Christian Brothers Athy

The recent announcement that the Christian Brothers were to appoint a lay Principal for their Secondary School in Athy brings to a close an era stretching back 132 years. It was on Thursday the 8th of August 1861 that the Christian Brothers first arrived in Athy. Brother Stanislaus O'Flanagan, the first Principal, was accompanied by Brother Luke Holland and a lay Brother - Brother Patrick Sheehy.

They were accommodated in Greenhills House, St. John's Lane, the former residence of the Weldon family and from 1820 to 1850 that of the Misses Hellen, daughters of Lord Justice Hellen. After 1850 Greenhills House was owned by John Beard through his wife Hannah, daughter of George Mansergh of Riversdale House. Greenhills was later acquired by the Parish Priest, Rev. A Quinn, whether by gift or purchase it is not known. The Annals of the Convent of Mercy disclose that in 1859 the Parish Priest not being able to pay the rent gave the house and ten and a half acres to the Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters later donated the house and some of the lands for the use of the Christian Brothers. The first one storey school building was built on a site adjoining Greenhills House. Patrick Maher of Kilrush, who was a generous benefactor of the local Sisters of Mercy, donated £400 towards the building costs which amounted to £1,000.00.

On Sunday August 11th Archbishop Cullen, a native of Ballitore who had taken a special interest in bringing the Christian Brothers to Athy, preached in the Parish Church and introduced the newly arrived Christian Brothers to the townspeople. The next morning he said Mass in Greenhills House and blessed the new classrooms.

On August 19th the School opened it's doors for the first time and 120 boys were enroled. As the numbers increased a third teaching brother was required. Brother Francis Clarke joined the community with the ever generous Patrick Maher of Kilrush agreeing to pay £30 annually towards his maintenance. In the early years of the School's existence the salaries of the other Brothers were met from Parish funds. For this purpose two annual collections were taken up in the Parish Church.

In 1867 the Parish Priest pleaded inability to further guarantee the financial support of the Christian Brothers. Following a public meeting in the town the Christian Brothers took upon themselves the task of collecting funds for their own maintenance and support. In this they were supported by the local people and a number of general gifts and bequests were made to them by Michael Lawlor, Miss Goold, J. Delaney, Miss Ferris and others.

A second storey was added to the school building in 1901. The extra space was required for teaching experimental science and other subjects under the aegis of the new Department of Agricultural and Technical Instructions. On the townspeoples security £300 was borrowed from a local Bank and the work was completed at a cost of almost £900 in October 1901. For seven weeks after the summer holidays of that year the Christian Brothers held classes in the Old Schoolhouse in Stanhope Place which had been vacated by the Sisters of Mercy in 1893.

The full story of the Christian Brothers in Athy and their labour in the cause of Christian education will be told another day. Some years ago while browsing in an Antiquarian Bookshop in Dublin I came across a leather bound volume with the words "Deceased Brothers" on the cover. The inside cover was marked in ink as volume 2 and a perusal of it's contents showed it to be a necrology of the Christian Brothers.

By a strange coincidence the first entry recorded the death of Brother Luke Holland on the 8th of January 1900 in Marino. He it was who had travelled to Athy in August 1861 with his two companions to open the first Christian Brothers Monastery and School. The same volume also recorded the deaths of his companions - Brother Patrick Sheehy on the 2nd March 1902 and Brother Stanislaus O'Flanagan on the 5th March 1906. How strange to find that the three young religious Brothers who had been brought together in August 1861 to travel to Athy were to have their names reunited in print 45 years later with the death of the first Superior of Athy Christian Brothers School Brother Stanislaus O'Flanagan.

Alexander Duncan

"In these parts the Protestants all are about one in ten, composed of Irish Church, Presbyterians, Methodists, Brethren and an odd antique of a Quaker". So wrote Alexander Duncan from Athy in May 1886 in a letter to a friend.

Duncan, then in the penultimate year of his life, lived in Tonlegee House and carried on business as a draper in premises now occupied by Shaws of Duke Street. He was one of the leading members of the Methodist congregation in Athy but surprisingly enough he did not share the political views of his co-religionists.

Nationalists in 19th century Ireland tended to be Catholics while the supporters of Unionism were by and large Protestant Anglo-Irish. Unionism such as existed in Athy was of a non-aggressive kind, unlike the Unionist movement in Northern Ireland where opposition to Home Rule sometimes took on a less than acceptable level of violent activity.

Support for Home Rule amongst the Athy Nationalists was as muted as the local opposition to this measure of self-government. Alexander Duncan alone stood out as a strong voice advocating an independent and non-clerical legislature for the Irish people.

The local Presbyterians were described by Duncan as "too busy in their farms to weigh well such a weighty question as Home Rule but are ready to reap any advantage accruing from the Land Bill."
These views expressed in 1886 may not have been entirely accurate as in 1893 the Elders of the Athy Presbyterian Church presented a Memorial to that year's General Assembly declaring their opposition to Home Rule.

He complained that his fellow Methodists were willing to view the issue from a sectarian view point "rather than the highest and nobler one of our country's need and independence". Similarly the Church of Ireland were criticised by him as being afraid of losing the Landlords who were the chief contributors to Church funds.

An outspoken yet generous man Duncan was for many years a member of Athy Town Commissioners and served as Chairman of that body in 1852, 1867, 1875 and 1879. He presented a finely carved chair to the Town Commissioners for use by the Chairman at Council meetings on stepping down from that office in 1879. The chair is now exhibited in the Museum Room in the Town Hall.

In 1867, Duncan who was then on his second term as Chairman of Athy Town Commissioners, purchased some ground at Woodstock Street and offered it to the local Methodist congregation as a site for a new Methodist Church. The foundation stone of the new building was laid by Mrs. Alexander Duncan on the 12th of June 1872 before a large crowd of local people. Her husband had donated £600.00 to the Church building fund in addition to the site. Exactly two years later on Friday the 12th of June 1874 the newly constructed Church and Sunday School which cost £2,200.00 was dedicated.

Alexander Duncan died on the 30th of September 1887 and the leaders of the Circuit and the members of Athy Methodist congregation erected a fine Memorial Tablet to his memory in the Church built largely as a result of his generosity and energy. He was aged 68 years and lies buried in St. John's Cemetery.

Macra na Feirme - Stephen Cullinan

On February 21st 1944 a number of Athy men who had been attending an evening Agricultural Class in the Technical School over the winter months met in the school. They had come together at the suggestion of their teacher, Stephen Cullinan, a young man from Castlegar in County Galway. Aged only 24 years Stephen was to provide the dynamic leadership for the Young Farmers Club which was formed that night in Athy Technical School. The declared aim of the Club was to increase the efficiency and prosperity of farmers through education.

Athy has always claimed the honour of having Ireland's first Young Farmers Club, an honour which is also claimed by Mooncoin in County Kilkenny. Those involved in Athy's Young Farmers Club included Juan Greene, E. Minch, A. Spiers and Paddy Kehoe and it was Paddy Kehoe of Kilcoo and Stephen Cullinan who were instrumental in the subsequent formation of a national organisation for young farmers to be known later as Macra na Feirme. In September 1944 a meeting was called for Newman House, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin. Paddy Kehoe was elected Chairman with Stephen Cullinan Secretary. They set about organising representatives from different parts of Ireland and within two years fifty two Clubs were established. In 1946 the National Executive adopted the name Macra na Feirme and local man Ivan Bergin of Maybrook, Athy, was commissioned to design a special badge for the new organisation.

Macra's headquarters was set up in a room in the Town Hall, Athy, vacated by the Mechanics Institute. The billiard table left behind by the Institute was sold to the C.Y.M.S., Athy, after Macra had moved in. Local politicians were astonished when on the 1st of September 1947 the President of Ireland, Sean T. O'Ceallaigh officially opened the Macra offices. Little attention had been paid to the organisation before that but thereafter everybody acknowledged that Stephen Cullinan was not only a man of vision but also an achiever.

Stephen, who lived in a flat in the Crown House (now Griffin Hawes) was soon planning further developments. Recognising that there was no Irish farming paper he suggested to his friend Paddy Kehoe that they should start one. Paddy agreed to speak to J. Greene on the matter and both men each put up £1,000.00 to start the Irish Farmers Journal. Printed in Portlaoise and initially distributed through the Young Farmers Club the venture soon ran short of money and was later carried on by the Leinster Express. Eventually the paper was bought by John Mooney and Paddy O'Keeffe and continues to this day as a national newspaper with an extensive circulation.

Macra na Feirme went from strength to strength and quickly outgrew the County Kildare town where the first Young Farmers Club was founded. The headquarters moved to Dublin in the late 1950's. The National Farmers Association, later re-named the Irish Farmers Association, sprang from Macra and its first President, Juan Greene, coincidentally also held that same position in the first Young Farmers Club founded in Athy in 1944.

The initiative and drive of the young farmers of 49 years ago has brought immeasurable benefits to the people of Ireland. Amongst those men two stand out. Paddy Kehoe of Kilcoo, still happily with us, provided the pragmatism and support for the idealism and vision of Stephen Cullinan who sadly died in 1951.

The death of Stephen Cullinan, in the words of his friend and colleague Paddy Kehoe, was a terrible loss to the country and to the farmers of Ireland. Stephen, who was unmarried, suffered from asthma and died while undergoing dental treatment in Dublin. He had often said that his life would be short but in his time he achieved more than could be expected of one so young. His legacy is not forgotten in the town of Athy, where as a young graduate he brought together a community and encouraged it to face into the future with confidence and belief in itself. He lies buried in Castlegar, County Galway, and he is commemorated with a plaque on the front of the Town Hall, Athy.

Crime and Punishment in the old days

Wrong doers making an appearance before Courts today are faced with a range of punishments from fines to imprisonment to community services orders. The latter requires the convicted person to provide a specified number of hours of labour on a community project in his own locality. In this way he repays his debt to society and more specifically the community in which the offence occurred.

An offender would have faced almost certain death for many of the offence which today are treated quite lightly. At one time up to 500 criminal offences ranging from the stealing of a chicken to murder merited the death penalty. Every town had its Gallows and up to the beginning of the last century every traveller approaching Athy from the Kilcullen direction passed by the Gallows which was sited on rising ground just outside Athy. It was in this area, now known as Gallowshill, that the unfortunates were hanged and their bodies summarily disposed of in a nearby field. During the 17th and 18th centuries gibbeting or hanging the body of an executed criminal in chains on the approach to the town was the accepted practice. It acted as a permanent reminder to would be criminals and vagrants of the fate that awaited them should they step out of line in Athy.

Records of those hanged at Gallowshill are not available but we do know that on the 16th of August 1743 Luke Sherlock and his companion named Donnelly were hanged in Athy for robbery. The Dublin Journal of the 19th of September, 1756 reported that on the following Tuesday John Cronin was to be hanged in Athy for horse stealing, an offence committed four years previously. A note in the Irish Magazine of 1809 referred to a recent arrangement whereby Athy prisoners were transferred to Naas for execution. The writer regarded this as a breach of the privileges of the town of Athy! The change of execution place was of little consequence to those facing the ultimate penalty such as the four people sentenced to death at Athy assizes in July 1817 for stealing potatoes. Their six accomplices were deported for seven years.

During the months of May and June of 1798 several men from Athy and the surrounding countryside were arrested and lodged in Athy jail. Located in Whites Castle the jail was commonly regarded as the worst of its type in Ireland. Seven of those men, six of whom were from Narraghmore, were tried convicted and sentenced to be hanged. They were marched from the jail to an area close to the present dry dock and opposite the Military Barracks, where a Gallows had been erected. After the hangings two of the seven were beheaded and their severed heads were placed on Whites Castle as a warning to the local people not to get involved in rebellious activity.

Frequently criminals were brought back to the scene of their crime and hanged from the nearest tree. Such a fate befell John Whelan, known locally as "Black Top" who was involved in an attack on Glassealy House, the home of Thomas J. Rawson in 1798. Rawson, who later wrote the “Statistical Survey of County Kildare”, was leader of the Athy Loyalists and a member of the local Borough Council. 'Black Top' and his accomplices burned Rawson's house on the same day that they had fired the home of Mrs. Hannah Manders of Glassealy resulting in the death of four women and Mrs. Manders' nephew.

In 1799 Rawson captured 'Black Top' in Monavullagh bog and he was tried before a Court Martial, convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. An eye witness account of 'Black Top's' journey to the place of execution in Glassealy was written by Mary Leadbetter of Ballitore. She referred to
"two men yet living but in the same car were their coffins. One had been convicted of burning the Courthouse in Narraghmore, the other for the murder of Hannah Manders and they were to suffer death at the places where their crimes had been committed. One of the men hung his head weeping, the other looked about as if stupefied by terror. The march of the soldiers was slow and solemn and the people in the market seemed afraid to notice the prisoners."

Two years ago, during clearance work on a field, Gallowshill began to give up its deadly secrets as several skeletal remains were recovered. Work was temporarily stopped while the authorities satisfied themselves as to the nature of the findings but work soon re-commenced as the bulldozers buried centuries of history and death beneath clay ready to give up new life to 20th century crops.

Luckily enough for some hanging was not the only form of punishment in bygone days. In addition to a prison sentence the criminal might expect to spend some time in the town stocks or in the town pillory or alternatively to be subjected to the whip.

Imprisonment was of course the primary form of punishment and still is to this day. To be deprived of your personal freedom was always an unpleasant experience but particularly so where the prison to which you were sentenced was regarded as the worst of its kind in Ireland. Such was the description accorded in 1824 to Athy jail, then located in Whites Castle by the Inspector of Jails. The prison had nine cells and the diet of the prisoners was bread and water only. Matters improved somewhat when the new jail was built on the Carlow Road in 1830. Consisting of five day rooms and thirty cells built in a semi-circular form around the Governors house, it replaced the much criticised Whites Castle jail. Prisoners were employed in stone breaking, mat making and oakum picking.

While the prison was designed to accommodate each prisoner in a separate cell the level of drunkenness and lawlessness in Athy soon lead to overcrowding. In 1854 the average daily number in the jail was 48, and in 1856 was 47. The severity with which offenders were treated by the law can be gleaned from an examination of the prison sentences imposed on local people in Athy Courts in 1837. Six prisoners were sentenced to life imprisonment for cattle and sheep stealing while one unfortunate man got seven years for stealing a pig. Two offenders were whipped for simple larceny while 103 men and women were sent to prison for drunkenness.

In earlier years the drunk would probably have served time in the town's stocks. An Act of 1405 required every town and village to have stocks which were two stout boards with holes through which the legs of the offender were placed while he was sitting, and then padlocked together. The object was to humiliate or shame the offender who was padlocked in the stocks for a prescribed period. The local stocks and the pillory were in all probability located in the Market Square in Athy.

The use of the pillory was another way of publicly humiliating any offender who was required by the local Court to be pilloried. Made of wood, the pillory was a frame with holes through which the head and hands of the offender were placed while he was in a standing position. When the offender was placed in the stocks or in the pillory, he was at the mercy of the locals who could jeer him or if he was particularly offensive or disliked throw rubbish at him. The records of the Borough Council show that on the 16th of October, 1738 the members of the Corporation noted the conviction of Graham Bradford, a freeman of Athy, for "wilful and corrupt perjury" following which he was pilloried and subsequently transported to America.

Reference was earlier made to offenders sentenced to whipping in Athy Courts in 1837. Whipping was a common form of punishment following the Whipping Act of 1530. Initially it was reserved for vagrants who were to be whipped until blood was drawn and who were then required to take an oath to leave town and return to their own area. In time whipping became a more common place punishment for petty offenders. A whipping post was normally provided alongside the town's stocks and used as required.

In 1798 a large wooden triangle was erected opposite the Military Barracks in Barrack Street and used in an attempt to obtain information from uncooperative local people. Men thought to be involved in rebellious activity were tied to the triangle and flogged. The man in charge was Thomas Rawson of Glassealy. Thomas Fitzgerald of Geraldine writing of his experiences in December 1802 described Rawson as having
"every person tortured and stripped as his cannibal will directed. He would seat himself in a chair in the centre of a ring formed around the triangle, the miserable victims kneeling under the triangle until they would be spotted over with the blood of the others".

If the pillory and the stocks were normally reserved for men a peculiarly female form of punishment was the ducking stool. Consisting of a chair at the end of a long pole or beam which could be swivelled and lowered into the River Barrow, the ducking chair was particularly effective in dampening the spirits of quarrelsome women. It was a form of punishment first used in the 15th century but which fell out of favour much to the dismay of many a hen-pecked husband, long before its usefulness could be fully exploited!

St. Michael's Cemetery

St. Michael's Cemetery has been the principal burial ground for Athy people for hundreds of years. The signpost outside the Cemetery on the Dublin Road reads "St. Michael's Medieval Church". It appears to be a 14th Century Church built when the still young settlement of Athy already had two Monasteries. The Crouched Friars had a Monastery at St. John's while the Friars Preachers had theirs in an area to the south of the present Emily Square. Both Monasteries were manned by French speaking clerics who had come to the area at the invitation of the Anglo Norman settlers.

St. Michael's Church was built outside the town walls and leads me to believe that it was a Parish Church to serve the native Irish. The name St. Michael could be a reference to the St. Michael family who were Barons of Rheban and Lords of the Manor of Woodstock. It could also be a dedication to St. Michael who is usually portrayed as a dragon slayer and whose protection was often sought especially when Churches were being built on sites which had previous pagan associations.

The grounds around the Church were used for Christian burials from an early time. The antiquity of the site can be readily ascertained from the high ground on the south side of the church. This was the favourite place for burials because the north side of the Church was in shadow and where it was believed the devil lurked. Consequently the north side was reserved for criminals and unbaptised babies while corpses were piled on top of each other on the south side, gradually leading to a substantial increase in the ground level at that point.

Around the Cemetery we can see Irish Yew trees of uncertain age. Regarded as symbols of immortality it was Edward I who ordered Yew trees to be planted in graveyards because of the protection their close growth afforded Church buildings from storms. The Yew is also poisonous to animals and so acts as a deterrent to unscrupulous persons who might otherwise let their animals loose in a cemetery.

During the middle ages and up to the 18th century corpses were buried in linen shrouds rather than coffins. An Act of 1678 required woollen shrouds to be used so that the ailing woollen trade could be promoted. The rich were understandably the first to use coffins and the practice developed in time to include the less well off in society.

Inevitably the level of poverty which prevailed throughout the 18th and 19th centuries required the town Council to provide a parish coffin in which the unfortunate was brought to the gate of the cemetery. The lych gate at the entrance to the cemetery (which no longer exists) was a covered gateway where the coffin was rested on a table while the body was removed, placed in a shroud or sheet for burial and the Parish coffin returned ready for the next funeral.

Immediately adjoining the front wall of the cemetery and to the right of the gateway is the last resting place of possibly the only man in Ireland legitimately buried in his own back yard. Paddy Johnson lived in one of the small cottages which fronted onto the Dublin Road and behind which lay St. Michael's Cemetery. The Town Council extended the cemetery by taking over the ground occupied by the cottages and when Paddy died he was buried in what was previously his own back yard.

Around the Medieval Church can be seen a rich green and glossy plant which flowers every two years between April and June. Alexanders is a plant similar to the wild carrot and was grown in medieval times. It is not a plant native to Ireland and it's presence in the cemetery might indicate a medieval settlement on the site either before or after the Church was erected. Apparently the entire plant was edible, the stem like asparagus, the root like a parsnip while the flower buds were used in salads.

Walk around St. Michael's and look at the history to be found among the headstones. Look at the table tombs within and without the Church, look at the beautifully crafted headstones and the imaginative epitaphs to be found. And as you walk through the old cemetery note how the graves are orientated so that the corpses face the sun rising in the east. When the new St. Michael's Cemetery was opened in 1965 this tradition was overlooked so that when our time comes, unlike our forefathers, we will not face the rising sun. I wonder!

Handballers of the 1920s

The newly built handball court at the rear of Woodstock Street, Athy, attracts a lot of unfavourable comment. Cited as a waste of public funds it has failed to be used for the purpose intended and instead it's walls provide a readymade canvass for young graffiti artists. How times have changed. The town, which for years was the handballing centre of the County and which produced All-Ireland Champions up to 1946, cannot now find use for a handball court.

Athy boasted two handball courts at the start of the 19th century. One court was located on the southside of Leinster Street at the rear of a business premises. Barrack Lane, just off Barrack Street, was the site of the second court which the Military authorities may have built for the use of soldiers in the neighbouring Army barracks. When the army left Athy following the Crimean War, the Duke of Leinster leased the handball court to the Town Commissioners under a Lease dated the 14th of December 1856. Soon it became a popular meeting place for sport-minded men and in a few years a number of outstanding players emerged.

The best players challenged players from other towns for purses normally put up by their backers. Over time a system of rubbers consisting of eleven games or more played on a home and away basis evolved. Out of the challenge system there eventually emerged a player who was rated the champion and who remained so until he was challenged and defeated.

In the 1880's the man to beat was John Lawler of Dublin who went to New York and returned to Ireland in 1886 as the World Champion. On Lawler’s subsequent departure for the lucrative professional handball game in America, John Delaney of Athy was regarded as the man most likely to succeed to the Irish title. A challenge game was played in Athy and Tralee between Delaney and a young man named Tom Jones. In the first round played in Athy handball court Delaney won eight of the ten games played and needed just three more games to win the All-Ireland title. It was not to be as Jones in the return match in Tralee won the first nine games and with them the rubber and the Championship. Tom Jones, who shortly afterwards became a Catholic Priest is regarded as possibly the greatest handballer of all time.

In 1912 the Irish Amateur Handball Union was formed and the first All Ireland Championship under it's auspices was held in 1914. The players were still semi-professional and played for purses with side bets an important part of the sport. George Robinson of Athy with Paddy Coyne of Carlow were regarded as the best players in Ireland. However, it was Robinson of Athy and Paddy Lyons of Dublin who were matched for the Irish Championship in 1914. The first half of the rubber was played in Lyons' own alley in Ballymun in July 1914 and Lyons won on the score of 4-3. Robinson had an excellent chance of winning with home advantage in Athy and so securing the first Irish title for the town. Before the remaining matches could be played however World War I broke out and Robinson, an army reservist was called up. Wounded during the War he lost a thumb and part of the palm of his left hand. Despite this handicap George Robinson was to confound everyone when in 1917 he teamed up with another Athy man, Tom Aldridge, to win the Doubles title under the Association Rules by beating their Dublin opponents 5-2 in Athy and 3-2 in Dublin.

George was never again to challenge for an All Ireland title and played his last challenge game as a semi-professional when beating Terry O'Reilly of Dublin in 1920. He retired soon afterwards. George was referred to as a delightful player who in an Obituary notice written by F.D. (Frank Doran) was described as a "handball artist with a variety of strokes - he could take a ball with either hand behind his back and in close play ..... flick and kill a ball into the opposite corner to which his opponent ran". He died in 1950 aged 68 years having worked in the Asbestos Cement factory as a gateman from 1936.

Peter Halpin and Early Years of Technical School

A recent brief meeting with a retired teacher who once taught in the old Technical School in Stanhope Street, Athy, prompts this week's reflection on times past. Peter Halpin, a woodwork and mechanical drawing teacher, obtained his first teaching post from Kildare V.E.C. in 1936. He was taken on for the new Technical School which was scheduled for Castledermot but spent the first weeks of his teaching career in Athy before being transferred to Celbridge until required in Castledermot in 1938.

He remembered Athy and the teachers in the old Technical School in 1936 as if it was only last year rather than 56 years ago. T.C. Walsh whom he describes as "a great artist" was Headmaster and woodwork teacher while Tessie Morrin was commerce teacher. The school had approximately 60 pupils and the subjects taught included woodwork, metalwork, commerce and domestic science. Within weeks of his temporary assignment to Athy he was transferred to the Celbridge Technical School where his services were more urgently required. There is stayed until 1938 and left to take up his permanent full-time position in Castledermot where he was to remain for 15 years. In 1945 he replaced the first school Principal, Padraig O'Dalaigh, and was himself succeeded as Principal by Tadgh Hayden in 1953.

Peter remembers Michael Thorpe as the first and long serving Caretaker of the Castledermot School and recalled with pride his return to his old school in 1973 when the Minister for Education, Richard Burke, officially opened the present school. Stories of times past and times spent with his friends and acquaintances in the Castledermot area came flooding back. He recalled with particular fondness Una Bray who lived near the Technical School and whose homemade sweetcake was a particular favourite of Peter and his friends during the late 1930's. Una later married Jack McKenna who is still happily, hale and hearty living in Castledermot and whose son John is today one of the most promising young writers on the Irish literary scene.

The meeting with Peter Halpin was unexpected and unfortunately brief but his reminiscences of days spent in Athy and Castledermot created a feeling of guilt in his listener. Why you may ask but the answer is readily understood when I explain that so much oral history has been lost because of a failure to implement an ongoing systematic system of recording those men and women whose memory stretch back over events and times that are unknown to younger generations.

Meeting Peter Halpin has reminded me and hopefully others that within our community there is an extensive store of tradition and experience which needs to be recorded and retained. The recollections of the elderly members of our community are an essential part of the sense of who and what we are today. History is after all about people and the events they have shaped and the experiences they have shared.

Athy Museum Society will hopefully start in 1993 to record interviews with men and women of Athy and district in an attempt to recapture the past through their experiences. In the meantime we should never lose sight of the value of oral history particularly as a method of studying the recent past. The lives of ordinary people have so much to tell us of domestic life, work and experiences of childhood. To lose the benefit of these experiences would be to throw away much of what we are. Let 1993 be the year to change that.

Epiphany

The end of the Christmas festivities is greeted with relief by the womenfolk for whom the festival is one of almost a continuous round of food preparation. The twelfth day of Christmas is traditionally referred to as "Little Christmas" because the celebration meal is of less gargantuan proportions than that of Christmas Day itself. It was almost popularly known in Ireland as Nollaig na mBan (Women's Christmas) to differentiate it from Christmas Day which was known as Nollaig na bFear (Men's Christmas).

The name Epiphany which is a Greek word refers to the manifestation to the Magi as the three Kings and indicates the final day of the Christmas festivity. In the Eastern Church up to the 4th Century the combined celebrations of Christ's nativity and baptism occurred on January 6th. The severance of the two feast days occurred around the end of the 4th century and it was only then that the Epiphany became one of the most important festivals in the Eastern Church before later passing on into the Western Church.

January 6th is also traditionally acknowledged as the anniversary of the wedding feast of Cana and as one would expect the annual reenactment of the miracle at Cana figures prominently in Irish folklore. "On the night of the three Kings water is turned into wine" recounts the ancient proverb. Blessed wells which are to be found in almost every townland in the country are without exception thought to undergo a magic transformation on the dawning of the feast of the Epiphany when the water is miraculously changed to wine. Many a believer who has braved the winter cold to drink his fill of wine has come away a sorry and disappointed man. Such disappointment must be seen as an irrational disregard for the subtle requirements of taste needed to distinguish between water and wine especially when sitting outdoors on a cold winters night.

On the days following the Epiphany, Christmas decorations are by tradition taken down. The holly, ivy and other evergreens which decorated the house are by tradition disposed of by burning. In some areas it was a practice to retain the withered greenery for lighting under the pancake fire on Shrove Tuesday. If not retained for that purpose it is generally burned immediately rather than disposed of otherwise because of the reverence with which all things associated with Christmas are treated. The twelve days of Christmas are days of celebration and enjoyment generally. Even the normal superstitions of the people centred on ghosts and fairies are suspended during the season of goodwill of which Shakespeare wrote "No spirit dare stir abroad".

New Years Day

December 31st or January 1st were not traditional Festive days in Ireland. This is because until the British Parliament adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752 New Years Day in Ireland occurred on March 25th. The passing of the Act resulted in the loss of eleven days, the Parliament decreeing that September 2nd was to be followed by September 14th. The change caused consternation more in anticipation than in reality; similar to that experienced in Ireland when we changed the decimal currency in the 1970's. The reaction of some communities caused riots in the streets with the demand for the return of the eleven days.

The original New Years Day of March 25th was formerly the occasion when people gave each other presents. The custom was changed to Christmas Day in the last century. For country people the calender change did not affect their way of reckoning the start of the working year. For them February 1st , the first day of Spring, was the commencement day of the farmers New Year.

One New Years custom first associated with the Methodist community was the holding of Watch Night Service in the local Chapel. The congregation gathered to see out the old year and to welcome in the New Year. First introduced in the 18th century the Watch Night Service saw the congregation in prayer until about five minutes to 12.00 and then in silence until midnight struck when the hour was greeted with hymns of praise. It was also generally but not always followed by the ringing of the Church bells. The custom later spread to the Anglican Churches and the Presbyterian Churches where in Scotland the New Year celebrations are far more important than those of Christmas Day.

In Ireland, as elsewhere, superstition and tradition plays an important part in the events of New Years Day. In folk tradition New Years Day was a very important indication of what the following twelve months would hold. The weather conditions on that winter's day were interpreted as a sign of the weather throughout the following year. Even the wind direction was seen by some as an important if strange indication of political developments in the year just commencing. A westerly wind gave a welcome boost to the cause of the Irish while an easterly wind favoured the English cause. One wonders why in a country with such a prevalence of westerly winds the Irish problem took so long to resolve, even if only partially.

A popular belief was that the first person to cross your threshold after midnight on New Years Day determined the extent of your luck or bad fortune in the ensuing year. A black haired man was the most welcome visitor to any house bringing as he did enormous luck to the household. Red haired women were not encouraged to be out and about on New Years Eve night for fear that they might upset their more superstitious neighbours.

The first entry to the house, or the "first footing" as it was traditionally called, inevitably gave rise to another example of Irish enterprise with the practice of rewarding dark haired men or boys who were the first to pass the threshold after midnight. Visits were frequently made in the neighbourhood by anyone fortunate enough to have the required physical attributes guaranteed to bring luck to each household. The reward, liquid for the men and coin for the young boys, profited all who participated.

Another custom peculiarly Irish and rooted in the fear of famine and hunger was once enacted throughout the country on New Years Eve. The woman of the house baked a large loaf or barnbrack which the man of the house threw against the door of the house while calling on the Lord to banish famine from Ireland for the next twelve months. The efficacy of these ancient and time honoured customs were never doubted by the people who practised them and who are we to doubt their usefulness at a time when to live in hope rather than in fear was the height of one's expectations.

Happy New Year!

Christmas Day

Christmas Day, the outstanding Christian Festival of the year possibly replaced the pagan celebrations which took place at this time of the year to welcome the lengthening days. Our Christmas customs and traditions are a mixture of Christian and Pagan Rites. Christmas decorations, especially holly, ivy and mistletoe figured in pagan celebrations of the winter solstice as evergreen symbols of life. The custom of kissing under the mistletoe comes to us from the time of the Druids for whom the mistletoe held magical and sexual significance.

The use and decoration of Christmas trees is of German origin and came into use in Ireland following its popularisation by Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert. Carols from the French Carole, meaning a dance with a song, originated on the European mainland. First associated with the Christmas festival in the 14th century, most of todays popular carols are of 19th century origin. Thomas Kelly, founder of the Kellyites and a native of Ballintubbert, just outside Athy, wrote a number of carols which are included in his "Hymns on Various Passages of Sacred Scripture" published in seven editions in the last century.

The lighting of a candle on Christmas Eve and placing it in a window facing the roadway is a Christian custom with a strong underlay of Irish tradition. It is a symbolic linking of the Irish welcome for strangers with the Bible story of Mary and Joseph's efforts to find shelter before the infant Jesus was born. The lighted candle in the window is a light welcoming all while at the same time acting as a beacon for those loved ones far from home.

The exchange of gifts on Christmas morning again brings together two different traditions. The tradition of wealthy Romans giving money or clothing to their poorer neighbours during the seven day celebrations of the Saturnalia was seized upon by the early Christians and redefined as a symbolic reenactment of the of the gifts brought by the three Kings to the infant Jesus.


Father Christmas and the modern equivalent Santa Claus was an American import into our Christmas traditions. Amongst the early Dutch settlers in America there developed the Father Christmas concept based on St. Nicholas bringing gifts and presents to children who were good during the year. The inevitable commercialisation of this idea has resulted in the splurge of Christmas gift buying which is now such a large part of the Christmas festivities.

The Christmas card which for many people is their only link with old friends and acquaintances was invented in 1843 by an Englishman Sir Henry Cole who commissioned a design from an artist. The introduction of the penny post popularised the idea of sending a card at Christmas to friends, which by now has become yet another important tradition of the festive season.

It is the second day of Christmas which gives us one of the most enduring of the Irish traditions. St. Stephen's Day is the day for "hunting the wren". In earlier days the "sport" consisted of young boys searching for and chasing a wren until it was captured and killed. It was then put on a holly bush and carried from house to house accompanied by the Wren Boys singing the traditional Wren Song.

"The Wran the Wran the King of all birds,
St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze,
Although he is little, his family is great,
Put your hand in your pocket and give us a treat.
Sing holly, sing ivy - sing ivy, sing holly,
A drop just to drink it would drown melancholy,
And if you draw it over the best,
I hope in Heaven your soul will rest.
But if you draw it over the small,
It won't agree with the Wren Boys at all."

Another version popular in Athy in the 1950's had for the second and third lines the following:-

"Up with the kettle and down with the pan,
Gives us a penny to bury the Wran."

Nowadays Wren Boys are comparatively scarce on the streets of Athy, while the custom has undergone substantial changes over the years. The holly bush with the dead wren has disappeared to be replaced by a mixture of young and old Wren Boys and Girls dressed in all sorts of odd dress singing modern songs instead of the traditional Wren Song.

Christmas Day is the first of the traditional twelve days of Christmas which ends with the Feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of January. It comes at the height of the winter season when spirits can be low so that the traditional festivities associated with Christmas can be seen as re-energising our spirits to face the rest of the winter and the promise of the Summer to come.

Roadways

Recent discussions concerning the need for a new roadway through Athy or alternatively around the town focused our attention on Athy's existing road network. The principal street patterns of the medieval village of Athy have not changed over the years. Not so the side streets and alleyways of previous centuries which have disappeared without trace, largely due to the slum clearance programmes of the 1930's.

In the middle-ages the main highways were kept in sufficient repair for travellers on horseback. Under an Act of 1612 each Warden of the established Church was obliged to convene a meeting of his Parish on the Tuesday and Wednesday of Easter week. At these meetings two parishioners were appointed surveyors of whatever roadworks were considered necessary in the Parish. Every householder was required to provide free labour on the highway works for six days in every year. Landlords and farmers were required to provide horses, carts and drivers. In this way roads were maintained.

When wagons and coaches were first introduced, road surfaces were inadequate for such wheel traffic. Changes in the system of road maintenance were made with the passing of the first Turnpike Act. The English Act of 1663 empowered Justices of the Peace of several counties to erect turnpike gates across highways and charge tolls to passing traffic for maintaining roads. The first Turnpike Act in Ireland was passed in 1727. In time the turnpike roads led to most of the important towns in Ireland. These roads were maintained by Turnpike Trusts set up by business people and landlords and although inefficient they ensured that the larger towns were linked by roads on which coaches could travel.

Athy had a turnpike road running through the town from Kilcullen to Kilkenny. There were three turnpike gates on the road in and adjoining the town where tolls were collected. One gate was located on the Dublin Road near St. Michael's Medieval Church. The second was located at the junction of Green Alley and Duke Street while the third was on the Kilkenny Road at Beggars End approximately 700 yards from Whites Castle.

The tolls were collected by toll gate keepers who lived in cottages beside the gates. These cottages were built on the edge of the road and generally had an unusual shape - either round or hexagonal - in order that the keeper could look out on all sides and ensure no one passed without paying the toll.

In 1846 Athy Town Commissioners campaigned to have the last turnpike gate at Beggars End removed as the collection of tolls discouraged farmers from attending the fairs and markets in Athy. On the 27th of April 1846 the Commissioners met the Trustees of the Kilkenny and Athy turnpike road in Kennedys Hotel, Athy, to discuss the issue. Within four years the Town Commissioners were petitioning the House of Commons against the continuation of the Turnpike legislation. As a result of their efforts and those of the farmers in Kildare and adjoining counties the campaign succeeded leading to the removal of the last toll gate in Athy.

Brickyards

The clay deposits centred around Churchtown and Ballyroe gave rise to a thriving brick making industry in South Kildare in the last century. The development of the brickyards was prompted by the growing popularity of brick as opposed to stone for private houses and public buildings. Bricks were cheaper and easier to make than quarrying and shaping stone and when standardised to the grasp of a mason's fingers and thumb bricks were easier and quicker to use for building. Each of the South Kildare brickyards of which there were upwards of 12 at one time generally employed less than five men. The exceptions were Keegans Brickyard in Ballyroe, Telfords in Tomard and Doyles of Churchtown.

One of the best known brickyards was Keegans of Churchtown which was a substantial employer up to the 1920's. Telford's Brickyard located at the Monasterevin Road was in operation at the turn of the century while the last brickyard in the area was P.P. Doyles which was still operating in the 1930's. Bricks from Doyles Brickyard were used in the building of Dooley's Terrace and St. Joseph's Terrace, Athy.

The brick making process was labour intensive and the workers in each part of the process were known by names which are no longer part of our vocabulary. The man who watered the clay was known as a Banker and his colleagues who turned the clay to obtain a dough-like consistency were Middlers. The Sourer finished off this process while the young man who brought the clay to the moulding table in a wheelbarrow was known as a Wheeler.

In the larger brickyards several men worked at a table moulding the bricks and a Upstriker kept the Moulder supplied with clay, putting it on the table as required. Each moulder, standing at the raised table, used his personal wooden mould to shape the bricks. Scooping clay from the table he threw it into the mould. Smoothing it out with his hand he trimmed off excess clay with a knife or a wire. The wet block was then knocked out of the mould and a man called the Offbearer put it on a flat board where the bricks were "hacked" or placed in small heaps.

When dry the bricks were brought by the Wheeler to the kiln for firing. Here a worker called a Catcher would put them in layers. The man in charge of the kiln, called the Burner, shook culm and small coal between every layer of bricks. Turf was then put into the kiln and lit and the fire was kept lighting for six or seven days until the bricks were hard. The kiln could take upwards of another ten days to cool sufficiently to allow the bricks to be removed.

The brickyards employed both men and women and an experienced moulder was expected to make in excess of 700 bricks a day. The industry died out in South Kildare when building contractors were able to make concrete blocks as required on their building sites. One of the last of the brickyard workers was the late Patrick Keogh of Churchtown who worked in Keegans Brickyard at the age of 11 carrying culm to the kiln. He started work at 4.00 a.m. finishing at 2.00 p.m. He later worked as a Moulder in Stephen Hayden's Brickyard in Brownstown and he presented the brick mould used by him to Athy Museum Society some years ago. It is one of the very few items left from that period to remind us of the once thriving brick industry in South Kildare.

Street Furniture

A walk through the streets of Athy is nowadays fraught with danger from passing traffic. The Anglo Norman town has always had vehicular traffic passing through it but in other days the pace was somewhat different than todays. The street patterns laid down in the developing medieval town were designed for pedestrians and horse drawn carts and carriages and not for the motor traffic of today.

A significant amount of the street furniture of the 18th and 19th centuries remain as a vivid reminder of the mode of transport which was once prevalent. Horse power was the graceful if slow way of progressing from manor or farm to town. Within the town it was only the well to do merchants who had carriages for personal use and sometimes carts for transporting goods. The existing stone arch entrances from the main streets to the stables at the rear of the merchants premises are the visible reminders of an era which has long passed on. The jostle stones at either side of these entrances can still be seen in some places in Leinster Street and Duke Street. These carved stones, perhaps two or three feet high, lying against the base of the arch were designed to push cartwheels away from the building. This simple device saved both the cart or carriage and the building from damage.

Horse troughs met a basic but very necessary need for the many horses which passed through the streets of Athy in the last century. The Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, the equivalent of the modern S.P.C.A. provided water troughs at the roadside for use by horses, cattle and other animals. A fine example of one such trough, the only one remaining in Athy, is to be found at Leinster Street near the junction of Kirwan’s Lane. The large granite piece is now used by the local Council as a container for flowers.

Getting on and off a horse was not always an easy operation and mounting blocks were generally to be found at strategic positions on the main street of provincial towns and almost always at the local Churches. The local Inn would certainly have had a mounting block near to its front door to enable men and women on horseback to mount or dismount as elegantly as possible. Usually made of granite the mounting blocks have unfortunately not survived the many road improvement schemes of the 20th century. The last mounting block in the area is to be found in the grounds of Dukes Lodge on the Carlow Road.

The traffic of horses and other animals through the streets of Athy not only gave rise to the development of a now redundant street furniture but also contributed to the development of a street cleaning service. Horse and cow dung was carefully cleared from the streets on a regular basis by employees of the Borough Council and after 1840 the Town Commissioners. The dung was stored in Green Alley and near the Fair Green and every three months was auctioned off to the highest bidder. It proved to be a not inconsiderable asset for the local Council which zealously guarded its right to collect the dung on the streets of the town.

The era of the horse has long passed. Nevertheless as we walk the streets of Athy we can see many reminders of that time when the horse reigned supreme as a means of transport. Listen carefully and you might hear the “clippity clop” of horse hooves echoing from the past.

Robbery in Athy - 7th December 1797

On the morning of the 7th of December, 1797 Athy was the scene of a robbery which was to have serious repercussions for the local people during the following months. The night parcel boat from Dublin docked in the Canal basin on the night of 6th December. Its cargo included 50 stands of arms, 1,000 ball cartridges and accoutrements for 50 men intended for a corp of yeomen infantry in Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow. At about 3 o'clock on the following morning two men armed with pistols and swords crept up to the boat under cover of darkness. Arousing the boat master Thomas Barry, the conductor Robert Hyland and two crewmen William Moran and James Graham, the armed men held them below deck. In the meantime an unknown number of accomplices smashed open the arms chests and quickly carried away the precious cargo.

At dawn, Captain Erskine set out in pursuit of the raiders from the local army barracks with a party of Dragoons in pursuit of the raiders. Believing that the arms were transferred to another boat on the Barrow and sent to Carlow, he had the military in that town stop and search all canal boats. The arms were never found. It is believed they were hidden in a bog outside Athy to await a planned rebellion.

The Army Commander in Athy R.R. Wilford wrote to General Dundas on 7th December giving an account of the "most extraordinary and alarming circumstances that took place this morning". Suspecting a conspiracy involving those in charge of the boat, he had the master and crewmen arrested and lodged in Athy gaol. In a letter to General Dundas four days later Wilford expressed his belief that "there has been collusion on the part of the master of the boat and probably the keeper of the Canal Stores.....with other persons at present unknown in carrying away the arms". The boatmen were kept under arrest for a number of days and remaining steadfast in their claims of innocence were eventually released.

The anxiety of the loyalists at the success of the daring arms raid was reflected in a letter from Lord Downshire in which he referred to the event as having "made a deep impression in the minds of the well effected" in Edenderry. Even more concerned were the loyalists of Athy and district who were further alarmed by the appearance of a handbill on the streets of their town in January 1798. Copied and forwarded to Dublin Castle on 14th January by Stuart Weldon it called upon the people of Athy to organise.

The United Irishmen of Athy and neighbourhood were active in the area. Information sworn in May 1798 by a local informer indicated that there was sixteen companies of United Irishmen in and around Athy. Their Captains included Denis Devoy, Patrick Kelly, his brother Peter who was a shopkeeper and a namesake of his William Kelly. Meetings were held in Peter Kelly's shop, John Hyland's house near the upper turnpike gate and William Kelly's premises. Patrick Kelly, who was from Kilcoo, was later appointed Colonel in Charge of the Athy men. He was later to write of his experiences of the 1798 Rebellion in his book "The Rebellion of 1798" published in 1842.

Leinster Lease

The passing of the 1870 Land Act gave Irish tenant farmers the right to compensation on quitting their lands and for improvements carried out during their occupancy. However, the Act was flawed as it allowed Landlords to contract out of its provisions. The Duke of Leinster was amongst the first of the Irish Landlords to do so. The Leinster Lease as it became known was a model of legal ingenuity drafted by the Duke's agents and the tenants of South Kildare were compelled to accept its terms.

Local opposition to the Leinster Lease saw the formation of a Tenants Defence Association in Athy. This was the first such Association formed in Ireland following the decline of Isaac Butt's Tenants League. The Tenants Association held its first meeting in Athy on Tuesday the 19th of November, 1872 with Captain Morgan of Rahinderry in the Chair. Thomas P. Kynsey J.P. acted as Secretary and following the formal passing of a resolution establishing the Tenants Association those in attendance passed a resolution on the proposal of Canon Quinn P.P., Athy, seconded by Robert Anderson, Castlemitchell -

"That the objects of the Association be to unite the tenants against any encroachment on their rights and to promote by every legal and constitutional means the social interests and independence of the tenant class."

Despite the Association's best efforts the Duke of Leinster succeeded in overcoming local opposition to the terms of the Leinster Lease. Some of the Association's leaders were themselves to accept the Leinster Lease undoubtedly under the threat of eviction. One such signatory was James Leahy, Chairman of Athy Town Commissioners. The local Board of Guardians was made of sterner stuff for it refused to execute a Lease under the terms proposed by the Duke in respect of land held by it as tenant of the Leinster Estate.

James Leahy, farmer, of Ardscull and one time Chairman of Athy Town Commissioners was to represent South Kildare in the English House of Commons from 1880 until 1895. His initial nomination as a candidate for the Irish Parliamentary Party was the occasion of Charles Stewart Parnell's first visit to Athy in 1880. Andrew Kettle in his memoirs "Material for Victory" wrote of the nomination convention held in the Town Hall, Athy.

“Apparently Parnell expressed dissatisfaction with Leahy, whom Fr. Farrelly and some local men were putting forward for nomination -"This fat man will be no use, he will fall asleep in the House" said Parnell when he was acquainted with Leahy's intentions. Having cross-examined the prospective candidate Parnell was apparently satisfied and allowed the nomination to go ahead.”

Leahy was to have a constant if unspectacular presence in the House of Commons until 1895.

The Tenants Defence Association proved unsuccessful in its attempts to defeat the Leinster Lease but the spirit of opposition which it nurtured was to come alive with the Land League Campaign of later years.

Battle of Somme

The Battle of the Somme which first erupted on the 1st of July, 1916 continued throughout the summer. For the enlisted men of South Kildare there was no respite from the almost incessant barrage of German gunshells. Athy men were killed at the rate of one per week. Nevertheless, September 1916 started off well. John Vincent Holland, a 27 year old son of the local vet and an Officer in the 7th Battalion was part of a force entrusted with the capture of Guillemont. The 7th Battalion was to occupy a system of assembly trenches some 300 yards north of the village and to attack southwards. At 12 noon on Sunday the 3rd of September the artillery started its bombardment. The 7th Battalion advanced so quickly that it took the Germans by surprise in their trenches. Not content with bombing the enemy dugouts Holland led his men in an advance on the village. So successful was this attack that it carried all before it. Holland started with 26 bombers and finished up with only 5 men after capturing 50 German prisoners.

For his bravery Holland was awarded the highest military honour -The Victoria Cross. Son of John and Katherine Holland of Model Farm, Athy, he was born on the 19th of July, 1889. One of eight children he was educated in Clongowes Wood College and Liverpool university. Without completing his studies he travelled to South America where he was involved in railway engineering. Returning to Ireland at the start of the Great War he enlisted on the 2nd of September, 1914 in the Life Guards. Holland was commissioned in the Leinster Regiment in February 1915 and was attached to the Dublin Fusiliers when wounded in the second Battle of Ypres on the 26th of June, 1915. He came home to Ireland to recuperate and on his return to France he was attached to the 7th Leinsters as Battalion Bombing Officer. He saw service at Loos, Hulluck and the Somme in 1916. A full Lieutenant by July 1916 he was promoted to captain after his exploits at Guillemont.

Holland’s Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy, was the only such award made to a South Kildare man. The occasion was marked by the holding of special meetings of Athy Urban Council and Kildare County Council at which both Councils registered their appreciation of Lieutenant Holland’s gallantry. A public subscription was taken up in the County and a presentation was made to Holland who married Frances Grogan of Cobh on the 16th of January, 1917. He survived the Great War and was later to serve in the Second World War before emigrating in the 1950's to Tasmania. He died in Hobart, Tasmania on the 27th of February, 1975 at the age of 85 and is buried at Cornelian Cemetery.

If September 1916 started off well for the Athy men it was soon to take on a familiar deadly pattern. On the 9th day of the month Bo McWilliams of Leinster Street, Thomas Connell of Barrack Street, Thomas Stafford of Butlers Row and John Delaney of Crookstown lost their lives. Stafford’s brother Eddie had died of wounds on the 24th of September two years previously.

Printing and Publishing in Athy

Printing and publishing was a thriving activity in Athy around the middle of the last century. The earliest reference to an Athy printer was in Walkers Hibernian Magazine of 1802 which noted the death of John Richardson, Printer, Athy. In 1833 H.W. Talbot had a printing office in the town. The only known example of his work is a 16 page pamphlet titled "A letter to R.M. O'Farrell and E. Ruthven Esqs. Members of Parliament for the County of Kildare". Successive members of the Talbot family were involved in printing and publishing in Athy over the following 50 years. The Portlaoise branch of that family had an even longer involvement with the publishing world through it’s ownership of the Leinster Express founded in 1831.

Another name which has long passed from public memory is that of Thomas French who had a spectacular but unsuccessful publishing career in Athy in the 1830's. From his printing office in Market Square, French carried on a general printing business including amongst his customers, Athy Borough Corporation. In 1836 he came to the notice of a wider public with his printing of the 7th edition of the "Biographical Sketch of the Adventures of Captain Grant with a full report of his trial". On November 14th of the following year French embarked upon the ambitious scheme of publishing and printing a literary magazine from his printing works in Market Square. "The Athy Literary Magazine" was to have a longer life than later publishing ventures based in Athy. The only known copies of the magazine end with the 25th issue dated 13th February, 1838. On sale every Tuesday the small eight page magazine cost one penny. Throughout its short life the magazine gave an unvarying mixture of leading articles of local interest, extracts from literary works such as Dickens Pickwick Papers, and material from National magazines of the period. To these were added contributions, poetic and otherwise from the magazines readers.

In the first Editorial there was an exhortation to the reading public to support the publication "which had no other principal of action than that of being the medium of imparting useful information, adapted to all classes but especially the middle classes."

Local contributors whose poetic effusions were particularly welcome did not always find a ready forum in the columns of the Athy Literary Magazine. Despite this, hopeful correspondents continued to supply the Editor with material and throughout the 25 known issues one finds numerous contributions which if they had nothing else to their merit, no doubt helped the hard pressed Editor to keep his weekly magazine before the public.

The last edition of "The Athy Literary Magazine" of which we know was the 25th number which appeared on Tuesday 17th April, 1838. Each of the issues consisted of eight pages of large post octavo, double columns per page with a running head on each page. Pagination was continuous throughout each issue. The first three issues had a simple masthead which had changed from the fourth issue onwards by the addition of a woodcut.

In January 1852 Samuel Talbot, a member of the Talbot family was responsible for the last major publishing event in Athy. He published Volume 1 Number 1 of “The Press” which was intended as a monthly magazine “devoted to the advancement of Science Literature and the Industrial Arts”. Unfortunately it did not survive to a second number. Costing 4d it consisted of 36 pages of large post octavo with a simple masthead. It is assumed that the publication was thread sewn although the only copy known to the writer was bound with other booklets making confirmation of this point impossible.

Material in “The Press” included a report of an address delivered on November 26th, 1852 at the Athy Mechanics Institute by its Secretary Thomas H. Cross. The report read :-

“The style of his lecture was rather studied and florid, and to our mind, too enwrapt in vivid imagery and poetic embellishment, which in the plan matter-of-fact subject in which he was treating, were by no means required”.

The early demise of “The Press” may indicate that Mr. Cross had a wider circle of friends than the magazine imagined.

The only other items of local interest included in the first and last edition of “The Press” was an article on Woodstock Castle and a summary of a lecture delivered by Mr. Reece, Manager of the Irish Peat Company on December 10th, 1851 at a meeting of the Athy Mechanics Institute. In the course of his talk Reece stated :-

“a coal merchant in Lancashire is able to send a ton of coal cheaper to London (200 miles away) than a ton of turf can be brought from Cloney to Athy, but 5 miles”.

The absence of a railway from the bog meant that kish of turf which cost 3d on the bog cost 8d in Athy.

Talbots unsuccessful venture was the last major publishing event in Athy. Thereinafter Samuel Talbot confined himself to job printing and an 1870 edition of Slater’s Directory listed Talbot as carrying on business in Emily Square. Michael Carey with his printing office at Barrow Quay was another Athy printer in the mid 19th century. In 1864 Carey published “The 24th Report of the Kildare Diocesan Education Society”. No further trace of his work can be found today.

Halloween

Halloween has its roots in the pagan Celtic festival of Samhain. The last day of October was the new year's eve of the Celtic calender and was traditionally an occasion for celebration and family reunion. It marked the end of the crop season which by tradition began on St. Patrick's Day. The crops had to be all gathered in by Halloween and no fruit could be picked because after Halloween the "puca" fouled all unpicked fruit on bush and tree alike. The return at Halloween of the livestock accompanied by their herders from their summer grazing was an occasion for family rejoicing and thereafter the cattle and other stock were free to roam the unenclosed lands which villagers shared on the rundale system. This they did until the following St. Patrick's Day when the livestock and herdsmen would depart yet again for the high ground of the summer booleying. October was also traditionally the potato month when potatoes were dug, sorted and placed in pits of straw and earth for future use. Any not dug out before the end of the month were destined to stay in the ground.

As part of the Celtic tradition associated with Halloween, fires were lit on prominent ground to mark the end of the growing season, and to symbolise the purification of the land. Great quantities of old straw and other combustible material were carried to the chosen site and set alight as darkness approached. The villagers or townspeople gathered around the fire and Autumn fruits such as hazelnuts and apples were roasted and eaten. Dancing and games went on throughout the night.

The games associated with Halloween have nowadays degenerated into pranks and horseplay but in other times they were played with a genuine and serious intent. Games of divination were particularly popular for on the night when the spirits were about people were anxious to know what the future held. Young people engaged in these games to find out their future, particularly where love and marriage were concerned. One such game was the placing of nuts near the fireplace, one for a girl the other for a favoured man. If they burned quietly together marriage was expected but if they blazed up or burst then the courtship was doomed. Another divination game was to peel an apple in a continuous strip. At midnight the peel was thrown over one shoulder and the initial of the future lover's name was read from the shape it took. The now traditional barm brack with the ring is a modern version of the old divination games.

Halloween is also associated even in modern times with other well known games in which autumnal fruits such as apples and nuts are prominent. Ducking for apples is one such game while ducking for money has the additional claim that the person who retrieves the coin from under the water will be lucky in money matters during the coming year. Suspending an apple from a cord and attempting to bite it as it swings is also a variant on the same game.

Halloween was also a time when pranks are played on other people. Nowadays that tradition has given way to the wearing of disguises by young children who go from door to door collecting for their Halloween party. They sometimes have a hallowed out turnip on which a face has been cut with a lighted candle inside. The children involved do not realise that they are carrying on a tradition stretching back centuries, the origin of which was the impersonation of the dead who on Halloween night were abroad. Tradition was that impersonating the dead afforded protection from the spirits.

Halloween for all its traditions, games and jollity has always been associated with death, ghosts and spirits. The christian churches commemorate their dead after Halloween and traditionally it has been the time for families to remember their dead relations and friends. As one would expect the association with death has led to an extensive folklore concerning the movement of spirits at Halloween. It was the day when the spirits of the day were believed to revisit their homes. It was once thought unlucky not to leave the door open and set a place at meal for the departed. These customs have long since been forgotten but some elements of the pagan Celtic festival are perpetuated today in association with the Christian celebration of All Souls Day on the 2nd of November.

Quakers

The Society of Friends whose members are commonly referred to as Quakers was founded in England in 1647 by George Fox. First established in Ireland in 1654 by William Edmundson the Society grew to prominence with the visit to this country in 1669 of its founder. The Society's structure was based on weekly local meetings of which one was founded in Athy in 1672, predating the better known Ballitore meeting by 35 years. Little is known of Quakerism in Athy until the latter part of the 18th century. The earliest extant record is of a Quaker provincial meeting held in Richard Boyes house in Athy on the 20th May, 1706. Some of the Quaker families of that time were the Jessops, the Skellys, the Hudsons, the Rushworths and the Haughtons of Rheban.

Quakers were generally merchants, a commercial activity favoured by Dissenters and Catholics alike who were denied access to the professions and State employment. Thomas Rushworth, a Quaker merchant of Athy who died in 1675 was perhaps typical of his time. He owned three tenements in the town and when he died he left in addition to shop goods, 36 barrels of malt, 19 dozen tanned calf skins, goat skins and pelts. Another local quaker was Thomas Weston who died in 1709 leaving a mill and millhouse in Athy to his son Thomas, together with "a field called Moneene near Athy". Graham Bradford was another Quaker resident of Athy whose name is recorded for posterity in the records of the Borough Council of Athy. He was a Freeman of the town who was deprived of his office in 1738 for committing perjury. He was pilloried and subsequently transported to the American colonies. The pillory was an instrument of punishment consisting of a wooden frame with holes through which the head and hands of the offender were placed. The culprit had to stand up while in the pillory where he was at the mercy of the local people who could throw rubbish at him or otherwise ridicule him. It was generally used as a punishment for such offenses as forgery, perjury or cornering the market and putting up the price of goods.

Although established in Athy since 1672 the Society of Friends did not have a permanent meeting house until 1780 when one was built on the site of the present Dispensary in Meeting Lane. Thomas Chandlee, whose wife Deborah was a sister of Mary Ledbetter of Ballitore literary fame, was the prime mover in the building of the Athy meeting house. Having moved to Athy from Dublin in 1775 to establish a linen drapery business in Duke Street he encouraged his fellow Quakers to provide a permanent meeting place in the town which was completed in 1778 at a cost of £129=5=10.

The erection of the meeting house did not make any appreciable difference to the continued development of Quakerism in Athy. Indeed the Quaker community was soon to go into decline and in 1812 the last annual collection for Quaker purposes was taken up in the town. It amounted to a mere 15/2 while a similar collection in Ballitore Village where there was a vibrant Quaker community amounted to £9.17.0. Quaker records make no reference to Athy after that date. The legacy of the Quaker community has long vanished from the area but in nearby Ballitore the Society of Friends have recently re-commenced its meeting which is held on the first and third Sunday of every month.

Sisters of Mercy

In the Spring of 1843 some local people and clergy came together in the Parish School at the corner of Stanhope Street and Stanhope Place to discuss the possibility of bringing the Sisters of Mercy to Athy. The first Sisters of Mercy had been professed 12 years earlier and already a Convent had been established in the neighbouring town of Carlow. Those who played a large part in organising that meeting were Miss Anna Gould of Stanhope Place, Rev. W. Gaffney C.C., the Fitzgerald family of Geraldine House and Patrick Maher of Kilrush. It was agreed to take up a weekly collection in the town of Athy to finance the building of a Convent for the Sisters of Mercy. By the 12th of May, 1843 £150 had been collected but an approach to the Duke of Leinster for a site was unsuccessful. Undaunted the fund raising continued and in August 1844 the Parish Priest of Castledermot, Rev. Laurence Dunne, laid the first stone of the future Convent on marshy ground to the west of the Parish Church.

The building work continued throughout 1845 and 1846 but stopped in 1847 because of lack of funds. The weekly town collection was not taken up during the Great Famine, but restarted in 1848, this time under the direction of Rev. Thomas Greene C.C. in whose memory a beautiful Celtic Cross was many years later erected in the grounds of St. Michael’s Parish Church.

Dr. Paul Cullen, appointed Archbishop of Dublin in 1852, was born in Prospect in the Parish of Narraghmore in the year of Robert Emmet’s Rebellion. Understandably he took a keen personal interest in the completion of the Convent in the South Kildare town of Athy, which was located just six miles from his ancestral home. Mother Mary Vincent Whitty of the Sisters of Mercy Dublin advanced £300 to the local people to have the building completed and on 10th October, 1852 Mother Vincent, who earlier had been responsible for building the Mater Hospital, Dublin, took charge of the new Convent accompanied by two sisters. They remained in Athy for two years after which time the Sisters of Mercy in Carlow took over the Athy Convent as a branch house and sent Sister Mary Teresa Maher and Sister Mary Xavier Downey in their place. Sister Mary O'Grady Dillon and Sister Mary Joseph later joined them from the Baggot Street Convent.

Sister Mary Teresa Maher was daughter of Patrick Maher of Kilrush who was one of those responsible for bringing the Sisters of Mercy to Athy. She was also a first cousin of Archbishop Cullen. Sister Mary Vincent Whitty who opened the Athy Convent in October 1852 was the first Sister of Mercy to go on missionary work to Australia where she was later to be joined by a number of nuns and postulants from the Athy Convent.

In 1861 an appeal was made by Rev. Andrew Quinn P.P., Athy, to Rev. Mother Teresa Maher on behalf of his brothers Rt. Rev. James Quinn, Bishop of Brisbane and Rt. Rev. Matthew Quinn, Bishop of Bathurst, Australia, for nuns for their respective missions. In 1865 a postulant from Athy’s Convent, Catherine Flanagan, travelled to Brisbane and in the following year four more postulants left the local Convent in Athy for the Australian Missions. One of the many nuns and postulants who left Athy for Queensland was Sr. Mary Patrick Potter who entered the Athy Convent on the 8th of June, 1866. She and four others left for Brisbane on the 26th of February, 1868. They were the last Athy nuns to leave Athy for Australia. By then Athy had become known as the Mother House of Queensland, having sent so many Mercy Sisters and postulants to that Province over the years.

In 1879 Mother Mary Patrick Potter was appointed Superior of the Congregation in Brisbane, a position she held until her death in 1927. She established many convents and schools throughout Queensland while the building of the Mater Hospital in Brisbane was another of her many achievements.

Over the 140 years of their life in Athy the Sisters of Mercy have worked amongst the people, providing help where required and responding to the spiritual, educational and sometimes material needs of the people of the area.

1414 Charter of Athy

On October 7th 1515 the 24 year old King of England Henry VIII granted a Charter to the town of Athy enabling the townspeople to "erect, construct, build and strengthen the same town with fosses and walls of stone and lime". Located on the Marshes of Kildare and outside the English Pale Athy was of strategic importance to the English settlers yet vulnerable to attack from the dispossessed Irish. The English settlers of the developing town welcomed the opportunity which the King's Charter afforded them to fortress the town. The work on the town walls was to be financed by customs collected by the Town Provost on all goods sold within the town. These ranged from one penny for a horse or cow to half penny for a hide or any goods worth 2/- or more.

The Charter provided for the yearly election of a Town Provost, the modern equivalent to a Mayor, who was to be responsible for governing the town. He also combined this duty with that of Coroner, Justice of the Peace, Weights & Measures Inspector and Clerk of the town market. He was clearly a man of considerable power and influence in sixteenth century Athy.

An important privilege granted by Henry VIII to the townspeople was the right to hold a market in Athy every Tuesday "in a place deputed or ordained therefor by Gerald Earl of Kildare". 477 years on, the market in Athy is still held every Tuesday in what was formerly known as Market Square and now Emily Square.

Customs continued to be collected on goods sold in the Athy Market up to the 19th century. In latter years the right to collect the customs was let out to the highest tenderer until they were eventually abolished in 1824. By then the market was held on Tuesday and Saturday but business had fallen off because of tolls imposed on goods passing through the toll gates on the Dublin Road and the corner of Duke Street on their way to the Athy market. These additional tolls were collected to finance roadworks in the area.

The Duke of Leinster, who claimed the right to the market customs "suggested" that the Borough Council abolish the customs in an attempt to revive the town market. The local Council which always acted as directed duly dropped the market customs except in relation to coal and culm where the custom was doubled because of the extensive trade in Athy between the local Collieries and Dublin. The coal and culm customs were also eventually abolished but the wheel has now turned full circle with the local Urban Council considering the feasibility of imposing charges on market traders in Athy on Tuesday to help to defray the cost of street cleaning.

The market tradition in Athy continues undiminished and seems on the evidence of recent years to have taken on a new lease of life, bringing colour and a change of scenery to the Emily Square area every Tuesday morning.

Michaelmas - 29th September

The feast of St. Michael or Michaelmas falls on the 29th of September. Traditionally St. Michael is known as Judge of the Dead on Judgment Day and he is usually depicted with flaming wings symbolising his status as Archangel, carrying a sword representing his power over evil.

For the Anglo Norman settlers of the 12th and 13th Century both Michaelmas and Easter marked important periods in the yearly calender. Athy in common with other Irish and English towns regarded September 29th as a day for settling rent accounts, hiring labourers and the beginning of Autumn. It was a day marked with celebration, the centre piece of which was the Michaelmas goose, geese generally being in plentiful supply at that time of year. Michaelmas was the day when tradition decreed that a farmer should kill an animal and give meat to the poor. The custom, according to Keating in his History of Ireland, arose when Aongus, wife of King Leary, in thanksgiving for her son's restoration to health killed one sheep out of every flock she owned. It was decreed that all Christians should follow the custom on Michaelmas Day and give a portion to the poor.

The Hiring Fairs were another Irish tradition centred around Michaelmas Day. Those seeking employment came to town on September 29th, stood in the Hiring Fair wearing the recognised sign of their skill. Once agreement had been reached with a farmer the hired hand received a coin as an earnest of his future wages. He was free for the rest of the day until the evening when he left the fair with the farmer for the farm which was to be his home for the next six to nine months.

The Charter of Athy granted by Henry VIII in 1515 provided for the election of a Town Provost on the feast of St. Michael. The later Charter of 1613 granted by James I stipulated that the town's sovereign elected annually on the 24th of June was to be sworn into office on Michaelmas Day. In 1746 Athy Borough was rocked by a scandal when Thomas Keating, one of the twelve Burgesses of the town, was charged by the Corporation with impersonating the Sovereign and while doing so calling a meeting for the Queen's Head in the town to elect a Burgess in place of John Jackson who had died. Keating who had not been sworn into office on Michaelmas Day as required by the town Charter was removed from his office as a Burgess of the town as were Robert Percy and Nicholas Aylward, both of whom attended the meeting called by Keating. The tradition of swearing in the Sovereign on the 29th of September survived until 1840 when the Borough was dissolved. The tradition of killing an animal to share with the poor and the Hiring Fair survived for a few more years but they too have long gone the way of other old Irish traditions.
Part time amateur enthusiastic students of local history have never been as numerous as they are today. Their work has spawned a multiplicity of publications ranging from substantial academic texts to the numerous books and pamphlets published by individual local historians and Historical Societies.

Genealogical research into ones own family is generally an initial step into a field of study which is both varied and extensive. The next step is inevitably the study of the history of a particular locality. However one enters into local history studies one thing is certain; the student will go to his local Library, look at what is available in the reference section or local archive material section and embark on a life long study which will never lose its interest.

The growing interest in local history and the awakening of interest in their own place amongst school children has created a huge demand for research material in our local libraries. Our national archives are not always readily accessible to the country based researchers but unfortunately our local libraries do not seem to be able to keep pace with the needs for basic research material even of a secondary nature.

The recent opening of the new vastly improved library service in the Town Hall under the guidance of the dynamic and resourceful County Librarian Breda Gleeson will hopefully lead to a dramatic improvement in the availability of research material in Athy. Success in local history work requires active co-operation between local libraries and national archives, local History Societies and the schools. Never before has there been such a need for all these bodies to collaborate more and more with each other to meet the every growing and popular demands of local history studies.

Eye on the Past will each week deal with a topic of interest from the History of South Kildare when we will delve into the rich vein of local History which remains to be discovered and related in future articles.

General Introduction to Series

Part time amateur enthusiastic students of local history have never been as numerous as they are today. Their work has spawned a multiplicity of publications ranging from substantial academic texts to the numerous books and pamphlets published by individual local historians and Historical Societies.

Genealogical research into ones own family is generally an initial step into a field of study which is both varied and extensive. The next step is inevitably the study of the history of a particular locality. However one enters into local history studies one thing is certain; the student will go to his local Library, look at what is available in the reference section or local archive material section and embark on a life long study which will never lose its interest.

The growing interest in local history and the awakening of interest in their own place amongst school children has created a huge demand for research material in our local libraries. Our national archives are not always readily accessible to the country based researchers but unfortunately our local libraries do not seem to be able to keep pace with the needs for basic research material even of a secondary nature.

The recent opening of the new vastly improved library service in the Town Hall under the guidance of the dynamic and resourceful County Librarian Breda Gleeson will hopefully lead to a dramatic improvement in the availability of research material in Athy. Success in local history work requires active co-operation between local libraries and national archives, local History Societies and the schools. Never before has there been such a need for all these bodies to collaborate more and more with each other to meet the every growing and popular demands of local history studies.

Eye on the Past will each week deal with a topic of interest from the History of South Kildare when we will delve into the rich vein of local History which remains to be discovered and related in future articles.