short time before the outbreak of World War Two. The 1939 Carnival Programme was priced at three pence whereas one paid four times that sum for the programme produced two years earlier. That earlier programme had one hundred and twelve pages while the pre-war edition was a slim volume of forty eight pages. The events organised for the two weeks of June 1939 consisted of Ballroom dancing each night in what the programme called “The Ballroom” where Mantovani and his London sextet provided the music. Was the Ballroom again in St. Patrick’s School? The Ceiles were held on Sunday and Thursday evenings only, unlike the previous Carrnival when the Ballylinan Ceile Band was on call every night of the two weeks. The Carnival Amusements were again the main stay of the Carnival grounds with the added attraction of “The Great Morell” who entertained the crowd from atop his one hundred and twenty foot high perch. If you did not have a head for heights, you could always make an appointment to see Princess Owonga of the Cherokee Tribe who would tell your fortune or if you preferred your horoscope for the rather princely sum of two and six. During the second week of the Carnival, “Risko the greatest and most daring trapeze artist of the age” was engaged to entertain the Carnival revellers as were an Indian troop from the Pleasure Beach of Blackpool, England.

A Boxing Tournament and what was billed as “The Match of the Year” between Leix and Offaly was the highlight of the last Sunday’s activities. I was intrigued to find amongst the list of boxers at featherweight “J. O’Neill of the C.B.S. Boxing Club”. Assuming this was our local Christain Brothers School who was J. O’Neill?

Organising a Carnival of such magnitude every second year was a particularly difficult task for a village committee but looking through the list of Steward and Committee Members for 1937 and 1939, I am struck by the consistency of the commitment given over those years. With few exceptions, the same names are found in both programmes working under the chairmanship of John Murphy and Treasurers, Thomas Roche and Mary Bambrick. The secretary in 1937 was Laurence Dunne whom I believe was a teacher in the local school and two years later the local curate, Reverend W. Dowling had the job.

The Ballylinan Carnivals of the 1930’s are still recalled by a generation of Athy elders who as young men and women travelled by Hackney car, bicycle or indeed on foot to the village three miles away to enjoy themselves. On many occasions, Mantovani’s name has been mentioned to me as a highlight of those Carnivals, which became part of the folklore of our time as the memories of those enjoyable days and nights in Ballylinan were again and again revisited.

Pig Fair - Woodstock Street

“When are you going to write about us here on this side of the Barrow Bridge?” The questioner, a good friend of mine, looked quizzically at me with a smile, slowly breaking into a bout of laughter. “It’s a throw back to his young days” offered the third member of the company as we stood in the amber sunlight of a Saturday morning in what was once the L.D.F. Yard [to you and me it’s now part of the car park re-named some years ago to honour Edmund Rice, the founder of the Irish Christian Brothers]. “You know how the young fellows from Offaly Street were always afraid of crossing the bridge - it’s hard to beat old habits, even after 50 years.” It was my time to laugh, remembering the daily journey I made across that same bridge and up St. John’s Lane for 12 or 13 years while I was a less than willing student in the Christian Brothers Primary and Secondary Schools.

Thinking back on that conversation I was amazed to recall that my memories of Athy beyond O’Rourke-Glynn’s Corner [now the Corner Newstand] are few and far between. Understandably so because I can seldom recall venturing as a young lad far beyond that same corner into what was then known as Barrack Street. Do we still have Barrack Street as a street name in Athy? It was to my knowledge that part of the street lying past Woodstock Street and extending beyond Barrack Lane. The lane and street were so called because both lead to the British Army Barracks which was located close to Woodstock Castle. The lane still exists and now leads to the Greenhills Estate.

If as a young lad I rarely ventured into Woodstock Street and its near neighbour Barrack St., therein lies the explanation for my own lack of personal memories of the Pig Fair which was held in Woodstock Street on the first Tuesday of every month up to the early 1960’s. The fair extended on both sides of the street from O’Rourke-Glynn’s Corner to the Methodist Church on the east side and from Crawley’s to Doyle’s Pub on the opposite side. Pigs on the hoof were to be found on Doyle’s side of the street where the local farmers corralled their charges awaiting the pig dealers. The bonhams sold on for the most part to other farmers were kept in creeled carts on the Methodist Church side of the street where from early morning the farmers congregated.

The dealers arrived during the morning and the firms of Brennans of Carlow, Denehys of Waterford and Bowe Brothers of that same city were regularly represented at what was at one time one of the largest pig fairs in the Irish Midlands.

The business generated in the town on Pig Fair Day was not confined to the buying and selling of pigs, nor indeed the local public houses which, as might be expected, did a busy bar trade. The farmers and dealers had to eat as well as drink and apart from Dunnes, Lawlers and Doyles, three publicans in Woodstock Street providing food on Fair Day there was also Mrs. Davis who from No. 2 Woodstock Street, supplied meals to farmers and dealers. Her little house, later occupied by Bachelors, still retains the old style half door, the only example of its kind in the town of Athy. It was from here that her husband Joe Davis operated a secondhand clothes shop or “cast clothes” as the locals still call them, and like the other businesses he was particularly busy when the farmers came to town.

Next door to the Davis’ at No. 1 Woodstock Street was Tom May, boot and shoe maker and repairer who also benefited from the activity which took place on the street outside his shop on the first Tuesday of every month. Boots and shoes had to be repaired for the farmers who left them in to be collected on Fair Day the following month. Across the street, Delaney’s of Wolfhill set up their lime cart, offering for sale the lime which farmers and townspeople alike needed to whitewash their houses. Just beyond them and nearer to Doyle’s Pub could be found Barney Sheridan who lived in digs with Lizzie Maher and who in later years was to take over Tom Brogan’s Blacksmiths Forge in Green Alley. On Pig Fair Day, Barney could often be seen carrying out running repairs on the animals which had come into town earlier that morning pulling the cart loads of pigs and bonhams for the local Pig Fair.

In the 1940’s and into the 1950’s the street entertainers could occasionally be seen at the corner of Woodstock Street and Shrewleen Lane, energetically practising their unusual talents in return for the few pence, sometimes, but not always, collected from those who stood to watch. Balancing a ladder on one’s chin or alternatively a bicycle vied with lying on a bed of broken glass as the principal attraction of the street entertainers who travelled around from provincial fair to town market throughout the length and breath of Ireland.

The local Pig Fair also attracted the tinsmiths who practised their skills while sitting on the pavement repairing the pots, pans and kettles for the locals and the farmers in town for the day. The McInerneys and the Stokes families were the tinsmiths of the day and it was from their occupational abilities with tin that I understand the now politically incorrect name “tinker” first came. The tinsmiths hammer beat a steady rhythm which accompanied the raised voices of farmers and dealers as their talk and their laughter mingled with the squeal of pigs and bonhams to create a symphony of sound which was peculiar to the Pig Fair of yesteryear. Dealing started early in the morning and continued until about 4 o’clock in the afternoon when everyone dispersed, either to the pubs or home.

A menagerie of pigs, bonhams, horses and asses, the first two captives for the day, the latter two enjoying a lazy, leisurely day between morning arrival and an evening trip back to the farm provided its own excitement for the Athy youngsters for whom Woodstock Street on Fair Day was the nearest thing to a local zoo. As the fair closed, the pigs sold to the dealers were brought to the Railway Station to commence the last stage of their journey to the bacon factories in Waterford or Dublin. Each pig was roped by the back leg and paraded on hoof through Duke Street and Leinster Street to reach the Railway Station where they were corralled until the trains arrived.

Do you remember the Pig Fair in Woodstock Street? Were you a young boy or girl who disobeyed your mother’s instructions to stay away from the fair “as you’ll only get your clothes dirty”. I can imagine the warnings given as the youngsters left for school on Pig Fair Day in Woodstock Street. Doesn’t it now seem like another age - all so long ago. Thanks to Leo Byrne for his help with this article. Now that “the man from the Pale” has ventured across the Barrow Bridge (and not for the first time), can I look forward to renewed clerical approval from the Reverend Paddy?

Athy's Newspapers 1849

Last week I wrote of one half of the newspaper industry which had a short life in Athy in the early part of 1849. The Irish Eastern Counties Herald was printed in Athy and its first issue was brought out on the 13th February 1849 for the sole purpose of undermining a newspaper which was planned to be published and printed in Athy to compete with the Maryboro printed Leinster Express. The Talbot Family were Proprietors of the Leinster Express and they moved quickly to protect their readership from any inroads which might be made by The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle which first appeared on the 17th February 1849. Frederick Kearney of Emily Square, Athy was the proprietor and editor of The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle which he claimed would be the only newspaper printed and published in Athy. The Talbot’s of Portlaoise moved speedily to bring out an Athy edition of the Leinster Express which was restyled as The Irish Eastern Counties Herald.

The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle priced at five pence consisted of four pages and like all local newspapers of the time was a mixture of advertisements, items of local interest with news and parliamentary reports culled from London newspapers. Kearney’s newspapers styled itself as the nationalist newspaper in contrast with the Talbot Family production which had a definite Establishment or Unionist leaning. Interesting then to identify the local businessmen who supported Kearney’s newspaper. These included James Dowling of Leinster Street, T. Fagan of the Tea Warehouse and Fogarty’s of Leinster Street.

Dowling described as “Proprietor of a Grocery, Tea, Wine and Spirit Warehouse” offered for sale five varieties of black tea, four varieties of green tea, five varieties of coffee as well as the usual assortment of Wines, Spirits, Ales and Porter in his advertisement. Not to be outdone, the Tea Warehouse operated by T. Fagan advertised “tea for sale by retail at wholesale prices”. One of the more interesting advertisements was inserted by William Fogarty who advised all and sundry that he had adopted “the Dublin system of baking” and would sell bread at “Dublin weight and Dublin prices”. Obviously there was an advantage in this for the consumer but what it was I have not yet worked out. In any event Fogarty’s was an old established bakery where you could buy a four pound loaf of bread for six and a half pence and a two pound loaf for three and a quarter pence.

That first issue of the Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle reported that Captain Henry was to make a tour through several Poor Law Unions including Athy to select young females for the Workhouse Emigration Scheme to South Australia. The Chairman of the local Union, Caption Lefroy caused some merriment amongst the normally staid members of the Workhouse Board when he claimed “Captain Henry will not restrict himself as to numbers, but will probably take away all the pretty girls”.

The Editor of the Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle in his first editorial referred to the “artful dodge resorted to by issuing nominally for the County of Kildare a reprint of a newspaper produced in Maryboro ….. a subterfuge too palpable, too flagrant, to blindfold the patriotic and enlightened inhabitants of the County”. Quite clearly Frederick Kearney was drawing the battle lines with the Talbots of Maryboro who sought to torpedo his fledging newspaper by rushing through their own plans for what they described as an Athy newspaper. The second issue of the Kildare and Wicklow Chonicle on the 20th February 1849 carried an extract from John Dalton’s “History of County Kildare” which had previously appeared in a number of publications including The Carlow Sentinal.

The third and final issue of the newspaper which could truthfully claim to be the only newspaper edited, published and printed in Athy was dated Saturday, 3rd March 1849. It carried a Report of the Narraghmore emigration meeting of the 26th February presided over by W. Pelan P.L.G. which agreed to strike a rate of ten pence in the pound to send sixteen local girls to Australia from the Athy Workhouse.

Frederick Kearney unable to get advertising for The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle from the public institutions of County Kildare or even from the local workhouse, found himself unable to continue his newspaper beyond its third issue. On March 6th, The Irish Eastern Counties Herald under the headline “Sudden death of the Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle” reported
“After a miserable career of three weeks, the above journal has ceased to exist. The melancholy intelligence was communicated to us yesterday by its disconsolate parent. The bantling - a sickly peevish creature from its birth - never exhibited any promise of maturity although very strenuous efforts were made to preserve its existence by a few (but indeed a very few) incompetent-quacks, in the town of Athy, who formed an overweening estimate of their capabilities”.

Only one local newspaper appeared on the streets in Athy that weekend and on March 13th, The Irish Eastern Counties Herald announced to its readers
“The principal object for which this journal was established having being effected, many of our friends very reasonably concluded that upon the demise of the so called “Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle” its publication would cease. We have already explained the immediate occasion of the Herald having been commenced in connection with the Leinster Express - viz for the purposes of meeting upon equal terms a new competitor , which we were led to believe would have engaged considerable talent, great influence and large capital. We anticipate a contest of some duration and from our regard for Kildare and the honour we feel in representing at the Press such a county, we prepared to dispute every inch with any candidate for public favour; but we must confess that if we had known the wretched opponent we would have had to encounter, we would have allowed him to test the power and severity of his friends - as it would not require any obstruction from us, to satisfy the most sanguine that there was not the least possibility of the success of the speculation.”

With its fifth and final issue, the Irish Eastern Counties Herald ended Athy’s short involvement in the Irish Provincial Press Industry.

Athy's Newspapers 1849

I visited the British Library’s Newspaper in Colindale, London last summer so that I could see for the first time the few printed copies of two local newspapers which were sold on the streets of Athy in 1849. Many years ago I had inspected microfilm of The Irish Eastern Counties Herald and its competitor The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle in the National Library in Dublin, but the trip to Colindale in the outer suburbs of London gave me the opportunity to hold two newspapers which were printed and published in Athy just a few months after the Great Famine had passed its peak.

Every copy of these two newspapers bears a stamp showing that the relevant newspaper tax had been paid and each is signed at the bottom of the last page by its editor. In the case of The Irish Eastern Counties Herald this was J. Leech Talbot, whose paper was first issued on Tuesday, the 13th February 1849 and sold for the yearly subscription of £1.1.8. It consisted of four pages with a mixture of local news and advertisements supplemented by what appears to be material culled from the London newspapers of the day. An advertisement under the name of J.B. Pilsworth, Clerk of the Union, Athy, advised that:

“A Meeting of the rate-payers of the electoral division of Narraghmore will be held at Narraghmore Schoolhouse on the 26th day of February 1849 at the hour of twelve o’clock for the purpose of taking into consideration an application for the raising of a rate to assist emigration.”

This is the earliest reference I have found to the orphan emigration scheme subsequently put into place whereby young female inmates of the Athy workhouse were sent to Australia.

Another advertisement inserted by Capt. Chegwin of Ballylinan was for the sale of coal and culm from Modubeagh and Ballylehane collieries, ‘now fully at work’. There were references to Athy’s Literary and Scientific Institute and to the Ballytore Agricultural Society which was holding its twelfth annual ploughing match in James Kavanagh’s field at Crookstown. An advertisement for ‘Athy Drug Hall and General Seed-Ware House, S. Connelly, Proprietor’ was also in the first issue of the newspaper, alongside the following notice of a concert :

“For one night only, extraordinary musical attraction at the Courthouse, Athy, on Wednesday the 14th of February 1849 … Celebrated cantatrice and pianist Madame Castaglione, assisted by Mr. William Macarthy, national Irish ballads. Doors open 7.30. Concert 8pm. Boxes 2 shillings. Stalls 1 shilling. School and children half price.”

The second issue, dated the 20th of February, gave the following account of the concert, which was:

“Numerously attended. The entertainers were received with great eclat and seemed to give much satisfaction to the audience. Madame Castaglione’s voice is a great contralto over which she has considerable power but we think somewhat more feeling might be infused into her style of singing with effect. Mr. Macarthy’s Irish humour added not a little to the night’s amusements.”

An interesting news item was that relating to John Kelly, described as: ‘an industrious and struggling eccentric who eked out a scanty subsistence through the means of his favourite ass drawing mould and turf from the bog’. Apparently, Kelly left his ass in a field on the Friday and returned on the following Sunday to find it dead with its throat cut. He reported the matter to Bert Police Barracks and Constable Brownlow kept watch over the dead ass, late at night witnessing: ‘Jack Gorman, an Athy ragman … who skinned the ass, put the pelt into his bag … flayed the flesh off the bones, making several piles of it …’ before the constable put an end to his nocturnal activities by arresting him.

The Irish Eastern Counties Herald of the 20th of February reported another animal killing: ‘On Saturday night two sheep, the property of Lewis Perrin, Leinster Lodge, were killed, the entrails left behind and the carcasses taken away’. The Great Famine had not then run its final course and the desperation and sense of helplessness engendered by poverty can be readily understood by anyone who has watched television images of famine in today’s world.

The Athy workhouse statistics for the weekend of the 10th of February 1849 which were published in the local newspaper show that there were 1,334 inmates of the workhouse, with 212 persons confined to the workhouse infirmary and a further twelve in the adjoining fever hospital. Seven deaths were recorded that week in the workhouse, while a total of 951 persons were receiving outdoor relief in the Athy Poor Law Union area. Figures published for the week ending the 7th of January 1849 reported thirteen deaths in the workhouse, of which two were persons over sixty years, one was aged forty-six years, and the remaining ten were children aged between two and six years. Dr. Kynsey of the local workhouse was reported as saying that: ‘Most of the deaths occurred amongst those who came in with smallpox, measles, dysentry, etc. caused by their having remained out [of the workhouse] until they were in a state of starvation’. Another report of the 5th of March hints at the desperation of a hungry people: ‘Michael Butler and Pat Nolan were sent forward to the Assizes charged with breaking open a potato pit, the property of William Caulfield, of Levitstown, and taking potatoes.” Evidence was given that the offence was committed on the night of February the 21st and that on February the 26th a workman found some potatoes concealed in a fox cover, which on examination he knew to be the same as those stolen. He lay in wait and arrested Butler and Nolan as they were carrying the potatoes away.

The third issue of the newspaper, dated the 27th of February 1849, referred briefly to the ‘Athy Readings Rooms’, which may also have been known as ‘Athy Newsrooms’. A report of its doings appeared under the latter title in The Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle of the 23rd of February 1849:

“On Monday night last the members of the society had an excellent supper in their rooms in Stanhope Cottage. About thirty gentlemen sat down and evidently with good relish partook of oysters, wild fowl, ham and concomitants. Mark Cross occupied the Chair and A.G. Judge acted as Vice-Chair. The supper things being removed and the ‘sparkling glasses’ introduced, the wit and friendship seemed to reign supreme in the hearts of all present and of course produced the usual happy effects as pleasure beamed from their eyes and humour flowed from their lips. Some comic and other national songs were sung in capital style and the company separated at a late hour, highly delighted with the festivities they enjoyed and determined to uphold the Newsroom and place it on a more permanent and, if possible, better basis than heretofore.”

What a contrast that makes with the reports of deaths in the local workhouse, of animals killed in the fields, with accounts of potato pits raided at night by a hungry and desperate people.

There were only five issues of The Irish Eastern Counties Herald - the first dated the 13th of February 1849 and the last issue appearing on Tuesday, the 13th of March 1849. All were published from the “General Printing Office”, which I now know was located at Market Square, Athy.

Des McHugh / Niall Dunne / Athy Businesses 1824

Christmas time sometimes brings sorrow as well as joy. Last week Athy mourned the passing of Des McHugh, a man full of years and Niall Dunne, a young man some years short of his prime. I knew both quite well.

Des McHugh, for me, epitomised all that one could desire in a man who lived in and for his hometown. Born in Athy over eight decades ago, he lived out his long life amongst the people of the South Kildare town where his father had founded the family business over one hundred years ago. A gentleman to his fingertips Des McHugh played an active role in the social and cultural life of Athy over many many years. He was a past captain of the local Golf Club and of Athy Rugby Club and with the latter club captained the first Athy team to win the Towns Cup in 1938. He was also responsible for the setting up of the Lions Club in Athy which he did with the active participation and encouragement of his brother-in-law, Paddy Reynolds. Des had a vast store of local knowledge and lore, all of which he was generous in sharing with me whenever we met. On our last meeting at the November meeting of the Lions Club held in the Leinster Arms Hotel he spoke of a photograph of old Athy which he had wished to pass on to me. Unfortunately his sudden death deprives us of a cultured man who shared his experiences and knowledge with a generosity and a kindness which is often difficult to find nowadays. He will be sadly missed but his memory will live on in the work of the local Lions Club of which he was the first President and in which he was active right up to the very end.

Niall Dunne was a young man whom I had met on several occasions in recent years and who was intended to follow in the footsteps of his father, the ever popular Pat Dunne and his Grand-father in the family hostelry in Woodstock Street. The large attendance at his funeral comprised of young and old alike, bore witness to the respect in which Niall and his family were held by the local people. He was a hugely popular man amongst his youthful peers and his unexpected and sudden death shocked the town where the Dunne family has been so well known for so long.

Our thoughts at this time are with the McHugh and Dunne families, two of the oldest business families in the town of Athy.

I recently came across a Directory of Irish Towns of 1824 which include a list of shopkeepers, traders and tradesmen in Athy 177 years ago. I wonder how many of those businesses named are still represented in the town.

Richard Alcock Tailor
John Andrews Nailer
James Atkinson Schoolmaster
Thomas Bailey Boot and Shoe Maker
Thomas Ballen Hatter
Mrs. Jane Barras Post Mistress
George Blacking Painter and Glazier
Mary Bryan Grocer and Baker
Mary E. Bryan Grocer
John Butler Tanner
James Byrne Publican
Jeremy Byrne Grocer
Michael Byrne Baker
William Clarke Match Maker
Thomas Coffer Woolen Draper
Mary Coram Grocer
Edward Couse Boot Maker
Mary Cox Haberdasher
William Craig Grocer
Michael Cummins Corn Factor
Richard Cummins Tailor
John Delaney Chandler
John Duan Dyer
John Duncan Boot and Shoe Maker
John Dunn Publican
James English Smith
Catherine Fogarty Grocer & Baker
Dennis Fogarty Publican
John Fogarty Woolen Draper
Goold & Dunn General Merchants
John Holmes Leather Cutter
James Hoysted Publican
John Johnson Shoe Maker
John Johnson Tinman
Peter Keating Publican
William Keating Grocer
Michael Kehoe Grocer
John Kelly Linen & Woolen Draper
Edward Kennedy Leinster Arms & Head Inn
James Little Smith
Alex McDonnell Haberdasher
Robert Molloy Merchant Tailor
James Moore Publican
Patrick Murphy Publican
William Murphy Publican
William Nevil Saddler & Harness Maker
John Owens Soap Boiler
John Peppard Grocer
William Plewman Watch Maker
Catherine Purcel Baker
Peirce Sharman Carpenter
Richard Sharman Shoe Maker
Thomas Sheil Grocer
John Slater Publican
John Sourke Baker
John Staines Publican
James Wright Brewer
George Youall Soap Boiler and Chandler

May I thank all those from Athy and abroad who wrote to me or otherwise contacted me during the past year. I wish all of you a happy Christmas and prosperous New Year.

Christmas Time in Athy / Bob Morrisson

Two letters received during the week brought me back to the Athy of 50 years ago and to the days when life seemed so much simpler and less complicated than it is today. The first letter was from a Coneyboro resident who wrote of memories of Christmas past.

“The night we brought our Christmas grocery list to Frank O’Brien’s was a great family occasion. All my teenage life, our family did the weekly shopping in O’Brien’s and each Friday, Mr. O’Brien would be seen delivering the weekly groceries and firing. But come Christmas our shopping list was special in more ways than one. I can still remember and sometimes still feel the excitement and magic of walking into O’Brien’s shop on that special night. Surrounded by Christmas everywhere, boxes of Cadbury’s chocolates, selection boxes, Christmas cakes and puddings and Santa’s smiling face on the Tayto boxes high up on the shelves. To me this was part of the Christmas magic for a young boy”.

My own recollections of Christmas when I was a young lad living in Offaly Street was of Duthie’s Santa Claus, the excitement of window shopping in Duke Street, the festive goose or turkey for Christmas dinner, and the eerie calmness of a Christmas day afternoon in the local streets. The nodding Santa in Duthie’s shop window placed in position some weeks before Christmas day was for us youngsters the start of the Christmas season. The winter evenings closed in early and the darkness descended on the quiet streets necessitating the advancement of the public lighting up time to an hour or so before tea time. It was that time which marked the schoolboys’ free time between the closing of the school for the day and incarceration at home following tea to “do our exercise”. In those innocent days “doing your exercise” had nothing to do with physical training, but rather an acknowledgment that we had to sit down at the kitchen table and learn the prescribed poem in Irish or English for the following day and perhaps agonise over an English or Irish essay.

The darkness of the November evenings were but sparsely illuminated by the old fashioned public lighting of the time but this merely added to the sense of adventure to the wanderings of the young fellows who walked up one side of Duke Street as far as Glynn’s Corner returning on the opposite footpath.

The shop windows all suitably decorated for the Christmas offered a hint of excitement to come when the long anticipated day dawned. We enjoyed peering into the shop windows and soaking up the atmosphere of a town where town and country folk came together in a mixum-gatherum of indistinguishable class and creed. Shaw’s of course, provided the biggest attraction with a number of shop windows, one of which always featured toys. A number of the smaller shops also stacked some Christmas toys while Duthie’s jewellery provided the Christmas window shopping show piece, the nodding Santa.

In those days, I can remember the long build up to Christmas each year. Maybe its only the anticipation of a young mind but everywhere then seemed to take on a christmassy feeling at the start of November. Displays in shop windows were changed, toys were taken out of storage and given pride and place where they could encourage little minds to prompt big dad’s and mam’s. The toys never seemed to change from year to year unlike today when the latest book or film inevitably spawns a plethora of gadgets in its wake.

Can anyone remember from fifty years ago any toy other than the gun and holster and if exceptionally lucky a cowboy suit for a boy and a doll and a pram for a girl. They were the basic and it has to be said the most desirable toys for young children then even if jigsaws, small paint boxes, snakes and ladders and other party games were sometimes also part of the usual Christmas fare. I am very aware now although I wasn’t then that for many local children even a gun or a doll was not to be had on Christmas Day. The very real poverty of the 1950’s, a poverty which saw children go to school barefooted and sometimes without a bite to eat for breakfast is now mercifully behind us.

The second letter I got last week was from an old friend and former neighbour who brought to my attention the recent death of Bob Morrisson. I remember Bob Morrisson who in the 1950’s worked in Shaw’s and lived in St. Patrick’s Avenue. He was a familiar figure as he walked briskly through Offaly Street each day on his way to and from work. His name was familiar to anyone who shopped in Shaw’s at the time and who in Athy of fifty years ago did not do that. Almost every local household involved in the rural electrification scheme of the 1940’s and 1950’s would have done business with Shaw’s for the new fangled cookers and other electrical equipment on offer at that time. Bob Morrisson was the man who with the proprietor Sam Shaw ran the sales campaign which Shaw’s of Athy put on in conjunction with the rural electrification scheme. He transferred to Waterford in the early 1960’s as Manager of Shaw’s Department Store in that City and died last week at an advanced age.

While I was writing on Bob Morrisson, I was reminded of these years when most if not every shop in the town gave tick or credit to their customers. I can recall my own mother having a book for Shaw’s wherein the goods bought and the instalments paid each month were faithfully recorded. I can also recall how a similar arrangement operated with the family grocer who in our case was Myles Whelan of Duke Street and later still Jim Fennin. This, of course, had the attraction, so far as the shopkeeper was concerned, of maintaining customer loyalty, something which is not very obvious today. The changes in shopping habits over the years and the discarding of the book in favour of cash sales has probably brought some benefit to the shopkeeper. I wonder to what extent the cash only sales concept has contributed to the loss of business to individual shops or indeed to our town of Athy as shoppers become more mobile , more demanding in terms of quality and service.

While I am writing of Athy in 1950’s its appropriate that I should mention that this week a group of school lads from the local Christian Brothers school of that time have agreed to have a class reunion in the town of the weekend of the 20/22 September next. Some of those not now so young fellows live as far apart as Australia, China, America and other far flung places, with just a few of us still here in the town. If anyone reading this knows of someone who was school with the likes of Mick Robinson, Teddy Kelly, Ted Wynne, Brendan McKenna et al, would you pass on word of a class reunion in September and ask them to contact me.

Happy Christmas to all my readers.

Launch of Carloviana

I received a phone call a few weeks ago from a man whom I had never met but whose name was known to me as the author of two recently published books on differing aspects of local history. Michael Conry, a native of Tulsk in Co. Roscommon has for 40 years or so lived in the Carlow area and he was the man who wrote and produced two volumes, one recording Culm Crushers in the Barrow Valley and the other dealing with the Carlow Fence. To the average readers, neither Culm Crushers or Carlow Fences are likely to evoke identifiable responses and I must admit that prior to reading the books I knew naught about either subject. Anyway, the purpose of Michael Conroy’s phone call was to query whether I was the man “who is involved with local history” and being satisfied that I was, invited me to launch the 2001 edition of Carloviana on behalf of the Carlow Archaeological Historical Society.

So it was that last week I travelled to Carlow to join the members of what was formerly the Old Carlow Society in the venerable surroundings of St. Patrick’s College. You know its difficult not to envy the resources available to Carlow Folk which includes the likes of the over 200 year old Seminary whose former alumni included such diverse characters as Cardinal Cullen and John O’Leary, the legendary Fenian who in his latter years was the father figure of Irish Nationalism.

I saw a friendly face early on my arrival in the person of Dan Carbery of Carlow whose firm did so much good work on the recent restoration of Athy Courthouse. Dan, quick to spot an Athy interloper among the proud Carlovians, laughingly advised that the invite to an Athy man to launch the Carlow Journal was a small gesture of reparation for Carlow taking the Sugar Factory from Athy in 1926. I couldn’t but chuckle at how Dan had anticipated how an Athy man, (even with a streak of Castlecomer in him) would look upon the events of 1926 as defining the centuries old rivalry between the Barrow Valley Towns.

I was delighted to meet the President from Carlow College, Fr. Kevin O’Neill who promptly asked Dan to tell me of his involvement in the greatest mile race of all time. The year was 1958, the track was Santry Stadium Dublin, which the late Billy Morton had developed for an occasion such as was to develop that day as the World’s best milers lined up in competition. Included in the line up was Ireland’s Olympic Champion Ronnie Delaney and the one mile World Record holder Herb Elliot. Amongst the runners was a young Carlow man, Dan Carbery whose task on the night was to bring the runners through two fast opening laps and in a world record time if possible. Dan did his job so well that the world’s newspapers next day proclaimed that the first four runners home in the Dublin race had beaten the existing world record for one mile. Dan returned to Carlow a few days later and while passing down Tullow Street, heard his name called “young Carbery come here”. Getting off a bicycle, Dan’s caller came over to him and wondered out loud as to what happened him during the Dublin race. “I caught your name on the wireless early on but begob you weren’t there at the end. What you should have done young fellow, was snug yourself in behind those other fellows and at the last bell sprinted as fast as you could for the line”. The bemused Dan did not have the heart to tell his fellow town man that snugging in behind World and Olympic champions and keeping pace with them over four laps required more than wishful thinking to accomplish.

Later in the night as I launched what I understand was the 50th Edition of Carloviana, I commended the various contributors to the Journal whose work of recovering the lost voices of past years is typical of the work of local historians throughout Ireland. Every historian who researches, collates and puts into print the stories and accounts of past events and long forgotten people provides material which helps to underpin the history of their areas. As I referred to the task of recovering the hidden past, I had in mind a book which I had bought just days previously. “Dancing the Culm”, is the latest production from Michael Conry of Carlow and its a fascinating account of how Culm was processed and used as a domestic and industrial fuel in Ireland. Within the pages of the book, the author has a striking example of how the opportunity can be taken to remind us of little remembered events. I was pleasantly surprised to find a reference coupled with a photograph of the late Jimmy Gralton of Leitrim and America who was shamefully deported by the DeValera of Government of 1933 because of his Socialist tendancies. Jimmy was a Community activist, or if you will, a Community Socialist and having spent many years in America where he took out American citizenship, fell foul of both Church and State in the Ireland of the early 1930’s and suffered the ignominy of being deported from his native country to America where he died in 1945.

The Carloviana Journal is recommended to you as a good read whether you have County Carlow connections or not, while Michael Conry’s new book “Dancing the Culm” is guaranteed to engage your interest from start to finish.

Before finishing this week I must pay my respects to two men who passed away last weekend while I was out of Athy. Denis Cahalane was former Managing Director of Minch Norton’s at a time when that firm played a full and active role in the life, as well as the economy of the town, where it traded for so long. Times have changed, and the once proud name of Minch Norton’s, while still in Athy, can hardly be said to be involved in the life of the town as it was in previous years. Denis Cahalane was a friend of Vincent Cullinane one of the founders of Macra Na Feirme and he was involved with Vincent, in the early years of the Farmers Journal.

Pat Taylor a teacher in Enniscorthy died tragically in a car accident just a week or so after I had last met him in Athy. He taught in the local school but left Athy just before I came back to the Town. I met him subsequently and he struck me as an innovative and go ahead man who might have made a major contribution to this Community if he had continued to live here. My condolences go to the Cahalane and Taylor families.

County Home

In 1949 an Interdepartmental Committee was set up to examine the future of the County Homes in Ireland. In its report the Committee found that many of the old workhouses which were still accommodating the chronic sick, the aged, mental defectives, and amenities. However, it was recognised that these old buildings could be refurbished or reconstructed to provide for the aged and chronic sick while mental defectives, unmarried mothers and their children, it suggested, it should be accommodated in separate institutions to be specially provided. The recommendations of the Committee were accepted in the Government White Paper issued in 1951 and funds were in time made to upgrade a number of the County Homes including that at Athy.

Kildare County Council embarked on a scheme of improvement to the County Home to replace the patient accommodation which was then located on the ground floor and first floor of the original workhouse building. The County Architect, Niall Meagher, was responsible for the planning, design and construction of the new St. Vincent’s Hospital, ably assisted by Eric Wallace, a member of the staff in his department. In this they worked closely with the staff of the Department of Health under Architect Cecil Dowdall. The administration of the project and commissioning ,equipping and staffing of the new buildings also involved the Matron, Sr. Dominic, and Kieran Hickey, then a young newly-appointed Staff Officer under whom I worked in the Health Section of Kildare County Council. Work on the construction of the new buildings by Bantile Limited of Banagher commenced on 27th July 1996 and took almost three years to complete. The new hospital, which cost £250,000 contained two Hospital blocks for 100 female patients, three Hospital blocks for 168 male patients and a 14-bed maternity unit with two delivery rooms. A sparkling new fully-equipped kitchen was also included in the building project and this replaced what was, in effect, the old Workhouse kitchen.

The new buildings were occupied on 3 April 1969, 128 years after the Workhouse had first opened. The transfer of 268 of the elderly residents from the old County Home to the brand new spacious hospital ground floor accommodation was a major event for them and, of course, for the staff of St. Vincent’s. It was not without its moments of poignancy and mixed feeling at leaving the familiar surroundings of the old home. The following poem, written at the time by Mrs. Ruth Wiley, aged 90 years, eloquently describes these mixed feelings.

FROM OLD TO NEW

The Sister said “Come all ye, get ready
We are going off today
From an old to a new spot
Not very far away”.
So we gathered up our toothbrush
Just a toothbrush and a brush
And felt that life began anew
With an almighty rush.

New friend, new loungs, new bathrooms too,
Oh, we felt mighty grand;
Just as the Israelites had felt
When they reached the Promised Land.

Yet I think of the many cures
Witnessed in the old block
We have to ask the Lord to bless
Every stone of ancient spot.

In 1971 the newly established Eastern Health Board took over responsibility for St. Vincent’s Hospital. The first visiting committee of the Board under the chairmanship of Councillor Paddy Hickey met in the hospital on 20th May 1971. Like the board of Guardians of old, the representatives of the Eastern Health Board expressed themselves pleased with the conditions in the hospital and the treatment afforded to the patients.

In the following year the Department of Health gave approval for the construction of a new convent building, a nurses’ home and a mortuary. The Sisters of Mercy had retained a presence in the hospital and former workhouse since 1874 and on their first arrival they had occupied rooms at the back of the main building block. Later they moved to the front of the building where they occupied rooms on the first floor and where they remained until they moved into the purpose-built Convent. The contractors for the new development were Messrs M. Turley & Co and, in late 1974, the work was completed and the buildings officially opened on 25 June 1975.

In 1981 Sr. Dominic retired as Matron of St. Vincent’s and was succeeded by Sr. Peg Rice. In her forty-one years in the County Home and later in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sr. Dominic had witnessed an increase in staff numbers in keeping with the improved quality of care provided for the patients. In the 1940s the County Home employed three religious and three nurses and in 1952 the first attendants were employed. Today, despite a reduction in the number of patients in the hospital compared to fifty years ago, the staff employed include 73 nurses/medical, 97 attendants and 10 administrative and support staff.