Tom Bradbury and Bradbury's Bakery
When he died in August 1972 at the comparatively young age of 59 years Tom Bradbury passed to his family a business which was known the length and breadth of Leinster, if not further afield, for unique...
View ArticleShackleton Autumn School 2009
This coming October Bank Holiday weekend visitors from the UK, the U.S., Canada, Norway and all over Ireland will be coming to Athy to attend the 9th annual Ernest Shackleton Autumn School. The school...
View ArticlePostcards of Athy - Photographs
The first postcards of Athy were produced over 100 years ago. Using the Lawrence photographs taken in the last decade of the 19th century these early postcards showed the town unchanged as it was for...
View ArticleThomas Hardy and Other Dorset Connections
English literature has given us many associations which never fail to impress as one retraces the footsteps of writers through their literary output, or indeed their own lives. Dublin is for many...
View ArticleDominicans in Athy and Fr. Ross McCauley
Fr. Ross McCauley O.P. over the years gave comfort and solace to the dying and consoled the bereaved, all the time giving witness to his religious life as a Dominican priest. Now Fr. McCauley has gone...
View ArticleGlasnevin Cemetery
Glasnevin Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Ireland. Nearly 1¼ million burials have taken place there since Daniel O’Connell and the Catholic Association acquired the land, which in 1832 received...
View ArticleAthy's Parish Priests(1)
St. Michael’s Parish Athy has had 20 parish priests since 1670, including several clerics who have been Archdeacons, Canons or Monsignors. Church records indicate that Fr. John Fitzsimons was the...
View ArticleAthy's Parish Priests (2)
Fr. James Doyle, Parish Priest of Athy, is buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery where his gravestone records that he was 64 years old when he passed away on 10th November 1892. He had served as a curate...
View ArticlePloughing Championship 1931
The Ploughing Championship for 2009 has come and gone and by all accounts it has been a resounding success. Returning to the area in which the first inter county ploughing contest was held in February...
View ArticleKevin O'Toole / Aiden McHugh and Athy's Gymnastic Club
Twice this week I joined with friends, acquaintances and neighbours to pay tribute to members of our local community on Tuesday evening. I walked behind the funeral cortege of Kevin O’Toole, a young...
View ArticlePhotographs - Athy G.F.C. Senior Team Late 1950's / Kildare Seniors 1957
With rain and dampness providing an unwelcome backdrop to the Emily Square market on Tuesday last my thoughts turned to past sunny days when footballing matters held my interest. I was prompted to do...
View ArticleAthy's Marian Shrine Photographs / St. Michael's Church Interior
The Marian Shrine at Rathstewart is a constant reminder of the great community spirit which saw the men and women of St. Joseph’s Terrace coming together in what were difficult times to commemorate the...
View ArticleTechnical Education in Athy
Athy is soon to have a new post primary school built at a cost of €8 million with a capacity to cater for upwards of 400 pupils. It will replace the school building on the Carlow Road which was opened...
View ArticleSecondary Education in Local Schools Denied to Local Children / John Neavyn
Following my article last week on vocational education in Athy I was contacted by the parent of a young Athy student who recently finished his primary schooling in the town, but found himself unable to...
View ArticlePhotograph 1956 Athy CBS Under 14 Team / Athy's Traffic Plan
For the past two weeks, prompted by the illness of a close friend, I have been thinking more and more of times past and especially the halcyon times associated with Athy and my now long past teenage...
View ArticleDictionary of Irish Biography
The nine volume Dictionary of Irish Biography was published just before Christmas. A collaborative project between Cambridge University Press and the Royal Irish Academy it has been many years in...
View ArticleDictionary of Irish Biography
The nine volume Dictionary of Irish Biography was published just before Christmas. A collaborative project between Cambridge University Press and the Royal Irish Academy it has been many years in...
View ArticleFrank English
With the death of Frank English we have lost a good man and I have lost a good friend.Ours was a friendship which had its origin in St. Joseph’s boys school which both of us first attended on the same...
View ArticleFrank English
Several people have contacted me over the last few days looking for copies of the tribute paid to Frank English at his funeral mass last week. One individual asked that it be published as an Eye and I...
View ArticleAthy's New Traffic Plan / Michael May
I am very loathe to pass judgment in public on the new Traffic Management Plan prepared for Athy Town Council which was recently on public display prior to being presented to meetings of Kildare County...
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