Athy's Building Heritage

Athy is home to many fine buildings, some more important than others because of their history and their links with the town’s story, stretching back in some cases for centuries. Understandably, we can all take pride in the best laid out square or plaza in the County of Kildare with the backdrop of the early 18th century Town Hall. That fine building has survived despite an attempt by some members of the local Urban Council in the 1970s to have it demolished in order to provide additional parking facilities in the town centre. Other buildings which once were important in the context of a developing medieval village are Woodstock Castle and the church built outside the town walls which we now know as the ‘Crickeen’. Both buildings have suffered from the ravages of time, with the castle at Woodstock mercifully fenced off in recent years to protect what remains of an important part of our medieval built heritage. The ‘Crickeen’, through the good offices of Kildare County Council using taxpayers money and business rates, was the subject of recent conservation work which will ensure the preservation of Athy’s first secular church for the immediate future. Woodstock Castle needs similar attention and hopefully the Heritage Office of Kildare Co. Co. in conjunction with the National Monuments Committee of that Council will give the conservation of Woodstock Castle some priority. The Town Hall, Woodstock Castle and the ‘Crickeen’ are important buildings in terms of Athy’s historical past, but none of them can equal the importance of Athy’s most iconic building – Whites Castle or the White Castle, depending on which authority you rely. The town’s trademark is the castle and the bridge, one standing on the east bank of the river Barrow, the other the only access way to the ‘wild Irish’ on the Laois side of the county. The bridge, built in 1796 by the master mason James Delehunt and his team of helpers, figured prominently, as did Whites Castle, during the 1798 rebellion. Seven young men who were jailed in Whites Castle at the start of the rebellion were marched over the newly built bridge and hanged at the basin of the Grand Canal. Two of them were beheaded and their heads put on the top of Whites Castle. The local militia during the summer of ’98 apparently amused themselves by firing at the two heads from the middle of the bridge. As you pass Whites Castle today take a look at the Earl of Kildare’s coat of arms carved on a large stone slab and placed there when the bridge was opened. The militia in 1798 smashed the flagstone bearing the coat of arms and the damage is still visible today. Five years later at the start of the Robert Emmet rebellion, Nicholas Grey, a Wexford man who was then living in nearby Rockfield House, was arrested and lodged in Whites Castle jail. He had been appointed by Robert Emmet to lead the County Kildare men to Dublin, but was arrested before he could do so. Whites Castle has been involved in so many other important events in Irish history. The Confederate War saw the Royalists, the Confederates and the Parliamentarians vying for control of Athy and the castle protecting the bridge over the river Barrow. This meant that Whites Castle and Woodstock Castle were under constant attack. That the castle survived is in itself a miracle, although Woodstock Castle was effectively abandoned following the Confederate War. Whites Castle was repaired after it was badly damaged during the same war and in or about 1800 was extended to provide additional accommodation including prison cells. Our castle on the bridge has stood for over 600 years, but sadly it is today looking neglected. It looks unsafe with early 19th century chimney stacks looking positively unstable. The building remains closed having been purchased in recent years. I was contacted by the purchaser soon after she bought the castle and given her previous involvement in the restoration of another important building in the south of the country, I was hopeful that the same would happen here. I have been disappointed on so many occasions when it comes to Whites Castle. I had hoped that when the castle first came on the market that the then Urban District Council would acquire it. The Council members publicly expressed interest, but regrettably the matter was not pursued. The castle came on the market again a few years later and despite a huge reduction in the asking price the Town Council again failed to act to ensure public ownership of Athy’s most important building. It was resold for the third time in recent years, with again no attempt this time by Kildare County Council to acquire Whites Castle. It is rather shameful that none of the local authorities acted on any of the three occasions to acquire Whites Castle and allow it to be developed as a local museum, cum Fitzgerald Museum. This iconic building must not be allowed to become a ruin. It lies idle while the possible development of the town centre castle as another element of the town’s tourist development remains unfulfilled.

Paddy Doyle

Paddy Doyle was in the audience for the O.N.E. concert in the Arts Centre on Monday night, 17th July. There was a capacity attendance that night to hear local musicians and singers give proof, if such was needed, that the musical tradition in Athy is very strong. By the following morning Paddy had passed away just short of his 90th birthday. It was, in a way, a happy coincidence that Paddy, a talented singer and a long time member of the Parish choir, should enjoy his last evening in his beloved town of Athy in the company of fellow singers. I had known Paddy for many years, initially during his time with Minch Nortons and in more recent years as an experienced and helpful electrician. Paddy was the quintessential Athy man whose love for Athy knew no bounds. His father served in, and survived, the First World War. However, it was not without some consequences for as Paddy told me when I interviewed him several years ago, his father, known to all as “Barracks” Doyle, throughout his post war life suffered from the consequences of seeing the bodies of his fellow soldiers mangled and torn in the French trenches. Paddy was one of the most kind hearted persons one could hope to meet. He was generous with his time, generous with his good humour and generous with his wonderful singing voice which saw him as a member of the Parish choir for many decades. He was a person who epitomised all that was good in the best of us. I never saw Paddy without a smile, a good word or a laugh. He was an ever cheerful person whose very presence was guaranteed to lift the mood of the most dour amongst us. It was therefore pleasing to see that Paddy’s funeral Mass was a celebration of a wonderful life lived simply but with great affection for his neighbours and his wider community. It was a celebration marked by what I feel was the most exquisite singing I had ever heard in St. Michael’s Parish Church. Paddy’s companions in the Parish choir performed wonderfully in bidding their final farewell to a well loved friend, but the singing of Paddy’s son Dermot was absolutely wonderful. I have never been so moved by a singer or a song as I was at Paddy’s funeral Mass as I listened to the wonderful voice of his son Dermot. It was for me so unexpected and a real joy to hear such a masterful performance in the church. Paddy would have been very proud of his son Dermot as he filled the church with a beautiful rendition of ‘The Lark in the Clear Air’, accompanied on the viola by Noelle Robinson. The ceremony ended with Dermot singing ‘Annies Song’, this time accompanied by Justin Kelly on the flute. Dermot’s contribution to the celebration of his father’s life was extraordinarily powerful. Paddy’s second son Ciaran continued the celebration of a well lived life with a charming eulogy which included what would have been his father’s own account of growing up in Athy. Paddy had recounted how it was beside the Moneen River that his father James and his mother Elizabeth made their family home after they married. Paddy was the eldest of five children and the Doyle family lived in a two roomed mudwalled cottage with a thatched roof and clay floors. This was the lot of so many families in Athy and elsewhere in the country in the years before the Slum Clearance Programme initiated by De Valera’s government in the early 1930s. Until he was 13 years of age Paddy assisted his mother by bringing home two buckets of water every day from a well over a mile away from the Doyle cottage. In 1953 the Doyle family moved to a newly built house at Coneyboro. Paddy married Patricia Donegan from Carlow in 1969 and having lived in Avondale Drive for a few years moved to their new home on the Castledermot Road six years later. It was there that Paddy and Patricia reared their three children, Ciaran, Dermot and Kathryn. At the Mass special mention was made of their mother Patricia described with fondness “as a beautiful caring mother of principle and truth”. It was a great privilege to be part of the congregation which gathered in St. Michael’s Church to say goodbye to a good man. That same venue where I saw Paddy on his last night will on Monday, 14th August host a photographic and video exhibition of the canal boatmen and their boats who once plied their trade on the Barrow line and the Grand Canal. Lots of Athy folk will feature. The exhibition will be open until the 25th August from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. each day excluding Sundays.

Athy's Library in the 1950s

When I was a young pupil attending the Christian Brother’s secondary school in St. John’s Lane a welcome evening break in the ever constant routine of studying and working on school homework was a weekly visit to the local library. It was an evening visit as the library in the 1950’s was not opened during the day. The Librarian at that time was the well known and well liked Kevin Meaney who lived in St. Patrick’s Avenue. Kevin’s day job was clerk to the town engineer, Mossie Sullivan but it is as the town librarian that he is best remembered after the passage of so many years. The library was located in the Town Hall in a small room next to the Ballroom and when I measured it last week, I found it to be seventeen feet by twenty feet. It was accessed by a stairs with a doorway onto the street directly opposite Mrs. Gibbon’s house. The fact that library users had to exit from that doorway directly onto the street gives some inkling of the scarcity of vehicular traffic in those days. Kevin Meaney and his brothers Danny and Dermot all of whom lived in St. Patrick’s Avenue had a great affection for Athy. Danny who worked in a local factory was a keen photographer and he amassed during his lifetime an important archive of photographs and videos of Athy town and its people. I can recall attending a showing of videos by Danny in Mulhall’s public house next to White’s Castle a short while after I returned to Athy in 1982. Danny’s photographic record of Athy’s past was and hopefully remains a rich vein of Athy’s cultural history and a wonderful insight into the lives of the local people, many of whom have passed from memory. Danny’s brother Kevin was a local historian in the sense that he knew of the towns past and shared his knowledge with others. Unfortunately, like so many others he did not commit his recollections to paper. My weekly visit to the library was in search of Zane Grey novels but somewhere in between, for whatever reason I cannot now remember, Kevin once spoke to me of Patrick O’Kelly’s book on the 1798 Rebellion. O’Kelly, was a local young man who in the revolutionary years was one of the leaders of the United Irishmen in this area. His accounts of events in Athy and the surrounding area during the 1798 Rebellion and the Emmet Rebellion five years later was first published in 1842. The book was never available in the library but Kevin having alerted me to its very existence prompted a successful search for a copy many years later. I have often wondered was it that contact with Kevin Meaney, the librarian, all those years ago which would later put me on the history trail. The importance of local libraries cannot be over emphasised for it is there that young people start on a life’s journey through the written world. That small library of the 1950’s was a pre-cursor to the magnificent local library which is today housed in the former Dominican Church which was constructed in the early years of the 1960’s. Athy in the past was a town with a literary background which recalls a time when it was home to printing works operated by a John Richardson and later in the 1830’s a printing and publishing concern owned by W.H. Talbot. Successful members of the Talbot family were involved in printing and publishing in Athy over subsequent years. Indeed, Thomas French published the Athy Literary Magazine, a weekly magazine which ended with its 25th edition in February 1838. As the effects of the Great Famine eased in 1849, Athy boasted of two rival local newspapers, The Kildare and the Wicklow Chronicle and the Irish Eastern County Herald. Sadly the press war between the two newspapers only lasted a few weeks as the Kildare and Wicklow Chronicle ceased publication after four or five issues. The first library in Athy opened in the Town Hall in 1927 in the same room where I found it thirty years later. In those days reading material was heavily censored not only by the Ireland’s state censor but also by a library committee comprising the Parish Priest, three Catholic Curates, the Church of Ireland Rector and the Presbyterian Minister as well as five members of the Urban District Council. The first librarian was Mr. B. Bramley of Emily Square who opened the library one evening a week from 7.00pm – 9.00pm but soon thereafter, the opening times were increased to two days a week. I have written in the past of how a library is a cultural investment for the future and how our highly praised local library in providing a variety of community activities, as well as book lending is serving us well.

Kilkea Castle and the Earls of Kildare

Kilkea Castle, much altered over the centuries, is believed to be Ireland’s oldest habitable castle. Built in the latter end of the 12th century by the Anglo Norman Hugh de Lacy in what was later described as the Marches of Kildare, it formed part of the fortresses which provided protection for that part of the countryside centred around Dublin which was controlled by the early Anglo-Norman settlers. The Castle is within 4 miles of the village of Castledermot where the first gathering in Irish history to be called a Parliament was held in 1264. Twenty-six knights came together for that first parliamentary session and ten more Irish parliaments would be held in the rural village of Castledermot between 1269 and 1404. That first Irish parliament was held just 27 years after King Henry III’s Great Council met in the Great Chamber of the medieval palace of Westminster. That is generally accepted as the first gathering in English history to be called a Parliament. The Castle of Kilkea was once one of the homes of the most powerful family in Ireland, the Fitzgeralds, later Earls of Kildare and from the latter part of the 18th Century Dukes of Leinster. Several Earls of Kildare served as Lord Deputy of Ireland, a role which involved placating the rebellious Irish tribes who did not accept the King’s rule in Ireland. Gearoid Mór, the 8th Earl of Kildare and Governor of Ireland for over 30 years was wounded while leading his men against the Irish Tribe of the O’Mores at Leap Castle and he succumbed to his wounds in the town of Athy. His son, Gearoid Óg the 9th Earl of Kildare, succeeded as Lord Deputy, but Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII chief advisor and Chancellor of the Exchequer concerned by the usurpation of Royal power by the Irish Lords had the Earl called to London for alleged treason. He would die in the Tower of London while his son Thomas, known in Irish history as Silken Thomas, rebelled and marched on Dublin. He too ended up in the Tower of London with five of his uncles where they were all beheaded. This so called Kildare Rebellion prompted the Crown to take the governorship of Ireland out of the hands of the Earls of Kildare to be replaced by direct rule by an English governor. The title Earl of Kildare was forfeited and the family’s estates including Kilkea Castle confiscated, but were restored 15 years later when Silken Thomas’s half-brother, also called Thomas, a self-proclaimed loyal subject of the King was recognised as Earl of Kildare. He made his principle residence in Kilkea Castle. However, following the Desmond rebellion of 1569 which involved a related Fitzgerald family in the south of the country, Thomas, the 11th Earl, was arrested and brought to London. This time unlike his predecessors, he was not confined to the Tower of London, but spent long periods in the 1570s and 1580s under house arrest. He died in London in 1585. Subsequent Earls of Kildare continued to live in Kilkea Castle and were resident here during the Civil War which broke out in 1641 between the native Irish and Catholic gentry on the one side and Puritans on the other. Later it became a three sided conflict between the native Irish, the Catholic Royalists and the Puritans. The Catholic Confederate leaders Owen Roe O’Neill and Thomas Preston stayed in Kilkea Castle for a time, as did the Papal Nuncio Scarampo during the Civil War, commonly referred to as the Confederate War. Apart from playing hosts for a short while to some of the Catholic leaders involved in the war, Kilkea Castle did not figure hugely in the terrible events of the Confederate Wars or Cromwell’s reign of terror. If the 16th century Earls of Kildare were regarded as unfaithful to the English Crown, a very real rebel was found in Lord Edward Fitzgerald, one time Member of Parliament for Athy and brother of the first Duke of Leinster. He led the United Irishmen in his native county of Kildare in preparation for the 1798 rebellion. Lord Edward had served in the British forces in America during the American Revolution and was later an admirer of the French Revolution and an associate of Thomas Paine. He joined the United Irishmen on returning from America but was captured before the rebellion started and died as a result of a stab wound inflicted while being arrested. He is still remembered today as one of the most passionate Irish Revolutionaries of the 18th Century. Lord Edward and his wife Pamela had three children and their daughter Pamela married Sir Guy Campbell, a distinguished Scottish soldier who had played an active part in suppressing the Irish rebels during the 1798 Rebellion and who was later Lieutenant Governor of Gibraltar during the critical years of the Peninsular War. Their daughter Madeline married Percy Wyndham, son of the Earl of Egremont and their son, the great grandson of the Irish rebel, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, would become the Secretary of State for Ireland under Arthur Balfour’s premiership. George Wyndham was described as a hardened Tory and an indefatigable defender of the Union. He is remembered for the Wyndham Land Act of 1903 which effectively brought an end to the Irish Land War campaigns of the 1880s while his great grandfather Lord Edward, the most famous son of Kilkea Castle, is remembered as one of the most admired Irish radical revolutionaries of the past.

Memories of attending C.B.S. Athy in the 1950s

My class passed from the 6th class in primary school following our primary certificate examination into the C.B.S. secondary school in 1955. The primary school and the secondary school in St. John’s Lane shared the same yard with the secondary school occupying three classrooms over part of the primary school accessed by an outside iron stairway. The shortage of classroom space may have accounted for several pupils, including myself, skipping first year and beginning our secondary education in the second-year classroom. The entire secondary school teaching staff at that time consisted of two members of the Christian Brothers and two lay teachers. Around the time we started in secondary school, or perhaps just before that, the leaving certificate class consisted of only one student. By the time my class sat the Leaving Certificate examination in 1960 the class of eleven students had become the largest leaving certificate class in the school’s history. The 1950’s was a period when unemployment was rife, wages were low and free secondary education was unknown. The Christian Brothers had arrived in Athy in 1861 and in keeping with their mission opened schools for the young boys of the town. Education, both primary and secondary, was available to all who wanted it, but the Christian Brothers did seek a small payment from parents who could afford to contribute to school expenses. We attended school five and a half days a week, finishing our school week on Saturday midday. Wednesday afternoons were devoted to Gaelic football practice in Geraldine Park. No other sport was played, and the school’s only competitive team was the Gaelic football team which unfortunately had no success whatsoever during the 1950s. Our teachers were Brother J.D. Brett who arrived in 1955, the year I joined the secondary school. With him was Brother Sylvanus Keogh who had arrived in 1952. He was known to his many pupils as ‘Johnny Borris’. How or why no one appears to have known. Liam Ryan and Paddy Riordan were the lay teachers. Liam came to Athy from County Tipperary sometime in the 1930s and was a well-loved teacher who encouraged and inspired his pupils. As the class of 1955 progressed, many of my schoolmates left school. Some left at 14 years of age to take up jobs around Athy. I still remember how I envied a classmate who left school to become a telegram boy attached to Naas Post Office. Our collective ambitions were limited but were occasionally sharply focused when the Christian Brothers recruiting for the Order attended the school once a year. Many of us indicated a willingness to join the Christian Brothers, but either parents or common sense intervened in many cases to save us for the outside world. A yearly written religious examination was another feature of secondary school life in the 1950’s. It was, I believe, organised by the Diocesan authorities, and was regarded by us youngsters as a day off from the rigours of everyday school. We sat the Intermediate Certificate examination in 3rd year and some, like myself, repeated in 4th year. The 1960 Leaving Certificate examination was the first year of the oral Irish examination. Irish was my worst subject and following the inspector’s oral examination of the leaving certificate class students which took place in the nearby Christian Brothers monastery, Brother Keogh announced to us afterwards; ‘All of you but one did well’ – as he looked directly at me with a resigned look. None of us who sat the Leaving Certificate in 1960 had any thought of going to university. It was never mentioned as a possibility, but some of us did subsequently attend university and obtain degrees after attending night classes. My classmates of the 1950’s endured, rather than enjoyed, school. It was not unpleasant, but youthful enjoyment was measured by post school activities. However, sometimes school time and afterschool life combined to leave us with wonderful memories. One such was the intermediate class meeting addressed by fellow pupil Michael O’Neill, a Kerry lad, which lead to the founding of CARA, later renamed Aontas Ogra. This Irish language club brought together local boys and girls in a range of pleasant activities which we remember as part of our enjoyable school years. I and my classmates left school in 1960 to join the working world where so many of those who had started junior school with us approximately 14 years earlier were already committed to a working life. The Christian Brothers secondary school of the 1950’s is a distant early memory likely to be crowded out by the gathered memories of a long life. However, those school memories will always remain part of my treasured past.

Community Activism / Kevin Feeley, Athy and Kildare County Footballer

I noticed her as I parked my car in the car park opposite Athy’s railway station. She was walking through the car park holding a large plastic bag and a picker with which she picked up papers and refuse. I was intrigued as I knew her very well and she was not known to be employed by the local municipal authority. She told me that she walks around the People’s Park and the car park early every morning picking up refuse which she bags and leaves for a Council workman to take away. I was humbled to think that an old age pensioner would devote so much of her time and energy for the benefit of the local community, without seeking recognition or acknowledgement of her daily good deed. Her contribution to the local community dwarfs anything I have come across in recent years. There are several local volunteers who over the years have made a contribution to the betterment of community life here in Athy. Their work by and large goes unrecognised, although I recall the Municipal Council some years ago holding a presentation night for persons who have made a significant contribution to the local community. During my time as Chairman of the Urban District Council the Council adopted my proposal to make an annual ‘Person of the Year Award’. Recipients of that reward included photographer John Minihan and Sr. Consilio, founder of the Cuan Mhuire organisation. The latter award was particularly relevant because of previous criticism of Sr. Consilio and Cuan Mhuire by some councillors who claimed that the local alcoholic treatment centre was detrimental to the town of Athy. The person who works on her own to keep the People’s Park safe for use by the public is just one of several volunteers working in the town for the common good. The Tidy Towns Committee immediately come to mind. I have written in a previous Eye of their good work, as well as of the work of the many club officials and committee members who have helped create a great sporting tradition for the town. The Men’s Shed, the Women’s Shed and the multiplicity of residents’ associations throughout the town help to create and maintain a community spirit in Athy which is second to none. In a lot of ways, the people of Athy are way ahead of the local government officials and public representatives who make up the County Council and the Municipal District Council. As we await the completion of the Outer Relief Road I was amused to read an extract from the Urban District Council minute book of December 1985 which read: ‘the County Engineer indicated to the members of Athy U.D.C. that it was expected to commence building of the Inner Relief Road in 1986.’ Our town’s history is littered with forgettable events, but also those memorable occasions which enhance our memories of the past. The Inner Relief Road was one such forgettable non-event, but on Sunday I enjoyed a memorable moment or two while watching the Kildare Roscommon football match. I had travelled from Connemara late that morning and arrived home just in time to watch the last 15 minutes or so of the game. With one minute of extra time left Kevin Feeley’s wonderful overhead catch of the football brought an opportunity to kick a winning score. His athleticism and superb fielding were reminiscent of the great Kerry footballer Mick O’Connell. I was privileged to watch the man from Valentia Island play several times in Croke Park. He was one of the greatest Gaelic footballers of all time and when watching Kevin Feeley in that last passage of play I was reminded of the great Kerryman. The then successful kick from the hand for a point from a very difficult angle was another moment of greatness by a Kildare player. I was very proud of the Athy club player and county player who within a minute turned around the game to give the shortgrass county a long sought after victory. What was to follow afterwards was a very impressive post-match interview with Kevin Feeley. I had not previously come across a studio interview between a player just off the pitch and the television’s football panel. If the young player’s performance on the pitch was impressive, his extended post-match interview was superb. Well done to Kildare senior team, and especially Kevin Feeley for a wonderful display both on and off the pitch. He too was a volunteer. As for as the female volunteer of pensionable age, well done and thank you for your work on behalf of the local community.

Ernest Shackleton

The Shackleton Museum in Athy closed its doors in December 2022 as part of the first phase of renovation and conservation works began on the building as part of the five million euro redevelopment. The museum has come a long way from its modest origins forty years ago in the then vacant St. Marys secondary school. A group of local enthusiastic volunteers had come together at a meeting in the local Courthouse in 1983 to establish the Athy Museum Society. Many of those volunteers are now gone, Pat Mulhall, Ken Sales, Bertie Doyle and Noreen Ryan, but their legacy will be seen in the transformed Town Hall in late 2024. This year marks the centenary of the publication of the first biography of Ernest Shackleton. ‘The Life of Sir Ernest Shackleton’ was written by Dr. Hugh Robert Mill, a distinguished academic and close personal friend of Ernest Shackleton. Applying himself intensely to the task, he researched and wrote the book in the 12 months after Shackleton’s death, with significant input and assistance from Shackleton’s widow, Lady Emily. The book is a fine celebration of Shackleton’s life, and particularly his early life. We learn that Shackleton was taught to swim by his father in the local river, the Griese, reminding them of the old Quaker joke of the Ballitore school boys, ‘those who go into the Griese come out dripping.’ There was an idyllic element to his early life in Kilkea where Mill’s writes ‘When the little group of Shackleton children went out with their nurse in the country lanes, Ernest was always dropping behind, looking about in the hedges and ditches, happy in his own thoughts, or gathering and eating the wayside flowers. So habitual was this, that the nurse used to call him “Mr. Lag”. It was almost certain that Ernest could read simple words when he was four years old. He was much attracted by music, and would listen in great contentment to his mother singing Irish airs, or playing the piano for an hour at a time.’ Shackleton’s time in Kilkea was short as after his father qualified as a doctor the family moved to Dublin when Shackleton was six. There was no doubt that his early life in south Kildare made a huge impression on him. This early life and his familial connections with Kildare going back two centuries will form an important component of the displays in the revamped Shackleton Museum in addition to the visitors experience of the highs and lows of Shackleton’s polar triumphs and failures. Key exhibits will include a full sizzed replica of the James Caird life boat. This was the boat that Shackleton, Kerry man Tom Crean and the Cork man Tim McCarthy and three others launched from Elephant Island on Easter Monday 1916 to initiate the rescue mission that saved all the men of Shackleton’s ship ‘Endurance’ after their ship was crushed in the Antarctic ice in late 1915. Perhaps the most important and evocative artefact will be the deck cabin from the Shackleton’s last expedition ship ‘RYS Quest’. This extraordinary survival is the cabin in which Shackleton died on 4th January 1922. Many of us will have enjoyed the superb documentary produced by Moondance Productions shown on RTE on 4th January 2022 which told the story of the cabin’s acquisition and restoration by the Shackleton Museum here in Athy. This artefact will be a focal point of the new museum and is destined to draw visitors from all over the globe. I have written recently of the encouraging signs of the economic uplift of the town , particularly in the opening of new businesses and the completion of the works on the Shackleton Museum are no doubt going to be a huge fillip to this process and present exciting opportunities for the town and its people which they no doubt will grasp eagerly. The international reach of the Shackleton story will be evident with the hosting of the 23rd Shackleton Autumn School on the weekend of 20th – 22nd October 2023. With the museum closed for renovations this year’s Autumn School will be held in the Abbey and the lectures themselves will be held in what was the former chapel of the Sisters of Mercy. There is already huge interest in this event and strong bookings are expected. One of the key speakers this year will be Dr. Michael Rosove, an oncologist surgeon from California who is one of the premier Antarctic scholars and he will be speaking about the publication of HR Mills biography of Shackleton in its centenary year. And for our more intrepid visitors a dip in the Griese will be a must!

Why is there an air of confidence about Athy?

There is a noticeable air of confidence in Athy town of late. It’s evidenced by the recent opening of several coffee shops and an Italian restaurant on the town’s main street. Yet south Kildare has the highest level of unemployment in the country and Athy has an excess of closed business premises which present an unhappy picture of the town. Nevertheless the ancient town which is handsomely traversed by river and canal, continues to receive many compliments with claims that it is the most attractive town within the boundaries of the short grass county. As a young fellow growing up in Athy I knew nothing of the town’s history and like everyone else had no understanding or appreciation of the town’s built heritage. Athy is truly a gem of an Irish provincial town, something which our visitors readily acknowledge. Sometimes however they wonder why the buildings on the main streets are not being properly maintained. Many unpainted and somewhat dishevelled buildings take from the town’s appearance. Kildare County Council have in the past encouraged shop front improvements by offering grants. Would the County Council consider extending the shopfront scheme by engaging a colour consultant to provide colour schemes on a street by street basis to brighten up the local streetscape? The outer relief road is expected to have a huge effect in reducing traffic in the town centre, thereby affording local businesses an opportunity to attract a bigger footfall. However, it needs the business people to come together to plan and execute the necessary steps to attract shoppers back into the town centre. Different sections of Athy’s residents have in the past taken a lead in promoting the town’s interest. The building of the Parish Church and the Dominican Church necessitated the prolonged involvement of many local volunteers during the 1950s and beyond. Later still another group of Athy men came together on Athy’s swimming pool committee to spearhead the town’s drive for a local swimming pool. Their initiative and voluntary work over several years convinced Kildare County Council to proceed with the building of County Kildare’s first municipal swimming pool in the grounds of the People’s Park. The Shackleton Museum and the Arts Centre came about because of local initiatives taken by local volunteers coming together and working for desired objectives. Indeed the outer relief road, championed for so long by the townspeople as opposed to an inner relief road, is a prime example of what can be achieved by collective action. The retailing life of Athy’s main streets rests in the hands of the present day shop keepers. Unfortunately we no longer have a Chamber of Commerce in the town, but there is a need for the collective voices of the business people and residents of Athy to be heard. There is so much which can and should be done to improve business in Athy. The one common complaint from newly arrived residents is what they describe as the town’s poor shopping experience. All of those whom I have interviewed recently regard Athy people as very friendly and the town as one with great potential. Might I hope that the shopkeepers get together to plan and improve our town’s shopping experience, so that instead of locals travelling out of town to shop we can instead encourage local shopping and attract outsiders to shop in Athy. One of my own favourites for a new independent shop in the town would be a book shop. Athy residents as they faced into three more years of famine in 1846 had a book shop in Duke Street owned by John Lahee. The present Lions Club second hand book shop is a wonderful facility but any town with a population in excess of ten thousand people surely deserves a book shop selling the latest new titles. I don’t know if John Lahee was still selling books from his Duke Street premises in 1857 when gas lights were introduced into the principal shops of Athy. The Leinster Leader reported on Christmas Eve of that year ‘on Monday evening (19th December) the streets were thronged by persons admiring the tasteful manner in which the shops were lighted’. The gas lighting of the shops 166 years ago was a momentous event and heralded decades of successful business in Athy which justified the oft repeated claim that Athy was the best market town in Leinster. The opening of the outer relief road offers an opportunity to revive Athy’s main shopping streets. If that revival or regeneration takes place Athy can reclaim the honour which the Leinster Express of 30th July 1859 bestowed on the town ‘there is not in Ireland an inland town that can boast a more public spirit than Athy.’ As I finished this week’s Eye I learned of the passing of St. Dolores O’Grady, a locally based Sister of Mercy who did so much as a community leader within the Ardrew Meadows estate. She led by example to empower her local community on the Barrowhouse road. As a member of the local Sisters of Mercy community she dedicated her life to helping others, especially those in need. In doing so she made a huge contribution to the Sisters of Mercy mission here in Athy. Our condolences go to her family, especially to her sister Mary English and to the Sisters of Mercy.

James Durney's new book 'Stand You Now for Ireland's Cause'

At the opening night of the recent military seminar held in the Riverbank Arts Centre in Newbridge, author and broadcaster John MacKenna launched James Durney’s latest book. Coming at the end of the Decade of Commemoration celebrations it was appropriate that the book was a biographical dictionary of republican activists in County Kildare during the period 1913-1923. James Durney who was the first historian in residence for County Kildare has written the most important book of the many that have been published in recent years with the assistance of the Kildare Decade of Commemoration Committee. ‘Stand you now for Ireland’s Cause’ is a work of immense research and represents a fitting acknowledgement of, and tribute to, the men and women from this county, or those associated with County Kildare during the years of revolution. I have been reading the fascinating information in the book, especially that relating to men who were members of the 5th Battalion Carlow Kildare Brigade which covered Athy, Barrowhouse, Moone, Ballylinan, Moat and Castledermot. The Volunteers, formed in Athy in May 1914, evolved as the A Coy. of the 5th Battalion, while the B Coy. was centred in Barrowhouse, the C Coy. in Moone, later Ballitore, the D Coy. in Ballylinan, the E Coy. in the Moat area, with Castledermot having the largest membership comprised the F Company of the 5th Battalion. Early entries in the dictionary indicated the extent to how often members of the same family were involved as republican activists. John Behan and his younger brother Edward, who lived in Chapel Lane and later Matthews Lane, were both arrested as anti-treaty activists and imprisoned. James Brown and his brother Billy, both of Barrack Street, were members of Athy A Coy. Thomas Brown, who was also a Coy. member, may have been another brother, but this cannot yet be confirmed. Mick Curtis, whose three brothers, Patrick, Laurence and John were killed during World War I, was another member of the Athy Volunteers. Perhaps the most extensive family involvement as republican activists was that of the Dooley family members of 41 Duke Street. Seven members of that family were active participants during the War of Independence. The father of the family, Michael Dooley, was a Laois man who married Julia Bradley of Athy in 1893. The couple operated a grocery and provision store at 41 Duke Street which address was a regular meeting place for local republicans. Michael Dooley was a founder member of the local Gaelic League branch, as well as a founder member of Athy’s Sinn Féin Club. He was elected President of that club in May 1918 and was still the Sinn Féin President when the Civil War started. He played an extremely influential part in the development of Sinn Féin in the Athy area and following his death in 1933 the newly constructed housing estate on the Stradbally Road was named Dooley’s terrace in his honour. His brother Patrick Dooley who operated a bakery at Leinster Street, later the site of Mrs. Hughes shop and Madden’s chemist, was elected to Athy Urban District Council on several occasions between 1922 and 1934. He first stood as a Sinn Féin candidate and in later elections following the establishment of the Fianna Fáil party, stood as a candidate for that party. He was Chairman of Athy U.D.C. from 1929 to 1936. During the War of Independence, he served as a justice in the local republican court. Three daughters and two sons of Michael and Julia Dooley were also actively involved in the republican movement. Esther Dooley, who many of us will remember as Mrs. Hester May, was a member of Cumann na mBan who later moved to Dublin to work in the Sinn Féin publicity department as Secretary to Piaras Béaslaí. She was later Secretary to General J.J. O’Connell and Oscar Traynor. Esther married Athy man Joe May, who had been Secretary of Athy’s Sinn Féin club and who following his arrest in November 1920 was imprisoned in Ballykinler camp for almost a year. Esther’s sister Catherine was also member of Athy’s Cumann na mBan. She later married Eamon Malone, one time Commander of the 5th Battalion Carlow/Kildare Brigade. Eamon was captured while on the run in November 1919 and imprisoned in Mountjoy Jail where he was elected Officer commanding of the Republican Prisoners who went on hunger strike in April 1920. Julia Dooley, known as ‘Gypsy’ was another Dooley family member of Cumann na mBan, while her brothers Michael Junior and John were members of the Athy Coy. of Volunteers. John was arrested by members of the National Army soldiers during the Civil War which would seem to indicate that he might have taken the anti-treaty side. His brother, Michael Junior, on the other hand, joined the National Army and served as a sergeant in Tralee, Co. Kerry during some of the most bitter periods of the Civil War.

Disquieting Scenes in Inch, Co. Clare

On the Great Famine National Commemoration Day a group of people gathered in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Athy to remember those who died in the local Workhouse during the famine years of the 1840s and later. Events in Dublin and County Clare during the previous week prompted remembrance of the million and a half Irish men, women and children who left Ireland during the 1840s to seek refuge in America or Great Britain. How many left Athy or South Kildare for a new life overseas during those years we cannot say. What we do know is that those Irish who sought refuge in America was subjected to harassment and rejection by many Americans who came together in what was known as the ‘Know Nothing Party’. In England but not so much so in Wales or Scotland the Irish who sought refuge were subjected to rejection which was highlighted by notices such as ‘blacks or Irish need not apply’. I wonder did the people of Inch, Co. Clare who appeared to have been given free rein by the Garda Siochana to block with impunity access to public roads, think of the times when their ancestors were refugees. County Clare was like most western seashore counties severely affected by the failure of the potato crop from 1845 onwards. In the Kilrush union area almost 900 houses were knocked down and made uninhabitable between November 1847 and July 1848 by landlords seeking to limit their contribution to the Board of Guardians annual expense. Almost 4,000 men, women and children were left without homes as a result and those who did not enter the local Workhouse struggled to flee Ireland. It was a scene replicated almost 40 years later in the same county of Clare when evictions started on the Bodyke Estate in East Clare in June 1887. The following year the Vandeleur evictions in Kilrush took place. The two evictions are well remembered, especially in County Clare, as are the Luggacurran evictions of the same period which are remembered here in Athy. How some women and men of County Clare acted in recent weeks in opposing refugees being placed in their area is a sad acknowledgement that they have not learned any lesson from their own past history. During the Bodyke evictions Clare women played a leading part in opposing the bailiffs. Indeed at Court hearings following the evictions 22 out of the 26 persons were charged with assault or obstructing the bailiffs were women. Michael Davitt, founder of the Land League, later presented medals to the Bodyke women to show his appreciation for their courageous stand against the landlord, Colonel O’Callaghan, the bailiffs and the R.I.C. who were in attendance at the evictions. The disquieting scenes in Inch, Co. Clare were a reversal of the roles played out by the women of County Clare in the 1880s. There will be no medals for the Clare women folk or their men folk whose stand against refugees is a reminder of what faced the Irish refugees who arrived in America and Great Britain during and after the Great Famine. What I wondered is one to make of the standoff by the Gardai, whose leader Commissioner Drew Harris, seemed to see merit in not dealing with the public ‘road blockers’ by claiming that the Garda inaction showed that the Gardai Siochana was not reacting to ‘right wing forces’. I am frankly puzzled by the Garda Commissioner’s comments and surprised at the failure of the Garda Siochana to deal with the Co. Clare blockades as they are empowered to do by law. There is a perceptible lack of morale amongst many present members of the Garda Siochana. Recruitment to the force is at a low level, while many relatively new members of the Gardai have resigned within the last year or two. The recent decision of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution to proffer charges against an unnamed Garda following the death of three criminals during a pursuit on the motorway adds further to the concerns of serving Gardai. The Garda in question who put his/her own life at risk in an attempt to arrest criminals now finds himself/herself subject to legal sanction. No wonder Garda morale throughout the country is at a low ebb. James Durney, Historian in Residence for County Kildare has produced another superb book, this time a biographical dictionary of republican activists from County Kildare. His work covers the 10 years between 1913 and 1923 and has been published with the assistance of the Royal Irish Academy and the County Kildare Decade of Commemoration Committee. The Committee has done wonderful work during the past decade, with several publications which have opened up previously unknown aspects of our local history. The latest publication ‘Stand You Now for Ireland’s Cause’ will be the subject of a future Eye on the Past. In the meantime the book is for sale in all good Irish book shops.

Great Britain is no longer great

King Charles III was crowned 333 years after the death of the second King Charles, who on his death bed proclaimed himself to be a Catholic. Charles II was crowned King of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1660 after the death of Cromwell and the subsequent disintegration of the Commonwealth. The Protestant settlers living in the fortress town of Athy were alarmed following Charles II’s coronation. Their concern arose from the prospect of a Catholic resurgence following years of religious repression. They had witnessed the accession to the English throne of Charles I in 1625 in succession to his father James I. James was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and was brought up as a Protestant. He was not a popular King as he incurred the opposition of Catholics and Protestants alike, especially Presbyterians. He initially sought to encourage religious tolerance, but the Parliamentarians forced him in the opposite direction. He then attempted to strengthen anti-Catholic measures by replacing the Catholic majority in the Irish House of Commons and limiting the power of elections to Boro Councils which historically were exclusively Protestant. Athy had achieved Boro status in 1515 and by virtue of the 1613 Boro legislation passed during the reign of James I it became a closed Boro with 12 burgesses of the town having exclusive rights to elect two Members of Parliament. Charles I was 16 years old when the Rising of 1641 started in Ulster. The Rising which spread southwards saw attacks by Catholics on Protestants and reprisals by Protestants on Catholics resulting in widespread sectarian massacres. The 1641 Depositions for County Kildare include many accounts of atrocities in and around Athy. James Pearse, a cooper from Athy, recounted how the Irish rebels attacked the town of Athy and how he and his Protestant neighbours were required to set fire to their own homes near the castle of Athy ‘to prevent the rebels’. The following year the Irish rebels returned to Athy and destroyed much of the town. The crown forces of Colonel Crafford’s Regiment eventually captured many rebels who were hanged, as was Athy’s Sovereign George Walker who was believed to have helped the rebels. The Confederate War continued until 1649 and saw several military actions in and around Athy involving Royalist troops, Parliamentary troops and Irish rebels under the command of Owen Roe O’Neill. The Royalists and the Irish rebels fought on the side of King Charles I in the monarch’s war with the English Parliamentarians who were led by Oliver Cromwell. King Charles I was beheaded in London on 10th January 1649 for treason and within weeks the English monarchy was abolished. Some months later Oliver Cromwell landed in Ireland. By the summer of 1652 the English Parliamentarians had control over most of Ireland. Athy was nominated as one of 14 Revenue Precincts to collect taxes and administer justice and as such was the administrative centre for counties Kildare, Carlow and parts of the Queen’s County. The Commonwealth would end with the restoration of the monarchy when in 1660 Charles II was crowned King of England, Scotland and Ireland. He had in fact been proclaimed King of Ireland 11 years earlier during the final years of the Confederate wars. One year before Charles II’s coronation the population of Athy was 565, of which 85 were English and 480 Irish. Athy was then a larger settlement than either Naas or Carlow. In 1662 William Weldon, MP for Athy, claimed that two priests named Fitzgerald and Carroll daily frequented the town and ‘said Mass in the middle of the town several times’. The two priests on being arrested were rescued by the local people, but were soon retaken prisoner. It’s not known what happened to them. It was also during the reign of Charles II that Fr. Raymond Moore, Prior of the Dominican Friary in Athy on two occasions, was arrested and imprisoned in Dublin where he died in 1655. In 1669 Charles II was petitioned to grant two additional fairs to Athy. The petition from the Boro Sovereign and other town officials, claimed that Athy ‘is an ancient and loyal corporation and seated in the heart of a plentiful country both for corn and cattle’. The petitioners stressed that many of the inhabitants of Athy were English tradesmen and that they had suffered much, both by the recent rebellion and by the two fires ‘which lately destroyed most of their houses’. Continuing the petitioners stressed that as a garrison town it would be to the advantage of Athy and the neighbouring countryside to have fairs on May 29th and November 30th, each to last for three days. King Charles II granted the petition and issued the letter patent on 14th January 1670. The Protestant settlers alarmed at a perceived Catholic resurgence under Charles II and the Titus Oates plot of 1678, pressed to have the anti-Catholic legislation enforced more rigorously than before. The Council of State wrote to Athy’s Town Sovereign on 2nd December 1678 following a complaint that about 1,300 persons assembled in or near the town to hear Mass. The Council wrote again seven days later enquiring as to the names of the priests in the area who had not obeyed the Proclamation banishing priests from Ireland. The Town Sovereign was directed to ensure that ‘no popish service be publicly celebrated within the town’. In 1680 a defrocked Franciscan, James Geoghegan, was sent to Ireland to seek out priests. He arrested Fr. Thomas Archibold in Athy who was later released when Thomas Fitzgerald of Maddenstown entered into a bond on his behalf. Five years later Charles II died and is reported to have proclaimed himself a Catholic on his deathbed. What I wonder might we expect to happen during the reign of Charles III. Another Civil War is unlikely, while hunting Catholic priests is no longer appropriate, even if Charles III still swore in his Coronation oath ‘that I am a fateful Protestant’ and pledged to ‘uphold and maintain the Protestant accession to the Throne’. Charles III’s reign starts with great industrial unrest in Great Britain involving unions led by Union leaders of Irish parentage. Current rail strikes are being led by sons of Irish emigrants Mick Lynch of RMT and Mick Whelan of ASLEF. Both men lead the two sister rail unions, while the female union leader Pat Cullen from the north of Ireland leads the strike by NHS nursing staff. Are the Kings subjects, like those of the earlier Charles I and II, in rebellion? Great Britain is no longer great, it’s a country deeply divided. Would it be too much to expect that with the decline and death of the British empire the former colonial power would acknowledge its wrongs of the past, not only in relation to slavery and religious discrimination but also in relation to the partitioning of our country.

The Great Famine

The annual famine national commemoration day falls on Sunday next 21st May. On that day, we will remember the unfortunate folk from Athy and the outlying districts who died during the Great Famine. We will remember in particular the 1,200 or more men, women and children who died in the Athy workhouse. The service led by our Parish Priest, Fr. Liam Rigney will be held at 3.00 p.m. in St. Mary’s Cemetery where the uncoffined remains of the workhouse dead were buried during the Great Famine. Their graves remain unmarked and sad to write Kildare County Council have yet to erect a memorial to the famine dead in St. Mary’s which memorial was promised some years ago. The Great Famine, so called to distinguish it from other Irish famines, saw the darkest days in Irish history. Evictions were a common place occurrence in Ireland of the 19th Century but the clearing of tenants from land during and immediately after the Great Famine was a cause of extreme hardship for many. Hunger and plague stalked the Irish countryside at that time and entire families were robbed of life. The workhouse opened in Athy in January 1844 was just one of the 163 workhouses which were built in Ireland between 1840 and 1853. Recording the tragedy of the Great Famine has been very difficult. For decades, the tragic events of Ireland’s worst famine were shrouded in silence. Those who survived those terrible years were perhaps ashamed to speak of what occurred. The famine dead were buried and sadly their memories were neglected for far too long. In more recent years, we have come to understand the suffering and the hardships of those who lived or died during the Great Famine. It was this better understanding of the famine years that led to the holding of the first National Famine Commemoration in Skibbereen in 2009 and since then the National Commemoration Day has been held in different locations throughout the country. Five years ago, the Government formally designated the third Sunday in May as the National commemoration day to officially mark the Great Famine. Many years ago I studied the minutes of meetings of Athy’s Town Commissioners held during the famine years 1845 to 1849. I was astonished not to find a single mention of the Great Famine, it’s effect on the townspeople or any reference to the local workhouse which was under the control of the Athy Board of Guardians. During those years, more than 1,200 persons died in the workhouse while the town’s population which had numbered 4,698 in 1841 had fallen to 3,873 ten years later. This represented an actual loss of 825 persons but if one takes account of the town’s population increase of 4.5% in the 10 years prior to 1841 and applied the same rate to the following decade a loss of 1,036 persons can be assumed. The Irish famine of the 1840s was one of the worst tragedies in 19th century Europe and the silence of the towns public representatives at that time is a sad reminder of how a demoralised people become silent. Not only did they remain silent and leave little record for examination by future generations but the survivors of the famine also remained silent. For decades, the Great Famine remained an unspoken and an unwritten part of our shared history. The first publication of note on the famine was published in 1874 by Fr. John O’Rourke who was Parish Priest of Maynooth. He had been ordained in 1850 and immediately spent some months as a curate in Castledermot before being transferred to St. Michael’s Parish in Athy in 1851. In his book “History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847”, he wrote “I have a vivid recollection of the blight as it appeared in the southern portion of Kildare in 1850. The 15th July in that year was a day of clouds and lightening, of thunder and terrific rain. It was one of those days that strike the timid with alarm and terror, sometimes it was dark as twilight, sometimes a sudden ghastly brightness was produce by the lightening. Those who had an intimate knowledge of the various blights from 1845 said this is the beginning of the blight, so it was”. We will remember on Sunday next at 3.00p.m. our dead of the Great Famine and especially those who passed away in the local workhouse and whose uncoffined remains were brought by hand cart to the nearby cemetery of St. Mary’s for burial.

Education in Athy in the 19th Century

The Model School which was intended to provide non-denominational education for the Athy area was frustrated in its efforts in this regard from the very start and within a few years it joined the other schools in Athy in catering exclusively for particular religious denomination. The agricultural school which formed part of the Model School complex ran into financial difficulties which led to its closure in 1880. Pupils of that school had received training in the most up to date farming methods and techniques on the farm attached to the School. Originally with a farm of 19.5 acres it was extended to 64 acres in 1855 but the cost of maintaining the agricultural school was excessive and despite the best efforts of the local farmers the school closed down. The lands were auctioned in September 1880. In 1866 the Sisters of Mercy, who had arrived in Athy 14 years earlier, came into possession of two houses in William Street adjoining Minch Nortons Malt Houses. They were adapted for use as classrooms for infant boys and girls and continued to be used as such until 1882. A lay teachers, Mrs. Tormey, taught classes there while Sisters of Mercy provided religious instructions for the young children. The School was known locally as the Turnpike School because it was located on what was known years previously as the Turnpike Road. On the closing of the school in 1882 the children transferred to the Convent schools in Stanhope Place. In 1869 the Sisters of Mercy built a three roomed schoolhouse for infant boys at the end of their garden plot in front of the Convent for the sum of £600. St. Joseph’s was to continue in use as an infant’s school up to 1960 when it was demolished during building work for the new church. Located at the North West corner of the Church grounds and facing onto Rathstewart, it was to hold fond memories for several generations of Athy men whose first experience of school life was in the small one storey building close by the Moneen River. The erection of St. Joseph’s enabled the Sisters of Mercy to expand their secondary school into the rooms vacated by the infants. Further growth in the numbers attending for secondary education resulted in the building of St. Mary’s Secondary School in 1884. This new building, connected with the existing Convent, was blessed by Very Rev. James Doyle, P.P. in July 1884. Meanwhile the Classical and Boarding School located in Emily Square in 1856 closed and in 1870 Slater’s Directory listed only one private school, that of Edward Aiken in Duke Street. On 3 April 1886 the local Catholic clergy and upwards of 700 townspeople signed a petition addressed to the Chief Secretary John Morley requesting that the needs of the local Convent and Christian Brothers Schools be catered for in the event of any changes in the financing of the Model Schools. It was claimed in the petition that £300,000 had been expended on the Model School in Athy which then catered for only 50 pupils, while the other local schools received no state subvention. By 1893 the Convent School building programme which commenced in August 1844 was advanced one stage further with the construction of St. Michael’s Primary Girls School. This School, the foundation stone for which was laid on 26th June, 1892 by the Archbishop of Dublin, was officially opened by Dr. Walsh on 13th August, 1893. Built at a cost of £2,662 the new School had accommodation for 640 pupils. A government grant accounted for £1,316.10.9 of the cost with £658.5.8 being contributed locally. The remaining £687.2.7 was borrowed and cleared by 1922. The Irish Education Acts of 1892/93 which provided for free education in elementary schools and for compulsory attendance copperfastened the denominational system of education initiated by the Catholic Church’s opposition to the Model School system of education. Athy’s Model School which had originally commenced as a nondenominational school lost its Catholic pupils to the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers. Thereafter it was to be staffed solely by non-Catholic teachers with pupil numbers far less than when it first opened in 1852. The educational separation of Catholic and Protestant children was a sad reminder of the social and religious differences which had their roots in previous centuries.

St. Laurence's Football Club

The important part that the Gaelic Athletic Association plays in community life, whether urban or rural, was emphasised for me when I attended a recent book launch in the St. Laurence’s GAA complex. Club members and local residents came together in a display of common identity, the focal point of which was the GAA complex lying at the heart of the local community. I was intrigued to discover that St. Laurence’s GAA Club was founded following a meeting in the National School in Crookstown in February 1957. The meeting was called by the then Parish Priest of Narraghmore, Fr. Joseph Young. A County Cavan man, he had been ordained a few months before the 1916 Rising and after spending 25 years as a curate in Aughrim Street, Dublin was appointed Parish Priest of Narraghmore in 1949. He would serve in that rural parish for the following 9 years before moving to Seville Place, Dublin where he died three days before Christmas 1959. It is somewhat of a mystery why he called the meeting for Crookstown National School as the parish of Narraghmore was already home to two GAA Clubs. Ballytore GAA Club and Narraghmore GAA Club were in existence at that time and indeed I can remember lining out for the Athy minor team against the Narraghmore team in or about 1959. We played in a field in Narraghmore which masqueraded as a GAA pitch and togged out at the side of a ditch. That was a common enough feature of football matches played at that time in rural venues. It is claimed by some that Fr. Young sought to follow the generally accepted policy of the early GAA by seeking to have a club based on the geographical area of the Catholic parish. This had given the GAA in its early years one club per parish, even at a time when the relationship between the Catholic Church and the GAA was not always a harmonious one. Local folklore has us to believe that the relationship between the Narraghmore club and the Ballytore club in the mid-1950s was not good, prompting the local Parish Priest to establish a parish-based club which was called St. Laurence’s. Fr. Young was elected President of the new club which shortly thereafter saw the disbandment of the existing clubs in Narraghmore and Ballytore which merged with the new St. Laurence’s. St. Laurence’s has become one of the more advanced clubs in the county since its foundation and has provided its members with first class playing facilities and an excellent club premises. This has been due to the high calibre of local leadership which has helped to make this rural GAA club an important force in the social and cultural life of the locality. Just a week or so before the book launch in St. Laurence’s John Joe Walsh, President of the Club, died. John Joe, a Mayo man, whose family migrated from the western county with a number of other families in 1956, served for many years as Secretary of St. Laurence’s Club, followed by an extended period as the Club’s Chairman. He was one of the many men and women who over the years provided local leadership which was so vital for the continuing success of the club. John Joe held the unique distinction of being the first footballer from the St. Laurence’s Club to be selected for the County Kildare senior football team. Other players from the area had previously played with the Kildare seniors, including Peter Waters and Jimmy Byrne, both of whom featured on the Kildare team which played Cavan in the 1935 All Ireland Football Final. As I mentioned at the book launch Athy GAA followers still complain of the Kildare County selectors decision to drop the regular county team goalkeeper ‘Cuddy’ Chanders of Athy for the All-Ireland Final. Kildare lost that day after going into the All-Ireland Final as the overwhelming favourites to win the game. Claiming, as I do, that I am a Kilkenny man exiled in Kildare, the story of John Joe Walsh’s arrival in Narraghmore in 1956 and his dedicated service to the local GAA club over many years reminds me that irrespective of club membership we tend to maintain allegiances to the county of our birth. The importance of a GAA club lies in the sense of identity which pulling on the club jersey or supporting the team on the side lines gives us. All GAA clubs are community-based clubs which provide a focal point for communities and help reinforce the sense of place which we all have for the town, the village or the rural community in which we live. That was the sense I experienced in St. Laurence’s last week. Gaelic football and hurling matches inspire passion and sometimes controversy, while the local GAA club holds special importance, not only for its members but also for the wider community, especially in rural areas. The members of St. Laurence’s GAA Club can be justifiably proud of the wonderful facilities which the club now provides, not only for club members but also for the wider local community. The book launch in St. Laurence’s was local man Tom O’Connell’s ‘A Life’s Harvest – Stories from the home place Loraine’. The book is a useful contribution to our understanding of the difficulties, the hardship and the joys of life in rural Ireland in the decades following the economic war of the 1930s. The book should be available to buy in your nearest book shop.

Athy's Soccer Club

In August 1970 Athy AFC, which had been founded 22 years earlier, won its first major soccer trophy when the club’s team defeated Newbridge Rangers in the final of the Ardenode Cup. John Keyes who played that day was 17 years of age and had been selected to play in the final in place of the injured Ernest Henderson. Last week the teammates who won the Ardenode Cup in 1970 and again in 1972 and 1973 came together in Pat Dunnes for a 50th anniversary re-union. It was an evening for meeting old friends and reminiscing on the glory days of Athy’s young soccer club when youthful limbs and high energy levels provided the necessary ingredients for success on the playing field. John, who travelled from Tullamore to attend the function last week, later wrote how for many growing up in Athy in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s soccer dominated their dreams and ambitions. The 1966 World Cup was the springboard which propelled what was previously called the garrison game to the forefront of sport in Ireland. The English players such as Bobby Charlton, Gordon Banks and Bobby Moore were the footballing heroes of the time and the Athy youngsters involved in the local soccer street league enjoyed playing the game of their heroes. I remember many of the Athy A.F.C. club officials of that time, including George Lammon, Frankie Aldridge, Jim Dargan and Brendan O’Flaherty. The soccer pitch at the Showgrounds is today named after Frankie Aldridge who for as long as I can remember encouraged and supported the playing of soccer in Athy. Aldridge Park was previously used by Athy’s hockey club, but when that club went out of existence the ground was leased to the newly formed soccer club. The first soccer match on the Athy grounds was played between Athy and Carlow, with the home team winning by 4 goals to 3. That first Athy team comprised Cuddy Chanders, M. O’Donnell, T. Kiely, J. Walsh, B. O’Flaherty, J. O’Sullivan, G. Kelly, J. O’Donnell, L. Pawelvsych, J. Davis and B. Chanders. It was following in the steps of these pioneering soccer players that the young men of 1970, ’72 and ’73 achieved success in the Ardenode Cup. The gathering in Pat Dunnes brought together many of the players of 50 years ago, but sadly Ambrose Martin, John Barry, George Chatfield, Johnny Hickey, Denis Chanders, Tony Byrne and Walter Clancy are no longer with us. Enjoying the evening were Pat Leahy, John Keyes, Morgan Gray, Cha Chanders, Seamus Clandillon, Noel Myles, Ernest Henderson, Pat Lammon, Colm O’Sullivan, Stephen Bolger, John Bolger and Jack Loughman. Only two past players, Vincent Gray and Joe Foley, were unable to attend the 50th anniversary of Athy A.F.C.’s first major footballing success. John Keyes, in reminiscing about his playing days, identified the street league organised by Jim Dargan, Brendan O’Flaherty and Niall Smith as the means by which excellent players such as Brendan Shortt, Peter Thompkins, P.J. Cooney, Enda Condron, Vincent Gray, Joe Foley, Gerry O’Sullivan, George Chatfield and many others emerged. John acknowledged how soccer brought together young fellows from different backgrounds in the weekly pilgrimage to the Showgrounds which helped each of them improve their personal development and quality of life. Once moment which stood out for John and his teammates was the parade through Athy with the Ardenode Cup following the 1970 victory. The Club’s success that year led to the founding of the Athy and District Association Football Council, representative of Athy AFC and eight newly formed schoolboy clubs. Under the direction of local school teacher Michael Reen and the club’s then secretary Aidan Prendergast, FAI coaching for schoolboy players was organised. It would lead to success in the Sheehan Cup in 1975. Over the 75 years of its existence the club has been helped and guided by many including Matt Tynan who was the club’s first president. Ned Ward, Mick McEvoy, Mick Corr, Mick O’Shea and Bob Kelly are others who come to mind. As a teenager I remember watching Brian O’Hara and Denis Smyth playing with Joe Aldridge, Gordan Prole and Vinny Smith. That was in the days of the G.A.A. Ban when one kept an eye on the soccer matches from the embankment on the adjoining G.A.A. grounds. The aforementioned Denis Smyth was secretary of the club for many years when he took over the position from the club’s first secretary Danny O’Brien. The get together in Paddy Dunnes was a most enjoyable event and brought back treasured memories for the players of the past. I will leave the last word to John Keyes who was the subject of a previous Eye following his retirement as County Manager in Cavan:- ‘The victory in 1970 gave Athy AFC its first cup success, ensuring the club’s place in Athy’s sporting history.’

Launch of Tom O'Connell book 'A Life's Harvest: Stories from the Homeplace Loraine''

It has been a sad week, with so many deaths among friends and folks I have known for a long time past. The journey to St. Michael’s Cemetery was repeated several times as neighbours and friends paid their final respects. The Irish funeral is one of the great traditions of Irish life and unlike similar occasions on the far side of the Irish Sea it demonstrates strong community bonds which unite us in a common identity. ‘Boy’ Prendergast, Anne Prendergast (no relation) and Sean Loughman left us last week and we walked in the funeral processions to St. Michael’s Cemetery remembering and recalling the different qualities they shared socially and through work with the community at large. The new cemetery at St. Michael’s is fast filling up. It opened in or around 1965 and since then has received the remains of many friends, many school mates and several Taaffe family members. They are all remembered while their generations are still represented amongst the living. In another generation or two the identity of those named on the grave memorials will be lost to memory. Writing as I have been for the last 30 years or so on the forgotten people who once walked the streets of Athy I cannot but realise how fragile is human memory. Many men and women who years ago were so much a part of their local community are no longer remembered. Athy, despite recent giant steps in population growth, is still small enough to sustain a sense of community. I was reminded of this when attending the local Arts Centre during the week. ‘Stories from a Small Town’, based on contributions by Athy and Castledermot folk compiled by author John MacKenna was recorded before an interested audience for later broadcast on KFM. The stories gave a glimpse of past lives as lived in south Kildare and provided an interesting insight into times which have changed so much in the last few decades. On next Saturday 22nd April a book launch will take place in St. Lawrence’s GAA clubhouse at 8pm. Tom O’Connell, a native of south Kildare, has written a book based on his late father’s shared memories captured in recorded interviews in the last year of his long life. ‘A Life’s Harvest – Stories from the Home Place Loraine’ is a personal memory of a life lived in rural Ireland. It’s an oral history of one man’s experiences in the extended south Kildare community where he lived and worked. It’s a fascinating story of farming families and how the ways of the recent past have changed. A farming life is revealed as John Connell’s memories are explored and exposed to give us a deeper understanding of a sense of community. The book will be launched by the local TD and Minister for State Martin Hayden, while the MC on the night will be some fellow by the name of Frank Taaffe. I was very interested to find that Tom O’Connell had included in his book a number of interviews carried out by the late Willie Kelly in the south Kildare area prior to his death in 2002. Willie was a man who sought to record the cultural and social history of the people of his local area and his research has helped in no small way to preserve the rural heritage of south Kildare. It’s a task which has been shared with other relatively recent publications such as Michael Delaney’s ‘The Time of our Lives’, Colm Flynn’s ‘A Tie to the Land’, ‘Kilmead, A Local History’ by Geraldine Deegan and others, ‘The Parish of Narraghmore’ by Fr. J. Young P.P. and ‘Kilmead 1798-1998’. Indeed the venue for the book launch on Saturday has itself been the subject of one of the better GAA club histories published in recent years. Local history is alive and well in the hearts and minds of the people of south Kildare and Tom O’Connell’s first venture into publishing will be a welcome addition to our understanding of rural life as once lived in this part of the green country. Athy’s Art Centre which has become an important part, indeed an essential part of the cultural reawakening of Athy and south Kildare, hosts an interesting talk on Tuesday 25th April. Colm Walsh, the originator of the now famous ‘Made in Athy’ plaque project, will give a talk on Athy’s contribution to the world of music. Under the title ‘The Local Families who changed music forever’, he will relate the stories of four families from Athy who made an important contribution to the development of modern music. Colm’s talk will deal with emigration from Athy in the mid-1950s and the subsequent rise of musicians such as The Stone Roses, the Smiths, the Buzzcocks and many other international music stars. The evening will feature rare interviews, archived performances and many interesting if surprising stories. Athy’s Art Centre is the place to be on Tuesday 25th at 8pm, while St. Lawrences GFC will be focus of our attention on Saturday 22nd, also at 8pm. Both events are free of charge.

Report of Visit to Wallboard Factory 1951

The following interesting Report of an excursion to the Wallboard Factory in Athy was sent to me by Mick Robinson a schoolmate who is now based in Australia. Mick was unable to tell me where it was first published but I believe it may have appeared in a newsletter or journal of the Society of Irish Foresters which was founded in 1942. “On Saturday the 13th October 1951 occurred one of the most interesting and enjoyable of our short excursions when our Society visited the Wallboard factory in Athy at the invitation of the Irish Wallboard Co. Ltd. Mr. Shackleton accompanied by the senior members of his staff received the Society on the factory grounds. Each member was given a typed hand-out explaining the various processes in the manufacture of wallboard. Then the party was organised into small groups and shown over the factory. It is interesting to know that the wallboard manufacture was started on 15th May 1951 when the Bowater Corporation purchased a controlling interest in the Company which had been successfully manufacturing strawboard since 1949. Inadequate supplies of straw sounded the death knell of that industry. The turnover of Wallboard manufacture was far sighted, enterprising, and courageous and today this factory employing 180 men and with machinery more than £500,00 is producing 150 tons of wallboard per week; the Company hopes to reach the 200 ton mark shortly. With an English export market and an ever increasing demand the company has every reason to be optimistic and proud of its achievements so far. The first casual glance around the factory was one of amazement at the enormous quantity of logs stacked so neatly in the factory yard. Equally surprising was the speed and efficiency with which the logs were converted into chips in the chipper machine and then conveyed by a belt arrangement into the factory proper where the process really commenced. Inside the factory members showed great interest in the very up to date machinery which pulped, churned, rolled and in a relatively short space of time turned out beautifully polished wallboard. The efficiency and meticulousness with which samples were tested in the laboratory was noted with admiration and it was not surprising that wallboard is becoming more popular every day. It was evident to all that a uniformly high quality board must result when such careful checking is carried out. It was interesting to learn that a wide range of species can be used in the process. The following classification indicates the relative importance and suitability of the various species used;- CLASS A – (Can be used 100% for Board manufacture) Sitka and Norway Spruce, Douglas and Silver Fir, Scots, Austrian and Corsican Pine, European and Japanese Larch, Willow, Aspen, Poplar. CLASS B- (Can be used 50% with Class A) Alder. CLASS C & D – (Can be used 25% with Class A) Sycamore, Ash, Beech and Birch. The wood should be fresh, sound, free of all rot and reasonably straight, knots, limbs and irregularities must be trimmed off and the logs cut squarely at the ends. The logs must not be shorter than 3½ feet nor longer than 15 feet while the diameter must not exceed 7 inches nor be less than 2 inches. The Company pays the following prices per ton for material delivered to the mill :- £4 Os. Od. for distance up to 60 miles. £4 5s. Od. for distance up to 60/80 miles. £4 10s. 0d. for distance over 80 miles. The significance of the above details was not lost on the members and the far reaching effects of this bold venture were the subject of lively discussion. Its revolutionary effect on the forest economics was fully appreciated and it was clear to all that because coarse timber and small thinnings were eminently suitable the stock of commercial timber in the country would not be adversely affected, in fact it would be conserved to a certain degree. It was fully realised that a steady market for forest thinnings had at last been established. In addition many labour shortage problems have been solved in remote forests since the Wallboard Company has undertaken the felling and extraction of thinnings. It was particularly gratifying to the foresters, the growers of the raw material, to see that such a beautifully finished product could be produced from the hitherto almost unsaleable small thinnings. They realised that this closer utilisation of timber would have the effect of increasing the value of our young plantations and poor quality old plantations as well as the low quality class sites generally. These and many other aspects were discussed enthusiastically and it was heartening to hear that forest thinnings are ideal for the process. It was satisfactory also to hear that the factory uses 40 tons of turf daily in the huge steam boilers and the employment created indirectly must be considerable on this account. The factory staff entertained the members to tea in Bradbury’s Café in Athy when the tour of the factory had ended. The gay spirit which pervaded the tour generally heightened as the crowd mingling freely, chatted gaily and renewed old friendships at the running buffet. After the pleasant meal Mr. McEvoy thanked the Factory Officials on behalf of the Society for their kindness in providing such an interesting and well organised excursion. Mr. Shackleton replying on behalf of the firm stated that it was a pleasure to meet such an enthusiastic body and to note the interest shown in all that had happened.” Sadly the Wallboard factory is one of the several industrial businesses lost to Athy in recent years.

Lions Club first Book Fair / Remembering Ellen Kearney, Dr. Thomas O'Higgins and his son Kevin

The week past has seen Athy’s first bookfair held in the ARCH on the Kilkenny Road and the last of the Winter series of historical lectures in the local Arts Centre. The bookfair was a great success with bookdealers very pleased and I think surprised at the numbers who came by to view and in many cases to buy books. The local Lions Club which organised the event will consider holding another bookfair in October and hopefully make the Athy fair a biannual event in March and October each year. I was astonished to learn of attendees who travelled from as far away as Galway and Leitrim for the bookfair and all those attending either to buy or sell books expressed themselves well pleased with their Athy experience. A special thanks must go to the management committee of the ARCH for the use of the hall and to the president of Athy Gaelic Football Club, Henry Howard for the arrangements he personally oversaw regarding the loan of tables. Thanks also to Seanie Bolger of Athy AFC who helped the Lions Club at short notice by delivering extra tables to accommodate the bookdealers who had not booked in advance. It was a fine community effort spearheaded by Athy Lions Club. The Winter history lecture series concluded on Wednesday evening with another good attendance to hear Marc Guernan’s talk on “Medieval Athy”. His followed the previous month’s lecture by David Walsh, when a full house listened to his talk on “Athy and World War I in Twenty Objects”. The lecture series has attracted appreciative and increasing large audiences since the first lecture last September and it is planned to open the second year series with a lecture in September. The Arts Centre has been particularly busy in recent months following its re-opening with the ending of covid restrictions. The day following Marc Guernan’s lecture there was a full house for the Gordon Giltrap concert. The legendary artist received a great reception on the night and his performance was later highly praised on social media. The Arts Centre is developing as a cultural mecca for Athy and South Kildare and is fully deserving of the support it is getting from Athy folk. Just a few weeks ago I wrote an Eye on the restored Thomas O’Connell roadside memorial near Maganey. I posed a question as to who was the good, generous woman, “Mrs. Kearney” who had a memorial cross for the late IRA leader, cast in the Duthie Large foundry in Athy for installing at the road side where he lost his life on the 31st of August 1924. Michael Dempsey from Castledermot followed up my question and with the help of Bernie Walsh genealogist from Carlow discovered much background information on Mrs Kearney. She was born Ellen Townsend at Lower Tomard, Carlow in or about 1877 and was working as a nurse in the Carlow asylum when in 1911 she married Thomas Kearney, a keeper in the same institution. It is not known if the couple had any children. Mrs Kearney was living in Brown Street, Carlow when she died aged 83 years in 1959. Her involvement with the IRA and the Cumann na mBan is still unclear but given the donation she made in 1924 we can safely assume that she was a supporter of the Republican Movement, if not an active participant during the revolutionary years. Any more information anyone can give on Mrs Kearney and her Republican Movement involvement would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime thanks to Michael Dempsey and Bernie Walsh for the information obtained to date. Travelling back to Athy following a Court appearance in Portlaoise today I intended to stop at the O’Higgins Memorial in Stradbally but found it was inaccessible while it was being cleaned. Was there I wonder any remembrance ceremony to mark the assassination in his Stradbally home of Dr. Thomas O’Higgins by anti treaty men on the night of the 10th of February 1923. The killing of the doctor whose son, Kevin was Minister for Home Affairs was undoubtedly led by local men. Only one man, Martin Byrne of Fallowbeg in Luggacurran was arrested and despite O’Higgins’s daughter, Patricia have identified him he was freed by a military Court. Just over four years later the doctor’s son, Kevin O’Higgins was assassinated on the 10th of July 1927 by republicans later named as Tim Gaughan, Archie Doyle and Bill Gannon. They were never charged with his assassination as their identity only became known fifty eight years later. As the Decade of Commemoration comes to a close I hope that we will remember all the men and women, Republican and treaty supporters alike who were involved in the tragic happenings during Ireland’s revolutionary years.

Athy Today compared to Athy of Yesteryear

I was asked recently what changes have taken place in Athy over the years. It was a question which made me think because for someone like myself who spends his working days in the town, the changes, imperceptible as they may be, pass for the most part unnoticed. How does Athy of today compare to the town as it was sixty years ago, or in the time when the Great Western and Southern Railway Guide of 1856 noted ‘few towns in Ireland are more auspiciously situated than the town of Athy’. Seven years later Thomas Lacey in his book of travels published under the title ‘Sights and Scenes in our Fatherland’ claimed that Athy was ‘a handsome regular town’. There is no question but Athy is attractively sited on the banks of the river Barrow, a waterway which is complemented by the manmade canal gracing the western side of the historic town. There is no doubt that the town centre plaza, backgrounded by the early 18th century Town Hall, gives Athy a handsome appearance which cannot be matched by any other town in County Kildare. The side streets, spreading out from the town’s main street, which latter street is recognised by archaeologists and historians as a fine example of an Anglo Norman linear type street, helped create the compact urban settlement of earlier years. That compactness was lost with the extension of the town beyond its medieval boundaries and the more recent housing developments on its outskirts. The town’s centre streetscape has not changed to any great degree in the last 100 years. While many building facades have been modified and business names have disappeared, the buildings themselves for the most part still stand, as high or as low as they were a century ago. But it is not only buildings that make a town – the life of a town comes from its people and here in Athy we can proudly claim that ours is a family friendly town. This was the unqualified view of the many persons and families who in recent years came to live in Athy. The town’s population has increased hugely in the last 25 years and the general opinion of the many new members of our community whom I have met expressed themselves as very happy living in Athy. Their only complaint is the inadequacy of the shopping experience in a town which 60 years ago was one of the best shopping towns in Leinster. There are certainly changes which have emerged over the past decade or more and they are confirmed by the number of vacant shops on our main streets. Offaly Street, the street in which I lived as a youngster, was then home to a pub, two sweet shops and a cinema, all of which are now closed up. Athy has changed, even as its streetscape remains largely unchanged. But in many ways it has changed for the better. The 1930s saw the setting up of a Distress Committee headed up by the Town Clerk and the local District Court Clerk to help families affected by flooding on the river Barrow. Flooding was an annual occurrence which particularly caused problems for families in St. Joseph’s Terrace and required the provision of a boating service to allow those families to get to the shops and attend Sunday Mass. Before the opening of the I.V.I. Foundry and the Cement factory in the 1930s emigration from Athy bled the town of many young men and women. The same St. Joseph’s Terrace witnessed an extremely high level of emigration during that decade. Athy had similarly suffered a high loss of men folk to emigration in the mid-1920s, so much so that the local GAA club had difficulty fielding a senior football team. Times have changed. The scars of emigration no longer mark our community’s life. The local men and women no longer take the mail boat. Now we welcome families to Athy, many of whom find it possible to live in the town while working in Dublin and elsewhere. This has helped to create for Athy a sense of a satellite town with all the advantages and disadvantages this brings. A major change which we tend to overlook arose with the departure of the Christian Brothers, the closure of the Mercy Convent and the departure of the Dominicans from the town. The loss of the Dominicans after so many centuries of service stretching back to the early medieval years was an unwelcome change for many locals. The loss of the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy, both of whom brought education to generations of young Athy folk, was in a way a recognition of the improvements in the Irish education system. Yes, Athy has changed over the years, but remains as a 19th century writer noted ‘a handsome town’.

Book town Hay on Wye and Athy's Lions Club Book Shop

Hay-on-Wye, a Welsh village just a step or two within the Welsh English border, is a book lovers paradise. The late Richard Booth opened his first second hand book shop in the village of Hay in 1962. He went on to open a number of other book shops in Hay and was joined there by other second hand book dealers to create the world’s best known book town. I first visited Hay-on-Wye in the early 1980s when the Welsh town with a population of about 2,000 was home to upwards of 30 second hand book shops. One of those shops was the town’s former cinema which was fitted out by Richard Booth to make what was then one of the world's largest second hand book shops. Today the cinema book shop is still in business, offering a huge variety of books for sale as do the twenty or so other book shops still located around the town of Hay-on-Wye. Amazon and other online book dealers have of course restricted the growth of book towns such as Hay-on-Wye in Wales and Wigtown in Scotland. Nevertheless both continue to thrive and Hay-on-Wye especially so during the annual Hay Festival of Literature which was founded in 1988. I was reminded of the importance of book shops in the development of our personal cultural lives when I read the headlines in the London Times on Monday ‘Return of book shops is a novel idea’. ‘A record 142 book shops opened in France last year, notably in small provincial towns’, reported the Times. Apparently there has been a steady growth in book shop openings over the past decade, a trend which has been attributed to anti-Amazon activism and demographic changes that have led city dwellers to settle in the provinces. Here in Athy we have witnessed an enormous growth in population with the town numbers increasing by over 150% in recent years. The current population of 10,000 or so far exceeds the population figures which were more or less static for more than a century, hovering as it did in or around 4,000. This increase has not brought with it the additional services which one might expect. One such missing service is a book shop and the absence of a cultural mecca for readers prompted the local Lions Club some years ago to open the Lions second hand book shop in Duke Street. It provides a wonderful service for book readers but Athy still needs a dedicated book shop offering for sale the latest publications from Irish and overseas publishers. Athy cannot hope to emulate the success of Hay-on-Wye or even Scotland’s Wigtown, but the town’s reading public presently served by an excellent town library surely deserves the opening of a new book shop. The local Lions Club which with the help of its honorary Lions Club member Alice Rowan, opens the second hand book shop five days a week, has now planned the first National Book Fair for Athy on Saturday 25th March. Opening at 10am in the A.R.C.H. on the Kilkenny Road the fair will bring together a number of book dealers offering an interesting and varying collection of books for sale. There will be one book stall devoted to books published on different aspects of Athy’s history. It offers a unique opportunity for those who came to live in Athy in recent years to learn more about the south Kildare town which they now call home. The Shackleton Museum will also have a stall at the book fair offering for sale a mixture of local and polar exploration titles, including the recently published ‘An Antarctic Affair’ by Fergus O’Gorman. A few days later Marc Guernon will give the next lecture in the Lecture Series organised by Athy’s Historical Society in the Arts Centre in Woodstock Street. Marc, who is an archaeologist and a gifted artist, will describe and illustrate some of the hidden elements of the medieval landscape of Athy which have long remained hidden. It promises to be an interesting overview of the medieval town of Athy, which because of its location played an important part in many aspects of Ireland’s medieval history. Admission is free to the lecture which starts at 8pm on Tuesday 28th March in the Arts Centre. Writing of books I must mention the book launch planned for St. Lawrence’s G.A.A. clubhouse on Saturday, 22nd April at 8pm. The book ‘A Life’s Harvest: Stories from the Home Place Loraine’ written by Tom O’Connell, a native of nearby Loraine Fontstown, is his late father’s stories of life in rural Ireland. More about this book launch nearer the event.

Heuston Station / Remembering Eamon Walsh / Noel and Carmel Reddy

I don’t know how many times I have passed through Heuston Station, Dublin but as I exited the station last week I noticed for perhaps the first time on the top of the Corinthian pillars the lettering ‘Vic vii ….. 1844’. This referred to Queen Victoria, then in the eight year of her reign, and the date 1844 I presume refers to what was the expected date of completion of work on the railway station. The building was not however completed until November 1848 due to a stonemason strike. The Great Southern and Western railway line to Athy and to Carlow was opened on 3rd August 1846 during the second year of the Great Famine. Not many, if any, of the 1,200 or so poor unfortunates who died in Athy’s Workhouse during the Famine ever had the means to travel by rail to Dublin. Railway travel was extremely expensive in those early rail days, even if the rail companies sought to engage with the poor by providing third class carriages which were open to the elements. In those days few from Athy and south Kildare ever got the opportunity to see the splendid new railway station which has been described as having the appearance of a great Renaissance House. Every time we pass through what was once called Kingsbridge Station, we can treasure the thought that the great figures of Irish history were frequent users of that same station. Charles Stewart Parnell set out from Kingsbridge Station for that fateful open-air meeting in Creggs, Co. Roscommon in September 1891 which was his last public appearance in Ireland. He would die on 3rd October after returning home to Brighton following that meeting which he had attended despite his doctor’s warning that he was not fit to travel. Padraig Pearse used the same station on many occasions when travelling to Rossmuc, Connemara where his holiday cottage was located. Reflecting on the 1844 date made me realise what great advances were in hand in Ireland at that time as various railway companies pressed on with their plans to extend railway lines across the Irish countryside. But if there were advances there was also great hardship endured on a regular basis by a majority of the people of Ireland. That same year the Athy Workhouse was opened on 9th January and the first inmates include 6 men, 15 women, 13 boys, 5 girls and 2 infants. The workhouse and the two ancillary workhouses which were opened during the height of the Great Famine would at one time in 1848 accommodate 1,254 impoverished men, women and children. It was almost three years since I wrote to the then Chairman of Kildare County Council, Councillor Mark Stafford, asking for the Council to erect a memorial to Athy’s famine dead who were buried in unmarked graves at St. Mary’s cemetery just across the road from the former Workhouse. Mark very kindly agreed to put the request to the Council and I believe the Council agreed to erect a memorial. Subsequent correspondence passed between the County Council and the HSE regarding ownership of the cemetery. Imagine my surprise to read recently that the promised memorial is now being mentioned as a memorial for the mothers and babies who died in the County Home. The County Home which was not a mother and babies home but primarily a place for the elderly and the infirm, is now being regarded as part of the Mother and Babies Home regime. It was never that and the County Council should not lose sight of the famine dead from Athy and the surrounding areas whose sad lives ended in a workhouse and whose remains were left in the ground at St. Mary’s without any recognition or identification. We need to remember our famine dead, and I hope Kildare County Council will do that by erecting a suitable famine memorial in St. Mary’s before too long. During the last few days the town lost two of its well loved and highly regarded members with the passing of Noel Reddy and Eamonn Walsh. By a strange coincidence both Noel and Eamonn were porters in the Bank of Ireland and the Allied Irish Bank respectively and both came from families with generational old connections with Athy and south Kildare. Indeed, Eamonn’s father Eddie Walsh was the porter in the Provincial Bank for 41 years and on his retirement was replaced by Eamonn who served in the same position for 34 years. Noel was an ever-optimistic supporter of Kildare in the county’s quest for an All-Ireland senior football title, while Eamonn was a musician who graced the musical scene for many decades as a member of the Spotlights and other groups with which he was associated over the years. Eamonn was the subject of an Eye on the Past No. 549. Noel’s death followed the death of his wife Carmel just a few weeks earlier. Carmel was an energetic and valuable contributor to many community-based activities, and I will remember the important role she played as secretary of Athy’s Development Group in furthering the call for an outer relief road instead of the inner relief road planned by Kildare County Council. It’s sad that she did not live to see the opening of the new road which she and many other local men and women campaigned for over many years. Like the forgotten famine dead, the true record of more recent events such as the campaign for the outer relief road and the famine memorial fade from memory as new narratives tend to give us a different and not necessarily true account of the past.