Athy Eye On The Past

‘Irish soccer is in crisis’. So pronounced the TV newsreader earlier today as news of the resignation of the Irish international team management was made public. The previous day I read in the Kildare Nationalist of Athy Association Football Club’s celebration of its 70th anniversary in the Clanard Court Hotel. The loss of Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane and the recent lack of success of the Irish international team was unlikely, I felt, to diminish the enthusiasm of Athy’s club chairman, Stephen Bolger, and his colleagues in managing one of the most successful sporting clubs in south Kildare. Athy AFC has a proud history which stretches even further back than the 70 years which were recently celebrated. The first note I came across of soccer played in Athy was in the mid-1920s at a time when the Barrow Drainage Scheme headquarters was based in the town. An employee of the Barrow Drainage Company, whose first name is regrettably lost in time, a Mr. Sanford, organised a soccer team in the town. Called the ‘Barrow Rovers’, the team included locals such as Chevit and John Doyle, Ned Ward, Jim Eaton and Cuddy Chanders. Cuddy will be recalled as the man who would feature in later years as goalkeeper for the Kildare County Senior GAA team. ‘Barrow Rovers’ apparently disbanded when the Barrow Drainage Scheme ended. It wasn’t until 1948 when Athy’s hockey club went out of existence that a former hockey club member, Matt Tynan, called a public meeting to set up a soccer club. Matt was manager of the local L&N shop at the corner of Emily Square and Leinster Street and he recognised that the former hockey pitch in the Showgrounds would be an ideal soccer playing pitch. Other local men involved with Matt Tynan in setting up Athy AFC in 1948 included Jimmy O’Donnell and Harry Prole. The emergence of the new club encouraged several locals who up to then played soccer with a Carlow team to transfer to the Athy club. They included Gerry Sullivan, ‘Oney’ Walsh and Tom Kealy. To encourage the development of the game amongst local youngsters Matt Tynan presented a cup in 1952 for a street league competition. Youth teams from Barrack Street, Pairc Bhride, Offaly/Leinster Street and St. Joseph’s Terrace were some of the streets/estates involved in the Tynan Cup competitions. Matt Tynan’s role in the early years of the soccer club was extremely important as events were to prove on his departure from Athy in about 1960 when the club went into decline. This prompted some of the older club members to call a public meeting in December 1964 which the local press reported was attended by ‘members of the Barrow Rovers team of the 1920s and the later club which flourished from 1948-1960.’ Amongst those who took a leading part in reviving Athy’s soccer club were Brendan O’Flaherty, Denis Smyth and Mick McEvoy. I remember some of the players of the 1950s whom I enjoyed watching in those ‘GAA foreign games ban days’ from the other side of the fence as I attended GAA matches in Geraldine Park. Brian O’Hara, Joe Aldridge, Frankie Aldridge, Denis Smyth, Brendan O’Flaherty, Alo Gallagher, Mick Godfrey, Tommy O’Rourke and George Lammon are just a few of the names which come to mind. Athy AFC under the chairmanship of Stephen Bolger has gone from strength to strength and now fields men’s and women’s adult teams as well as a large number of underage teams. A soccer academy and an underage league promotes the game amongst the very young, while the indoor astra park opened in March 2012 gives the club a wonderful facility to help grow the sport. The Athy AFC grounds named Aldridge Park after the late Frankie Aldridge, is located in the Showgrounds alongside the GAA pitch, the rugby pitches and the tennis club. The playing fields of the three major Irish field sports located together in Athy’s showgrounds represent a unique facility and one which owes much to the initiative and foresight of past Athy folk who were involved in acquiring the land for agricultural show purposes at the start of the last century. Athy AFC has a membership in excess of 350 and the club trustees, Joe Foley Snr., Morgan Gray, Frank Whelan, Finbarr Bride and Tom Kearney have all been involved as players and administrators in the club over many years. The continuing growth of the game in Athy is evident in the emergence of soccer teams and soccer pitches in Clonmullin and Woodstock. Whatever about the lack of success at international level soccer is a popular sport here in Athy, due in large measure to the commitment and enthusiasm of the officers and committee members of Athy’s AFC both past and present.

Driving recently towards Castledermot I passed along a road which in medieval days and earlier was possibly a trackway through thickly wooded countryside. I was prompted to reflect on how the fortunes of the town I had just left and the town I was approaching had changed over the centuries. John MacKenna in what I believe was his first published work ‘Castledermot and Kilkea – a social history’ in the final paragraph wrote ‘The present village of Castledermot is very old …..before Diarmuid established his hermitage on the Lir bank there were people in the area.’ The late Tadgh Hayden, who wrote and prepared the souvenir brochure for Castledermot’s An Tostal in 1953, claimed that Diarmuid, the hermit, came to the area in or about 500 A.D. and built a beehive shaped cell and a small church in the neighbourhood of the present round tower. The book of the Four Masters on the other hand had Diarmuid’s grandfather killed about the year 800 A.D. which prompted John MacKenna to believe that the religious collective which was later to become the Norman town of Tristledermot and finally Castledermot was founded in 823. Whether it is 500 A.D. or 300 years later Diarmuid’s monastery was part of Ireland’s golden age of religious foundations. It’s importance as a religious settlement can be surmised from the fact that the Vikings who normally travelled by water attacked the monastery and in doing so moved so far inland. A hog backed Viking gravestone decorated with crosses, the only such one in Ireland, is all that remains to remind us of the Viking attack on the monastery nearly 1200 years ago. The importance of Diarmuid’s monastery was further affirmed as the place of burial of Cormac O’Cuilleanain, King of Munster and bishop of Cashel, who was killed during the battle of Ballaghmoone in 907. The Anglo Normans who arrived in Ireland in 1169 recognised the importance of the religious settlement in the rural area, which by then included a round tower built for defensive purposes following the earlier Viking raid. Strongbow gave the area around the present Castledermot to de Ridellesford and the area around Kilkea to de Lacy. The subsequent building of Kilkea Castle and the Castle of Tristledermot strengthened the Norman influence in this area and for a time the village of Tristledermot was one of the most important rural settlements in the Norman’s Irish world. It was in Tristledermot, later corrupted to Castledermot by English speaking settlers that the first Irish parliament was held in 1264. Attended by 26 knights the Irish parliament would be held in Tristledermot on ten further occasions between 1269 and 1404. The Tristledermot settlement, like the neighbouring Norman settlement at the Ford of Ae (Athy), attracted not one but two religious houses. The Crouched Friars came in 1210 and the only physical reminder of their time in the area is the present St. John’s tower. The Franciscans founded a monastery in Tristledermot in or around 1300 and the substantial remains of what is today referred to as ‘The Abbey’ is what remains of that monastery. The village of Tristledermot was surrounded by strong defensive walls, the only portion of which remain today are what are called ‘the Carlow gate’. That gate was one of four gates which were in the Norman village walls and through which Edward Bruce and his Scottish troops marched when they attacked and destroyed much of Castledermot in 1316. The Confederate Wars also saw the Cromwellian army attack and destroy Castledermot for the second time in 1615. The village would never again regain the prominent position it had enjoyed in the social and economic life of south Kildare. The subsequent decline of the once powerful settlement of Tristledermot coincided with the emergence of neighbouring Athy as the most prominent urban settlement in south Kildare. The latter’s position on the navigable River Barrow gave it a huge advantage over its near neighbour at a time when travel by road was well nigh impossible. It was an advantage which in the 17th and 18th centuries saw Athy emerge as a developing market town. The opening of the Grand Canal to Athy in 1792 and the extension of the railway line to Carlow through Athy in 1846 copper fastened Athy’s claim to be the leading town in the south of the county. Unlike Athy Castledermot has been the subject of several publications over the years, including those earlier mentioned by Tadgh Hayden and John MacKenna. Reverend Warburton wrote a guide to St. James’s Church in 1968, while Eamon Kane’s book ‘Diseart Diarmada’ published in 2015 deals extensively with the early history of the village of Castledermot. One other interesting book was that published in 1919 under the title of ‘Dysert Diarmada; or Irish place-names’, it’s author being described as ‘an Irish CC’. Can anyone help me to identify the author in question.

I was reminded of long lost youth when, during the week, I had an unexpected visit from two friends of my late brother Seamus. Fifty-three years have passed since his tragic death in a road traffic accident on the Dublin road, but memories were quickly revived when ‘walks down the line’ as part of teenage life in Athy of the early 1960s was mentioned by my visitors. Dolores Nolan and Niamh Hegarty have been friends since school days. Both attended the local St. Mary’s Secondary School, Dolores making the morning journey from Duke Street, while Niamh made her way from the Hegarty home at Geraldine Road. Dolores’s parents were Tom and Molly Nolan, her father having come to Athy in 1943 to open a shop at 42 Duke Street. Tom was a native of Newbridge and after his early behind the counter work experience in shops in Castledermot and Carlow came to what was then the thriving market town of Athy to open his own shop. His wife was the former Molly Moore, whose brothers Michael, Eddie and Charlie were already part of the commercial life of the town. Tom Nolan carried on business in Athy until 1971 when he retired to live in Dublin. Dolores who had spent most of her adult life abroad returned to live in Ireland last year. Three years earlier Niamh Hegarty made the return journey to Ireland after spending 35 years in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was there that the school friends from Athy, both living in Johannesburg, were able to renew their friendship. Niamh was the youngest child of Joseph and Teresa Hegarty who came to Athy in 1949 when Joseph took up a position with the Wallboard factory at Tomard. Dolores and Niamh were part of a young group of friends and students from St. Marys and the local Christian Brothers School, many of whom would leave Athy as school years ended. Both remembered with fondness many of their classmates, Carmel Brophy, Katherine Clancy, Noelle O’Connor, Olga Rowan, Stacia Miller, Fidelma Blanchfield, Eilish O’Donnell, Eithne Hughes, Enda McNulty and Finola Moriarty. Between the Christian Brothers School boys and the girls of St. Marys friendships were forged and memories created with never to be forgotten walks ‘down the line’. I well remember my own classmates’ appreciation of the welcoming countryside around Sunnyside and how we all enjoyed meeting there for after school activities, free from the questioning gaze of parents and teachers. Dolores and Niamh were part of school class group which included not only their friends in St. Marys, but also CBS students such as Ger Moriarty, Seamus Taaffe, Kevin McNulty, Terry Dooley, Denis O’Sullivan, Liam Kane, Niall Hegarty and many many more, too numerous to mention. Athy in the late 1950s and early 1960s was in many ways so very different than it is today. This year we have a population in excess of 10,000 persons, whereas 50/60 years ago the busy town pubs catered for a population of a little more than 4,000. It was a small town full of independent shops where men such as Tom Nolan could run a successful business at a time when not a single empty shop premises was to be found in Athy. It was a time when Joe Hegarty could look forward with confidence, as did many other men and women as employment opportunities in the town improved after the economic downturn of post war years. Dolores and Niamh recalled with nostalgia their school days which were spent in the primary school and secondary school of the local Sisters of Mercy. They remembered with fondness Sr. Raphael and Sr. Alphonsus, two of their primary school teachers and their secondary school teachers, Sr. Paul, Sr. Oliver, Sr. Rose, Sr. Zavier and Mother Therése. Having spent a greater part of their lives abroad Dolores and Niamh enjoyed sharing with me their memories of Athy, of friends and of friendships of almost 60 years ago. Those memories were underpinned by a youthful happiness shared with classmates and families, many of whom are now gone from us. Dolores’s mother Molly died in 1977, to be followed months later with the passing of her father Tom in January 1978. Niamh’s parents continued to live in Athy where her father Joseph died in 1984 and her mother Teresa 13 years later. Both are buried in St. Michael’s cemetery. The extended Nolan/Hegarty families are no longer part of the current Athy community but for the one-time Convent of Mercy school girls Athy will always hold a special place in their memories.

‘St. Michael’s is one of the most ancient of the many ruined churches in the parish of Athy’, so wrote a former Athy curate, Rev. James Carroll, with reference to the church in St. Michael’s cemetery in an article in the second issue of the Kildare Archaeological journal published in 1893. He claimed that the church was built in the 14th century but the Urban Archaeology Survey led by the late John Bradley in the mid-1980s noted ‘the Church of St. Michael’s was in existence by 1297’. Athy was one of many Anglo-Norman settlements in this area and by the mid-13th century had developed into a sizeable settlement as evidenced by the presence of two religious houses. The Crutched Friars, the name commonly given to the Canon Regulars of the Holy Cross, were invited to come to Athy by Richard de St. Michael, Baron of Rheban and Lord of the Manor of Woodstock. They were followed some years later by the Dominicans who chose a site for their priory on the east bank of the river Barrow. The late Dominican historian, Fr. Hugh Fleming, was unable to determine who invited the Dominicans to this part of the country. The most likely candidate he thought was either a member of the St. Michael family or Maurice Fitzgerald who was owner of Kilkea from 1244. The Crutched Friars, unlike the Dominicans, had parish responsibilities for St. Johns. The Dominicans, as was usual for that religious order, built their priory outside the village settlement. What is perhaps even stranger is that the parish church of St. Michaels was built so far away from the Anglo Norman settlement which had developed around a castle at Woodstock. The Anglo Norman settlers, like the native Irish, shared the same catholic faith and while separated by status and nationality they were also separated by language. French was the language of the settlers, Irish the language of the natives. The small church of St. Michaels was, I believe, built for use by the native Irish inhabitants of this area, while the Crutched Friars and the Dominicans, in the early years at least, catered exclusively for the French speaking settlers. Fr. Carroll, who had transferred from Athy to Baldoyle by the time his article appeared in the archaeological journal, noted that ‘the church’s west gable is nearly perfect and the small “light” above with its oaken lintel yet remains ….. some years ago a portion of the side walls disappeared, as did the eastern end and the vestry on the south.’ Unfortunately in the intervening years further damage has occurred to the ancient structure and for safety reasons it has been closed off with metal barriers for the last 3 or 4 years. I have in previous articles noted that the town’s distinctive heritage comprising historical buildings such as St. Michael’s Church, the Town Hall, Woodstock Castle and Whites Castle, to mention just a few, are key resources in promoting our town. As a community we need to take care of these resources for they give Athy with its other historical assets the town’s unique character. The elevated ground in front of St. Michael’s Church is evidence of its use for burials over many centuries. Some years ago the volunteers who comprised Athy’s cemetery committee while cleaning up St. Michael’s cemetery, attempted to recover grave slabs which over the years had disappeared underground. One grave slab recovered was that of the Daker family which records deaths which occurred from 1739 onwards. The Daker family were proprietors of the large tanyard recorded as operating in Athy in the latter half of the 18th century. The town boasted several tanyards, but Daker’s tanyard at the end of Tanyard Lane which later led to the Dominican Church (now Athy’s library), was by far the largest in the area. Unfortunately the volunteers were unable to locate the grave slab of Robert Pearson which was once recorded with the following inscription: ‘In hope of the happy resurrection here lyeth the body of Robert Pearson Esq. Captain of the 10th Regiment of Foot of Ireland who served under the brave Duke of Marlborough’. The damage to the old Church of St. Michael’s was compounded by the even more regrettable removal of what was once described as a fine old arch which was located between the church and Bothar Bui, now the Dublin Road. Its removal some time during the mid 1800s deprived us of an important medieval structure. There is an urgent need to preserve and maintain St. Michael’s Church, which every native of Athy knows as ‘The Crickeen’. Kildare County Council’s Historic Monuments Committee, in cooperation with Athy’s Cemetery’s Committee should, undertake the necessary work to protect St. Michael’s Medieval Church.

The 2019 edition of Carloviana, the journal of the Carlow Historical and Archaeological Society, has been published. It is a fine publication, with a range of well researched articles relating to County Carlow and persons from that county which even non Carlovians will find of interest. The society which started life as the Old Carlow Society in 1946 published its first journal in January of the following year. This year’s Carloviana brings to 67 the number of journals produced in the intervening years. Carlow has seen a number of excellent publications in recent years, from the pens of writers as diverse as Alan Stanley, Gerard Murphy and Dr. Michael Conry. The latter’s published output is extremely impressive, having first reached out to the general public with his book ‘Culm Crushers’ in 1999. Since then Michael Conry has written seven other books, all of them dealing with different aspects of Ireland’s rural folk life. A native of County Roscommon Michael, who is now retired, spent many years working for An Foras Taluntais in Oakpark, Carlow. He was awarded a Ph D by Trinity College where he studied under the guidance of the legendary George Mitchell, one of Ireland’s foremost environmentalists. No doubt influenced by Professor Mitchell, Michael set about the study of various aspects of Ireland’s cultural heritage. Over a period of 17 years ending with his last book in 2016 Michael Conry has published a veritable library unique in its scope and subject range. His first book published was ‘Culm Crushers’. It describes the history and folklore of an almost forgotten aspect of Ireland’s industrial archaeology – that of grinding stones for tempering culm, as well as grinding corn, bones, chalk, mortar and rendering. As Michael explained in the book’s foreword: ‘in times when money was scarce ….. culm (anthracite slack) provided an excellent and cheap source of fuel ….. dancing the culm and yellow clay with a pair of brogues was an laborious and time consuming task ….. its not surprising that man developed the simple technology of tempering the culm and yellow clay with culm crushers’. That first small paperback was followed the next year by ‘The Carlow Fence’, a book devoted to a unique feature of the County Carlow landscape. County Carlow, two thirds of which is underlain by granite bedrock, had stone masons who over the years learned to use the natural granite to create granite slab fences and the two-tiered granite fences unique to the county. It was a book which awakened interest in what was a forgotten feature of the Carlow landscape. Michael Conry’s third book in three years was a masterful account of culm as a domestic and industrial fuel in Ireland. Under the title ‘Dancing the Culm’ Michael traced the history of burning the culm as a domestic fuel, the techniques used to make the culm balls and the various methods of cooking on the culm fire in different parts of the country. Dr. William Nolan in the books foreword described how the culm was mixed with dry yellow clay in the ratio of 7:1, with some water on the flagstones before the mixture was worked by tramping the bed of culm with a pair of old boots. It was, he noted, a monotonous hard ‘dance’, but a necessary one for so many households for whom coal was an expensive commodity. How right William Nolan was when he declared that in ‘Dancing the Culm’ Michael Conry ‘had struck a rich vein that shone with the lustre of peacock coal.’ Next up after a lapse of three years was the book ‘Cornstacks on Stilts’ which dealt with the use of building stacks of corn stands, a practice which died out long before the author began to research the topic. Two years later ‘Carlow Granite – years of history written in stone’ appeared in the bookshops. This latest tome drew attention to the importance of granite stone in the lives of Irish people and in the economy of the country. It detailed how Carlow people learned to use granite so extensively that it today forms an integral part of the architectural heritage of the county. Michael Conry’s research and publications on various aspects of rural life gave us two other remarkable publications ‘Picking Bilberries, Fraochans and Whorts in Ireland’ published in 2011 and five years later ‘The Rabbit Industry in Ireland’. Both books unveil for its readers a view of Irish life of the recent past. Both are important studies recording in print a way of life which was once quite common but is today unknown to a people for whom the country life is viewed, if at all, as a cultural wasteland. Michael Conry through his books has shown that the store of cultural heritage to be found in the Irish countryside provides a richness of history and folklife which tells the story of a now largely disappeared rural life.

Polling in the General Election of 1918 took place on 14th December and the count and the declaration of the result occurred two weeks later. Twenty-five of the seventy-three successful Sinn Fein candidates were returned unopposed. Arrangements were made for the first meeting of Dáil Éireann to be held on 21st January 1919. That meeting would adopt a provisional constitution for the Dáil and make a formal Declaration of Independence for the Irish Republic. On the same day eight men, members of the south Tipperary Volunteers, waited at Soloheadbeg to ambush a convoy consisting of two workmen conveying gelignite in a horse and cart, accompanied by two local RIC men. The ambushers were led by Seamus Robinson, but subsequent accounts relegated Robinson to a minor role, while promoting both Dan Breen and Sean Treacy to more prominent positions. The first written account of the ambush was published in 1924 under Dan Breen’s name where he claimed: ‘again and again we called on them to put up their hands ….. their fingers were on the triggers ….. another appeal on our side would be useless ….. quick and sure our volleys rang out ….. the two policemen were dead.’ The two R.I.C. men, the first killed since the 1916 Rising, were county Mayo born James McDonnell, a 57-year-old widower with five children and 36-year-old Patrick O’Connell, a single man from Cork. They were Irish men, whose killing marked what is generally claimed to be the start of the Irish War of Independence. It is a claim which is difficult to sustain, given that it did not result in the start of any sustained military activity over the following months. Indeed, the Kerry volunteers could well claim that their attack on the R.I.C. barracks at Gortatlea, Co. Kerry on 13th April 1918 when two of the volunteers, John Browne and Richard Laide, died could well claim to be the start of the War of Independence. Whatever the merits of the often-repeated claim that the Soloheadbeg ambush marked the start of the War of Independence, the action of the Tipperary men certainly upstaged the first Dáil sitting of 21st January. It was according to Todd Andrews ‘an operation that went wrong’ while the Volunteers Chief of Staff Richard Mulcahy would claim ‘this episode has on the one hand being outrageously propagandised as a leading episode in waking up the country ….. it had many regrettable and unwarranted features ….. bloodshed should have been unnecessary in the light of the type of episode it was.’ The maverick nature of the Soloheadbeg action was not to the liking of the Volunteer’s headquarters staff and indeed was condemned by church dignatories of the time. The War of Independence would eventually end with the truce of 11th July 1921 by which time 432 R.I.C. men, for the most part Irishmen, had died at the hands of the Volunteers. By the time the R.I.C. was disbanded a further 65 constables would be killed. As students of Irish history, we have grown up on stories of the Black and Tans. Less well known are the actions of the Volunteers, many of whom fought the good fight, while others sadly tarnished the good name of freedom fighters by actions which even after the elapse of almost 100 years cannot be justified or condoned. The assassinations of unarmed constables as they attended church services were appalling actions. The killing of two R.I.C. sergeants in Galway on 15th March 1922, long after the truce was in place, was particularly repugnant. The two men were patients in St. Bridget’s Hospital, Galway, Tobius Gibbons, a 44-year-old single man from County Mayo having been admitted three weeks previously, while John Gilmartin, a 50-year-old married man from County Leitrim had been admitted on 9th March. Four masked men entered the hospital and shot the two bedridden R.I.C. men. This coming week the community of Soloheadbeg will commemorate the centenary of the ambush and in doing so will honour not only the ambush party but also the two Irish R.I.C. men who lost their lives on that fateful day. The commemoration will be in keeping with the views of the expert advisory group set up by the Government to advise on commemorating the decade of centenaries. The expert group stated: ‘the State’s task is to encourage an effective and conciliatory tone that recognises that neither side has the monopoly of either atrocity or virtue.’ Many of the events of the Irish War of Independence require detailed critical reflection if we are to have a better understanding of how our country achieved its long-sought independence.

Within the last two weeks old treasured connections with Offaly Street were severed with the deaths of Eddie Roycroft, Olive Smyth and Aidan Stafford. Eddie was the eldest son of the Roycroft family who lived behind Offaly Street in Janeville Lane next to the Doody family. It was a time when the Urban District Council had not completed the housing programme first commenced in the mid-1930s to rid the town of its unfit housing stock. The small houses accessed by the lane which ran between No. 3 and No. 4 Offaly Street and which backed on to the Abbey, then Dr. O’Neill’s residence, were small two roomed dwellings built in the 1870s. The builder was local man, Thomas Cross, who had also constructed similar sized houses in Connolly’s Lane off Meeting House Lane. The latter houses were demolished by the time I was able to take cognisance of my surroundings and indeed they may well have been demolished during the construction of the Councils first housing scheme in 1913 which saw new council houses erected in Meeting House Lane, St. Michael’s Terrace and St. Martin’s Terrace. Eddie Roycroft was the eldest son of the late Jimmy and Teresa Roycroft. Jimmy was from Sligo and while serving in the army and stationed in the Curragh he met and married Teresa Cummins of Athy. They lived for some years in Sligo where Eddie was born before coming to Athy in 1954. Living firstly in Shrewleen Lane the Roycroft family later moved to Janeville Lane where they and their neighbours, the Doody family, brought a welcome musicality to the neighbourhood with the wonderful ballad singing of Teresa Roycroft and the musicianship of Paddy Doody and his siblings. Olive Smyth was the youngest of six brothers and sisters who lived in No. 2 Offaly Street which in earlier times was called Preston’s Gate. The medieval gate was removed in 1860 following the accidental death of the local rector, Rev. Frederick Trench, but the name Preston’s Gate lingered on for a time until replaced with yet another Leinster family name. The Smyth family were part of a close-knit Offaly Street community at a time when the street was alive with youngsters. It was a street where those of us who lived there enjoyed companionship and friendships which endured even after we left the area. Memories of Pattie Websters, Miss Sylvesters, Dowlings, later Kehoe’s pub and Moores nearby, recall a street full of activity where young families shared experiences and life in good times and difficult times. One of those difficult times was when the scourge of TB ravished the country. Families in Offaly Street lost loved ones, as did many other families in this part of south Kildare. Olive Smyth and Eddie Roycroft were part of that local community who in their time helped create the memories which have carried forward over the decades. Aidan Stafford was part of the wider Athy community but back a generation there was an Offaly Street connection. His father John once lived in Offaly Street and it was from there that four of John’s older brothers, Edward, Thomas, Frank and Peter joined the Dublin Fusiliers during World War I. Edward and Thomas died in that war and their nephew Aidan was one of those who attended the annual Remembrance Day ceremonies in St. Michael’s cemetery from the time they were started almost 20 years ago. Aidan’s father John was an officer in the LDF during the Second World War continuing, but in a different uniform, the military tradition of the Stafford family established by the Stafford Brothers in 1914-18. Another Offaly Street connection with the Staffords was provided by John Stafford’s sister Judy who married Tipperary born Andy Cleary, both of whom lived in Janeville opposite St. Michael’s Church for many years. The Roycroft, Smyth and Stafford families were part of the rich tapestry of life in Athy stretching back several generations. The passing of these family members reawakens treasured memories of times past. The Decade of Centenaries Commemoration continues with a commemoration of the first Dail meeting in 1919 which will be held in the Osprey Hotel in Naas on Wednesday, 23rd January at 8.00 p.m. Castledermot Historical Society will host a talk given by yours truly on ‘Castledermot and the Spanish Flu 1918’ on Tuesday, 29th January. Athy’s Historical Society lecture series for 2019 recommences with a talk by James Durney at 8.00 p.m. on Tuesday 12th February on ‘County Kildare and the First Dail’.

Last Wednesday Kildare County Councils Decade of Commemorations Committee organised an event in Naas to mark the first meeting of Dail Eireann held in the Mansion House, Dublin on the 21st January 1919. That meeting of the “Assembly of Ireland” followed a remarkable electoral triumph by the Sinn Fein Party which was helped hugely by the changes brought about by The Representation of The People Act 1918. That Act which broke the link between property ownership and voting rights gave the parliamentary vote to men over 21 years and to certain women over 30 years of age. This increased the Irish Electorate from approximately 700,000 to just under two million. Given what happened in Ireland in 1918, it was no surprise to find that the Sinn Fein party candidates got the majority of support. The rise of the Sinn Fein Clubs and the Volunteer movement owed much to the conscription crisis of April 1918. The Sinn Fein party’s popularity was further enhanced by the “German Plot” of the following month when many of its leaders and Volunteer organisers were arrested and interned. The British Governments decision to proclaim these two organisations in addition to Cumann na mBan and the Gaelic League added further impetus to the wave of Irish Nationalism which gripped the Country in the months prior to the General Election of December 1918. 105 Members of Parliament were elected in December 1918 of which 73 were Sinn Fein and 26 Unionists with the once powerful Parliamentary Party returning only 6 members. Many of the Sinn Fein members elected were either in Prison or on the run and that first Dail sitting consisted of only 28 Sinn Fein members. Representing the County of Kildare was Domhnall Ua Buachalla and Art O’Connor. Ua Buachalla from Maynooth, a veteran of the 1916 Rising represented North Kildare while here in the South, Art O’Connor, an Engineer with Kildare County Council had defeated the sitting M.P., Denis Kilbride. O’Connor was one of the many Sinn Fein candidates interned at the time of the election and so missed the first Dail sitting. The Parliamentary success enjoyed by Sinn Fein was added to with the holding of local elections in 1920. They were the first nationwide elections held under the proportional representational system which was intended to support minority groups. The result was an overwhelming victory for Sinn Fein candidates. Irish local authorities subsequently acknowledged the authority of Dail Eireann. In the meantime, the British House of Commons had passed legislation providing for parliaments in the six counties and twenty six counties. On the 24th May 1921, elections were held to return members to the two parliaments. The two sitting TD’s for County Kildare were returned without a contest. The following day, the I.R.A. attacked and burned the Dublin’s Custom House, an action intended to destroy British government files and so reinforce the Irish claim to self government. The truce came into effect on the 11th July 1921 and on the 7th January 1922 the terms of the Treaty was agreed leading many on the anti-treaty side to claim it was an act of betrayal. Seven days later the “Parliament of Southern Ireland” was convened and was attended only by the pro-treaty members of Dail Eireann. Neither of the Kildare members attended. On the 14th April 1922, anti-treaty forces took over the Four Courts in Dublin, an action which is generally regarded at the start of the Civil War. Michael Collins and Eamon DeValera in an attempt at making peace later agreed to put forward candidates for a further general election. Collins later repudiated the agreement in the face of continuing guerilla warfare but it was clear that the pro-treaty side had the support of the majority of the Irish people. The election held on the 16th June 1922 saw Ua Buachalla and O’Connor lose their seats while another unsuccessful candidate was Athy man JJ Bergin standing for the Farmers Union. The Civil War which was marked with brutality and atrocities ended in May 1923. Regrettably the anti-treaty irregulars were not accorded an amnesty and many had to leave the country or go on the run to evade arrest. The first general election under the new Free State Constitution was held on the 27th August 1923. Ua Buachalla and O’Connor lost again. In the June 1927 General Election, O’Connor was unsuccessful but Ua Buachalla was elected and re-elected in the election call for the September of the same year. The June election saw two unsuccessful candidates from the Athy area JJ Bergin and George Henderson both representing Independent Farmers. The Irish State which emerged from the Treaty negotiations acquired a maturity and stability, the start of which was that first Dail meeting of the 21st January 1919. Kildare County Council’s celebration was a worthy event which regrettably was attended by only four of the forty County Councillors who represent this county.

‘On Thursday 19th May 1921 the final phase of the Barrowhouse tragedy was completed when the bodies of two young men, Lacey and Connor, were interred at Barrowhouse graveyard.’ So reported the Leinster Leader a week after the Barrowhouse ambush on Monday 16th May. A subsequent military Court of Enquiry was held in Ballylinan into the deaths of James Lacey and William Connor. The evidence adduced at the enquiry showed that an R.I.C. cycle patrol, consisting of a sergeant and four men, were ambushed at Shanganamore. The patrol consisted of Sergeant John McHale, Constables Grey, Denis Griffin, James Keane and another unidentified constable. The police were cycling in single file when the sergeant saw a man with a gun in his hand running across a field towards a ditch near the road. Sergeant McHale shouted a warning to the patrol to take cover. While they were doing so a volley of shots rang out and one of the constables fell to the ground wounded. The policemen returned fire. After about an hour the attackers withdrew (subsequent reports indicated that the exchange of fire lasted for 10 or 15 minutes). Following a search the R.I.C. found a body lying in the ditch with a shotgun still held in the hand. This was the body of James Lacey in whose pockets ammunition was also found. The enquiry was told that the R.I.C. then withdrew to Athy, returning later with reinforcements. Another search of the ambush scene lead to the discovery of a second body, as well as several shotguns and some ammunition. The Court of Enquiry found that James Lacey and William Connor died from bullet wounds inflicted by crown forces in the execution of their duty. The local newspapers when reporting the incident noted that when news of the ambush reached Athy the streets cleared quickly and were empty before curfew hour. The curfew in force from 10pm to 5am was changed to commence at 9pm following the Barrowhouse ambush. Reprisals by crown forces following I.R.A. activity was a common feature of the War of Independence. Houses in the Barrowhouse area were raided by crown forces following the ambush. Patrick Lynch, a carpenter by trade who lived near the ambush site, subsequently prepared a statement of the R.I.C. raid on his house which culminated in the burning of his home and his workshop. Lynch was first approached by constable Bagley and an unidentified sergeant who questioned him about his involvement with the I.R.A. Lynch had not been involved in the ambush but after being questioned Constable Bagley said to him: ‘it’s only ten chances to one that you will be burned out tonight Lynch’. The R.I.C. search of Lynch’s house left the house contents in disarray and Lynch reported how one man wearing a dark waterproof coat threatened him with a revolver saying, ‘you thought to shoot me up the road today’. However, Constable Denis Griffin intervened and told Lynch, ‘I won’t let him shoot you.’ The following morning at 2am a threshing machine, 40 tons of hay and 20 tons of straw belonging to Martin Lyons were destroyed in an act of reprisal by the crown forces. Patrick Lynch’s home and workshop were burned to the ground, while Mary Malone’s house was also destroyed. On the 3rd of July the house which Constable Griffin rented from Mrs. Hickey at Ballylinan crossroads was burned to the ground. Local newspapers reported how a party of masked men entered at night-time the house occupied by Mrs. Griffin and her children while her husband was away. The I.R.A. burned the house with all its contents. Two days later Constable Griffin was shot and seriously injured when ambushed by a number of men as he cycled from his lodgings to the R.I.C. Barracks in Mountmellick. He was severely wounded in the left groin and was subsequently declared unfit for service in the R.I.C. He would receive the constabulary medal in July 1921 as did Constable James Kane, while Sergeant McHale and Constable Edward Gray were awarded the third-class favourable record for their involvement in the Barrowhouse ambush. The day after the Barrowhouse ambush Constable Martin Doran, formally of Cardenton, Athy was shot and killed in Kinnity, Co. Offaly. A 24 year old single man Doran had joined the R.I.C. three years previously. The R.I.C. barracks in Athy was attacked by the I.R.A. six days after the Barrowhouse ambush. The attack started at about 11pm and lasted for about thirty minutes. There were no casualties. Three days after the ambush Fr. J. Nolan C.C. Athy, assisted by Canon Mackey, P.P. Athy and six other priests celebrated High Mass in Barrowhouse church for James Lacey and William Connor. There was a large congregation in attendance and at the end of the Mass I.R.A. volunteers carried the coffins to the nearby graveyard. The two coffins were placed in the same grave. The last post was sounded by a volunteer and three volleys were fired over the grave. The ambush site at Barrowhouse is today marked by a simple memorial.

Many of us have been transfixed by the machinations of the Westminster Parliament in London since the Brexit vote. There has been a sense, until very recently, that the public at large had lost interest in parliamentary politics but the daily dissection of parliamentary matters across the water is proof that this is not the case. Kildare and particularly Athy occupied a prominent place in the thoughts and actions of the legislators in Westminster in the 1830’s with the upheaval triggered by the outbreak of the Tithe wars of the 1830’s. It is mostly forgotten today, bookended as it was by Daniel O’Connell’s emancipation campaigns of the 1820’s and the Great Famine of the 1840’s. None the less it was a period of significant civil discord and dissent in Ireland and Athy. The Tithes were a form of tax levied on the population to maintain protestant churches. The taxes were applied to the population whether they were members of the church or not, therefore the Catholic peasantry and the members of the Presbyterian community were also liable for the tax. The war or campaign against Tithes was triggered by the actions of Fr. Martin Doyle, the Parish Priest of Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny, the cousin of Bishop Doyle of Kildare and Leighlin when Fr. Doyle refused to pay Tithes on a 40-acre farm which he had in addition to his parochial house. Thereafter the campaign spread rapidly through the country. By 1833 the matter was of such concern that it received considerable attention in the House of Commons. The chief secretary of Ireland E.G. Stanley delivered a substantial speech to the house on February 27th, 1833 where he detailed what he described as the ‘outrages’ in Kildare. The purpose of the speech was to support his promotion of the Disturbances (Ireland) bill which was in his words “for the repression of violence and disturbance, for the protection of life and property and for the maintenance of order”, he described its adoption as “a most imperious and pressing necessity”. Speaking of Athy he referred to reports received from the Chief Constable of the Irish Constabulary. He noted that on the night of the 15th of January 1833 that the house of William Batt, a retired naval officer living at Bray, Athy was entered by several men who robbed Batt of a case of pistols, a fowling piece and some ball cartridges. The house of a Dr. Carter of Castledermot was burnt on the 25th of January, while an armed party went to the house of a farmer called Kelly near Kildangan and demanded the surrender of his arms. Kelly refused, the armed party opened fire and Kelly returned fire wounding one of his assailants in the face. Stanley went on to refer to a letter he had received from a correspondent from Athy in February 1833. This correspondent advised him that members of juries at the last Court sittings had been obliged to carry firearms for their personal protection while attending the courts and that magistrates had been unable to get providers of coaches, caravans or conveyances locally to bring witnesses to court. They had been threatened that their carriages would be broken up if they facilitated the court sittings. Thereafter the Court officials were obliged to order carriages from Dublin to bring witnesses to the Court in Athy. Previously Mr. M. Singleton, a magistrate sitting in Athy, writing from the town on the 23rd of September 1832 informed Stanley of his difficulty in getting a witness to give evidence in relation to an attack on a farmer’s house in Athy. The witness, from Kilkenny, refused to give evidence for fear of the consequences of his actions. Singleton committed him to Carlow jail for his contempt of Court. When next brought before the Court the witness said that he would only give evidence if he could get the approval of his priest. After the intervention of the clergymen the witness was more forthcoming, and the ultimate culprit was committed for trial in Portlaoise later that year. Stanley’s bill was ultimately passed but the Tithe war rumbled on until the late 1830’s and only petered out when responsibility for payment passed to the landlord and not the tenant. Stanley, later to become Earl Derby, would go on to become Prime Minster on three separate occasions. His contribution to Irish affairs is probably better and more positively remembered by reference to “the Stanley letter”. In writing, in 1831, to the 3rd Duke of Leinster he set out the governments proposals to establish the legal basis for national schools in Ireland. The letter was an important stepping point for the establishment of the national schools’ system which remains the basis for primary education in this country to this day.

The recent death of Jimmy Kelly of Chanterlands marked another milestone in the passage of time and the reactivation of memories first gathered during youthful days in Offaly Street. Jimmy was the second son of County Mayo born Garda James Kelly and his Kerry born wife Marie. He was a child of the early 1930s who spent his entire working life in Athy. No more than myself his attachment to the south Kildare town was the result of his father’s transfer to Athy early in his Garda career. For Jimmy his schooling in the local Christian Brothers school and the strong work ethic which he displayed throughout his adult working life were the foundations of his honourable approach to life. He had huge regard and respect for his workmates in the Wallboard factory where he worked during the entire period of that factory’s existence. He shared in the disappointment of his colleagues when the innovative industrial venture first mooted in the pre-World War two years closed down in 1977. The Wallboard company was formed in 1939 but due to the outbreak of World War two the machinery needed to open the factory could not be imported. The factory finally opened in April 1949 only to close 28 years later. Jimmy had treasured memories of his Wallboard colleagues and was always anxious for their role in the industrial life of Athy to be recorded. He knew Athy and his own generation with a knowledge which generously interposed reality and myth and gave to his memories of times past a feeling of nostalgia which we all share. In truth life in Athy of the 1940s and the 1950s was difficult for many families. However, as we look back with the passage of time those difficulties once experienced in youth are sidelined and give way to recollections of happier times. Jimmy was a man who over the years shared many memories with me, but always on the understanding that his name was never to be mentioned. Not that those memories were anything but good and complimentary of the persons and events mentioned. For Jimmy never sought the limelight and would never countenance his name being interposed in the accounts which I frequently wrote about after another friendly chat with the man from Offaly Street. That was the street where the Kellys, the Moores, the Whites, the Websters, the Cashs and the Taaffes of my generation were reared. Jimmy was of an older group of sons who were already part of the local employment force when we younger ones were still playing cowboys and indians in the People’s Park. Paddens Murphy, another Offaly Street man, was of that older generation and in the week that Jimmy Kelly died Paddens Murphy and his colleagues in the Sorrento dance band were honoured with the unveiling of a plaque on the Town Hall. I was in England for the past while and missed Jimmy’s funeral and the plaque unveiling ceremony. I would certainly have liked to have been present for both to mark my respect for the two former residents of Offaly Street. I found it strange to read of the Sorrento band being described as a showband. In the 1940s and the 1950s the musical combinations of the time were either orchestras or bands and even though the Sorrento under Paddens Murphy opened Dreamland with Victor Sylvester, I believe it was always known as Paddens Murphy’s Sorrento dance band. I had hoped that the plaque would be put on the wall of what remains of the Murphy’s house at No. 24 Offaly Street. That for an Offaly Street fellow would I felt be the most appropriate place for such an honour. However, the unveiling of the plaque to the Sorrento band was a remarkable tribute, not just to Paddens Murphy but also to the many local musicians who over the years were part of the Sorrento story. A week in which my old street lost one of its old boys and also saw another old boy honoured is a week tinged with sadness and pride. Memories of times past gives all of us an opportunity to reflect on the passing years and to understand and appreciate the people whose lives touched ours. Jimmy Kelly and Paddens Murphy were part of that past as was Mrs. Maureen Rigney who died within the last week. My sympathies go to the families of Jimmy Kelly and Mrs. Rigney and my regrets to the extended family of Paddens Murphy for missing what was a great occasion and the opportunity to meet old neighbours when they attended the plaque unveiling ceremony at the Town Hall last week.

The recent announcement of the Food and Drinks Hub to be located in the former Model School on the Dublin road is welcome news for Athy. The media announced it as an initiative by Kildare County Council and full marks to the senior officials of that Council for their involvement in what is another important part of the continuing attempt to revive the town’s fortunes. In the reports I read in the local newspapers there was no mention of the woman who came up with the original idea. Liz Fingleton, who lives in what was once part of the Model School residence, first promoted the concept of an interactive visitor centre for Ireland’s food and drinks industry and specifically sought to have it located in the vacant Model School. Liz did an enormous amount of research and canvassed support from several Irish companies before discussing the idea approximately two years ago with Athy’s Enterprise Network which had earlier been established by Athy Lions Club. Following that presentation Liz entered into discussions with Kildare County Council and I can only surmise that the good news which greeted us last week was the end result. Liz’s initial submission outlined the links between tourism and the food industry and how drinks related visitor centres were successful in Ireland. She noted that food and drink were synonymous with Irish tourism and expressed the belief that an interactive food and drinks visitor centre, if designed to world class standards, would bring a positive tourism response. As part of her very detailed submission Liz prepared a suggested tourist trail for Athy related to food production and allied topics. It featured the proposed food and drinks centre in the Model School, the town’s old Market House, Athy’s old corn exchange, Minch Nortons and Boortmalt and diverse but linked elements such as the Canal, the Workhouse and many other less well-known town features. Congratulations to everyone involved in the Food and Drink Hub project, but a special thank you to Liz Fingleton who more than anyone else is responsible for this unique project. Forty-three years ago a young Portarlington man who had learned his trade in Tullamore decided to set up business in Athy. Athy at that time was still home to the I.V.I. foundry, Bowwaters Wallboard factory and the Asbestos factory and the young man from County Laois was quite confident that the south Kildare town offered an unequalled opportunity for the opening of a menswear shop. Today Manleys Menswear celebrates 43 years in business and while the retail life of Leinster Street and indeed the town itself has changed enormously over the intervening years, the Manleys shop has grown from strength to strength. Today Tom Manley who founded the business is joined by his son Philip and his wife Susan in providing a high-class menswear service. For the town of Athy, which has seen the closure of so many retail units over the last 15 years, the continuing success of Manleys Menswear is an acknowledgement that the towns retail sector can be revived and can be successful. Another local success story captured in last week’s newspapers was the award made to Kathleen Cash for her contribution to early childhood education. Kathleen, who is the proprietor of Tir na nOg nursery and Montessori school, was named educator of the year at the national Early Childhood Awards presentation. Early learning schools, whether nurseries, creches or Montessori, were not part of Irish life when I was growing up. I saw my own grandchildren avail of preschool learning and noted how advantageous it was for them when they entered primary education. Irish life has changed so much, even within the limits of a generation or two and so much for the better as evidenced by the exceptionally good work of local pre-school providers in and about south Kildare. People like Liz Fingleton, Tom Manley and Kathleen Cash in their own time and in their own ways have made our town a better place in which to live. There are so many others, often unnoticed, who daily contribute to the wellbeing of our community. Those people are the unsung heroes but today we can acknowledge the unique contribution of Liz Fingleton to the regeneration of the town and that of Tom Manley and Kathleen Cash in the continuing commercial success of Athy.

I had intended to write an Eye looking back at past local elections but before I put pen to paper two young fellows, members of Athy’s boxing club, contacted me regarding upcoming boxing tournaments in Romania and Georgia. The two young boys, John and Michael Donoghue, brothers of Ardrew Meadows, are champion boxers at 15 and 16 years of age. They spoke of their achievements in the boxing ring with such understated modesty that I immediately felt their story should be brought to a wider audience. Dom O’Rourke, who is the person largely responsible for the success of Athy’s St. Michael’s Boxing Club, regards the two young Donoghue brothers as high achievers. John, now 15 years old, has won 5 Leinster boxing titles, at all age levels between 11 years and 15 years. He won an Irish national boxing title in 2017 at 29 kilo level and has contested no less than 5 Irish national boxing finals every year since 2015. In that first year he lost the final of the 27 kilo contest on a 3-2 split decision. This was a similar fate which befell his involvement in the finals of 2016, 2018 and 2019 during which period he fought for national titles at 37 kilo and 46 kilo levels. John Donoghue had the honour of boxing for Ireland against Germany in the National Stadium, Dublin. Within the last few weeks he again represented his country when he entered the ring in Cardiff against a Welsh opponent. His older brother Michael, at 16 years of age, has an even more extraordinarily successful boxing career to date. Like his brother, Michael boxes out of Athy’s St. Michael’s Boxing Club and he has also won 5 Leinster titles, as well as 8 Irish national titles at all ages between 11 years and 16 years. The pinnacle of his boxing career to date was his winning of a bronze medal while representing Ireland in the European championship in Russia last year. Recently Michael boxed in Newcastle-on-Tyne, the Northumbrian city which I was visiting at the same time with the Federation of Local History Societies. Our paths did not cross for while I was aware of a local Irish festival in Newcastle where the performer on the final night was Athy man, Kevin Morrin, the presence of an Athy boxer was not known to me. Michael was in Newcastle with the Irish National boxing team in a contest with the English national team. Not only was he boxing for his country, but Michael had the distinguished honour of captaining the Irish team which defeated their English counterparts 9-7. Michael is to travel to Romania as a member of the Irish boxing team for the European championship which I gather starts on May 22nd. Shortly afterwards Michael and his brother John will travel to Georgia representing Ireland in a tournament involving Georgian boxers and boxers from the county of Kildare. In addition to the two Donoghue brothers the Athy club will be represented by Kayle Brennan and Michael Maughen, while the rest of the team will be made up of boxers from the short grass county. John, who boxes at 46 kilo and Michael who boxes at 48 kilo, together with their clubmates, will incur quite a lot of expense in travelling to Georgia in June. As representatives of Athy they deserve our support and Dom O’Rourke and the members of St. Michael’s boxing club would appreciate any financial assistance that can be given to the young boxers. I have written previously of the good work of St. Michael’s boxing club. The club premises at Flinters Field is a wonderful facility for young boys, and surprisingly also for young girls who have taken up the sport. Dom and the committee of the club are pleased to welcome visitors to the club house where training takes place every night of the week. As for the young Donoghue brothers and their boxing club colleagues, who are to travel abroad in June, any level of sponsorship afforded to them would be hugely appreciated. The local Heritage Centre will start the commemorations of the Irish War of Independence with an exhibition opening in June. If you have material relating to those troubled times or know of the existence of any such material Margaret Walsh of the Heritage Centre would be delighted to hear from you. Ph: 00353 59 8633075 Email: athyheritage@eircom.net. The commemorative events which will be held in tandem with the exhibition give all of us an opportunity to honour the memory of those men and women who played a part in securing the 26-county republic.

With candidates for the forthcoming County Council elections and their supporters calling to homes throughout the county it is a good time to cast an eye over election material of the past. The earliest election material I have issued to the electors of Athy on 13th January, 1899. The candidate offered himself as a person promised to ‘do all in my power for the general welfare of the community, by advocating such measures of reform as may be necessary, while at the same time endeavouring to safeguard the interest of the rate payers.’ He continued, ‘I am in favour of providing proper sanitary dwellings for the labourers of the town who in this respect are so much worse off than the agricultural labourers.’ In the 1960 local elections the issues identified by one particular party were ‘playing parks for children in the west urban, a swimming pool, a suitable public library premises for Athy and a suitable headquarters for Athy’s Fire Brigade.’ The candidates promised to ensure that ‘by diligent attention to duty the ratepayers will get the best possible return for their money.’ A subsequent election prompted an independent candidate to claim ‘local politics should be about local people and local services, not party politicians. It is important that your voice is heard through a strong independent councillor with the experience, policies and ability to get things done.’ In 1979 another independent candidate was calling for ‘the banning of all gambling machines in local cafes and pubs.’ That same year a major political party identified local issues as Athy’s need for a community centre, night patrols by Gardai, better facilities for Athy’s youth and a bypass of the town. An independent candidate was to shake up the local political scene with the issue of an election news sheet in 1979 in which he lambasted many of the outgoing councillors. One such councillor who was not seeking re-election after many years on the Council was referenced as ‘taking up valuable space in the Council Chamber.’ At the same time the candidate suggested that the local people should not endorse the poor performance of Athy Urban District Council ‘by casually voting for some of those who received our votes in the last election and have shown themselves unworthy of our support.’ He then proceeded to record his assessment of each of the other candidates. The candidate himself and two others receiving very good ratings, while three other candidates were rated fair. The remaining eight did not meet the lowest assessment rating. 1985 saw the return of the election news sheet but this time its more prosaic offerings were more in line with the traditional political leaflet than its predecessor. It was another candidate standing in opposition to water charges who claimed, ‘the charges have been introduced by an almost bankrupt local Council because of the massive cuts in grants from central funds.’ This he claimed was ‘due to the craven and cowardly failure of the conservative political parties to tax their friends and backers. The wealthy ranchers, landlords, bankers, lawyers, etc. are getting away with murder in this regard.’ One independent candidate in 1985 paraphrased a well-recognised saying when he called upon the electorate to ‘think not what Athy can do for you, but what you can do for Athy’. That year one political party claimed credit for community development projects in the Woodstock and Clonmullin areas, for establishing the Tidy Town Committee and promoting the selection of Athy as a Heritage Town. They promised ‘to make the services provided by Athy UDC more consumer friendly and more responsive to the needs of the people.’ Five years later one candidate was claiming to have used his experience and knowledge in local government ‘to secure necessary services and infrastructure to improve the wellbeing of the people of the Athy electoral area.’ The Inner Relief Road was a major issue in that election year and one party striving for a majority on the Urban Council promised ‘to uphold the people’s right to a plebiscite’ on the merits of an Inner Relief Road or an Outer Relief Road. The last election for members of Athy Town Council was held in 2004 and again the independent candidates offered the most interesting suggestions to be dealt with by the incoming Council. The return of the Town Council to the Town Hall was one such proposal, while another candidate sought support from those who had enough of ‘corruption, tribunals, lies and empty promises.’ Promises still emerged however and several candidates included on their priority lists ‘a full Arrow service between Athy and Dublin’ and the ‘further development of St. Vincent’s Hospital.’ Standing alone was the candidate who expressed the need for a Council ‘which is not afraid of new ideas and which listens to people.’ The candidate seeking re-election who criticised the outgoing Council for privatising bin collection and for closing the Sunday market at Barrowford also claimed that ‘a strong local Council with radical views is very important’. No matter what is said or what is promised anyone putting themselves forward for election deserves our gratitude, even if they do not always get our votes.

President Michael D. Higgins recent address in Athy regarding the value of a caring community was brought home to me during the week when I visited the Woodstock estate allotment project. What was once a dumping site has now been changed by the local community into a pleasant gardening area. Even now in its early stages the allotment is a wonderful example of what can be achieved by people coming together to help themselves and their own area. The Woodstock estate gardening project was started by Dom Foley with the encouragement of Lisa Walsh. Their early efforts met with success and they were soon joined by a growing team of local residents including Mick Dempsey, Peter Ging, Kathleen O’Connor, Mary Walsh, Larry Kinsella, Matt Hyland and Natalie Leonard. Even the youngsters of Woodstock were involved and amongst the volunteer workers were 9 year old Saoirse Leonard who looks after the bird boxes and Cian O’Neill who is a very effective waterer of the plants. The residents have received help from many quarters and the co-operation of Kildare County Council must be first acknowledged, for it was the Council which allowed the former dumping ground to be used for the allotment project. The County Council engaged a contractor to clear the half acre site of the debris and rubbish which had accumulated over many years. It also provided and installed fencing to separate the allotment area from the fields and the recreational areas which are now a feature of the Woodstock, Townspark, Carbury Park, Castle Park and Greenhills riverside areas. The entire area in the vicinity of Woodstock Castle now looks better than it has for many years past. Both the County Council and the respective residents associations in the area must be congratulated for what has been achieved. The Woodstock estate allotment is a project which is evolving and Dom Foley and others have put in a lot of man and women hours into digging the ground, building raised beds and planting a variety of vegetables and fruit. A community group always needs support from outside their own immediate members and the Woodstock residents are very appreciative of the very generous donations received from Brendan Kelly, Griffin & Hawe and the Farmers Co-op. The shared spirit of community co-operation has had a huge beneficial effect on the Woodstock area and is a model for other associations in and around Athy to copy. Another group which has done much praiseworthy work to benefit the community is Athy District and Anglers Club. Its members have recently installed fishing stands on both banks of the River Barrow in and around Athy. These stands include a number of wheelchair friendly stands which will be of enormous benefit to disabled fishing folk. The work in installing the fishing stands has been carried out on a voluntary basis by the angling club members under the clubs chairperson, John Shaughnessy. The anglers club will shortly celebrate the 60th Anniversary of its foundation. The first mention in the local newspapers of the new club appeared on the 2nd June 1959. Local reporter, Jimmy O’Higgins reported the formation of the Club following a meeting called by Tom Donohue and his friend Chris Burley, both of St. Joseph’s Terrace. The first chairman of the club was Athy Postmaster Wilf Meredith with Harry Hegarty as Secretary and Pat Mulhall as the Club Treasurer. The clubs committee 60 years ago included Walter Hurley, Ted O’Rourke, Albert Duthie, Willie Webb, Joe Alcock, P. Kavanagh and Christy Dunne. There are at present about 120 members in the club which monitors and facilitates fishing on a twelve mile stretch of the river Barrow between Dunrally and the Three Counties. The club organises eleven fishing competitions each year. Pike fishing competitions are held between September and December and three of those competitions are for cups commemorating past members, Mick Leonard, PJ Byrne and Liam Kane. The McStay Cup and the Hughes Cup named in honour of Tom McStay and Ted Hughes are presented for trout fishing competitions which this year were held in Grangecon. On Saturday, 9th June the club will officially dedicate a fishing stand in memory of Dick Warner, the environmentalist and broadcaster. The ceremony takes place at 2.30 p.m. on the jetty which his located in what was once Athy’s harbour at the rear of the Courthouse. The Woodstock residents and the members of the Athy Angler’s Club have shown great community spirit and set a headline for the town, where week in week out, local men and women give of their time and experience for the benefit of our community.

The past week has been marked by the deaths of five members of our local community. Frank McCarthy, Kieran O’Doherty, Lisa Tobin, Anne Redmond and Teresa Campbell left behind treasured memories for family, friends and acquaintances. In the strange world of retained memories when I heard of Frank McCarthy’s passing I immediately tracked back to 1956 when the Athy minor football team won the County Minor Championship of that year. It was the first time I was consciously aware of an Athy team’s success on the football field. That awareness was prompted by the fact that my older brother Tony was centre half forward on the local team on that county final day. Also playing for Athy was Frank McCarthy, whose death at 81 years of age prompted this backward glance at a time of glory for Athy Gaelic Football Club. Earlier in the week Kieran O’Doherty died at 63 years of age. I knew Kieran for some time past and always found him to be a gentleman, whose courtesy and good humour brought him friendships which endured. The huge attendance at his funeral bore testimony to the high regard in which he was held by the people of south Kildare. For me Kieran’s death, like that of Frank McCarthy, brought back memories of a sporting connection. This time it was of the Athy minor team’s success in the County Championship final of 1973. Kieran was a member of that team and he would go on to become a county player for Kildare. His sporting prowess was not confined to Gaelic football, for Kieran, unusually if not uniquely, also featured on the Athy rugby team which won the Provincial Towns Cup in 1984 and was a member of the Athy Golf Club team which won the Provincial Towns Cup in 2005. The sporting headlines always provide an identifiable touchstone when looking back at the life of an Irish male. Less so when those departed are female members of our community. Our sorrow at their loss is no less, but in remembering them we tend to overlook the good they brought into the world of their local communities. Even though I am not a frequenter of the local pub scene I can still recall Teresa Campbell working behind the bar of Reggie Lalor’s pub in Leinster Street. In that role she was following in the footsteps of the long departed Miss Norman who lived in the nearby Fitzgerald fortress known far and wide as Whites Castle. Teresa was a well liked member of Reggie’s staff for over 25 years and indeed she continued working for the new owner for a number of years after Reggie sold the pub. Anne Redmond, who sadly suffered from ill health for the last number of years, was very involved in community affairs in the Townparks area. She encouraged and organised the local community activists and she opened her house for community meetings over many years. Anne was passionate about the need for the local people of Townparks to come together to improve the quality of life in the area. In that respect she made a huge contribution to the improvements noted in that area in recent years. We can understand with compassion and acceptance the death of a person of advanced years, but somehow the death of a young person and a person with caring responsibilities for family members is less readily accepted or understood. Lisa Tobin was a relatively young woman who in the normal course of life might be expected to live for many many more years. Her sudden death is a tragedy for her family and friends. The Athy people until the population explosion in recent years which saw the town population increase from 4,000 to 10,000 always comprised a tight knit community. Local people all knew each other and community involvement in fundraising, whether for a new church or a swimming pool, was an accepted part of life in Athy. Nowadays the personal knowledge of past years cannot stretch to encompass the new arrivals. However, it is very noticeable in the various clubs and associations in and around the town that many of those newly arrived in Athy have become actively involved in community-based activities. Even more pleasing is the often-heard claim that Athy is a friendly town and how the ‘locals’ ie. those with generations of attachment to the town, have welcomed new neighbours with open arms. Truly Athy is a friendly town and a good town made so by many, including the five people who died during the week. Our sympathies are extended to the families of Kieran O’Doherty, Frank McCarthy, Lisa Tobin, Anne Redmond and Teresa Campbell. As I complete this Eye I learned of the death of Michael Owens to whose family my sympathies are also extended.

Sometimes referred to as the Republican Courts or Sinn Fein Courts, Parish Courts were part of the Dail court system set up during the early part of the War of Independence. They were a precursor of the District Courts which today form an important part of the Irish court system. They were set up at a time when there was an already existing long-established court system. However, as the assistant Minister of Home Affairs claimed in January 1922: ‘the Republican Courts are the only legal courts of the Irish people.’ Land disputes were a source of much controversy before and during the War of Independence and one of the earliest acts of the first Dáil which met in January 1919 was to establish Arbitration Courts to deal with land disputes. These tribunals which depended for their effectiveness on all parties voluntarily submitting to the court were intended to be presided over by local clergy men. I have found no record of any arbitration proceedings in south Kildare. The Dáil subsequently approved a scheme to establish Parish and District Courts in May 1920. District courts were to be located in every parliamentary constituency and Parish courts in every Roman Catholic parish. Claims of less than ten pounds, minor criminal acts and ejectment proceedings in low rent houses were to be dealt with in the Parish Court. The new court was an attempt to replace existing Petty Sessions and like the Petty Sessions, would have three justices. Unlike the Petty Sessions those justices were to be elected by members of the local Sinn Fein club, Irish Volunteers, Trades Council and the Cumann na mBan. The presiding justice was expected to be a Catholic curate, and specific provision excluded any Parish Priest from occupying that role. I have identified three curates who served in Athy at that time, but there is no record of any of them presiding at a Parish court. Fr. John J. Byrne came to Athy in 1916, while Fr. Martin O’Rourke served as curate from 1908. Both were transferred to other parishes in 1923. Fr. James Nolan served as a curate in Athy from 1907 to 1924 when he retired at 56 years of age. The first local press report of the Parish Court in Athy was carried in the Nationalist and Leinster Times of 28th August 1920 under the headline ‘Republican Court in Athy’. It reported a land dispute between unnamed litigants where the parties were represented by solicitors who were also unnamed. The presiding Justice opened the proceedings by declaring ‘The Irish Republic is established in South Kildare’. One case involved a plaintiff from south Kildare who sought an order restraining several defendants from interfering with his right to lands at Newtown. It was resolved after a full hearing which ended with the presiding justice telling the litigants ‘shake hands now and be friends.’ The holding of a Parish or a Republican Court of necessity required Irish Volunteer members taking up the role of local policemen. Unfortunately, we don’t have any details of any of those involved. The power of the Parish Court to compel compliance with its orders can be readily gauged by the presiding justices remarks at that first sitting in Athy when he said ‘if anyone interferes with the plaintiff they will be brought before the court and it won’t be like being brought before the petty sessions. They will be sent out of the country.’ The next Parish Court report appeared in the local press on 10th September 1921. The court officials in addition to a number of solicitors were in attendance to deal with a number of cases. An Athy woman was awarded £3 compensation for trespass by two local men and the destruction of part of a crop of oats. Two orders for repossession of houses were granted, while a worker who sued a local farmer for £3 due for thinning turnips was awarded £2. Six weeks later the local newspapers for the first time identified the justices’ sitting as the Parish Court. Mr. T. Corcoran presided, possibly because the parish Canon Edward Mackey had directed his curates not to take a position on the bench. He was accompanied by Peter P. Doyle and Patrick Dooley. An interesting comment accompanying the court report claimed that the Republican courts ‘most effective work was done outside. Long standing debts given up as hopeless by some merchants have been squared by means of the Republican decrees ….. having the power of adequate punishment, the Republic courts will do much to right Ireland and to help to restore a better state of affairs.’ The last Athy Republican Court report which I have found was in the Nationalist and Leinster Times of 12th November 1921 when a local publican was summoned by the Republican police. He complained to the court that the Volunteer policemen refused to give their names when requested, a practice with which the justices expressed dissatisfaction. Jurisdiction of all Parish and District Courts outside of Dublin was withdrawn on 30th October 1922. On the establishment of the Irish Free State a court system was established under the Courts of Justice Act 1924.

In Athy we knew him as the Colonel but his first army commission was as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Service Corps at the outbreak of World War 1. Henry Hosie, born on 31st December 1891, was the son of Henry and Agnes Hosie of Coursetown, Athy. His father was a member of the Athy Board of Guardians and a director of Athy Auctioneering Ltd. and one of the local brickyards. Given his son’s later involvement in the economic and social life of Athy it is embarrassing to relate that Henry Hosie senior was severely injured during a raid on his home for arms in 1918. The raiders were believed to be local members of the I.R.A. 2nd Lieutenant Henry Hosie, who was sent to France in November 1914, was invalided back to Ireland in 1916. He later returned to army duties and was based in Scotland where he became officer in charge of machinery at the Scottish Area Forage Department. I gather he was promoted to Captain during that time. Henry Hosie married Laura McKeever in September 1916 and at the end of the war returned to Athy to work in Duthie Larges. After about ten years with that firm he formed Industrial Vehicles (Ireland) Ltd. with Freddie Thompson of Carlow. The company was initially involved in the sale of Fordson tractors and the manufacture of trailers. The Kildare Observer of 24th November 1934 reported that Hosie’s company was to open a factory for the manufacture of rainwater goods to the rear of its existing premises located in what was previously the town’s pound field. Hosie indicated that the new factory would start in the beginning of 1935 and said to the local newspaper reporters, ‘Athy wants a new industry, so we decided to give them one. There is a tremendous demand for rainwater goods in the Free State and we shall meet the demand.’ The I.V.I Foundry as we all know developed from the initial manufacturing of rainwater goods to become one of the most important employers of men in the south of County Kildare. In February 1964 the Nationalist and Leinster Times reported that the I.V.I. Foundry employed nearly 200 men. The company would go into liquidation resulting in the closure of the I.V.I. Foundry in September 1982. When the factory closed on 10th September of that year there were 90 men employed in the Foundry, apart from office and supervisory staff. Amongst the 90 workers was Michael Robinson who had started work in the Foundry in 1936 when he was 16 years of age. Mick O’Shea of Butler’s Row was a few months older than Michael, but he started in the Foundry a year later and ten days after Thomas Lawler of Geraldine Road. All three men spent their working lives up to September 1982 in the I.V.I. Foundry. Other long-term employees of the Foundry included Denis Byrne of Bray and Thomas Farrell of Ballylinan who started in 1946. Timothy O’Rourke of 37 Upper St. Joseph’s Terrace started work in the Foundry three years later. In 1951 Jack Kelly of Woodstock North and William Martin of Mullaghmast became foundry workers where Harry Mulhall of Skerries was already working for one year. The 1950s was a difficult time for any Athy man seeking work in his hometown. The I.V.I. Foundry however appears to have been going through a successful period at that time and recruited quite a number of young men. Amongst those who joined the I.V.I. in the 1950s and continued working until 1982 were Paddy Cahill and John Quinn, both of Pairc Bhride and Patrick Byrne of Clonmullin. They joined the Foundry in 1953 just a year after Daniel Foley of Kilberry and Daniel McCann of Castle Rheban. Others to become part of the Foundry workforce were John Kelly of St. Dominic’s Park who joined in 1956, Thomas Brennan of Ballylinan and Sylvester Bell of Foxhill who joined in 1958 and Liam Hughes of Woodstock Street who started work in the Foundry in 1959. The I.V.I. Foundry workers were the backbone of the industrial life of Athy over many decades. They worked in hot dirty dusty conditions which marked their appearance as they walked or cycled home at the end of each day. Henry Hosie, the man responsible for opening the Foundry, again served in the British Army during World War II. He was discharged with the rank of Colonel in 1947 having received an O.B.E. in the previous new year’s Honours List. His son Kenneth, a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, was killed while clearing mines in Italy in November 1943. Henry Hosie died on 27th October 1967. The local newspapers referred to him as ‘a fair minded employer who afforded his employees good conditions’. The I.V.I. Foundry is today all but forgotten but in remembering times past in Athy the I.V.I. workers’ contribution to the economic life of the town can never be ignored.

On Sunday 30th June Rev. Thomas Kelly, the founder of the Kellyites, will be commemorated with the unveiling of a plaque near to the entrance of his early 19th century meeting house in Duke Street. Kelly was one of several notable individuals from Athy’s past whose story, like that of Ernest Shackleton, I rediscovered and so reclaimed as part of our local history. Kelly, the only son of an Irish Judge who resided at Kellyville, Ballintubbert, was born on 13th July 1769. Educated at schools in Portarlington and Kilkenny he attended Trinity College Dublin, after which he studied law in London. He subsequently gave up his legal studies and entered for the priesthood. Ordained for the Anglican church at 23 years of age he returned to Dublin where he soon acquired a reputation for his evangelical style of preaching. The rector of St. Luke’s church Dublin however objected to what he termed Kelly’s ‘methodistical tendencies’. Reported to the Dublin diocesan authorities the Archbishop deemed it necessary to prohibit Kelly from preaching within the Dublin diocese. Rev. Thomas Kelly returned to the Athy area and preached in the town’s Anglican parish church which strangely enough, given Archbishop Fowler’s concerns, was also occasionally used by the recently formed local Methodist congregation. Soon after returning to Athy Thomas Kelly, disillusioned with the Anglican church, formed his own dissenting group known as ‘the Kellyites’. They were to remain a small but active religious group for the next 50 years or so. The Kellyites opened a meeting house off Duke Street approached through the archway, now separating the Gorta charity shop from Donnelly Solicitors. Church returns for 1834 indicate that the Kellyites in Athy numbered between 30 and 40 and met every Sunday for a prayer service in their Duke Street meeting house. The Parliamentary Gazetteer for 1844/’45 confirmed the continuing existence of the Kellyite meeting house. Indeed it would remain in use by the Kellyites until shortly after Thomas Kelly’s death in 1855. The following year the Duke Street premises was sold and the local Kellyites disbanded and re-joined for the most part either the local Anglican or Methodist churches. Kelly, early in his career, had also opened meeting houses in Blackrock Dublin, Portarlington, Wexford and Waterford, but these meeting houses also ceased to be used soon after Kelly’s death. Nowadays Rev. Thomas Kelly is better known as a hymnologist whose published hymns ran to eight editions between 1804 and 1838. The first edition of his hymns entitled ‘Hymns on Various Passages of Sacred Scripture’ contained 96 hymns, while the final edition 34 years later had 776 hymns. Several of his hymns such as ‘Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious’, ‘On the Mountain top appearing’, ‘The Head that once was Crowned with Thorns’ and ‘We sing the Praise of Him who died’ are considered by many to be comparable with the best hymns in the English language. At the beginning of the last century nearly 140 of Kelly’s hymns were in common use. The everlasting popularity of Kelly’s hymns is confirmed by their inclusion in church hymnals to this day. Thomas Kelly was also the author of several pamphlets published during his lifetime. The ‘History of Andrew Dunn, an Irish Catholic’ was published in several editions. He also published ‘A letter to the Roman Catholics of Athy occasioned by Mr. Hayes seven sermons’ in 1823. In that pamphlet Kelly outlined his arguments against sermons in which Hayes had expressed his views on the Mass. Another pamphlet of Kellys titled ‘A plea for primitive Christianity’, an answer to a pamphlet by the Rev. Peter Roe entitled ‘The Evil of Separation from the Church of England’ was published in 1815. Rev. Roe, who was Rector of St. Marys Kilkenny, was a lifelong friend of Thomas Kelly and one of the leading Irish Evangelists of that time. A Kelly pamphlet published in Dublin in 1809 entitled ‘Some Account of James Byrne of Kilberry in the County of Kildare addressed principally to the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Athy and its neighbourhood’ gave an interesting account of James Byrne joining the Kellyites. Thomas Kelly was married in 1794 to Elizabeth Tighe of Rosanna, Co. Wicklow whose mother was a friend of John Wesley and whose brother, Rev. Thomas Tighe was one of the earliest leaders in the Evangelical movement of the Church of Ireland. Thomas Kelly was described by his peers as ‘a man of great and varied learning ….. an excellent bible critic ….. of an amiable disposition and thorough in his Christian piety …..he was a friend of good men and the advocate of every worthy benevolent and religious cause. He was admired alike for his zeal and humility and his liberality found ample scope during the years of the Great Famine.’ Rev. Thomas Kelly died on 14th May 1855 aged 86 years.

Athy Association Football Club

Castledermot

Dolores Nolan and Niamh Hegarty

Dolores Nolan and Niamh Hegarty

St. Michael's Medieval Church

Michael Conry, Carlow Author

Soloheadbeg and later incidents in the War of Independence

Memories of Eddie Roycroft, Olive Smyth and Aidan Stafford

1918 General Election and the first Dail

Barrowhouse 16th May 1921

The Tithe Wars of the 1830s

Jimmy Kelly and Paddence Murphy

Athy Food hub, Manley Shop and Tir na nOg

Athy Boxers John and Michael Donoghue

Local Election material of the past

The Woodstock Allotment Project

Frank McCarthy, Kieran O'Doherty, Lisa Tobin, Anne Redmond and Teresa Campbell

Athy's Republican Courts

Henry Hosie and the I.V.I. Foundry

Rev. Thomas Kelly