I was reading through some notes from the Annals of the Christian Brothers in advance of the class reunion last weekend and what I found may be of interest to some readers. It was a short history compiled of the early years of the Christian Brothers in Athy which opened as follows :-
“On the ground now occupied by the Brothers’ house and schools, stood formerly a monastery of Crossed Friars, built about the year 1253, by Richard de St. Michael Lord of Rheban. It was granted in the 17th of Charles II to Dame Mary Meredith.
The present dwellinghouse was built upwards of 100 years previous to its being handed over to the Brothers. During the above time it passed into several hands, mostly Protestant, until at last it and the adjoining fields were purchased by His Grace, The Most Rev. Dr. Cullen Lord Archbishop of Dublin and Glendalough.
The whole concern containing about 12 acres, was handed over by His Lordship, the aforesaid Paul Cullen to the Very Rev. Andrew Quinn, P.P. Athy, and Canon of the Archdiocese of Dublin, who subsequently built two school-rooms by the aid of the parishioners and a few friends, but chiefly by the assistance of the generous and truly charitable Mr. Pat Maher of Kilrush in this county (Kildare), who principally at the suggestion of his eldest daughter, Mrs. Mary Teresa Maher, Superioress of the Convent of Mercy, St. Michael’s, Athy, gave £400.
When the Schools were finished in the August of 1861, three Brothers, viz - John Stanislaus Flanagan, director - Francis Luke Holland, sub-director - and John Patrick Sheehy, lay-brother, were sent by our Very Rev. Brother, Michael Paul O’Riordan, Superior General, to conduct the establishment, which was put into the possession of the Brothers on the 8th August 1861.”
The Annals, after making some references to the local Model School, continued :-
“The Brothers commenced the Schools on the 19th of August 1861 having some months previously obtained the consent and signature of the above Dr. A. Quinn to the following conditions :-
1. The Premises to be occupied by the Brothers to be put into proper repair, and furnished.
2. Two Schools to be built (each 36 feet by 26, with a lecture-room 10ft. wide between) on a site convenient to the House.
3. The Brothers to have the management of the Schools and to be allowed the observance of their Rules in the same manner as enjoyed by them in other places.
4. The School-pence paid by the children, to be at the disposal of the Brothers for the benefit of the Schools.
5. £30 a-year to be allowed each Brothers, this sum to be realised by subscriptions, collections, or sermon, as the Very Rev. Dr. Quinn may appoint.
6. The Brothers to be prepared to take charge of the Schools in the month of December, if necessary.
The part of the land not occupied by the Brothers is held by the Parish Priest who received the rent of it. The Brothers have nothing to do with the payment of taxes, etc. This being done by the Parish Priest.
Soon after the coming of the Brothers the above-mentioned Dr. Cullen, Archbishop said Mass in the Domestic Chapel, after which he blessed all the rooms and house. From that morning the Brothers have enjoyed the privilege of having the Blessed Sacrament in the house.
Shortly after the opening of the School it was found necessary to secure the services of a third School Brother. He was accordingly applied for by Dr. Cullen, who succeeded in obtaining him on the same condition as the three Brothers already mentioned. The salary of the fourth Brother (Hugh Francis Sweeney, novice) was procured for 2 years by the before-mentioned Mrs. M. T. Maher, from her father. Both Mrs. and Mr. Maher deserve the grateful remembrance of the Brothers.
The grounds about the dwellinghouse and schools continued in a very neglected state for about 3 months after the coming of the Brothers - then a few of the influential men of the town undertook to defray the expenses necessary to be incurred, and the place was rendered somewhat comfortable before the Brothers entered their Annual retreat before Christmas 1861.
The very necessary appendage of gas was introduced into the house in the beginning of January 1862 at an expense of £20, which sum was supplied by the benevolent Mr. P. Maher.
On the second Sunday of January this year, a Lending Library was opened for the benefit of the children and others who might wish to join it. Mr. Maher gave £5 for the purchase of books. For some months after it could only number 8 or 9 members.
According to the present arrangements the salary of the Brothers is procured by means of two collections every year, made at the doors of the Parish Church - one in February, the other in August. These collections are totally in the hands of the Parish Priest who, if they did not realise the required sum is bound to make up the residue as best he can.
On 31st July 1862 the Brothers held the first public examination of their pupils at which His Grace, The Most Rev. Paul Cullen presided. The examination was held in the room occupied by the junior pupils, the desks were removed, and a platform was erected at the lower end of the room on which the children stood while undergoing the examination. The visitors, who amounted to very near 300 persons, sat on chairs, or stood facing the children. The chairs, for the occasions were abundantly supplied by well-wishers in the town, who, moreover, sent as much carpeting as covered the whole floor and platform. The walls and window recesses were tastefully decorated with evergreen and flowers. There were present besides the Archbishop - the Very Rev. Canon Quinn P.P. of Athy; Rev. H. M. Manus, D.D., Rev. Thomas Doyle; Rev. Eugene Clarke, P.P., Narraghmore and many more. The examination commenced at 11 o’clock and continued until 3 o’clock during which time the audience displayed the greatest interest. At the conclusion the pupils presented the Archbishop with an address which was read by Master John Lawler.”
If ever you walk up St. John’s Lane past the entrance to what was the Christian Brothers Monastery you may notice that the crest about the doorway gives the year 1862. It was in 1911 that the high wall around the monastery similar to that which still encloses St. John’s Cemetery was lowered and a new entrance provided to the Monastery on which was surmounted the Christian Brothers’ crest with the date of the foundation of the Athy house. Clearly a mistake was made when 1862 was given as that date.
Thursday, September 12, 2002
Thursday, September 5, 2002
C.B.S. Class Re-union
Michael Robinson will set out from Brisbane Australia this Wednesday morning to travel to Athy. Seamus Ryan will commence his journey in Beijing, China. His destination, like Michael’s, will be Athy. Jimmy Malone will travel from California, while Joe Gordon makes the comparatively short trip from Manchester. All are travelling back to the town where some or all of their schooldays were spent during the 1950’s and earlier. The occasion is a class re-union for men, many of whom started school as four year olds in St. Joseph’s Boy’s School where they were taught by Sisters of Mercy, Bernadette, Brendan and Alberta in the years immediately following the Second World War. Transferring to the Christian Brothers Primary School in St. John’s Lane in or about 1949 they were taught over the following five years by a succession of Christian Brothers and one lay teacher. From that period Christian Brothers O’Loughran, Flaherty and Smith are recalled as well as Bob Martin, a lay teacher who later took up the principalship of Ballyroe National School.
Classes and colleagues changed over the years. Some youngsters skipped classes, others stayed back for an extra year, but eventually most of them passed the hurdle which was the Primary Certificate Examination taken in the Sixth Class. Class numbers were by today’s standards quite large. The Second Class rollbook for 1950 shows 57 youngsters, while the Third Year Class had 62 young, if not so eager, students. In the early 1950’s sickness exacted its toll amongst the frail youngsters and the untimely deaths of Paddy Dowling, George Ryan and Myles Cash were a sad blow to their classmates.
Many of those who sat the Primary Certificate Examination passed on into secondary school. Others however went out into the world of work on reaching 14 years of age. Family circumstances often dictated that a young fellow’s academic career had to be curtailed to ensure a family’s survival during the harsh economic climate of the 1950’s. Not that many of those who left school at 14 and sometimes even younger objected to being taken from school. Given the opportunity, most of us would have followed the same route. After all, the prospect of earning a few shillings as a messenger boy or working with a local farmer sounded far more exciting than spending the daylight hours stuck in the classroom. The 1950’s were difficult times for most local families. Jobs were scarce in the town and such employment as was available required a young man to work in unhealthy conditions which over time would damage health and shorten life expectancy. For many, even such grim employment prospects were limited and the mail boat journey to Holyhead was as familiar to many Athy men and women as the train journey to Dublin is to present day locals.
As those with whom we started school in 1946/1947 left the educational system others remained on in secondary school. We had no choice in the matter, for if we had, the school yard would soon have been but a memory. In any event we stayed on in secondary school, each morning making the trip up St. John’s Lane and climbing the metal stairs to the school rooms on the first floor. The upper story of the school building consisted of three rooms, one of which in time was divided by a curtain to make an extra room. The teachers were Brother Brett, who was the headmaster, and Brother Keogh, with lay teachers Bill Ryan and Paddy Riordan. All but Riordan were there for the entire period my classmates spent in secondary school up to 1960.
In the third year of secondary school you sat your Intermediate Certificate Examination and it was the common practice in the 1950’s to repeat your Inter Cert. I know I did, as did some of my classmates. During the first three years of secondary school there was a steady stream of students leaving to take up employment. This exodus became an avalanche after the Inter Certificate and following years classes had but a sixth of the number which had started school 12 years previously in St. Joseph’s at Rathstewart. In the meantime of course many young lads joined the class from outlying country areas but while they swelled the class numbers in first and second year, they seldom stayed for the full six years of secondary school.
The final hurdle was the Leaving Certificate Examination of 1960 and the class size that year was the largest ever known in the Christian Brothers School. It was all of eleven students and compares with this years Leaving Certificate class of 64 students. Coming after previous Leaving Certificate classes where there had been three or four students and a single student on at least one previous occasion, a class of eleven was a significant improvement.
I was talking yesterday to a pupil from this years Leaving Certificate class, and marveled to hear that most of the students will attend university or some form of third level education. From the class of 1960 only one student had the opportunity to go to university on a full time basis and that was at a time when the only restriction on entry to university was your parents ability to pay the university fees. Times certainly have changed and nowhere is that better demonstrated than in the opportunities for further education now available for present day students.
All of the above is by way of background explanation to the travails of those one time youngsters now in their 60th year or thereabouts who will come together this weekend for the first time since they left school. For some it will be the first time to meet for over 40 years or more. On Friday evening the Leinster Arms Hotel will host the gathering of past pupils where the years will be wound back, memories dusted down and friendships renewed. On Saturday afternoon a civic reception in the Town Council offices will be followed by a further reception in Scoil Eoin. Later that evening the former pupils and their partners will sit down to dinner with a number of invited guests at Kilkea Golf Club Restaurant. On the last day of the weekend reunion a service of remembrance and commemoration will take place in the yard of the old school in St. John’s Lane and will be followed by a tree planting ceremony in Edmund Rice Square and a going away reception.
In conjunction with the class reunion a photographic exhibition will be held in the Heritage Centre which will be of particular interest to anyone who remembers the people or the events of Athy of the 1950’s.
Classes and colleagues changed over the years. Some youngsters skipped classes, others stayed back for an extra year, but eventually most of them passed the hurdle which was the Primary Certificate Examination taken in the Sixth Class. Class numbers were by today’s standards quite large. The Second Class rollbook for 1950 shows 57 youngsters, while the Third Year Class had 62 young, if not so eager, students. In the early 1950’s sickness exacted its toll amongst the frail youngsters and the untimely deaths of Paddy Dowling, George Ryan and Myles Cash were a sad blow to their classmates.
Many of those who sat the Primary Certificate Examination passed on into secondary school. Others however went out into the world of work on reaching 14 years of age. Family circumstances often dictated that a young fellow’s academic career had to be curtailed to ensure a family’s survival during the harsh economic climate of the 1950’s. Not that many of those who left school at 14 and sometimes even younger objected to being taken from school. Given the opportunity, most of us would have followed the same route. After all, the prospect of earning a few shillings as a messenger boy or working with a local farmer sounded far more exciting than spending the daylight hours stuck in the classroom. The 1950’s were difficult times for most local families. Jobs were scarce in the town and such employment as was available required a young man to work in unhealthy conditions which over time would damage health and shorten life expectancy. For many, even such grim employment prospects were limited and the mail boat journey to Holyhead was as familiar to many Athy men and women as the train journey to Dublin is to present day locals.
As those with whom we started school in 1946/1947 left the educational system others remained on in secondary school. We had no choice in the matter, for if we had, the school yard would soon have been but a memory. In any event we stayed on in secondary school, each morning making the trip up St. John’s Lane and climbing the metal stairs to the school rooms on the first floor. The upper story of the school building consisted of three rooms, one of which in time was divided by a curtain to make an extra room. The teachers were Brother Brett, who was the headmaster, and Brother Keogh, with lay teachers Bill Ryan and Paddy Riordan. All but Riordan were there for the entire period my classmates spent in secondary school up to 1960.
In the third year of secondary school you sat your Intermediate Certificate Examination and it was the common practice in the 1950’s to repeat your Inter Cert. I know I did, as did some of my classmates. During the first three years of secondary school there was a steady stream of students leaving to take up employment. This exodus became an avalanche after the Inter Certificate and following years classes had but a sixth of the number which had started school 12 years previously in St. Joseph’s at Rathstewart. In the meantime of course many young lads joined the class from outlying country areas but while they swelled the class numbers in first and second year, they seldom stayed for the full six years of secondary school.
The final hurdle was the Leaving Certificate Examination of 1960 and the class size that year was the largest ever known in the Christian Brothers School. It was all of eleven students and compares with this years Leaving Certificate class of 64 students. Coming after previous Leaving Certificate classes where there had been three or four students and a single student on at least one previous occasion, a class of eleven was a significant improvement.
I was talking yesterday to a pupil from this years Leaving Certificate class, and marveled to hear that most of the students will attend university or some form of third level education. From the class of 1960 only one student had the opportunity to go to university on a full time basis and that was at a time when the only restriction on entry to university was your parents ability to pay the university fees. Times certainly have changed and nowhere is that better demonstrated than in the opportunities for further education now available for present day students.
All of the above is by way of background explanation to the travails of those one time youngsters now in their 60th year or thereabouts who will come together this weekend for the first time since they left school. For some it will be the first time to meet for over 40 years or more. On Friday evening the Leinster Arms Hotel will host the gathering of past pupils where the years will be wound back, memories dusted down and friendships renewed. On Saturday afternoon a civic reception in the Town Council offices will be followed by a further reception in Scoil Eoin. Later that evening the former pupils and their partners will sit down to dinner with a number of invited guests at Kilkea Golf Club Restaurant. On the last day of the weekend reunion a service of remembrance and commemoration will take place in the yard of the old school in St. John’s Lane and will be followed by a tree planting ceremony in Edmund Rice Square and a going away reception.
In conjunction with the class reunion a photographic exhibition will be held in the Heritage Centre which will be of particular interest to anyone who remembers the people or the events of Athy of the 1950’s.
Thursday, August 29, 2002
Athy U.D.C. Now Athy Town Council
The change was made imperceptibly and without fuss or fanfare. It wasn’t just a change of name but it was the name change highlighted on headed notepaper received in correspondence some days later which alerted me to what had happened. It was the first time that illustrious body had changed its name since it was set up in 1898, but even then it had been superimposed on an institution with a history stretching back to the 16th century.
I am referring to Athy Town Council which up to December 31st last was known as Athy Urban District Council but which at midnight that night changed its name. The links with the 16th century are very real as it was Henry VIII, who so far as we can ascertain, granted the first charter to the village of Athy, thereby constituting it a borough. There is the possibility that a previous charter had been in place but research to date has not unearthed any evidence of it.
The charter of 1515 was granted by the English King to the village founded by Anglo Norman’s in the 12th century and peopled by settlers from the English mainland. It established the office of Town Provost, who had overall charge of the town’s affairs and who was elected each year by the Burgesses of the town on the Feast of St. Michael. His modern equivalent would be town Mayor. However, Mayors today share power and authority with administrators and consequently wield less power than their medieval predecessors.
In addition to the Office of Town Provost, Henry VIII’s charter established a borough council comprised of 12 burgesses who were to be elected by the freemen of the village of Athy. In time the appointment of the burgesses of the town was exercised by the head of the House of Leinster, by what authority, if any, we cannot say. The Earl of Kildare whose successor was later to be elevated to the Dukedom of Leinster thereafter nominated his own friends as burgesses of the market town. This situation continued even when the new Charter granted to Athy in 1613 under which a town Sovereign was elected each year to take charge of the town’s affairs. The Borough Council continued in place with powers similar to those provided under the earlier charter.
Athy Borough Council, an unelected body, consisting of members who were by and large non-residents of the town with no apparent proprietary interest in south Kildare continued in existence until the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1840. Up to 1800 Athy Borough Council returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons. It was not however active in improving the infrastructure of a town whose population had increased to almost 5,000 by the early decades of the 19th century. The undemocratic nature of the Borough Councils such as Athy and their failure to make proper provision for the development of urban areas signaled the need for the reform of Local Government in Ireland. This culminated in the Municipal Corporations Act, 1840 when a large number of Borough Councils, including Athy, were abolished.
For a short time Athy was without any form of municipal government but in the mid 1840’s the people of the town petitioned the Dublin authorities for Athy to be granted Town Commission status. When granted it lead to the first municipal elections for public representatives on the new body which was named Athy Town Commission. The previous office of Town Sovereign which had replaced the earlier Town Provost was itself replaced by the Office of Chairman of the Town Commissioners. The Commissioners who were elected at regular intervals thereafter set about their task of improving the paving, lighting and cleaning of the streets of the town. With the limited powers available to them the Commissioners continued to develop the towns facilities over the following 60 years. The passing of the Local Government Act, 1898 put County Local Government on a representative basis and at the same time gave Town Commissioners the right to be reconstituted as Urban District Councils.
On 14th November of that year Athy Town Commissioners agreed to submit a petition to the Local Government Board to separate the town of Athy from the rural district and to constitute it an urban district. For some unexplained reason the petition was not submitted and a further petition agreed by the Town Commissioners in February 1899 was sent forward following which a public enquiry was held in the town hall. As a result of this enquiry Athy was constituted an Urban District Council with effect from 1st April, 1900. This was the third time in the form of local government for the town was changed since Henry VIII’s charter of 1515. It would not be the last.
The next 100 years witnessed the most active period in the development of public services in the town under the mandate of the Urban District Council. The Slum Clearance Programme of the 1930’s initiated under the housing programmes of the first De Valera led government together with the provision of a piped water supply system in the second decade of the 20th century were the highlights of the Council’s successes over the years. During the periods when the town was governed by a Borough Council, Town Commissioner or Urban District Council, the chief administrator of the town was the Town Clerk. Initially a part-time job it later required the services of a full-time official who was based in the municipal offices in the Town Hall. The Clerk of the Urban District Council was appointed by the members of the Council on the recommendation of the Local Appointments Commission and as such was an officer of the Council. However, under recent changes in the Local Government structure the recruitment of personnel for the town of Athy is now centralised to Kildare County Council and the Town Clerk of Athy is employed directly by that Council. Athy Urban District Council has also had its title changed to Athy Town Council.
As successors to the Borough Council, the Town Commissioners and the Urban District Council, Athy Town Council continues to serve the local people, even if the changes heralded with the change of name confirm that the roles of town councils are to be reduced in the drive to centralise Local Government in this country.
The photo exhibition presently in the Heritage Centre is to be augmented for the Christian Brothers Class Re-union scheduled for the weekend of 20th September. Photographs relating to Athy and school groups during the 1940’s and later will be on display. The Heritage Centre would like to hear from anyone who has any photographs which could be lent for the period of the exhibition. All photographs will be returned to the owners at the end of September when the exhibition closes. If you have any suitable material for display please contact Margaret O’Riordan at (0507) 33075.
I am referring to Athy Town Council which up to December 31st last was known as Athy Urban District Council but which at midnight that night changed its name. The links with the 16th century are very real as it was Henry VIII, who so far as we can ascertain, granted the first charter to the village of Athy, thereby constituting it a borough. There is the possibility that a previous charter had been in place but research to date has not unearthed any evidence of it.
The charter of 1515 was granted by the English King to the village founded by Anglo Norman’s in the 12th century and peopled by settlers from the English mainland. It established the office of Town Provost, who had overall charge of the town’s affairs and who was elected each year by the Burgesses of the town on the Feast of St. Michael. His modern equivalent would be town Mayor. However, Mayors today share power and authority with administrators and consequently wield less power than their medieval predecessors.
In addition to the Office of Town Provost, Henry VIII’s charter established a borough council comprised of 12 burgesses who were to be elected by the freemen of the village of Athy. In time the appointment of the burgesses of the town was exercised by the head of the House of Leinster, by what authority, if any, we cannot say. The Earl of Kildare whose successor was later to be elevated to the Dukedom of Leinster thereafter nominated his own friends as burgesses of the market town. This situation continued even when the new Charter granted to Athy in 1613 under which a town Sovereign was elected each year to take charge of the town’s affairs. The Borough Council continued in place with powers similar to those provided under the earlier charter.
Athy Borough Council, an unelected body, consisting of members who were by and large non-residents of the town with no apparent proprietary interest in south Kildare continued in existence until the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1840. Up to 1800 Athy Borough Council returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons. It was not however active in improving the infrastructure of a town whose population had increased to almost 5,000 by the early decades of the 19th century. The undemocratic nature of the Borough Councils such as Athy and their failure to make proper provision for the development of urban areas signaled the need for the reform of Local Government in Ireland. This culminated in the Municipal Corporations Act, 1840 when a large number of Borough Councils, including Athy, were abolished.
For a short time Athy was without any form of municipal government but in the mid 1840’s the people of the town petitioned the Dublin authorities for Athy to be granted Town Commission status. When granted it lead to the first municipal elections for public representatives on the new body which was named Athy Town Commission. The previous office of Town Sovereign which had replaced the earlier Town Provost was itself replaced by the Office of Chairman of the Town Commissioners. The Commissioners who were elected at regular intervals thereafter set about their task of improving the paving, lighting and cleaning of the streets of the town. With the limited powers available to them the Commissioners continued to develop the towns facilities over the following 60 years. The passing of the Local Government Act, 1898 put County Local Government on a representative basis and at the same time gave Town Commissioners the right to be reconstituted as Urban District Councils.
On 14th November of that year Athy Town Commissioners agreed to submit a petition to the Local Government Board to separate the town of Athy from the rural district and to constitute it an urban district. For some unexplained reason the petition was not submitted and a further petition agreed by the Town Commissioners in February 1899 was sent forward following which a public enquiry was held in the town hall. As a result of this enquiry Athy was constituted an Urban District Council with effect from 1st April, 1900. This was the third time in the form of local government for the town was changed since Henry VIII’s charter of 1515. It would not be the last.
The next 100 years witnessed the most active period in the development of public services in the town under the mandate of the Urban District Council. The Slum Clearance Programme of the 1930’s initiated under the housing programmes of the first De Valera led government together with the provision of a piped water supply system in the second decade of the 20th century were the highlights of the Council’s successes over the years. During the periods when the town was governed by a Borough Council, Town Commissioner or Urban District Council, the chief administrator of the town was the Town Clerk. Initially a part-time job it later required the services of a full-time official who was based in the municipal offices in the Town Hall. The Clerk of the Urban District Council was appointed by the members of the Council on the recommendation of the Local Appointments Commission and as such was an officer of the Council. However, under recent changes in the Local Government structure the recruitment of personnel for the town of Athy is now centralised to Kildare County Council and the Town Clerk of Athy is employed directly by that Council. Athy Urban District Council has also had its title changed to Athy Town Council.
As successors to the Borough Council, the Town Commissioners and the Urban District Council, Athy Town Council continues to serve the local people, even if the changes heralded with the change of name confirm that the roles of town councils are to be reduced in the drive to centralise Local Government in this country.
The photo exhibition presently in the Heritage Centre is to be augmented for the Christian Brothers Class Re-union scheduled for the weekend of 20th September. Photographs relating to Athy and school groups during the 1940’s and later will be on display. The Heritage Centre would like to hear from anyone who has any photographs which could be lent for the period of the exhibition. All photographs will be returned to the owners at the end of September when the exhibition closes. If you have any suitable material for display please contact Margaret O’Riordan at (0507) 33075.
Thursday, August 22, 2002
Pamela - Lady Fitzgerald
Thames Ditton. A strange name isn’t it? It was my latest port of call in the continuing quest for links with the history of Athy. I arrived in Thames Ditton after a long and somewhat bewildering drive through the spaghetti-like streets which criss-crossed London’s suburbia before exiting into the countryside around Hampton Court Palace. This one time home to Wolsey and King Henry VIII is but a few miles from Thames Ditton to where I travelled to locate the grave of Pamela, wife of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.
Every Irish schoolboy has heard of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. There is almost a Che Cuevara quality to the aristocrat who turned his back on privilege and status to align himself with the revolutionaries of 1798. Lord Edward represented the borough of Athy as a Member of Parliament on the nomination of his brother William the 2nd Duke of Leinster in 1783. Incidentally William Duke of Leinster is the man whose name is recalled in the principal street names of our town which are named William Street, Duke Street and Leinster Street in his honour. Lord Edward who was a younger brother of the Duke was himself well known in the town of Athy having succeeded to a family estate at Kilrush. He also stayed on a few occasions at Leinster Lodge on the outskirts of the town. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was and remains to this day not only an important name in Irish history but also important and relevant in the history of Athy.
In 1792 he married the 19 year old Pamela who is believed to have been the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Orleans by Madam de Genlies, a French Countess. Lord Edward and Pamela had three children, a son called Edward and two daughters, Pamela and Lucy. They lived for a time in France and in the years immediately prior to the 1798 Rebellion at Kildare Lodge, Kildare town and also for different periods at Leinster House, Dublin, Castletown and Carton. In April 1798 Lord Edward was appointed Lieutenant General and Commander and Chief of the United Irishmen. This followed the arrest of most of the Leinster Directory of the United Irishmen in Oliver Bond’s house in Dublin the previous month. Lord Edward went into hiding using a number of different houses including that of James Moore, a merchant of 119 Thomas Street, Dublin. Moore’s wife was a native of Athy and their house was used for at least one meeting between Lord Edward and a number of United Irishmen from the town of Athy shortly before the planned uprising. Lord Edward escaped arrest while passing from Thomas Street to Usher’s Quay with his body guards on the night of 17th May but within two days his fate was decided. He had earlier moved from Moore’s house to 153 Thomas Street and was in bed after dinner when Major Sirr accompanied by a number of soldiers entered his bedroom. In the ensuing struggle Fitzgerald was wounded and he was to die of his wounds while in prison on 4th June.
Lady Pamela Fitzgerald and her three children were forced to flee the country and following the attainder of the Fitzgerald estates by the Crown his family was effectively pauperised. Now commenced an unsettling and unhappy period for Lady Pamela which would last for most of her remaining life. She arrived at Thames Ditton where Lord Edward’s brother, Lord Henry Fitzgerald and his sister Lady Sophia Fitzgerald were living. Lady Pamela’s third child Lucy was but one month old at the time. Suspected of involvement with the United Irishmen Pamela was not allowed to stay in England and she left for Hamburg leaving her youngest child with Lady Sophie Fitzgerald and her only son with the Duchess of Leinster. With her on the journey to Hamburg she took her second child and namesake Pamela. Within two years Lady Pamela married John Pitcairn, the American Counsel in Hamburg. The marriage was an unhappy one and while she had another son and daughter her husband refused to pay for the education of Lord Edward’s eldest daughter Pamela, claiming that it was the responsibility of the Fitzgerald family. Disillusioned Lady Pamela and her young daughter left for France where she hoped to petition Napoleon for a pension but her husband on hearing of this refused to allow her to return to Hamburg.
After spending some time in Vienna Lady Pamela Fitzgerald returned to France where she would spend the rest of her life. Following the banishment of Napoleon to Elba in 1814 Louis XIV, brother of the guillotined King of France was crowned King and the Duke of Orleans arranged for a pension to be paid to Lord Edward’s widow. Her last years were more comfortable than those which had gone before but she suffered the loss of her youngest daughter Lucy who died in 1826. Lady Pamela herself died in 1834 aged 58 years while staying at the Hotel de Danube in Paris.
In November 1857 Richard Madden, author of “United Irishmen Their Lives and Times” visited Montmatre Cemetery in Paris to trace the last resting place of Lady Pamela Fitzgerald. After a long search her headstone was found. It consisted of a slab of white marble with an inscription, inserted into a headstone which had sunk below the level of the adjoining graves. Madden arranged for it to be raised to its original height, the inscription re-cut and the headstone otherwise repaired. In 1880 J.P. Leonard, an Irishman living in Paris contacted Pamela Fitzgerald’s grandson who was living in Thames Ditton to alert him to a proposal to build a road through the Montmatre Cemetery. The remains of Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s widow were exhumed and transferred to England where they were re-interred in the Churchyard of Thames Ditton Parish Church. A marble slab inset into the headstone at Thames Ditton reads “Lady Edward Fitzgerald’s remains were removed from Paris by J.P. Leonard Esq. and interred here the 21st of August, 1880 by her grandchildren. The above stone was on her tomb at Montmatre Cemetery and was broken by the bursting of a shell during the siege of 1870.”
Before visiting Lady Pamela’s grave I was lead to believe that a local lady tended the grave with red, white and blue flowers, the colour of the French tricolour. On the warm sunny day I stood at her graveside there was no evidence of any flowers. The grave, like its neighbours, was devoid of any floral decoration but was otherwise neat and tidy.
Lady Fitzgerald’s daughter Pamela who was married to Sir Guy Campbell and lived in Thames Ditton until her death in 1869 is buried beside her mother. Her other daughter Lucy who married Captain George Lyon and who also lived in Thames Ditton where she died in 1826 is buried in the same cemetery. Lucy was remembered for her charitable works among the poor in Thames Ditton and for founding a local school in which she taught for a time.
The tombstone over Lady Pamela Fitzgerald’s grave at Thames Ditton incorporating part of the damaged tombstone which stood over her first resting place in Montmatre Cemetery Parish is the only visible reminder of the woman who shared her life with the aristocratic and revolutionary Member of Parliament for Athy, Lord Edward Fitzgerald.
In last weeks article I gave details of the web page for the CBS Class Reunion in September. Unfortunately the information given was incorrect. The correct web page is www.rawlinsons.com.au/reunion.
Every Irish schoolboy has heard of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. There is almost a Che Cuevara quality to the aristocrat who turned his back on privilege and status to align himself with the revolutionaries of 1798. Lord Edward represented the borough of Athy as a Member of Parliament on the nomination of his brother William the 2nd Duke of Leinster in 1783. Incidentally William Duke of Leinster is the man whose name is recalled in the principal street names of our town which are named William Street, Duke Street and Leinster Street in his honour. Lord Edward who was a younger brother of the Duke was himself well known in the town of Athy having succeeded to a family estate at Kilrush. He also stayed on a few occasions at Leinster Lodge on the outskirts of the town. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was and remains to this day not only an important name in Irish history but also important and relevant in the history of Athy.
In 1792 he married the 19 year old Pamela who is believed to have been the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Orleans by Madam de Genlies, a French Countess. Lord Edward and Pamela had three children, a son called Edward and two daughters, Pamela and Lucy. They lived for a time in France and in the years immediately prior to the 1798 Rebellion at Kildare Lodge, Kildare town and also for different periods at Leinster House, Dublin, Castletown and Carton. In April 1798 Lord Edward was appointed Lieutenant General and Commander and Chief of the United Irishmen. This followed the arrest of most of the Leinster Directory of the United Irishmen in Oliver Bond’s house in Dublin the previous month. Lord Edward went into hiding using a number of different houses including that of James Moore, a merchant of 119 Thomas Street, Dublin. Moore’s wife was a native of Athy and their house was used for at least one meeting between Lord Edward and a number of United Irishmen from the town of Athy shortly before the planned uprising. Lord Edward escaped arrest while passing from Thomas Street to Usher’s Quay with his body guards on the night of 17th May but within two days his fate was decided. He had earlier moved from Moore’s house to 153 Thomas Street and was in bed after dinner when Major Sirr accompanied by a number of soldiers entered his bedroom. In the ensuing struggle Fitzgerald was wounded and he was to die of his wounds while in prison on 4th June.
Lady Pamela Fitzgerald and her three children were forced to flee the country and following the attainder of the Fitzgerald estates by the Crown his family was effectively pauperised. Now commenced an unsettling and unhappy period for Lady Pamela which would last for most of her remaining life. She arrived at Thames Ditton where Lord Edward’s brother, Lord Henry Fitzgerald and his sister Lady Sophia Fitzgerald were living. Lady Pamela’s third child Lucy was but one month old at the time. Suspected of involvement with the United Irishmen Pamela was not allowed to stay in England and she left for Hamburg leaving her youngest child with Lady Sophie Fitzgerald and her only son with the Duchess of Leinster. With her on the journey to Hamburg she took her second child and namesake Pamela. Within two years Lady Pamela married John Pitcairn, the American Counsel in Hamburg. The marriage was an unhappy one and while she had another son and daughter her husband refused to pay for the education of Lord Edward’s eldest daughter Pamela, claiming that it was the responsibility of the Fitzgerald family. Disillusioned Lady Pamela and her young daughter left for France where she hoped to petition Napoleon for a pension but her husband on hearing of this refused to allow her to return to Hamburg.
After spending some time in Vienna Lady Pamela Fitzgerald returned to France where she would spend the rest of her life. Following the banishment of Napoleon to Elba in 1814 Louis XIV, brother of the guillotined King of France was crowned King and the Duke of Orleans arranged for a pension to be paid to Lord Edward’s widow. Her last years were more comfortable than those which had gone before but she suffered the loss of her youngest daughter Lucy who died in 1826. Lady Pamela herself died in 1834 aged 58 years while staying at the Hotel de Danube in Paris.
In November 1857 Richard Madden, author of “United Irishmen Their Lives and Times” visited Montmatre Cemetery in Paris to trace the last resting place of Lady Pamela Fitzgerald. After a long search her headstone was found. It consisted of a slab of white marble with an inscription, inserted into a headstone which had sunk below the level of the adjoining graves. Madden arranged for it to be raised to its original height, the inscription re-cut and the headstone otherwise repaired. In 1880 J.P. Leonard, an Irishman living in Paris contacted Pamela Fitzgerald’s grandson who was living in Thames Ditton to alert him to a proposal to build a road through the Montmatre Cemetery. The remains of Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s widow were exhumed and transferred to England where they were re-interred in the Churchyard of Thames Ditton Parish Church. A marble slab inset into the headstone at Thames Ditton reads “Lady Edward Fitzgerald’s remains were removed from Paris by J.P. Leonard Esq. and interred here the 21st of August, 1880 by her grandchildren. The above stone was on her tomb at Montmatre Cemetery and was broken by the bursting of a shell during the siege of 1870.”
Before visiting Lady Pamela’s grave I was lead to believe that a local lady tended the grave with red, white and blue flowers, the colour of the French tricolour. On the warm sunny day I stood at her graveside there was no evidence of any flowers. The grave, like its neighbours, was devoid of any floral decoration but was otherwise neat and tidy.
Lady Fitzgerald’s daughter Pamela who was married to Sir Guy Campbell and lived in Thames Ditton until her death in 1869 is buried beside her mother. Her other daughter Lucy who married Captain George Lyon and who also lived in Thames Ditton where she died in 1826 is buried in the same cemetery. Lucy was remembered for her charitable works among the poor in Thames Ditton and for founding a local school in which she taught for a time.
The tombstone over Lady Pamela Fitzgerald’s grave at Thames Ditton incorporating part of the damaged tombstone which stood over her first resting place in Montmatre Cemetery Parish is the only visible reminder of the woman who shared her life with the aristocratic and revolutionary Member of Parliament for Athy, Lord Edward Fitzgerald.
In last weeks article I gave details of the web page for the CBS Class Reunion in September. Unfortunately the information given was incorrect. The correct web page is www.rawlinsons.com.au/reunion.
Thursday, August 15, 2002
School Photograph - Independent House 1959
This week I am on holidays so Eye on the Past is largely comprised of what one man’s eyes saw through the lens of his camera in 1959. The occasion was a visit to Independent House in Middle Abbey Street in Dublin, home of the Independent group of newspapers by senior classes of the Christian Brothers School Athy. The one teacher I can recognise in the photograph was the then principal of the school, Brother Brett. The lay teacher standing at the back of the group I do not know, nor can I recognise him from the caption to the photograph when it appeared in the Irish Independent of 43 years ago. There he is identified as Mr. C. Buckley.
I believe the photograph is of pupils from the 5th year class as well as possibly the 2nd and 3rd year classes in the old Christian Brothers School in St. John’s Lane. The original photograph which was kindly lent to me by Ted Wynne has a note appended which gave the date of the visit as 1960. I think however since that was the year we sat our Leaving Certificate examination that it is more likely to have taken place the previous year when we were free of exam pressures. I am open to correction on this however and look forward to hearing from anyone who can identify some or all of the youngsters pictured in the photograph.
Many of those young fellows now approaching pension age will be coming to the class reunion scheduled for the weekend of 20th to 22nd September 2002. The latest bookings confirm that former classmates will be travelling from Australia, America, Canada, China and England to renew acquaintances with many they have not seen for over 40 years.
Details of the programme for the class reunion weekend are on the net at www.rawlinsons.com.au. If you know of anyone who was at school at anytime with the likes of Billy Browne, Teddy Kelly or Enda Dooley contact them and let them know of the upcoming reunion.
In the meantime let me have the names of those captured in this weeks photograph. Again, as with the previous class photograph, a book prize will be offered to the first person coming up with the names of the youngsters photographed on the roof of the Independent House in 1959 or was it 1960?
I believe the photograph is of pupils from the 5th year class as well as possibly the 2nd and 3rd year classes in the old Christian Brothers School in St. John’s Lane. The original photograph which was kindly lent to me by Ted Wynne has a note appended which gave the date of the visit as 1960. I think however since that was the year we sat our Leaving Certificate examination that it is more likely to have taken place the previous year when we were free of exam pressures. I am open to correction on this however and look forward to hearing from anyone who can identify some or all of the youngsters pictured in the photograph.
Many of those young fellows now approaching pension age will be coming to the class reunion scheduled for the weekend of 20th to 22nd September 2002. The latest bookings confirm that former classmates will be travelling from Australia, America, Canada, China and England to renew acquaintances with many they have not seen for over 40 years.
Details of the programme for the class reunion weekend are on the net at www.rawlinsons.com.au. If you know of anyone who was at school at anytime with the likes of Billy Browne, Teddy Kelly or Enda Dooley contact them and let them know of the upcoming reunion.
In the meantime let me have the names of those captured in this weeks photograph. Again, as with the previous class photograph, a book prize will be offered to the first person coming up with the names of the youngsters photographed on the roof of the Independent House in 1959 or was it 1960?
Thursday, August 8, 2002
Visit to Dun Chaoin / Blasket Islands / Annascaul, Co. Kerry
I was in County Kerry last week on a weekend trip organised by the local Heritage Centre, the main purpose of which was to meet members of the Tom Crean Society in Annascaul. Tom Crean you will recall was a colleague of Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer whose exploits are featured in an exhibition in Athy’s Heritage Centre. Annascaul was the birth place of Tom Crean and the place to where he returned when he retired from the Royal Navy in 1920. It was in the South Pole Inn in Annascaul, Co. Kerry that the Athy visitors met the Tom Crean Society members. It was an appropriate meeting place, given its association with Crean who was landlord of the Inn following his retirement until his death in 1938.
On Friday night Brendan Grunewald, originally from South Africa but now living in Belgium, gave a lecture on “living and working at the South Pole”. Brendan who is a physicist spent 14 months living in the Antarctic in conditions which would tax the bravest and the sanest amongst us. His was a wonderful and well received lecture accompanied by slides which I gather may well be included in the Shackleton Autumn School scheduled for Athy during the October bank holiday weekend.
Saturday morning saw the intrepid would be explorers from Athy and South Kildare venturing on foot across the Kerry landscape to visit sites and places associated with Tom Crean. Our guide was Maeve Kelly of Donegal who is now living in Annascaul from where she operates “Walking Boots Tours”. The montbretia and the fuchsia laden hedges provided a colorful backdrop as the walkers followed the Tom Crean Trail which brought us on his favourite walk as well as to his place of birth and his final resting place. It was a lovely sunny day and would remain as such for most of the day as the men and women from the short-grass county made their way past houses still adorned with the Kerry flag following the recent football match played in Thurles. The Crean family home and where Tom Crean was born was down a narrow country lane and there it stood deserted and somewhat dilapidated. A kindly neighbouring farmer did his best to clear the laneway of cow dung so that visitors could walk with greater ease while the football banter flew between the followers of the vanquished and the spade wielding follower of the victors. The men of the kingdom so long used to success bear their football superiority with a generous display of good humour.
The graveyard where Tom Crean is buried is a small one, perhaps a mile or more away from the village of Annascaul. Bound on one side by a stream it occupies ground which was clearly of even poorer quality than the surrounding fields. Those fields for their part did not, to Kildare eyes at least, seem capable of maintaining more than a handful of sheep and even they were conspicuous by their absence. The boggy ground in which the dead of Annascaul had been laid for generations past had caused a village of pedestal tombs to be erected there. These chest-like tombs whose height are greater than their length encased in concrete or stones the remains of local families. There, in the furthest corner beside the murmuring stream was the tomb which the Antarctic explorer Tom Crean built with his own hands to hold the remains of his family. Resting there with Tom Crean is one of his daughters and his beloved wife.
Later that afternoon we journeyed to Dún Chaoin at the uppermost tip of the Dingle Peninsula to meet up with Kilkea born Michael Delaney who was bringing us on a guided tour of the Great Blasket Island. Michael who has spent 30 years or so teaching in the National School in Dún Chaoin had arranged what for most of us was our first opportunity to set foot on the island which was last occupied in 1953. The Great Blasket is thought to have been first occupied in the 17th century and at one time had a population of about 160 people. The chief livelihood of the islanders was fishing, but emigration, particularly to America, provided an escape route for the younger generation. With only 22 or so remaining on the island in 1950 the island was officially evacuated three years later.
Interest in the Blasket Islands has been nurtured over the years by the writings of islanders such as Muiris O’Suilleabhain, Peig Sayers and Thomas O’Criomhthain. O’Suilleabháin’s “Twenty Years of Growing” and O’Criomhthain “The Island Man” are particularly good examples of Blasket Island literature. As for Peig Sayers work anyone who has had to study her for the Leaving Certificate course generally claims that hers is the literature of depression!
The Great Blasket Island is about three miles by one mile of mountainous land, with that part facing Dún Chaoin Parish holding the remains of the houses which in earlier times made up the village. The ruins of about twenty houses dot the landscape and included amongst them is the Protestant school built in the 1830’s as part of the mission work of the Church of England. There is no Church on the island and there never was one. At one time the Church of Dún Chaoin was visible on a good day from the island and the practice evolved of hanging out a white sheet at the Church door when Mass was being said as a signal to the islanders congregated in the island school. There they said their prayers, participating from afar in the mainland Mass across the sea from them in Dún Chaoin. When the white sheet was taken in they new Mass was over and all then departed to their homes.
The Great Blasket trip was the highlight of the weekend trip to County Kerry and to Michael Delaney goes my thanks for generously sharing his time and his knowledge with his former County Kildare neighbours. On the way home on Sunday we stopped off to visit the County Museum in Tralee, and particularly to see the Antarctic exhibition which is on there and will be for a further few months. It’s a first class exhibition and well worth the visit by anyone interested in the South Pole and especially the exploits of such great men as Scott and Kerry’s own Tom Crean.
Tralee itself is like Athy, a 12th century town founded by the Anglo Normans. There the similarities do not end for we find that it was the Fitzgeralds of Desmond who established the town of Tralee and who founded its Dominican Friary ten years before the Dominicans arrived in Athy. Of course it was the Fitzgeralds of the House of Kildare who were the lords and masters of Athy and South Kildare for centuries past and they with the Fitzgeralds of Desmond were the two main branches of the Geraldine family.
The towns of Tralee and Athy founded 800 years ago by different branches of the same family bear many similarities over the years which I hope to go into at another time. Suffice to say that the names Crean and Shackleton are inextricably linked by their Antarctic journeys with Crean honoured in his native County Kerry and the town of Tralee, while Shackleton is remembered in the town of Athy near to where he was born 126 years ago.
The second Shackleton Autumn School will be held in Athy over the weekend of 24th to 27th October, 2002 and further information in relation to the Shackleton School will be announced by Margaret O’Riordan, Manager of the local Heritage Centre over the next few weeks.
On Friday night Brendan Grunewald, originally from South Africa but now living in Belgium, gave a lecture on “living and working at the South Pole”. Brendan who is a physicist spent 14 months living in the Antarctic in conditions which would tax the bravest and the sanest amongst us. His was a wonderful and well received lecture accompanied by slides which I gather may well be included in the Shackleton Autumn School scheduled for Athy during the October bank holiday weekend.
Saturday morning saw the intrepid would be explorers from Athy and South Kildare venturing on foot across the Kerry landscape to visit sites and places associated with Tom Crean. Our guide was Maeve Kelly of Donegal who is now living in Annascaul from where she operates “Walking Boots Tours”. The montbretia and the fuchsia laden hedges provided a colorful backdrop as the walkers followed the Tom Crean Trail which brought us on his favourite walk as well as to his place of birth and his final resting place. It was a lovely sunny day and would remain as such for most of the day as the men and women from the short-grass county made their way past houses still adorned with the Kerry flag following the recent football match played in Thurles. The Crean family home and where Tom Crean was born was down a narrow country lane and there it stood deserted and somewhat dilapidated. A kindly neighbouring farmer did his best to clear the laneway of cow dung so that visitors could walk with greater ease while the football banter flew between the followers of the vanquished and the spade wielding follower of the victors. The men of the kingdom so long used to success bear their football superiority with a generous display of good humour.
The graveyard where Tom Crean is buried is a small one, perhaps a mile or more away from the village of Annascaul. Bound on one side by a stream it occupies ground which was clearly of even poorer quality than the surrounding fields. Those fields for their part did not, to Kildare eyes at least, seem capable of maintaining more than a handful of sheep and even they were conspicuous by their absence. The boggy ground in which the dead of Annascaul had been laid for generations past had caused a village of pedestal tombs to be erected there. These chest-like tombs whose height are greater than their length encased in concrete or stones the remains of local families. There, in the furthest corner beside the murmuring stream was the tomb which the Antarctic explorer Tom Crean built with his own hands to hold the remains of his family. Resting there with Tom Crean is one of his daughters and his beloved wife.
Later that afternoon we journeyed to Dún Chaoin at the uppermost tip of the Dingle Peninsula to meet up with Kilkea born Michael Delaney who was bringing us on a guided tour of the Great Blasket Island. Michael who has spent 30 years or so teaching in the National School in Dún Chaoin had arranged what for most of us was our first opportunity to set foot on the island which was last occupied in 1953. The Great Blasket is thought to have been first occupied in the 17th century and at one time had a population of about 160 people. The chief livelihood of the islanders was fishing, but emigration, particularly to America, provided an escape route for the younger generation. With only 22 or so remaining on the island in 1950 the island was officially evacuated three years later.
Interest in the Blasket Islands has been nurtured over the years by the writings of islanders such as Muiris O’Suilleabhain, Peig Sayers and Thomas O’Criomhthain. O’Suilleabháin’s “Twenty Years of Growing” and O’Criomhthain “The Island Man” are particularly good examples of Blasket Island literature. As for Peig Sayers work anyone who has had to study her for the Leaving Certificate course generally claims that hers is the literature of depression!
The Great Blasket Island is about three miles by one mile of mountainous land, with that part facing Dún Chaoin Parish holding the remains of the houses which in earlier times made up the village. The ruins of about twenty houses dot the landscape and included amongst them is the Protestant school built in the 1830’s as part of the mission work of the Church of England. There is no Church on the island and there never was one. At one time the Church of Dún Chaoin was visible on a good day from the island and the practice evolved of hanging out a white sheet at the Church door when Mass was being said as a signal to the islanders congregated in the island school. There they said their prayers, participating from afar in the mainland Mass across the sea from them in Dún Chaoin. When the white sheet was taken in they new Mass was over and all then departed to their homes.
The Great Blasket trip was the highlight of the weekend trip to County Kerry and to Michael Delaney goes my thanks for generously sharing his time and his knowledge with his former County Kildare neighbours. On the way home on Sunday we stopped off to visit the County Museum in Tralee, and particularly to see the Antarctic exhibition which is on there and will be for a further few months. It’s a first class exhibition and well worth the visit by anyone interested in the South Pole and especially the exploits of such great men as Scott and Kerry’s own Tom Crean.
Tralee itself is like Athy, a 12th century town founded by the Anglo Normans. There the similarities do not end for we find that it was the Fitzgeralds of Desmond who established the town of Tralee and who founded its Dominican Friary ten years before the Dominicans arrived in Athy. Of course it was the Fitzgeralds of the House of Kildare who were the lords and masters of Athy and South Kildare for centuries past and they with the Fitzgeralds of Desmond were the two main branches of the Geraldine family.
The towns of Tralee and Athy founded 800 years ago by different branches of the same family bear many similarities over the years which I hope to go into at another time. Suffice to say that the names Crean and Shackleton are inextricably linked by their Antarctic journeys with Crean honoured in his native County Kerry and the town of Tralee, while Shackleton is remembered in the town of Athy near to where he was born 126 years ago.
The second Shackleton Autumn School will be held in Athy over the weekend of 24th to 27th October, 2002 and further information in relation to the Shackleton School will be announced by Margaret O’Riordan, Manager of the local Heritage Centre over the next few weeks.
Thursday, August 1, 2002
St. Joseph's Boy School Photograph 1946
This week’s Eye on the Past features a photograph of school boys from St. Joseph’s School in Rathstewart. It was taken in or around 1947 or thereabouts. I should be in that photograph as I had started school on 13th May 1946, the same day as Frank English and he figures prominently in that picture from the past. Can you pick him out? And what about the other young lads staring out at the camera lens? A prize awaits the first person who gives me the names of all the young scholars from 55 years ago.
Many of those captured in the photograph all those years ago will be coming together for the first time ever during a class reunion scheduled for the weekend of 20th September. Fifty past pupils of St. Joseph’s School and the Christian Brother’s School have been identified but unfortunately attempts are still being made to locate the present whereabouts of a small number who left Athy many years ago. These include Peter Allen, last heard of in Manchester. Paddy Bracken whom I believe is in Naas but where exactly I have yet to find out. Does anyone know where Leo Dempsey, formerly of the Hibernian Bank, Leinster Street can be contacted? What about Theo Kavanagh, formerly of the Bleeding Horse in Castlemitchell and Paddy Maher, now somewhere in England and originally from Dooley’s Terrace?
Others still to be traced are Colin Seabrook and Christy Southwell, although I am told that Christy might be somewhere in the Curragh/Newbridge area. More difficult to trace will be John Whelan whose family lived in St. Patrick’s Avenue before they emigrated to England in the 1950’s. If you can help trace any of the above I would be delighted if you would contact me.
In the meantime arrangements are going ahead for the class reunion and some of the unfortunate teachers who had to deal with us over the years have now been traced. Paddy O’Riordan, now living in retirement in Cork is the only secondary teacher still with us. Of the primary school teachers Brother Flaherty and Brother Loughran have been traced while the redoubtable Sr. Bernadette who was with us in St. Joseph’s School in the 1940’s will be, hopefully, with us for the September celebrations.
While we have identified 50 past pupils with whom our young years were shared, undoubtedly there will be a few names overlooked. If you are one of those who has not been contacted in connection with the class reunion would you please make contact with me over the next few weeks. The reunion is for everyone and anyone who shared classes with the likes of Frank English, Ted Wynne, Teddy Kelly or myself in either St. Joseph’s School or the Primary School or the Secondary School at St. John’s Lane.
Let me hear from you please. Don’t forget a book prize for the first person to give me the names of all the youngsters snapped in the Convent of Mercy driveway on what was obviously a sunny day over 50 years ago.
Many of those captured in the photograph all those years ago will be coming together for the first time ever during a class reunion scheduled for the weekend of 20th September. Fifty past pupils of St. Joseph’s School and the Christian Brother’s School have been identified but unfortunately attempts are still being made to locate the present whereabouts of a small number who left Athy many years ago. These include Peter Allen, last heard of in Manchester. Paddy Bracken whom I believe is in Naas but where exactly I have yet to find out. Does anyone know where Leo Dempsey, formerly of the Hibernian Bank, Leinster Street can be contacted? What about Theo Kavanagh, formerly of the Bleeding Horse in Castlemitchell and Paddy Maher, now somewhere in England and originally from Dooley’s Terrace?
Others still to be traced are Colin Seabrook and Christy Southwell, although I am told that Christy might be somewhere in the Curragh/Newbridge area. More difficult to trace will be John Whelan whose family lived in St. Patrick’s Avenue before they emigrated to England in the 1950’s. If you can help trace any of the above I would be delighted if you would contact me.
In the meantime arrangements are going ahead for the class reunion and some of the unfortunate teachers who had to deal with us over the years have now been traced. Paddy O’Riordan, now living in retirement in Cork is the only secondary teacher still with us. Of the primary school teachers Brother Flaherty and Brother Loughran have been traced while the redoubtable Sr. Bernadette who was with us in St. Joseph’s School in the 1940’s will be, hopefully, with us for the September celebrations.
While we have identified 50 past pupils with whom our young years were shared, undoubtedly there will be a few names overlooked. If you are one of those who has not been contacted in connection with the class reunion would you please make contact with me over the next few weeks. The reunion is for everyone and anyone who shared classes with the likes of Frank English, Ted Wynne, Teddy Kelly or myself in either St. Joseph’s School or the Primary School or the Secondary School at St. John’s Lane.
Let me hear from you please. Don’t forget a book prize for the first person to give me the names of all the youngsters snapped in the Convent of Mercy driveway on what was obviously a sunny day over 50 years ago.
Thursday, July 18, 2002
Death of Charlie Prendergast / Baby Dooley - Local
It’s not unusual for me to attend two funerals in the one week. It’s a common enough occurrence in a town where births and deaths have been recorded for almost 800 years. What was unusual last week was the age span which separated a 91 year old whose remains were brought in procession for burial in St. Michael’s Cemetery and the tiny one month old baby who followed a few days later.
Those who turned out for the funeral Mass for the nonagenarian Charlie Prendergast did so as a mark of respect for the man who was, for as long as many of us can remember, a well known and widely popular member of Athy’s community. My earliest memories of Charlie Prendergast was in Offaly Street where he called on a few occasions to do some electrical repairs for my parents. He was an extremely likeable man with a quiet air of authority, skilled at his job, who could always be relied upon to come whenever required to sort out any electrical emergencies that arose. He passed away just a few weeks after his younger brother Ger and is survived by his sons Michael and John and daughter Philomena.
Looking around me at the funeral I was struck by the realisation that almost all those in attendance represented what I could recognise as families with ties extending back at least two generations in the town. As the older people such as Charlie pass on, they do so largely unnoticed by the new arrivals in the town. The newcomers are destined not to know the Charlie Prendergast’s of our town and those of his generation who in their younger days created and sustained the social, sporting and cultural life of Athy.
If you are regular readers you may remember that I wrote an Eye on the Past on Charlie Prendergast some time ago. There I extolled his qualities as a singer whose wonderful tenor voice for many years was heard to great effect in the local Church. In later years, Charlie who had spent a lifetime in the electrical business, took to golf as a recreational sport and was a much valued and beloved member of the Geraldine Golf Club. His contribution to the local community made over many decades in his middle years and later is known and acknowledged by those of us whose memories of Athy extend back a few decades.
Even as the population figures released today confirm a substantial increase in the population of county Kildare there is a realisation that Athy is changing. The old order passes on and those who replaced them, sometimes with no previous links with the town, have little or no appreciation of those whose lives were spent in the vale of the Barrow near to the Ford of Ae. Charlie Prendergast was one whose adult life was spent in Athy and his passing severs another link with the story of the town stretching back to the 1940’s and beyond.
The tiny baby whose remains were conveyed to St. Michael’s Cemetery just days after those of Charlie Prendergast has now joined the nonagenarian in the anonymity of death. The short service in St. Michael’s Church immediately before the burial was a poignant reminder of the sadness which flows from the loss of a human life which had not the opportunity to stretch to childhood and beyond. Its a particularly sad time for parents and grand-parents alike and the sight of the tiny white coffin carried in the arms of the father and mother is surely one of the saddest funeral images imaginable. The first funeral, that of 91 year old Charlie Prendergast was attended by friends and community members who wanted to pay their respects to a man who richly deserved their tributes. The infant’s funeral was more a family gathering with neighbours and friends who came to sympathise and show their support for the grieving parents.
How many times have you walked behind a hearse making the short journey to St. Michael’s Cemetery? It’s a journey that is made every week, sometimes as last week more than once. The same journey has been repeated thousands of times, ever since St. Michael’s Cemetery was first used as a burial place for the people of the town. The now familiar funeral procession first started when the Church of St. Michael’s was built on the outskirts of the medieval town sometime in the 14th century. The Church, the remains of which still stand in the cemetery and known today as the “Crickeen” was the first Parish Church for the Parish of St. Michael’s. It followed on the siting of two monasteries in the then village of Athy. The first monastery was that of the Trinitarians near to the Castle of Woodstock on the West bank of the River Barrow. The second monastery founded by the Dominican’s in 1253 was in the area recently in the news following the burning of the Abbey House at the rear of Emily Square. It’s strange that in a town with a history stretching back 800 years that there are but two town cemetery’s - St. John’s and St. Michael’s. They do not seem capable of holding the remains of all those who died and were buried in Athy since the 12th century so the question arises in what other locations were the local people buried?
Perhaps many locals were buried in and around the grounds of the original Dominican Monastery located at the rear of Emily Square. It is almost certain that members of the local Dominican Order found a final resting place in a community cemetery which would have been attached to the Monastery founded in the 13th century. If and when work commences on the development planned for the Abbey site it will inevitably be preceded by an archaeological excavation of the site which should reveal for us heretofore unknown details of the Dominicans and their medieval monastery in Athy.
Burial grounds are sacred places and in our small provincial town we have old St. Michael’s Cemetery on the Dublin Road and it’s more recent replacement new St. Michael’s across from it in what was once part of the town’s Fair green. In addition there is St. John’s Cemetery, a direct link with the Monastery of St. John’s which existed in the area between Duke Street and Woodstock Castle in the 13th and 14th century. Within the town’s boundaries there is also the small cemetery within the grounds of the former Convent of Mercy and the earlier mentioned but as yet unconfirmed Dominican Monastery Cemetery at the rear of Emily Square. Just outside the town are to be found Ardreigh Cemetery on the Carlow Road, Geraldine Cemetery on the Kildare Road and Tubberara Cemetery between the Monasterevin Road and the Milltown Road. Just opposite St. Vincent’s Hospital which started out as the town Workhouse is St. Mary’s Cemetery where the famine dead were laid to rest. They were to be joined by those poor unfortunate people who impoverished and diseased died in the Workhouse in the 19th century or in the County Home as it was designated in the following century.
In the mid-1980’s AnCO - The Industrial Training Authority, since re-named FAS, funded a youth training project during which the gravestones in Old St. Michael’s Cemetery were recorded and mapped. A similar project was undertaken in relation to St. John’s Cemetery a few years ago as a Probation Services Project. In both instances much useful information was collected and collated to give those involved in family research another means of verifying family details.
History is recorded on the gravestones in our local cemeteries and last week two additional names were added to the long list of those who have already passed through life to become part of our communities history.
Those who turned out for the funeral Mass for the nonagenarian Charlie Prendergast did so as a mark of respect for the man who was, for as long as many of us can remember, a well known and widely popular member of Athy’s community. My earliest memories of Charlie Prendergast was in Offaly Street where he called on a few occasions to do some electrical repairs for my parents. He was an extremely likeable man with a quiet air of authority, skilled at his job, who could always be relied upon to come whenever required to sort out any electrical emergencies that arose. He passed away just a few weeks after his younger brother Ger and is survived by his sons Michael and John and daughter Philomena.
Looking around me at the funeral I was struck by the realisation that almost all those in attendance represented what I could recognise as families with ties extending back at least two generations in the town. As the older people such as Charlie pass on, they do so largely unnoticed by the new arrivals in the town. The newcomers are destined not to know the Charlie Prendergast’s of our town and those of his generation who in their younger days created and sustained the social, sporting and cultural life of Athy.
If you are regular readers you may remember that I wrote an Eye on the Past on Charlie Prendergast some time ago. There I extolled his qualities as a singer whose wonderful tenor voice for many years was heard to great effect in the local Church. In later years, Charlie who had spent a lifetime in the electrical business, took to golf as a recreational sport and was a much valued and beloved member of the Geraldine Golf Club. His contribution to the local community made over many decades in his middle years and later is known and acknowledged by those of us whose memories of Athy extend back a few decades.
Even as the population figures released today confirm a substantial increase in the population of county Kildare there is a realisation that Athy is changing. The old order passes on and those who replaced them, sometimes with no previous links with the town, have little or no appreciation of those whose lives were spent in the vale of the Barrow near to the Ford of Ae. Charlie Prendergast was one whose adult life was spent in Athy and his passing severs another link with the story of the town stretching back to the 1940’s and beyond.
The tiny baby whose remains were conveyed to St. Michael’s Cemetery just days after those of Charlie Prendergast has now joined the nonagenarian in the anonymity of death. The short service in St. Michael’s Church immediately before the burial was a poignant reminder of the sadness which flows from the loss of a human life which had not the opportunity to stretch to childhood and beyond. Its a particularly sad time for parents and grand-parents alike and the sight of the tiny white coffin carried in the arms of the father and mother is surely one of the saddest funeral images imaginable. The first funeral, that of 91 year old Charlie Prendergast was attended by friends and community members who wanted to pay their respects to a man who richly deserved their tributes. The infant’s funeral was more a family gathering with neighbours and friends who came to sympathise and show their support for the grieving parents.
How many times have you walked behind a hearse making the short journey to St. Michael’s Cemetery? It’s a journey that is made every week, sometimes as last week more than once. The same journey has been repeated thousands of times, ever since St. Michael’s Cemetery was first used as a burial place for the people of the town. The now familiar funeral procession first started when the Church of St. Michael’s was built on the outskirts of the medieval town sometime in the 14th century. The Church, the remains of which still stand in the cemetery and known today as the “Crickeen” was the first Parish Church for the Parish of St. Michael’s. It followed on the siting of two monasteries in the then village of Athy. The first monastery was that of the Trinitarians near to the Castle of Woodstock on the West bank of the River Barrow. The second monastery founded by the Dominican’s in 1253 was in the area recently in the news following the burning of the Abbey House at the rear of Emily Square. It’s strange that in a town with a history stretching back 800 years that there are but two town cemetery’s - St. John’s and St. Michael’s. They do not seem capable of holding the remains of all those who died and were buried in Athy since the 12th century so the question arises in what other locations were the local people buried?
Perhaps many locals were buried in and around the grounds of the original Dominican Monastery located at the rear of Emily Square. It is almost certain that members of the local Dominican Order found a final resting place in a community cemetery which would have been attached to the Monastery founded in the 13th century. If and when work commences on the development planned for the Abbey site it will inevitably be preceded by an archaeological excavation of the site which should reveal for us heretofore unknown details of the Dominicans and their medieval monastery in Athy.
Burial grounds are sacred places and in our small provincial town we have old St. Michael’s Cemetery on the Dublin Road and it’s more recent replacement new St. Michael’s across from it in what was once part of the town’s Fair green. In addition there is St. John’s Cemetery, a direct link with the Monastery of St. John’s which existed in the area between Duke Street and Woodstock Castle in the 13th and 14th century. Within the town’s boundaries there is also the small cemetery within the grounds of the former Convent of Mercy and the earlier mentioned but as yet unconfirmed Dominican Monastery Cemetery at the rear of Emily Square. Just outside the town are to be found Ardreigh Cemetery on the Carlow Road, Geraldine Cemetery on the Kildare Road and Tubberara Cemetery between the Monasterevin Road and the Milltown Road. Just opposite St. Vincent’s Hospital which started out as the town Workhouse is St. Mary’s Cemetery where the famine dead were laid to rest. They were to be joined by those poor unfortunate people who impoverished and diseased died in the Workhouse in the 19th century or in the County Home as it was designated in the following century.
In the mid-1980’s AnCO - The Industrial Training Authority, since re-named FAS, funded a youth training project during which the gravestones in Old St. Michael’s Cemetery were recorded and mapped. A similar project was undertaken in relation to St. John’s Cemetery a few years ago as a Probation Services Project. In both instances much useful information was collected and collated to give those involved in family research another means of verifying family details.
History is recorded on the gravestones in our local cemeteries and last week two additional names were added to the long list of those who have already passed through life to become part of our communities history.
Thursday, July 11, 2002
Carlow / Kildare Brigade I.R.A.
I have been attempting for some time past to put together a detailed account of the activities of the Irish Volunteers in south Kildare during the War of Independence. It is proving a very difficult task, largely because everyone involved in that period of Irish history has passed away, leaving little or no record of their involvement in the armed struggle which started with the Easter Rising of 1916.
Athy and South Kildare with parts of counties Wicklow and Laois formed part of the Carlow/Kildare Brigade area and as such was separated from the North Kildare 1st and 2nd Battalions IRA which were based in Maynooth and Naas. The A Company of the 5th Battalion Carlow/Kildare Brigade was centred in Athy, while the B Company was in Kilrush and Castledermot formed the C Company of the same battalion. The Volunteers in Athy were under the command of Captain John Hayden of Offaly Street and his two lieutenants were his brother Paddy Hayden and Michael Dunne of Barrow Quay. John Hayden was a teacher in the local Christian Brothers school who emigrated to America in the early 1920’s. His son Fergus was subsequently reared by John’s brother Paddy who later lived in St. Patrick’s Avenue and worked as a baker in Bradburys. Paddy Dunne was a barman in Dillon’s of Barrow Quay and he subsequently lived in Duke Street and worked in Batchelor’s Pea Factory in Rathstewart. The company quartermaster was Mick Carroll of Shrewleen Lane.
The volunteers forming the A Company of the 5th Battalion Carlow Brigade included Bill Nolan, St. Michael’s Terrace; Jim Bradley, Barrack Street; Peter Lambe, Blackparks; Billy Browne, Ardreigh; Jack Delahunt, Chapel Hill; Mick Curtis, Castlemitchell; Joe Walsh, Barrack Street; Paddy Keeffe, Ardreigh; Joe May and Jack Bradley, both of Woodstock Street. Another Volunteer was an employee of McHugh’s Chemist of Duke Street whose surname was either Hogan or Teehan. The list of Volunteers in the A Company is incomplete and I would welcome hearing from anyone who can add to that list.
The Athy based volunteers were principally engaged in frustrating the movement of British troops and the Royal Irish Constabulary and destroying Constabulary Barracks which had been vacated as constabulary withdrew from outlying areas. The mail trains on the Waterford/Dublin line were raided on a few occasions and letters intended for Dublin Castle were taken. During the course of the boycott of goods from Belfast members of the A Company torched the abattoir at the Fairgreen in Athy. The abattoir was leased by a London-based company and that company subsequently lodged a compensation claim for malicious damage with Athy Urban District Council. Around the same time the Courthouse in Emily Square was completely destroyed by fire but while the arsonist was an IRA Member his action did not meet with the approval of his superiors. He was subsequently court marshalled and “drummed out” of the local company of the IRA for a short period. The Courthouse was to remain a derelict ruin for several years before it was rebuilt by Kildare County Council.
During most of this period the Carlow Brigade had as its officer in charge Commdt. Eamon Malone of Barrowhouse, Athy. I have previously written of Eamon Malone who was imprisoned for a period in Mountjoy following his arrest in 1919. While in jail he was one of the leaders of the hunger strike in which many of the IRA Prisoners then in Mountjoy were involved. He is remembered today in the name Malone Place which is a small local authority housing scheme at the end of Woodstock Street opened a few years ago.
The B Company based in Kilrush was under the immediate control of Captain Sean Flanagan who was later promoted to Battalion Commandant. I have not been able to identify the members of his company, many of whom were involved in destroying a number of bridges in their area. They succeeded in blowing up Kilboggan Bridge, as well as two other bridges in the Tippeenan area which is in the parish of Fontstown. The most serious incident involving the Kilrush area was the arrest, court martialling and subsequent execution of a local man suspected of passing information to the British authorities.
The C Company of the Carlow Brigade was centred in Castledermot. Paddy Cosgrove was the company captain and it is generally believed that the Castledermot Company was one of the more active units in South Kildare during the War of Independence. They burned down the local RIC Barracks during the course of which Captain Cosgrave suffered serious burns as he re-entered the burning building to rescue a young volunteer who had been injured in a premature explosion. Cosgrave was later brought in secret to the hospital in Athy where he was detained and treated by the hospital staff without word of his whereabouts ever being leaked to the Constabulary in the nearby RIC Barracks. Some members of the Castledermot Company may have also been involved in the burning down of the RIC Barracks in Ballitore although I understand this was an action for which the Dunlavin Volunteers were largely responsible.
The Athy Company made an unsuccessful attack on the RIC Barracks in Athy during the War of Independence. This Barracks had been relocated from White’s Castle to the former Army Barracks in Barrack Lane some years previously. Shots were exchanged between the IRA attackers and the RIC men but so far as I am aware no-one was injured.
Not so fortunate were William Connor and Jim Lacey members of the Ballylinan Company which with Killeshin and Bilboa were also part of the Carlow/Kildare Brigade area. Connor and Lacey were part of an IRA ambush which lay in wait near Barrowhouse for RIC men travelling on bikes between Ballylinan and Maganey. The date was 16th May 1921 and on the previous day guns and ammunition had been brought from Castledermot and delivered to Joe Maher of Cullinagh, leader of the Barrowhouse unit. The ambush proved a disaster for the local IRA men. The two young volunteers, William Connor and Jim Lacey, were shot dead by the RIC men and their bodies were left at the scene of the ambush when their companions withdrew. They were the only IRA volunteers to die in this area during the War of Independence and today the place where they fell in is marked by a simple metal cross. Their bodies lie side by side in the graveyard attached to St. Mary’s Church in Barrowhouse.
Eamon Malone, Commandant of the Carlow/Kildare Brigade married an Athy girl Kathleen Dooley following the treaty and he later lived and worked in England. He died a relatively young man and was subsequently buried in Barrow House graveyard, not far from where his colleagues William Connor and Jim Lacey are buried.
The story of the War of Independence in the South Kildare area needs to be fleshed out more than I have been able to do so in this article. I would like to hear from anyone who can give me any information on the topic and particularly anyone who can help me identify those men who were involved in any of the IRA Companies in Athy, Kilrush, Castledermot or Ballylinan.
Margaret O’Riordan of the Heritage Centre tells me that the trip to Annascaul in County Kerry, the birth place of the Antarctic explorer Tom Crean was postponed due to Kildare’s participation in the Leinster Football Final. The trip will now take place over the weekend of 10th August and anyone interested in travelling should contact Margaret at (0507) 33075.
Athy and South Kildare with parts of counties Wicklow and Laois formed part of the Carlow/Kildare Brigade area and as such was separated from the North Kildare 1st and 2nd Battalions IRA which were based in Maynooth and Naas. The A Company of the 5th Battalion Carlow/Kildare Brigade was centred in Athy, while the B Company was in Kilrush and Castledermot formed the C Company of the same battalion. The Volunteers in Athy were under the command of Captain John Hayden of Offaly Street and his two lieutenants were his brother Paddy Hayden and Michael Dunne of Barrow Quay. John Hayden was a teacher in the local Christian Brothers school who emigrated to America in the early 1920’s. His son Fergus was subsequently reared by John’s brother Paddy who later lived in St. Patrick’s Avenue and worked as a baker in Bradburys. Paddy Dunne was a barman in Dillon’s of Barrow Quay and he subsequently lived in Duke Street and worked in Batchelor’s Pea Factory in Rathstewart. The company quartermaster was Mick Carroll of Shrewleen Lane.
The volunteers forming the A Company of the 5th Battalion Carlow Brigade included Bill Nolan, St. Michael’s Terrace; Jim Bradley, Barrack Street; Peter Lambe, Blackparks; Billy Browne, Ardreigh; Jack Delahunt, Chapel Hill; Mick Curtis, Castlemitchell; Joe Walsh, Barrack Street; Paddy Keeffe, Ardreigh; Joe May and Jack Bradley, both of Woodstock Street. Another Volunteer was an employee of McHugh’s Chemist of Duke Street whose surname was either Hogan or Teehan. The list of Volunteers in the A Company is incomplete and I would welcome hearing from anyone who can add to that list.
The Athy based volunteers were principally engaged in frustrating the movement of British troops and the Royal Irish Constabulary and destroying Constabulary Barracks which had been vacated as constabulary withdrew from outlying areas. The mail trains on the Waterford/Dublin line were raided on a few occasions and letters intended for Dublin Castle were taken. During the course of the boycott of goods from Belfast members of the A Company torched the abattoir at the Fairgreen in Athy. The abattoir was leased by a London-based company and that company subsequently lodged a compensation claim for malicious damage with Athy Urban District Council. Around the same time the Courthouse in Emily Square was completely destroyed by fire but while the arsonist was an IRA Member his action did not meet with the approval of his superiors. He was subsequently court marshalled and “drummed out” of the local company of the IRA for a short period. The Courthouse was to remain a derelict ruin for several years before it was rebuilt by Kildare County Council.
During most of this period the Carlow Brigade had as its officer in charge Commdt. Eamon Malone of Barrowhouse, Athy. I have previously written of Eamon Malone who was imprisoned for a period in Mountjoy following his arrest in 1919. While in jail he was one of the leaders of the hunger strike in which many of the IRA Prisoners then in Mountjoy were involved. He is remembered today in the name Malone Place which is a small local authority housing scheme at the end of Woodstock Street opened a few years ago.
The B Company based in Kilrush was under the immediate control of Captain Sean Flanagan who was later promoted to Battalion Commandant. I have not been able to identify the members of his company, many of whom were involved in destroying a number of bridges in their area. They succeeded in blowing up Kilboggan Bridge, as well as two other bridges in the Tippeenan area which is in the parish of Fontstown. The most serious incident involving the Kilrush area was the arrest, court martialling and subsequent execution of a local man suspected of passing information to the British authorities.
The C Company of the Carlow Brigade was centred in Castledermot. Paddy Cosgrove was the company captain and it is generally believed that the Castledermot Company was one of the more active units in South Kildare during the War of Independence. They burned down the local RIC Barracks during the course of which Captain Cosgrave suffered serious burns as he re-entered the burning building to rescue a young volunteer who had been injured in a premature explosion. Cosgrave was later brought in secret to the hospital in Athy where he was detained and treated by the hospital staff without word of his whereabouts ever being leaked to the Constabulary in the nearby RIC Barracks. Some members of the Castledermot Company may have also been involved in the burning down of the RIC Barracks in Ballitore although I understand this was an action for which the Dunlavin Volunteers were largely responsible.
The Athy Company made an unsuccessful attack on the RIC Barracks in Athy during the War of Independence. This Barracks had been relocated from White’s Castle to the former Army Barracks in Barrack Lane some years previously. Shots were exchanged between the IRA attackers and the RIC men but so far as I am aware no-one was injured.
Not so fortunate were William Connor and Jim Lacey members of the Ballylinan Company which with Killeshin and Bilboa were also part of the Carlow/Kildare Brigade area. Connor and Lacey were part of an IRA ambush which lay in wait near Barrowhouse for RIC men travelling on bikes between Ballylinan and Maganey. The date was 16th May 1921 and on the previous day guns and ammunition had been brought from Castledermot and delivered to Joe Maher of Cullinagh, leader of the Barrowhouse unit. The ambush proved a disaster for the local IRA men. The two young volunteers, William Connor and Jim Lacey, were shot dead by the RIC men and their bodies were left at the scene of the ambush when their companions withdrew. They were the only IRA volunteers to die in this area during the War of Independence and today the place where they fell in is marked by a simple metal cross. Their bodies lie side by side in the graveyard attached to St. Mary’s Church in Barrowhouse.
Eamon Malone, Commandant of the Carlow/Kildare Brigade married an Athy girl Kathleen Dooley following the treaty and he later lived and worked in England. He died a relatively young man and was subsequently buried in Barrow House graveyard, not far from where his colleagues William Connor and Jim Lacey are buried.
The story of the War of Independence in the South Kildare area needs to be fleshed out more than I have been able to do so in this article. I would like to hear from anyone who can give me any information on the topic and particularly anyone who can help me identify those men who were involved in any of the IRA Companies in Athy, Kilrush, Castledermot or Ballylinan.
Margaret O’Riordan of the Heritage Centre tells me that the trip to Annascaul in County Kerry, the birth place of the Antarctic explorer Tom Crean was postponed due to Kildare’s participation in the Leinster Football Final. The trip will now take place over the weekend of 10th August and anyone interested in travelling should contact Margaret at (0507) 33075.
Thursday, July 4, 2002
World War I Cemeteries
The experience of visiting places associated with our history is probably one of the most interesting aspects of historical study. There are few areas in Europe more closely linked with Athy than the town of Ypres in Southern Belgium and the villages and rural areas lying in the vicinity of the river Somme in France between Gommecourt and Maricourt. Ypres a former garrison town was famous for the production of flax, lace and cotton and for its Cloth Hall, the largest non-religious gothic building in Europe.
When Belgium became embroiled in the first World War on the 4th of August 1914 there was a little reason then to believe that the thriving country town of Ypres would soon become a symbol of the destructive power of warfare. When the war ended on the 11th of November 1918 the entire town had been levelled to the ground and in the surrounding countryside many thousands of Irish men had died. The Western Front across which the German army faced the combined Allied Forces became a burial ground as men fell in battle. Further south the river Somme was to be forever associated with battles between the opposing forces and the most horrific losses of human life imaginable.
I had occasion recently to visit Flanders and the Somme areas associated with World War I. The experience was an extraordinary one. I have often written of Athy men’s involvement in the war but have to admit that I never appreciated or quite grasped the enormity of the loss of human life which occurred on the Western Front during World War I. Everywhere I went in southern Belgium I came to realise that the entire Flanders countryside was a memorial to the dead. Here, there and everywhere, were cemeteries each with headstones of uniform size and shape reminding one of ranks of soldiers on parade. Those cemeteries, sometimes containing thousands of graves, sometimes hundreds or even smaller numbers, are found at the side of roads or located inland and accessed through fields. Each headstone carries the name of a soldier, his rank, regiment, the date he died and often his age and an inscription chosen by his family. Very often a headstone did not bear a name but instead the inscription “A soldier of the Great War” and the words “Known unto God”. This latter phrase was chosen by the English writer Rudyard Kipling who himself lost his son in the war.
The cemeteries, especially the smaller ones, located nearer to farmyards or in farmers fields, are generally battlefield cemeteries containing the remains of soldiers buried where they fell. The larger cemeteries are for the most part where the dead were brought for burial or where, after the war bodies exhumed from outlining areas were brought together. For many thousands who died during World War I there is no identifiable resting place. For that reason a number of memorials were erected in France and Flanders to record the names of those unfortunate men. In the town of Ypres in Flanders is to be found the famous Menin Gate Memorial regarded by many as the most important British War memorial in the world. It records on wall panels the names of approximately 54,000 men who died in various battles in and around Ypres and whose remains were never identified or found. The names of several Athy men are recorded on the Menin Gate Memorial and I was very conscious of that fact when I stood there last week as the Last Post was played by four buglers at preciously 8 o’clock in the evening. Every day of the year the traffic passing through the Menin Gate on one of the main routes into the town of Ypres is stopped while the Last Post is sounded. It is a moving ceremony which has taken place every evening since it was inaugurated on the 2nd of July 1928. The only exception was during World War II when Germans again occupied Ypres. On the memorial gate itself I noted the names of Patrick Flynn, Andrew Reilly, Michael Devoy, Patrick Leonard, Joseph Byrne, James Dillon, Christopher Power, Patrick Tierney, Moses Doyle, Edward Lawler and Henry Hannon all from the town of Athy. These were some of the unfortunate young men from our town who died fighting in Flanders during the first World War and whose bodies were never identified or found.
Just a few short miles outside the town of Ypres I came across the grave of another Athy man killed in that war. It was at Sanctuary Wood Cemetery that I found the last resting place of Patrick Curtis who was 28 years old when he died on Thursday, 5th of November 1914. He was a son of John and Margaret Curtis of Kilcrow and one of three brothers who died in World War I. His was the first World War I grave of an Athy man I came across in Flanders and when I journeyed later into Northern France I had the opportunity of paying my respects at the graveside of John Coulson Hannon who died on the 18th of August 1916 aged 23 years. He is buried in Caterpillar Valley Cemetery near the village of Longueval and his gravestone carries the inscription “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven” put there at the request of his parents, Mr and Mrs John Hannon of Ardreigh House. John Coulson Hannon was a brother of Norman Hannon who was only 20 years old when he was killed in France on the 16th of May 1915.
Not very far away from Longueval is the small village of Guillemont where another Athy man John Vincent Holland won his Victoria cross. Outside the small village church in Guillemont stands a Celtic cross and as I stood there in the centre of the village my thoughts were of those Athy men who fought and died and those who survived what we still call the Great War. There was surely nothing great about a conflict which sent so many young men to premature deaths and to graves which are scattered throughout the countryside of France and Flanders.
While I was away Ger Prendergast and Dan Meany passed away. Full of years and part and parcel of life in Athy for decades past, both men contributed, each in his own unique way, to the social life of the town. Ger’s entire life was spent with racehorses and during his colourful life he contributed an extraordinary amount to the lore of the town where he had lived for so long. Dan Meany was a man whose interest in Athy and whose knowledge of the people and fabric of the town was combined with a an expertise which resulted in a photographic collection unequalled anywhere else in Athy. For decades he captured on film the events and happenings in the town and the results are an extremely important visual account of the social life of Athy and its people. Both Gerard and Dan will be sadly missed.
The Last Post which represents in military funerals, a last farewell to the dead is an integral part of the daily Menin Gate Memorial ceremonies in Flanders. This week St. Michael’s cemetery echoed to the sound of the Last Post played by two buglers of the Irish Army as a parting salute to their dead colleague, Sean Day. His sudden and untimely death and the manner of his death shocked his neighbours and friends and brought great grief to his family. His funeral in St. Michael’s cemetery was that accorded to a serving soldier and was marked with the military precision and orderliness which one comes to expect on such occasions.
As the Last Post echoed across the graves of St. Michael’s Cemetery I was reminded of the Athy soldiers from a previous generation who died fighting on the Continent over 85 years ago and who are remembered each evening at the Menin Gate in Ypres.
May they all rest in peace.
When Belgium became embroiled in the first World War on the 4th of August 1914 there was a little reason then to believe that the thriving country town of Ypres would soon become a symbol of the destructive power of warfare. When the war ended on the 11th of November 1918 the entire town had been levelled to the ground and in the surrounding countryside many thousands of Irish men had died. The Western Front across which the German army faced the combined Allied Forces became a burial ground as men fell in battle. Further south the river Somme was to be forever associated with battles between the opposing forces and the most horrific losses of human life imaginable.
I had occasion recently to visit Flanders and the Somme areas associated with World War I. The experience was an extraordinary one. I have often written of Athy men’s involvement in the war but have to admit that I never appreciated or quite grasped the enormity of the loss of human life which occurred on the Western Front during World War I. Everywhere I went in southern Belgium I came to realise that the entire Flanders countryside was a memorial to the dead. Here, there and everywhere, were cemeteries each with headstones of uniform size and shape reminding one of ranks of soldiers on parade. Those cemeteries, sometimes containing thousands of graves, sometimes hundreds or even smaller numbers, are found at the side of roads or located inland and accessed through fields. Each headstone carries the name of a soldier, his rank, regiment, the date he died and often his age and an inscription chosen by his family. Very often a headstone did not bear a name but instead the inscription “A soldier of the Great War” and the words “Known unto God”. This latter phrase was chosen by the English writer Rudyard Kipling who himself lost his son in the war.
The cemeteries, especially the smaller ones, located nearer to farmyards or in farmers fields, are generally battlefield cemeteries containing the remains of soldiers buried where they fell. The larger cemeteries are for the most part where the dead were brought for burial or where, after the war bodies exhumed from outlining areas were brought together. For many thousands who died during World War I there is no identifiable resting place. For that reason a number of memorials were erected in France and Flanders to record the names of those unfortunate men. In the town of Ypres in Flanders is to be found the famous Menin Gate Memorial regarded by many as the most important British War memorial in the world. It records on wall panels the names of approximately 54,000 men who died in various battles in and around Ypres and whose remains were never identified or found. The names of several Athy men are recorded on the Menin Gate Memorial and I was very conscious of that fact when I stood there last week as the Last Post was played by four buglers at preciously 8 o’clock in the evening. Every day of the year the traffic passing through the Menin Gate on one of the main routes into the town of Ypres is stopped while the Last Post is sounded. It is a moving ceremony which has taken place every evening since it was inaugurated on the 2nd of July 1928. The only exception was during World War II when Germans again occupied Ypres. On the memorial gate itself I noted the names of Patrick Flynn, Andrew Reilly, Michael Devoy, Patrick Leonard, Joseph Byrne, James Dillon, Christopher Power, Patrick Tierney, Moses Doyle, Edward Lawler and Henry Hannon all from the town of Athy. These were some of the unfortunate young men from our town who died fighting in Flanders during the first World War and whose bodies were never identified or found.
Just a few short miles outside the town of Ypres I came across the grave of another Athy man killed in that war. It was at Sanctuary Wood Cemetery that I found the last resting place of Patrick Curtis who was 28 years old when he died on Thursday, 5th of November 1914. He was a son of John and Margaret Curtis of Kilcrow and one of three brothers who died in World War I. His was the first World War I grave of an Athy man I came across in Flanders and when I journeyed later into Northern France I had the opportunity of paying my respects at the graveside of John Coulson Hannon who died on the 18th of August 1916 aged 23 years. He is buried in Caterpillar Valley Cemetery near the village of Longueval and his gravestone carries the inscription “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven” put there at the request of his parents, Mr and Mrs John Hannon of Ardreigh House. John Coulson Hannon was a brother of Norman Hannon who was only 20 years old when he was killed in France on the 16th of May 1915.
Not very far away from Longueval is the small village of Guillemont where another Athy man John Vincent Holland won his Victoria cross. Outside the small village church in Guillemont stands a Celtic cross and as I stood there in the centre of the village my thoughts were of those Athy men who fought and died and those who survived what we still call the Great War. There was surely nothing great about a conflict which sent so many young men to premature deaths and to graves which are scattered throughout the countryside of France and Flanders.
While I was away Ger Prendergast and Dan Meany passed away. Full of years and part and parcel of life in Athy for decades past, both men contributed, each in his own unique way, to the social life of the town. Ger’s entire life was spent with racehorses and during his colourful life he contributed an extraordinary amount to the lore of the town where he had lived for so long. Dan Meany was a man whose interest in Athy and whose knowledge of the people and fabric of the town was combined with a an expertise which resulted in a photographic collection unequalled anywhere else in Athy. For decades he captured on film the events and happenings in the town and the results are an extremely important visual account of the social life of Athy and its people. Both Gerard and Dan will be sadly missed.
The Last Post which represents in military funerals, a last farewell to the dead is an integral part of the daily Menin Gate Memorial ceremonies in Flanders. This week St. Michael’s cemetery echoed to the sound of the Last Post played by two buglers of the Irish Army as a parting salute to their dead colleague, Sean Day. His sudden and untimely death and the manner of his death shocked his neighbours and friends and brought great grief to his family. His funeral in St. Michael’s cemetery was that accorded to a serving soldier and was marked with the military precision and orderliness which one comes to expect on such occasions.
As the Last Post echoed across the graves of St. Michael’s Cemetery I was reminded of the Athy soldiers from a previous generation who died fighting on the Continent over 85 years ago and who are remembered each evening at the Menin Gate in Ypres.
May they all rest in peace.
Thursday, June 27, 2002
Athy Men Killed in World War I and Buried Abroad
I read in the local newspapers this week of the decision of Kildare County Council to compile a list of those men from the county of Kildare who died while soldiering during the first World War. I use the word “soldiering” rather than “serving” or “fighting” as it perhaps serves better to encompass anyone, either male or female, who died in any uniform during the 1914 - 1918 conflict. It is right that Kildare County Council should undertake this task now for a similar decision taken by Athy Urban District Council during the course of the War does not appear to have been acted upon. At least the results of whatever research, if any, which might have been carried out at that time has not come down to us today.
I have always been interested in the effect that the slaughter on the battlefields of France, Flanders and elsewhere had on post-war life in Ireland and especially in Athy and south Kildare. It is now generally accepted that for whatever reason Athy and district gave a disproportionate number of young men to the war effort at a time when the first evidence of Irish nationalism was becoming apparent. The history of military enlistment in south Kildare so far as native Irishmen are concerned goes back to the closing decades of the 18th century. Even during and after the 1798 period when rebellious activity was never far away, young Athy men were enlisting in the British Army. What was the motivation for doing that? Was it a desperate attempt to get away from the poverty and misery which was to be found everywhere in provincial Ireland of that time? If it was what benefit, if any, resulted for those who stayed at home?
The same question asked in relation to enlistment in the British Army during World War I seems easier to answer. This was the war where a separated women’s allowance of 12/6 per week was paid to the wives of men who enlisted and to dependent mothers. An allowance of 12/6 per week was paid for each dependent child. Given the poor living conditions which were then to be found in Athy as elsewhere in Ireland, surely these financial inducements offered sufficient encouragement in themselves for any young man to take the “Kings Shilling”. The Irish War Memorials published a few years after the November 1918 Armistices give the names and details of 49435 men believed to be Irish who died in the war. Research carried out in more recent years indicates that the true mortality figure for Irishmen is somewhere nearer to 36,000. What is certain however is that Athy and District suffered a loss of upwards of 180 men in the 1914 - 1918 war. Very few of those who died were ever found and their names for the most part are recorded in memorials and monuments. Of those who were identified and buried in graves which recorded names, very few lie in their own country. In St. Michael’s cemetery in Athy we have the graves of six soldiers, each from Athy, who died while at home on leave from the war. They were :-
James Dwyer, Thomas Flynn, Martin Hyland, Michael O’Brien, Michael Byrne and John Lawler. They ranged in age from 27 to 37 and two of them, John Lawler and Martin Hyland, were married men.
In Geraldine Cemetery lies another Athy soldier, Martin Maloney who was 33 years old when he died on 13th March 1917. He was survived by his widow Ellen Maloney of Castlemitchell. Alfred Coyle who was a private in the South Irish Horse died on 27th August 1917 and his is the only military grave in Nicholastown Cemetery. Further out at Crookstown Cemetery is buried Andrew Delaney who died on 31st May 1915 in Netley Hospital in England from gas poisoning. His remains were brought home from hospital for burial in his own village cemetery.
World War I soldiers from Athy are to be found buried in many parts of the world. The English mainland provides the last resting place of Laurence Dooley who at 43 years died on 12 May 1915 leaving his widow Brigid Dooley, then living in Meeting Lane. He is buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Lincolnshire and he probably died at the 4th Northern General Hospital which during the war was located in the Grammar School Lincoln.
John Kelly, son of John and Mary Kelly of Chapel Lane, Athy died on 23 May 1915 aged 20 years and was buried at Netley Hospital, England. His brother Owen who died just over two months later is buried at Brewery Orchard Cemetery in Nord, France, while his other brother Denis who was 20 years old when he was killed on 30 September 1918 is buried in a Military Cemetery in Belgium. A Levitstown man, John Reilly, son of James and Brigid Reilly found a resting place in Ripon Cemetery in Yorkshire. He was 21 years old when he died on 6th May 1918. The Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton records the name of Michael Ryan, an Athy man who was drowned at sea on 17 November 1915. He was on the hospital ship Anglia when it sank off Dover and his body was never recovered. Grenwich Cemetery in England is the last resting place of Athy man William Nolan, a driver in the Royal Army services who died on 18 September 1915. It is possible that he may have died in the nearby Herbert Hospital, one of the permanent military hospitals in England during the first World War.
SEAMUS, HALF WAY POINT
Turkey holds the remains of John Farrell who died aged 31 years on 30th April 1915. He was the son of Thomas and Mary Farrell of Janeville Lane and he is buried in the V Beach Cemetery. In the same cemetery is Laurence Kelly of Chapel Hill, Athy who was 23 years old when he died five days before John Farrell, as well as Christopher Hanlon who was killed on the same day as John Farrell. Another Athy man buried in Turkish soil is Frank Fanning from Chapel Lane whose grave is in the Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery. He was killed on 12 July 1915. His brother John also enlisted in the British Army as a drummer boy at the age of 16 years. However, he survived the war and died in 1956. The body of William Moran who died in Gallipoli on 9 August 1915 was never found and his name is recorded on the Helles Memorial in Turkey with that of another Athy man, Daniel Delaney who died on 12 July 1915.
Two of the loneliest grave sites are those of Christopher Whelan and Martin Hurley who were both from Athy. Christopher Whelan was 19 years old when killed at Gallipoli on 10 October 1916. He is buried in Salonika Military Cemetery in Greece. Martin Hurley died in India on 22 August 1916 and he is buried at Karachi which is now part of Pakistan.
Three local men whose graves are in a cemetery approximately ten kilometers south of Kassel in Germany are Michael Bowden, Martin Maher and John Byrne. All three were members of the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers and on being captured by the Germans spent the remainder of their short lives as Prisoners of War. Martin Maher, son of Martin and Ellen Maher of the town was 30 years old when he died on 5 March 1915. His fellow townsmen John Byrne and Michael Bowden died in 1918.
Many more Athy men died during the war but their bodies were never found or identified. Listed as missing, these men were eventually commemorated on one of the many war memorials erected after the Armistices. The Thiepval Memorial which is a memorial to the missing of the Somme bears the names of 72,000 officers and men of the British Expeditionary Force who died during the Battle of the Somme. Many of those names are those of men who a few short years before walked the streets of our town. Their names, or some of them at least, will be familiar even down to the present generation. Robert McWilliam, Edward Dowling, Richard Daly, Joseph Murphy, Johnny Mulhall, Thomas Connell, Robert Hackett and John Delaney. Two men from Offaly Street are also listed on the Thiepval Memorial. James Dunne from No. 3 Offaly Street was 20 years old when he died on 13 November 1916 while Thomas Stafford was 24 years old when he died on 6 September of the same year. He was one of two brothers to die in World War I.
The Menin Gate is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders which covers the area known as the Ypres Salient. The Salient was formed during the first battle of Ypres in October and November 1914 when a small British force pushed the Germans back to the Passchendaele Ridge. The second battle of Ypres began in April 1915 when the Germans used gas for the first time which they released into the British lines. The British Army suffered many casualties as a result and significantly at least six Athy men died during that April battle. The first to die was Moses Doyle who passed away on Sunday, 25 April 1915 and on the following day he was joined in death by four Athy men who were all members of the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Patrick Tierney, a young man of 22 years was son of Jack and Julia Tierney of Foxhill. Christopher Power was also 22 years old and was survived by his parents Thomas and Sarah Power of Canal Side. The other two Athy men to die on 26 April 1915 were Joseph Byrne and James Dillon, both again members of the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Patrick Leonard of the same regiment and of the same town died three days later. Their bodies were never found.
Another five men were to die in the same locality. Edward Lawler of 6 Meeting Lane, aged 21 years was killed on 21st May, while Henry Hannon, formerly of Ardreigh House, Athy died on 9 June 1916. He was 23 years of age. Michael Devoy, a married man and 43 years old, died on 30 July 1915. The final two Athy victims were Andrew Reilly and Patrick Flynn. Flynn of Leinster Street and his companion were killed on 11 August 1917. The names of these eleven Athy men whose bodies were never recovered are listed on the Menin Gate Memorial in Belgium.
Of the 188 men from Athy and district who died during World War I a considerable number would never have their deaths dignified by having their remains recovered, identified and committed to the ground in a marked grave. The call which emanated last week from Kildare County Council to record the names of all those from the County who died during World War I is a timely acknowledgment that we should never forget the terrible price our townspeople had to pay in terms of lost fathers, husbands and brothers. Truly can it be said that Athy in the second decade of the last century lost a generation whose remains are locked in the soil of countries as far apart as Turkey, Greece, Pakistan, Belgium, France and England.
I have always been interested in the effect that the slaughter on the battlefields of France, Flanders and elsewhere had on post-war life in Ireland and especially in Athy and south Kildare. It is now generally accepted that for whatever reason Athy and district gave a disproportionate number of young men to the war effort at a time when the first evidence of Irish nationalism was becoming apparent. The history of military enlistment in south Kildare so far as native Irishmen are concerned goes back to the closing decades of the 18th century. Even during and after the 1798 period when rebellious activity was never far away, young Athy men were enlisting in the British Army. What was the motivation for doing that? Was it a desperate attempt to get away from the poverty and misery which was to be found everywhere in provincial Ireland of that time? If it was what benefit, if any, resulted for those who stayed at home?
The same question asked in relation to enlistment in the British Army during World War I seems easier to answer. This was the war where a separated women’s allowance of 12/6 per week was paid to the wives of men who enlisted and to dependent mothers. An allowance of 12/6 per week was paid for each dependent child. Given the poor living conditions which were then to be found in Athy as elsewhere in Ireland, surely these financial inducements offered sufficient encouragement in themselves for any young man to take the “Kings Shilling”. The Irish War Memorials published a few years after the November 1918 Armistices give the names and details of 49435 men believed to be Irish who died in the war. Research carried out in more recent years indicates that the true mortality figure for Irishmen is somewhere nearer to 36,000. What is certain however is that Athy and District suffered a loss of upwards of 180 men in the 1914 - 1918 war. Very few of those who died were ever found and their names for the most part are recorded in memorials and monuments. Of those who were identified and buried in graves which recorded names, very few lie in their own country. In St. Michael’s cemetery in Athy we have the graves of six soldiers, each from Athy, who died while at home on leave from the war. They were :-
James Dwyer, Thomas Flynn, Martin Hyland, Michael O’Brien, Michael Byrne and John Lawler. They ranged in age from 27 to 37 and two of them, John Lawler and Martin Hyland, were married men.
In Geraldine Cemetery lies another Athy soldier, Martin Maloney who was 33 years old when he died on 13th March 1917. He was survived by his widow Ellen Maloney of Castlemitchell. Alfred Coyle who was a private in the South Irish Horse died on 27th August 1917 and his is the only military grave in Nicholastown Cemetery. Further out at Crookstown Cemetery is buried Andrew Delaney who died on 31st May 1915 in Netley Hospital in England from gas poisoning. His remains were brought home from hospital for burial in his own village cemetery.
World War I soldiers from Athy are to be found buried in many parts of the world. The English mainland provides the last resting place of Laurence Dooley who at 43 years died on 12 May 1915 leaving his widow Brigid Dooley, then living in Meeting Lane. He is buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Lincolnshire and he probably died at the 4th Northern General Hospital which during the war was located in the Grammar School Lincoln.
John Kelly, son of John and Mary Kelly of Chapel Lane, Athy died on 23 May 1915 aged 20 years and was buried at Netley Hospital, England. His brother Owen who died just over two months later is buried at Brewery Orchard Cemetery in Nord, France, while his other brother Denis who was 20 years old when he was killed on 30 September 1918 is buried in a Military Cemetery in Belgium. A Levitstown man, John Reilly, son of James and Brigid Reilly found a resting place in Ripon Cemetery in Yorkshire. He was 21 years old when he died on 6th May 1918. The Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton records the name of Michael Ryan, an Athy man who was drowned at sea on 17 November 1915. He was on the hospital ship Anglia when it sank off Dover and his body was never recovered. Grenwich Cemetery in England is the last resting place of Athy man William Nolan, a driver in the Royal Army services who died on 18 September 1915. It is possible that he may have died in the nearby Herbert Hospital, one of the permanent military hospitals in England during the first World War.
SEAMUS, HALF WAY POINT
Turkey holds the remains of John Farrell who died aged 31 years on 30th April 1915. He was the son of Thomas and Mary Farrell of Janeville Lane and he is buried in the V Beach Cemetery. In the same cemetery is Laurence Kelly of Chapel Hill, Athy who was 23 years old when he died five days before John Farrell, as well as Christopher Hanlon who was killed on the same day as John Farrell. Another Athy man buried in Turkish soil is Frank Fanning from Chapel Lane whose grave is in the Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery. He was killed on 12 July 1915. His brother John also enlisted in the British Army as a drummer boy at the age of 16 years. However, he survived the war and died in 1956. The body of William Moran who died in Gallipoli on 9 August 1915 was never found and his name is recorded on the Helles Memorial in Turkey with that of another Athy man, Daniel Delaney who died on 12 July 1915.
Two of the loneliest grave sites are those of Christopher Whelan and Martin Hurley who were both from Athy. Christopher Whelan was 19 years old when killed at Gallipoli on 10 October 1916. He is buried in Salonika Military Cemetery in Greece. Martin Hurley died in India on 22 August 1916 and he is buried at Karachi which is now part of Pakistan.
Three local men whose graves are in a cemetery approximately ten kilometers south of Kassel in Germany are Michael Bowden, Martin Maher and John Byrne. All three were members of the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers and on being captured by the Germans spent the remainder of their short lives as Prisoners of War. Martin Maher, son of Martin and Ellen Maher of the town was 30 years old when he died on 5 March 1915. His fellow townsmen John Byrne and Michael Bowden died in 1918.
Many more Athy men died during the war but their bodies were never found or identified. Listed as missing, these men were eventually commemorated on one of the many war memorials erected after the Armistices. The Thiepval Memorial which is a memorial to the missing of the Somme bears the names of 72,000 officers and men of the British Expeditionary Force who died during the Battle of the Somme. Many of those names are those of men who a few short years before walked the streets of our town. Their names, or some of them at least, will be familiar even down to the present generation. Robert McWilliam, Edward Dowling, Richard Daly, Joseph Murphy, Johnny Mulhall, Thomas Connell, Robert Hackett and John Delaney. Two men from Offaly Street are also listed on the Thiepval Memorial. James Dunne from No. 3 Offaly Street was 20 years old when he died on 13 November 1916 while Thomas Stafford was 24 years old when he died on 6 September of the same year. He was one of two brothers to die in World War I.
The Menin Gate is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders which covers the area known as the Ypres Salient. The Salient was formed during the first battle of Ypres in October and November 1914 when a small British force pushed the Germans back to the Passchendaele Ridge. The second battle of Ypres began in April 1915 when the Germans used gas for the first time which they released into the British lines. The British Army suffered many casualties as a result and significantly at least six Athy men died during that April battle. The first to die was Moses Doyle who passed away on Sunday, 25 April 1915 and on the following day he was joined in death by four Athy men who were all members of the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Patrick Tierney, a young man of 22 years was son of Jack and Julia Tierney of Foxhill. Christopher Power was also 22 years old and was survived by his parents Thomas and Sarah Power of Canal Side. The other two Athy men to die on 26 April 1915 were Joseph Byrne and James Dillon, both again members of the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Patrick Leonard of the same regiment and of the same town died three days later. Their bodies were never found.
Another five men were to die in the same locality. Edward Lawler of 6 Meeting Lane, aged 21 years was killed on 21st May, while Henry Hannon, formerly of Ardreigh House, Athy died on 9 June 1916. He was 23 years of age. Michael Devoy, a married man and 43 years old, died on 30 July 1915. The final two Athy victims were Andrew Reilly and Patrick Flynn. Flynn of Leinster Street and his companion were killed on 11 August 1917. The names of these eleven Athy men whose bodies were never recovered are listed on the Menin Gate Memorial in Belgium.
Of the 188 men from Athy and district who died during World War I a considerable number would never have their deaths dignified by having their remains recovered, identified and committed to the ground in a marked grave. The call which emanated last week from Kildare County Council to record the names of all those from the County who died during World War I is a timely acknowledgment that we should never forget the terrible price our townspeople had to pay in terms of lost fathers, husbands and brothers. Truly can it be said that Athy in the second decade of the last century lost a generation whose remains are locked in the soil of countries as far apart as Turkey, Greece, Pakistan, Belgium, France and England.
Thursday, June 13, 2002
Pat Henshaw
I would not have described Pat Henshaw as a veteran protester. But truth to tell she was one of the Greenham Common women. A military air base in the south of England, Greenham Common was the scene of one of the most famous anti nuclear protests of our generation. It started when the British Government agreed to keep USA nuclear missiles there and a large group of women protesting against that decision set up a camp on the Common. They remained there until the nuclear weapons were eventually removed in 1991. Pat Henshaw spent some time in the Women’s protest Camp, thereby earning the right, indeed the privilege, to be called a veteran campaigner.
It was that same unconforming pioneering spirit which caused the National Front to target Pat and her husband Dave in the late 1970’s. The extreme right wing movement formed in England in the mid-1960’s was active in violently campaigning against the African and Asian people living in England. The Northumberland Arms in Kings Cross, London, the first pub leased by Pat and Dave Henshaw was the meeting place for a number of London based radical groups. Nothing would discourage the proprietors of the Northumberland Arms from providing meeting rooms from such disparate groups as Troops out of Ireland Movement, Chilean Freedom Fighters Association and the Communist Party of England. Almost inevitably, the National Front took exception to the Henshaws facilitating these groups and showed their distaste for freedom of association and freedom of speech by torching the Northumberland Arms. It was a frightening experience for Dave and Pat Henshaw, but one which more than anything else reinforced their lifelong committment to community based activities.
Born in Malta, Pat Henshaw had worked as a journalist and as a marketing executive when as a young widow she met the Athlone-born Dave Henshaw in 1966. Dave who had worked abroad as a building contractor’s manager married the onetime London Evening News journalist in 1972 and their first joint venture was the leasing of the Kings Cross pub. Located in an area of central London where there are two large mainline stations, Kings Cross and St. Pancreas it was also an area with perhaps the most extensive colony of “night workers” in the City of London. Before long the once run down pub had become one of the busiest hostelries in that part of central London due to the acumen and hard work of the licensees, Pat and Dave Henshaw. So successful were they that within six years they bought their own pub called the Miller’s Arms in Pershaw in Worcester. It had been closed for the previous four years and was bought for £17,000. Within a year the Henshaw’s were able to sell on their interest for almost three and a half times the original purchase price, providing the capital to enable them to purchase another pub, The Summers Arms located in Leigh Sinton. It was during the twelve months they operated the Miller’s Arms as well as the Northumberland Arms that the latter pub was torched by the National Front. Seven years of their working life had gone into improving and expanding the pub business in Kings Cross and a similar length of time was to be spent in developing the Summers Arms in Leigh Sinton.
In 1986 the Henshaw’s retired to Dave’s home town of Athlone where in retirement the incorrigable optimist Dave spent three years fitting out a boat with the intention of travelling through the canals on the Continent. Retirement was planned perhaps too early in his life for in 1989 the Henshaw’s travelled to Athy to buy “Joe’s Place” in Duke Street. An old style public house it was once owned by the Townsend family and had changed hands a few times before being acquired by the Henshaws. But what I wondered would bring an Athlone man to Athy. “I remembered Athy as a magic place” was the reply, explaining that the South Kildare town was first visited in conjunction with a boat rally organised by George Spiers and Rexy Rowan in the early 1960’s. “Athy was a magic place then and still is today” claims Dave who on arrival in the town as proprietor of his latest pub quickly moved to change the name to “Smugglers”. Within a few short years “Smugglers” became the most successful pub in Athy and following many extensions by Dave, the one time builder’s manager, it soon because one of the biggest pubs in the town. “Smugglers” was in time to win an award as one of the best public houses in Leinster.
The energy and initiative displayed by Dave and Pat in running their pub business was in time extended to community activity in the town. Pat who in her younger days attended Art College in Leeds became an active member of the Athy Art Group and eventually Chairperson of that group. As founder of the first Fringe Festival linked with the Athlone Drama Festival it was inevitable that Pat would become involved with the Urban Council’s Cultural and Recreational Committee. Athy had, uniquely among Town Council’s, established the first such committee in 1986, an initiative in which I am proud to have played a part. The first Chairman of Athy’s Cultural Committee was the writer and broadcaster John MacKenna who accepted my invitation to front the committee and he later initiated the Cecil Day Lewis Literary Awards. Pat Henshaw has chaired the Cultural Committee in recent years and during that time the Cecil Day Lewis Awards have grown in stature and status.
I have always regarded Pat and Dave Henshaw as a team, each in their own way complimenting the others efforts with regard to community activities. I still remember the great occasion created by the River of Light Project, when hundreds of candles in aid of the Northern Ireland Peace Process were lit and sent floating down the River Barrow at nighttime. It was an exceptionally moving event which drew praise and admiration from far and wide for its organisers, Pat and Dave Henshaw. Their involvement in establishing a Traders Association in Athy in the early 1960’s, with substantial support from the local businesses, is well documented. The Association organised a hugely successful Santa Village and the St. Patrick’s Day Parades before it in time because subsumed into the Chamber of Commerce.
I have always enjoyed Dave Henshaw’s company and greatly admire his proactive involvement in so many community related projects. The self confessed socialist who once fell foul of the English National Front is today enjoying his second retirement. This does not restrict his involvement in politics and the Labour Party are fortunate to have such an energetic and innovative man as Dave available to them.
Pat’s work within the community, especially her involvement through the Cultural Committee of the Town Council with Kildare County Library Services, was highlighted when she was the recipient of an award at the Riverbank Theatre Newbridge on Tuesday, 11th June. The occasion was this year’s Cecil Day Lewis Awards Ceremony and the tributes to Pat’s work on the Cultural Committee were led by the Chairman of Athy Town Council, Sean Cunnane. The recognition given to Pat Henshaw is in a sense an acknowledgement of the many public spirited local people working within their own communities, not all of whom receive the recognition for the honours to which they are rightly entitled. So it was fitting that Pat Henshaw who personifies so much that is good in community life, was so honoured last Tuesday.
My thanks to Nora Bracken who contacted me following last weeks article with a lot of information on Ellen Cobbledick who died in 1956. It would appear that Ellen’s father was a malster in Minch Norton’s and the Deegan family lived in the house next door to where Dr. Herlihy subsequently lived in Woodstock Street. Ellen who was a good friend of Nora’s mother, the former Minnie O’Hara, spent her adult life as a music teacher in Dublin and later married a widower. When her husband died she returned to Athy and lived in lodgings with Mrs. Murphy at 4 Offaly Street. Her stepson Jack Cobbledick lived with his wife Olive and family in Whittingdon, Manchester in or about 1957. Mrs. Cobbledick is remembered as a woman of small stature with glasses who in the fashion of the day always wore dark clothes.
It was that same unconforming pioneering spirit which caused the National Front to target Pat and her husband Dave in the late 1970’s. The extreme right wing movement formed in England in the mid-1960’s was active in violently campaigning against the African and Asian people living in England. The Northumberland Arms in Kings Cross, London, the first pub leased by Pat and Dave Henshaw was the meeting place for a number of London based radical groups. Nothing would discourage the proprietors of the Northumberland Arms from providing meeting rooms from such disparate groups as Troops out of Ireland Movement, Chilean Freedom Fighters Association and the Communist Party of England. Almost inevitably, the National Front took exception to the Henshaws facilitating these groups and showed their distaste for freedom of association and freedom of speech by torching the Northumberland Arms. It was a frightening experience for Dave and Pat Henshaw, but one which more than anything else reinforced their lifelong committment to community based activities.
Born in Malta, Pat Henshaw had worked as a journalist and as a marketing executive when as a young widow she met the Athlone-born Dave Henshaw in 1966. Dave who had worked abroad as a building contractor’s manager married the onetime London Evening News journalist in 1972 and their first joint venture was the leasing of the Kings Cross pub. Located in an area of central London where there are two large mainline stations, Kings Cross and St. Pancreas it was also an area with perhaps the most extensive colony of “night workers” in the City of London. Before long the once run down pub had become one of the busiest hostelries in that part of central London due to the acumen and hard work of the licensees, Pat and Dave Henshaw. So successful were they that within six years they bought their own pub called the Miller’s Arms in Pershaw in Worcester. It had been closed for the previous four years and was bought for £17,000. Within a year the Henshaw’s were able to sell on their interest for almost three and a half times the original purchase price, providing the capital to enable them to purchase another pub, The Summers Arms located in Leigh Sinton. It was during the twelve months they operated the Miller’s Arms as well as the Northumberland Arms that the latter pub was torched by the National Front. Seven years of their working life had gone into improving and expanding the pub business in Kings Cross and a similar length of time was to be spent in developing the Summers Arms in Leigh Sinton.
In 1986 the Henshaw’s retired to Dave’s home town of Athlone where in retirement the incorrigable optimist Dave spent three years fitting out a boat with the intention of travelling through the canals on the Continent. Retirement was planned perhaps too early in his life for in 1989 the Henshaw’s travelled to Athy to buy “Joe’s Place” in Duke Street. An old style public house it was once owned by the Townsend family and had changed hands a few times before being acquired by the Henshaws. But what I wondered would bring an Athlone man to Athy. “I remembered Athy as a magic place” was the reply, explaining that the South Kildare town was first visited in conjunction with a boat rally organised by George Spiers and Rexy Rowan in the early 1960’s. “Athy was a magic place then and still is today” claims Dave who on arrival in the town as proprietor of his latest pub quickly moved to change the name to “Smugglers”. Within a few short years “Smugglers” became the most successful pub in Athy and following many extensions by Dave, the one time builder’s manager, it soon because one of the biggest pubs in the town. “Smugglers” was in time to win an award as one of the best public houses in Leinster.
The energy and initiative displayed by Dave and Pat in running their pub business was in time extended to community activity in the town. Pat who in her younger days attended Art College in Leeds became an active member of the Athy Art Group and eventually Chairperson of that group. As founder of the first Fringe Festival linked with the Athlone Drama Festival it was inevitable that Pat would become involved with the Urban Council’s Cultural and Recreational Committee. Athy had, uniquely among Town Council’s, established the first such committee in 1986, an initiative in which I am proud to have played a part. The first Chairman of Athy’s Cultural Committee was the writer and broadcaster John MacKenna who accepted my invitation to front the committee and he later initiated the Cecil Day Lewis Literary Awards. Pat Henshaw has chaired the Cultural Committee in recent years and during that time the Cecil Day Lewis Awards have grown in stature and status.
I have always regarded Pat and Dave Henshaw as a team, each in their own way complimenting the others efforts with regard to community activities. I still remember the great occasion created by the River of Light Project, when hundreds of candles in aid of the Northern Ireland Peace Process were lit and sent floating down the River Barrow at nighttime. It was an exceptionally moving event which drew praise and admiration from far and wide for its organisers, Pat and Dave Henshaw. Their involvement in establishing a Traders Association in Athy in the early 1960’s, with substantial support from the local businesses, is well documented. The Association organised a hugely successful Santa Village and the St. Patrick’s Day Parades before it in time because subsumed into the Chamber of Commerce.
I have always enjoyed Dave Henshaw’s company and greatly admire his proactive involvement in so many community related projects. The self confessed socialist who once fell foul of the English National Front is today enjoying his second retirement. This does not restrict his involvement in politics and the Labour Party are fortunate to have such an energetic and innovative man as Dave available to them.
Pat’s work within the community, especially her involvement through the Cultural Committee of the Town Council with Kildare County Library Services, was highlighted when she was the recipient of an award at the Riverbank Theatre Newbridge on Tuesday, 11th June. The occasion was this year’s Cecil Day Lewis Awards Ceremony and the tributes to Pat’s work on the Cultural Committee were led by the Chairman of Athy Town Council, Sean Cunnane. The recognition given to Pat Henshaw is in a sense an acknowledgement of the many public spirited local people working within their own communities, not all of whom receive the recognition for the honours to which they are rightly entitled. So it was fitting that Pat Henshaw who personifies so much that is good in community life, was so honoured last Tuesday.
My thanks to Nora Bracken who contacted me following last weeks article with a lot of information on Ellen Cobbledick who died in 1956. It would appear that Ellen’s father was a malster in Minch Norton’s and the Deegan family lived in the house next door to where Dr. Herlihy subsequently lived in Woodstock Street. Ellen who was a good friend of Nora’s mother, the former Minnie O’Hara, spent her adult life as a music teacher in Dublin and later married a widower. When her husband died she returned to Athy and lived in lodgings with Mrs. Murphy at 4 Offaly Street. Her stepson Jack Cobbledick lived with his wife Olive and family in Whittingdon, Manchester in or about 1957. Mrs. Cobbledick is remembered as a woman of small stature with glasses who in the fashion of the day always wore dark clothes.
Thursday, June 6, 2002
Ernest Shackleton Photograph / O'Briens Emily Square
The latest addition to the artefacts on display in the local Heritage Centre is a signed photograph of Ernest Shackleton, the Antartic explorer presented by the O’Brien family of Emily Square. Their donation of the photograph is the second time it was gifted. On the previous occasion the photograph was presented by Ernest Shackleton to his daughter Cecily with an inscription dated 30th of April 1918 which reads:- “To Cecily from Micky”.
“Micky” was Shackleton’s nickname in Dulwich College, London being the second choice Irish nickname chosen by students who had already allocated the name “Paddy” to another Irish student a year ahead of Shackleton. Ernest Shackleton who was born in Kilkea, just outside Athy in 1874 used that same nickname throughout the rest of his life when corresponding with his family and close friends. The signed photograph now exhibited in the heritage centre, like many of the other Shackleton artefacts already there, is a significant link with one of South Kildare’s most famous sons.
The O’Brien family made the presentation to the Heritage Centre to commemorate the 80th birthday of Frank O’Brien who is the third generation of the O’Brien’s to run the grocery and pub business from 23 Emily Square. It was Frank’s grandfather, Stephen O’Brien, a Kilkenny man, who first came to Athy in 1874 after purchasing the business from James Leahy. Leahy, who was also a farmer with lands at Ardscull, was later a Member of Parliament under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell. He was nominated to stand for Parliament at a meeting held in the Town Hall, Athy which was attended by Parnell. Following that meeting Parnell confided in his colleague, Andrew Kettle that Leahy was “too fat and will fall asleep in the House of Commons”.
Last week the Town Hall was again the venue as connections were made with James Leahy, Stephen O’Brien and Ernest Shackleton. For Shackleton the explorer was born on the 15th of February 1874 the same year as Stephen O’Brien moved from Dublin to take over the business at Emily Square from James Leahy. Stephen managed the Ann Devin tea shops in Dublin and in the process became a tea expert. For health reasons he was advised to live in the country and so chose to come to Athy which was even then was highly regarded as a most suitable provincial town for the rearing of a young family. He continued to deal in tea as part of the grocery trade carried on at number 23 Emily Square and it was as a tea merchant that he became acquainted with Mr. Shackleton a company representative for Twinings and Crossfields. Shackleton was a member of the extended Shackleton family from Ballytore and as such a relation of the Antartic explorer, Ernest Shackleton.
Another link between the O’Brien’s and the Shackleton’s was made with the second generation of the O’Brien’s. Frank O’Brien’s Mother was Annie Kelly of Ballytore whose family had acquired and owned property in the former Quaker village of Ballytore. The village had originated from an early 18th Century settlement and developed with the founding of the Ballytore Quaker school by Abraham Shackleton. Ernest Shackleton was a direct descendent of Abraham Shackleton and the Shackleton’s owned several properties in the village of Ballytore which subsequently came into the ownership of the Kelly family. When Annie Kelly married Fran O’Brien it forged another link between the O’Brien’s and the Shackleton’s. Today the Kelly name is still over the door of one of the principle public house’s in the village of Ballytore.
The Chairman of the Town Council, Sean Cunnane did the honours in the Heritage Centre when he unveiled the framed photograph of Shackleton presented by O’Brien family. When he spoke afterwards he surprised the audience by telling us that he was a relation of the O’Brien’s of Emily Square. It was surely an evening for making connections and Councillor Cunnane in his witty contribution spoke of his own surprise on finding out some years ago of his relationship with the O’Brien’s. Apparently Frank O’Brien’s son was a pupil of Sean Cunnane’s in the local school and undertook a class essay on his Summer holidays. The essay dealt with an enjoyable time spent in County Mayo with his grandfather and of trips to Pontoon and the surrounding countryside. Something in the essay prompted the young teacher to ask his pupil for the name of the grandfather mentioned in the essay only to find that it was Michael Carney of Kiltimagh. For Michael Carney who was a relation of Sean Cunnane’s own father, and so the connection between the young teacher from County Mayo and the O’Brien’s of Emily Square, Athy.
It was a connection which quite surprised the audience when it was mentioned by the Town Council Chairman after he unveiled the Shackleton photograph last week. Given the links made earlier between the O’Brien’s and the Shackleton’s it was perhaps fitting that yet another link was made, on the evening that the birthday of the doyen of Athy’s publicans was remembered. For the Shackleton photograph was the gift of the O’Brien family to commemorate the 80th birthday of Frank O’Brien whose interest in and support for the Heritage Centre has been whole hearted ever since the centre opened. In recalling the generosity of the O’Brien’s in making the gift, the Chairman of the Town Council expressed the hope that more businesses and families in Athy would recognise the benefit of donating materials suitable for exhibiting in the Heritage Centre. Such support is vital to the future success of the centre and even if suitable artefacts cannot be donated there is always the need for financial donations which can be used to purchase items illustrative of the history of Athy and its people. The generous initiative taken by Frank O’Brien and his family in relation to the Shackleton photograph can be repeated by many more people, and if so, the future success of the Heritage Centre would be assured.
Last week this paper carried details of a weekend trip planned for County Kerry locations connected with Tom Crean who accompanied Ernest Shackleton on many of his Antartic Expeditions. Originally planned for later this month the trip has been re-arranged for July the 12th - July the 14th. It will take in Annascaul the hometown of Tom Crean as well as the South Pole Inn which Crean owned and operated for some years prior to his death. A visit to the recently opened Crean exhibition in the Kerry County Museum in Tralee is also planned. Further details about this trip can be obtained from Margaret O’Riordan in the Athy Heritage Centre at telephone number:- 0507-33075.
Last week I was contacted by an interested enquirer from England seeking information on Ellen Cobbledick who lived in Offaly Street in the early 1950’s. I lived in Offaly Street but cannot recall her but my good friend Denis Smyth who is a mine of information on everything relating to Athy, remembers her as a lodger in Murphy’s of 4 Offaly Street. Can anyone help me with further information on Ellen Cobbledick so that I can pass on details to my enquirer in England.
Another phone call followed by a letter this week sought details of men from South Kildare who enlisted in the British Army during World War II. A television production company is making a TV programme on the topic of Irish mens involvement in World War II and would be interested in talking to former soldiers about their experiences in the British Army. If there is anybody out there who knows of anyone who served in World War II would they contact me so that I can add to the list of names already prepared of men from this area who fought in that war.
“Micky” was Shackleton’s nickname in Dulwich College, London being the second choice Irish nickname chosen by students who had already allocated the name “Paddy” to another Irish student a year ahead of Shackleton. Ernest Shackleton who was born in Kilkea, just outside Athy in 1874 used that same nickname throughout the rest of his life when corresponding with his family and close friends. The signed photograph now exhibited in the heritage centre, like many of the other Shackleton artefacts already there, is a significant link with one of South Kildare’s most famous sons.
The O’Brien family made the presentation to the Heritage Centre to commemorate the 80th birthday of Frank O’Brien who is the third generation of the O’Brien’s to run the grocery and pub business from 23 Emily Square. It was Frank’s grandfather, Stephen O’Brien, a Kilkenny man, who first came to Athy in 1874 after purchasing the business from James Leahy. Leahy, who was also a farmer with lands at Ardscull, was later a Member of Parliament under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell. He was nominated to stand for Parliament at a meeting held in the Town Hall, Athy which was attended by Parnell. Following that meeting Parnell confided in his colleague, Andrew Kettle that Leahy was “too fat and will fall asleep in the House of Commons”.
Last week the Town Hall was again the venue as connections were made with James Leahy, Stephen O’Brien and Ernest Shackleton. For Shackleton the explorer was born on the 15th of February 1874 the same year as Stephen O’Brien moved from Dublin to take over the business at Emily Square from James Leahy. Stephen managed the Ann Devin tea shops in Dublin and in the process became a tea expert. For health reasons he was advised to live in the country and so chose to come to Athy which was even then was highly regarded as a most suitable provincial town for the rearing of a young family. He continued to deal in tea as part of the grocery trade carried on at number 23 Emily Square and it was as a tea merchant that he became acquainted with Mr. Shackleton a company representative for Twinings and Crossfields. Shackleton was a member of the extended Shackleton family from Ballytore and as such a relation of the Antartic explorer, Ernest Shackleton.
Another link between the O’Brien’s and the Shackleton’s was made with the second generation of the O’Brien’s. Frank O’Brien’s Mother was Annie Kelly of Ballytore whose family had acquired and owned property in the former Quaker village of Ballytore. The village had originated from an early 18th Century settlement and developed with the founding of the Ballytore Quaker school by Abraham Shackleton. Ernest Shackleton was a direct descendent of Abraham Shackleton and the Shackleton’s owned several properties in the village of Ballytore which subsequently came into the ownership of the Kelly family. When Annie Kelly married Fran O’Brien it forged another link between the O’Brien’s and the Shackleton’s. Today the Kelly name is still over the door of one of the principle public house’s in the village of Ballytore.
The Chairman of the Town Council, Sean Cunnane did the honours in the Heritage Centre when he unveiled the framed photograph of Shackleton presented by O’Brien family. When he spoke afterwards he surprised the audience by telling us that he was a relation of the O’Brien’s of Emily Square. It was surely an evening for making connections and Councillor Cunnane in his witty contribution spoke of his own surprise on finding out some years ago of his relationship with the O’Brien’s. Apparently Frank O’Brien’s son was a pupil of Sean Cunnane’s in the local school and undertook a class essay on his Summer holidays. The essay dealt with an enjoyable time spent in County Mayo with his grandfather and of trips to Pontoon and the surrounding countryside. Something in the essay prompted the young teacher to ask his pupil for the name of the grandfather mentioned in the essay only to find that it was Michael Carney of Kiltimagh. For Michael Carney who was a relation of Sean Cunnane’s own father, and so the connection between the young teacher from County Mayo and the O’Brien’s of Emily Square, Athy.
It was a connection which quite surprised the audience when it was mentioned by the Town Council Chairman after he unveiled the Shackleton photograph last week. Given the links made earlier between the O’Brien’s and the Shackleton’s it was perhaps fitting that yet another link was made, on the evening that the birthday of the doyen of Athy’s publicans was remembered. For the Shackleton photograph was the gift of the O’Brien family to commemorate the 80th birthday of Frank O’Brien whose interest in and support for the Heritage Centre has been whole hearted ever since the centre opened. In recalling the generosity of the O’Brien’s in making the gift, the Chairman of the Town Council expressed the hope that more businesses and families in Athy would recognise the benefit of donating materials suitable for exhibiting in the Heritage Centre. Such support is vital to the future success of the centre and even if suitable artefacts cannot be donated there is always the need for financial donations which can be used to purchase items illustrative of the history of Athy and its people. The generous initiative taken by Frank O’Brien and his family in relation to the Shackleton photograph can be repeated by many more people, and if so, the future success of the Heritage Centre would be assured.
Last week this paper carried details of a weekend trip planned for County Kerry locations connected with Tom Crean who accompanied Ernest Shackleton on many of his Antartic Expeditions. Originally planned for later this month the trip has been re-arranged for July the 12th - July the 14th. It will take in Annascaul the hometown of Tom Crean as well as the South Pole Inn which Crean owned and operated for some years prior to his death. A visit to the recently opened Crean exhibition in the Kerry County Museum in Tralee is also planned. Further details about this trip can be obtained from Margaret O’Riordan in the Athy Heritage Centre at telephone number:- 0507-33075.
Last week I was contacted by an interested enquirer from England seeking information on Ellen Cobbledick who lived in Offaly Street in the early 1950’s. I lived in Offaly Street but cannot recall her but my good friend Denis Smyth who is a mine of information on everything relating to Athy, remembers her as a lodger in Murphy’s of 4 Offaly Street. Can anyone help me with further information on Ellen Cobbledick so that I can pass on details to my enquirer in England.
Another phone call followed by a letter this week sought details of men from South Kildare who enlisted in the British Army during World War II. A television production company is making a TV programme on the topic of Irish mens involvement in World War II and would be interested in talking to former soldiers about their experiences in the British Army. If there is anybody out there who knows of anyone who served in World War II would they contact me so that I can add to the list of names already prepared of men from this area who fought in that war.
Thursday, May 30, 2002
South Kildare Unionist Meeting - 17 April 1893
On the evening of Friday, April 7th 1893 Sir Anthony Weldon travelled by horse and carriage from his home at Kilmoroney House. He was accompanied by his son Captain A. Weldon. Sometime earlier, Lord Mayo had set off from Naas while Canon Bagot journeyed from his home at the Rectory in Fontstown. Their destination was the Town Hall in Athy where they were to meet up with many of the local landed gentry, several Minister’s of the Church of Ireland and a couple of local shop keepers. The Dean of Kildare was there as well as Rev. Mr. Brendar, Rev. Dean Meeke, Rev. R. Meredith, Rev. S. P. Smithwick and Rev. Mr. Follis. They were joined by J. H. Dunne, W. McCulloch, R. McCulloch, Sir. Erasmus Borrowes, R. Anderson, F. Farrell, R. Lumley, W.P. St. John, G. Patterson, W. Dunne, W. Pender, George Gilmore, W. Webber, F.M. Carroll, Captain E. Dease, T. Anderson, T. Greer, A. Harvey, A. Lowes, G. Carroll, R. McMahon, W. A. Cooper and F. Scott amongst others.
The occasion was a meeting of the South Kildare Unionists who came together to protest against the Home Rule Bill which had been introduced in the House of Commons by W. E. Gladstone just three months previously. This was the second time that a Home Rule Bill was brought before the English Parliament. Seven years previously a Bill which proposed a measure of self Government for the Irish was also introduced in the House of Commons by Gladstone where it was defeated. Undaunted, the Liberal Leader re-introduced his second Home Rule Bill in January 1893 with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The Bill proposed that Ireland would have a two tier Legislature with restricted powers to make laws and control of its own taxes, other than Customs and Excise. Strongly resisted in the House of Commons, the proposals caused alarm amongst the Unionist population and the meeting held in the Town Hall, Athy was but one of several meetings throughout the country convened in opposition to Home Rule for Ireland.
The Chairman of the Athy meeting was Sir Anthony Weldon while his son Captain Weldon acted as secretary. At the start of the meeting two letters of support received from Arthur Balfour and Lord Randolf Churchill were read aloud by the meeting’s secretary. Balfour who had been Chief Secretary for Ireland for four years up to 1891 and would later be a Conservative Prime Minister of Britain was known as “Bloody Balfour” after the Mitchelstown massacre of 1887 where Policemen fired on a local meeting. In his letter written from Newtownards on the 5th April 1893, Balfour expressed gratification on hearing of the Unionists meeting in Athy. He continued, “I feel assured that the more the effects of this Bill are realised throughout Ireland, the more clearly it will seen by men of every shade of political and religious conviction that Home Rule in this shape will bring with it nothing but financial and agricultural disaster to every class in Ireland”.(Twenty years later as an elderly member of the British cabinet, Balfour would support Lloyd George’s abortive Home Rule proposals, and in 1921 Balfour supported the Anglo Irish Treaty)
Lord Randolf Churchill who was to die the following year wrote from 40 Grosvenor Square, London apologising for his inability to accept Anthony Weldon’s invitation to the meeting and conveyed his best wishes in bringing home to the agricultural community the importance of “the present crisis”. Churchill who was leader of a radical group within the Tory party was strongly opposed to Irish Home Rule and during the debate on the first Home Rule Bill in 1886 he had encouraged Orange extremists in Ulster with the catch phrase “Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right”. Letters of apology for non attendance were received from the Duke of Leinster, Lord Walter Fitzgerald, Major R. H. Moore, Laurence Dunne, Lord Seaton, the Rector of Athy Rev. E. H. Waller, Major Blacken and William Young.
Captain Dease proposed a Motion “that we desire to express our continued and unswerving loyalty to the throne and thereby pledge ourselves to maintain by every means in our power the legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland”. In support of this motion, Dease said “Home Rule meant Home ruin …., the men who would govern the country if Home Rule were in operation were not men whom they could trust to administer the finances of the country…... The so called patriots have put a check on Irish prosperity. They have set class against class. They have banished forever the old feeling that had existed between Landlord and Tenant….. They have increased ten fold that religious bitterness which had been fast dying out…The Irish Unionists should endeavour by all means to frustrate this Bill which must be dangerous to the interests of religion… and would bring misery to hundreds of happy homes and ruin and disaster to our beloved country”.
Captain Deases contribution was received with loud applause and Captain Weldon who followed him in seconding the motion claimed that “a grave crisis in the history and fortunes of this beloved country are imminent…. Mr. Gladstone claims that if the Bill passes, there will be a plethora of money in Ireland… No doubt there would be a plethora in the pockets of some gentlemen who some time ago had nothing but their wits to depend upon until they were raised metaphorically and literally out of the gutter by the man whom they afterwards hounded to death”. [The reference here was to Parnell and it drew a loud and sustained “here here”].
Mr. T. Anderson, Justice of the Peace moved a second motion “that the financial arrangements proposed in the Bill would lead to commercial insecurity and general withdrawal of capital from Ireland.”. Speaking as a tenant farmer, he felt that the Home Rule Bill if passed would have disastrous consequences for the tenant farmers of Ireland. William Dunne, also a Justice of the Peace seconded Anderson’s motion and claimed that under Home Rule, they would lose all the assistance which England gave to Ireland for Education, for improving the breed of horses and cattle and for the purchase of land etc.
The Earl of Mayo in supporting the motion asked how could “the future Nationalist Demagogue Parliament match the financial assistance which the Imperial Government now gave to farmers in Ireland…. How could they allow the country to be administered by men who had everything to gain and nothing to lose by becoming the Directors of Irish Finances except the coats and breeches that covered their skins”. [This last comment drew loud applause and laughter from his audience].
Canon Bagot moved a third motion “that we cordially approve the action which has been taken by the Irish Unionist Alliance in awakening the country to the gravity of the present crisis…. and we agree to form a branch of the Unionists Alliance in South Kildare”. This motion was seconded by Mr. R. Farrell and supported by Mr. T. W. Carroll and like the previous motions was unanimously passed.
Sir Anthony Weldon was then elected Chairman of the local committee of the South Kildare Unionists Alliance and Mr. Carroll from Moone was elected its secretary. It was agreed that a petition from the Unionists of South Kildare protesting against the Home Rule Bill be presented to the Parliament in London.
The second Home Rule Bill was strongly resisted in the House of Commons and was only forced through after many difficulties. In September, 1893 it came before the House of Lords where it was rejected. A third Home Rule Bill was introduced in the House of Commons by Mr. Asquith in 1912. It again met with strong opposition from the Unionists but eventually got through the Commons in January 1913. It was later defeated in the House of Lords but due to legislative changes made two years previously, the House of Lords could only delay its implementation. The Home Rule Bill was signed into law on the 18th September 1914 but by agreement with the Irish Parliamentary Party, it was suspended for the duration of World War 1. It was later superceded by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920.
The Athy meeting of the 7th April 1893 was attended by a typical cross section of members of Southern Irish Unionism. Farmers and Anglicans formed a majority element of Irish Unionism and while numerically small, nevertheless claimed to represent the majority of the Irish people when putting forward its opposition to Home Rule. The decline in the finances and influence of the landed gentry in Southern Ireland coupled with the development of militant unionism in Northern Ireland led to a decline in the influence and strength of Southern Unionists. The Town Hall in Athy accommodated many protest meetings in its time but the meeting held on Friday, 7th April 1893 was one of the last occasions when the Southern Unionists cause was highlighted locally.
The occasion was a meeting of the South Kildare Unionists who came together to protest against the Home Rule Bill which had been introduced in the House of Commons by W. E. Gladstone just three months previously. This was the second time that a Home Rule Bill was brought before the English Parliament. Seven years previously a Bill which proposed a measure of self Government for the Irish was also introduced in the House of Commons by Gladstone where it was defeated. Undaunted, the Liberal Leader re-introduced his second Home Rule Bill in January 1893 with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The Bill proposed that Ireland would have a two tier Legislature with restricted powers to make laws and control of its own taxes, other than Customs and Excise. Strongly resisted in the House of Commons, the proposals caused alarm amongst the Unionist population and the meeting held in the Town Hall, Athy was but one of several meetings throughout the country convened in opposition to Home Rule for Ireland.
The Chairman of the Athy meeting was Sir Anthony Weldon while his son Captain Weldon acted as secretary. At the start of the meeting two letters of support received from Arthur Balfour and Lord Randolf Churchill were read aloud by the meeting’s secretary. Balfour who had been Chief Secretary for Ireland for four years up to 1891 and would later be a Conservative Prime Minister of Britain was known as “Bloody Balfour” after the Mitchelstown massacre of 1887 where Policemen fired on a local meeting. In his letter written from Newtownards on the 5th April 1893, Balfour expressed gratification on hearing of the Unionists meeting in Athy. He continued, “I feel assured that the more the effects of this Bill are realised throughout Ireland, the more clearly it will seen by men of every shade of political and religious conviction that Home Rule in this shape will bring with it nothing but financial and agricultural disaster to every class in Ireland”.(Twenty years later as an elderly member of the British cabinet, Balfour would support Lloyd George’s abortive Home Rule proposals, and in 1921 Balfour supported the Anglo Irish Treaty)
Lord Randolf Churchill who was to die the following year wrote from 40 Grosvenor Square, London apologising for his inability to accept Anthony Weldon’s invitation to the meeting and conveyed his best wishes in bringing home to the agricultural community the importance of “the present crisis”. Churchill who was leader of a radical group within the Tory party was strongly opposed to Irish Home Rule and during the debate on the first Home Rule Bill in 1886 he had encouraged Orange extremists in Ulster with the catch phrase “Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right”. Letters of apology for non attendance were received from the Duke of Leinster, Lord Walter Fitzgerald, Major R. H. Moore, Laurence Dunne, Lord Seaton, the Rector of Athy Rev. E. H. Waller, Major Blacken and William Young.
Captain Dease proposed a Motion “that we desire to express our continued and unswerving loyalty to the throne and thereby pledge ourselves to maintain by every means in our power the legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland”. In support of this motion, Dease said “Home Rule meant Home ruin …., the men who would govern the country if Home Rule were in operation were not men whom they could trust to administer the finances of the country…... The so called patriots have put a check on Irish prosperity. They have set class against class. They have banished forever the old feeling that had existed between Landlord and Tenant….. They have increased ten fold that religious bitterness which had been fast dying out…The Irish Unionists should endeavour by all means to frustrate this Bill which must be dangerous to the interests of religion… and would bring misery to hundreds of happy homes and ruin and disaster to our beloved country”.
Captain Deases contribution was received with loud applause and Captain Weldon who followed him in seconding the motion claimed that “a grave crisis in the history and fortunes of this beloved country are imminent…. Mr. Gladstone claims that if the Bill passes, there will be a plethora of money in Ireland… No doubt there would be a plethora in the pockets of some gentlemen who some time ago had nothing but their wits to depend upon until they were raised metaphorically and literally out of the gutter by the man whom they afterwards hounded to death”. [The reference here was to Parnell and it drew a loud and sustained “here here”].
Mr. T. Anderson, Justice of the Peace moved a second motion “that the financial arrangements proposed in the Bill would lead to commercial insecurity and general withdrawal of capital from Ireland.”. Speaking as a tenant farmer, he felt that the Home Rule Bill if passed would have disastrous consequences for the tenant farmers of Ireland. William Dunne, also a Justice of the Peace seconded Anderson’s motion and claimed that under Home Rule, they would lose all the assistance which England gave to Ireland for Education, for improving the breed of horses and cattle and for the purchase of land etc.
The Earl of Mayo in supporting the motion asked how could “the future Nationalist Demagogue Parliament match the financial assistance which the Imperial Government now gave to farmers in Ireland…. How could they allow the country to be administered by men who had everything to gain and nothing to lose by becoming the Directors of Irish Finances except the coats and breeches that covered their skins”. [This last comment drew loud applause and laughter from his audience].
Canon Bagot moved a third motion “that we cordially approve the action which has been taken by the Irish Unionist Alliance in awakening the country to the gravity of the present crisis…. and we agree to form a branch of the Unionists Alliance in South Kildare”. This motion was seconded by Mr. R. Farrell and supported by Mr. T. W. Carroll and like the previous motions was unanimously passed.
Sir Anthony Weldon was then elected Chairman of the local committee of the South Kildare Unionists Alliance and Mr. Carroll from Moone was elected its secretary. It was agreed that a petition from the Unionists of South Kildare protesting against the Home Rule Bill be presented to the Parliament in London.
The second Home Rule Bill was strongly resisted in the House of Commons and was only forced through after many difficulties. In September, 1893 it came before the House of Lords where it was rejected. A third Home Rule Bill was introduced in the House of Commons by Mr. Asquith in 1912. It again met with strong opposition from the Unionists but eventually got through the Commons in January 1913. It was later defeated in the House of Lords but due to legislative changes made two years previously, the House of Lords could only delay its implementation. The Home Rule Bill was signed into law on the 18th September 1914 but by agreement with the Irish Parliamentary Party, it was suspended for the duration of World War 1. It was later superceded by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920.
The Athy meeting of the 7th April 1893 was attended by a typical cross section of members of Southern Irish Unionism. Farmers and Anglicans formed a majority element of Irish Unionism and while numerically small, nevertheless claimed to represent the majority of the Irish people when putting forward its opposition to Home Rule. The decline in the finances and influence of the landed gentry in Southern Ireland coupled with the development of militant unionism in Northern Ireland led to a decline in the influence and strength of Southern Unionists. The Town Hall in Athy accommodated many protest meetings in its time but the meeting held on Friday, 7th April 1893 was one of the last occasions when the Southern Unionists cause was highlighted locally.
Thursday, May 23, 2002
St. Dominic's Death
In last weeks Eye on the Past I wrote of the contribution of the Sisters of Mercy to the development of St. Vincent’s Hospital and its earlier transition from Workhouse to County Home. After I had penned that piece I travelled overseas to spend a few days between bookshops and the various research libraries which are almost always guaranteed to provide long sought answers to so many questions concerning our history and particularly the Irish Diaspora. On my return I learned of the death of that great lady, Sr. Dominic McHugh, former Matron of St. Vincent’s Hospital whose funeral to St. Michael’s Cemetery took place on Monday, 20th May.
I had the privilege of interviewing Sr. Dominic on several occasions, each time coming away with a better appreciation and understanding of the wonderful contribution made over the years by the Sisters of Mercy for the benefit of Athy and its people. Sr. Dominic spent most of her adult life amongst the patients and inmates of the County Home. In so describing them I am drawing a distinction between those ill people for whom St. Vincent’s provided a happy refuge at the end of their days and the able-bodied but improvident who had occasional recourse to the County Home for shelter and a bite to eat. It was the latter who provided Sr. Dominic with the opportunity to practice the mercy and charity with which lay people come to expect from the order of nuns established by Blessed Catherine McAuley.
It was November 1937 when the young Kathleen McHugh from Ballycorman in Ballylinan entered the Convent of Mercy in Athy. The 1930’s was one of the great periods for recruitment for religious orders in Ireland and the young Ballylinan girl was joined other young Irish girls, some from as far away as County Mayo, when she became a member of the local Convent. She made her first profession in May of the following year, receiving the name Sr. Mary Dominic. After four years training as a Nurse in the Mater Hospital Dublin Sr. Mary Dominic or Sr. Dominic as she was generally known, returned to Athy to work in the local hospital. January 14th, 1940 was the date she took up duties in St. Vincent’s as assistant to the Matron Sr. Angela. When Dr. Joe O’Neill replaced his father Dr. Jeremiah O’Neill as Medical Officer to the County Home in 1952 the day nursing staff was comprised solely of Sisters of Mercy from the local Convent. Those were, Sr. Vincent who was the Matron, Sr. Dominic, Sr. Brigid, Sr. Paschal, Sr. Ignatius, Sr. Patrick and Sr. Finbar. The night nursing staff comprised Mrs. Flanagan and Miss McDonagh.
Sr. Dominic succeeded Sr. Vincent as Matron in 1957 and remained in that position for the following 24 years. Health services were then organised on a county basis and Kildare County Council allowed the big-hearted nun a free hand in the running of the County Home. Sr. Dominic was an extremely kind person with a soft spot for the under privileged. Knights of the road and persons temporarily down on their luck always found comfort and solace within the confines of St. Vincent’s Hospital. Legion are the stories recounted over the years concerning Sr. Dominic’s many acts of kindness. A breakfast reception provided for a traveler’s wedding, furniture handed out to those in need and jobs found for unemployed young people were just some of the many instances of Sr. Dominic’s charity. She had an engaging manner and despite her busy schedule found the time to exchange kind works with everyone she met. As one local said to me today, “Sr. Dominic had a place in her heart for everyone”. This was perhaps best exemplified in the support she gave Sr. Consilio when the young County Cork born nun established the first Cuan Mhuire in Athy. Her support for Sr. Consilio never wavered over the years.
The eldest of six children of James and Margaret McHugh of Ballycorman, Ballylinan, Co. Laois Sr. Dominic took pride in her families links with Luggacurran and its historic past. She often spoke of the Luggacurran evictions when her forbearers, the McHughs, like so many other Irish families, were evicted from their farm holdings.
On retiring from St. Vincent’s Hospital in 1981 Sr. Dominic continued to live in the Convent located within the grounds of the Hospital. This allowed her to maintain her daily routine of visiting the patients as well as serving as the sacristan in the hospital Chapel. Each year she undertook fundraising activities each year to assist in sending handicapped children to Lourdes and many local children had the benefit and experience of a pilgrimage to that sacred place due to Sr. Dominic’s untiring charitable work.
She had three sisters of which one, Mary Ann McHugh who lived in 98 Woodstock Street died 11 years ago. Her surviving sisters are Brigid who lives in Woodstock Street and Sr. Eileen, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph’s who has lived in Australia for over 60 years. Sr. Eileen returned to Ireland for a short visit towards the end of last year to meet her sisters and her brothers, Rich McHugh who lives at Luggacurran and John McHugh of Fallaghmore.
Sr. Dominic was a larger-than-life figure whose achievements were publicly recognised when she was the recipient of a Person of the Year Award in 1990. It was an honour she fully deserved. I’m told that during the homily at the funeral Mass on Monday, two women walked across the transept of St. Michael’s Church and placed a hand-written poem on Sr. Dominic’s coffin. It was a touching and original tribute to a Sister of Mercy who during her long life exemplified the virtues and graces which many of us long to possess. Sr. Dominic was a shining example of all that is good in life and those of us who were privileged to know her will always cherish her memory.
I had the privilege of interviewing Sr. Dominic on several occasions, each time coming away with a better appreciation and understanding of the wonderful contribution made over the years by the Sisters of Mercy for the benefit of Athy and its people. Sr. Dominic spent most of her adult life amongst the patients and inmates of the County Home. In so describing them I am drawing a distinction between those ill people for whom St. Vincent’s provided a happy refuge at the end of their days and the able-bodied but improvident who had occasional recourse to the County Home for shelter and a bite to eat. It was the latter who provided Sr. Dominic with the opportunity to practice the mercy and charity with which lay people come to expect from the order of nuns established by Blessed Catherine McAuley.
It was November 1937 when the young Kathleen McHugh from Ballycorman in Ballylinan entered the Convent of Mercy in Athy. The 1930’s was one of the great periods for recruitment for religious orders in Ireland and the young Ballylinan girl was joined other young Irish girls, some from as far away as County Mayo, when she became a member of the local Convent. She made her first profession in May of the following year, receiving the name Sr. Mary Dominic. After four years training as a Nurse in the Mater Hospital Dublin Sr. Mary Dominic or Sr. Dominic as she was generally known, returned to Athy to work in the local hospital. January 14th, 1940 was the date she took up duties in St. Vincent’s as assistant to the Matron Sr. Angela. When Dr. Joe O’Neill replaced his father Dr. Jeremiah O’Neill as Medical Officer to the County Home in 1952 the day nursing staff was comprised solely of Sisters of Mercy from the local Convent. Those were, Sr. Vincent who was the Matron, Sr. Dominic, Sr. Brigid, Sr. Paschal, Sr. Ignatius, Sr. Patrick and Sr. Finbar. The night nursing staff comprised Mrs. Flanagan and Miss McDonagh.
Sr. Dominic succeeded Sr. Vincent as Matron in 1957 and remained in that position for the following 24 years. Health services were then organised on a county basis and Kildare County Council allowed the big-hearted nun a free hand in the running of the County Home. Sr. Dominic was an extremely kind person with a soft spot for the under privileged. Knights of the road and persons temporarily down on their luck always found comfort and solace within the confines of St. Vincent’s Hospital. Legion are the stories recounted over the years concerning Sr. Dominic’s many acts of kindness. A breakfast reception provided for a traveler’s wedding, furniture handed out to those in need and jobs found for unemployed young people were just some of the many instances of Sr. Dominic’s charity. She had an engaging manner and despite her busy schedule found the time to exchange kind works with everyone she met. As one local said to me today, “Sr. Dominic had a place in her heart for everyone”. This was perhaps best exemplified in the support she gave Sr. Consilio when the young County Cork born nun established the first Cuan Mhuire in Athy. Her support for Sr. Consilio never wavered over the years.
The eldest of six children of James and Margaret McHugh of Ballycorman, Ballylinan, Co. Laois Sr. Dominic took pride in her families links with Luggacurran and its historic past. She often spoke of the Luggacurran evictions when her forbearers, the McHughs, like so many other Irish families, were evicted from their farm holdings.
On retiring from St. Vincent’s Hospital in 1981 Sr. Dominic continued to live in the Convent located within the grounds of the Hospital. This allowed her to maintain her daily routine of visiting the patients as well as serving as the sacristan in the hospital Chapel. Each year she undertook fundraising activities each year to assist in sending handicapped children to Lourdes and many local children had the benefit and experience of a pilgrimage to that sacred place due to Sr. Dominic’s untiring charitable work.
She had three sisters of which one, Mary Ann McHugh who lived in 98 Woodstock Street died 11 years ago. Her surviving sisters are Brigid who lives in Woodstock Street and Sr. Eileen, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph’s who has lived in Australia for over 60 years. Sr. Eileen returned to Ireland for a short visit towards the end of last year to meet her sisters and her brothers, Rich McHugh who lives at Luggacurran and John McHugh of Fallaghmore.
Sr. Dominic was a larger-than-life figure whose achievements were publicly recognised when she was the recipient of a Person of the Year Award in 1990. It was an honour she fully deserved. I’m told that during the homily at the funeral Mass on Monday, two women walked across the transept of St. Michael’s Church and placed a hand-written poem on Sr. Dominic’s coffin. It was a touching and original tribute to a Sister of Mercy who during her long life exemplified the virtues and graces which many of us long to possess. Sr. Dominic was a shining example of all that is good in life and those of us who were privileged to know her will always cherish her memory.
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