The County Agricultural Show Athy
Last Sunday’s County Agricultural Show in the Showgrounds, Athy was a very enjoyable event, made all the more enjoyable by the good weather while the rain held off. This was the twenty-fourth County...
View ArticleThe Plan of Campaign
On the 20th of April 1888 the Vatican issued a Papal Rescript condemning the Irish Plan of Campaign and what was described as the evil of boycotting. The Plan of Campaign was devised by John Dillon,...
View ArticleRev. Philip Knowles and Dave Henshaw
I have just heard the sad news that Rev. Philip Knowles has died. Rev. Philip, former Dean of Cashel, came to live in Athy following his retirement as Dean of the Church of Ireland Cathedral of St....
View ArticleRiot in Athy 19th July 1919
The members of Athy Sinn Fein Club met on 17th July 1919 to make arrangements to mark the release from prison of Sean Hayden of Offaly Street, a prominent Sinn Fein member who had been arrested for...
View ArticleAthy men detained during the War of Independence
One hundred years ago the Irish countryside was in turmoil as a resurgent Sinn Fein organisation brought the armed struggle to the world’s most powerful colonial authority. The Irish War of...
View ArticleAthy Candidates in past Dail Elections
Richard Mothill is recorded as representing the borough of Athy as its Member of Parliament in 1559. His is the earliest name I have discovered to have been associated with the borough of Athy from the...
View ArticleFinancing Athy's Parish Church
Many years ago I wrote an Eye on the Past on that late great man Tom Carbery who lived at No. 2 St. Martin’s Terrace, Athy. Tom was a carpenter and a public representative for many years who served on...
View ArticleAthy's Big Barrow Splash Day 2019 and past regattas
The recent Big Barrow Splash Day was an enjoyable family day on the local river. Organised by Athy’s Dragon Boat Club it highlighted the huge change in local attitude to utilising what is one of Athy’s...
View ArticleAthy's War of Independence Exhibition
The War of Independence did not figure at all in the history curriculum of Irish schools until very recent years. For that reason I grew up in Athy like everyone else unaware of the part played in the...
View ArticleBan Gardai Len and Eileen Hayden
When the announcement was made in 1958 to appoint a woman’s police force in Dublin it was apparently overlooked by the national press that women police in England and Ireland had been in existence...
View ArticleA new arrivals view of Athy
‘Why don’t you write about what’s happening today in the town?’, ‘why are you always writing about history?’, the questions came from a reader who apparently oblivious to the headline on the column,...
View ArticleThe shifting sands of Athy's economic life
The large attendance at the Blueway meeting held in the Town Library on Tuesday evening was a heartening reminder that the people of Athy are alive to the huge opportunities which can follow the...
View ArticleAthy's entries in 'The Birthday of Ireland' by Dr. Andrew Tierney
The fifth book in the series ‘The Buildings of Ireland’ has just been published by Yale University Press under the title ‘Central Leinster – The Counties of Kildare Laois and Offaly’. It follows...
View ArticleCastledermot men of World War One
The village of Castledermot in medieval times was a relatively peaceful settlement compared to its near neighbour, Athy, which as a fortress village was garrisoned to protect its inhabitants and those...
View ArticleAthy Gaelic Football teams of the past
During the week Con Ronan gave me a photograph of an Athy Gaelic Football team which had a note on it indicating that the photograph was taken “about 1937”. The photograph had the following names...
View ArticleSr. Eileen Ryan of Athy's Sisters of Mercy
With the recent death of Sr. Eileen Ryan our local community has lost another link in a history stretching back 167 years to the post famine year when the Sisters of Mercy arrived in Athy. A native of...
View ArticleForgotten Place Names of Athy
Looking through the place names and street names recorded for Athy in the census of 1901 and that of 1911 I was surprised to find how many of those names mentioned are no longer remembered. The earlier...
View ArticleAthy's Shackleton Autumn School
The 19th annual Shackleton School opens on Friday evening, 25th October in the aptly named Shackleton Museum Athy. The museum originally opened in 1983 in a school room in Mount St. Marys and known as...
View ArticleA vision for the Shackleton Museum
On Friday I addressed those gathered in the Town Hall for the opening of this year’s Shackleton Autumn School. Part of my speech follows, being my thoughts on one aspect of the town’s future...
View ArticleRemembrance Sunday and the Athy men who died in World War 1
In recent weeks Athy remembered and honoured the local men and women who participated in the fight for Irish independence. The War of Independence exhibition in the Town Hall which has just concluded...
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