Market Day in Athy 1837

Market Days and Fair Days in Athy were once an important part of the commercial life of the old town. The Fairs were to be found in Woodstock Street as well as the open space at the top of Leinster Street, while the market was in Market Street, better known today as Emily Square. Here is an account of Athy’s Market which appeared in the second issue of the Athy Literary Magazine published on Tuesday, 21st November, 1837. It gives a unique insight into the happenings of 160 years ago.

“The Market Day” is generally interesting to most people. To the townsman it is a day of anxious activity, whether his business is confined to the counter, or in the more noisy throng of out-door wayfaring. It is not the less important to the farmer and the different gradations of his household, who have each some peculiar traffic to push, or some appointment to fulfil. The farmer sons are summoned and orders are given with precision relative to the corn and goods the farmer wants to send to the market. The thrifty “vanithee” is not less active in her preparations; the `lump’ of fresh butter is encircled in its well scoured wooden bowl, and a napkin `white as the driven snow’ laid over it. The weeks gathering of eggs too is a matter of some moment…... The hour has at length arrived when all must wend their way to the great mart, and Mary the eldest daughter unmarried is not displeased that her mother’s duties oblige her to remain at home, and that she is selected to exchange her burdens for tea, sugar, soap and other household necessaries which must be acquired during the din and turmoil of Athy’s Market Day.

It is indeed a busy day and the Market Day of our own town is more important to us than all the world beside. Good reader sure you have been in Athy of a “Market Day”. If you have not a visit to it will be more profitable than a voyage to see the poison tree of Java. If you are a philosopher you will remark a principal law of nature illustrated in our own language; `birds of a feather flock together’. Just take a walk to Cobb’s Corner, and proceed from thence around the Market Square. On your left is a row of decent looking housewives, clean aprons, clean faces, with “I assure you it is as sweet and clean butter as any in Ireland, and those eggs were laid this blessed good morning.” Don’t be surprised if the butter and eggs get together. Go on a little further through the corn sacks, and it is a chance if you don’t stumble over the new crocks and dishes prepared to pack the butter or hold the milk in, with now and then a sort of jingling knell, sounding in the midst of those self same crocks, when my aunt tries what the stuff is with a tap of her knuckles. Now elevate your body, and look due East, that is if the mountains of cabbage plants will permit a vista for observation, and you will perceive a group standing round an aged figure, who might literally be said to be all in motion, for his feet are perpetually moving like the paddles of a steam engine, and his hands generally wield some deadly weapon, while his tongue, with not less velocity than his feet, keeps up an incessant clamour. You stare - feel no alarm; he is a perfectly sane and harmless poor Scotchman, who is sharpening the wits as well as the razors of his customers.

Well, then you have cabbage, parsnips and pigs’ faces to the world’s end - at least to the other side of the square where, what will you guess comes next? The brogues! Surely when the belly is already provided for, such useful members as the feet merit a little attention; and not very far distant are the hats and bonnets, mixed up with eels, applies, sieves and riddles. A little further, You must push your way, no delicate remonstrance will avail you, should you get your boots bespattered, or your coat pulled half off by the multitudinous crowd, emulous to close round some `lion’ in the corn trade, and push their samples of golden drop, &c. into the rich man’s hands. The whirling maze of the crowd has now brought you in company with the `importance’ of the market - the millers, the malsters, the brewers, the jobbers and chapmen, now whispering, now laughing, now talking aloud; observe, in particular, that little group yonder, one half of whom seem to be supporting the pile of mason-work behind them. They are the Rothschild’s of our exchange. A company of soldiers never copied the harlequin positions of their fugle man with such exactness as the crowd around them adopt their different alternations of countenance, changing as they consider the market is likely to fall or rise. You cannot of course pass our Shambles, so much superior to the manner in which meat is exposed in the generality of country towns, and we know you will feel with us that its cleanliness and good order is highly creditable to the proprietor. Watch that little gentleman yonder with what a restless pleasure his eye wanders o’er the fine proportions of fat and lean which compose that ponderous sirloin, which the butcher has stretched in all its inviting amplitude upon his table. Oh! It would be almost a dinner for a hungry countryman to dwell a little here, even in imagination, on gormandizing. Now, intelligent visitor, we will conduct you from the shambles, and urge you a few paces onward, when you will find yourself among the cocks and hens. It was about here that “Cheap John”, in days of yore, held his weekly auction of pins and needles; poor fellow he is gone the way of all flesh, and it will be long before the tidy wives will look upon his like again. The Court-house door is before you, and close under its protection sit the most notorious of all the notorious animals, the bag-ers - the scourge alike of farmers and threshers. Behind you is the great area of the Market- square, and if you would pause for a moment, and let you inventive faculties shape strange fancies, you might imagine yourself in view of a little fleet, such a number of car shafts erect themselves before your gaze, while if you look more earthly you will see apples, creels and asses, bacon, bere and barley, calico, caps and coats, delt, ducks and drunkards, egg exhibitors and extortioners, flax, fish and fowl. A little to the right is a scene calculated to awake indescribable emotions, the weekly assemblage of the two great rival powers, contending for Ireland’s honor or Ireland’s disgrace. The great links or hinges on which turn our nation’s morals, money and mortality - the pigs and potatoes.”

Athy’s Literary Magazine was a short lived venture but we can be grateful that it captured in print for all time the wonderful world of the town’s Market in pre Famine days.

19th Century Split in Athy

Banking in Athy originated with the Tipperary Bank which had an office in the town from the 1840’s. The National Bank also had a local office from about 1850 while the Hibernian Bank established a branch in Athy in March 1856, following the collapse of the Tipperary Bank and the suicide of its founder, John Sadlier.

The prosperity of the time was reflected in the social happenings of the period. On Friday, 15th August, 1856 the Athy Regatta, revived after a lapse of some years, took place on the River Barrow with six races. The most important race was for two oared boats, the property of persons residing at least one year within the town boundary, to be rowed and steered by local residents. With an entrance fee of ten shillings per boat, clearly it was a richman’s sport! A press report of the 1858 Regatta noted that “the embankments presented a thronged and animated appearance”, while the Athy Regatta Ball for 1859 advertised tickets at 7/6, the patrons to be entertained by a string band from 9.30p.m. with Mr. Doyle, Professor of Dancing, Baltinglass, as the master of ceremonies. The Leinster Express of 30th July, 1859 with reference to the Ball noted:
“There is not in Ireland an inland town that can boast of more public spirit than Athy or among whose inhabitants so many friendly and social reunions are reciprocated.”

The public spirit so apparent in 1859 quickly dissipated when the Stewards of Athy Regatta procrastinated throughout the summer of 1861 with no prospect of the Regatta taking place that year. Much annoyed by this were local oarsmen Daniel Cobbe and Francis Dillon who had won the Silver Challenge Cup renamed the Corporation Challenge Cup the previous year.

Popular feeling apparently ran in favour of Cobbe and Dillon as evidenced by a ballad sheet printed and circulated in Athy during November and December 1861 titled “Athy Regatta Rhymes.” It commenced:-

Oh! Remember, remember,
The Nineteenth of November
Frustrates a contemptible “do;”
I do not see why
The ONE sport of Athy,
Should be stopped by the `whims or mean
schemes of a FEW.

The two local oarsmen inserted an advertisement in the Leinster Express on 9 November, 1861 in which they announced the holding of the Athy Regatta on Tuesday, 19th November “two challenges having been sent to the Secretary and the Committee not wishing to act in the manner we the present holders of the cups hereby appoint the above day. The cups have to be won 3 times successively and if successful we will claim this as our second year.” The intrepid oarsmen duly won the race. Faced with the same official reluctance in 1862 Cobbe and Dillon acted as before. Challenged on this occasion by Delaney and Keefe, victory went yet again to Cobbe and Dillon in what was to be the last of the once popular Athy Regattas. I wonder if the Silver Cup which was won outright by Cobbe and Dillon is still in Athy.

On 7 May, 1857, steeplechase racing was revived in Athy after a lapse of many years. Four races were held on the Bray course which attracted a total entry of 19 horses, a matter of some satisfaction to the Stewards, Thomas Fitzgerald J.P., Thomas H. Pope J.P., Anthony Weldon, Hugh Maguire, Joseph Butler and A. Kavanagh, Race Treasurer. The local Newspaper reported :-

“Such a sensation was never yet seen in the quiet and unexcitable district of Athy and its vicinity as the dawning of this eventful day created.

….. the roads leading to the race course were speedily thronged with a motley crew of thimble riggers, card settlers, trick a loop men, followed by the no less accomplished creed of roulette and shooting gallery proprietors, musicians and all those who imbued with a mercantile and enterprising spirit sought the most eligible position for their forthcoming avocations ….. the proceedings and amusements of the day came off satisfactorily ….. the racing was throughout contested with the greatest spirit.”

However, local horse racing was not long in resurrecting its critics. On 27 March, 1858, a local correspondent using the nom de plume “short grass” drew critical comparison between the races of 1843 and the previous years’ event implying the reason with his comment “in those days the right men were in the right place.” In 1858 the races were held once again during which “disturbances occurred subsequently action taken against one of the stewards, he was fined.” The races were not held in 1859. In 1860 Thomas Fitzgerald J.P. was instrumental in reviving the races which were held on Friday evening, 20 April over the Bray course. About 1,000 people attended the meeting and enjoyed the main race for the Athy Cup over a three mile course. The 1862 meeting was run over “a small but well laid out course about 10 minutes walk from the town”, but despite Fitzgeralds best efforts, Athy’s tenuous claim to racing fame had slipped away.

Equally unsuccessful was the inaugural reunion of the Grand Leinster Archery Fete arranged for the Peoples Park, Athy on Friday, 7th August, 1863 and the following day. The archery competitions for men and women took place in the adjoining field which was walled in with the Band of the 86th Regiment performing in the park. The Leinster Express of 15 August reported :-

“We regret to learn that the inhabitants of Athy and neighbourhood did not come forward to the support of the recent archery meeting ….. in the manner they might.

Last year there was a similar complaint to make with respect to the agricultural exhibition and if there is not some person energetic enough to keep up the credit of the town, we fear it may be even minus the latter …..”

Some things never change!

Preston's Gate

Growing up in Offaly Street in the 1950’s boys such as myself had none of the diversions which the youth of today now enjoy. Computers, videos and televisions were still decades away for most of us and we amused ourselves as best we could. Football was the bread and butter of our daily lives and most evening after school began with a game of football at the Church of Ireland end of Offaly Street. Although it is difficult to imagine today there was little traffic on the street in my youth except Dr. O’Neill’s car on it’s way to another patient and the odd bit of Agricultural traffic during the Harvest season. Games were played with much vigour and energy resulting in many scuffed knees and grazed heads by the end of these urban matches. The focus of most of our matches was in the part of Offaly Street close to the Athy Picture Palace or best known to my generation as Bob’s Cinema where with our penny toffees and lemonade we spent many a Saturday Matinee. The Lower end of Offaly Street at the present day Credit Union Offices was outside the bounds of our Offaly Street pitch as a road narrowed dramatically to barely the width of a set of goalposts

Even as a young lad it struck me as curious as to how a street could be so wide at the top half and so narrow at the lower half. Many years later when I developed an interest in local history I discovered that the narrowing street owned it’s origin to the fact that the last remaining stretch of Athy’s medieval town wall had once stood there. The width of the street reflected the width of Preston’s gate which was demolished in 1860.
The exact date for the construction of walls around the town of Athy is unknown. In 1431 the Dublin Parliament had a granted to the town a contribution towards the expenses in defending the town while in 1448 it was taxes were levied on goods sold in the town and also on those carried through which were to go towards the costs of building walls around the town. It was only with the granting of the charter of 1515 from King Henry VIII to the town that the first clear record of town walling is available. The purpose of the Charter was to assign to the town it’s various rights and privileges.
Under the Charter the inhabitants of the town were given licence that “They may erect construct build and strengthen the same town with fosses and walls of stone and lime”. In order to fund this construction it was stated in the Charter that a tax of one penny was to be levied on every horse, cow, pair of wheels and any good worth five shillings sold in the town. The Earl of Kildare who owned the town, was the person who would determine how the monies would be distributed in order to repair and build the town walls. Although there were further Charters to the town from the English Crown in 1613 and 1688 there was no further reference to the walls.
Indeed it is difficult to know to what extent the wall was completed. Mercarators map of Laois and Offaly completed in 1568 shows the town with the East bank surrounded by a wall. It is difficult to determine now whether or not this was a genuine reflection of what lay on the ground. Without doubt some walls were built because in 1532 the Earl of Ossory in writing to Thomas Cromwell the Lord Privy Seal referred to the gates of the town of Athy. John Dymok who visited Athy in 1600 gave a description of the town describing it as been divided into two parts by the River Barrow over which there was a stone bridge and upon it a castle occupied by James Fitzpierce. However he did not mention any walling while an anonymous writer who passed through the town in 1598 described Athy and Castledermot’s as the only important towns in Kildare which were walled but then in ruins.
The earliest detailed maps which survived for the town are Roques’ surveys of 1756 but even by this time, except in Preston gate in Offaly Street, no other parts of the town wall survived. It is likely that the town wall was built sometime in Athy after the Charter of 1515 after to Athy but its probable that the vast majority of the wall was destroyed during the confederate wars of the 1640’s. It has been suggested in the past that the naming of Preston’s gate relates to General Preston a leader of the Cromwellian forces whom occupied the town in the 1640’s. I would think that its name derives from a corruption of the word ‘postern’ which refers to a secondary gate or entrance to the town.
There exists in the British Library in London a pamphlet which details the siege of Athy in 1641. Mr. Hierome a man who appears to have been a priest in Athy detailed a variety of atrocities committed by the Irish Rebels against the English Protestants there. He described the Rebels as ‘killing the English Protestants, ravishing their women, cutting them to pieces, hanging them by their hair of their head, scalding them, cutting off their heads and firing their town and houses’. Whatever the truth of this descriptions the violence of the attacks on the town were such that it is surprising that even so much as Preston’s gate survived.
But there it stood in it’s splendid isolation at the end of Offaly Street until 1860 when a fatal injury to the Reverend Trench precipitated it’s removal. As I look at Offaly Street today I see a place where many of the names and faces familiar to my youth are long gone, but the houses are the same and the little narrowing of the street is a potent reminder of a time when Athy inhabitants walleed their town to protect themselves from the exigencies of the outside world when violence and strife threatened not only their property but their lives.

Rogues and Heroes of Athy's Past

I had to do some preparatory work recently for a talk on rogues and heroes from Athy’s past and never one to pass up the opportunity of using material a second time I gladly pass on to you some of my selections. When one comes to cull from local history those names which might fit into either hero or rogue category, then the shortcomings of the written record become all too apparent. History is written by those who have a vested interest in the subject - either they are the winners who want to reassure their place in history, or else if losers, want to redeem a lost reputation. Either way the history student is left wondering how to assess the truth or value of the written record, especially so when required to designate it’s participants as either rogues or heroes.

In some respects the task is made easier by the passage of time. No one would doubt the right of Ernest Shackleton, Antarctic Explorer, to be regarded as a hero. A native of Kilkea, near Athy, he spent his adult life in England, but is nevertheless properly and rightly claimed as one of our own. On the other hand his brother Frank who spent more time than Ernest in Ireland might possibly fall into the rogue category for his exploits which Sir Arthur Vicars claimed resulted in the theft of the Irish crown jewels. Frank was the principal suspect for the theft and to this day the jewels have never been recovered. Perhaps they lie buries somewhere in South Kildare in an area known only to Frank who died without passing on his secret.

The unchallenged rogue must be Thomas Reynolds, the 1798 informer and former resident of Kilkea Castle. A distant cousin of Lord Edward Fitzgerald he took a lease of the Fitzgerald Castle at Kilkea just in time to be appointed colonel of the United Irishmen in County Kildare. This of course gave him access to information concerning the organisation in the County which due to the efforts of Lord Edward Fitzgerald had developed quietly and quickly in the period prior to 1798. Reynold’s son, in his father’s two volume biography published after his death, sought to deflect blame from his father for the arrest of the Leinster Directory of the United Irishmen in Oliver Bond’s house in March 1798 but to no avail. There was and still is sufficient evidence to convince even the hardened sceptics that Reynolds who spent some time in Whites Castle gaol following his arrest in May 1798 was a notorious informer who breached confidence with those who trusted him. As a result of his treachery the people of Athy suffered enormously at the hands of government troops and militia alike and particularly at the instigation of my second nominee for the status of rogue Thomas Rawson of Glassealy House.

If one accepts the views expressed by Thomas Fitzgerald of Geraldine House and William Farrell of Carlow, perhaps rogue is too mild a term to apply to Rawson. Fitzgerald after the 1798 rebellion during which he was suspected of complicity with the United Irishmen wrote a scathing letter to Dublin Castle in which he referred to Rawson as “a man of the lowest order, the offal of a dunghill, had every person tortured and stripped, as his cannibal will directed. He would seat himself on a chair at the centre of a ring formed around the triangles, the miserable victims kneeling under the triangles until they would be spotted over with the blood of the others”.

Many attempts were made on Rawson’s life but he escaped any form of personal injury. However, his house at Glassealy was burnt by rebels who were subsequently captured and hanged from a tree in Glassealy near the scene of their crime. In favour of Rawson there must be put his undoubted ability as an agriculturist and as a writer for he it was who wrote the “Statistical Survey of County Kildare” published by the Royal Dublin Society in 1807. His activities during 1798 mark him out as a cruel individual and for that reason he must be placed in my gallery of local rogues.

Heroes are generally more plentiful than rogues and the list of local heroes inevitably includes those who were involved in the many uprisings and rebellions which were so much a part of our past history. Into that category I put Patrick O’Kelly, the young man who lead the United Irishmen in South Kildare, even if his and their efforts came to nothing in the end. I wrote of O’Kelly quite recently in an Eye on the Past, paying particular emphasis on his efforts at publishing books on Irish history. His right to be regarded as a hero stems solely from his exploits as the youthful leader of the United Irishmen in Athy and District before and during the 1798 Rising.

Another man with military involvement was Eamon Malone from Barrowhouse, the one time Commandant of the Carlow/Kildare Brigade IRA during the War of Independence. He is remembered in the name Malone Court, the last housing scheme built by Athy Urban District Council at the top of Woodstock Street. Malone who married Kathleen Dooley of Duke Street was imprisoned for his involvement as was his brother-in-law Joe May of Woodstock Street. These two men and the other Athy men who endured imprisonment for their beliefs are rightly entitled to be included in the gallery of local heroes.

The War of Independence also threw up the only female heroic representatives in Hester May and Kathleen Moloney. Both were Members of Cumann na mBan, while Hester May was Secretary to Piaras Breaslai and later General J.J. O’Connell. She played an active part in Irish national affairs when it was dangerous to do so, serving as Secretary to men who were on the run during the War of Independence. Hester was sister of the earlier mentioned Kathleen Dooley and both were daughters of Michael Dooley remembered in the name Michael Dooley’s Terrace, a scheme of houses built in the early 1930’s.

The Luggacurran evictions of 1887 to 1889 are a useful field of exploration for inclusion in the rogue’s gallery. Strangely my views of that traumatic time might not necessary find favour with everyone. For instance I would feel compelled to include Fr. John Maher CC, Luggacurran, Denis Kilbride and John W. Dunne as possible candidates for the non-hero roles. I desist from calling them rogues as it would seem particularly unfair to call them such, so non-heroes might be more appropriate. Fr. Maher, exercising strong clerical influence over the poor tenant farmers of the area, apparently badgered and provoked the local families into joining the Plan of Campaign. Rent reductions had been offered by the Landsdowne Estate but Fr. Maher, whose brother also a clergyman in the Kildare and Leighlin Dioceses had successfully extended the Plan of Campaign in his Parish, sought to emulate his sibling’s success. He wanted the same rent reductions extended to the Laois tenants as Landsdowne had given to his Kerry tenants. There were huge discrepancies in the quality of land in both Counties and Landsdowne felt, perhaps reasonably, that a smaller reduction for his Laois tenants was only justifiable. Fr. Maher thought otherwise and aided and abetted by Kilbride and Dunne who themselves held vast tracts of land from Landsdowne which they sub-let, embarked on the Plan of Campaign. It resulted in misery and hardship for many families in Luggacurran which in hindsight could have been so easily adverted. Lord Landsdowne and his land agent Trench who decided to evict the tenants from the Luggacurran Estates must join the rogues gallery.

On the other hand siding with the heroes must stand Vincent Cullinane, Vocational Teacher and founder of Athy Farmer’s Club which later evolved into Macra na Feirme. Cullinane first mooted the idea of a Farmers Club in the early 1940’s, following classes which he organised for young farmers. Later with Paddy Kehoe and others he worked to establish Macra na Feirme and it was in Athy that the National Organisation had it’s first headquarters. Sadly Stephen Cullinane died a young man, but not before he had laid the ground work for the organisation which he had helped to found.

No matter where one looks in today’s society there will be worthy representatives of what you and I might term heroes or rogues. Some will merit their claim to fame or infamy but few will be remembered after they have passed on. In that respect history can be kind to many in the veil of obscurity which it draws over events and people of the past.

Brother John Murphy

Brother John Murphy, a native of Rineen, near Milltown, Co. Clare, entered the Christian Brothers, noviciate in Baldoyle, Co. Dublin at seventeen and a half years of age. He took his final vows in 1932 and it was another 28 years before he arrived at the Christian Brothers Monastery at St. John’s Lane, Athy. I had sat my Leaving Certificate examination in June of 1960 and even though I remained as a pupil of the Secondary School until January of the following year our paths did not cross until many years later.

As principal of the Primary School in Athy Brother Murphy oversaw a number of important developments, including the opening of a new school in Greenhills and the establishment of a parents Council. He was still principal of the Primary School when, in 1971, the prospect of a new Secondary School to replace the outdated school buildings used by the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy was first mooted. I was living in Monaghan town at that time but can still recall the heated debate faithfully reported in the local newspapers as the townspeople deliberated long and hard on the issue of a community school as against the continuation of the existing three schools, boys, girls and vocational. A community school for the area offered by the Department of Education was rejected out of hand and the opportunity for a major co-educational school was lost. I have often felt despite the enormous impact by the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy and their teachers that the intervening years have not quite matched the promise held out by a community school better funded than existing secondary schools.

Brother Murphy who retired as principal of the Primary School in 1974 was not directly involved in that secondary education issue and when he celebrated his golden jubilee as a Christian Brother on 23rd September, 1974 many fine and well deserved tributes were paid to him. Special ceremonies were held in the town to celebrate his jubilee and the occasion was marked by the visit of the provincial of the Irish Christian Brothers to Athy. Brother Murphy’s fondness for piped smoking was well known and an entry in the house annals of the Athy Christian Brother’s Monastery noted that “Brother Murphy's famous pipe was remembered by everyone”.

Brother Murphy has the unique distinction of having the longest service as a Christian Brother in the local monastery of Athy. When the monastery finally closed in 1994 he had spent 34 years in all in the town, longer than any other Christian Brother since Br. Stanislaus O’Flanagan. Br. Luke Holland and Br. John Sheehy first arrived in Athy in August 1861. Now that he is about to celebrate his 75th year as a member of the Christian Brothers all of those who remember with gratitude our early years in the boys school extend our good wishes to Br. Murphy. He is now living in St. Patrick’s, Baldoyle since 1994.

With him is Brother Joseph Quinn, a native of Tarmonbarry, Co. Roscommon, who entered the Christian Brothers over 65 years ago. Brother Quinn was the last superior of the Christian Brother Monastery in Athy and is remembered with particular fondness by those involved in promoting the game of basketball. It was Br. Quinn who brought American teams and overseas coaches to Athy, thereby helping to popularise the game which is still a major sport in the town.

I have written before and elsewhere of the importance of the Christian Brothers who brought education within the reach of everyone who wanted to better themselves. Both Br. Murphy and Br. Quinn were the last in a long line of Irish men who between 1861 and 1994 gave the youth of Athy an education which raised their horizons and broadened their expectations. Special congratulations then to Br. Murphy who on 23rd September celebrates 75 years in the Irish Christian Brothers and our good wishes to Br. Quinn who will no doubt celebrate the great day with his friend and companion of many years.

Writing earlier of the debate in the early 1970’s regarding the community school issue prompts me to make reference to what I understand is the possibility of the boys and girls local secondary schools amalgamating. I have favoured such a proposal for a long time. Accepting the benefits which must inevitably flow from the economies of scale which such an amalgamation must bring. I would even go further and suggest that the educationalists look at the possibility of bringing the third senior school in the town, St. Brigid’s into the scheme, thereby ensuring that a college campus can be developed in the area of the present Scoil Eoin with all the facilities such would require. We are all only too conscious that the Convent of Mercy will in time no longer be required as a home for the Sisters of Mercy. Surely the convent, together with the ancillary buildings and its extensive grounds could be incorporated with the existing Secondary School complex which they adjoin to provide facilities for all the second level requirements of Athy and district. This would allow the existing St. Brigid’s School to be relocated from its existing site where there is no room for expansion and where inadequate buildings are presently being used to hold classes.

The Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy have created over the last 150 years a tremendous educational legacy which we must build on if it is to adequately and properly meet the needs of future generations of young Athy people. I would hope that the myopic debate of 28 years ago concerning the community school for Athy will not be a foretaste of what lies ahead when we come to re-assess our future needs in terms of education.

Tadgh Brennan

I have written before of Tadhg Brennan but a phone call this afternoon to tell me of his death prompted a re-visit to my memories of a man who was the epitome of what is best in an Irishman. He used the Irish version of his name Tadgh Ó Braonáin as a statement of his Irishness. His was an Irishness which conformed to the traditional understanding of the term. An avid gaelic football follower he gave decades of support and service to the Athy Club both as a player, mentor, official and supporter. He was a life-long supporter of the Fiánna Fáil party which he saw as the legitimate heir to those who championed the cause of Irish freedom in the early decades of the century. He was, in short, an Irish nationalist but devoid of the nasty extremism which is sometimes part and parcel of those who claim a similar allegiance.

I had known of Tadhg Brennan since I was a young lad in Offaly Street, palling around with Teddy Kelly, Willie Moore and others. The street was then a safe playground disturbed only by the very occasional motor car or lorry which sedately passed up and down. I can still picture in my mind’s eye a black Ford Poplar motor car which Tadhg Brennan parked outside his offices in Emily Square. The registration number was “IO …” and the rest is lost on me but I know that if I phone Teddy Kelly he would be able to recall even this little detail after the elapse of over 40 years. That Tadhg could park his car directly outside his offices without impeding traffic gives you some indication of what few cars were around in those days.

I remember Tadhg in those days as well as his father, that noble patrician Fintan Brennan, a district court officer who occupied the first floor offices at the rear of the Court House. Those same offices were reached from the ground floor entrance, the granite jambs which, to this day bear evidence of the handiwork of a 13 year old lad who carved his name into the ancient stone. The mark of the once thoughtless vandal is there to haunt him in his adulthood as he makes his twice monthly trip to the local court to defend others sometimes charged with far lesser offences. However, to return to Fintan Brennan, I am always reminded of my late mother when I think of Tadhg and his father Fintan. The father was a teetotaller, indeed the proud holder of the silver, or was it a gold medal, marking 50 years membership of the P.T.A.A. Tadhg on the other hand conformed to the traditional Irish male convention of imbibing well, sometimes perhaps a little more than was prudent. My mother, who herself quaffed a little sherry at weddings, wakes and such like always regarded a teetotaller, no matter how otherwise disruptive in his or her normal life, as an example for everyone else to follow. For her, the man or woman who drank was no good, although I think she might have had to revise this erroneous opinion when faced with her own sons early digressions into the delights of alcohol. In any event, Fintan and Tadhg were at two extremes of the alcohol barometer and insofar as my mother was concerned, Tadhg would never be as good as his father. The fact that he had bettered himself, qualified as a solicitor, taken up important offices as State Solicitor and later as County Registrar, meant not a jot to my mother who measured ones worth by reference to his drinking or non-drinking habits. Tadhg well knew of my mother’s opinion which she delivered with a matronly chuckle whenever she met Tadgh. Tadhg good naturadely humoured my mother and he often joked to me about her oft repeated claim to him “you’ll never be as good as your father”.

Fintan was a good man and he was undoubtedly an important man in the world of the G.A.A. and Athy social life in the first half of this century. His son Tadgh, who has now passed on in his 79th year was also a very good man who helped many people both professionally and otherwise throughout his long life. Like many more, I owe him a great debt and in my case its one I will continue to acknowledge. Tadgh set up his own legal practice in Athy in 1945 as I was to do 37 years later. He was very encouraging to me when I started 17 years ago and I am forever grateful to him for that encouragement.

As I said at the start of this piece Tadgh featured in an ‘Eye on the Past’ I wrote some years ago. Quite an extensive piece it was, extending over two weeks because of his involvement in so many different areas of life in Athy over the years. As a sportsman, he was a first class footballer winning a senior championship medal with Athy G.F.C. in 1942. The following year he first lined out for the county senior team in a match in Geraldine Park and played again for County Kildare in 1944. He was a leading light in Athy’s social club of the 1940’s and a cast member of the “Righteous Are Bold” which won the All-Ireland Drama Award in 1949. A former member of Athy Urban District Council, he served on the Council with such legendary figures as M. G. Nolan and Paddy Dooley.

I had the pleasure of interviewing, or rather listening to Tadhg, on many occasions and how delightful it was to hear him talk of Athy and its people of 40 or 50 years ago. On one of the last occasions we talked of times past, he later wrote to me setting out his memories of the characters in Athy in his young days. Such was the thoughtfulness of a man who had an abiding love for his adopted town for like me, he was not born here. Monasterevin laid claim as Tadgh’s birthplace but that did not deflect him from regarding Athy as his native place. For me, Tadgh Brennan or as he was wont to write Tadhg Ó Braonáin was an important part of a generation in Athy which has now almost disappeared. Pat Mulhall, Liam Ryan, and Tommy Walsh are but some of the names of his colleagues and friends in the social club who have pre-deceased him. For once I have to disagree with my mother. Tadhg was a good man who made many friends, helped many people and learned to enjoy life for what it is. A time for passing through and leaving the world a better place than you found it.

Last week we also buried Nancy wife of Paddy Walsh. A daughter of Paddy O’Rourke, the harness-maker of Stanhope Street, Nancy moved a few doors down the street when she set up home with her Ring County Waterford-born husband who first came to Athy in 1950. Like her husband Paddy, Nancy was very involved in her local community, and how appropriate it was to see the ladies of the local I.C.A.Guild provide a guard of honour on her last journey to St. Michael’s.

Our sympathies go to the families of Tadgh and Nancy.

James McNally and Mrs. Tim McCarthy

A few Sundays ago I attended in the company of 50 or 60 others at the graveside in St. Michael’s Cemetery of James McNally who died over 30 years ago. The occasion was the blessing of the recently erected headstone over the grave of the man who was Sacristan in St. Michael’s Church for almost 61 years. Born in Athy in 1877, James McNally was appointed Sacristan 20 years later. In 1953 James was awarded the Papal medal ‘Bene Mereti’ for his services to the Church. I was a Mass server during the last years of James McNally’s tenure as Parish Sacristan and I can still recall the tall gentleman who organised the ceremonies during the great liturgical festivals of the Church’s year. James McNally saw to it that we turned up on time properly attired and he carefully monitored the wine and alter cruets thereby ensuring that none of us were tempted to break the pledges which we had taken at Confirmation time.

I did not then know James McNally’s background, understandably enough, given that he was a man in his eighth decade while I was a teenager little concerned with anything outside my own circle of friends. In later years I learnt that James had married four years before the outbreak of World War I. His bride was Mary McCann from Bree in Enniscorthy and they had two children, James born in 1911 and Margaret born the following year. While still a young man, James McNally suffered two tragic losses, the first being the death of his only son James, who passed away on the 13th November 1917. Young James was admitted to the Fever hospital in Athy a short time before he and his classmates were scheduled to make their First Communion. First Communion day arrived and his father called to him early that morning with a present of a small prayer book, the gift of Sister Margaret Mary his teacher in St. Joseph’s Boys School. Young James received his First Communion while still lying in his hospital bed after which his father hurried back to the parish church where the First Communion ceremonies for the rest of the class were to be held. While he was attending to his work as Sacristan that day his only son died.

Two years later, James NcNally suffered another tragedy with the death of his wife Mary in childbirth. She was just 27 years of age. James McNally never re-married. With his daughter Margaret, he lived in Convent Lane for some years before moving in the early 1930’s to Number 5 Convent View, where he lived with his sister Mary and her husband Michael Mullery. When James McNally retired as Sacristan in 1958 he continued to live in number 5 Convent View. His daughter Margaret in the meantime had been married and moved out of Athy.

I drew attention some years ago to the absence of a gravestone to commemorate this gentle giant of a man who had served the priests and people of Athy for 61 years. Father Tommy Tuohy, formerly of Offaly Street, mentioned my article to James’s grandson, Thomas Murphy of Kill and it was Thomas who, with the help and co-operation of his brothers and sisters, had a beautiful headstone recently erected to mark James McNally’s last resting place. On a recent Sunday afternoon Father Tommy blessed the grave and spoke of his days as a Mass server in St. Michael’s and of his memories of James McNally nearly 50 years ago. Amongst those in attendance were Mrs McHugh, formerly Mullery of St. Michael’s Terrace and Mrs. Gibbons now in her 91st year, a distant relation of the man we had gathered to remember. Andy and Phoebe Murphy, who now live in number 5 Convent View, were also there, as was another representative of an old Athy family, Paddy Doyle.

James McNally’s daughter Margaret married Philip Murphy and they had 14 children one of whom died in infancy and another Patrick died some years ago in Dublin. Of the remaining 12 children, 10 travelled to Athy with their own children to honour the memory of their grandfather James McNally. Indeed, Maureen Murphy, now married in Ohio, U.S.A., and Sister Rita of the Sisters of Charity also of Ohio, both travelled from America for the occasion. Another sister Josie also living in America was unable to be there with her brothers Steven, John, Dan, Anthony, Thomas, Kevin and Aidan and her sisters, including Pearl Murphy, who lives in Dublin.

Two of their step brothers, Philip and Rory Murphy were also there, sons of their father’s first marriage, Margaret McNally having been his second wife. Rory, who is a former chairman of Wexford County Council, was in splendid form that afternoon delving into the hidden nooks of family connections, extending outwards to include the Gibbons family of Athy and Wexford who were related to Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore.

That same afternoon, Mrs Tim McCarthy of St. Patrick’s Avenue was buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery. Regretfully I missed her funeral but met up with her sons Frank, Dermot and Malachy in The Leinster Arms Hotel. Malachy is now retired after a 33 year service in the Garda Síochana and is now the proprietor of a taxi company in Bantry. He speaks with a mellifluous Cork accent and recounted how his father Tim and my father, who was the local Garda Sergeant agreed to leave out of his application form for the Gardai any reference to his having suffered from rheumatoid fever as a young lad. Notice of his condition would have been sufficient to stymie his chances of becoming a garda and so the little conspiracy was hatched to protect his future prospects in the Gardai. Clearly the little deceit of our fathers did not create any problems, as the one time patient completed his normal services as a garda without difficulty.

Tim McCarthy was from Clonakilty, Co. Cork and first met his future wife, who was from Armagh while both were working in County Louth. She later came to Athy as a child nurse for the Osborne family and the couple married and lived most of their married life in St. Patrick’s Avenue. Tim was a member of the Defence Forces during World War II and a life-long supporter of Fine Gael. His good neighbour Johnny McMahon, a Mayo-born Garda was a silent supporter of Fianna Fáil and both men exchanged each evening their daily newspapers - Johnny taking McCarthy’s ‘Irish Independent’ in place of his own ‘Irish Press’. Political allegiances in those days would not permit either to be seen buying a paper which supported the political party opposed to their own. Both Tim McCarthy and his wife are now dead as is Johnny and Molly McMahon and the passing of the older generations and that of James McNally leaves us all with memories of times which can ever again be relived.

Some months ago I was approached about the feasibility of setting up an oral history project in South Kildare to include Athy, which would capture on tape, and perhaps on video also, the stories and experiences of those generations who have lived and worked in times which are now long passed. These experiences are irreplaceable and, as more and more of the older generation die off, the urgency of recording for future generations their life and experiences, becomes more and more important. I would be interested in hearing from anyone willing to become involved in an oral history project which might be set up in the coming months.

George Potters 1949 Report of Athy and Juan Greene

Continuing the Article which was published in the Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin in 1949, where author George Potter recounted his meeting with Juan Greene of Kilkea who discoursed eloquently on farming in South Kildare.

“The farm is run on a five year rotation plan, and the purpose all through is fertilizing. Fertilizing is the secret of good tillage, and we work at it all the time. Let me explain and then later I’ll show you the fields himselves. We sow a field to hay and then plow in after grass, that is, rye grass and clover ploughed in as green manure. The second crops is oats and to that we apply artificial fertilizer. Next for sugar beets we use heavy farmyard dunging and artificial. The fourth, for peas, we use potash manure only. Finally the pea ground is sown with mustard seed and is plowed in for wheat or barley and under-sown with rye grass and clover.

“We could not run this tillage farm without cattle. They are absolutely essential for their manure. We buy from 400 to 500 cattle in October from the adjoining grasslands in North Kildare, Leix, Kilkenny or from Westmeath or from Tipperary. These cattle are stall fed under cover during Winter and as we sell them we replace them . Eight hundred cattle will pass through our barns in Winter until they are disposed of in the spring. We are not cattle farmers, understand, and we buy and sell irrespective of profit. What we want them is for manure. They are sold to cattle buyers, shipped to Dublin and then to England on the hoof. The poorer ones that we cannot dispose of we turn out to graze in the Summer. It’s a constant process of replenishing cattle.

“There are sixty permanent farm labourers working for us and during the peak that number will be doubled, and we hire any number of casual labourers. Farm labour is paid £3=2=6 for a fifty hour week. Our annual payroll for farm labor runs to between £15,000 and £16,000. Yes, they are unionized. They live away from the farm in their own homes built by the County Council; and they are good looking houses. The farm labourers are easy going people, and the great difficulty is to get them to speed up their pace of work. The steward (farm manager) tries every sort of persuasion but they are geared to that pace - and that’s that. With more effort they could make better wages.

“We could mechanize and reduce the number in help but that would create a social problem for the whole area.

“Imagine what a disaster it would be to throw, say, 50 of our labourers out of work because of machinery. Even that raises a problem within the farm. The men who run the machines have to be skilled and they have to be specialized to repair the tractors and therefore they get more money and that creates dissatisfaction among the unskilled help who are getting less.

“Mechanization will make farm work more attractive and take the heavy burden of brute work off the shoulders of the farmers. Ireland. remember, is a small agricultural country. Fifty per cent of the people around here live off the farms. The problem, remains of mechanizing for greater efficiency without upsetting the social pattern. It will have to be done gradually.

“There is a general grumbling of dissatisfaction among farmers and farm help. They see the difference between the £3=2=6 for farm pay and for 50 hours and the £5 for work for 48 hours in industry. They are out in all kinds of weather and those in industry are covered. The people in plants have weekends off; and now we simply cannot get a farm laborer to work weekends, no matter how badly we need him. Farm labor gets scarcer every year.

“The race of small propertied farmers feel that they are being put on by the government. Agrarian policy and city-town policy are coming into open conflict. The rates (taxes) are a very heavy burden on the small farmer. The increasing demands of social security in the cities and towns, mostly for unemployment payments and old - age benefits, make the farmers feel that the cities and towns are living off them and that they are paying the bills and not getting any benefits for themselves. There is a feeling in the country that there is no need of unemployment if only the people will consent to work”.

Mr. Green praised the work of Muintir Na Tire in teaching the farmers self - reliance and co - operation for rural development and a more attractive social life. He spoke of the drabness and isolation of the farm villages and the dreadful monotony and boredom of social life.

“In this district, for instance,” he said “there is one bus in the morning into town and one at night. This sort of service does not work against emigration of the restless and dissatisfied. Emigration is taking the best; the unambitious remain.

“Now, if you wish, I’ll show you the farm. We call the road around the farm the Burma Road. You’ll understand why.”

It took some two hours just for a sightseeing tour around the Greene farm. The narrow road was rather joggy, but he farm itself was a delight to the eye; field lay out in order, well kept, with the satisfactory air of well being, and farm buildings well appointed, clean and in apple - pie repair. Walls and hedges separated one field from another, oats from barley and wheat from sugar beets. In the midst of green field one caught sight of the gold of a field sown to mustard, a combination of utility and loveliness. Standing on a bridge Mr. Greene pointed out each field on the large farm and what it was growing.

Three rivers ran through the land and supply all the water it needs. Small groves of trees here and there break up the pattern of the fields.

Mr. Greene took me to the top of a hill and pointed out another large farm in the distance - the Wright farm - where pedigree bulls are raised for Argentine.

“From this hill” he said, “you can see seven countries of Ireland - Leix, Carlow, Kildare, Wicklow, Waterford, Kilkenny and off there in the haze the Dublin mountains”.

The author concluded with the wish that he might see something of the future of rural Ireland in the well run Greene Farm of 1949. The Fifty years which have since passed has seen Irish Agriculture develop into a multi billion pound business where farm machinery has replaced farm labourers.

On Wednesday, 8th September at 8.00 p.m., I will give a talk in the Heritage Centre entitled “Heroes or Scoundrels - some reflections on Athy and men and women of the past”.

George Potters 1949 Report of Athy and Juan Greene

In the summer of 1949 George Potter, an American journalist employed by the Providence Journal & Evening Bulletin paid an extended visit to Ireland. He visited what he later described as “all parts of Ireland” and wrote a number of articles which were published in his newspaper. Intended to give his American readers a picture of the people, life and culture of Ireland of the day the articles read fifty years later continue to provide us with many interesting insights. One of the articles written by Potter referred to his visit to Athy and reads :-
“In Athy the busy little center of this tillage area with a population of some 3000, I was introduced by a friend, who had accompanied me from Dublin, to Matt and Sidney Minch, of the well known maltser family whose output is consumed entirely by the mammoth vats of Guinness & Co., of Dublin, the world’s largest brewery, makers of the famous stout.
In Matt Minch’s office, surrounded by samples of grains in saucers, I commented on the busy town and the number of trucks, tractors and automobiles in the main street. I remarked further that I had rarely come across a Kildare man in the United States.
`Kildare,’ Mr. Minch explained, is a comparatively prosperous region and has a fairly consistent ready market for the tillage crops. People who have a reasonable amount of prosperity and can see ahead with some degree of surety for the future do not emigrate.
Besides, we have two new industries in the town. One, about 10 years old, makes asbestos cement and employs 200 people. The second, just started, makes wall boards from straw pulp and employs 100 people. Both are backed mainly by Irish capital. These industries take up the farm youngsters who otherwise might be restless to emigrate and flee the land. The wages in these industries average £5 a week and being higher than farm wages they offer inducements to leave the land without leaving Ireland. They have other attractions. The workers are under cover and not subject to all kinds of weather. The hours are fixed and there are unions. All these contribute to a fair standard of living. If the small towns in Ireland could have such small industries in connection with farming and have power from the Shannon scheme as we have, the emigration picture might not look so black.
The oldest industry here is malting and it is so ordered as to give the region a balance. Malting is a seasonal industry, and most of the work is done in the Winter when things are slack on the farms. That means that the people we employ in that season can go out on the farms in the Summer haymaking and harvesting. This way they manage to keep working all year round.
Yes, mechanization goes on steadily. The area is heavily mechanized in comparison to other areas in Ireland, but nowhere near the degree of America. Even now we are introducing the Massey Harris Canadian type combined harvester, and the donkey of Kerry and the horse are gradually being replaced.
But we Irish will never give up our love of horses. Right beyond here is the Curragh where they breed the finest horses in the world. Here in South Kildare the English have bred their great cavalry horses since the time of Napoleon and now we’re breeding stakes winners in Ireland and England - and in America, too.
Sidney Minch interrupted to say that he was going to take me to his home for a bite to eat and then go on to the green farm. Mr. Minch, an affable man, drove me to his pleasant country house on an Island, with drawbridge and all, in the River Barrow and the `bite to eat’ turned into one of the sizeable meals I had in Ireland.
During the drive out, he told me that the Athy Dramatic Society, an amateur group, had won the All-Ireland drama contest with the play, `The Righteous Are Bold,’ and he complained that the local library stocked up too much with fiction and not enough with serious works. He pointed out tillage farms on the way and explained that the average farm in the area was 100 acres.”
The Green’s like the Minch’s, have long been in South Kildare, and they are close social and business intimates. The elder Green has divided
the farm with his two sons but it is run as a single enterprise. In addition, the Green’s manage the estate of the Duke of Leinster. Most of this area once belonged to the Leinsters, which is the famous Anglo-Norman family of the Fitzgeralds, so prominent in Irish history, and whose Kilkea Castle, now occupied by the Earl of Kildare, son of the Duke, can be seen sheltered in a grove of trees on a ride around the Green farm. This section is also the ancestral home of the late Sir Ernest Shackleton, the polar explorer; and Edmund Burke’s early education was in near-by Ballitore, a village founded by Quakers.
Juan Green, a pleasant and interesting young Anglo-Irishman, bound up in modern farming, graciously placed himself at my service. He was born in the Argentine and had practised medicine until a siege of sickness and an inbred love of the country called him back to his father’s farm. (Incidentally, the so-called Anglo-Irish prefer to be called Irish). In the large living room and library, Mr. Green under questioning talked easily and intelligently of large-scale Irish farming and of rural life generally.
The major crops on this farm, he explained, are barley, oats wheat, peas, sugar beets, belladonna and tobacco. We have a guaranteed price for beets, wheat, tobacco of quality and belladonna and have no trouble in disposing of our other crops by contract with private firms.
There is a beet sugar factory nearby, the first in Ireland, and it handles all the beets we grow. Ireland is now self-sustaining in sugar. The peas go to a large house in Dublin - Batchelor’s - and become canned, frozen, garden or package peas. All our barley we sell to our friend here, Sidney Minch, for malt. The belladonna is contracted for by a London medical house. The wheat goes to the neighbouring millers in Carlow. The hay and oats are for the race horses in the Curragh stables. Tobacco is a government - sponsored crop, since 1934, and is not a popular crop with farmers. It’s not self - sustaining and I think that within five years it will be out”.

….. TO BE CONTINUED

Pitch and Toss School

I haven’t seen a pitch and toss school for many years. How or why the gathering of men and youth pitching and tossing coins was dubbed a school I cannot say. Nothing could be more removed from the organised seats of learning of our young days than the mix an gathering of working men, long term unemployed and just out of school boys who came together on Sunday mornings at various points throughout the town. I last recall such a gathering in the late 1950’ or early 1960’s when the corner of the park joining the I.V.I. Foundry was the meeting place for those skilled, some more than others, in the art of pitch and toss. And it was an art, one developed and nurtured in the days before T.V, to fill the time between morning mass and the pub opening hours. At least that’s when I recall pitch and toss was at it’s height - mid Sunday morning when the pennies and sometimes the odd ten shilling notes were bet on the toss of the coins.

Apart from the park, pitch and toss schools were also to be found in Shrewleen Lane, near to Doyle’s pub and at the ball alley off Barrack Lane. Another school but not as popular because it was too visible to passing traffic, was the corner of Kirwan’s Lane and Mount Hawkins. In the days when the local Gardai spent much of their time ensuring that only bone fide drinkers were imbibing in the local public houses of Athy, they had time to close any Pitch and Toss schools they encountered on their perambulations. I gather however that by in large the local Gardai left the locals to their Sunday morning gambling pleasures, only moving to act if a distraught house wife complained of her man losing his weeks wages at Pitch and Toss. Then the local Sergeant issued instructions to his men to close down the Pitch and Toss schools, making it more important for the locals to have a good lookout as the Pitch and Toss games progressed. For that reason the Pitch and Toss sites were carefully chosen to allow the participants to scatter in at least three different directions should a Gardai make an appearance.

For those brought up in the flickering shadow of computer games the very idea of a Pitch and Toss school might seem some what archaic and simplistic. Indeed it was the epitome of simplicity allowing men to pit themselves against each other in a game which required accuracy and some skill coupled with the heightened uncertainty of the straight forward gamble. Each of the men involved stood eight or nine yards away from the “Mottie” which was invariably a medium sized stone placed on the ground. All took turns in “pitching” a penny coin to the “Mottie” with the object, as in Meggars, of being nearest to the target. Accuracy brought with it the right to toss the coins upon which those in attendance could bet heads or harps. The coins tossed straight up in the air to land on the ground were almost always half pennies referred to in the language of the Pitch and Toss school as “Gilleens”. On the balance of probability coins tossed in this way had a fifty fifty chance of turning up heads or harps, but it was the uncertainty which fed the feverish gambling instincts of the men who watched with mesmeric gaze the coins tossing and turning on the way up and then down finally to rest near their feet.

Everyone felt he had the knack of tossing the “Gilleens” so that they ended up heads or harps as desired but in truth there was no skill on earth which could bestow this gift on anyone. Most men balanced the half pennies on their straightened fore fingers before flicking the lucky coins in the air - everyone had his lucky half pennies always kept as an act of blind faith which rational experience could never hope to dispel.

Some did not leave matters to chance but attempted “sweat” their “Gilleens” a procedure which was extremely difficult to achieve and highly dangerous to ones well being if found out. “Sweating” a coin involved removing the “Head” by some means or other allowing the “head” of another coin to be soldered back in it’s place. The result was a coin which was heavier on one side and which would invariably turn up heads, when used. Others trusted what they referred to as a “Fecker” - a simple small narrow piece of stick on which the “Gilleens” were placed rather than on the fingers before being tossed. Years of use had given the “Feckers” a patina of polished sweat and dirt which ennobled the simple piece of timber and raised it to the ranks of a venerable antique. Did it ever make a bit of difference as to whether the half pennies turned up heads or harps? - not a blind bit of difference but those who used the “Feckers” needed the comfort of the little home made gadgetry as they laid down their bets in six pences or shillings.

The bets were won or lost depending on whether the two coins turned up heads or harps. Another toss was required if the coins at rest showed a head and a harp. Bets were placed on the ground, each bet being covered by someone else and there could be up to twenty or thirty men betting at anyone time on the next toss. The school tended to break up, when the pubs opened or because there was a football match to go to in the afternoon. Then the men would each give a small coin to the “Boxer” - the unemployed man or the youth who’s job it was to pick up the tossed coins or “Gilleens” each time and to hand them on to the next tosser.

So there you have an idea of the Pitch and Toss schools of almost forty years ago, where the “Fecker” the “Boxer” the “Gilleen” the “Mottie” were words in common usage and understood by everyone.

In Eye On the Past No. 66 I wrote of my mass serving days and of James McNally Sacristan of St. Michaels Church for decades up to the 1950’s. I noted that he was buried in the local graveyard in an unmarked grave, and wondered how we had forgotten a man who had made such a life long commitment to the church in Athy. I am delighted to report that his grave is now marked with a fine head stone and arrangements are in hand to have a dedication ceremony at his grave side on Sunday the 22nd August at 3 p.m. If you remember James McNally why not come along and pay your respects.

Early Medieval Athy

The Development of Athy as a military stronghold at the beginning of the 15th Century followed 200 years of its development as a village settlement. This latter development reflected the failure of the anti Irish laws to force the hostile Irish into submission. The Anglo Norman authorities had looked with disfavour on the ever strengthening links between the Irish and the early settlers and it sought to maintain a division between the two by passing anti Irish laws from a very early date. The Parliament of 1297 convened by Sir John Wogan gave expression to the first Anti Irish decrees of the new Rulers.

“English men who have become degenerate in recent times dress themselves in Irish garments and having their heads half shaven, grow their hair from the back of the head which they call the “culan” confirming themselves to the Irish as well in garb as in countenance whereby it frequently happens that Englishmen reputed as Irishmen are slain, although the killing of Englishmen reputed as Irishmen are slain, although killing of Englishmen and of Irishmen requires different modes of punishment. And by such killing matter of enmity and rancour is generated amongst many. The kindred also, as well of the slayer as of the slain, are often by turns struck down as enemies. And therefore it is agreed and granted that all Englishmen in this land wear, at least in that part of the head which presents itself most to view, the mode and tonsure of Englishmen”.


An interesting account of the disabilities endured by the native Irish is given in a petition of the Irish Chief addressed to Pope John XXII in the latter part of 1317. In the petition the Chiefs complained that the English Courts in Ireland were not available to Irishmen except where the cause of action lay against them, and that the killing of an Irish person, whether lay or religious, by an Englishman was not punishable by the Courts. Even more offensive to the Chiefs was the assertion by the none Irish religious that it was “no more sin to kill an Irishman than a dog or any other brute. And in maintaining this heretical position some monks of theirs affirm boldly that if it should happen to them, as it does often happen, to kill an Irishman, they would not on that account refrain from saying mass, not even for a day”. The Statutes of Kilkenny 1366 were the most outstanding effort by the English rulers to regulate the relations of the Irish and the settlers in Ireland. The Statutes were at once an acknowledgment of the isolation and vulnerability of the strongly fortified Anglo Norman towns and an attempt to regulate their future development untainted by Irish influences. The Anglo Normans were forbidden to marry the Irish, to use Irish laws, or to receive Irishmen into their monasteries. They were enjoined to use English speech and to have English surnames under penalty of attainder. The statutes failed in their purpose because the Anglo Norman towns could not survive without commercial or social intercourse with the native Irish. However, the anti Irish measures did prove detrimental to the growth of the provincial towns. Laws forbidding the sale of corn, salt, iron and victuals to the Irish without a licence served to dampen the enterprise of the early 15th century town merchants while a 1431 Act forbidding them to frequent Irish fairs or markets attempted to cut them off from much needed and readily available sources of supply. While the use of the anti Irish laws fell into disrepute, Athy appears never to have lost its Anglo Norman influence, no doubt due to the oligarchic control of the town which was so typical of Anglo Norman towns of the time. This Anglo Norman influence is reflected in the numerous occasions on which the Irish saw fit to attack its inhabitants. The fact it was an Anglo Irish foundation without any prior Irish influence prompted the Irish to seek its destruction instead of its assimilation into Gaelic Ireland. The isolation of the manorial town of Athy and its proximity to the lands of the O’Mores undoubtedly created a special difficulties for the early Anglo Norman settlers. However their success in maintaining a clear division between themselves and the Irish can be measured by the non gaelic traditions and outlook to be found in the town of Athy long after other similar towns in Ireland had succumbed to Gaelic influences.

John MacKenna Writer

For many readers in Athy it comes as a profound if pleasant shock to find that we have a writer in our midst. Not the kind of writer most incurable readers at times hope themselves to be, but the real thing - and a successful one at that. Local man John MacKenna has produced a body of work in recent years which is both compelling and readable. His latest novel is to be launched on the 10th of August in the Town Hall and will be a further addition to the chronicle of local life which is slowly being amassed in various forms by him. Strange perhaps to claim such a personal and individual body of writing for a chronicle, but it is indisputably that, because where local histories and records can give us the body of this area’s past, only in imaginative fiction can we perhaps reclaim its invisible, private life - and take measure of its present. And for all the re-invigoration of the town which has taken place over the last ten or fifteen years, it was also a stroke of unsurpassable good fortune that a local writer of talent should attract the attention that John MacKenna has; and of even more good fortune that he should deserve it.

His success in the literary world is evident from his collection of prizes, the backing of a prestigious publisher and numerous translations of his work for the foreign market. However, what will prove to be his most lasting success is of quite another order, and despite the advantages to be gained from a high profile, of immeasurably more importance to the reader.

Though MacKenna’s writing, from “The Fallen” to “Clare”, to “A Year of Our Lives” and “The Last Fine Summer”, most often takes a confessional form, its introspection masks a social awareness with a collection of personal testaments which implicitly reinforces the value of stories and personal narratives which form the small change of social life. Though the historical novel is becoming fashionable once again, (think of the success of Pat Barker’s “Regeneration” trilogy, or stretching the definition a little, Don DeLillo’s “Underworld”) it is John MacKenna’s distinctive blend of the personal and historical, together with an ability to be both blunt and lyrical, that sets him apart. More specifically (and more pertinent to his local readership) this results in the kind of piercing narrative which has a very particular social and historical setting - very often ours - but with that humane centre which qualifies it as universal. And if it horrifies you to think that the whole world can be contained in what he calls the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ of Athy, Carlow and Castledermot, then you should read his work, or read it again, and read it a little closer because the world isn’t getting any bigger than this.

Ezra Pound claimed that “the life of a village is narrative”, a view that John MacKenna echoes in the opening of “The Lost Village”, a semi-historical account of life in Castledermot in 1925.
“The news was spreading, from the Square in all directions, to Dempsey’s
Row, to the few men at Carey’s Corner, to Dalton’s pub and Doyle’s and to the
billiard hall. The relieving officer had been nobbed on his way back to Athy.
His car had been stopped beyond Kilkea and his money taken from him. Was
he hurt? No one was sure. He might even be dead …”

Fortunately, the cause of the delay was a car breakdown rather than a Bonnie & Clyde style misadventure, but the life of a small village hangs on the talk that grows out of pubs and football fields and markets, and this aspect of the public life of a town is admirably captured throughout. Conventional histories do not attempt to recreate - this aspect of social life, hence the value - and the perils - of re-imaginings in works of fiction.

However, the romantic notion of village life touted in the cute talk of shop doorways and football pitches has a necessary counterpoint in MacKenna’s later stories. For example, increasingly, throughout the stories in “The Fallen” communication fails. MacKenna’s fondness for first person narration allows a certain freedom with style and even perhaps, a place for the author to hide (although, travelling incognito, he invevitably trails his peculiar brand of poetry behind him) yet conveys an inevitable sense of solitude. Although two of the stories from “The Fallen” - “The Unclouded Day” and “The Fallen” itself, have been adopted as voiceplays, their roots are closer to lyric poetry than drama. Their narrators are adept at storytelling, and at times declamation, but though narrating voices cross each other, they rarely respond to one another. So, with little opportunity for exchange or resolution, communication is frustrated by the fact that it is undirected. Many of these characters seem to be speaking into nothing. These soliloquies provide a tiny indictment of the loneliness that sprouts in a community where everything is known, but only half-known; and where communication is forestalled by the familiarity that assumes too much and knows too little.

It is this which I take to be John MacKenna’s success as a writer. Despite the evocative sharpness of his language, or even his honesty (strange - or sentimental - as it must seem to attribute this virtue to a writer of fiction) it is his ability to reveal startling personal vistas in such a familiar landscape which is most affecting. And it is enough, simply, for one character to assume that “what you want is my story” .. for it to be true.

The launch of John MacKenna’s novel, which is set in Athy, will take place in the Community Library of our Town Hall on Tuesday 10th August at 8pm. “A Haunted Heart” published in hardback by Picador is the story of a woman in her twilight years telling of her involvement with Joshua Jacob and the White Quakers, sixty years previously. The action in the book is centered in Athy of 1959 with flashbacks to 1895 and the activity of the White Quakers in South Kildare.
As you might expect from MacKenna this is a masterfully crafted tale and one which will add to his growing stature as a writer.

Everyone is invited to come to the book launch on Tuesday 10th August which is being held in the Library with a wine reception kindly sponsored by Lawler’s builders of Athy.

Patrick O'Kelly

Many years ago at a time when my research into the history of Athy was still at an embryonic stage, I first encountered the name of the writer Patrick O’Kelly. It was in the context of his history of the Rebellion of 1798 published in 1842 that O’Kelly is generally known, if he is known at all to the modern reader. My interest in O’Kelly stemmed from a conversation I had in the early 1960’s with the late Kevin Meany, then the Librarian of Athy’s small Library housed in the Town Hall. Kevin, who like myself, had a great interest in history, especially that of our own locality, drew my attention to O’Kelly’s book on the Rebellion which was then, and still remains, a rare item, seldom, if ever, seen in private libraries. Many years were to pass before I acquired a copy of O’Kelly’s work and the long search for the book proved worthwhile when the small tome revealed much of what we know today about the 1798 Rebellion in Athy.

O’Kelly himself was a man of mystery and over the years knowing that he was from South Kildare I’ve sought out any and every piece of information about him. At the end of his book on the 1798 Rebellion, O’Kelly gave some information on his family background. His father was Sylvester Kelly of Kilcoo, a tenant of the Duke of Leinster, occupying two firms at Kilcoo and Coolroe close to the town of Athy. O’Kelly claimed to have descended from Fergus O’Kelly of Luggacurran Castle which we were told was positioned close to the chapel at Luggacurran. Fergus O’Kelly was murdered by the 11th Earl of Kildare on top of Kilkea Castle sometime prior to 1585 following which Kelly’s lands were taken over by the “Wizard Earl” as the 11th Earl was known.

Patrick O’Kelly states in his book to have been 17 years of age when, in 1798, he led the United Irishmen of South Kildare in an aborted attempt to seize the town of Athy. He was also involved as one of the Irish leaders in agreeing terms between the Irish rebels and Generals Lake and Dundas at Knockallen on Whit Monday 1798. Whatever the nature of O’Kelly’s involvement in the Rebellion, he seemed well-positioned to later write of the activities of the time and his many references to Athy are both informative and important. He recounted how, on the 23rd of May of that year, the Captains appointed to command the United Irishmen of South Kildare, received orders to assemble their men in three units. One of to attack Athy from the Geraldine side, the second to march from Cloney and Kilberry while the third unit was to attack the town from the Laois side. The last group assembled in strength on Silverhill close to Kilcoo armed with pikes and muskets. The subsequent failure of the Colliers to join those assembled on Silverhill prompted the United Irishmen to abandon the attack on Athy.

O’Kelly gave his age as 17 years when he commanded the United Irishmen in 1798 but in his obituary notice in The Freeman’s Journal of the 19th July 1858 his age was given as 82 years. This would mean he was 22 years old in 1798 and possibly even 25 years old if the records of Dublin Catholic Cemetery’s Committee are to be believed where his age is given as 85 years.

Following the suppression of the United Irishmen Rebellion, O’Kelly relates that he returned to Kilcoo where “I remained tranquilly at home with my father”. Patrick O’Kelly was expected to succeed his father following the latter’s death in 1803 but apparently the farm leases were instead given by the Duke of Leinster to Patrick’s brother John. The former Colonel of the United Irishmen now married with 3 young children emigrated to America where he set up a private academy in Baltimore. He spent 20 years in America returning home to Ireland following the death of his brother John. His mother, who was then in her 85th year, wrote to him to return so that the farm leases due to expire in 1825 could be renewed. However, Patrick O’Kelly’s involvement in the 1798 Rebellion was to prove a stumbling block insofar as his hopes of getting the lease of the family farm was concerned. He worked the lands for a short period prior to the expiration of the lease on the 1st May 1825 and on giving up peaceful possession found, to his consternation, that neither the Duke of Leinster or his agent Harry Hamilton, favoured his application for renewal. Hamilton is reputed to have told O’Kelly that he would never get a perch of the Duke’s Estate.

Disillusioned, O’Kelly and his family now emigrated to France where he remained for 7 years working as a Professor of Language in Versailles. While in France, he translated Abbe Mac Geoghegan’s History of Ireland first published in Paris between 1758 and 1762.

O’Kelly returned to Dublin in 1831 and lived for a while at number 20 Greville Street off Mountjoy Square and that same year the first volume of his translation of Mac Geoghegan’s work was published. Volumes 2 and volumes 3 were published in 1831 and 1834. O’Kelly, who was described in the Dublin directory as a Professor of Languages lived for a while in Number 3 Lower Cumberland Street and later still on the North Strand. Further editions of his translation of Abbe Mac Geoghegan’s history were published in Dublin at different dates up to 1868 by which time he had also published his General History of the Rebellion of 1798 and, in 1838 his edition of ‘Historica Descriptio Hiberniae’. Another lesser known work attributed to O’Kelly was the 1834 publication entitled ‘Advice and Guide to Emigrants, Going to the United States of America’.

The parish priest of Athy, Reverend John Lalor, wrote on the 16th September 1841 a testimonial for O’Kelly which he produced in his history of the 1798 rebellion. It read “I have known the bearer Mr. O’Kelly for several years. He is a member of one of the most respectable families in the parish of St. Michael’s in Athy of which I am the pastor. He wishes to return from this country together with his excellent family to France where he lived for some years. I am also happy to state as to his high character as a scholar and a gentleman which he possesses in an eminent degree”. Whether he went to France in 1841 I cannot say but he was certainly living in Dublin in 1844 where he remained until he died at 3 Margaret Place on the 11th July 1858. He was buried at Golden Bridge Cemetery.

The Athy man, who played a very significant part in the 1798 Rebellion in South Kildare and an even more significant part in Irish publishing in the second quarter of the last century is today an almost forgotten footnote in Irish history. I would like to hear from anyone who may have any further information on Patrick O’Kelly or his family formerly of Kilcoo and Coolroe.

Luggacurran Evictions

The Luggacurran evictions which resulted in over 60 families losing their homes and their small holdings understandably hardened the attitudes of the people of South Kildare. Nowhere was this more evident than at a meeting of Athy Board of Guardians held in the workhouse on the 22nd October 1887. At its October the local relieving officer sought to have admitted to the workhouse a young man named Patrick D.______ and his two brothers. Their parents and three younger children had been admitted to the workhouse at a previous Board of Guardian meeting. It transpired that Patrick D. _____ had worked as an emergency man during the evictions in Luggacurran earlier that year. His father, who worked for a local farmer, lost his job as a result and hence his subsequent admission to the workhouse.

James McLoughlin, a member of the Board of Guardians was reported as saying in response to Patrick D. _______ application to enter the workhouse “let him and his brothers go back to Landsdowne and get their earnings as they did during the evictions”. Another Board member was quoted as saying “let them go to hell” before the Board decided to discharge the entire family from the workhouse. Quite clearly it was not to one’s advantage to be associated with the Landlord’s side on the eviction issue.

With the re-commencement of evictions on the Luggacurran estates in May 1889 local animosity was rekindled. The Kildare Observer reported in its issue of the 29th June 1889 of a police prosecution for boycott and intimidation. William V ¬¬¬¬¬¬_____ gave evidence that he took a farm from which a tenant had been evicted. Since then attempts had been made to boycott him. One day while at the fair of Athy he saw Patrick K. ______ selling gates. He purchased four gates at three shillings each and as he prepared to pay for them a local man rushed up and said to Michael K. - “what are you doing selling gates to a boycott”. The transaction was terminated on the claim that the gates had been bought by another man. Patrick K ______ who was called to the witness box denied the previous witnesses evidence but nevertheless the resident magistrates were satisfied that the prosecution’s case was proved. As it was a first case of its kind to come to their attention, they agreed to deal with the defendant rather more leniently than they might and imposed a one month’s prison sentence. As the same time the magistrates issued a warning that any further similar cases would result in a much heavier sentence.

Even the language used by a local newspaper while reporting matters arising within the Luggacurran area clearly showed on whose side their sympathy lay. For instance on the 1st May 1897, The Leinster Leader headlined a story on an inquest on the body of a newly-born male infant. “A Luggacurran Planters Daughter Charged with Concealment of Birth”. Can anyone imagine a more pejorative term to describe a young girl. Clearly feelings were running high on the evicted tenants side and as a nationalist newspaper The Leinster Leader spoke the feelings and the language of those evicted.

Another report in the Kildare Observer of the 3rd September 1887, outlined how a woman living in Shruleen Lane, Athy, was threatened with boycott because a man who had worked on a Luggacurran evicted farm was seen in her house.

Local hotelier Alicia Kavanagh of the Hibernian Hotel, Leinster Street, Athy was refused a certificate to renew her hotel licence in September 1887 after objections by the local constabulary. The District Inspector Mr. Newell had called on Mrs Kavanagh to supply houses and carts for the constabulary on the 21st March in connection with the Luggacurran evictions. She refused claiming that the horses and carts were pre-booked for guests arriving next day from Castlecomer. Asked to show evidence of the booking, she produced a telegram dated 21st March which read “have dinner for us and beds”. Mr. Newell claimed that he went to the Hibernian Hotel in the company of his head constable Mr. Bodley and not satisfied us to the explanation offered advised Mrs Kavanagh to send the horses and carts to the barracks at nine o’clock the following morning. They did not arrive. The court found against Mrs Kavanagh and refused her hotel certificate. A similar case against Patrick Moore of the Nag’s Head was terminated when Moore withdrew his application for a hotel certificate.

The evictions at Luggacurran had a knock-on effect in Athy as business people for whatever reason felt compelled to show solidarity with those ejected from their lands. This extended even to the Board of Guardians as is apparent from the earlier mentioned report on the application of Patrick D ______ for indoor relief . A similar conclusion can be drawn from a report concerning the application of an old woman who applied for outdoor relief. A native of Ballylinan, she had been evicted by Sir Anthony Weldon of Kilmoroney House. Sir Anthony, who presided at the meeting of the Board of Guardians objected to the granting of outdoor relief to the old woman. However, the member of the Board of Guardians ignored their Chairman’s advice and granted the woman 2/6 a week when it transpired that her son had been told by Weldon’s son to go and work in Luggacurran for £1 a week. The old woman would have nothing to do with the Luggacurran evictions a sentiment obviously approved of by the Board of Guardians hence the award to her of 2/6 a week.

The watching and besetting of people involved in the Luggacurran evictions was a role adopted by members of the National League, a branch which had been founded in Athy. In November, 1887, a controversy arose at a meeting of the Athy branch when Mr. Byrne alleged that James Murphy had supplied meat to the Luggacurran people. The reference here is obviously to the emergency men working on the evicted farms. Murphy denied the charge claiming he was a responsible and honest gentleman and was not to be treated in the same way as those who were boycotted and ostracised.

The effect of the evictions was felt for decades after the last of the tenant farmers were evicted in 1889. In November of the following year, during the Athy pig fair, twenty policemen in plain clothes and about fifteen in uniform, were lined up along the main street of the town. Half a dozen men from Luggacurran, and several farmers from Narraghmore were shadowed throughout the day, one or two constables following each farmer wherever they went. The local press noted, “much indignation was felt at the conduct of the local police authorities and the town commissioners are to have a special meeting to protest against this unwarranted interference in the business affairs of the local people.”

The scars left by the evictions in Ireland during the Land League campaign were slow to heal. Athy and Luggacurran were no different in that regard. I have before me as I write, a letter from the Evicted Tenants and Land Settlement Association dated the 11th October 1922 to a south Kildare man in which reference was made to his lands taken to make room for “a grabber and emergency men”. Today, one hundred and ten years after the last of the Luggacurran evictions, I am keenly conscious of the strength of feelings still aroused in people long removed from the events in which Lord Landsdowne and his agent John Townsend Trench played a major part. Some of the families evicted were later to return to Luggacurran. Many families did not do so and the bitterness felt at the injustice and resultant hardship still lingers to this day.

Athy Boro Council in 1746 and Athy at the turn of the 19th Century

In 1746, the normally calm proceedings of the Athy Borough Council were thrown into disarray by the removal from office as free burgesses of the town of Thomas Keatinge, Robert Percy and Nicholas Aylward. The last two named were removed from office on 25th June 1746 for attending a public meeting convened by Keatinge for the purpose of electing a burgess in place of John Jackson deceased. The meeting was called by public notice for a premises known as the Queen’s Head, Athy and by so doing, Keatinge was guilty of impersonating the Sovereign of the town.

The names of the Borough officials, Burgesses and Freemen of Athy in 1746 with one or two exceptions, clearly indicate Anglo Norman or English antecedents. It is note worthy that the families which controlled Athy almost 250 years ago, are no longer represented amongst the present population. The names include:-

William Willock, Town Clerk Thomas Rutledge } Bailiffs
William Bradford, Sovereign William Hoysted }

Burgesses
Thomas Burgh John Berry
Robert Downes Moore Disney
George Bradford John Browne
Edward Harman Joshua Johnston

FREEMEN
Walter Weldon Edmund Lewis
Edward Wale James McRoberts
Thomas Weldon Robert Fitzpatrick
Jn. Hoysted Richard Nelson

It was these men who developed the commercial life of Athy and in some cases, provided the financial backing and expertise for the limited industrial growth which the town experienced after 1700. Michael Devoy, a one time resident of the town writing in 1803 tells us that Athy in the 18th century had one of the best and most extensive tanyards in Ireland. Rocques map of Athy West of the Barrow prepared in 1768 shows two very large tanyards. Located at Beggar’s End was a 24 pit tannery owned and operated by Geo. King. At the rear of St. John’s Street, now Duke Street, in the area known to this day as the Tanyard, the Daker family had a 41 pit tannery. This latter tannery was to go into decline and eventually close around 1790 following the death of George Daker. King’s tanyard appears to have suffered a similar fate, as no trace of the once extensive tanyard is shown on a town map of 1831. Tanning was not lost completely to Athy, as a number of small tanyards were to be found in the town during the 19th century. In 1842 James Doyle had a small tanning business in St. John’s while Stephen Wilson of William Street had a somewhat larger tanyard. These were the sole remnants of the once extensive industry which provided much needed employment to the men of Athy in the previous century.

Brewing and distilling were industries also to the fore in Athy of the 18th century. Devoy indicates that Athy was once “the most extensive town in Athy for distilling whiskey”, having 14 working stills in the area. Whiskey making apparently went into rapid decline as Devoy reported in 1809 that “none has been worked here these 20 years”. Brewing in Athy had a longer history. In 1768, Dan Mansergh operated a brewery at the rear of St. John’s Street, and we find the same brewery listed in 1831 with another brewery located between the then closed Daker Tanyard and Duke Street. Malt for the brewing and distilling industries was available locally, there being no less than three malthouses in Athy in 1768. One was operated by Francis Carthy at a site immediately adjoining the Turnpike Gate on the Castlecomer Road, no doubt located there to avoid payment of turnpike tolls. Richard Wall operated a malthouse on the site of the present Minch Norton Malthouse in William Street, while Thomas Kelly had a malting plant at the rear of the present Super Valu Supermarket. Malting was to remain in Athy despite the closure of the stills and breweries and today represents an important part of the town’s industrial activity.

The linen industry was another important element of town and rural life in South Kildare towards the end of the 18th century. On 1790 the French traveller Charles Tetienne Coquebert de Montbret made an overnight stop in Athy. He visited Monavullagh bog where he reported on a number of women retting flax. This process involved the preparation of flax by steeping it in water. An important clue to the existence of linen manufacture in Athy lies in the names given to the locality which in the 18th century lay immediately behind Beggars End. The Bleach and The Bleach Yard are obvious references to the bleaching process carried on in those localities in the past. In a pamphlet published in 1809, Rev. Thomas Kelly of Ballintubbert made reference to a weaving shed established in Athy to give employment to the young men of the area. The conclusion is that weaving of linen was not an uncommon practise in Athy of that time. Another clue to the probable existence of the linen industry in and around Athy was the number of linen drapers in the town. One of these drapers was the Quaker, Thomas Chandlee who had a shop in Athy in the latter part of the 18th century. This was the same Thomas Chandlee who in 1780 was responsible for the building of the Quaker Meeting House in Meeting Lane. This was the first purpose built meeting house for the Quaker Community in Athy although they had been in the area since the latter part of the 17th century.

The second half of the 18th century was a period of improvement in farming methods, and there sprang up throughout the country small groups anxious to encourage such development. About 1780, a farming society was formed in Athy by a local Glassealy landlord, Thomas Rawson, and the local tanner George Daker. The society flourished for a number of years, holding monthly meetings which the landed gentry encouraged the “lower classes” to attend.

On 8th August 1782 the Irish antiquarian Austin Cooper, following a visit to Athy wrote -
“Athy is a small town situated on the River Barrow over which is a plain bridge of arches with a low square castle adjoining on the east side. Here is a market house, Church and County Courthouse, nothing remarkable in elegance of building. On the north west side of the town is a plain horse barracks and near it another old castle”.

No sign of traffic congestion in those days !

Hannah Spellmans 90th Birthday - Deaths of Frank Foley and 'Wexford' Foley

I was at a birthday party during the week which I enjoyed immensely. My enjoyment owed much to the sense of immortality felt when I realised that the party girl was 90 years of age. She was born in the year the old age pension was first awarded. Then you had to be over 70 years of age to get the princely sum of five shillings a week. Hannah Spellman, after a lifetime spent amongst the rugged beauty of Connemara is now a city dweller. Her proud boast is that she was baptised by Canon Sheehan of Doneraile the priests whose novels were the staple diet of Irish readers during the first half of this century. ‘Geoffrey Austin Student’, ‘The Triumph of Failure’, ‘Luke Delmege’ and ‘My New Curate’ were some of the titles which came from the pen of Canon Sheehan between 1897 and 1912. I would imagine that there was not an Irish home without one of Canon Sheehan’s books up to 40 years ago despite or perhaps because he gave his readers an insight into the quaint peasantry habits which were never far removed from our own lives.

Ninety years ago Ernest Shackleton was still on one of his Antarctic expeditions and was to come within one hundred miles of the South Pole, and the English Channel was being crossed by aeroplane for the first time. The Great War was still five years away and the ten million or so men and women who were killed in that War were still part of the largely rural communities into which they had been born.

Take a step back ninety years from the year in which the future Hannah Spellman was born and you are in 1819, twenty six years before the Irish famine broke on the Irish scene with such devastating effects. That was also the year the future Queen Victoria was born and the same year English soldiers shot and killed eleven men who were among a crowd gathered for a reform meeting at St. Peter’s field, Manchester. The Peterloo Massacre caused widespread indignation and ultimately advanced the cause of parliamentary reform.

Ninety years is a somewhat comforting length of time in which to view one’s own age and so it was that I took heart and encouragement from my mother in law’s good fortune in maintaining her health and cheerfulness for so long. Maybe there was something in the water used by Canon Sheehan in his small church in Doneraile so many years ago that encouraged longevity.

When you get to such a great age there is more than ample opportunity to look back and remember people you have met. Hannah Spellman is no different in that regard than anyone else except that she has a veritable legion of memories relating to persons who figured prominently in history. She met Bruce Ismay, the owner of The Titanic and the man who was said to have survived the sinking of that ship by dressing up as a woman and entering one of the lifeboats. That at least was the story which Connemara folk told of Ismay long after the immense liner had sunk on her maiden voyage in 1912 with the loss of nearly sixteen hundred persons. Many of the steerage passengers on that fateful voyage were from the West of Ireland and it is no wonder the people from the Connemara countryside held fast to their belief that Ismay had cheated death in this way.

Inevitably the War of Independence must hold memories for someone of ninety years of age. Hannah Spellman recalled the ambush set up outside her parents house at Kilbrack, County Cork when men of the Cork flying column positioned themselves behind the rails of the gate lodge leading to Kilbrack House. The inevitable casualties on the English side resulted in a rampage of terror for days afterwards and may have been the cause of her uncle’s subsequent killing. Tom Hannon was her mother’s brother and he died a young man of a wound sustained in a shoot out with English soldiers.

Being a Cork woman with the name Nagle the future Hannah Spellman can claim a family connection with Nano Nagle foundress of the Presentation Sisters. Indeed the Nagle family tree which was carefully compiled over the years is drawn out with justifiable pride to show that the 90 year old is the great grand niece of Nano Nagle.

“Did you ever meet Michael Collins” ? I asked, ever hopeful that perhaps even a fleeting glance as he passeed through Doneraile could be turned into a prolonged meeting with one of the great figures of twentieth century Ireland. The answer is no, for the woman had and still has no interest in politics or the people who once populated the shady environments of militarism before they succumbed to the politics of the Irish Free State.

My mother in law travelled from Galway to Athy not realising that when she set out on the long journey that she was doing so to celebrate her ninetieth birthday. She had about her on the day her extended family, many of whom travelled from abroad as well as from the extremities of the island of Ireland. The grand lady had a great day.

In the same week as her ninetieth birthday was celebrated, two local men passed away before they had reached the biblical three score and ten. Frank Foley was a class mate of mine in the Christian Brothers Primary School. “Yah” was his nickname, derived, I understand, from his great fondness of cowboy films and his habit of using the cowboys “yah” in his everyday conversation. Like so many of his contemporaries in the Athy of the 1950’s, Frank left school once the compulsory school age of fourteen years was reached. He left to join the local L&N Stores in Emily Square as a messenger boy later joining the asbestos factory. He subsequently spent some time in England as almost every working man in Athy has done before returning to work in Minch Nortons. He retired from there some years ago and was in poor health in recent years. I knew Frank quite well and remember with fondness our time together in the classrooms of St. John’s. I didn’t know “Wexford” Foley as well but nevertheless recognised him as did everyone in Athy as a congenial man who was an intrinsic part of life in the town. How the extraordinary nickname “Wexford” came to be bestowed on him I cannot say but to those who knew him he was never called anything else. Both “Yah” and “Wexford” lived in the same terrace in Dooley’s Terrace and neither had married. I presume, perhaps wrongly, that they were related to each other, being members of the extended Foley family which must be one of the oldest families in the town.

In response to those who contacted me about last week’s article on the Luggacurran evictions, I will return to that subject again in the very near future. This week, as you can see, is my opportunity to pay a small tribute to a lady who was the very opposite of the music hall version of the mother in law. The Cork woman who moved to Connemara where she lived for over fifty years before moving into Galway city is almost as good as her daughter who keeps me in line. Could I say anymore.