Into every life a little rain must fall!

The weather is an everyday topic of conversation in Ireland. Whether it has the same topicality in other countries, I don’t know, but here in what the visitors call the Emerald Isle we have a particular fascination with anything climatical. It is not so much a topic of conversation as an integral part of a common place greeting, such as ‘lovely weather today’ or more usually ‘more rain on the way’, which are put to those we meet without any preliminary remarks or greetings.

The fascination with the weather in Ireland must surely be related in some way or other to the country’s long-standing dependence on agriculture. The importance of weather in lives devoted to agriculture can be appreciated when one considers that in the years before industrialisation bad weather meant no work and no work meant no pay, the result being hunger within the average family. No wonder, then, that the man in the street became somewhat fixated in what was happening or was expected to happen weather-wise as the working day dawned.

The gathering of weather-related information goes back a long time. How far back, I don’t know, but here in Athy there is a history of involvement in compiling weather data extending back at least 80 years. From 1929 until 1943, a rainfall station operated at Crom a Boo bridge. That same bridge, the work of James Delahunty, ‘Knight of the Trowel’ and completed just two years before the 1798 Rebellion, has been a silent witness to many events and occurrences over the centuries. Decapitated heads have hung from the bridge as a warning to local United Irishmen of the punishment awaiting those who sought to overturn the government of the day. While still in its infancy, the bridge provided safe passage over the River Barrow for Nicholas Grey of Rockfield House and his companion as they started out on their journey to Dublin to join in Emmet’s uprising.

But in 1929 Crom a Boo bridge provided a base for a more practical purpose, when a rainfall station was located there. The modern device for measuring rainfall is a simple enough one consisting of a copper cylinder with a glass bottle inside. The collected rainfall is decanted into a graduated cylinder, giving readings in millimetres. A daily record is kept of the rainfall measured and the information collected is forwarded each month to Met Eireann. Who looked after the rainfall station at Crom a Boo bridge up to 1943 I have been unable to discover and, indeed, I cannot identify exactly where the station was located vis à vis the bridge itself.

The local rainfall station in Athy was relocated to the Vocational School on the Carlow Road in 1943. St Brigid’s School had been opened in 1930 by the then minister for education Thomas Derrig and the late Tony Byrne of St Joseph’s Terrace was in charge of the station in the latter years of his period as school caretaker. I assume that his predecessors in that position were also involved in operating the rainfall station at the school.

Tony Byrne continued operating the rainfall station when in 1980 it was moved to his house at St Joseph’s Terrace, where it remained until Tony’s death in 2003. At the same time, a second station operated at Minch Nortons from 1981 to 2004. Following Tony Byrne’s death, his widow continued to supply rainfall measurements to the Met Office and a member of the Byrne family, I believe, still operates a rainfall station at nearby Levitstown.

Today at Chanterlands, Seosamh May operates a weather recording station on behalf of the Met Office. In addition to rainfall measurement, Seosamh records on a daily basis air temperature, humidity and soil temperatures. His is one of approximately 70 climate stations in Ireland where comprehensive data is compiled each day and forwarded monthly to Dublin. The climate station was previously located at Kilberry from about 1950 until 1993, when it was relocated to Chanterlands from where it has operated on a daily basis for the last 15 years.

I visited the station recently and courtesy of Seosamh May saw at first hand the compact yet seemingly complicated operation which gives the daily weather readings for Athy. The readings are taken at 9am Greenwich Mean Time every day, which means, of course, that during Irish summertime they are taken an hour later at 10am.

The main components of the weather station are a Stevenson’s Screen, a grass minimum thermometer, a rainfall gauge and three soil thermometers. The Stevenson’s Screen was designed originally by Thomas Stevenson, who was the father of the famous author Robert Louis Stevenson. It is a double-louvered box with four thermometers inside. A dry bulb thermometer gives the current air temperature at the time of reading, while a wet bulb thermometer records the temperature of evaporation. Both readings give the relative humidity at reading time. The air maximum thermometer records the highest temperature in a 24-hour period. The air minimum thermometer gives the lowest temperature for the same period. The first three of these thermometers are mercury instruments and the fourth is an alcohol instrument.

On the ground there is a grass minimum thermometer which is also alcohol based, which rests on two ‘Y’ shaped pegs at a 2º slant, with it’s bulb touching grass blade tips. It records the lowest ground temperature during the previous night. The rainfall gauge is similar to that previously described and the rainfall is recorded every day, as are all the other weather measurements.

About a year ago, three soil thermometers were added to the weather station at Chanterlands. These are right-angled instruments and are inserted into the bare soil to depths of 50mms, 100mms and 200mms to give the soil temperature at these respective levels. The information gathered in relation to soil temperature is of benefit to agriculturalists and horticulturalists, for when the soil temperature at 100mms depth reaches 6º C and upwards the grass starts to grow.

Cloud cover is also measured at the Athy weather station and is measured on a scale of 0 Okta, which indicates no cloud, to 9 Okta, which indicates total cloud cover. Visibility is measured and recorded up to 40 meters, 40 meters beyond and less than 20 meters. The state of the ground is recorded on a scale of 0-9 and any special type of weather in a 24-hour period is recorded using code numbers, for example, 2 indicates slow/sleet, 3 hail, 4 thunder, 6 gale and 7 fog.

Keeping daily weather records requires enormous dedication and Seosamh May has successfully under-taken this onerous task for the last 15 years. As an aside, he told me of the difference between a ‘rain day’ and a ‘wet day’. Rain days have rainfall of 0.2mms or above, while wet days have rainfall of 1.0mm or more. Last January, we had 23 rain days and 21 wet days, while the highest temperature recorded this year was on 23 January with almost 14.5º Celsius. The highest temperature recorded at the Athy weather station since 1993 was 31.3º Celsius on 18 July 2006. The heaviest rainfall in any 36-hour period was slightly above 3.5 inches, commencing on 15 May 2000. On the following day just over three inches of rainfall fell. In case you thought that January of this year was bad in terms of rainfall, the wettest month since 1993 was September 1999 when over eight inches of rain fell. This January we had five inches of rain, at a time when the town water supply was cut off, but unfortunately we were unable to avail of either source of water.

Thanks to Seosamh May for showing me around Athy’s weather station and for explaining the intricacies of the system, and thanks also to Joe Lyons of the Met Office in Dublin who supplied most of the information about climatic recordings in the past.

Tallaght-fornia dreamin’ for MacKenna’s Corner Boys

Last week I travelled to the Civic Theatre in the heart of the new township of Tallaght for the first night of John MacKenna’s latest play, ‘Corner Boys’. The theatre, part of the complex of buildings which were built up around the Tallaght Square shopping development is a cultural oasis. In an incongruous setting it stands almost as a beacon of light, reflecting well on the community which however seems to make greater use of the nearby cinema complex than it does of the theatre itself. I journeyed up the motorway somewhat apprehensively, wondering as to whether our local writer who has given us some wonderful literary works could once again provide a memorable night of entertainment. John MacKenna’s previous play, ‘Who By Fire’, received enthusiastic responses from his audiences last year, but less than favourable comments from the critics who seem more perplexed than enlightened by what they saw.

‘Corner Boys’, the writer tells us, is a play of laughter, love, missed opportunity and tragedy. Clearly the whole gamut of human emotion seems to have found a voice and a setting in his play, if the advance publicity is to be believed. It’s a play about the lives of ordinary people and people certainly did not come any more ordinary than the corner boys which once populated the street corners of provincial Ireland of past years.

If you are of an age which started out in the decades before television captured the minds and eyes of the Irish people you will have seen the corner boys. MacKenna’s play is located on a street corner in nearby Castledermot, but here in Athy we had two prime street corners where our local corner boys congregated each day without fail. Carolan’s Corner and O’Rourke-Glynn’s Corner were the focal points for the men who, no matter what age they were, and some were quite old, were always referred to and readily identified as corner boys. They stood there, apparently motionless, their backs to the wall, watching, observing, recognising, and where recognition did not come, enquiring amongst themselves. Their world was encompassed within the horizons of their vision, their eyes looking up and down the street, seldom moving, seldom missing, always recording, even if not always understanding.

Their commentary on the comings and goings in the street passed for conversation. They were for the most part quiet, seldom if ever garrulous as they stood with hands in trousers pockets, removed only to retrieve a cigarette from the mouth, sometimes balancing on one leg with the other leg extended behind and resting against the wall.

Traffic movement in the days of the corner boys was unlike the continuous cavalcade we have come to know today. The sparse traffic moved slowly, allowing time for those passing to be identified and the strangers to be noted. Comments were the life blood of the community of corner boys. Their minds no doubt struggled to maintain a balance between observing, commenting and ruminating and in this way the day passed. What I wondered would the fertile imagination of the former teacher from Castledermot come up with in a play centered on the dialogue of men who spent their days hanging around the corners of small towns and villages.

It was the famous theatrical critic of the 1940’s, James Agate, who described the essence of theatre as ‘excitement shared in company and moreover excitement packed into something under three hours.’ After the 1½ hour performance, with a 15 min. interval of ‘Corner Boys’, I could not but admit that John MacKenna had by Agate’s definition captured the essence of theatre with his latest play. This was a play punctuated during it’s first half particularly, by raucous laughter as the audience reacted, at least most of them did, at the ribaldry of the three corner boys, and occasionally the antics of the two girls acting out their roles as shop assistants. The second half of the play swung the audience’s emotions the other way as the reality of the disappointed lives of the young people unfolded in scenes which were tense and devoid of the frivolity and merriment of the play’s opening.

The play’s theme is difficult to define. That in some strange way is one of the strength’s of MacKenna’s work. The interpretation of what you see and hear allows for different conclusions. Is it the questionable struggle of the genders which shows in the character of Alice the indomitable strength of the female contrasting with the weakness of the corner boys? Is it a story of love and jealously amongst a small group within a provincial town, or a story of hopelessness emphasised in the words of one of the actors who complains that ‘poverty is a life sentence – the only way to get time off is to die young’.

‘Corner Boys’ is a fine piece of work which one must see in its entirety to appreciate. The opening scenes, if seen in isolation, might lead one to conclude that it was nothing more than a vehicle for a few old male jokes and less than savoury male-type behaviour. The truth however, is that John MacKenna has written a fine piece for the theatre and happily the players under the direction of Marian Brophy have done his work justice. The one scene, which coming in the middle of the first act, seemed not to fit in as well as the rest of the play was the Parish Priest’s sermon in which he tells his parishioners how they should live their lives. This for me was the only part of the play which did not come across as well as the director and the author might have hoped.

A good play, with excellent direction by Marian Brophy of Carlow, was further enhanced by strong acting by Cora Fenton playing the part of Alice Dungan, and Charlie Hughes playing her brother Billy. Cora Fenton was exceptionally good and John MacKenna, himself a fine actor, gave a performance which was overshadowed by his two colleagues. Noel Lambe gave one of his best performances to date and newcomer Teresa Cahill can be well pleased on her debut role with the ‘Water to Wine Theatre Company’.

A well written play, with good performances by the five actors and excellent direction by Marian Brophy should ensure a successful tour for ‘Corner Boys’. It will come to the Town Hall Athy for three nights commencing on 3rd March, Dunamaise Theatre Portlaoise on Thursday 14th February, Eire Óg Hall Carlow on 8th March, finishing in the Moate Club Naas on 14th and 15th March. A total of 22 venues will be toured by the company between 6th February and 15th March, with what promises to be a very successful play for the Castledermot-born writer. You should go and see it at a venue near you.

From the Shamrock Shore to Van Diemen’s Land

In 2001, Peter Carey’s book on The History of the Kelly Gang was published to critical acclaim and won for its Australian author the Booker Prize. What I had found interesting in Carey’s account of Ned Kelly was the knowledge displayed by the writer of little-known events which occurred in provincial Ireland during the 1798 period. Here is an extract from his book.
‘At Beveridge Catholic School, we learned the traitors better than the saints so at 5 yr of age I could recite the names John Cockayne Edward Abby even poor Anthony Perry who finally betrayed the rebels after the English set his head alight with pitch and gunpowder. Likewise but contrary I knew the names of the Athy blacksmiths Tom Murray and Owen Finn they would not betray the rebels though they was flogged and tortured the whole town echoing with their screams.’

Clearly news of what had occurred in Athy in ’98 had crossed the world and in particular to Australia, in all probability courtesy of some unfortu-nate convict from this area deported down under after conviction at the local assizes and after a spell spent in the local jail awaiting transfer to a waiting hulk in Queenstown or Dublin.

Students of Irish history will be familiar with Australian place names such as Botany Bay and Van Diemen’s Land, the first the bay into which convict ships sailed and the latter, now renamed Tasmania, where the unfortunate Irish, English, Welsh and Scottish convicts, male and female, were to serve out their sentences. How many men and women from South Kildare were deported it is unclear, but among the numbers were undoubtedly many of our townspeople who after serving their sentences made a new life for themselves in Australia.

Added to their numbers were the young girls who as part of the Orphan Emigration Scheme which followed the Great Famine left the workhouse in Athy and other Irish workhouses on the long journey which ended in Australia. The first group of girls from South Kildare went out in 1849. The Emigration Scheme was stated to be a voluntary scheme, which presupposes that the Board of Guardians cooperated, but I wonder to what extent the young girls or their parents, where known, were consulted or volunteered to emigrate to the far side of the world.

What happened to these young girls after their arrival in Botany Bay is the subject of continuing research, but it can be expected that their descendents are now part of the wider population of Australia and perhaps even Tasmania, the island state which received its last convict from the old world in 1852. Four years later, the island’s name was changed from Van Diemen’s Land to Tasmania in honour of the man who had discovered it over 200 years previously.

Australia has always had a strong Irish connection and the influence of Irish settlers is evident in the country’s heritage of song and literature. The most popular Australian ballad, insofar as the Irish are concerned, must surely be The Wild Colonial Boy.

The exploits of Jack Duggan, ‘born and reared in Castlemaine’, was immortalised in a song which perhaps reflected his fellow country-men’s affection for Irish outlaws and a dislike for authority born and nurtured out of decades of state oppression in their homeland.

The literary output of Irish emigrants, despite their contribution to Australian literary heritage, may not have been as strong as might be expected, given that by 1891 more than 23% of the Australian population consisted of Irish-born men or women. This is understandable, given that the majority of Irish emigrants were relatively uneducated. The Irish Australian writings which have come down to us include the works of Charles Gavin Duffy, Peter Lalor and Dunbrin-born James Malone. Lalor from County Laois, brother of the Irish patriot James Fintan Lalor, was the leader of the gold miners who, in blockading the Eureka Stockade in 1854, struck a blow for democracy, creating what is generally acknowledged to be one of the great symbolic events in Australian labour history. The famous American writer Mark Twain later wrote of the events at Eureka Stockade, where the gold diggers rebelled against oppressive laws and corrupt officials, as “the finest thing in Australian history. It was a revolution - small in size but politically it was a strike for liberty, a struggle for a principle, a stand against injustice and oppression”.

Peter Lalor who had emigrated from County Laois just two years previously was 27 years of age when he took charge of the rebel miners at Eureka, and by the time government troops had regained control 14 miners were dead and another eight were later to die of their wounds. Among the wounded was Peter Lalor himself. Most of those involved were Irish and the ‘failed’ revolt led to the democratisation of the Australian State of Victoria.

Almost 38 years later, Fr James Malone, a native of Dunbrin, Athy left Ireland for Australia where he would remain a Parish Priest in various Australian parishes until his death in 1948. A man of exceptional literary taste, he wrote several books and contributed many articles to Australian magazines during his lifetime. The Purple Dust published in 1910 was his account of a tour through Egypt and Palestine, originally written for an Australian magazine Austral Light and serialised in that magazine over a two-year period. The trip started in February 1907 and ended in Athy, where Fr Malone was visiting his family and relatives for the first time since emigrating in 1892. He was a lecturer and writer on English literature and poetry and published in 1915 his lectures which he titled Talks about Poets and Poetry, having published some years previously a work titled The Australian Poet. Of particular interest to Athy readers is his own book of poetry Wild Briar and Wattle-Blossom, published in Melbourne in 1914, in which a number of photographs appeared. The captions accompanying the photographs were A Home on the Barrow, A Scene on the Barrow and The Old Whitewashed Schoolhouse in Shanganamore. The poems, some of which were Australian in content, were reflections of an Irishman’s memories of his home place, the most well-known of which was The Old Whitewashed Schoolhouse of Shanganamore, the opening lines of which read: Through the bogs of Dunbrin, leaping pool after pool, ‘Up and follow the leader’s the law of the school; A plunge at the stile with the risk of a spill, For the best bunch of cowslips on green

Cowsey’s hill - A race for the rath through the long meadow grass, Through the boldest heart quakes at the dread “fairy pass” - A leap for the hazel, a rustling of boughs - Hush! It’s only the gadfly that’s driving the cows.

And ended with the lines: And some day I’ll come back from that South Ocean’s shore To sleep ’neath the shamrocks of Shanganamore.

Fr Malone, so far as I am aware, never did return to Ireland and when he died on 16 July 1948, he was buried in the mortuary chapel at Geelong, Australia.

The crisis facing the Catholic Church, as numbers fall

Bishop Eamon Walsh, when addressing the customary small attendance at 12 noon Mass last Sunday in St Michael’s Parish Church, spoke of parochial priests of the Dublin Diocese being reduced by one third of their current number in nine years’ time. Even more alarming was his claim that the already-elderly priests in Ireland’s largest diocese will be less than half their present numbers in 12 years’ time.

Adding to the difficulties facing the Irish Catholic Church into the future is the certainty that those priests who remain at the helm of local parishes in 2020 will almost entirely consist of elderly men. Bishop Walsh spoke of the possible amalgamation of parishes and the employment of lay people in roles unspecified, but presumably roles that are presently occupied by Catholic clergy.

Unquestionably, the Catholic Church in Ireland is facing into an evolving crisis and one which will not easily be resolved. The fall-off in Sunday church attendances has been noticeable for some years past, coinciding with a fall-off in vocations for the priesthood and religious orders.

We have seen the departure of the Christian Brothers from Athy and the closure of the local Convent of Mercy, all due to the failure to secure new entrants for those religious orders.

The possibility is that missionary countries to which Irish priests, nuns and brothers once brought the message of the Gospel may in the future be required to provide religious personnel for the Irish Church.

There is as much need today for missionary work among the Irish people as there was in darkest Africa a few generations ago. One gets the impression that the role of the Catholic Church in Ireland has remained unchanged for hundreds of years.

An obedient people born and reared in the Catholic faith had in the past little need for the work of missionaries. The Church marshalled and directed, while the people obeyed, and the nature of the Church’s role remained the same for generations. The unquestioning obedience that once marked the Irish people’s attitude to religion is now gone, yet the Church appears not to have adapted to the change in society.

In our parish, more and more parishioners fail to attend Sunday Mass in the parish church which was built just over 40 years ago with the hard-earned pounds, shillings and pence of once loyal local families. The children of those families are now by and large staying away from the church, the building of which their parents and grandparents worked so hard to finance.

The answer in the short term will undoubtedly give us amalgamated parishes, repeating the experiences of the Church of Ireland in the years following the founding of the Irish Free State. The long-term solution lies with the likes of the relatively youthful Fr Joe McDonald and his peers. The ability to reach out beyond the dwindling congregation at Sunday Masses is the challenge.

Fr Joe’s Sunday sermons have brought a new dimension to church attendances in St Michael’s. In the week following the Christmas holidays, I listened to him give a homily at 12 o’clock Mass which perhaps was the most stimulating and thought-provoking sermon I had ever heard delivered in the parish church. It was a wonderful occasion and many who were at that Mass have commented to me since in similar terms. Our new curate deserves a bigger audience and the hope is that he will get it in St Michael’s rather than elsewhere. After all, the parish church of St Michael’s in Athy holds the unique distinction of having hosted over 160 years ago the first mission held in an Irish parish. Maybe the resurgence of the Irish Catholic Church will start in the town where the Order of the Black Friars have had a presence for the past 750 years.

One man who, like those of his generation, always remained faithful to the church of his birth was Freddie Farrell. He passed away last week aged 78 years. Freddie was a daily Mass-goer who served Mass in the Dominican Church on the very morning that he suffered a stroke from which he would die days later.

A Laois man, Freddie was proud of his county of birth and despite having lived all of his adult life in Athy never lost affection for the O’Moore county. In his younger days Freddie, with his sister Mona, was a champion Irish dancer. Friends of the legendary Rory O’Connor, Freddie and his sister won innumerable feisanna in the 1940s and for a time he taught Irish dancing in the town hall. After attending the Christian Brothers School in Athy, he worked with his father John who had a haulage business and when his father retired in 1961 Freddie took over the business. Ten years previously, Freddie married Betty Blanchfield of St Patrick’s Avenue and they celebrated 55 years of married life in May of last year.

The love of Irish dancing was passed on to his daughter Marie, who currently operates the Farrell Caffrey School of Dancing. Marie was brought to Dublin each week by her father to take lessons from Ireland’s premier Irish dance master, Rory O’Connor.

Freddie also provided transport in the 1960s for the variety group of which Marie was a member and which toured extensively throughout Ireland for almost ten years. Included in that group were the legendary Casey Dempsey and Tom Farrell.

I recall Freddie operating what was previously Dowling’s and later Kehoe’s public house in Offaly Street for a few years in the late 1960s. He operated the haulage business at the same time, extending his business interests into minibus hire and I believe that he may have been the first minibus operator in this area.

A very likeable man, Freddie continued working up to two years ago. Fr Ross McCauley of the Dominican Friary spoke of Freddie when receiving his remains in the parish church as “a man who was always willing to go that extra mile”.

Those who knew Freddie recognised only too well how appropriate it was to describe him in that way. He went out of his way on so many occasions to help others that it could truly be said of him that he was generous to a fault.

Freddie Farrell, champion hornpipe dancer in his younger days, was a very honourable and likeable man and on his passing we extend sympathy to his wife Betty and his family.

On Wednesday 6 February, the Water to Wine Theatre Company will take to the stage in the Civic Theatre, Tallaght for four nights with a production of John MacKenna’s new play Corner Boys. The play is a tragic/comic story of three corner boys and two women set in a small Irish village in 1963 during President Kennedy’s visit to Ireland and his subsequent assassination. The play has a cast of five, including the playwright himself, and the director is Marian Brophy of Carlow.

Corner Boys will go on tour following the run in Tallaght, taking in 20 provincial theatres including three nights in the town hall, Athy, on 3, 4 and 5 March. John MacKenna is one of our most prolific writers, bringing his writing talents to novels, short stories and plays and proving adept at each of these literary genres.

The play Corner Boys will bring back memories for those of us over 50 years of age who will remember Carolan’s corner and O’Rourke Glynn’s corner as the local ‘seats of wisdom’.

A list of theatres across the country where Corner Boys will play can be obtained by e-mailing watertowinetheatre@hotm ail.com.

Boom town runs risk of losing community spirit

With a population of 8,256 or thereabouts, the highest figure attained in its 800-year history, Athy has extended its boundaries into countryside which not so many years ago was farmed, ploughed and grazed. The once-compact market town - compact despite its medieval linear-type road pattern, which gave us a long, narrow high street extending from one side of the town to its furthest point - has been extended and reshaped almost beyond recognition. Housing estates have gone up, some with names that have no resonance with the ancient place names of South Kildare, making many of us strangers in our own place. I was embarrassingly made aware of this when, just before Christmas, a visitor to the town asked me for directions to a hitherto-unknown housing estate. I did not know where it was, whether east or west of the Barrow, that permanent watermark which once informed our sense of direction in a locality which we had grown to know so well. Not anymore. The Barrow, translated as ‘the dumb water’, meanders (or more correctly, given last week’s floods, rushes) between river banks that no longer have a close connection with every part of the township of Athy. Like ourselves, the river has lost contact with the newly-developed parts of the town and you know, as a community, we are all the poorer for that.

As the influx of new residents brings the town population figure to heights never before reached, many old and not-so-old bearers of family names which graced community life in Athy for decades have passed on. A month ago, Jack Brogan, whose father Bill came to Athy many years ago to work in his uncle’s forge, died at a relatively young age. John, who had retired as a prison officer, was a nephew of Tom Brogan, who is still remembered by the older generation and whose name is frequently referred to when people reminisce of Athy of 50 years ago and more. Brogan’s forge was an important part of the community life of Athy until it disappeared, as did all the other local forges, with the advent of the motor car.

Jack Brogan was a member of the Athy Photographic Society and the 2007 Calendar produced by the society had a very evocative photograph of Offaly Street by him.

MP Kelly of Booleigh House died last week at 88 years of age. His very active involvement in the local golf club saw him fill various officerships of the club which celebrated its centenary last year. MP was club president in 1978 and 1979 and two years later was elected captain of Athy Golf Club.

Another old Athy family to suffer a bereavement within the last week or so was the Bergin family. The late Agnes Bergin was the daughter of Joe Bergin, formerly of Greenhills House, which, as the name indicates, once stood in the middle of farmland that is now given over to the Woodstock Housing Estates. Joe was land steward for the Sisters of Mercy and the lands at Greenhills had passed to the Sisters on the death of their owner in the mid-19th century. Part of the lands were subsequently donated to the Christian Brothers for the building of the Brothers’ monastery and school in 1862. A further land donation provided the site for St Patrick’s Primary School built in the late 1960s, while Athy UDC and Kildare County Council purchased more of the land for the building of the vast housing estates which emerged from 1969 onwards. These estates included 28 houses in Townparks, completed in 1971, a further 32 houses built in the same area the following year, to be followed by 72 houses now known as Castle Park in 1973 and two years later 50 houses in Greenhills built by the National Building Agency.

The Blanchfield family are another old Athy family, one of whose members passed away last week. Réiltín, who was married to the late Cecil Treacy of Fontstown, a marriage blessed with 12 children, was herself the sixth member of the Blanchfield family which totalled 15 in all. Her funeral to Kilmeade Church on Monday night was attended by a huge number of sympathisers. St Ita’s Church, reputed to have been built in the year of the Rebellion of 1798, could not cater for all those attending, but the arrangements put in place by the local church members were extraordinarily good. Traffic was admirably marshalled by the local men and one could not but be highly impressed by the organisational input of the lay members of the Kilmeade Church.

I noticed a plaque to the side of the main door of the church unveiled during the bicentenary of the church in 1998. I wonder, however, how accurate it is to put the building of the church at 1798, a time when Catholic churches were more likely to be burned to the ground as happened in Castledermot and Athy. It would represent an unusual and perhaps a unique contribution to Irish Catholic Church history to find a church built in the South Kildare area in 1798, which at that time was regarded by civil authorities as a hot bed of rebellious activity.

The site for the church was given by the Kenna family of Kilmeade, who were connected by marriage with Paul Cullen, the first Cardinal of the Irish Catholic Church. The Kennas were substantial land owners in the Kilmeade area, holding over 234 acres of land around the time Catholic Emancipation was granted in 1829.

When I was about 13 or 14 years of age, along with a number of school mates including Frank English, Pat Flinter and Brendan Webb, I travelled to Kildare Town in Tosh Doyle’s hackney car for two or maybe three days to sit examinations for a Kildare County Council scholarship. With us on those trips were Teresa Delaney and Réiltín Blanchfield. I was reminded of this by Frank English an hour or so after Réiltín’s remains were removed to St Ita’s Church and recalled with a jolt that both Teresa and Réiltín from that small group are now dead.

Just over two weeks ago, Réiltín called to give me some much appreciated historical background information. It was not her first time to do so, as Réiltín shared with me an interest in the history of the locality and was always willing to share her knowledge in that regard.

I was in Dublin on Thursday morning when I got word of the death of Josh Hendy whose funeral to Ballintubbert took place that same morning. Josh, like Réiltín, had a great interest in the people and places of South Kildare and indeed Josh featured in a previous Eye on the Past (Eye no 706). He was a wonderfully friendly man who throughout his life participated fully in the sporting and social affairs of his locality. He played Gaelic football with Castlemitchell in his younger days and in later years assisted in the development of the Castlemitchell Hall. Josh was a great friend of Eye on Athy and I was indebted to him for the many occasions on which he shared his knowledge and reminiscences of times past in Athy and Castlemitchell. I extend my sympathies to the families of all the above deceased members of our community.

The passing of so many with names familiar to the older generation at a time when the town’s population is increasing at a rate never before witnessed is a sober reminder to us of the everchanging face of our town. Athy will witness even greater physical changes over the next few years with the construction of an outer relief road and the building of town centre shopping malls. The 800-year-old town, which developed around the second-century river crossing, will be hugely reshaped and changed by these new developments. It is hoped that the community spirit which was always a feature of life in the smaller compact town of Athy of yesteryear will continue to be a noticeable part of provincial life in the expanded and still expanding town of the future.

Athy’s links to the premier’s office in Australia

Athy can lay claim to many important and historical figures from the past, some by birth, many more by association or links stretching back through the generations. One such connection, tenuous as it may seem, linked the Anglo-Norman town with the only British prime minister ever to be assassinated. The luckless individual was Sydney Perceval, who was fatally wounded in the House of Commons by an embittered failed businessman in 1812. The prime minister’s niece, Maria, was the wife of Reverend Frederick Trench, then curate of St Michael’s Parish Church but later to become its rector. Trench was the last elected Sovereign of Athy Borough, which was abolished in 1840 and he was to die 20 years later when his carriage, travelling from his home at Kilmoroney House, collided with the medieval town gate at the bottom of Offaly Street. Following the accident, Preston’s Gate, as it was known, was demolished. Another prime minister with links to Athy was Joseph Aloysius Lyons, who held the premier political post in Australia for seven years from 1932. The Australian prime minister, born in Stanley, Tasmania in 1879, was the fourth child of Ellen Carroll, formerly of Forest, Athy. Ellen was the daughter of John Carroll of Forest and she emigrated to Australia in or about

1850. Clearly, she was a very young girl when she left Athy so perhaps she emigrated with her parents and the other members of the Carroll family. This was the post-famine period when Athy and South Kildare generally experienced a very large reduction in population due to emigration, which was generally centered on Britain and America.

To travel to Australia in the 1850s was the prerogative of convicts, who did so courtesy of the state, or reasonably well-off families who could afford to pay for their own passage to the Southern hemisphere. We know that Ellen Carroll’s sisters Hetty and Mary were also in Australia, for when the future prime minister was 12 years of age he lived with his two aunts in Stanley. The presence of three Carroll sisters in Tasmania would tend to support the belief that the Carroll’s had emigrated to Australia as a family.

Interestingly, I find that upwards of 37 young girls from the Athy area travelled to Australia between 1849 and 1850 as part of an Orphan Emigration Scheme. They were girls sent out from the local workhouse and included in their numbers was Ann Carroll who arrived in Sydney on the ship Lady Peel on 3 July 1849. However, there is nothing to connect her to the Carroll family of Forest.

Joseph Aloysius Lyons’ parents were Michael Lyons and Ellen Carroll, both of whom had Irish backgrounds. Michael was actually born in Tasmania of Irish parents just ten days after they had arrived as Irish immigrants in Tasmania. Joseph’s father initially ran a small farm, but dabbling in business ventures he lost his savings and continuing ill health brought the Lyons family into financial difficulties. This forced his nine-year-old son Joseph to leave the Catholic school at Ulverstone and take up odd jobs to help the family situation. Three years later his mother’s sisters, Hetty and Mary, took him in hand and he was able to return to school. He qualified as a teacher in 1901 and taught for a number of years in various country schools. Allegedly influenced by the Irish radicalism of his mother and his sisters, he became actively involved with the Australian Labour Party in Tasmania. This brought him into conflict with his employers, the Tasmanian Education Department, and resigning from his teaching post in 1909 he stood as a candidate for the Tasmanian assembly. Elected to the assembly, he later became president of the state’s Labour Party and in time minister for education for Tasmania. He was responsible for the building of the first high schools in Hobart and Launceston, two Tasmanian towns with high numbers of Irish immigrants.

Following the Easter Rebellion of 1916, he became vice-president of the Hobart United Irish League and during the conscription controversy which raged throughout 1917, not only in Ireland but also in Australia, he consistently campaigned against the British government’s attempts to increase the intake of troops for the war in France and Flanders.

He became leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party in November 1916 and four years later premier of Tasmania. In May 1928, Lyons resigned from the Tasmanian parliament to contest elections for the Australian federal government. He was duly elected and would be reelected at three further national government elections in the 1930s.

Dissatisfied with some individuals within the Australian Labour Party, Lyons resigned from that party in 1931 and became one of the founders and eventual leader of the United Australia Party, which won the Australian general election some months later. The son of the young girl from Athy became prime minister of Australia on 6 January 1932.

Australia, like every other country in the world, suffered during the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, Lyons’ management of the country’s affairs in the years leading up to the Second World War prompted fellow parliamentarian Robert Menzies, himself to be a future prime minister of Australia, to describe Lyons as “the best parliamentarian I have ever known”.

Joseph Lyons travelled to London in 1935 as representative of the Australian government to attend the king’s jubilee celebrations. I have been unable to find out if he took the opportunity to visit Ireland that year, or indeed if he ever visited his moth-er’s homeland. I have also drawn a blank in my attempts to trace the Carroll family of Forest and particularly John Carroll, father of Ellen, Hetty and Mary, the Carroll sisters whom I believe emigrated to Australia in the 1850s.

The Australian prime minister of Irish extraction, and more important-ly from our point of view with a family background centered in South Kildare, died while holding the highest political office in Australia in

1939. He had been in failing health from the previous year and passed away following a heart attack on 7 April 1939. He was buried in Devonport, Tasmania after a memorial service in Sydney and the Australian capital of Canberra.

Joseph Lyons was survived by his wife Enid, whom he had married in 1915 and by 11 of the 12 children of their marriage. Four years after her husband’s death Enid Lyons stood as a candidate for Darwin in the federal general elections and became the first female member of the Australian House of Representatives. She successfully contested three further general elections and on the election of Robert Menzies’ government in 1949 she became the first female cabinet member in Australia. She resigned from parliament two years later and died in 1981.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who may know anything of the Carroll family of Forest, Athy. Perhaps some members of the prime minister’s family have visited the South Kildare area in the past, or alternatively made enquiries about their ancestors from Forest. If anyone can throw light on the Carroll family, I would welcome hearing from them.

You take the high road, I’ll take the low road

WHEN 2007 finally ran out, two men long associated with the town of Athy had also reached the end of their life spans. Frank Anderson, the bearer of a noble clan name from Scotland, was indeed a descendant of a Scottish immigrant family from Perthshire.

The Andersons, with the Frasers, Duthies, Duncans, Campbells, Hosies, Neills, Pennycooks and nine other Scottish families, came to Ireland in or around 1851 on the invitation of the Duke of Leinster to take up vacant farms in South Kildare. An interesting tradition associated with the Duncans, Campbells, Hosies and the Andersons related to me some years ago by Frank Anderson, had the four families drawing lots to decide on which side of the River Barrow they would settle. The Duncans and Campbells remained on the East Side, their fellow Scotsmen crossed the River Barrow.

Frank Anderson was for many years a member and an officer of Athy’s Rugby Club and carried on an Anderson family tradition when he became club captain in 1949/50. The club was founded in the 1880s and among the founding members was R Anderson, who I believe was Robert Anderson of Castlemitchell, an ancestor of the late Frank. Indeed, the Anderson family has figured large in the annals of Athy Rugby Club, with Frank’s father Robert H Anderson as club captain from 1929 to 1931 and Frank as club president in 1967/68.

His brother Leslie occupied the same presidential position on several occasions from 1972 onwards. The Anderson family connection with the club was cemented with the presentation of the Anderson Cup in 1970 for competition between provincial third teams. Frank Anderson, who played junior inter-provincial rugby with Leinster, helped compile with the late Des McHugh, the centenary history of Athy Rugby Club, which for reasons not yet made clear was celebrated in 1980. Frank, who was a member of the dwindling Presbyterian community in Athy, will be sadly missed by all who knew him.

On Christmas Eve, my school friend Noel Scully died after a short illness. Noel, a well-liked figure in the town, was the subject of an Eye in this series early in the year (Eye on the Past no 747). Noel recalled the hardships of the early 1950s and the difficulties he had to overcome to become apprenticed to the butchers’ trade.

He had left school even before the school leaving age of 14 years had been reached and endured hardship and many disappointments before he overcame the disadvantages of economically depressed times to succeed in business. He took great pride in his trade and enjoyment in the pursuit of success on the dogracing track. And success did come his way courtesy of a wonderful greyhound named ‘Dilly don’t Dally’, who gave Noel many important wins as a dog breeder and owner.

I had left the town council before Noel was elected as an urban councillor so had no first-hand experience of dealing with him across the council chamber. However, it was clear from his public utterances that he worked assiduously to promote the town and nowhere was this seen to better effect than in the town twinning ceremony which he presided over during his year as chairman of Athy Town Council. A modest quiet man, Noel was universally liked, not only by his own townspeople but also by those with whom he came in contact, as was evidenced by the impressive attendance of Labour Party national politicians at his funeral. Our sympathies go to Noel’s widow and family and to the family of the late Frank Anderson.

Christmas is a time for giving and receiving and this year there was a huge Taaffe family surprise with the unexpected arrival home for the holidays of my youngest daughter Carol. She travelled from China to spend a few days in Athy and it was a smashing surprise and undoubtedly the finest gift I could have expected this Christmas.

One other surprise that gave me enormous pleasure was the unexpected gift of papers given to me by Catherine Harrington in the car park of Pettitt’s over the Christmas holidays. It contained a photo of the Athy Social Club Players in April 1958 with the Fr Matthew Cup. The young lady sitting second from the right on the front row was tragically to die in a road traffic accident the following year. Mary Harrington with her friend Breda Kennedy were killed while walking on the Dublin Road near Geraldine Park. Also in that envelope were a number of programmes of the Athy Social Club Players dating from 1953, several of which were signed “Mary Harrington, PO House”.

They were obviously Mary’s own copies of some of the plays in which she took part, the earliest of which was the 1953 production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. This coincidentally was the very first play I saw and it was the 1953 production in the town hall to which my brother Jack brought me over 50 years ago. The next year Mary Harrington featured in The Righteous are Bold, followed in 1955 with a part in Mary Mullan’s play The Clock Ticks Dusk. Later in the same year Mary played Trixie Trevelyn in John McCann’s play Twenty Years A-Wooing.

The final programme for 1956 was for My Wife’s Family, where Mary Harrington again joined on stage a host of Social Club Players, including my secondary school teacher Paddy O’Riordan.

The photograph which was given to me I am reproducing without naming the actors/actresses other than Mary Harrington as there are three persons in the group whom I cannot positively identify. A copy of volume 3 of Eye on Athy’s Past to the first person to give me all the correct names of the Social Club Players of 1958, together with the name of the play which won for them the Fr Matthew Cup that year. A happy New Year to all my readers.

Town was last frontier of Kildare

Athy was quite a new settlement when an Act of Parliament of 1297 noted the various assaults by the Irish on the colonists living within the Marches of Kildare and recognised the need for defensive measures. Certainly the defence of the then village of Athy would have been uppermost in the minds of its inhabitants after the village was burned in 1308. It would be burned four more times in the following 70 years which gives some indication of the vulnerability of the village, located as it was on the dividing line between the Anglo Normans and the native Irish.

The continual harassment of Anglo-Norman settlements had induced a policy of retrenchment by the middle of the 14th century. The policy of withdrawal from more hostile areas to the more easily defended Eastern countryside focused attention on Athy as a settle-ment of strategic importance. Athy consequently became a frontier post in the Marches of Kildare. As a result from the late 14th century onwards the defence of Athy was an important consideration for those who governed it. The frequency of the attacks on the town arising from its geographical location makes it highly likely that Athy was a walled town.

In 1431 expenses of 100 sovereigns were granted to the town for its defence. A further murage reference was noted in 1448 when it is stated that tolls were only to be charged on goods sold within the town of Athy and not those carried through. These references demonstrate that some measures existed for the provision of town defences and although no definite evidence can be found as to the nature of these defences the assumption must be that some form of town defences were in place. The vagueness of the information available to us presents problems in ascertaining the extent and nature of the town’s defences prior to the town charter of 1515. This charter granted by King Henry VIII is the clearest record with regard to town walling in Athy. Throughout this document there are frequent references to the walling of the town. Obviously the wall and its construction were integral not only to the defence but to the civic dignity of Athy. Under the charter authority was given to the inhabitants of the town to raise tolls

.....that they may erect construct build and strengthen the same town with fosses and walls of stone and lime; and provision was also made for financing the maintenance of these walls.

The reason for the provisions for the town wall as stated in the charter was

.....in opposition to the malice of our Irish enemies.....

The town charter is of utmost importance to any examination of the history of the medieval walls as it constitutes the only definite documentary evidence we have on the matter. However, no further reference can be found to its construction. Neither the subsequent charters of 1613 or of 1688 refer to the walling of Athy. Apart from Mercator’s map of 1568 we are uncertain as to the state of completion it ever reached.

In 1532 Ossory, in a communication with Thomas Cromwell the Lord Privy Seal referred to the

.....gates of the Earls (Kildare) town of Athye.....

There lies a difficulty in interpreting early documents not only in ascertaining the veracity of details but also the degree of bias inherent in them. When a town is described as being burnt and plundered certain doubts must be entertained as to the degree of destruction. What some writers might represent as a raid others may portray as a scene of rapine, plunder and slaughter. Likewise references to the walling are compromised not only by their scarcity but also by their lack of detail.

However, it is clear that whatever defences were built following the 1515 charter they did not afford sufficient protection against the Irish. In 1546 O’More of Laois attacked Athy burning the town and the Dominican Monastery. The plantation of Laois and Offaly in the mid 16th century put renewed emphasis on the importance of Athy as a military stronghold. The defence of Athy was integral to the success of the Plantation as the town on the Barrow became a vital supply link for the beleaguered English settlers of Laois/Offaly.

Although the military importance of the settlement continues into the 17th century it is interesting to note that writers such as John Dymok in his ‘Treatise on Ireland’ in 1600 gives a description of Athy with no reference to walling.

Athie is divided into two partes by the river of Barrow over the which lyeth a stone bridge, and upon it a castle occupied by James Fitzpierce, ...the bridge of the castle... being the onelye waye which leadeth into the Queene’s county.

Dymok further described a town which because of the wars initiated by the rise of the O’Neills had been beggared low. In the advance of Essex’s army of 1599 he mentions Athy as

A great market towne, but brought by these late wars into thestateofapore village.

However in 1598 an anonymous writer referred to Castledermot and Athy as the: ‘only important towns of Kildare, walled and now ruined’ (Hogan 1878).

Perhaps the frequency of attacks on the town may have reduced Athy to an impoverished state and may also account for the town walls never acquiring a completed state rendering them effective for defective purposes. On the other hand medieval walling, no matter how strong, could always fall to a determined and aggressive attacker. One could further conclude that the west bank of the town, as portrayed in Mercators map, may never have been walled. The bridge at Athy acted as the passage into Laois and that bridge could be more easily held and defended if only the eastern bank of the river was walled. A force concentrated on one bank of the river would be more practical than one having to straddle both banks of the River Barrow. The existence of the towerhouse at Woodstock would have functioned to cover the western approach to the town while the castles at Ardreigh and Grangemellon to the south and at Rheban to the north of Woodstock and the town may have formed a loose chain of defence for the frontier town.

The evidence that Athy was a walled town can be regarded as inconclusive and we may have to await the results of an archaeological ‘dig’ before the issue is decided one way or the other. However, the best evidence available to us would indicate that the settlement on the west bank of the River Barrow was enclosed within walls and the gate on Offaly Street removed in 1860 was in all probability the last remaining part of that enclosure.

Christmas memories

On Monday 10th December we witnessed one of the largest attendances at a funeral service held in Athy. John Perry a native of Bunclody but an adopted son of Athy had died three days previously. His passing was not unexpected but when it came it occasioned genuine regret for the man who was universally regarded for his courtesy and kindness.

The name Perry is synonymous in so far as townsfolk are concerned with the motor dealership and garage while for country folk the name is more associated with the farm machinery business. Both were developed from the start up business commenced forty five years ago by John Perry who came to Athy six years previously to work with Duthie Larges of Leinster Street. When he arrived in the South Kildare town he was just twenty years of age and within one week of his arrival he had made his first move in the upward transition which would eventually lead to the opening of his own business. That move, just a short distance up Leinster Street brought him to Jacksons, a firm well known and long established in the town of Athy. He later moved to Smiths Garage next to the I.V.I. foundry before branching out on his own just six years after he first arrived in Athy.

The friendly man who was John Perry was a highly respected business man who according to the many stories I have heard this week treated his customers with remarkable kindness and courtesy. Legion are the accounts that have come to my notice confirming that a happy customer was very important to the Bunclody man whose dealings were always fair and equitable.

As a committee member of the Church of Ireland John was a member of the local Select Vestry for almost forty years and for the last three decades fulfilled the role of treasurer of the Athy Parish. His involvement with the Athy Lions Club was perhaps less well know given that organisation’s work is by the most part carried out discreetly and without undue fanfare. As a past president of the Lions Club and a member of many years standing his contribution to local charities and good causes generally was exemplary. Above all he was an honourable man whose courtesy and innate kindness marked him as a man apart. The huge gathering at his funeral service at the Parish Church of St. Michaels was an indication of the esteem in which John and his family are held both locally and much further afield. To his wife Olive, his sons Stephen, Roger and Niall and his extended family go our sympathies.

Christmas time in Athy has been marked for many years passed with the performance of “While Shepherds Watched” in the local Dominican Church. A Yule time entertainment it’s always a very enjoyable festive offering guaranteed to bring good cheer and set the stage for the celebration of Christmas. This Thursday the 2007 performance takes place just days after Paul Stafford was laid to rest in St. Michaels Cemetery. It was Paul who fifteen years ago produced the very first “While Shepherds Watched”. His involvement in theatrical productions made him an ideal person to organise that first show and the audience reaction ensured it would become an annual event thereafter.

I recall Paul’s involvement in another event, an Oratoria written by John MacKenna and Mairead O’Flynn which he produced for Remembrance Sunday approximately 14 years ago in the Presbyterian Church on the Dublin Road. I had the performance captured on film but unfortunately the film has been missing for a number of years, no doubt lying on someone’s shelf, overlooked and forgotten. I can still remember the evocative scene created by Paul towards the end of the Oratorio when in darkness and with background commentary he gave the names of the Athy men who died in the 1914-1918 war, a candle was lit for every one of those men until finally 125 candles were flickering at the front of the Church. It was a very emotional scene created by a talented producer who worked on several theatrical offerings by John MacKenna and the Mend and Makedo Theatre Company. It was in fact the first public acknowledgment of the contribution made by Athy men during the 1914-18 war and thankfully in the intervening years we have witnessed the reclaiming of their memory as an integral part of our community’s proud history. Paul died after a long illness and our sympathies go to his mother Connie and his sisters Imelda, Celine and Anne.

A recent commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the death of Monaghan poet Patrick Kavanagh saw the planting of a tree at the Canal Harbour. It was a symbolic gesture for the Inniskeen man who wrote.

O commemorate me where there is water,
Canal water preferably
So stilly greeny at the heart of Summer. Brother
Commemorate me thus beautifully.

Later that evening in the nearby Gargoyles restaurant which was once the Grand Canal Hotel an evening of Poetry, Drama and Music brought to my attention for the first time the talented musicianship of octogenarian Seamus Farrell of Ballylinan. The tin whistle is his forte but somewhere along the way Seamus kissed the Blarney stone and luckily for social historians he is blessed with a good memory and a deep knowledge of this part of the country. Talking to Seamus that night and since then has brought a wealth of information from which I hope to piece together a few interesting articles in the new year.

In the meantime may I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a contented New year.

789

The last day of November took from us two men, who for many were intrinsically linked with Athy. Tony Bracken was just 63 years old when he succumbed to an illness which first became apparent in March of this year. He knew Br. John Flaherty, indeed Tony was taught in 6th class in the local Christian Brothers School by the tall genial Kerry man who will be remembered by many onetime scholars of the St. John’s Lane school. Both died on the same day this November, Tony who had given a lifetime of service to the G.A.A. and John Flaherty whose life was dedicated as a Christian Brother to educating Irish youths. Flaherty died in advanced old age in St. Patrick’s, Baldoyle, Tony in his own home at Woodstock Street surrounded by his family.

I last met Tony at the Aontas Ogra 50th anniversary celebration in Dreamland Ballroom. He was then very ill but facing into the future, uncertain as it was, with determination and courage. It was that same determination which saw him through a successful career as a handballer, winning softball titles while playing with the Moone club, and becoming the first, if not the only Moone club player ever to be selected on the Kildare County handball team.

Athy in the early decades of the last century was one of the principal centres for handball in this country and produced many champions over the years. When Tony was growing up in Woodstock Street the handball court in Barrack Lane was still in use, even if not as often or as effectively as it had been decades previously. Nevertheless the handball court provided a readymade arena for local youngsters who were willing and able to practice what is after all one of our national games. Tony was one such youngster and he became a handball player of ability, who in later years joined the Moone handball club where he was assured of competitive games with some top class players.

Tony was also a Gaelic footballer. I can’t vouch for his playing prowess or point to any great success of his on the playing field. However, it was as a club official that he is best remembered in terms of his involvement with the G.A.A. A fervent supporter of the game whose membership of the local Geraldine Club went back almost 50 years, Tony always seemed actively involved at local club level. He was a team selector, committee member, team manager and above all, as Club Chairman Marty McEvoy said at his funeral mass, ‘his love of G.A.A. was based on passion, commitment and total dedication’.

He was a selector for the Kildare County Minor team for three years and it was Tony who first spotted the future county footballing star Christy Byrne on the day 14 year old Christy was asked to stand in goal for a Castlemitchell team which found itself a man short one Sunday afternoon. Tony noted the young boy’s excellent performance that day and two years later was instrumental in having him selected for the County Minor team. Christy would later go on to win Leinster Championship and Railway Cup medals as the province’s outstanding goalkeeper. Tony managed the County Minor team in 1991, the year when local players such as Christy Byrne, Glen McLoughlin and John Wall helped secure the Leinster Minor Championship for Kildare to make up for the disappointment of losing the previous year’s final.

The huge funeral cortege which passed through Leinster Street on the way to St. Michael’s cemetery on Monday was a fitting testimony to the popularity of Tony and the esteem in which the Brackens are held. The moving tributes paid to a man whose popularity was unquestionable were well deserved. Athy G.A.A. Club provided a guard of honour for the removal of the remains to the church and the next day to St. Michael’s Cemetery. On both days the coffin bore the red jersey of Tony’s club and the famous Lilywhite of Kildare County in recognition of Tony’s attachment to club and county. He epitomised the well described, if sometimes little recognised, grass roots member of the G.A.A., a great national organisation which is the sum total of the countrywide clubs of which it is comprised.

There are hundreds like him throughout this island, each dedicated to the well being of clubs or organisations which provide outlets for sportsmen and sportswomen and without whose energy and commitment such clubs would falter and perhaps even disappear. Athy Gaelic Football Club will greatly miss Tony Bracken whose work over the years contributed enormously to the continued success of Athy’s premier sporting club.

The moving ceremony in St. Michael’s Parish Church on the morning of the funeral was presided over by Fr. Philip Dennehy, assisted by two other priests. The choir was in good voice and Jacinta O’Donnell gave a moving rendition of the Curragh of Kildare which she reprised at the graveside. Tony’s nephew, Brian Hughes, played on the tin whistle at the end of the Mass, his musical interpretation of ‘Danny Boy’ and the applause which greeted his musical tribute to his uncle spoke volumes for how well the piece was received by the congregation.

Tony’s daughter Glenda paid a moving tribute to her father and her delivery and presentation in the emotional atmosphere of a funeral mass was extraordinarily good. In fact I felt that hers was the most beautiful tribute I have heard paid to a parent at any of the many funeral masses I have attended in recent times. It was a most compelling and sensitive tribute to a father, the sentiments expressed finding an echo in the thoughts of her listeners who had known her father Tony.

Tony is survived by his wife Lily, his son Anthony and daughters Glenda and Olive. Lily I have known since both of us were attending, in her case St. Mary’s, in my case the Christian Brothers School where Tony was also a pupil. The years have passed with startling speed but friendships shaped in youthful times persist and the sorrow felt at the passing of Tony Bracken is palpable and real. He will be sadly missed by his family and friends, while Geraldine Gaelic Football Club and the Lilywhites have lost a lifelong supporter.

Brother John Flaherty and Tony Bracken were part of a shared past dating back almost 50 years ago. Their passing on the same day in November was a strange and a sad coincidence.

The Sisters of Mercy: at the heart of the town

On 24 October 1873, the Sisters of Mercy took charge of what was then known as the Union Hospital here in Athy. It was part of the work-house opened almost 30 years previously and was more proper-ly called the Infirmary. The small infirmary had been provided within the workhouse by the board of guardians to comply with their statutory obligation to equip hospitals and dispensaries for the sick poor. The Sisters of Mercy worked in the Infirmary during daylight hours only and a trained night nurse would not be employed by the board of guardians until 1897 when upwards of 80 patients were in the infirmary.

This was the era of the so-called ‘pauper nursing’, when female inmates of the workhouse were locked into the Infirmary with the patients at night time in order to look after them as best they could. The Sisters of Mercy undertook the work in the Infirmary as an extension of their mission in Athy and 11 years later they would embark on another local social service which was noted in the Convent Annals on 4 September 1884 as follows:

‘On the Feast of our Lady of Mercy 1884, the House of Mercy was opened. Sister Margaret Hayden was placed in charge and two young girls were admitted.’ During the previous year, a new building was erected at Stanhope Place to house on the first floor what was described as the Pension School (secondary school) and on the ground floor the House of Mercy. This latter facility was intended to offer domestic training for young girls with a view to them taking up employment after a year or two. A report prepared in 1932 on the occasion of the centenary of the Mercy Order claimed that approximately 480 young girls had been trained up to that time in Athy’s House of Mercy, all of whom had obtained work ‘according to their abilities’. Indeed several of the former House of Mercy trainees went on to become valued members of religious orders throughout Ireland.

The Sisters of Mercy’s Convent in Athy closed a few years ago but, before it did, the House of Mercy had ceased to operate and the last Sister of Mercy in charge of the facility was Sister Rita Cranny, a native of Rosebran. Sister Rita, who will celebrate her 90th birthday this month, entered the convent in 1938. She made her triennial vows as a Sister of Mercy on 11 February 1941 and two years later made her final vows in a ceremony presided over by Canon McDonnell, the local parish priest.

Canon McDonnell, who died on 1 March 1956, is remembered today in the estate name McDonnell Drive, which was opened by the minister for local government on 24 September

1953. The urban district council later agreed to name McDonnell Drive in memory of the late canon, who had served as parish priest of St Michael’s Parish for 28 years. The late canon was a generous benefactor to the local Convent of Mercy and especially so to the House of Mercy, which benefited over the years by way of many cash donations made by him.

Sister Rita, who was one of four brothers and four sisters, the children of Tom and Margaret Cranny, was in time put in charge of the House of Mercy and remained in that position until it closed down just a few years before the Convent of Mercy itself. She taught domestic science to generations of Athy girls and in September 1992 celebrated her Golden Jubilee as a Sister of Mercy, 12 months later than intended due to a family bereavement. On that wonderful occasion, she was joined by her sisters, Teresa Kealy and Bridie Whelan from England, her twin sister Nancy and two cousins from Brisbane, Australia, Peter and Pam Cranny.

Sister Rita has been for 69 years a member of the Sisters of Mercy Order and during that time she has witnessed some extraordinary changes in Irish society. These changes have to some extent been mirrored in the followers of Mother Catherine McAuley, whose early mission of educating the poor has been replaced by social involvement with the community at large.

Sister Rita is not the oldest member of the present local community of nuns, an indication perhaps of the age profile of the dedicated missionaries in our midst who for so long were taken for granted by the people they served.

In 1952, the Athy-based Sisters of Mercy celebrated the centenary of the local convent’s foundation, an event that was celebrated in the poem composed by Sister Declan Cullen of St Leo’s Convent in Carlow, a few verses of which read: O’er the graves the trees are sighing Where the ancient sisters lie What think you their bones are crying Through the hundred years gone by.

Daughters, walk as we did, lowly Convents are not built with stones But with humble hearts and holy This the message of our bones.

The legacy of Sister Rita and her sisters in religion is one that in time will be measured by a generation which will have no personal experience of their work within the local community. Six years ago, I spoke at a function to mark the last days of the Sisters of Mercy’s involvement with primary education in Athy following the retirement of Sister Teresa Ann Nagle. I remarked how indebted we all are for the sacrifices made by the Sisters of Mercy in furthering education in our town. For them, cultural and intellectual stimulation were the bedrocks upon which educational standards were to be set and maintained. Their work in education is now finished, but there remains a courageous group of now elderly nuns who are the proud successors of generations of young Irish women who dedicated their lives to the people of this country. We salute Sister Rita and her companions in the Sisters of Mercy and extend good wishes to Sister Rita on her 90th birthday.

An anthology of Athy in song and verse has been produced in CD form by the Cultural Sub-Committee of Athy Town Council. Featuring some of the well-known musicians in Athy, it offers a unique collection of local songs and stories that will appeal to anyone with links to our historic town. Costing €15, it comes highly recommended.

Another launch, this time a book launch, will take place tomorrow night, Thursday 6 December in Athy Library at 8pm. The third volume in the series, being a compilation of edited versions of my articles which appeared in the Kildare Nationalist between 1997 and 1999, will be launched by the Laois Nationalist editor, Barbara Sheridan. I hope you can come along.

The courthouse and the Duke of Leinster

I was at the last sitting of the District Court in Tullow last week. The town which was the place of execution of Fr John Murphy of Boolavogue in 1798 has lost out in the drive to centralise services, which appears to be motivated by cost cutting than by any desire to better serve the communities of rural Ireland. The courtroom, admittedly Dickensian in appearance and in the facilities it provides, was crowded with litigants, gardaí and others. Not an unusual occurrence ,I was told, confirming (if such confirmation was needed) that there is a need for a local court in the area which from now on will be served by a court sitting in Carlow.

I was reminded of the furore that built up in Athy when plans were put in place to close the jail on the Carlow Road and move the prisoners to Naas. This happened in 1859 and, like many other occasions, when the public are stirred to anger by bureaucracy, the opposition came too late to make any difference to the decision already taken and even then in part implemented. The closure of Athy town jail came one year after the transfer of the summer assizes from Athy to Naas and precisely 29 years after the gaol had been constructed to replace what was regarded as the inhuman conditions of the previous lock-up located in White’s Castle. These conditions were so bad that an inspector of jails was moved to report:

“Athy Gaol is without exception the worst county gaol I have met with, in terms of accommodation, having neither yards, pumps, hospital, Chapel or property day rooms”.

When the jail on the Carlow Road was opened in 1830, it consisted of 30 cells built in a semi-circular form, with five yards and a governor’s house. Subsequent prison reports showed that an average of 48 prisoners, male and female, were detained there, most of them serving prison terms of seven years. This was the period of imprisonment applicable to most crimes of that time, even for what we would now regard as minor offences. The alternative to a seven-year prison term was deportation to Van Diemen’s land, then the principal place of overseas confinement for Irish rebels and those convicted of criminal offences.

The mood of the Athy people in 1859, following the announcement of the closure of the town jail and the earlier loss of the summer assizes, showed a frisson of resistance which had last manifested itself during the 1798 period. The leaders in the local community, by and large local shopkeepers, were to the forefront in lamenting the failure of the Duke of Leinster in pushing the claim of Athy town to retain its own jail and the summer assizes. Whether or not the Duke had any significant say in the matter is debatable but, as the patron of the town and the man who prior to the abolition of the borough council in 1840 held the reins of local power, it was to be expected that he would bear the brunt of local frustration.

Even as the local businessmen criticised the duke for his alleged inaction on the two issues, the town fathers in their role as town commissioners were still operating under a well-established system whereby they acted only if and when the duke had been consulted by them and consented to what they proposed. The previous borough council for Athy had been abolished in 1840, as were many other similar boroughs at that time because they were regarded as ‘rotten’ boroughs whose power was exercised at the behest of their patrons and not the people of the towns which they were presumed to serve.

The Duke of Leinster appointed the members of the borough council and exercised the right, prior to the passing of the Act of Union, to nominate two members of parliament to represent the borough council in the Irish House of Parliament. Despite the appointment of town commissioners in 1842, the Duke of Leinster continued to exercise control over the affairs of the town, but the events of 1859 represented the first ripple of opposition to the man whose family for so long were undisputed lords of Athy.

Reading the minutes of the meetings of the town commissioners in the decades following the closure of the town jail and the loss of the summer assizes, one can see the council gradually moving away from the control hitherto exercised by the Duke of Leinster over the town’s affairs. The break for freedom was finally copper-fastened with the passing of the Local Government Act of 1899, which lead to the setting up of Athy Urban District Council. Control of the town’s affairs now rests, as it has for the last 100 years or more, with local men and women elected by their own townspeople.

The loss of a courthouse, as has now happened in Tullow, is the loss of a vital element of community infrastructure which bodes ill for the future vitality of the local community.

An open invitation to readers

Next Thursday, 6 December, the third volume in the Eye on Athy’s Past series of books, being edited versions of my articles which appeared in the Kildare Nationalist, will be launched in the Town Hall Library at 8pm. The book of 200 pages deals with a wide range of Athy folk and events and documents life in Athy as some of us may have known it, but which is probably unfamiliar, if not unknown, to many. The launch of the book will be performed by Barbara Sheridan, Editor of the Laois Nationalist, who first approached me more than 15 years ago with a request to write a weekly article on local history. Barbara was then the local correspondent for Athy and South Kildare and quite frankly when I was first approached I turned her down. However, she renewed her request and with some reluctance and indeed uncertainty as to what I could pen on a regular basis, I wrote that first article 15 years ago.

Over the years I have met and talked to many locals, both about themselves and local events of the past. It has been a most rewarding, and I may say, at times, a humbling experience, to listen to men and women who have contributed during their lifetime to the well-being of our local community. The interviews have on many occasions complemented my own ongoing research into Athy’s history and helped to give a human touch to the everyday happenings that make up the social history of our place.

I have been helped over the years by many persons who have either given generously of their time for interviews or else directed me to events or people which were later the subject of an Eye on the Past article. Many others have written to me over the years and I especially appreciate those men and women now living in England who put pen to paper to share their knowledge of Athy with me. The history of emigration from Athy remains to be told in detail, but I am pleased that so many of those living abroad have had the opportunity of learning more of their hometown through the medium of the weekly Eye on the Past.

An invitation is extended to all of you to come along to the book launch on Thursday, 6 December at 8pm in the Town Library.

Literary launches and a week filled with memories

An eventful few days during the past week saw me attending two book launches and meeting the family of a pioneer trade union activist on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his death. It was also the week when I learned of the shooting dead of a young Athy man while wearing the uniform of the RIC during the War of Independence.

But firstly to the book launches which I believe to be unique, given that they were of books independently penned by a father and his young son and both of which were launched within days of each other. For John MacKenna, the launching of one of his books is by now a common enough event, but nevertheless his latest literary offering brought together a great gathering in the local Heritage Centre. Launched by Joe Taylor, the man of many voices on our national radio station, MacKenna’s continuing literary insight into the landscapes of South Kildare, and in particular Castledermot, proves yet again his mastery of the written word.

His son, Ewan, at just 23 years of age, had his first venture in the book production launched in Dublin just a few days afterwards. Ewan, who is a sports reporter with the Sunday Tribune, has written the story of Armagh footballer Oisin McConville’s addiction to gambling. The launch of a first book is always a memorable event and while Ewan MacKenna will no doubt pen many more publications, this, his first book, will always hold special memories for him. ‘The Gambler --Oisin McConville’s Story’ is published by Mainstream and is available in all good bookshops.

On Thursday 15 November I met the family of the late Christy Supple who died 40 years ago in London and whose remains were brought back to his native town for burial in St. Michael’s Cemetery. His widow, Kathleen, who is 86 years old travelled from Harrow in London with her son Tom to be at her husband’s graveside on the 40th anniversary of his death and with them was her son Joe who travelled from British Columbia in Canada.

Christy Supple was for me, and I’m sure for many locals, an overlooked figure from Athy’s past who in the 1920’s and later played a leading part in developing the trade union movement in South Kildare. I have written previously of Christy’s involvement in the Farm Workers Strike of 1919 and of his attempts to extend membership of the Transport Union in South Kildare before and after that time. It was a difficult period for everyone, the War of Independence brought with it murder and mayhem and in it’s wake followed the lawlessness which was inevitably created by those who took advantage of the situation. Christy Supple’s task in organising the farm labourers of South Kildare at an age when he was just a few years out of his teens and in the midst of civil unrest was an unenviable one. The truce between the British Authorities and the I.R.A. which came into effect on 11th July 1921 did little to ease the burden of the lowly paid Irish farm labourers and towards the end of 1922, even as the Civil War raged, they went on strike. Christy Supple was to the forefront of the dispute, which was extended in January 1923 to parts of County Waterford.

Athy Urban District Council tried to arbitrate between the union and the local farmers, but to no avail. The Minister for Industry and Commerce next took the initiative to bring the parties together but before he could do so the Ministry authorities arrested Christy Supple on 29th January 1923. His arrest came about as a result of a letter he had sent to a worker on Melrose’s farm in Grangenolvin. In that letter Supple, as Branch Secretary of the Transport Union, called upon the workman to strike and continued, ‘failing to do so we will be compelled to take drastic action against you and the employer’. The workman by name Melville apparently ignored the call to strike and was subsequently attacked by a person or persons unknown and shot in the hand. This at a time when the Civil War was at its most intense was a relatively unremarkable criminal act for which no-one was ever subsequently convicted. However, suspicion attached to the Trade Union Branch Secretary who had written to Melville and so Christy Supple was arrested and lodged in Carlow jail. While he was incarcerated the situation in South Kildare worsened and a number of farmers haggards were burned. Claim and counterclaim came from the workers and from the Farmers Union, each blaming the other for what happened. Some workmen who broke the strike had their houses attacked and a threshing machine and a straw elevator were destroyed on lands at Bennettsbridge. A number of farm labourers who were picketing in the Bennettsbridge area were arrested and held in military custody for three months. The situation in South Kildare was so bad that a troop of Free State soldiers took over the Town Hall in the centre of Athy on 9th March 1923 where they remained billeted for over eight months.

In the meantime Christy Supple continued to be detained in Carlow Jail and during the period of his imprisonment his mother took suddenly ill while travelling from Athy to Carlow to visit her son and died soon afterwards. Christy’s request for leave to attend his mother’s funeral was refused. This would rankle with him for the rest of his life and would later prompt his dying wish to be brought back to Athy to be buried alongside his mother.

Christy Supple was eventually released from prison late in 1923 and as to his sub-sequent career I have but sketchy details. He was elected to Athy Urban District Council in June 1925 at a time when he was living at the Bleach. I believe he may have been living with his married sister, Mrs. Margaret Corcoran. Like so many others from the town of Athy he emigrated to England sometime in the 1930’s where he married Kathleen Walsh of Clon-bern, Tuam in 1944. Their eldest son, Tom, was born in 1948 and three years later the Supple family returned to Athy where their second son Joe was born in 1953. They lived for a while in the Bleach with Mrs. Corcoran before renting a house at 2/6 a week opposite Plewman’s Terrace. Christy was by now working in the Asbestos factory but in 1955 the Supple family returned to England. Christy died in London on 15th November 1967, aged 69 years, and his remains were brought back to his native place to be buried alongside his mother. In addition to his immediate family he was survived by his brother Tom from Foxhill and his sisters Mrs. Corcoran and Molly Dalton. His other brother Joe had died in Dublin in 1953.

Christy Supple’s story can only be told in part as there is still much to learn of the young man, who encouraged by William O’Brien of the Dublin Transport Union set out as early as 1918 to unionise the work-ers of South Kildare. His story is one of courage and enduring hardship and meeting his family in Athy on the 40th anniversary of his death was a great privilege.

Earlier in the week as a small group of local men gathered to commemorate the men from Athy who died in World War One I learned of the killing of another Athy man. Unlike his townsmen who were killed in war by members of an opposing army, young Edward Doran was shot and killed by a fellow Irishman on 17th May 1921 as he went about his duties as a member of the R.I.C. I was told he was shot as he attempted to take down a tricolour from a pole but the official records disclose that he and his colleague John Dunne, who was also killed, were serving jurors summonses in the village of Kinnity when they were fired on. Dunne, aged 22 years, was from Kilconly in Tuam, while 24 year old Edward Doran was from Athy. Prior to joining the R.I.C. less than three years previously Doran had worked as a gardener for Minch’s of Rockfield. I understand his sister was a secretary in Minch Nortons, although my informant claims that she worked for local Solicitors Malcomson & Law. Was he I wonder a brother of Frank Doran who lived for many years in County Cork and whom I believe occasionally wrote on G.A.A. matters? If anyone has any information on the family of Edward Doran I would be delighted to hear from them.

Three funerals and a happy surprise

During the past week, I attended the funerals of two men, who in their different ways and at different times were prominent in our community here in Athy. George Hayden I first came to know when, on returning to Athy, I joined the local badminton section of the Rugby Club, where he was the steward. A courteous gentleman, George Hayden was liked by everyone who was privileged to know him. An unassuming man he was, as described by Mark Bergin, president of the Rugby Club in his brief eulogy at the funeral mass, “a man of integrity”. In the local Heritage Centre, there is a unique memorial made from World War I bullets and pieces of marble which were sent to Mrs Hayden of Churchtown in memory of her two sons Aloysius and Patrick who were killed in the Great War. It was through George Hayden’s generosity and thoughtfulness that this important commemorative artefact of war was donated to the Heritage Centre some years ago. It will always remain a memorial, not only to the Hayden brothers, but for me also a reminder of the quiet gracious gentleman who extended courtesy and assistance to everybody who came in contact with him.

Brian Maguire also passed away last week, less than two years after his beloved Megan went to her maker. Both Megan and Brian were for many years actively involved in the community amongst whom they came to live in July 1957.

As a dispensary doctor, Dr Brian saw the raw underbelly of poverty and deprivation at close quarters. For Athy, in the 1950s and for a long time afterwards, was unlike the bustling, traffic clogged town of today. Job opportunities were few and far between and the emigration boat provided the only respite from the numbing effects of enforced idleness.

The young doctor on arrival in Athy was to spend the rest of his life working among the people who came to appreciate the thoughtfulness which he brought to the care of his patients, especially the elderly. His involvement with the Committee for the Care of the Elderly is well known and was documented by me some years ago in a previous Eye on the Past. His passing and that of George Hayden, both in advanced years, removes from the local community two men of integrity whose lives were an example to all of us.

Of their generation also was the late Ivan Bergin, who died a few weeks ago. I was away at the time and regretfully failed to note his passing. Ivan Bergin was a quiet modest man whose father, the legendary JJ Bergin, was an important figure both nationally and locally in the Ireland of 50 years ago.

Ivan was perhaps best known for submitting the winning design for the Macra na Feirme badge in a competition 60 years ago.

Members of the newly-formed organisation were invited to submit proposals and the winning design was forwarded by the young farmer from Athy, which featured ears of wheat, oats and barley framing a ploughman and a pair of horses ploughing a field. The design prepared by Ivan Bergin continues today as the Macra na Feirme logo.

Some months ago I wrote of Christy Supple, trade union activist who led the South Kildare Farm Workers Strike in the early 1920s. Christy was also an urban councillor for Athy and, if memory serves me right, was a member of Kildare County Council. He died in England on 15 November 1967 to where he had emigrated some years previously. His remains were returned to his native Athy for burial in St Michael’s Cemetery.

Following my article on this forgotten leader of the working man’s move-ment in this area, I was fortunate to make contact with his son Joe, who lives in America. I found to my delight that Christy Supple’s wife was still alive and living in London and that he was also survived by two sons. The Supple family members are travelling to Athy for the 40th anniversary of Christy’s death and I hope to meet them and to learn more of the story of the man who was harshly imprisoned for his trade union activities during the course of the Farm Labourers’ Strike in 1923.

Christy Supple was the kind of man who made things happen. He was an activist who worked hard to better the lives of the workmen he represented and in so doing he suffered hugely. His is a story I hope to deal with in greater detail at some time in the near future.

In the meantime I finish off this week’s article with a photograph taken seven years ago on the occasion of the celebration of the centenary of Athy Urban District Council. Sadly, two of the former councillors in that photograph, Megan Maguire and George ‘Mossy’ Reilly are no longer with us.

Remembering the fallen in the First World War

Remembrance Sunday, 11 November, will this year fall on the 89th anniversary of the day that the First World War ended. At 11 o’clock on the morning of 11 November 1918 the guns fell silent across the battlefields where almost 10 million men and women had lost their lives during the previous 52 months. The carnage of war was unfortunately to be replaced by an even more relentless destroyer of human life as the great flu epidemic which marked the final months of the Great War took its toll throughout the world. More people worldwide were to die during the few months of the influenza outbreak than were killed in the 1914-18 war.
The killing of approximately 35,000 Irish men in the World War and the maiming of even more men and women must have had a depressing effect on the national psyche at a time when the Irish people were about to embark on the final push for independence. 129 Athy men were killed in the war, the vast majority of whom were blown to bits or submerged in the mud of Flanders, never again to be found. Few bodies were recovered from where they fell and so the families of these dead men never had a graveside at which they could grieve. Perhaps even more tragic however, insofar as the fathers, mothers, widows and children of these men were concerned, was the change in attitudes back home in Ireland brought about by the emergence of Sinn Fein and the drive for Irish independence. Men who paraded to the railway station in Athy, accompanied by the Leinster Street Fife and Drum Band to the cheers of the townspeople, found on their return from war that they were at best ignored, but often times regarded as an embarrassment in an Ireland where Republican nationalism had gripped the public’s imagination and set the course for the island’s political future.

However, freedom for Ireland was a desire also shared by many of the men who fought in the First World War and indeed there were many amongst them who had enlisted in the belief that by doing so they were helping the cause of Home Rule. After all, had not the local Urban District Councillors actively encouraged them to enlist to fight in France and Flanders as soon as war was declared in

1914. The same encouragement was coming from every quarter. Canon Mackey, the Parish Priest of Athy, had often canvassed their support for the war from public platforms in Emily Square, as had many other highly regarded and respected persons in the town. No wonder then that the young men of Athy and the surrounding countryside enlisted in their hundreds and joined the British Army in the fight against Germany.

The shame of it is that those thought lucky or fortunate enough to survive the human carnage which was the First World War returned to a country and a town whose people rejected the overseas war and those who had fought in it. Not only were the survivors of the war rejected, but shamefully those who died were ignored. That is until recent years when a more reasoned response to the events of the 1914-18 period and its aftermath caused us and our Republican government to re-assess the contribution which the World War I soldiers made to the shared history of our country. The Irish Peace Tower at Messines now stands as our Nation’s symbolic remembrance of the Great War dead and in Athy the plaque placed on the Town Hall wall by the Town Council last year is Athy’s acknowledgement of our gratitude to the local men who died and those who survived the 1914-18 war.Local men like the Kelly brothers, Denis, John and Owen, the Curtis brothers, John, Laurence and Patrick, the Hayden brothers, Aloysius and Patrick and the Stafford brothers, Edward and Thomas. I could go on and on until the 219 men from Athy and district who died in the Great War were all listed. Theirs was a lost generation, lost not only to family and friends, but also to the collective memory of a community which should never have forgotten these young men. They were of our town, friends and neighbours and their deaths created a void within families, neighbourhoods and the wider community which took several generations to replace.

Next Sunday, November 11th, there will be an opportunity to remember the memory of all Athy men killed in the 1914-18 War and by so doing acknowledging the debt we owe them and their families for what they suffered. At 3.00 pm in St. Michael’s Old Cemetery a short service of remembrance will take place at the graves of the six Athy men who enlisted and died during the First World War and who are buried in the local cemetery. Later that evening at 8.00 p.m. in the Methodist Church at Woodstock Street a presentation of theatre, music and poetry will take place to remember the men of Athy and district who died in the war. You are encouraged to attend either or both events. After all, one hour or so of your time is little to offer in return for those who lost their lives all those years ago.

It’s a coincidence that on Friday night next, 9 November, John MacKenna who over 15 years ago initiated the Remembrance ceremonies in St. Michael’s Cemetery, will have his new book launched in the Heritage Centre. “The River Field” is a book of short stories, all set in a 12 acre triangular field near Castledermot and covering the period stretching back as far as 1763. John is regarded as one of the most accomplished writers in this country and his talents have been recognised with awards for his fiction and most recently for a radio play which won an international prize in New York. It’s good to see his writings in print because after the last of his first three books which was published in 1998 he waited another 8 years before publishing his most recent book, “Things You Should Know”.

The 55 year old Castledermot man, often regarded as a successor to McGahern’s literary genius, has yet again produced a body of work which shows a masterful literary talent at work. I understand the official launch of the book will be by Joe Taylor of RTE fame and will take place in the Heritage Centre on Friday, 9 November at 8.00 p.m. It will be an opportunity to join in the celebration and to buy a signed copy of a book which I believe will be a best seller. Even better still you might take the opportunity to disagree with something he might have to say on the night and so keep up the tradition which is slowly building up of controversial debate within the confines of the Town Hall!