An Ecumenical Remembrance of Athy's World War 1 dead

Last Sunday in St. Michael’s Church of Ireland at the top of Offaly Street an ecumenical service was held to remember the men from Athy and district who died in the 1914-18 war.  This was the first time that the different churches in Athy came together in a church setting to commemorate those men who 100 years ago enlisted in their hundreds to fight in France and further afield.  It was appropriate that the centenary of the start of the 1^st World War was marked in this way given that the young men from Athy were encouraged by Church and civic leaders of 1914 and later years to join the English army.

The service, organised by Reverend Olive Donohoe and Fr. Gerry Tanham, commenced with a hymn and was followed by the following reflection on the war:

Those born in times of peace do not recognise the true face of war.  Similarly those of us born decades after the war which shattered the lives of so many from our community do not perhaps recognise those lives lost in the muddied battlefields of France and Flanders.

Encouraged by Church and civic leaders young men from our town enlisted in their hundreds during the 1914-18 war.  Many did not return.  Many were never found – for they lie today where they died. 

In the public domain acts of remembrance for those who died in the war were overtaken by political instability and conflict.  As a result the grieving process for deceased fathers, sons, husbands and brothers retreated into the privacy of family homes.  For decades the war dead were forgotten and overlooked by a people whose lives were immersed in the War of Independence, the subsequent Civil War and an emerging and developing statehood.  They were a forgotten generation – young men whose dreams were never realized.  The great shame was that of later generations who failed to recognise the sacrifices made by the young men of 1914-18 and who failed to disentangle public acts of remembrance from the political legacy of the new Irish State.

In this the decade of centenaries we are remembering so many elements of our shared Irish history – including the beginning of World War I, for we now accept that it was an important part of Irish history and of a past which influenced and shaped our local community.  Athy lost at least 122 young men during the 1914-18 war.  The loss of life for the town and its hinterland was in excess of 220 men.

In 1966 the then Taoiseach Sean Lemass, a one time critic of Remembrance ceremonies in Ireland, acknowledged that Irish men who had enlisted during World War I were motivated by the highest purpose and died in their tens of thousands believing that they were giving their lives in the cause of human liberty everywhere not excluding Ireland.

It is appropriate that here in Athy some members of the local community took a lead almost 25 years ago to remember the local men who died in the 1914-18 war.  Commemoration ceremonies have been held each year since then and today in the centenary year of the start of the war we come together for an ecumenical service in the Church which records on wall memorials the sacrifices of the Hannon brothers and their cousins from Ardreigh House.

The various religious denominations here in Athy share a common heritage – a heritage of loss and sacrifice endured by the men from Athy and district who fought in the 1914-18 war.  Our collective remembrance respects and acknowledges different traditions and loyalties and it is appropriate that we come together to commemorate the men of Athy and district irrespective of any underlying cultural or political differences.

The poet Lord Dunsany was moved to write his poem ‘to the fallen Irish soldiers’ following the Irish government’s refusal in 1928 to allow a war memorial to be built in the garden of Merrion Square.

“Sleep on, forgot a few more years, and then

The ages, that I prophesy, shall see

Due honours paid to you by juster men,

You standing foremost in our history,”

Dunsany prophesised that attitudes would in time change and that due honour would be paid to the Irishmen who died in war.  Today we gather to pay that honour to a generation we did not know, but whom we should always remember for sacrifices suffered on the battlefields of the Great War.

Towards the end of the service the names of the 122 men from Athy who died in the 1914-18 war were read out, starting with Frank Alcock’s name and ending with that of Francis Verschoyle.  Amongst those names were William Corcoran of Offaly Street, the first Athy man to die in the war.  At 17 years of age Christopher Gleeson of Upper William Street was the youngest Athy fatality, while Christopher Power of 8 Plewman’s Terrace at 59 years of age was the oldest.  Three Athy families each suffered the loss of three young sons.  The Byrnes, the Kelly’s and the Curtis families are forever linked to the awful destruction of young life during the war. 

The Sunday afternoon service was a unique event, bringing together members of our local community in a common act of remembrance for a lost generation.

Athy's Penny Bank

Banking administration in Ireland has changed, and not for the better, within the last few years.  Long standing bank customers are now faced with extraordinary and ridiculous requests for passports, driving licences and utility bills to prove to bank officials with whom they have been dealing for years that they are who they claim to be.

I had experience of this quite recently when local officials in the bank where I have banked for over 30 years required me to prove who I was before I could operate another account.  This prompted me to question the difficulties facing the customers of St. Dominic’s Penny Bank, which is closing this month, should they wish to use any of the existing financial institutions to open saving accounts.

The Penny Bank is a much valued facility, especially useful for those people who might not be able to avail of banking facilities in our local banks or credit union.  Quite a lot of those people do not have driving licences or passports and consequently will not be able to meet the financial institutions requirements to allow savings accounts to be opened.

I am told that the Penny Bank opened in 1984 and for the last 30 years has provided what is essentially a social service for those unable to avail of main stream banking facilities.  A meeting in the Dominican Priory on 22^nd March 1984 chaired by the late Fr. Jim Harris, Prior of St. Dominic’s on 22^nd March 1984 agreed to open a Penny Bank.  Present at that meeting were Margo Gough, Ivan Bergin, Donal Murphy, Jack O’Rourke and John Neavyn who acted as Secretary.  The Penny Bank opened for the first time on Saturday, 7^th April 1984 from 5.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. manned by volunteers Michael Ryan and Tom Walsh. 

Trustees of the Penny Bank were appointed and that role was undertaken by Donal Murphy, Ivan Bergin and John Neavyn.  Appointed as promoters were Patricia Murphy, Maureen Ryan, Peter Grant, Paddy Rochford and Tony Foley.  Ann Handy worked in the Penny Bank Office for many years and in 2003 Phyllis Fennin took over the running of the office with the late Kevin Watchorn.  In recent years St. Dominic’s Penny Bank has been open 6 days a week with Patricia Holligan and Ann Robinson helping out in addition to their normal duties in the Dominican shop.  During the 40 years of the Penny Bank’s existence five Dominican Priors have been in charge of the local Priory.  Fr. Jim Harris, Fr. Con Roche, Fr. Jim Dunleavy, Fr. John Heffernan and the current Prior, Fr. Joe O’Brien.

I understand that the Penny Bank has several thousand customers, all of whom benefit from the Savings Scheme which pays out substantial monies in the weeks prior to Christmas.  The money saved by the local people and made available to them in the lead up to the festive season brings enormous benefit to local shops.  It would be difficult to estimate the value to our local economy of the Penny Bank’s savings money spent in Athy each December but it must be millions of euro rather than thousands.

What will happen if the Penny Bank is not continued?  It cannot be continued by the Dominicans as regrettably the Friar’s preachers will in time be leaving Athy after more than 750 years of service to our community.

The Penny Bank must be saved.  It is a vital service for families who cannot avail of banking facilities.  If it is allowed to die those families will either lose the incentive to save or perhaps keep their savings at home.  Either will be a cause of concern.  Without the regular savings entrusted to the Penny Bank the loss to the local economy will be enormous.  If people, especially elderly people, continue to save and retain their savings by way of cash in their homes issues of personal safety will be a concern.

There is undoubtedly an urgent need for the community to come together to examine how best to retain the Penny Bank in Athy.  There should be no question of its dissolution without every avenue being examined as to the feasibility of retaining what is an essential social service.  It is also a vital local service and a community already facing the loss of its Post Office and its replacement by a sub Post Office should act immediately to stop this further erosion of services in Athy.  The townspeople need to act to help  regenerate the town which has so many natural and manmade assets of sufficient quality to justify its claim to be one of the best situated provincial towns in Leinster.    

                                  

Mapping the Manor of Athy

James Fitzgerald, 20^th Earl of Kildare and later 1^st Duke of Leinster, commissioned the Anglo French cartographer John Rocques to survey his estates in County Kildare soon after Rocques came to Dublin in 1754.  Rocques had worked in England for 20 years during which time he prepared plans for various important country estates.  On arrival in Dublin he published proposals for a detailed survey of the city which appeared two years later engraved on four sheets.  He also published a town plan of Thurles in 1755 before he embarked on the Kildare estates survey.

The Earl of Kildare’s estates were mapped by Rocques in nearly 170 individual maps which were bound in eight oblong volumes covering approximately 68,000 acres.  Rocques helped by surveyors using theodolite and chain triangulation produced maps of unprecedented accuracy and detail. 

The first maps produced in 1756 were of the Manors of Athy and Woodstock, followed a year later by the Manors of Kildare and Maynooth.  The Athy Manor survey consisted of 20 maps, while that of Woodstock comprised 8 maps.  The Earl’s estates in Castledermot and Graney were mapped in 1758 and two years later maps were presented for the Manors of Kilkea and Rathangan.  The Manor maps were bound in red goatskin, with the title of each Manor surrounded by a decorative border tooled in gold on the upper cover. 

Six of the eight Manor folios were put up for auction by Sothebys of London in 1963.  It was then that Trinity College Dublin purchased the Manor maps for Athy and Kildare, while the Castledermot Folio went to the National Library Dublin.  The Woodstock Manor maps were purchased by the British Library, while Cambridge University acquired the Maynooth Manor Folio.  The Graney Manor Folio was purchased by Yale University.  The missing folios relating to the Manors of Kilkea and Rathangan remained undiscovered for many years until the Kilkea Folio was put up for sale by a London Auction House in 2003.  The Rathangan Manor Folio still remains untraced to this day. 

The original eight volumes were housed in the Duke of Leinster’s Library in Carton House Maynooth until 1849 when the library was sold.  They were then removed to Kilkea Castle where they remained until they were sold privately to a dealer.  It was that dealer, whose identity remains unknown, who put six of the folios up for auction in Sothebys of London in 1963.  Rocques maps of Athy are the earliest maps we have of the town and give a wealth of detail about the town at a time when it was emerging from the medieval past.

Interestingly the Lordship of St. John’s, that is Athy west of the River Barrow, was mapped for the Earl of Kildare by Bernard Scale in 1768.  In the early maps prepared by Rocques the main street of Athy running from the edge of the town on the Kilkenny side to the Dublin side of the town was called St. John’s Street and High Street.  The Bridge at White’s Castle separated the two streets, with High Street the name assigned to the town’s principal shopping street lying on the east side of the river.  Over the bridge was St. John’s Street, obviously a name harping back to the monastery which in the 13^th and 14^th centuries occupied a site adjacent to the present St. John’s Cemetery.  We still retain the name St. John’s Lane for the laneway which runs at the side of that cemetery, but St. John’s Street has long been renamed Duke Street.  It was the second Duke of Leinster, William Robert Fitzgerald whose name is recalled in the town street names which replaced the original medieval street names in the last decade of the 18^th century.

On Thursday, 20^th November at 7.30 p.m., Castledermot born writer John MacKenna will have his latest novel launched by radio presenter Joe Duffy.  The launch takes place in the Arboretum, Carlow and promises to be an interesting and entertaining evening with Joe Duffy who presents every afternoon on RTE a programme which has been controversially described as a ‘whingers forum’.  In truth however a more reasoned view would regard his programme as a major contribution to public broadcasting in Ireland.  His programme allows the general public access to the airwaves at a time, insofar as rural Ireland is concerned, when the same airwaves seem almost exclusively serviced by and for those living within the Dublin Pale.  Joe Duffy has recently made a very real contribution to Irish historical studies with his unique compilation of the names of the young children killed during the 1916 Rising.  I understand an open invitation is extended to everybody to attend the book launch in the Arboretum on the 20^th and I am sure the author John MacKenna would appreciate support on the night.

Edward Darby and New Mexico resident Maisy McDarby Stanovich

On 21^st August 1886 the Kildare Observer under the headline ‘Fatal Accident near Athy’ reported the death of 30 year old Edward McDarby who was killed when the horse and cart in which he was travelling went into the river at Clogorrow.  The jury at the inquest on the following day returned a verdict that ‘the deceased Edward McDarby died from fracture of the spine at the base of the skull from a fall of about 15 feet down a slope, the horse and cart falling on him and death being instantaneous.’  A rider was added calling the attention of the County Surveyor to the imperfect state of the fence on the Clogorrow road.

The unfortunate man was survived by his wife, the former Margaret Lacey and four young children, the eldest a 10 year old daughter and the youngest a son just a few weeks old.  With the loss of the family’s only breadwinner Margaret and her four children were compelled to enter the Workhouse in Athy.  Dr. P.L. O’Neill, who as the County Coroner presided at the inquest, was the medical officer for the Workhouse where the Sisters of Mercy had recently taken over responsibility for the Workhouse infirmary.  Margaret McDarby on entering the Workhouse was detained in the female ward, while her children were housed in a separate section of the building which was opened over 40 years earlier.  The separation of parents from their children was part of the harsh regime which marked the operation of workhouses in the late 19^th century.  Within two years of entering the Workhouse Margaret McDarby died.  On 29^th March 1888 her remains were brought on the Workhouse trolley across the Stradbally Road to be buried alongside the hundreds of those who had died of starvation or disease during the Great Famine.  Like all those who died in the Workhouse her grave was unmarked.

Fast forward to 2014 when with the magic of internet and email I found myself dealing with queries from a lady in New Mexico who was about to visit Athy from where her grandfather had emigrated.  That grandfather was Edward McDarby who was three years old when his father was killed at Clogorrow and who lost his mother two years later in Athy’s Workhouse.  Edward lived in Athy Workhouse until he was old enough to go to work on the Cosby estate in Stradbally.  He later met and courted Ellen McCarthy who lived with her younger brother Martin in Athy and when Edward emigrated to America in 1909 Ellen followed a year later.  Edward and Ellen married four years later and having settled in Manhattan, New York City had eight children, one of whom was the father of my female correspondent from New Mexico.

Edward, like his father and namesake, died tragically at a young age.  He was 50 years old when in 1933 he was run down by a drunken driver and killed.  New York was then in the grip of the Great Depression and the grieving widow and eight children faced an uncertain future.  Thanks to a very charitable landlady who allowed the McDarby family to live rent free for as long as was necessary, the experience of the Irish Workhouse was not repeated. 

The McDarby children all grew up to do well in America and when I met the visitor from New Mexico  I could not but marvel at the courage of a family which had suffered so many setbacks over two generations.  Maisy McDarby Stanovich came to Athy with her young daughter to visit the sites and places associated with her great grandparents and her grandfather.  A visit was made to St. Vincent’s Hospital where courtesy of the Matron, Helen Dreelan, the American visitors were able to see the now disused old Workhouse wards and what was once the Workhouse Chapel.  We walked from the Chapel to St. Mary’s Cemetery along the same route taken by the Workhouse staff who had brought Margaret McDarby’s body to be buried amongst the unknown and forgotten.

It was a sad and poignant journey for the visitors from New Mexico, recalling a great grandmother whose life was marked by tragedy and loss.  Her story and that of the McDarby family was a familiar enough story in 19^th century Ireland.  The journey from Clogorrow to the Workhouse and from there to New York and New Mexico was a long journey extending over several generations.  Family ties stretching outwards and downwards to the present generation were re-enforced and strengthened with the visit to Athy of New Mexico resident Maisy McDarby Stanovich.