Carloviana-No-64-2016-3.pdf - Carlow Historical and ...

Carlow Historical and Archaeological Society Cumann Staire agus Seandd/afochta Cheatharloch

A Carlow Tribute to Walt Disney.

The Emergence of the Clergy in Borris.

Eastwood House and the Moneybeg

Demesne.

Captain Bill Murphy ofTullow,

Unsung hero of the Somme.

Cumann na mBan in Carlow.

The Bagenals of !drone Chronology.

Property Owners in County Carlow

in the year 1307.

PR comes to Carlow.

Dunleckney Post Bagenal 1802 - 2015.

~ounty Statistics 2002.

A Carlow Folly.

Memories of life on the

Barrow/ Grand Canal Robert Hartpole, Constable of Carlow.

Wi\tiam DesmondTa~lor,

Ca ow's forgotten Celtuloid King.

Carlow connections from a new book

'The Villain of Steam'.

Here's to the 32!

Involvement of the Catholic Clergy

with the Republican Struggle.

History of the RTC/ ITC

'Corpse Watching':

a macabre practice in the l 830's

in Leighlin.

Book Review'Michael O'Hanrahan'.

Bishop Daniel Delaney and the

Presentation Sisters {1718-1813).

Bishop James Keefe and the foundation

of Carlow College.

Edmund Dwyer Gray JI: his life to two h~f!!ispheres.

Kildart & leighlin Roman Catholi~

Chaplains in WW1.

Qua1<er,s in ~ouRt(C~.

', :·.,-~·.

' .

. . .

•

Book Review"A Journey along the

Carlow Corridor~

Growth and Decline: the changing

fortunes of Carlow Town.

Saint Fiacc, the Steve Jobs of

Fifth Century Ireland.

Fr James Cullen, Founder of the Pioneer

Total Abstinence Assoc.

Hare-slips in the walls of the Deerpark

on Ballintemple Estate.

Irish women carried goods on their heads.

"Carlow - A Journey to the Past";

Heritage Week 2015. ' 4 CHAS history Prize Competjtj'on ,

for National Schools.

Gradam an Phiarsaigh 2015.

The Red lad and Blunt - Hacketstown

Poachers ofthe 20th Century.

77M, The McMillan Boat

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Carlmiana 2016

Front cover pictureThe first and only female name on theRoll of Honour of Carlow Brigade 1916-1924 is Margaret Kehoe, OrchardLeighlinbridge. She nursed in the South

Dublin Union, now St James’sHospital. During Easter Week1916 the premises were occu-pied by 42 volunteers of the4th battalion, Dublin Brigade

under the command of Eamon Ceanntand Cathal Brugha as 2nd in command.On Easter Monday intense fighting tookplace when the British forces attackedthe building. During a period of quietnessword was passed to Nurse Kehoe that avolunteer lay wounded. Without hesita-tion she rushed outside. Within minutesguns opened fire again and Nurse Kehoelost her life. In doing so, she displayed agreat devotion to duty and an extraordi-nary sense of heroism. The woundedvolunteer was Dan McCarthy who sub-sequently became President of the GAA,1921-1924 A plaque to her memory wasunveiled at St Kevin’s Hospital, Dublinon Easter Monday, 1965 by the NationalGraves Association. She was buriedwithin the grounds of the Union but aftrrthe surrender the remains were exhumedand reinterred in Ballinabranna grave-yard in the Parish of Leighlin.

Michael O’Hanrahan, a NewRoss born Wexford man whohad come to Carlow when hisfather transferred his busi-ness to Tullow St. in Carlow

Town. He had been a very prominentman in the town before moving toDublin. He founded the Workman’s Clubin Browne’s St, Carlow and was a teacherin the Gaelic League classes. He was theauthor of Swordsman of the Brigade andWhen the Normans Came. He wasexecuted for his role in the Easter Rising1916.

Carloviana 2016

ArticlesA Carlow Tribute to Walt Disney, .....................................................4The Emergence of the Clergy in Borris ....................................................11Eastwood House and the Moneybeg Demesne .........................................20Captain Bill Murphy of Tullow. Unsung Hero of the Somme ................37Cumann na mBan in Carlow .....................................................................45The Bagenals of Idrone Chronology .........................................................51Property Owners in County Carlow in the Year 1307 ............................54PR comes to Carlow ...................................................................................56Dunleckney Post Bagenal 1802-2015 ........................................................59County Statistics 2002 ................................................................................65A Carlow Folly ............................................................................................66Memories of Life on the Barrow/Grand Canal .......................................68Robert Hartpole, Constable of Carlow ....................................................72William Desmond Taylor, Carlow’s forgotten Celluloid King ...............85Carlow connections from a new book ‘The Villain of Steam’ ................95Here’s to the 32! .........................................................................................98Involvement of the Catholic Clergy with the Republican Struggle .....100History of the RTC/ITC ...........................................................................105‘Corpse Watching’: a macabre practice in the 1830s in Leighlin ........122Book Review “Michael O’Hanrahan” ................................................... 126Bishop Daniel Delaneyand the Presentation Sisters (1718-1813) ........ 127Bishop James Keeffe oand the foundation of Carlow College ............. 133Edmund Dwyer Gray Jr: his life in two hemispheres .......................... 141Kildare & Leighlin Roman Catholic Chaplains in WWI ..................... 145 Quakers in County Carlow ..................................................................... 153Book review “A Journey along the Carlow Corridor” .........................160Growth and Decline: the changing fortunes of Carlow Town ..............161Saint Fiacc, The Steve Jobs of Fifth Century Ireland ...........................167Fr James Cullen, Founder of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Assoc. ..... 172Hare-slips in the walls of the Deerpark on Ballintemple Estate .......... 173Irish women carried goods on their heads ..............................................175“Carlow - A Journey to the Past”; Heritage Week 2015 ...................... 179CHAS History Prize Competition for National Schools .......................183Gradam an Phiarsaigh 2015 ....................................................................184The Red Lad and Blunt - Hacketsown Poachers of the 20th Cent ......18577M, The McMillan Boat .........................................................................190Officers and members ..............................................................................193

Brown and Crosthwaite Lodge Mill lorry Bagenalstown, c. 1920s. This was the firstlorry bought second hand by Brown and Crosthwaite and the first letters on the num-ber plate were IK (issued 1903- 1927) and this denotes that it was first registered inDublin. Note the four wheels have brushes attached to prevent gravel and stones fromflying up and hitting people while lorry was on the move. Tommy Comerford, at sideof engine, was the driver and obtained that position because he had previously workedon engine boats on the canal. George Darcy is the tall man who worked with himand both hailed from Bagenalstown.The photo was taken in Regent Street Bagenal-stown. Courtesy: Jim Murphy, St Brigid’s Cresent, Bagenalstown.

Back Cover

CARLOVIANA2016 Edition

No. 64

I,S.S.N. 0790-0813

1

Page 1 Edited_Layout 1 29/10/2015 15:22 Page 1

Editor: Martin Nevin

Carloviana 2016

Editorial

Once again we are delighted to present another bumper edition of our annual Journal.The editorial team expresses our thanks to our contributors who continue year afteryear to come forward with varied and interesting articles relating to our area. Theyare the backbone of this Journal and without them it would simply not exist, nevermind attain the degree of recognition and respect that, we are happy to say, it enjoys.We note that two of the regulars among these contributors attained the degree ofPh.D. during the year. Congratulations to Dr. Ann Power of Bagenalstown and to Dr.Shay Kinsella of Milford.

November 2015 sees the 1400th anniversary of the death of St. Columbanus, whotradition tells us, was born in this area, the founder of monasteries at Luxeuil, Bobbioand many other places in Europe. He was described by the late Cardinal Tomás ÓFiaich as “Ireland’s first European,” and certainly his impact on the history of thecontinent was a very significant one in that he and his companions made a majorcontribution to the re-Christianisation and re-civilisation of Western Europe in thewake of the collapse of the Roman Empire.

The coming year brings the centenary of the 1916 Rebellion. Like other events duringthis Decade of Commemoration this, we expect, will inspire renewed interest inresearching the events of that period in our local area. Our society, in co-operationwith the History Department of St. Patrick’s College, Carlow, is endeavouring tofoster such interest by sponsoring a prize for original research into the local historyof the period, open to all third and fourth year students of History or Humanities inthe College. This, it is hoped, will result in new and exciting insights into the eventsof the time in Carlow. We confidently expect that next year’s edition of “Carloviana”will feature some of the fruits of this research.

The centenary of the Rising has already given rise to some obvious attempts by var-ious politically interested groups and individuals to impose upon the public con-sciousness their own particular agenda and their own particular interpretation of whathappened. It is important that we do not let a mythologized and biased version ofthe events of Easter Week become accepted as truth. Neither would it be desirable toallow “the men with the keen long faces” to convince us that it was all a mistake. Ithappened, and in the words of Yeats “all changed, changed utterly/ a terrible beautyis born.” The events of that week were the catalyst that led to a totally changedpolitical landscape in Ireland and it behoves us to understand that period and how itaffected our people at the time and for long after. To that end we welcome anyresearch by our members on this period and we will be glad to publish in futureeditions any articles of suitable standard.The Society will mark the actual centenaryin April 2016 by presenting a lecture on Micheál Ua hAnnracháin, the 1916 leaderwith closest Carlow connections. This lecture will be given by Dr. Conor Kostik, theauthor of a biography of Micheál Ua hAnnracháin which is reviewed in this Journal.

This Decade of Commemoration also recalls the experiences and sacrifices of thosewho took a different road and followed the advice of John Redmond to “go whereverthe firing line extends.” Ann Power’s article on chaplains in World War I is a welcomecontribution to remind us all of an almost forgotten group of dedicated men and ofthe service they gave.

Sílimíd go bfhuil cnuasacht suimúil, eagsúil, bríomhar d’ailt bailithe againn arís imbliana, agus tá súil againn go mbainfidh ár léitheoirí taithneamh astu. Gabhaimidbuíochas le gach éinne a chabhraigh linn i rith na hoibre. Nollaig Shona agus athbh-lian fé mhaise dhaoibh go léir.

Editor: Jim Shannon

Editorial Committee:Martin NevinPat O’NeillPadraig DooleyNial O’Neill

Published by:Carlow Historical and Archaeological SocietyP.O. Box 162Carlow.

Email:[email protected]

Website:www.carlowhistorical.com

Carlow Historical and ArchaeologicalSociety is affiliated to the Federation ofLocal History Societies.

All articles in this journal are thecopyright of the Carlow Historical andArchaeological Society and may not bereproduced in any form without thepermission of the editor.

Views and opinions expressed in thisjournal are not those of the editor or of theCarlow Historical and ArchaeologicalSociety.

Printed by:Carlow Advertiser & Printing,Strawhall Industrial Estate, Carlow.

SPONSORSInside the front and back covers of our journalwe list the local businesses who, each year,support us in producing Carloviana. We wishto thank them sincerely for their assistance,without which it would not be possible to dothis. Just as these businesses support us we askour members, in turn, to support them wher-ever possible.

Bertie Watchorn President

CARLOVIANA2016 Edition

No. 64

I,S.S.N. 0790 - 0813

2

Page 2 Editorial Page Edited_Layout 1 29/10/2015 16:08 Page 1

This year has been an eventful one forour society, breaking new ground on acouple of occasions. We started the yearwith our three lectures which were verywell attended. The society entered into aconservation agreement with themuseum to fund some restoration workon museum artifacts. We also co-purchased two items for the museum.

Rathmichael Historical Society paid us avisit from the 24th to 26th April andMartin Nevin gave them a talk onCounty Carlow.

We had an enjoyable outing to Hillsbor-ough Castle and Lisburn Linen Museumon May 9th.

Our Schools History Prize was presentedat a function in the museum on the 20thof May; we had four very good projectsfrom four separate schools.

Shannon Historical and Archaeological

Society paid us a very enjoyable visit22nd to 24th May when Martin Nevinspoke on Walt Disney and the Carlowconnection. During Heritage week wehad three excellent mini lectures inLeighlinbridge Parish Centre on the 26thAugust,

Reflections on Keenan's of Bagenal-stown by Michael KeenanMilletts — Coachbuilders of Borrisby Ned MoranCarlow Blue Limestone by Phil Meaney.

Also during Heritage week on the 22ndAugust we had one of our biggestprojects. The re-enactment was spear-headed by three of our youngestmembers, Seamus Ó Murchú, GaryHughes and Deirdre Kearney and tookplace in the Town Park, Graiguecullen.They did an excellent job and deserve ourthanks. Our thanks also to Carlow Co.Council for the use of the park.

Sadly—we are losing Deirdre as she hasleft for Australia. She was an excellentsecretary and spearheaded the develop-ment of our website; she will be greatlymissed. I would like to thank our editorJim Shannon and Martin Nevin for theirunstinting work on the production ofCarloviana. Where they source thematerial to fill it is amazing. I would alsolike to thank Pat O'Neill for his help andthe huge volume of work he does for thesociety. Also I would like to thank all themembers of the committee for their helpand commitment to the Society duringthe year.

Finally I want to thank all those bothmembers and sponsors who continue tomake a vital contribution to our society.

Thank You

Carloviana 2016

Message from the President

Bertie Watchorn

3

The 70th Winter Lecture Series 2015-2016

All lectures start at 8pm.

Date Lecturer Topic Venue

21 October, 2015 Charles DohertyU.C.D. School of History

St Columbanus& the earliest churchesin the Carlow area

Talbot Hotel, Carlow

8 November, 2015 Felix LarkinAcademic Director, Parnell Summer School

“Dublin Opinion” magazine - the safety valve of a nation

Seven Oaks Hotel,Carlow

20 January, 2016 Dr Elaine ByrneAcademic,Journalist and Consultant

Carlow and the Famine Girls Mount Wolseley Hotel,Tullow

17 February, 2016 Christopher Power,Historian

Visitation of Vengeance - the killing of D.I. Percival Lee-Wilson

Seven Oaks Hotel, Carlow

16 March, 2016 Prof. Tagh O’Keeffe, U.C.D. School of Archaeological

Ballymoon Castle Credit Union House,Bagenalstown

20 April, 2016 Dr Conor Kostic Micheál UahAnnracáin - Gaelic League, I.R.B. and Novelist

Institute of Technology,Carlow

Page 3 Message from the Pres. Edited_Layout 1 29/10/2015 18:49 Page 1

In July 1923, Walt Disney (1901- 1966)boarded a train bound for the movieMecca of Hollywood. He had fortydollars in the pocket of his threadbarejacket. He was carrying a browncardboard suitcase, which contained oneshirt a change of socks, underwear, abundle of sketchbooks filled withdrawings, a few drawing materials and areel of film entitled Alice’s Wonderland.

Two months earlier Disney had writtento several New York film distributers;We have just discovered something newand clever in animated cartoons! Thefirst subject of this distinctly differentseries is now in production. It is a newidea that will appeal to all and is boundto be a winner, because it is a combina-tion of live characters and cartoons,using a cast of live child actors whocarry on their action on cartoon sceneswith cartoon characters.1

Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice Adventuresin Wonderland inspired the story for thisinnovative cartoon, however this time,Alice goes to Cartoonland for her manyfilm adventures.On his arrival in Holly-wood, there were no animation studios.It was a hive of industry; Cecil B. DeMille was filming The Ten Command-ments and Douglas Fairbanks was build-ing a monumental set for The Thief ofBagdad. Charlie Chaplin wrote,produced and directed A Woman of Paris.

The center of the animation industry wasNew York. It was 17 years since JamesStuart Blackton had made the first filmusing drawn animation, HumorousPhases of Funny Faces, and in the mean-time the medium had been advanced bypioneers such as Winsor Mc Cay, EarlHurd, Walter Lantz, and Paul Terry, andby the Fleischer brothers with their Outof the Inkwell series. The top cartoons ofthe period were Mutt and Jeff and PatSullivan’s Felix the Cat who, animatedby Otto Messmer made his debut in 1921and was hugely popular.

Walt Disney went to live with his UncleRobert Disney, who had retired toLos Angeles.

Disney’s French ancestry

The Disney Family originated in France,it may be traced back to the 11th centuryto Normandy and Hughes Suhart, from thevillage of Isigny. He was a vassal of DukeGuillaume of Normandy and had receivedseveral strongholds including the villageof Isigny for his military services. HughesSuhart now Hugh of Isigny [Hughd’Isigny] and his son Robert travelled withWilliam the Conquer in 1066 to fight inthe battle of Hastings England. Williambecame King of England and the d’Isignyfamily settled in Lincoln, known today asNorton Disney, 10mls from Lincoln on theriver Witham.

The Disney family was well establishedin Lincolnshire by the 1150 and theChurch of St Peter’s Norton Disney, wasfounded by the family, it has five Disneymonuments. Carved in stone and set in alow arched recess is an effigy of Joand’Isigny, she is dressed in a coif andwear’s a costume of the 1300s. A secondlady also named Joan and Sir Williamd’Isigny, son of William the church’sfounder are also carved in stone, SirWilliam is dressed in full knights armor.On the mortuary floor is the effigy of alate 14th century lady robed in a long

Carloviana 2016

A CARLOW TRIBUTE

TO WALT DISNEY.

‘A DREAM,

A PENCIL,

AND A MOUSE’.

Mary Stratton Ryan

Walt DisneyBorn December 5th, 1901at 12.35Died December 15th, 1966 at 9.30

4

Tribute to Walt Disney edited 1 Collected - Copy_Layout 1 28/10/2015 17:03 Page 1

close fitting tunic, she lies with her headresting on two diagonally set cushionsand her hands are clasped together.

An inscription on one side reads;Here lies Hautacia, daughter of WilliamDisney, Lord of Norton. The fifth monu-ment is a framed brass plaque datingfrom the 17th century its purpose was tocommemorate two generations ofDisney’s and is engraved with the Disneycoat of arms.2 The family lived in thisarea until the 17th century when theysided with the Duke of Monmouth in hisattempt to overthrow King James 11.After the rebellion failed the Disneylands were confiscated and most of thefamily fled to Ireland.3

On the 30th July 1949 Walt Disney madea private visit to Norton Disney, hefilmed and photographed all thesemonuments and church registers. Thelocal parish magazine only recorded thisquiet visit. [Central Library Lincoln.]Disney around the same time, alsovisited, the birthplace of Robert LouisStevenson in Edinburgh, while he wasmaking the film Treasure Island inEngland, which was released on July 19,1950. [See rare photograph taken onOctober 15, 1949 by freelance photogra-pher George Konig ]

Disney’s Carlow ancestry

By the mid 1600s at least two membersof the Disney family were living inCarlow. Both Thomas Disney who diedin Carlow in 1658 and John Disney whodied in Carlow in 1666, are recorded inthe Index to the Act and Grant books andthe Original Wills of the Dioceses ofDublin 1272-1858. [26th, 30th, 31stReports 1894,1899.] Location, Carlow,Ireland.4

On 22nd Nov. 1666, a Patent was passedgranting lands in Co Waterford, Co.Louth, and Westmeath to William Disneyof Strabanne, Co. Louth and his sonWilliam. The Strabanne Disney familywere living there until 1732. The elderbranch included Captain Thomas Disney,his brother Lieut. George Disney, hiswife Susanna Disney, also in the samefamily were Ebenezer Disney, MaryDisney and Benoni Disney. Theirchildren were William, who marriedElizabeth Fowles of Dublin, they lived in

Strabanne and died there in 1692,Thomas [? moved to Carlow], andEccles, became High Sheriff of Water-ford in 1757 and lived in ChurchtownDysert/ Carrick-on-suir [from 11th Nov.1743] he died there in 1758. Elizabethand Darkis both lived and died in Stra-banne.

William and Elizabeth [Fowles] Disneyhad three sons their 3rd son John wasborn c1662 and on Feb. 26th 1703 hemarried Jane Brabazon eldest daughter ofJames and Mary Brabazon. On 29th Sept.1742 John Disney was appointed Mayorof Galway City he died in 1749.5

These early dated wills of Thomas andJohn Disney who died in Carlow in 1658and 1666 prove that the Disney familywere settled in Carlow long before theMonmouth Rebellion which took placein 1685. Records indicate that the CarlowDisney’s were established before theKilkenny branch and were in fact ances-tors of the Kilkenny branch. The CarlowDisney’s predate the Galway branch, andwere established before, but closer to theLouth branch!

Whether there is any family connectionbetween the Louth branch, and theCarlow branch needs further research.

[The Monmouth rebellion was led by thedashing but doomed James Scott, Dukeof Monmouth an illegitimate son of King

Charles 11 and was a power struggle be-tween the Duke and his Uncle the futureKing James 11. It ended with the Battleof Sedgemoor on 6th July 1685. TheDuke was captured and cruellybeheaded.]

Clonmelsh cemetery, Ballyloo,Garryhunden

There are three Disney tombs in Clon-melsh cemetery Co. Carlow, that ofRobert Disney born in Carlow 1746 whomarried Mary Kepple (1750-1815) alsoborn in Carlow. They married on 2ndFeb. 1775 at St Mary’s Church, Carlowtown. He died aged 62 on August 281808. Robert Disney died at the home ofhis son Kepple Disney at Sweethill,Clone, Co. Kilkenny and was buried inClonmelsh cemetery, Garryhunden,Carlow. Mary Disney nee Kepple, hiswife, erected the tombstone.6

Robert Disney 1746-1808

A closer look at Robert Disney’s originwill unravel much of the mystery, whichhas surrounded the Carlow connectionwith Walt Disney’s roots. Until very recentresearch there was no evidence as to theorigin or ancestry of Robert, the great,great, great grandfather of Walt Disney.

Robert Disney was born in Carlow in1746. He was the son of Richard andElizabeth Disney, Richard was born in1723 in Sudbury, Suffolk, as was hiswife, Richard and Elizabeth died inClonmelsh.

Richards father was Edward Disney bornin 1689 in Brent, Eleigh, Suffolk. Hemarried Elizabeth Lingwood also born in1680 Suffolk. They both died in Suffolk.

Edwards parents were Mechisodech andMary [Disnie] Disney both from BrentEleigh, Suffolk.

Mechisodech died on 21st July 1660, andhis wife Mary on 6th Dec.1712 in BrentLeigh, Suffolk.

Although the Parish Register for St.Mary’s Carlow records the marriage ofRobert Disney and Mary Capel [ Kepple,the name is of Dutch, Huguenot origin]on 2nd Feb. 1775, it does not give anyindication as to where they lived or their

A Carlow tribute to Walt Disney. ‘A dream, ‘A pencil, and a mouse

Carloviana 2016

Walt Disney the film maker

Permission granted by: The Walt Disney Co.

5


occupation. However further research inthe Public Record Office, Dublin givesthis information, it is to be found inabstracts from the list of Grants of Mar-riage Licences for the Diocese ofLeighlin. Amongst these documents is agrant to Robert and Mary Disney, whichstates that Robert was a farmer fromRatibendonin Co. Carlow [Rathvinden]close to Leighlinbridge and alsoto Clonmelsh.

Robert Disney and Mary Kepple hadnine children; Kepple born 1775, Johnborn 1780, George born 1783, Thomasborn 1786 Mary born 1788 Elinor born1790, James born 1793, Elizabeth born1795 and William born in 1800.7

The other two Disney headstones inClonmelsh Cemetery are to the memoryof Abigale Pain (alias Disney) who diedNovember 29, 1746, aged 28, andGeorge Disney, baker of Dublin whodied May 9, 1736 aged 53. [address; 10Mill St. Dublin]

Thomas Disney of GarryhundenAnother Carlow Disney was ThomasDisney of Garryhundon who died in1762; he farmed the lands of Garryhun-den/Clonmelsh. He is possibly related toRoberts branch, an uncle or cousin,perhaps.? [Further research on him isrequired]. He married Elizabeth daughterof Samuel Leonard of Garryhunden.Mary Disney, a daughter of Thomas andElizabeth Disney of Garryhunden,married William Warren who was acousin of the Butler family through themarriage of Arrabella Butler, sister of SirThomas Butler 3rd Bart. Knight ofGarryhunden, who married John WarrenMP for Carlow 1689.8

George Disney of Tullowcreen, Wells,Leighlin

There is also a George Disney recordedas living in Carlow born in 1794 died1870. The Parish Register of Old Leigh-lin 1794-1802 records members of theDisney family for example September 4,1797 George Disney son of George andMary Disney both of the parish ofTullowcreen, Wells and Richard Disneybaptized on 3rd January 1800 son of thesame couple, George and Mary Disneyof the parish of Tullowcreen, Wells.

In 1932, Walt Disney travelled to Leigh-linbridge, Carlow for a private visit tomeet his Disney cousins, still living, inCoolnaskisha, Rathornan, and 2 mls fromOld Leighlin.9

Several documents clarify the Carlow –Kilkenny Disney connection.

On February 17, 1857 the sale of 33 acresof land in Clone, Barony of Galmoy, CoKilkenny owned by the Disney familytook place in the Court of the Commis-sions for sale of Incumbent Estates of Ire-land. The names in which the deeds wereheld included Henry, Kepple, ArundelElias and Robert Disney, John Swan andWilliam and Mary Power. [court 14,Heneretta St. Dublin.]

Further documents related to theKilkenny connection of the family maybe found in Griffiths Valuation and theElectoral Division of Rathbeagh;

Kepple Disney was farming at Sweethill,Rathbeagh, this was a union parish ofClomantagh, Freshford, Closhcrow,Rathbeag and Sheffin. The census for1841 also shows Kepple Disney stillalive and farming at Sweethill, Rathbeag.Kepple Disney died in Sweethill, Clone,Co. Kilkenny in 1857.

Kepple Disney of Sweethill, Clone,KilkennyKepple Disney is a key figure in weavingtogether the Disney family story.

Kepple Disney was the eldest son of theafore mentioned Robert [1746-1808] andMary Disney [Kepple] 1750-1815. Hewas born in Aharney parish, Co Laois in1776. He married Frances Best, daughterof Arundel Caulfield Best10 who wasborn in Bestville, Carlow 1776 she diedin Sweethill, Clone Kilkenny. Theymarried on 17th Feb. in 1795 at St. MarysChurch, Carlow.

They had 8 children.

1. The eldest was Mary Anne born 1795in Clone, Kilkenny. Died Nov. 1875 inLouisville, St. Lawrence New York. Shemarried William Powers [born 1790 inGarrentaggart, Laois] on 20th April1815.in Ireland. 2. Robert was born on 9 July 1797 inClones, Kilkenny. He died on 18 April1872 in Goderich, Huron Co. Ontario. Hemarried Jane Cook in 1829 in Kilkenny.She was born 4 Nov1810 in Ireland, anddied in 1893 in Goderich, Ontario.3. Charlotte was born in 1801 in Clone,Kilkenny and died in Jan. 1882 in Lon-don England.4. Arundel Elias was born in 1803 inClone, Kilkenny. He died on 31May1880 in Goderich Huron Co. Ontario. Hemarried Maria Swan on 1 Sept.1832 inClone Kilkenny. She was born in 1816 inIreland. She died 26Sept. 1896 in Ellis,Kansas, USA.5. Kepple was born 5Sept. 1806 inClone, Kilkenny. And died in 1875. Hemarried Mary E.B.? in 1830 in England.6. James born 1807 in Clone, Kilkenny.Died in 1840.7. Frances born 1816 in Clone,Kilkenny.8. Henry the youngest, was bornon10May 1816 in Sweethill, Clone,Kilkenny and died 12April 1877 NewYork. He married Christina Furney born17 Feb. 1822, Kildare, Ireland who died29 April 1891 New York. They had 5children born in Ireland, and 5 in NewYork.11

Disney’s move to America

In 1834 seven members of this branch ofthe Disney family sailed on a ship


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leaving Liverpool called the ‘NewJersey’ and arrived in New York on 3rdOctober. An extract of the passengermanifest from this vessel records thefollowing;Seven Disney’s from Sweethill, Clone,Kilkenny;Robert Disney aged 36 occupationFarmer.Arundal Elias Disney aged 33 occupationFarmer.Jane Disney [nee Cook] aged 21 wife.Maria Disney [nee Swan] aged 20 wife.Kepple Disney aged 2.Frances Disney aged 4.Elias Disney aged 3.

Arundel Elias DisneyArundel Elias Disney was Walt Disney’sgreat- grandfather. His son Kepple EliasDisney (1832-1891) born in Clone [aged2 when he sailed to America], married in1858 Mary Richardson (1838-1909) anIrish emigrant from Aghaboe Co. Laois.Their son Elias Charles Disney 1859-1941 was Walt Disney’s father.

Arundel and Maria settled on the shoresof Lake Huron, in Canada and set up asawmill. He cleared and farmed 149acres beside his brother Robert whofarmed 93 acres. They had sixteenchildren, the eldest Kepple with his two

eldest sons Elias (Walt Disneys father)and Robert set out for Southern Calforniain search of gold in 1878. They settled fora while into farming in Ellias, Kansas. Elias Disney married Flora Call on 1January 1888. They had four sons, Her-bert, Raymond, Roy, Walt and onedaughter, Ruth Flora.12

The Disney brother’s

When Walt Disney arrived by train, inLos Angeles in July 1923, to stay with hisuncle Robert his brother Roy was alsothere, they rented a small apartment nearthe site of their new Hollywood Studio,an unused storage space where theDisney Brothers officially launched theircompany in 1923 with the help of a loanof $500 from their Uncle Robert. Workbegan on the first picture animatedentirely by Walt inked and painted bytwo girls hired for $15 a week andphotographed by Roy on a second-handcamera which he had bought for $200.The completed film was, Alice’s Day atthe Sea, after which there were more that50 Alice in Cartoonland adventuresbetween 1924-27. Their next film wasOswald the Rabbit 1926-28.

Roy Disney married Edna Francis on 7April 1925 and on 13 July 1925 Walt

Disney married Lillian Bounds who wasemployed at their studio as an ink andpaint artist. On the strength of Oswald’ssuccess, all seemed to be going well forwhat was now called Walt DisneyStudios. Then a death blow was deliveredby Charles Mintz his distributer when heannounced that not only had he takenalmost all of his animators except hisfriend Ub Iwerks to work for him but thatunder the terms of his contract hiscreation Oswald the Rabbit was the soleproperty of Universal Pictures andDisney had no rights to the character hisstudio had created.

Things could not have been worse, onthat day in March 1928 when Walt andLilly left New York for Hollywood. Hehad lost his film distributor, his cartoonstar, and most of his animators. However,he was about to be rescued by a mostunlikely hero!.

Disney recalled in 1948, that MickeyMouse had first popped out of his mindunto his drawing pad at a time whendisaster seemed just around the corner.

Disney said that on his train journey he satdoodling on his sketchpad, hoping forinspiration and a solution to his problems;Out of the trouble and confusion stood amocking, merry little figure. Vague andindefinable at first. But grew and grew.And finally arrived----- a mouse.!

The idea completely engulfed me. Thetrain- wheels turned to the tune of it.

When Disney was a struggling youngartist, so the tale runs, he befriended afamily of mice that took up residence inhis waste paper basket. One particularmouse had become very tame and wouldclimb up onto Disney’s Drawing board tobe fed.

At first this imaginative Mouse was calledMortimer. Lilly Disney disliked the nameand suggested that he should call himMickey Mouse and he did. Disney ‘sirrepressible optimism was one of hisstrongest attributes. Disney viewed theblow that fate had dealt him as a positiveopportunity; a chance to create a newcartoon character. Mickey was neithermouse nor man but rather a symbol ofyouth, optimism and adventure.


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In the first Mickey Mouse film entitledPlane Crazy, Disney and Ub Iwerks whowas drawing up to 700 drawings a day,worked in secret on it. The scenario theydevised was inspired by the exploits ofCharles Lindberg who in 1927, had madethe first solo, non–stop flight across theAtlantic. This set the trend for many ofMickey Mouse’s earliest escapades.

The next major development was the firstsound cartoon, Steamboat Willie, it wasa triumph. It was estimated that, in justone year, no fewer than 468 millioncinemagoers saw a Mickey Mousemovie. Mickey and I are firm friendsDisney once said we have weathered thestorms together and indeed for manyyears life was anything but plain sailingfor Walt Disney Studio.

Walt Disney was the first to add synchro-nized sound and, later, full colour tocartoons. He was the first in the age oftalkies, to produce a feature lengthanimated film. The first animator to exper-iment with stereo sound, 3-D, CinemaScope and Technirama. He was also thefirst and only cartoonist to make a success-ful break into live-action film–making.

The characters from the Disney movies-whether animated like Mickey Mouse andPinocchio; portrayed by actors andactresses in roles such as Long John Silverand Mary Poppins; or inanimate objectslike Herbie the Volkswagen-are knownthroughout the world. The creative andimaginative use of sound, music, and folkmaterial made Disney successful and hisstudio expanded rapidly.

At this point he set up a training schoolwhere a whole new generation of artistsdeveloped and this made possible theproduction of the first feature length car-toon Snow White 1937.13

This was a well-timed animated featurealthough it was dubbed by the movieindustry as Disney’s folly. Few believedthat an audience would sit through a 90 -minute cartoon.! This film set the Disneystyle. Disney’s folly turned out to be anenchanted castle. Snow White and theSeven Dwarfs was proof, beyond anydoubt, of the genius of Walt Disney andhis artists. Later in a radio interviewCecil B. de Mille asked Disney to explainthe secret of Snow White’s appeal.

He replied:

Over at our place we’re sure of just one-thing everybody in the world was oncea child. We grow up, our personalitieschange, but within every one of us some-thing remains of our childhood. It knowsnothing of sophistication and distinction;it’s where all of us are simple and trust-ing. So, in planning a new picture, wedon’t think of grown-ups and we don’tthink of children, but just of that fine,clean unspoiled spot down deep in every-one of us, that the world has maybe madeus forget and maybe our pictures canhelp recall.

It was a philosophy that was to providethe Studio with a formula that would earnit success for decades to come.

Other animated features followed,including Pinocchio, Bambi, and Fanta-sia, and many more. Wild life filmsbegan with Seal Island in 1948. TreasureIsland in 1950 led to the studios majorproduction of live-action films, whichcornered the traditional ‘family market’.Disney’s hit Mary Poppins was one ofhis most successful films, which usedoccasional animation.

With the dedicated help of his brotherRoy and a highly creative staff Disney

built a company that overcame numerousvicissitudes; initial uncertainties, indus-trial unrest, economic slumps, constantlyshifting market conditions and eventu-ally, even the death of its founder. By thetime of his death on 15 December 1966in Burbank, Los Angeles, California,Disney’s enterprises had brought himrespect, admiration, honors, and Oscarsbut he will always be remembered as theman who invented Mickey Mouse.14

The Disney Studio during Walt Disneycareer had produced 21 full-lengthanimated films, 493 short subjects, 47live action films7 true life adventurefeatures 330 of Mickey Mouse Club TVprograms 78 half hour Zorro TV adven-tures and 280 other TV shows.

On18 July, 1957 Disney opened Disney-land in Anaheim, California, the mostsuccessful amusement park in history. In1971 Disney World opened in Orlando,Florida and since then Disney themeparks have opened in Tokyo Japan andParis. Walt Disney created and funded anew university the California Institute ofthe Arts, known as Cal Arts. Disney once commented;

It’s the principal thing I hope to leavewhen I move on to greener pastures. If Ican help provide a place to develop the


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talent of the future, I think I will have ac-complished something.15

‘Beyond belief’.When you wish upon a star..In the world of Irish film animation,Kilkenny based Cartoon Saloon, estab-lished by Tom Moore and Paul Young in1999 has grown into a multi-award win-ning Animation Studio. It received OscarAcademy Award nominations for TheSecret of Kells in 2010 and Song of theSea in 2014. Film animation has come along way worldwide, thanks to Walt Dis-ney’s dream, a pencil and a mouse.

One of Disney Studios recent films

‘Frozen’, has become the highest gross-ing Disney film of all time. On 13th De-cember 2014 Carlow Childrens Choir‘Aspiro’ led a Frozen Sing Along to a sellout audience in the National ConcertHall, Dublin for a total of three shows.The story ‘Frozen’ was inspired by theHans Christian Anderson fairy tale. Itsmusic with many classic hits for example‘Let it Go’ has made it an outstandingsuccess. Mary Amond O’Brien estab-lished the Carlow Children’s Choir in1997 and it was a dream comes true forher and the children to perform to suchpacked and appreciative audiences in theNational Concert Hall.

Disney’s magic touched the life ofCarlow Music Director Rev. Fr. Liam

Lawton also in 2014. In the year 2000 Fr.Lawton’s entire portfolio of music wasstolen, he was devasted and had to startwriting from the beginning again. After a Jerusalem pilgrimage he pro-duced an album Bethlehem Sky inspiredby that journey. One song on his albumUnder a Thousand Stars focuses on thehumanitarian plight of the peopleof Syria.

Disney Studios shortly afterwards, askedthe Irish writer to pen a song to be usedin a special retrospective for film classicssuch as Snow White and Cinderella. Theresult was the song ‘Beyond Belief’arranged by Mark Cahill, performed bythe Prague Philharmonic Orchestra andsung by the Longford born soprano EmerBarry of Affiniti. It has been chosen as thevoice of Disneyland Paris latestcampaign. A dream comes true for botha talented and deserving writer andsinger.!The song Beyond Belief represents thepositivity of life and especially believingin our dreams, that all things are possibleif we believe in ourselves.

What a wonderful legacy Walt Disneyhas left us.!

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Peter Furney a cousin ofthe Disney family and to genealogist PaulGorry from Baltinglass who corre-sponded with me on the Disney FamilyHistory. Also to sources, Carlow roots,Ancestry.com, Find my past, and TheNational Library of Ireland Archives.

Author’s note.

The first film the author saw was SnowWhite, when aged 3.

‘My father took me to see it at the RitzCinema, Carlow, it was Christmastimeand I travelled the 2 miles fromKilmeaney to Carlow, as a passenger onfathers James Motorbike ZL 880, sittingon a cushion on the front seat, wearingmy best clothes, father wore an aviator’shelmet and goggles. I was enchanted andspellbound by the film, however, I hidunder my seat when the witch arrived.

For four decades I have been privileged


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to work in Art Education. Throughoutthat time film animation and especiallythe Walt Disney characters have provento be a source of joy and inspiration formy students. What a wonderful giftimagination is. I am honored that severalof my students both in Carlow andWexford have happily followed careersin film animation. It is with the greatestjoy that I write this small tribute to WaltDisney to say thank you to him, and hisStudio for all the hours of happiness andlaughter he has given us.’

Endnotes:

1 Richard Holliss and Brian Sibley, TheDisney Studio Story. Octopus Book Ltd.London. 1988. P12.

2. Jan Winter, Uncle Walt’s Ancestors,Travel Section, The Independent,Sat. 12th April. 1997.

3. Jimmy O’Toole, Carlow’s Interna-tional Achievers. The Leinster Leader,Naas, Kildare, Ireland. 1999, p7-14.

4. Index to the Act and Grant books andthe Original Wills of the Dioceses ofDublin 1272-1858. [26th, 30th, 31stReports 1894,1899.] Location, Carlow,Ireland. The Index to Prerogative Willsof Ireland 1536-1810 and Supplement1914 by Sir Arthur Vicars is a usefulsource. He indexed all wills up to 1810.This index deals with 40,000 Irish Wills.Almost all destroyed in the 1922 explo-sion at the Public Record Office inDublin. Vicar’s publication was based onthe transcripts and notes taken from theoriginal wills by Sir William Bertham,Ulster King of Arms. 1779-1853.

5 Turtle Bunbury, Disney of Strabannon.the Brabazon connection see web site.

6 The Cemetry of Clonmelsh is aban-doned and overgrown, Mrs DorothyLeonard of Woodlands, Castledermotwhile researching the roots of anotherfamily there, was the first to rediscoverthe Disney tombs.

The present author of this article isresearching the possibility of restorationand care of the Disney family tombs, forit is a great shame that they should be so

neglected.

7 Peter Furney, Disney Family History,2010. Private coll.8 Turtle Bunbury, ref. to the Butler andWarren Family, in Disney of Straban-non, see web. site.

9 Martin Nevin, local information andDisney archives. The census for Leighlin in 1911 records James and Bridget Dis-ney living in Coolnaskisha, Rathornan,Carlow. Aged 42 and 48, and a nieceCathleen Mallon aged 16 from America.

10 Arundel Caulfield Best, was FrancesBests father and this is where the unusualname of ‘Arundel’ came into the Disneyfamily. The name is of Norman-Frenchorigin it comes from the old French (h)arondel a diminutive of ‘aroud’, a swal-low. The name is strongly associated withthe Munster Co. of Cork. Arundel Millsa village in south Cork and also Arundel

Castle in Ring, Cork\ Waterford boarder.

11 Peter Furney, cousin of ChristineFurney, who married Henry Disney, [seetree]. Disney Family, 2010, private coll.

12 Disney Family Tree. Web site. DisneyMuseum archives.

13 Richard Holliss and Brian Sibley, TheDisney Studio Story. Octopus Book Ltd.London. 1988. P15. ch2. Enter TheMouse.

14 Ibid. p. 6-7 The House that Walt Built.

15 Ibid. p.82. ch.12. Practically perfect inevery way.


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Walt Disney visits the birthplace of Robert LouisStevenson with J.W. Wherries, Vice President of the R.L.S.Clubin Edinburgh, rare photograph, October 15th, 1949, taken by Geoarge Konig. Disney photo Library A 13Mounted on linen. 8*10ins.

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Many of the extracts for this article aretaken from the well-researched book bythe late Tom Murphy of Borris Co.Carlow. His Book, The Fathers Walsh ofBorris : Political Intrigue, Murder &Transportation in the 1830s, is anextremely valuable source of informationon Borris and the surrounding areasduring this period. Murphy minutelyexamines each article in the Tory(Carlow Sentinel) and Liberal (TheCarlow Morning Post and The LeinsterIndependent) newspapers, among others,that documents the strengthening controlof the clergy in Borris over their congre-gation. The account covers a period oframpant sectarianism from both sectionsof the community. Newspapers of thetime were careless or worse with the truthif it suited their agenda. What Murphyachieved was the critical analysis of theinformation from each article coupledwith the ability and knowledge to pointout the truth and inaccuracies that werecontained within. This gives the readeran excellent feeling for the mood of theday while also maintaining a jaundicedeye on the vitriol that was contained in alarge percentage of the reports. Murphy’sattention to detail is extraordinarythroughout the book. Any error isreferenced back to reliable sources suchas the National Library or Governmentpapers of the time. Any contradictorystories are exposed and referenced.

The passing of The Catholic Relief Actof 1793 would prove to be a seminalmoment in Irish politics and eventuallyits effects would filter down to villageslike Borris. This act did not allowCatholics access to parliament but did

give the 40-shilling freeholder the rightto vote, Catholic or Protestant. Thisresulted in the doubling of the number ofregistered freeholders in Ireland between1795 and 1803 to 100,000 as landlordsfranchised their tenants in order to se-cure votes.1 There is no evidence thatThomas Kavanagh the main landlord inthe Borris area manipulated the tenantsfor electoral advantage. This can be seenwhen comparing two adjoining townlands in the Parish of Clonagoose (Bor-ris), Coonogue and Rathgeran. Coonoguewas in the possession of the Earl of Cour-town and by 1826 there were forty-seventenants listed, forty of them on less thanten acres, some as little as one. In the ad-joining towns land of Rathgeran underthe control of the Kavanaghs, the averageacres per tenant was thirty-two.2 At thetime this act looked to have increased thepower of the landlord as they couldeffectively enfranchise their tenants andcontrol their votes. As it would turn outthis would change when the Catholicclergy realised that controlling thesevotes could change things in theirfavour.3 The Catholic clergy in Carlowwere not slow to realise this opportunityand by 1818 there was evidence ofdistinct Catholic electoral interest.4 AHouse of Commons Report on The Stateof Ireland in 1825 would back this up, asevidence is given of clergy preachingdiscontent from the altar.5 Dr. Doyle,then professor of Theology at CarlowCollege urged Catholic voters to casttheir votes for Robert Latouche, a Whigsupporter of Catholic Emancipation.6 Hewas unsuccessful in this attempt but itwas only to be the start of a battle be-tween the clergy and landlord.

The emergence of the Catholic Clergy asa political force was certainly evident inBorris. Here three very strong mindedand outspoken priests, Rev John WalshSnr. PP, his nephew Rev John Walsh Jnr.CC and Rev Buggy CC, opposed Torycandidates at every opportunity.7 Fr.John Walsh Snr. was born in Graigna-managh and was the first student to enrolin Carlow College.8 He was appointedPP of Borris in 1805 and set about repair-ing the local church in Ballymurphy andbuilding the churches in Rathanna andBorris. The latter church is on record inSlater’s Leinster Directory of 1881 ascosting £2000. He also built the schoolhouse in Borris with monies donatedfrom his political opponents, theKavanaghs of Borris House. Fr. JohnWalsh Jnr was appointed curate at Borrisin 1823. He was a nephew of John WalshSenior and was also born in Graiguena-managh. Fr. Buggy was appointed curatein Borris sometime before 1835.9 Thepolitical battle between clergy andpoliticians was fought out locally but alsopublicly in the Tory newspaper, TheCarlow Sentinel and also the LiberalCarlow Morning Post and indeed fromthe pulpit when necessary. The twoWalsh priests were denigrated andinsulted shamefully by the Sentinel butalso described quite rightly as turning thelocals of Borris against their landlordThomas Kavanagh. John Walsh Jnr. inparticular was not afraid to use the pressto get his point across and sent manyletters to the Sentinel defending hisactions. While the Tory newspaper usedalmost exclusively biased journalism intheir reporting of the disturbances inBorris, the clergy it seems were also notafraid to use any means to convince theircongregation to oppose Kavanagh. TheChurch in Borris was used for politicalmeetings, and parishioners were threat-ened from the altar, if they voted forKavanagh or Bruen.

Tom Murphy’s book The Fathers Walshof Borris: Political Intrigue, Murder &Transportation in the 1830s, details thedifferent meeting and rallies organised inBorris and the outlying area around thisperiod. A meeting was held, according toThe Carlow Post, in Borris on November1830 organised by the Borris clergy,petitioning Parliament for a repeal of theUnion. Another was held on the follow-

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ing April and was again reported in thePost. The first instance of an anti Titheorganisation is reported in the CarlowSentinel on the 11th February 1832 whena meeting was called for the 19th inBorris.10 This was a replication of ameeting organised in Graiguenamanaghunder the stewardship of Fr. MartinDoyle.11 The Sentinel and Post both wel-comed this meeting with the Sentinel de-scribing the priests who called it asexemplary and patriotic.12 This would beone of the few compliments bestowed onthe priests of Borris over the next fewyears from that paper. The numbers re-ported at this meeting are extraordinarywith between 7000-8000 people esti-mated in the Post. The Post also reportedthe amount of Tithe paid by the locals as£385 in the Parish of Kiltinnel and £235in the parish of Clonagoose, quite a sumof money at the time. The Sentinel alsodescribes how several Protestant gentle-men attended this meeting and both pa-pers record the speeches as ecumenical,encouraging good relations with theirneighbours.13

What is interesting about this meeting isthe power that the clergy clearly felt theyhad with the locals. Rev. Walsh Snr.'sspeech is reported in the Sentinel asbeginning with the line, “I shall addressa few words to you and as Catholic rectorof this parish I will expect you to payattention to what remarks I am about tomake.” Fr. Walsh Jnr. advised theaudience on how to frustrate the Titheproctor by secreting their cattle andhiding everything of value.14 This wassound advice as this very system ofpreventing Tithe Proctors from securinglivestock had begun in the neighbouringparish of Graiguenamanagh in 1830 andhad been spectacularly successful. Onestipulation of the Tithe collection wasthat livestock could not be taken at night-time and could not be taken from underlock and key.15 Fr. Doyle in Graiguena-managh used these loopholes andadvised the locals to only allow theirlivestock out to graze at night and to lockthem up during the day. He had alsooffered to store the cattle prior to sale andthis had brought matters to a head whenone hundred and twenty yeomanryarrived to take the cattle from the priest’shouse. The priests in Borris were notslow to use their fellow clergy’s methods.Indeed Fr. Doyle was as regular a speaker

at the Tithe meetings as the Fr. Walshes.16The Morning Post goes on to describetwo other huge meetings held over thesummer of 1832 in St. Mullins and TheCross of Skeough respectively, where theWalsh priests and Thomas Cloney spokefor repeal of the Union.17 The numbersgiven for the second meeting were evenmore extraordinary at 20,000. At theCross of Skeough the tone of John WalshJnr. took on much more political tone ashe used his speech to disparage HenryBruen, Thomas Kavanagh’s Tory runningmate and son in law from Carlow, for theway he voted for the people of Carlow atparliament. He also highlights howBruen, after the last election treated histenant, Mr. Sinnot of Kiledmond Borris.After Sinnot had voted against him heimmediately looked for arrears and thenserved him with a letter for non-payment.Fr. Walsh also highlights Kavanagh’sconversion as he describes how once theywere hereditary friends of the people butthat a “blasting simoom [sic] has sweptthem from us.”18 Interestingly althoughBruen resided in Carlow, some thirtymiles away, and Kavanagh in the sameparish his only criticism of Kavanagh isin relation to his conversion. If Kavanaghhad been practising any ill treatment of histenants then this would have been an idealopportunity to highlight this fact. It wasnot an endorsement of Kavangh but nei-ther was it as bitter towards him as that ofBruen in Carlow. The Kavanaghs’ reputa-tion as landlords may have had somethingto do with this, while Bruen on the otherhand had by his own admission a reputa-tion as a severe and grinding.19

The first sign of a counter point to thepriests of Borris came not from ThomasKavanagh but in the form of a letter tothe editor of the Sentinel in November1832 from one of Kavanagh’s tenants.This published letter described how“most base and dishonest efforts arebeing made to separate Mr. Kavanaghfrom his tenants”.20 This was followed aweek later by a notice of a meeting oftenants in support of Thomas Kavanagh.This meeting was held on the 19thOctober and a resolution was passed thatan address be presented to Kavanaghexpressing respect and firm attachmentto him as landlord. Edmond Hagarty,Charles Corcoran and Daniel Kelly wereappointed to write up the same.21 Theycompleted this task and presented him

with a letter expressing their attachmentto him as their landlord and how theywould look to him for advice andsupport. They also indicated that theywished to exercise their rights (whichmust be presumed their right to vote), andthey would look to Kavanagh to ensurethat they were allowed to do so. Sixty-twonames signed this letter which theyrequested be published in the provincialpapers.22 Kavanagh wrote back a letter,which was also published in the Sentinel,thanking his tenants for their support. Heassures them of their right to exercise theirelective franchise and his willingness tosupport this right by force if necessary. Inthis letter he takes a swipe at the men ofpeace who ought to know better, who areinciting.23 This is undoubtedly a referenceto the clergy of Borris but he also declaresthat he will bring to justice the hired ruffi-ans who nightly disturb the peace. The fol-lowing week the Sentinel carried a letterfrom the Trades People and persons em-ployed by Thomas Kavanagh endorsingthe letter from his tenants and expressingsimilar sentiments. This was signed bysixty-five names but as before they are notgiven so it cannot be calculated if thesewere the same people as the first.24 Con-sidering that the number of engaged intrade in Borris in the 1831 Census is givenas sixty-three then this was a serious en-dorsement. There are also twenty-eightfamilies listed as engaged in farming ofwhich Kavanagh undoubtedly some as hisrecords show upwards of fifty peopleemployed on any given day.25 It is littlewonder some of the people of Borris werecoming out in favour of their landlord.

The clergy were not long in respondingto this barrage from the Sentinel. On thefirst Sunday of November The Postreports that a meeting was held in BorrisChapel to propose resolutions to counter-act the address presented to Mr.Kavanagh. Kavanagh responded byordering placards erected in the townsupporting Blackney, his politicalopponent, to be torn down, deemingthem a trespass on his property.26 ThePost reports on this meeting: “After lastmass Rev Walsh Snr. stated that all whowere attached to their religion and priestsshould remain in the chapel and all thosewho could not repose confidence in theirpriests he begged withdraw”. After aconsiderable pause he drew up threeresolutions that he stated would display

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that his congregation would not be sepa-rated from their priests by the machina-tions of any bad Catholics or those whowere their enemies. The first resolutionstated that they viewed with detestationthose who presented the address to Mr.Kavanagh as it cast measured censure onthe conduct of the clergy. The secondresolution simply expressed confidencein their priests. The third resolution wasin regard to the interference of the land-lords with the tenantry and as none of thesignatories of the address to Mr.Kavanagh were in attendance theirnames were read from the altar. A Mr.Nolan expressed the belief that some ofthose who signed the address were nowsorry, to, which Rev Walsh replied thatthe people would know how to deal withthem.27 Fr. Walsh also stated that who-ever voted for Kavanagh had ceased tobe a member of his Church and washanded over to Satan.28

“THE CLERICAL AGITATORS” wasthe headline in the Sentinel on March30th 1833. The paper urges the govern-ment to impose martial law following aparticularly fiery sermon given by Fr.John Walsh in Ballymurphy. 29 Unfor-tunately no detail is given of the homily.On May 4th it followed up its criticismof Fr. Walsh describing him as “an igno-rant agitator, a man possessing lessknowledge of Latin or polite Literature,than one of our office messengers, a vul-gar imperious demagogue…”.30 Obvi-ous from the article is the fact thatThomas Kavanagh had finally hadenough of the political interference andhad moved against some of his tenants,enforcing arrears and following that upwith eviction. This included Fr. JohnWalsh Snr., whom Kavanagh moved toevict for non-payment of rent accordingto the Kilkenny Journal of 22nd October1883.31 There was also an ejectmentorder against the parish priest of St.Mullins. This priest, Fr. Martin Doylewas the organiser of the Tithe protest inGraignamanagh. It reported that the landwas property of Mr. Carroll of Wicklowand Fr. Walsh has been in possession for20 years. Although Walsh had paid hisrent he held the land with others who hadnot. Kavanagh again demanded arrearsand as a result all were ejected, aboutsixty in number. If the clergy had theirloopholes to avoid the Tithe Proctor thelandlords also had theirs to get rid of

troublesome tenants. The land was set tofour Protestants for the purposes of win-ning subsequent elections according tothe Kilkenny Moderator. The individualwho took up Walsh’s land apparently be-came ashamed of his actions and gave upthe land. Walsh again took possession ofthe land. This story was carried in otherpapers such as the Morning Register,Evening Mail, Evening Packet and theDublin Evening Post. On the 28th Sep-tember the Sentinel carries an article de-tailing how Fr. Walsh Jnr. had his turfricks torn down and destroyed. Fr. Walshresponds to this article on the 5th Octo-ber, by vehemently denying that a singlerick of turf had been destroyed mali-ciously. Instead he details how the localshad come and saved his turf and carriedit back to his house. The Sentinel com-mented on this letter stating that Fr.Walsh was more acquainted with the col-lection of his dues rather than with facts.Luke Hagarty of Kilcoltrim Borris on the26th October wrote a letter to the papertaking exception to Fr. Walsh’s letter inthe Sentinel regarding his turf. He ques-tions Fr. Walsh’s facts and states that Fr.Walsh had, from the altar in Borris, as-serted that his turf had been destroyedmaliciously and charged the people in thetownsland of Moulon (sic) with the act.Fr. Walsh responded to this letter on the5th November 1833 and makes a verypoor attempt to divert attention fromHagarty’s letter. His letter veers in sev-eral tangents but does not adequatelyaddress Hagarty’s points. Hagarty againwrites in the Sentinel on the 30th Novem-ber when he effectively calls Fr. Walsh aliar and again points out the contradic-tions in the original letter.32 This goes toshow that although the Catholic clergywas emerging as a strong political forcein the Borris area there were Catholicparishioners who were unafraid to takethem on.

The Carlow Sentinel in the early part of1835 details several instances of violenceagainst people who had voted for theTory candidates at the recent election.33There are several alleged instances ofpeople being accosted and “hooted at” asthey were on their way to and from Massduring this period. The instances were re-ported to have occurred at the chapels inRathanna and also at the parish church inBorris. A woman was reported to havebeen thrown from the gallery in Borris

church during this period. A full blownriot was reported in the February 7thedition of the Sentinel. Edward Mulliganwho had apparently opposed the priestsduring the previous election was draggedfrom the gallery and beaten outside.Some of Mulligan’s friends intervenedoutside which prevented him from,receiving a more severe beating. Threewitnesses, a Constable Patrick Roach,Richard Kelly and Patrick Holden sworeevidence of this incident. Informationwas lodged against all these incidents andnine cases were handed over for theQuarter Sessions. One man was foundguilty and the others were referred to alater sitting as the jury could not agree.At this sitting Edward Mulligan refutedthe evidence he had given previously andall charges were dropped.34

In January 1835 the Sentinel has thefollowing editorial which is a goodexample of the view point taken bythat newspaper.

“It appears, that restless and mischievouspolitician, the Rev. John Walsh and a fewof his vulgar satellites, are determined atall hazards to keep up a system of agita-tion in his parish, in order to preserve hispopularity and retain some shadow ofauthority over the unthinking rabble. Ameeting, we perceive by the Carlow Postwill take place on tomorrow after lastmass, for various legal and constitutionalpurposes and thus after 'prayer', thismeek and pious pastor will indulge hisparishioners with a long catalogue ofIrish grievances and the piety and ardentattachment of their ancestors to thepriesthood. The altar will once morebecome a proper place to discuss themerits of popular representatives and wesuppose much of the 'recusant Catholics'as are attached to their benefactor will bedenounced as the enemies of the priestsand therefore to all intents and purposes,heretics who should be carefully avoided,for, according to modern demagogues, noman can be a good Christian nor a sincereRoman Catholic if he obey not themandate of the priest with the same piousdefense he would the canons of a generalcouncil. The people of Borris have hadopportunities of profiting by the lessonsof experience - and if they suffer a wilyagitator, who cares not one farthing forthe people, provided he pockets his duesto sever the connection between them


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and Mr. Kavanagh, they and not thepriest, will be answerable for the conse-quences. By agitation the priest keeps upa sort of artificial excitement to browbeatand intimidate industrious traders whoare attached to a resident gentry; byagitation the priest rouses the bad passionof the vulgar and the ignorant and like thedexterous juggler, he turns their credulityto his own advantage, little regardingtheir temporal or spiritual welfareprovided he be regarded as the great idolof popular worship as a politician. Ittherefore behoves Mr. Kavanagh to lookto the peace of that district and we shouldrespectfully suggest to him the proprietyof carefully marking out his dependentsand tenantry as attend those mob assem-blies at his own gate; he will be therebybe enabled to distinguish the turbulentand disaffected from the peaceable andindustrious people of that neighbourhoodand treat them according to their merits.The Whitefoot have not latterly disturbedthat district, after a few agitation meet-ings we shall see how matters will stand;but it is, at all events, important that thepublic should know those who cause theruin of our population. Mr. Kavanaghresides constantly among his people,encouraging industry, opening freshsources of wealth, clothing the poor,whilst his amiable family are occupied inadministering relief to the sick, educatingthe children of the poor - in fact, blessingand being blessed; and yet, at such agentleman's gates do a gang of heartlesspolitical incendiaries meet for thepurpose of abuse, misrepresentation andsheer opposition to his known wishes.Mr. Kavanagh, we trust, will have a strictwatch on their proceedings and such asrepay his kindness by joining in thoseconventions, we hope he will take care toafford them sufficient leisure to repentfor their ingratitude. Peace and content-ment, there can be none, until suchpersons are brought to a sense oftheir duty.”

This article would indicate that despitethe bluster the Tory press was concernedwith the emerging influence of theCatholic clergy in Carlow. Although theCarlow Sentinel was biased, bigoted andat times simply untruthful it did not havea monopoly on these characteristics. Thefollowing is an extract from the LeinsterIndependent on August 15th 1835. It isan editorial on the death of Fr. John

Walsh of Borris. The article is writtenunder the heading “The Priest MurderingFaction”, which emotively sets the tonefor the rest of the article:-

"The priest murdering factions are terri-bly annoyed by the verdict given in thecase of Mr. Walsh and are consequentlystraining every point to impugn the deci-sion of the jury. The Sentinel is at its oldtrade of falsification and misrepresenta-tion. Its first exception is grounded on thecircumstance of the jury being comprisedof Roman Catholics: without, however,even intimating to his readers, that ChiefConstable Hawkshaw had furnished thecoroner with a list of names, indiscrimi-nately Catholic and Protestant - that thecoroner had called over this list in theorder of which it had been presented tohim - that of the first twelve namescalled, five were Protestants - that thesefive Protestants did not answer and that,of course the coroner supplied theirplaces with persons who happened to beRoman Catholics of such respectabilityand integrity, as to defy the imputationsso adroitly insinuated by the Sentinel.”

The editorial continues in this vein foranother page before becoming even moreemotive and accusatory in its tone

“No; not all the water which the RiverBarrow shall pour into the ocean till theday of eternity, will ever be able to washout the conviction that the Rev. JohnWalsh fell a victim to Conservativehatred and fury. The Sentinelwell knowsthat Mr. Walsh was murdered by someperson or persons of the faction: he hastoo much sagacity not to foresee theconsequences to his party and thereforeis he so anxious to remove the perpetra-tion of the horrid act to some other quar-ter. But in vain! The murder wasConservative - exclusively Conservative;Conservatives have the sole and entiremerit of the execrable deed; and be theblood of the victim upon them and upontheir children's children.

Mr. Walsh had, by his zeal and activity,been long obnoxious to the bloodstainedfaction. Of all the priests in the diocese,perhaps himself and his venerable uncle,the venerable Parish priest of Borris,were most detested by the murderingcrew. The Sentinel has constantlydirected its virulent attacks against both

and the topics which the print has usuallyselected have been of such a lying andinflammatory character, as to contribute,in no small degree, to swell the tide ofConservative odium against these twoReverend Gentlemen. We all recollect thedistorted tirade of calumnies poured forthagainst the present venerable Parishpriest of Borris, as well as against theRoman Catholic priests of the county ingeneral, by Colonel Bruen. The gallantColonel, not content with misrepresent-ing on the hustings, amidst the savageyells of demi-barbarous Protestants,thought proper to repeat, in the BritishHouse of Commons, his unfoundedcalumnies. The good sayings of theColonel were re-echoed all over thecounty and the low devils of the actionbelieve what emanated from his lipsmuch sooner than they would any oneportion of the gospel. We mention thesethings to show the state of religious feel-ing in the County of Carlow and to pointout to strangers the deadly hate withwhich the Conservative faction pursuedthe Catholic priesthood. The Sentinel rep-resented them as demons incarnate,whose extermination from society wouldbe a work of piety. Every week the samedoctrine was inculcated and sent abroadgratis to every Conservative in thecounty. Damiens confessed that he hadbeen induced to stab Louis the Fifteenth,from hearing the harangues of the Parlia-ment of Paris; and as human nature iseverywhere the same, may we not easilysuppose, that some of the ignorant andenthusiastic Conservatives in the. regionof Slyguff, by constantly reading or hear-ing read to them the extravagant and highwrought declamation of the Sentinelagainst the Catholic clergy, were led toperpetrate the atrocious murder, which,at the moment cries to Heaven for hear-ing read to them the extravagant and highwrought declamations of the Sentinelagainst the vengeance? For vengeancedid we say? Yes, but the only vengeancewe seek is that warranted by the laws ofthe country. We desire no lex talionis, nolaw of private retaliation, or revenge; wedisclaim the right of any individual toarrogate to himself the vindication of thelaws; but we hope, we trust, we confide,that before long some clue will be givento lead to the conviction of the miscre-ants, who imbued their hands in theblood of a priest of the living God, with-out any provocation having been given


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on his part, save his endeavors to stemthe torrent of squireen despotism and toguide the people, not merely in the duties of religion, but in their social relations,by exhorting them to make a proper useof the elective franchise, which had beengiven them by the Reform Bill, for thecommon benefit of us all and not to servethe isolated purposes of a faction, whosedarling object is the overthrow of liberty,the establishment of oligarchical despot-ism and the perpetration of abuses in bothChurch and state. Such was the coursepursued by the Rev. John Walsh and forthis was he marked out for destruction.In a former number of the Independentwe styled the Orangemen "Children ofBlood," and so indignant did the Sentinelaffect to feel on the occasion, that thefellow worked himself up into one ofthose ranting fits so characteristic of him.We now repeat the epithets, careless towhom they may give offence. We shallnever forget the blood-thirsty disposi-tions manifested by the Orangemen at thelate Carlow election; we well remembertheir dirks and daggers and loaded buttsand pistols, as well as their wicked,although unsuccessful attempt to deal de-struction among their Catholic country-men. All these were acts which wellbecame children of blood and were but awarning prelude to the awful tragedyenacted on the Bridge of Kilgreany.

We have suffered ourselves to be bornealong much further in these observationsthan we had either intended or wished;but when we find such bold sophisticatedstatements put forth by the lying Sentinel,for the purpose of misleading public opin-ion, the blood boils within our veins andwe feel more than ordinary difficulty torestrain ourselves from launching forthinto execrations against the diabolicalfaction, who never were content until theyspilt the blood of the priesthood and of-fered it up, as a libation at the shrine ofToryism. The Sentinelmay as well desist;the public have decided - and that deci-sion is - that the Rev. John Walsh has beenmurdered by some person or personsbelonging to the Conservative faction.”

This is but one sample from both papersof how the clergy in Borris were reveredand reviled in equal measure. It alsoshows that a real struggle was emergingbetween the Tory politicians and theclergy for control of the people.

K.T. Hoppen describes Carlow as one ofIreland’s leading contenders in thecorruption stakes, declaring that it wasunambiguously up for sale to the highestbidder.35 The highest bidder in fact inthis election was on the Tory side. HenryBruen expended £5000 on expenses onone of the 1835 elections.36 Lack ofpolitical leadership would only fuel theunrest on both sides. To give an idea ofhow much Borris was split during thisperiod, one troop of Dragoons and onecompany of the 51st Regiment werestationed in Borris during the elections of1835.37 Desmond Keenan in his bookIreland 1800-1850 writes of bitter in-fighting in Carlow in January 1835 be-tween Catholics who wished to vote forthe local landlord and the priests whowished to support O Connell. The newbishop , Dr. Edward Nolan who had suc-ceeded Doyle allowed political priests tocanvass Catholic voters.38 It was alsoduring this 1835 election that Kavanaghwas accused of cooping his freeholdersat Borris House. This was reported in theSentinel just before the second electionof 1835. At a meeting in St. Mullins os-tensibly to protest against the Tithes butreally to drum up support for the Liberalcandidates, Fr. Walsh and ThomasCloney, leader of the 1798 attack on Bor-ris House were addressing the gathering.Kavanagh had obviously prior notice ofthe meeting and he arrived with a troopof military from Goresbridge. He seemsto have persuaded them to travel withhim to Borris House where they were“protected” until polling day. LadyKavanagh describes in her diaries howover sixty of the freeholders werebrought to stay by Charles Doyne,Kavanagh’s agent, in July 1835 beforethe second election. The Chapel wasprepared as their dormitory. There ismention of ale and dancing and sherecounts that she was “without sleepyesterday”.39 If this was the receptionthey received at Borris House it mightnot have taken much persuasion in St.Mullins to get them to come. Both sidesin the elections carried out this coopingof voters and the tenants did not seem toobothered it.40

There is also detailed correspondencebetween the clergy of Borris and TheLord Lieutenant of Ireland during 1835available.41 This details the complaintsof the clergy of Borris about Robert

Doyne, a magistrate of Carlow andunder-agent of Thomas Kavanagh, who,they alleged, was stationing a companyof soldiers at the entrance to the churchin Borris. This prevented the priests frombeing able to say Mass for two Sundaysin a row. The three priests who signed theletter stated that if they allowed theparishioners to attend then the most de-plorable consequences would follow. Thefollowing correspondence which carrieson for several months shows in stark de-tail the level of suspicion and detesta-tion between the two parties.

To His Excellency Lord Haddington,Lord Lieutenant, General Governor andGovernor of Ireland.

We, the undersigned Roman-catholicclergy, officiating in the parish of Borris,county of Carlow, most respectfully begleave to solicit your Excellency's protec-tion for the free and peaceable exerciseof our religion. On the last and thepreceding Sunday we were obliged toclose our chapel and refrain from thepublic exercise of the rites of ourreligion. We have been induced to adoptthis extraordinary and unprecedentedcourse by the conduct of Robert Doyne,Esq., a magistrate of this county, andunder-agent to Thomas Kavanagh, Esq.,one of the representatives for this county. On Sunday the 8th instant, Mr. Doynewent to Goresbridge, in the county ofKilkenny, and brought with him acompany of soldiers, to have themstationed at the entrance to the chapel ofBorris, for the purpose of preventingsome voters for Mr. Kavanagh beinghooted by the people, and, in case theymet any opposition, to force an entrancefor them into the House of God. On lastSunday the military and all the policeattended for the same object. We areinformed that they are to attend on nextSunday, for the same purpose. We areconvinced that if we permitted thepeople to assemble on either of thesedays, the most deplorable consequenceswould most probably have followed. Wewere obliged to have the chapel closed,and not permit the people and themilitary to come in collision. The excite-ment usually following a contestedelection was, previous to this occurrence,gradually subsiding, and would beforethis have entirely ceased, had not themilitary been ordered to attend under


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arms at the chapel.

We most respectfully and earnestlybeseech your Excellency to give direc-tions for the military to discontinue ap-pearing armed at the entrance of ourplace of religious worship, for whilst theycontinue to do so, we cannot assemblethe people to worship their God, fearingthat murder would follow.

We humbly conceive that the ordinarycourse of administering the law is quitesufficient to punish any violation of it,which might arise from the causes wehave mentioned.

We look to your Excellency's impartialityto remove the pretext of exciting thereligious feelings of the people.

Whilst we remain, &c.

(signed) John Walsh, P. P. Richard Buggy, R.C.C. John Walsh, 11.C.C.

This letter was obviously passed on toRobert Doyne and he quicklyresponded;-

Borris, Goresbridge, 5th March 1835. Sir, I have the honour to acknowledge thereceipt of your letter, dated 26th ult.,enclosing a memorial of the Rev. Messrs.Walsh and Buggy, Roman-catholicclergymen of Borris, complaining, asthey state, of my having, upon twosuccessive Sundays, placed a militaryparty at the entrance to their place ofreligious worship, and requesting that Iwould furnish, for the information of hisExcellency the Lord Lieutenant, a state-ment of the circumstances under which Iordered the troops to attend on theoccasions in question.

In reply I beg to state, that for threeweeks after the election, the parish ofBorris was in a state of total insubordina-tion. At every chapel throughout thatextensive district, large masses of thepeasantry assembled at the chapels andin the public roads on each successiveSabbath-day, and savagely ill-treatedsuch of the Roman-catholic electors asvoted for Colonel Bruen and Mr.Kavanagh. Their pews were entered, theelectors dragged out of the chapels, and

their wives and families inhumanlybeaten. These occurrences took place insome instances in the presence of thepriests, without the slightest exertion ontheir parts to prevent those outrages andscandalous violation of the public peace,as will appear by the enclosed copy ofsworn information, marked No. 1.

In the chapel of Borris, one man, namedEdward Mulligan, was assaulted,dragged out into the yard, where he wasknocked down, pelted with stones, andbut for the humane interference of someof his friends, he most probably mighthave been killed. As a resident magis-trate, I was called upon by severalRoman-Catholics to afford them theprotection of the laws, and in the impar-tial discharge of my duty, I advised thepersons upon whom assaults werecommitted to summon the parties to thepetty sessions of Borris, on the 6th ofFebruary, upon which occasion therewere nine magistrates upon the bench,among whom were Messrs. Blackneyand Vigors; four men were ordered tofind bail to appear at the next quartersessions for trial, for the assault uponMulligan as above referred to. Before thecourt rose, the said Edward Mulliganasked for protection on the followingSunday; and as Messrs. Walsh andBuggy, by the most inflammatoryspeeches from the altar, had kept thepeople in a state of great excitement;fearing a breach of the peace, I orderedthe military to attend from Goresbridge.On their arrival they occupied the inn,which is so situate as not to be even inview of the chapel, nor within I suppose600 yards of it; and I have the honour toassure you, for the information of hisExcellency, that so far from appearing atthe entrance to the chapel, which is thewhole complaint of the memorialists, themilitary never made their appearance inthe streets after they took up their quarterson their arrival. The memorialists assert,that I intended to force an entrance into thechapel in case any opposition were givento the electors; this I deny in the mostunqualified terms; for my object was topreserve the peace, and in doing so, as willappear by the accompanying documents,1 adopted the best course to prevent thepossibility of a collision between themilitary and the populace.

On the second Sunday the military did

not take up their quarters within a quarterof a mile of the chapel, although statedby the Messrs. Walsh and Buggy theywere stationed at the entrance to thechapel, or, as they pray, in their memo-rial, "We beseech your Excellency togive directions for the military to discon-tinue appearing armed at the entrance ofour place of religious worship," beingstationed in the Sessions-house at the endof the town, the chapel being at the otherextremity. So far I trust I have, to thesatisfaction of his Excellency, refuted thestatements made by the memorialists,and on a perusal of the enclosed informa-tions, I confidently hope he will find thatI acted in my official capacity with asmuch prudence as the circumstances ofthe case required. The memorialistsfurther state, that the " ordinary course ofadministering the laws was quitesufficient to preserve the peace;" in replyto which I have only to observe, thatwhere the Roman-catholic clergymenhad been mainly instrumental in produc-ing the fierce excitement which led tobreaches of the peace, and where men'slives were openly threatened, somebeaten, and a young female thrown fromthe gallery of the chapel of Borris, I hadno alternative but to call upon themilitary ; and I here solemnly state, thatin no instance did I directly or indirectlymake any invasion on the religiousfeelings of the people, but on thecontrary, my object was to protect therespectable Roman-Catholics in the dueexercise of their right as British subjects,to attend their place of worship withoutmolestation.

I have now the honour to inform you, thatsince the excitement ceased, the militaryhave not been called upon; and I cannothelp here stating, that the Roman-catholic clergymen, in refusing to sayMass, on pretence of having the militaryin the town, intended by this subterfugeto keep up excitement to serve their ownpurposes, by intimidating those electorswho voted contrary to their mandates, soas to prevent their doing so upon anyfuture occasion; in fact it was their modeof commencing a new canvass, uponwhich principle they have acted since theclose of the poll at the late election, by atotal prohibition from their presence ofthose of their miscreant flock, as theytermed those who disobeyed them; andone priest, within my hearing, went so far


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as to say, in reply to an elector (who afew moments before had been draggedout of the chapel), on his appealing tohim if he (the elector) had not as muchright to go to his devotions as another,"that he had no business in the house ofGod," or in his own words, "Whatbrought you there?"

They have also preached the doctrine ofexclusive dealing, and for the people tohold no communion whatever with thesupporters at the election of the represen-tatives for this county.

I have, &c. (signed) Robert Doyne, J.P.

Doyne also enclosed several statementsfrom two constables, an army officer, alocal labourer and a local farmer whichrefuted the accusation of preventingMass from taking place. The Lieutenantwho controlled the army on the day inBorris also provided a letter stating thatthe army remained at the courthouse inBorris and never came in sight of theChapel. This information is forwardedfrom the Lord Lieutenant back to theclergy in Borris. The clergy replied backto this letter with the following:-

To His Excellency Lord Haddington,Lord Lieutenant, General Governor, andGovernor of Ireland.

The Memorial of the undersignedRoman-catholic Clergy of the Parish ofBorris, County Carlow, humbly showeth,that your Memorialists feel grateful toyour Excellency for communicating tothem the substance of Mr. Doyne'sdefence, forwarded to your Excellency inanswer to the charges preferred againsthim by your memorialists in their memo-rial of the 17th of last February. We feelhappy in being able to furnish yourExcellency with such answers to Mr.Doyne's statements as we are confidentwill amply vindicate the character of theinhabitants of this part of the county fromthe charges brought against them by Mr. Doyne, and also convince your Excel-lency that your memorialists are inca-pable of submitting to your Excellency'sconsideration any statement not foundedon truth.

Your memorialists beg leave to inform

your Excellency, that they did not state(as Mr, Doyne asserts*) that the militarywere placed at the chapel, but that hebrought a company of soldiers fromGoresbridge to have them stationed at theentrance of the chapel, and that the mili-tary came for that purpose: one of yourmemorialists as informed by LieutenantKing, of the 89th, who, when memorial-ist waited on him to know if he came totown for the purpose of attending withhis men at the chapel on that day, heinformed memorialist that he wasbrought for that purpose, when called onby the magistrate.

This interview took place half an hourbefore the usual time for first Mass; andimmediately after Mr. Hawkshaw, thepolice chief, with his men, with fixedbayonets, marched up and down the streetbefore the chapel; under these circum-stances, your memorialists determined notto have Mass in the chapel, and dispersedthe people then assembled, and therebeing no persons at the chapel, the mili-tary had no pretext for appearing there.

In reply to Mr. Doyne's first assertion, "that for three weeks after the election, theparish of Borris was in a state of totalinsubordination," we beg leave to assureyour Excellency, that this is not the truth;on the two Sundays next after the elec-tion, the people attended at and retiredfrom the different chapels in this parishwithout manifesting the slightestsymptoms of disturbance. Your memori-alists beg leave to inform your Excel-lency that the first cause of excitement inthis part of the county originated with Mr.Doyne. He caused fireworks and illumi-nations to be got up to celebrate thereturn of Colonel Bruen and Mr.Kavanagh; numbers of the countrypeople attended, and were conductingthemselves most peaceably and orderly,when they were driven by Mr. Hawk-shaw and the police out of the town, thepolice acting as partisans by illuminatingtheir barracks: this treatment so irritatedthe people, that had one of your memori-alists not interposed, the most deplorableconsequences might have ensued.

Mr. Doyne secondly states, " that at everychapel in this district large masses of thepeasantry assembled and savagelyill-treated such of the Roman-catholicelectors as voted for Colonel Bruen and

Mr. Kavanagh, entering their pews, anddragging them out of the chapels, &c.&c, without the slightest exertion of theclergy to prevent these outrages.“ Yourmemorialists most positively andsolemnly assure your Excellency that theabove statement is unfounded and false,and they most earnestly solicit the mostrigid inquiry into its truth. Memorialiststake this opportunity of informing yourExcellency, that the only voter who wasever taken out of any chapel in thisparish, or so assaulted, was a personnamed Mulligan, and that he came intothe chapel at the conclusion of Mass, andthat he was accompanied by several otherpersons in the employment of ThomasKavanagh, Esq., who assaulted thepeople in the chapel-yard before Mulli-gan was taken out of the chapel; theywere convicted of this offence, and finedby the magistrates, which fine memorial-ists are ready to prove. Mr. Doyne prom-ised to pay. The persons who assaultedMulligan were two or three women andchildren, strangers, and in no way con-nected with this parish.

Memorialists beg to state, that no outrageoccurred in the presence of any one ofthem, and whenever they perceived theslightest disposition to disturbance, theyimmediately suppressed it. And on the daythat Mulligan was assaulted, the parishpriest declared, before commencing Mass,that if there was any disturbance ordisorder in the chapel he would not sayMass. The same admonition was given atfirst Mass, and in all the country chapels.

Your memorialists feel much concernthat expressions so injurious to theircharacters should go before the publicthrough the medium of the press, beforethey ever heard they were made, orreceived your Excellency's answer totheir memorial. Your memorialists solicitfrom your Excellency's impartiality anopportunity of vindicating their charac-ters, and proving by the must incontro-vertible evidence, that the chargespreferred by Mr. Doyne against them areliterally untrue.

In reply to Mr. Doyne's assertion, that ayoung girl was thrown from the galleryof the chapel of Borris, or from thegallery of any chapel in this parish, it isfalse and unfounded, no such occurrencehaving ever taken place. Your memorial-


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ists beg leave to inform your Excellency,that Kelly's Inn, where the soldiersstopped the first day, and the Court-house, where they were stationed thesecond Sunday, command a direct viewof the chapel. Your memorialists solicitfrom your Excellency the most strictinquiry into the truth of the facts statedby Mr. Doyne. And your memorialistsshall ever pray.

(signed) John Walsh, P. P. John Walsh, R.C.C. Richard Buggy, R. C. C,Borris, 19 March 1835.

The Lord Lieutenant replied to this letterstating that he felt that no good wouldcome from investigating this further. Hedid indicate that an inquiry would be heldinto the illuminating of the police bar-racks and driving the people of Borris outof the town on the same night. A PettySession was held in Borris to enquire intothese complaints on the 6th April 1835.Sir John Harvey was tasked with theinvestigation and he swiftly drafted hisreply to the Lord Lieutenant.

“The Minutes of Evidence taken beforeme, 1 have the honour to enclose, and tosubmit as my opinion, and report, withreference to them and to the facts thenelicited, and to those which have other-wise come to my knowledge, that inclearing the streets of the town of Borrison the evening referred to, the chiefconstable and police acted under thepositive and repeated orders of the onlymagistrate in the village, and that it hasnot been proved by any concurrent testi-mony that any act of intemperance orviolence on the part of the chief constableor the police was committed againstany individual.

Those who have sworn the contrary haveall been compelled to admit:

1st That they sustained no bodily hurtor injury.

2nd. That they could not identify any one ofthe policemen by whom they were“charged with fixed bayonets."

3rd. That they are unable to bring forward asingle witness of their own party, who

saw the transaction, though the street wasfull of people.

4th. That they never made at the time orsince, or thought of making, any com-plaint or application for redress, either tothe police authorities, to the magistratesof the district, to their own clergy, or toany other individual; and were notinformed that any complaint of this na-ture was to be preferred until Saturdaylast, the 4th instant.

With regard to the 2d charge, " that thepolice acted as partisans in illuminatingtheir barracks," while I admit that itwould have been more discreet in Mr.Hawkshaw at once to have ordered thefew candles which the women had placedin some of the windows (to protect themfrom being broken) to be extinguished,yet I trust his Excellency will make everyallowance for the circumstances in whichthis really humane and excellent officerwas placed, in being suddenly called outfrom where he was at dinner to quell ariot which, I think the evidence of Mr.Doyne and the sergeant of police, as wellas that of Mr. Charles Corcoran, arespectable Roman-catholic inhabitant,proved was threatening to become veryserious, the town being full of ‘strangers,and others, not in Mr. Kavanagh's inter-est, armed with bludgeons, &c. &c.’ AndI also beg to draw his Excellency's atten-tion to the fact stated in Mr. Hawkshaw'sletter, which appears to me to prove thatpolice could not fairly be suspected ofbeing partisans of the two Protestantcandidates, viz. that six out of the nine ofwhich the party was composed wereRoman-Catholics.

I have, &c,

(signed) J. Harvey, Inspector General. Sir William Gosset, K.C.H,”

Harvey supplied the testimony of all theindividuals involved and while it wouldappear that the police were heavy handedon the night, a couple of hundred peoplehad gathered in Borris on this particularnight so it may have been the case thatthe police had to take control quickly.That being the case, there would alsoseem to be evidence of intimidation ofsome of the inhabitants of Borris on the

night. The Lord Lieutenant againforwards this information to the priests inBorris and plainly states that there is noevidence of wrongdoing by the police.He does admonish the action of illumi-nating of the barracks on the night butnotwithstanding this it makes thecomplainants seem somewhat foolish.What is probably most interesting aboutthis correspondence is that the clergy ofBorris were comfortable enough topublicly denounce Doyne, a Justice ofthe Peace. They were also willing topublicly articulate their poor opinion ofthe police and their actions in Borris. Theclergy clearly felt that they were now ina position to be the voice of the Catholicparishioners in Borris. This despite someof the Catholics of Borris obviously notsupporting this view. The priests wereunafraid to use both the public periodi-cals of the day but also to complain to thepolitical masters of Ireland at the time.What is also revealing is that these polit-ical leaders were willing to entertainthese complaints and in this case orderenquiries when necessary. This wouldhave sent a clear message to the localpoliticians and civil authorities that theycould not ride roughshod over the clergywithout repercussions.

These are but some samples of theopprobrium which was dished out in thelocal press at the time. It points to adeeply divided parish in Borris where thelandlords and the clergy fought out forthe loyalty of the locals. The press wasinvariably biased and agitated in its ownright. No opportunity was missed todenigrate the opposition and promotedivided feelings among the populace.Due to space constraints only a verysmall sample of the newspaper coverageand the other information that TomMurphy gathered is given here. His bookis full of more examples that are wellworth perusing.

Footnotes:1 P.J. Jupp, ‘Irish Parliamentary Elections and theInfluence of the Catholic Vote, 1801-20’, in TheHistorical Journal, x, no.2 (1976), pp. 183-196. ;Whyte, ‘Landlord Influence at Elections in Ireland1760-1885’, pp. 740-760.2 Garrett Bolger, ‘Coonogue Evictions’, in Carlo-viana, no. 44 (1996), p 60.3 Whyte, ‘Landlord Influence at Elections in Ire-land 1760-1885’, pp. 740-760.4 Jupp, Irish Parliamentary Elections, pp. 183-196.5 House of Commons, First Report from the SelectCommittee on the State of Ireland 1825. Evidence


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of Denis Browne, “Formally tenants would supportthe landlord – latterly religious feelings frequentlycarry the tenants away from the landlord, particu-larly through the activity of the clergy”. Daniel OConnell in the same report questions the influenceof the clergy.6 Jupp, ‘Irish Parliamentary Elections and the In-fluence of the Catholic Vote, 1801-20’, pp.740-760.7 Murphy, The Fathers Walsh of Borris, pp. 11-45.8 Ibid, p 5.9 Ibid, pp. 5-910 Ibid.11 Joyce, Graiguenamanagh A Town and its People,p158.12 Murphy, The Fathers Walsh of Borris, p 11.13 Ibid, pp. 11-16.14 Ibid, p 13.15 Ibid, p 170. ; Patrick O’Donoghue, ‘Oppositionto the Tithe Payments in 1830-31’, in Studia Hiber-nica, no.6 (1966), pp.69-98.16 Joyce, Graiguenamanagh A Town and its People,pp. 157-73. ; Murphy, The Fathers Walsh of Borris,pp. 11-20.17 Joyce, Graiguenamanagh A Town and its People,p144. ; Murphy, The Fathers Walsh of Borris, pp.

11-20.18 Murphy, The Fathers Walsh of Borris, p 18.19 Whyte, ‘Landlord Influence at Elections in Ire-land 1760-1885’, pp. 740-760.20 Murphy, The Fathers Walsh of Borris, pp. 20-2121 Ibid, p 21.22 Ibid.23 Ibid, pp. 21-22.24 Ibid, p25 Online Historical Population Reports Universityof Essex, 1831 Census, www.histpop.org, accessedon the 11th February 2011.26 Murphy, The Fathers Walsh of Borris, p 23.27 Ibid, pp. 23-25.28 The London Quarterly Review, volume lxviii,June and September 1841. Fr. Walsh was also re-puted to declare that anyone who voted for Ka-vanagh would be refused all religious rites andwould suffer everlasting punishment.29 Murphy, p 28.30 Ibid, p 29.31 Ibid, pp. 35-40.32 Murphy, pp 36-4633 Carlow Sentinel, various publications from 01stJanuary 1835- March 1835.

34 Murphy, pp. 47-56.35 K.T. Hoppen. Elections, Politics and Society inIreland, 1832—85, (Oxford, 1984), pp. 77-84.36 Malcolm, ‘'The Reign of Terror in Carlow',pp.64- 65.37 Tom Murphy, The Fathers Walsh of Borris Po-litical Intrigue, Murder & Transportation in the1830’s, Borris, p8938 Desmond Keenan, Ireland 1800-1850, Dublin,2001, chapter 13.39 Diary of Lady Harriet Kavanagh, Borris, CountyCarlow, which makes a number of references to theelections in County Carlow, c1835-1839 (PRONI,D/3235, 3617)40 Bolger, Coonogue Evictions, p6041 Copies of a correspondence between the RomanCatholic priests of the parish of Borris in theCounty of Carlow, Robert Doyne a magistrate ...and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on the subjectof the alleged attendance of the military at RomanCatholic chapel in Borris, available athttp://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi/documents/10964/page/249103. Also available at Parliamentary Pa-pers, House o


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Courtesy: Tom Somers archives

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Introduction

Moneybeg is a townland of 366 acres, 1rood, 22 perches, on the east side of theriver Barrow in the Civil Parish ofDunleckney, Barony of East Idrone inCo. Carlow. A townland is a smallgeographical division of land of Gaelicorigin predating the Norman invasionand most have names of Gaelic origin.The name Moneybeg was anglicisedfrom the Irish Muine Bheag whichtranslates as “Small Shrubbery/Thicket”.In a map of 1640 it is spelt Moniebeggeand described as “Arable and Heathy”;other variations of spelling also appearelsewhere e.g. Monyibegge, Moneybegg,Monybegge, Monibeg and Monabeg.The following article explores the originsof the establishment of two Lodges anda Mill in this townland but in particularone Lodge which became known as East-wood House in the latter half of the 19thcentury from which grew the Demesne

and town of Bagenalstown. The town-land in its early stages was the propertyof the Kavanagh Dynasty. It then cameinto the hands of the Carews whomanaged to coexist in a civil manner withthe Kavanaghs until the arrival ofDudley Bagenal.

The Bagenals

In 1539 Nicholas Bagenal fled Englandafter killing a man in a brawl. He becamea mercenary under Con Bacach O’Neill,chief of the O’Neills of Tyrone. Throughthe influence of O’Neill Nicholas got a“General pardon of all murders andfelonies by him committed” granted inWestminster, 2nd March 1543 byHenry V111.

Nicholas later circa 1552 was grantedNewry Castle Co. Down with substantiallands and lived at Newry. He marriedEleanor Griffith daughter of EdwardGriffith, Penrhyn, Caernarvonshire,

Wales circa 1556. They had 9 Children, 6girls and 3 boys. The 3 boys were Henry,Dudley and Ambrose. Ambrose diedwithout issue. Henry (1556 – 1598) asoldier and politician lived at Newry andWales. He was killed in action in theBattle of the Blackwater on the 14 August1598 when his army was cut to pieces byHugh O’Neill his brother-in-law.

Sir Nicholas bought a large estate oflands for his son Dudley in Idrone,County Carlow in 1585 from the Carewswho had ousted the Kavanaghs, theoriginal owners of the land. Dudleymarried firstly Katherine Nangle andthey had one child, Nicholas (1582 -1607). He married secondly MabelFitzgerald and they had 3 childrenGeorge (died 1625), Adam, and Eleanor(died November 1632).

Dudley lived in the Barony of Idrone,County Carlow and held the office ofConstable of the Castle at Leighlinbridgebetween 1585 and 1587. He started afeud with the Kavanaghs and in 1587 hewas killed by the Kavanaghs in anambush at Ballymoon. Nicholas Bagenal,son of Dudley from his first wife Kather-ine Nangle, on the 5th October 1602 wasappointed Constable of the Castle atLeighlinbridge. He married AnneColclough daughter of Sir ThomasColclough and Marta Loftus who lived atTintern Abbey Co. Wexford. Nicholaswas killed in a duel in Dublin in 1607. Heappears to have been the last of theBagenals that occupied the Castleat Leighlinbridge.

George Bagenal son of Dudley from hissecond wife Mabel Fitzgerald marriedJane Fitzgerald, daughter of GarrettFitzgerald and married secondly, JoanneButler, daughter of Walter Butler 11th

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Eastwood House and the

Moneybeg Demesne

At one time known as“The Lodge”,which was or became a Bagenal prem-ises with an avenue, part of whichgrew into a town, Bagenalstown, in thetownland of Moneybeg, Co. Carlow.

Myles Kavanagh

Eastwood House pre-1968

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Eastwood edited Collected_Layout 1 28/10/2015 16:42 Page 1

Earl of Ormonde and inheritedNicholas’s estates. George it appears wasthe builder of the first family home atDunleckney circa 1607 - 1612. He heldthe office of M.P. for County Carlow in1613. A period of peace and prosperityfollowed for the Bagenals until theCatholic Rebellion of 1641 and thearrival of Cromwell’s army in 1649. TheBagenals in Ireland held on to theCatholic faith. Thomas Bagenal wasdeported to Connaught in 1641 andColonel Walter Bagenal was executed inKilkenny in October 1652. The Bagenalslost their entire estates following Walter’sexecution. They were restored to Walter’sson Dudley in 1660.

At the battle of the Boyne in 1690,Dudley Bagenal commanded an InfantryRegiment for the army of King James 11and in the wake of the Williamite victorythe Bagenals once more forfeitedtheir estates.

In exile in France, Dudley becameGentleman Usher to King James at theCourt of St. Germain. King James ll diedon the 6th September 1701 at St.Germain-en-Laye, near Paris. Dudleydied at Bruges in 1712.

After another period of time Dudley’seldest son Walter Bagenal (c.1670–1745) became a Protestant and regainedthe estates. Walter started the formalbuilding of the town that became knownas Bagenalstown. Walter’s second wifewas Eleanor Beauchamp of BallyloughanCastle and they had a son, Beauchamp,born in 1735, who would be rememberedas the most famous of all the Bagenals.In 1745 he succeeded to the Estate andhis extravagant lifestyle led to the sale inall of 32,000 acres. He died in 1802. Hewas succeeded by his daughter SarahWestrop wife of Philip Newton. TheBagenal family graves are located in theDunleckney Cemetery Bagenalstown.

Tradition has it that Walter got the ideaof recreating a Versailles on the banks ofthe Barrow and began to lay out Bagenal-stown in that way in an attempt to estab-lish a profitable trading centre. Theproject failed, the only imposing archi-tectural building that was completed isthe present library, once the courthouse.It was built facing the river Barrow withits entrance opening on to the then newly

constructed road, firstly named NewRoad and now known as Bachelors Walk.It was an extension of the then MainStreet, now known as Regent Street. TheNew Road continued on and joined thenorthern entrance road to the town by theriver bank.

The Two Lodges

The first construction that became theLodge may have been inhabited by aKavanagh or a Carew and then came aBagenal, followed by the Vigors, Mercerand Weld families. The following namesappear in early deed dealings and othercommunications of the Lodge andDemesne lands at intervals – Rev.Edward Vigors, Edward Mercer, RichardMercer, Luke Mercer, Simons Mercer,Michael Carter, William ChaigneauColville. The widow, Issamy Quinn’sname appears also holding land contain-ing 24 acres 2 roods or thereabouts of theDemesne. Owen Murphy’s name appearsin a deed as a Miller of the Lodge Millsand holding land of eight acres and tenperches. It may be that Owen Murphywas the one who built the first mill hereas his name appears in several of thedeeds as “the Old Mill Quarters of OwenMurphy.” The records of GriffithsValuation of 1852 show that propertynumber 11 of Long Range consisting ofa house, malt house, corn stores, yard andgarden which were then vacant, recordsJohn Murphy as the Landlord. TheQueen of the Universe National Schoolnow occupies that site. Others that hadsubstantial properties in the townland of

Moneybeg at various times includedThomas Payne, Daniel Keohler, ThomasSingleton, Samuel Ward and RobertBrown to name but a few.

The dates of the construction of the twolodges (Lodge alias Eastwood House and

the Lodge Mill House) and the mill in thetownland of Moneybeg is not clear. TheLodge (Eastwood House) still exists andhas been inhabited since its first recordedtime and perhaps its time of constructionin one form or another. The buildingitself conveys signs that additions of onekind or another have occurred during itstime up to the present day e.g. workers atthe estate uncovered evidence of the frontof the building having extended a consid-erable length westward in the past.

Therefore, one could assume that aBagenal may have constructed the firstLodge or Lodges in the townland ofMoneybeg prior to the residence atDunleckney or inhabited the premisesalready established there. In the Registry ofDeeds early records in Henrietta Street,Dublin, what we know as Regent Street inthe present town of Bagenalstown isreferred to as the “Main Street leading tothe Mill”. Beside the Mill entrance is theentrance to the avenue leading to the twoLodges, and all are located in the samecompound. It is reasonable then to assumethat this main street led to the Lodge/swhere the Bagenal family resided andtherefore it is from the Lodge/s of the firstBagenals the Demesne of Moneybeg(Bagenalstown) grew.

Eastwood House and the Moneybeg Demesne

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Eastwood Estate as per Griffith’s Valuation Survey 1852

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A map of 1640 of Dunleckney Parish andpart of Wells Parish by George Marshallrecords the townland of Moniebegge asbeing part of the estate of WalterBagnall”. (See map in article “Bagenalsof Idrone”)

The present library which was the CourtHouse was built according to Richard J.Butler (Carloviana 2015) “not c.1835but almost a decade earlier, 1826”. TheCourt House faced the River Barrow anda road was constructed in front of itcalled the New Road and is recorded withits residents in Griffith’s Valuation of1852. This road later became known asBachelors Walk. This new road wouldseem to have been an extension ofRegent Street which as mentioned previ-ously, was referred to as the Main Streetin the town that led to what once mayhave been a Bagenal residence. TheStreet of Long Range may have beenconstructed at the same time along withthe New Road, both linking the MainStreet to the Royal Oak Road and inkeeping with Walter Bagenal’s plan ofdevelopment for the town. A very popu-lous street in the early 1800s was whatwe now call Barrett Street and isrecorded in Griffith’s Valuation as theOld Post Office Street, also linking MainStreet with the Royal Oak Road.

The Bachelors Walk name may havebeen introduced by William ChaigneauColville who had considerable interestsin the Canal, and adjoining lands; he islisted in Griffith’s Valuation (1852) as theLandlord of the Lodge (EastwoodHouse) for that period. He had consider-able flour business interests also at thattime in Bachelors Walk, Dublin and wasa Director and Governor of the Bankof Ireland.

The Memorial Deed 125497 bearing date23rd of August 1757 in the Registry ofDeeds Dublin shows that BeauchampBagenal leased unto Issamy Quinnwidow of Bagenalstown all that part ofMoneybeg otherwise Bagenalstown nowin her possession containing by estima-tion 24 acres 2 roods plantation measuresituated in the Barony of Idrone Co.Carlow, aforesaid to hold to the saidIssamy Quinn for 31 years from the 1stof May last.

On the 1st of May 1758 Beauchamp

Bagenal leased unto Owen Murphy theMill and Lands of the Lodge Demesnecontaining 8 acres 10 perches for31 years.

In a Memorial Deed of the 16th and17thof May 1763 Beauchamp Bagenalleased unto Michael Carter City ofDublin all Lands of Bagenalstown com-monly known by the name of Lodge andDemesne of Bagenalstown containing bythe survey of Messrs Frizile 40 acres 1rood 28 perches all and that of those ofthe Water Corn Mills holding being onepart of the lands of Bagenalstowncontaining by the said Frizile Survey 8acres 10 perches in as large and amplemanner as Owen Murphy holds andenjoy the said Mills Lands neverthelessto the lease thereof made to the saidOwen Murphy by the said BeauchampBagenal for 31 years from 1st of May1758 and also that of the lands of IssamyQuinn said containing by Frizile Survey24 acres 2 roods or thereabouts.

The following is a summary taken fromIndentures, dated the 22nd of October1770 Lease 47 and Lease 84 dated 10thJanuary 1790 concerning - All the Landsof Bagenalstown commonly known by thename of Lodge or Demesne of Bagenal-stown with the buildings and appurte-nances containing 35 acres 1 rood and32 perches and plantation measure by thesame more less situated in the Barony ofIdrone and County Carlow, spread overa period of time up to 1770:-

1) Beauchamp Bagenal to MichaelCarter of the city of Dublin.

2) Beauchamp Bagenal and MichaelCarter to Richard Cochran, his wifeElinor, his brother Robert Cochran, andWilliam Fishburn of Carlow.

3) Richard Cochran his wife Elinor andRobert Cochran, (sons of NicholasCochran, Abbey Street, Dublin), andWilliam Fishburn to Peter Pidgeon(Pigeon) of Blackditch in the Co.Wicklow, Robert Carter (son of HenryCarter, Nicholas Street, Dublin).

4) Peter Pigeon to Edward Vigors andSamuel Carpenter.

5) Rev. Edward Vigors, the Lodge, Co.Carlow to Richard Mercer of Killinane

22nd October 1770.Notes:1) The above Leases 47&84 are contained in MS1096 of the Cliff-Vigors Papers of the PrivateCollections in the National Archives Dublin.

2) The Landed Estates Court and Memorial ofDeed of Conveyance of the 13th July 1859 dealtwith a lease dated 17th of May 1763 concerning allthe properties of the Eastwood Demesne and anIndenture of Marriage Settlement bearing date 18thMarch 1812 executed to the marriage of William C.Colville to Hester Lowry. The following peoplewho had interests at various stages in the propertywere listed in the case - Beauchamp Bagenal,Michael Carter, Robert Wybrants and John Barlow.The address of William C. Colville was given hereas 10 Russel Street, Reading, Berkshire in England. 3) In Griffith’s Valuation of 1852 in Killinane Co.Carlow, two holdings with the family name Quinni.e. Patrick Quinn with a holding of 35 acres 1 rood35 perches and Philip Quinn 66 acres 1 rood 29perches, both with house, offices and land facingBagenalstown on the opposite side of the riverBarrow. Perhaps Patrick and Philip may in someway be connected to the aforementionedIssamy Quinn!

Edward Vigors

The first member of the Vigors family toarrive in Ireland was the Rev. LouisVigors from Holloden, North Devon whoarrived in Cork circa 1615. He had beenordained on the 5th of November 1603by the Bishop of Exeter. In Ireland hewas beneficed in the Diocese of Rosswhere he became Treasurer of the Cathe-dral in 1631. He died in Devonshire in1642, as did his widow in 1651. Theirson Urban Vigors was beneficed 1634-37in the Diocese of Cork and Ross, and in1645 was Chaplain to the 1st Earl ofOssory. He married circa 1635 CatherineBoyle sister of Richard Boyle, Bishop ofFerns (1667 – 1683) and Roger BoyleBishop of Clogher (1672-1687) and theyhad a son called Urban. The Vigors weregranted estates in Co. Carlow during thereign of Charles 11 (1660-1685) whichincluded Old Leighlin where UrbanVigors, son of Urban Vigors and MaryBoyle, established the first Vigors housein Co. Carlow and later built BurgageHouse. Sometime after they arrived inOld Leighlin they acquired MalcolmVille, the home of the Mulhallen family,in the townland of Clorusk near theRoyal Oak and changed its name toHoloden House. Urban was High Sheriffin Co. Carlow in 1700. He married Brid-get Tench daughter of Allen Tench, Sta-plestown, Co.Carlow and niece of JohnTench of Mullinderry, Co. Wexford.


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Urban and Bridget’s second son ThomasVigors was born c.1685. They had estatesand houses in Derryfore and Rathevan,Queen’s County (Laois) and Ballybarand Corries Co. Carlow (1729) andSeldon, Devonshire (1725). Thomas wasCaptain in the Legion Regiment, “TheBlack Horse” and was Justice of thePeace for Queen’s County (Laois) andHigh Sheriff in 1714. Captain Thomasmarried twice, first to Margaret a widowand they had issue of three childrenUrban, Bartholomew, and Lucy. Hissecond marriage was to Elizabeth Mercerdaughter of Edward Mercer of Knock-ballystine Co. Carlow and they had issueof three children Richard, Edward andElizabeth. It was at Burgage, Co. Carlowthat the Rev. Edward Vigors was born in1747 to Captain Thomas Vigors and Eliz-abeth Mercer. He graduated with a B.A.in Trinity College Dublin in 1767 andmarried Mary Low of Lissoy, Co. West-meath, daughter of Edward Low andElizabeth Nelligan (daughter of the Rev.Maurice Nelligan) in December 1773.Rev. Edward became Perpetual Curate ofOld Leighlin, Co. Carlow in 1774 andRector of Shankill, Co. Kilkenny 1783and he and his wife Mary lived at varioustimes in Old Leighlin, Burgage and theLodge (Eastwood House).

They had three children:- 1) Rev. Thomas Mercer Vigors born onthe 23rd October 1775, and married AnneCliffe daughter of John Cliffe of NewRoss Co. Wexford. He succeeded hisfather as Perpetual Curate of Old Leigh-lin and same parishes, except Shankilluntil he was appointed Rector of Rathas-beck, Queen’s County (Laois) on the25th of November 1815 and promoted toPowerstown, which he held until hisdeath on the 7th April, 1850.

2) Elizabeth who died unmarried 30thJuly, 1828 and was buried at OldLeighlin,

3) Maria who married the Rev. GeorgeAlcock died in 1854 and is also buried atOld Leighlin.

The Rev. Edward died aged 51 years, onthe 22th June 1797 and was buried in OldLeighlin. Mary his wife died on the 12thof April 1827 and was also buried in OldLeighlin.

Note:The following people had shared lease interests inLodge & Demesne, during the Beauchamp Bagenalperiod, prior to the tenure of Edward Vigors -Samuel Carpenter, Peter Pigeon, Robert Carter,Richard Cochran, Robert Cochran, Elinor Cochranand William Fishburn.

Richard MercerRichard Mercer senior lived in Dublinand he had one son also called Richardwho lived with his uncle Luke atKillinane Co. Carlow. He married AnnPigott. Richard was a merchant and heand Ann lived at Killinane at first andthen at the Lodge Bagenalstown, Co.Carlow. Edward Mercer of Knock-ballystine Co. Carlow whose daughterElizabeth married Thomas Vigors mayhave been another uncle of Richard andalso Simons Mercer of Knockballystinewho was buried in Tullow on the 30th ofJanuary 1783.

In April of 1770 the Rev. Edward Vigorsformerly of the Lodge, Bagenalstownleased unto Richard Mercer all lands ofLodge and Demesne of Bagenalstownand which included the Owen MurphyOld Water Corn Mill, at the yearly rentof £106 and renewable forever at a yearlyrent of £106.7 shillings. This mill wasstarted in 1708. A committee had beenappointed in 1703 in the Irish House ofCommons to propose a bill to make theRiver Barrow navigable. However, workdid not start until 1761, and by 1800 tenlateral canals had been cut. The buildingof the Bagenalstown Mill in 1708 mayhave been prompted by the navigable bill

of the Barrow.

The following has been extracted fromthe travelogue of Arthur Young’s Tour ofIreland 1776-1779, first published in1780 –

“June 19th arrived at Hollyhead ………………………… July 9th left Brown-shill (Carlow) and taking the road toLeighlinbridge called on Mr JamesButler at Ballybar ………………..Having taken a short walk with MrButler passed on to Captain Mercer’sMill at Laughlin-bridge (Bagenalstown).I had been told that this was one of themost considerable in Ireland; and had aletter of recommendation to Mr Mercer,which through carelessness I had lost. Idid not care however to pass withoutseeing the mill; drove down to it and wasin the awkward situation of explainingmyself to be a traveller – what I wanted– from whence I came –and so forth; butthe good nature and politeness of MrMercer presently dissipated the agree-ableness of the first explanatorymoments. He showed me the mill andexplained everything with the utmostcivility. It is a very large and convenientone, 15,000 barrels a year, and if therewas a brisker demand could do yet more.I found the same necessity of kiln-dryinghere as at Slaine Mill, and made the sameobservation that the wheat was none of itof a fine bright colour, like what iscommon in England. The farmers alsodress their corn in so lovely a manner,


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Lodge Mills

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that there is the same necessity of dress-ing it over again, for which very power-ful machines are contrived. The whole isvery well calculated for, saving labour inevery operation, and only eight hands areemployed. After the mill was built, MrMercer made many alterations of hisown, to render it more ample and effec-tive, which have fully answered his ex-pectations.”

Richard Mercer and his wife Ann ran intofinancial difficulties circa the late 1770sand as a result lost considerable lands andpremises in Carlow, Cork and Dublin.

Summary from Memorials, Registry ofDeeds, Dublin:-

Richard Mercer to William Colvill Cityof Dublin, Matthew Weld and RichardWeld of Dublin 22nd May 1780, 22ndMarch 1783, 25th November 1784,which shows; the same Lands, buildingsand appurtenances as above mentionedof Lodge and Demesne of Bagenalstownalong with “the house improvementsthereon” and included also was “that partof the Lands of Lodge containing 4 acres3 roods 26 perches where” RichardMercer “built a large Bolting Mill”, alongwith the existing Owen Murphy OldCorn Water Mill and Mill Quarters, allbeing made over by Richard Mercer untoWilliam Colvill of the city of Dublin,Matthew and Richard Weld of Dublin,along with that part of the Lands ofKillinane formerly in the possession ofSimon (Simons) Mercer situated in theparish of Killinane being part of theLands of Lord Brereton of Old Leighlinand containing 112 acres, 3 roods and 4perches, plantation measure be the samemore or less bounded as in the said deedis set forth and also all that part ofKilturk, Co. Carlow containing byestimation 37 acres 4 roods, also RichardMercer to William Colvill lands inDublin and also townlands – Rathellen,Leighlinbridge, Cloruske and lands ofCarlow and some were of the Demesneof Charles Jackson Lord Bishop ofLeighlin (1761 – 1765).

Memorial Deed 243075 Book 363 Page191 of the Registry Deeds Dublin showsthat William Colvill did grant, bargainand sell all lands and premises mentionedin Memorial Beauchamp Bagenal untoMichael Carter, unto Matthew and

Richard Weld.

Richard was High Sheriff of Co. Carlowin 1782.

Notes1) A Bolting Mill is a separate building from theMill, in which flour is sifted.2) The High Sheriff of Co. Carlow was the BritishCrown’s judicial representative in County Carlow.3) The list of people that Arthur Young wasindebted to for making him perfectly well informedwas long and included – Right Honourable WilliamBarton Slaine Castle, Mr Brown Carlow, Mr. Butlernear Carlow and Mr Richard Mercer.

Colvill & WeldFollowing the financial difficulties ofRichard Mercer the Colvill and Weldfamilies appear on the scene in thesecond half of the 1700s and early 1800s.Moneybeg Demesne and lands weremade over by Richard Mercer untoWilliam Colvill of the city of Dublin andMatthew and Richard Weld of Dublin, in-cluding Killinane lands of Mercer.

At first William Chaigneau Colvill mayhave been resident in the Lodge and theWeld brothers Joseph, Matthew &Richard in the Lodge Mill House whichthey built but not long afterwards Josephand family moved in to the Lodge (East-wood House) with William ChaigneauColvill as the Land Lord. After the deathof Colvill the Weld family gained fullpossession of the entire Demesne.

William Colville (Colvill)William Colville was born on the 6th ofDecember 1737 to William Colvill andJane Thompson daughter of JohnThompson, Blackabbey, Co. Down. Hemarried Hannah Chaigneau daughter ofJohn Chaigneau on the 18th of June1771. They lived at Newtownards, Co.Down and at Clonsilla, ClontarfDemesne, Dublin. They had 8 children.William held the office of Member ofParliament for Newtownards – Limavadyand that of Killybegs. He was one of thepromoters of the Bank of Ireland inwhich he was director in 1783 and governor in 1801-2. William was a mem-ber of the Royal Dublin Society (R.D.S.)and a founder and director of the GrandCanal Company in 1772, in which heinvested £25,000. He had premises alsoat 7 Bachelors Walk Dublin including amill and Agency for the National Insur-ance Co. of Scotland and other premises

at 7 South Lotts (Ringsend Area) andCoolock House, Dublin. He was a mem-ber of the House of Parliament Commit-tee on the 25th March 1788 to considerthe petition of the subscribers for the im-provement of the Barrow navigationbetween the bridge at Athy, Co. Kildareand the tide water at St. Mullins inCounty Carlow. Included at the meetingof the members of this Committee onFriday the 10th of October 1788, in theCounty Court House Carlow were,William Colvill, Richard Mercer andBeauchamp Bagenal. The Committeedecided that the next meeting of theCommittee would be held at the samevenue on the 29th of November 1788.

William died on the 5th July 1820 aged82 years.

William Chaigneau ColvilleWilliam Chaigneau Colville (Colvill) sonof William Colville and HannahChaigneau was born at Bachelors Walk,Dublin on the 23rd May 1784 andbaptised in St. Mary’s Church of Irelandlocated on the corner of Mary Street andJervis Street.

He married Hester Lowry daughter ofJames Lowry, Rockdale, Co. Tyrone, onthe 21st of March 1812. An indenture ofMarriage Settlement bearing date 18thMarch 1812 in the Registry of DeedsDublin appears to include the Lodge,Lodge Mills and Demesne lands ofBagenalstown, which I fail to fully un-derstand. William and Hester had 11children. William Chaigneau Colvillewas a flour merchant with premises at 7Bachelors Walk and 7 South Lotts, adirector of the Bank of Ireland andGovernor 1832-1834 and Director of theBarrow Navigation Company. On the16th October 1832 William was regis-tered on the “Voters List of Idrone East”with Place of Abode as Dublin andSituation as Moneybeg. In 1833 he wasHigh Sheriff of Co. Carlow. He was reg-istered on the 31st December 1839 withPlace of Abode as Bachelors Walk,Dublin and Situation as Bagenalstown.He retired in 1844 but was Chairman ofthe Barrow Navigation Company and theGreat Southern and Western RailwayCompany in 1845. In the 1851 Census ofEngland and Wales he was recorded atIvy Rock Cottage, Tidenham, Chepstow,Monmouthshire, Wales, at the age of 66


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years, along with his wife Hester age 61years, his son Thomas age 32 years, hisdaughter in-law Barbara age 26 years andhis granddaughter Louise Hester age4 years.

In Griffith’s Valuation of 1852 WilliamColville was recorded as the Landlord ofthe Lodge (Eastwood House) with MrsMary Weld as the Tenant.

William died at his residence in Reading,England on the 11th of December 1864.

Notes:1) Bachelors Walk Dublin was named after abuilder by the name of Bachelor who built thereafter the Dublin quays were extended from OrmondQuay in the late 1600s. A water mill was located inthe same area. The Colvill family had extensivebusiness premises in this area.2) South Lotts was created following the embank-ment of the River Liffey in 1711 between the cityand Ringsend, thereby reclaiming the marshes asNorth and South Lotts. The Grand Canal Dock isin the same area.3) The present end of Lower O Connell Street(Carlisle Street) was located on lands that formedpart of Bachelors Walk, which was laid out as partof the Amory grant of 1675. In January 1675, thecity granted Jonathan Amory, a merchant, a leaseof 299 years “of that part of the Strand on the northside of the Liffey” which had at one end the watermill built by Gilbert Mabbott, close to location ofthe Abbey Theatre.

4) Colvill House 24-26 Talbot Street Dublin is atpresent the Irish Water Private Company Ltd.Registered Office. 5) The Rev. David Chaigneau was Minister of theFrench Church in Carlow in 1741 and was buriedin Carlow on the 11th of July 1747, may have beena relative of John Chaigneau, father of HannahChaigneau, wife of William Colvill. 6) The Chaigneau family were descendants ofProtestant exiles or Huguenots from France, in thereign of Louis xiv (1643-1715), who came to GreatBritain and Ireland.

The Weld FamilyEdmund Weld was the first member ofthe Weld family to arrive in Ireland andhe had answered Cromwell’s call forpuritan ministers to serve as chaplains inthe army in Ireland. He later set up aministry in Co. Cork and soon afterwardsmoved to Dublin. It is from Dublin thenthat the Weld family spread to other areasof Ireland and acquired substantialestates. The Rev. Edmund had a sonNathaniel who was also in Holy Ordersand possessed considerable estates inIreland. A map of 1640 by GeorgeMarshall shows the Bagenal estates in

Bagenalstown and it includes the town-land of Moneybeg. In the late 1700s thebrothers Matthew, Richard and Joseph,grandchildren of Nathaniel were estab-lished in the two Lodge houses in thetownland of Moneybeg. Matthew andRichard were the proprietors of an exten-sive business at the Lodge Mills in 1780and dwelt in the Lodge Mills House.Joseph had been installed as Archdeaconof Ross, Co. Cork in 1777 and had a res-idence at the Lodge, Bagenalstown.

The following relating to Co. Carlow istaken from The History and Antiquitiesof Co. Carlow 1833, Chapter XXX Page309 - “An account of the flour sent byland carriage and canal to Dublin fromthe 24th June, 1784 to the 24th June 1785distinguishing the names of the mills, thenumber of miles from the Castle ofDublin, the owners names, the quantitiesin hundreds weights, and the bountiespaid for the same”:-

The Rev. A. Atkinson on his journeythrough Ireland in the early 1800s writesthe following in his travelogue “The IrishTourist” (published in 1815):

“From Carlow I proceeded to Bagenel-stown alias Monabeg a picturesquevillage on the banks of the Barrow, about8 miles south of that town, and elevennorth of Kilkenny. Though many of thehouses have a respectable aspect and thevillage is composed of several streets, yetit is not a post town, nor has the patentgranted by government for two annualfairs and a weekly market, produced allthat benefit to the place, which might beexpected from its situation on the banksof a navigable river and a country re-markable for its property and population.………………………………………………………………………………But although the infant markets of thisplace are but thinly attended, yet we seethe proofs of a tolerable home trade, inthe aspect of several good shops with

which the village is furnished. It is alsothe seat of that famous flour mill of theMessieurs Weld which we have alreadynoticed in our estimate of the establish-ments on this river. And beside thoseadvantages, it has a brewery the propertyof a Mr. – Murphy; and Mr. Singleton arespectable trader who resides here andmanufactures some Marble quarries inthe neighbourhood, has no less thansixteen or eighteen boats on the river.

This village, in addition to its picturesquesituation on the banks of the Barrow, andthe good many houses which compose it,receives considerable augmentation ofbeauty from the receptacle of a veryextensive flour-mill the property ofRichard and Matthew Weld, above men-tioned, the mansion and demesne of Mr.Newton (son-in- law and heir of the lateMr. Bagnel). The handsome villa of Mrs.Mulhallin beautifully elevated above theriver, and from several other neat lodges

in the immediate vicinity of the town – itderives also from some monuments ofantiquity near it, an auxiliary influenceof grandeur.”

The Weld brothers Archdeacon Joseph,Matthew, Lieutenant Royal Navy andRichard, Army Captain and Magistrate inCarlow, were established in Bagenal-stown and Callan, Co. Kilkenny in thelate 1700s. They always gave theiraddress as The Lodge or the Lodge Mills.Matthew died 1806/7 and bequeathed tohis nephew Matthew Weld Hartstonge(Poet, Author and Antiquarian) of Dublinall his property in Moneybeg, whichincluded the Lodge Mills, the LodgeMills House and the Lodge (Eastwood)and Demesne of Bagenalstown.

Daniel Keoghler (Keogh) merchant ofBagenalstown on the 1st of July 1815leased unto Matthew and Richard Weldof Lodge Mills all the lands of Moneybegin his possession for 999 years at a yearly


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Names of Mills Miles Distance Owners of the FlourQuantities in Cwts. Bounties Paid for same

Burrin 40 Frances Byrne 2469 £165-17s-4dBridewell 39 Thomas Delaney 48 £003-03s-5dCarlow 39 Thomas Delaney 538 £034-15s-1dCarlow 38 James Hamilton 201 £013-00s-4d

Clashganny 54 James Byrne 16 £001-08s-9dLodge 50 Matthew Weld 8266 £697-03s-4d

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rent of £15. The lands were “bounded onthe east by a park then in the possessionof Mr. Robert Brown divided by a partlywall, on the south by the Main Streetleading to the Mill, on the west by a roadleading to the Barrow Canal and on thenorth by a tracking of said Barrow Canaland premises containing in length onehundred and sixteen feet from out to outand at the rear of the tracking one hun-dred and twenty three feet from out to outsituated and lying in the town ofBagenalstown otherwise Moneybeg,Idrone East, at yearly rent as stated,payable on first day of May and first dayof November.” The witnesses wereWilliam Payne and Edward Wynne bothof Bagenalstown. On the 17th January1818 Philip and Sarah Newton sold 32acres 2 roods and 23 perches of Cloruskland known locally as the Millers Quarterwhich was located on the opposite sideof the Barrow in West Idrone to MatthewWeld Hartstonge.

Richard Weld’s son Richard died in 1815and Richard senior died in 1824.MatthewWeld Hartstonge was now the owner ofthe Lodge Mill and resided in the LodgeMill House and at times in his house inMolesworth Street, Dublin. Othermembers of the Weld family alsocontinued to live in the two Lodges.

Samuel Crosthwaite took over manage-ment of the Mills in the early 1800s andbuilt a seven floor high extension to it in1824. He moved into the Lodge MillsHouse as a tenant following MatthewWeld Hartstonge’s death in 1834.

Joseph’s only son Matthew Weld contin-ued to live on in the Lodge (Eastwood)following his father’s death in September1781. Matthew died in 1832 but his wifeMary continued to live in the Lodge. Shemoved to her son’s home at Bloomfield,Co. Dublin in 1862 and she died there in1864.She was buried in Dunleckney. Fur-ther information of the Weld family is tobe found in the article on Matthew WeldHartstonge in the 2015 editionof Carloviana.

The representatives of the Weld familyremained as landlords of a large numberof properties in the MonbeybegDemesne, including all the west side ofRegent Street until recent times.

In Dunleckney Church cemetery on theeast side of the Church of Ireland ruinsare the graves of a number of the Weldfamily except for Matthew WeldHartstonge who was interred in the vaultsbeneath St. Anne’s Anglican Church,Dorset Street, Dublin.

Notes:The “handsome villa of Mrs. Mulhallin” mentionedby the Rev. Atkinson also known as Malcolm Villeand Holloden House, Clorusk, Royal Oak, Co.Carlow with its 18th century estate of 40 acres ofpastoral land was the setting on the 11th of Septem-ber 2014 for the turning of the first sod by Bernardand Rosemary Walsh of their 25 million euro craftIrish whiskey distillery on the banks of the RiverBarrow.

The Crosthwait FamilyThe family of Crosthwait that arrived inIreland were descended from ThomasCrosthwait of Cockermouth in theCounty of Cumberland, England. Anordinance was made in the year 1654 for“settling £100, per annum in Irelandupon Richard Uriel and Thomas Crosth-wait of Cockermouth Castle in theCounty of Cumberland in satisfaction fortheir losses and services”. This ordnancewas confirmed by the Act and Declara-tion made by Cromwell’s Parliament andsubsequently by an Act of the Irish

Parliament in 1662, in the reign ofCharles 11. John Crosthwait arrived inIreland shortly afterwards and settled at“The Phoenix in the Kings Port ofCounty Dublin” (Phoenix Park). Thebaptism of an Elizabeth Crosthwait onthe 1st of February 1669 was recorded inSt. Michan’s Church of Ireland, Dublin.Thomas Crosthwait son of JohnCrosthwait was married to MaryMacquay on the 17th of January 1744 inSt. Andrew’s Church of Ireland Dublin.Leland Crosthwait a son of Thomas andMary born on the 17th of May 1746became Governor of the Bank of Ireland.He married Ann Darby daughter ofJonathan Darby. Leland and Ann’s sonSamuel, born circa 1769 became the firstCrosthwait to settle in Co. Carlow. Hewas recorded in Killinane, Co Carlow inthe Tithe Applotment Books of 1828 andin Griffith’s Valuation of 1852 we findhim recorded as a Landlord with 199acres 3 roods 16 perches and as Landlordto Thomas Singleton with a holding of 11acres 3 roods 17 perches located inRathellin.

In 1830 Samuel married ElizabethBolton, daughter of Cornelius BoltonM.P. of Waterford, Sheriff of the Countyin 1810 and Mayor of the City in 1816.


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Surname Forename Age Relation to Head

Birthplace Occupation

Crosthwait Samuel 62 Head Carlow Mill ProprietorCrosthwait Sarah 55 Wife EnglandStoker Lucy 29 Daughter Co. CarlowCrosthwait Eileen 20 Daughter Co.. CarlowCrosthwait Olive 13 Daughter Co. Carlow ScholarCrosthwait Mara Isac 8 Gr. Daughter Trinidad ScholarKeegan Katherine 32 Servant Co. Carlow CookBaggy Margaret 16 Servant Co. Kilkenny Parlour Maid

Lodge Mill House 1901Census of Ireland

Surname Forename Age Relationto Head


Crosthwait Samuel 77 Head Carlow Flour & Corn Mill Proprietor

Crosthwait Eliza Olive 23 Daugter Co. CarlowCrosthwait Arthur Samuel 27 Son Co. CarlowBurke Walter De Leger 38 Friend RoscommonMcCann Mary 25 Servant Co. Kildare ServantDooley Bridget 20 Servant Co. Kilkenny Cook

Lodge Mill House 1911 Census of Ireland

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Samuel and Elizabeth had a number ofchildren which included LelandCrosthwait born 29th of August 1831,Samuel Crosthwait born 21st of October1833, Edward Crosthwait baptised 31stDecember 1835, Elizabeth Crosthwaitbaptised 15th of June 1837 and JohnThomas Crosthwait baptised 9th ofNovember 1839; all of these werebaptised in Dunleckney. A Lucy Crosth-wait of Bagenalstown was married toGeorge Beamish of 60 Sackville StreetDublin, son of John Beamish andAnabella Swayne, on the 30th of Novem-ber 1844, in Dunleckney. They lived atMount Beamish, Boulteen, Co. Cork.Leland Crosthwait married on the 14th ofMay 1857, in Dunleckney SophieRichards (born September 1836) ofRathwade, Co. Carlow, daughter ofCaptain Edwin Richards, Royal Navy,and Mary Ann Kirwan.

In the early 1800s Samuel took over therunning of the Lodge Mills and in 1824built on an extension, which included aseven story high building. The OrdnanceSurvey in 1837 wrote of “the very exten-sive flour mills of Samuel CrosthwaitEsq.” A medal dated 1850, was found inrecent years on the Lodge Mills groundswith the inscription “Presented by theIdrone Farming Society to SamuelCrosthwait Esq for the best Short HornBull exhibited October 16 1850”. Eliza-beth Crosthwait wife of Samuel died onthe 4th of February 1854 and is buried inDunleckney, Bagenalstown. Samuel died22nd of August 1863 aged 74 and is alsoburied in Dunleckney. After Samuel’sdeath his son Samuel managed the LodgeMills business. He had married SarahEliza Perry who was born in Englandcirca 1846 and the following are thenames of their children, all born in TheLodge Mills House and baptisedin Dunleckney:-Edith Elizabeth Crosthwait 1867Herbert Leland Crosthwait 1868Lucy Eleanor Crosthwait 1869Cecil Henry Edward Crosthwait 1870Edward Gerard Stewart Crosthwait 1871William Sylvester Crosthwait 1873Leland George Crosthwait 1881Evelyn Mary Crosthwait 1876Eileen Elizabeth Crosthwait 1880Arthur Samuel Crosthwait 1883Ernest Jevon Crosthwait 1886Elsie Olive Crosthwait 1887

Arthur Samuel and Leland GeorgeCrosthwait attended St.NicholasCollege Lancing in England and theyboth entered the Royal Military Collegeat Sandhurst in September 1896 and sub-sequently left in December 1897. LelandGeorge was gazetted 2nd lieutenantunattached list for Indian Corps Staff29th July 1900.

The Publication of List of Carlow LandOwners of 1871 shows Samuel Crosth-wait with a holding of 96 acres in Bage-nalstown. In 1884 Samuel Crosthwaitwas recorded as a Town Commissioner.Samuel and Sarah were both recorded inthe National Census of 1901 at the LodgeMills House but only Samuel wasrecorded in the 1911 Census along withfamily members. Their daughter EileenElizabeth Crosthwait died on the 21st ofMarch 1968.

The Lodge Mills remained in the handsof the Crosthwait family into the 20th

century but by 1919 it was in the handsof Brown and Crosthwait Ltd. Duringthis period the Company reroofed theOld Rudkin Mill and put it into workingorder and use. The Minister of Industryand Commerce Jack Lynch announced inthe Dail in 1963 that that nine flour millshad been closed in Ireland since the endof 1962; this included Brown & Crosth-wait Ltd. with a quota of 52,119 barrels.The Lodge Mills House and surroundswere demolished at some stage possiblyin the 1930s to facilitate trucks enteringand turning within the Mill compound.

Robert Wybrants Robert Wybrants was the eldest son ofRobert Wybrants of Granby Row Dublin.He was educated at Trinity CollegeDublin (T.C.D.) and Kings Inn. He wasadmitted to the Irish Bar in 1811. He waselected a member of the Royal DublinSociety (R.D.S) on the 28th of April 1836– served on the Botany Committee 1842-1867 and on the Executive Council 1846


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Lodge Mill Workers 1939/1940

Back Row:Jimmy Johnson, Dick Hughes, John Dargan, ? Clarke, ? O’Brien, TomLawlor, William Millbanks, Christy Pender, Unknown, John Doyle.

Middle Row: ? Murphy, Paddy McDonald, Richard Lawlor, Paddy Doyle, Mick Pur-cell, Jack Walsh, John Lillis, George Darcy (Snr), Jack Monaghan (Snr), WilliamWatkins, Jack Monaghan (Jnr), Frank Corcoran, Unknown, Jim Geoghegan, BillStephenson (White coat-miller) Peter Carton, Sam Jenkinson, Unknown, BillyStephenson, Pat Sullivan, Paky Lawlor.

Front Row: Tom Kinsella (White coat-miller), Jim Dudley, Mr Harvey (White coat-miller), *Walter Brown, Frank Brown, Mr Hicks, Emilly Jeffs (Office), Jim McDon-ald, Jim Dargan.

* Walter S. Brown = member of the 1894 Irish Triple Crown Team.

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– 1852.He died on the 28th August 1875.He was resident in Eastwood House fora short period of time circa 1859-62.John Barlow was in some way connectedto Robert Wybrants in financial and busi-ness matters.

Captain Algernon Thomas Moreton.Joseph Weld was established in theLodge (Eastwood House) in the 1700sand his family occupied it up to 1862when it was purchased by Captain Alger-non Thomas Moreton.

In the early 1860s Thomas Paget, hissecond wife Anne Emily Handy alongwith their daughter Anne Jane and herhusband Captain the Hon. AlgernonThomas Moreton moved from Knock-glass, Co. Mayo to Dublin and soonafterwards moved to the Lodge in 1862.The following is taken from the DublinEvening Mail 28th October 1863: “TheMagistracy, Captain the Hon. Moreton ofBagenalstown, has been appointed to theCommission of the Peace for the Countyof Carlow, and was on Wednesday swornin by G. W. Bolton, Esq. of Coolbawn, inthe Courthouse Bagenalstown.”

The Hon. Algernon Thomas Reynolds -Moreton was born 10th August 1829 toHenry George Francis Reynolds – More-ton, 2nd Earl of Ducie and the Hon. Eliz-abeth Dutton. He married firstly AnneJane Paget daughter of Thomas Paget,Knockglass, Crossmolina, Co. Mayo onthe 10th October 1857 and they lived atEastwood Bagenalstown. They had twochildren, Algernon Paget Reynolds –Moreton born 24th November 1858, died12th December 1861 and Reginald PercyReynolds – Moreton born 22nd July1861, died August 1861 and buried in St.Mary’s Church Cemetery, Crossmolina,Co. Mayo.

Algernon gained the rank of Captain inthe service of the 3rd Light Dragoonsalso known as The Kings Own Hussars(a cavalry regiment in the British Army).His wife Anne Jane Moreton died 27thAugust 1873 aged 38 years and is buriedin Mount Jerome Cemetery Dublin.Thomas Paget father of Anna Jane diedin Dublin 8th March 1877 aged 81 years,his widow Anne E. Paget died 2nd April1892, both also buried in Mount JeromeCemetery, Dublin.

Captain Algernon Moreton married sec-ondly his first cousin Emilia OliviaMoreton McDonald daughter of the Hon.Augustus Henry Moreton McDonald ofLargie and Mary Jane McDonaldLochhart on the 1st April 1875. Theylived at Eastwood. The List of CarlowLand Owners of 1871 shows the Hon. A.Moreton with a holding of 68 acres inEastwood Bagenalstown. Captain Alger-non Moreton died on the 18th January1880 at the age of 50 years in CorfeMullen, Dorset, England. Emilia died17th February 1920 at Whitechurch,Dorset, England.

The following are snippets from newspa-per society columns of that time report-ing on some activities of the Hon.Captain Moreton:

1) Freeman’s Journal July 1861-The Hon. Mrs. Algernon Moreton of a son.2) Dublin Evening Mail 29th October1862 – Hunting in Ireland -The Hon.Algernon Moreton has sold his harriers,with Kingsland, their whip, in the bar-gain to Colonel Stronge.3) Dublin Evening Mail 1863 and 1864Captain Algernon Moreton – at Preser-vation of the Barrow – Fishery Meeting.4) Dublin Evening Mail 21 February1866 –Hon. Algernon Moreton, Secretary of theBarrow Protection Society.5) Freeman’s Journal 18 February 1875– Fashion & Varieties –Captain Algernon Moreton arrived atKingstown from England.6) Freeman’s Journal 1st July 1876 –Fashion & Varieties – Algernon Moreton and E. Mrs. Moretonleft Kingstown for London.7) Freeman’s Journal 17th June 1878 –Sale of Eastwood to Arthur Henley ofWaterperry Oxfordshire and now of East-wood – also referred to as the Lodge andDemesne land.

Other reports also referred to Captain Al-gernon Moreton’s visits to his HuntingLodge in Knockglass, Co. Mayo.

Notes:1) We may speculate as to why the Hon. Moretonchoose the name Eastwood and put forward that awood was situated on both sides of the Barrow andas his house was on the east side he called it East-wood House or that he took the East because it waslocated in the Barony of East Idrone, or that hechoose it perhaps from the name Eastwood Park

Estate close to Tortwort Court the former seat of theMoreton family in Gloucester, England. 2) Captain Moreton’s first wife was Anne JanePaget of Knockglass Co. Mayo. A member of theBourke family of Ballina married a Paget, a relativeof Thomas Paget, father of Anne Jane. Mary Robin-son (nee Bourke) former President of Ireland is de-scended from the Bourkes of Ballina.3) Emilia Olivia second wife of Captain Moretondescended from the Lady Anne sister of King Ed-ward 1V (Yorkist) 1461 – 1483 and King HenryV11 (Tudor) 1485-1509.

Captain Arthur HenleyIn June 1878 Captain Arthur Henleybought Eastwood House and estate at theprice of one thousand six hundredpounds from Captain Algernon ThomasMoreton. Arthur Henley was born inWaterperry, Oxfordshire to JosephWarner Henley and Georgina Fanedaughter of John Fane and Lady Eliza-beth Parker who lived at Wormsley,Oxfordshire. On the 27th October 1868Arthur married Margaret Gore daughterof Joseph Gore and Margaret Bagwell ofDerrymore, Co. Clare at Saint James,Westminister London. They had at least three children, Margaret M. Henley born1875, Walter E. Henley born 1877 andCecil Henley born 1881. They lived atEastwood, Bagenalstown, Co. Carlowand Waterperry, Oxfordshire, England.

Arthur served as High Sheriff in Carlow,as a Justice of the Peace, was appointedMagistrate for Bagenalstown on the 5thof November 1878 and served as Resi-dent Magistrate there into at least the late1890s. In the 1881 Census he was listedat his sister’s (Grace Elizabeth De Salis)residence in Egham, Surrey, Berkshire,along with his wife Margaret and threechildren. It was seemingly a very largehousehold as listed also were other fam-ily members and 14 servants maleand female.

The Registry Deeds show that Arthursold Eastwood to Colonel WilliamBarton Wade on the 3rd February 1902.

In the 1901 Census Arthur was listed asa lodger in St. George, Hanover Square,London Middlesex and listed in the 1911Census at the age of 77 years in Chel-tenham, Gloucestershire. He died on the19th September 1923 at the age of 90years in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Heis listed as a descendant of William 1 (theConqueror) King of England 1066 -1087in the Genealogy Tree “Descendants of


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William the Conqueror” by Alan G. FreerA.C.I.B.

Adjutant Arthur Forbes-GordonArthur Newton Forbes-Gordon was bornon the 22nd January 1844 at Rayne,Scotland to Arthur Forbes Gordon andCharlotte Balfour. He gained the rank ofCaptain and Adjutant in the service of the79th Highlanders. He held the office ofJustice of the Peace (J.P.) for CountyCarlow. On the 15th September 1870Captain Forbes-Gordon was appointed tothe Court of Bagenalstown as Magistrateand resided at Rathwade House and hada residence also at Rayne, Aberdeenshire,Scotland.

He married firstly Christian Dalrympleon the 22nd of October 1872 and theyhad one child – Major Arthur DalrympleForbes-Gordon born the 29th September1873, died 16th May 1931.He married secondly, Adeline SarahNewton, born in 1849 to Philip JocelynNewton of Dunleckney and HenriettaMaria Kennedy on the 17th of April1876. They had 2 children- Alistair HughForbes-Gordon born the 8th February,1877, died 11th July 1961 and AdelineWinifred Forbes-Gordon, born 3rdFebruary 1879. Philip’s second wifeAdeline Sarah died the 21st February1879 at the age of 30 years and is buriedin Dunleckney cemetery.

He married thirdly, Penelope Christiedaughter of Major Napier T. Christie inApril 1881.They had 3 children – Ames-bury Frances Mary, Forbes-Gordon, bornon the 29th of September 1882; Alice IdaKathleen Forbes-Gordon, born the 17thof March 1884 and Helen CharlotteForbes-Gordon born on the 26th of May,1891.

I found no record of Arthur NewtonForbes Gordon in the Registry of Deedsin Dublin but in the 1901 Census he wasrecorded along with his wife Penelopeand family of 4 daughters, Adeline,Amesbury, Alice and Helen plus 8 ser-vants (5 male and 3 female) residing inEastwood. At this time the owner of East-wood according to the Registry of Deedswas Captain Henley but he had not soldit to Colonel Wade until February 1902and therefore Forbes-Gordon obviouslyhad rented Eastwood for that period fromCaptain Henley.

Adjutant Arthur Newton Forbes-Gordondied on the 7th March 1930 aged 86.

Colonel William Barton WadeWilliam Barton Wade, a retired ArmyColonel moved from his temporaryresidence at St. Canice’s Cottage,Kilkenny into Eastwood House Bagenal-stown in February 1902 after purchasingit from Captain Arthur Henley.

William was born at Grove, Fethard, Co.Tipperary the 11th of July 1840 andbaptised there on the 29th of July. Heentered the Army as ensign 26th (TheCameronians) Regiment of Foot, 11March 1859, Lieutenant 14 January1862, Captain 21 July 1875, Paymaster 1April 1878, Chief Paymaster 12 Novem-ber 1897, Colonel 16 February 1899,retired 23 September 1901; served inAbyssinian Expedition of 1868 (Medal);

Chief Paymaster in South Africa 1899 -1901. He was invested as a Companion,Order of the Bath (C.B.) 29 November;mentioned in despatches, London Gazette,16 April 1901; Justice of the Peace (J.P.)for Co. Carlow. William was the son ofJohn Wade from the Clonebraney Estate,Co. Meath and Deborah Barton of theBarton Estate, Grove, Fethard, Co. Tipper-ary. He married Emily Ada Elwell born inBermuda 1852/3 to Henry Elwell andMargaret Graham of Edinburgh. They

were married at St. James Piccadily Lon-don on the 7th November 1878. They hadtwo children Gwendolen Ada, born atAgra, North West Provinces, India andmarried at Dunleckney, Bagenalstown,20th July 1904, to Adjutant WilloughbyJones Fowler of the Waterford RoyalGarrison Artillery (Militia). Gwendolendied 27th February 1952.The second childEric William Noel Wade was born atAldershot, Co. Hampshire, 19th January1886, and baptised at the GarrisonChurch, Aldershot; educated atCheltenham College.

In 1890 on the 16th August at the provedreading of his father’s will at KilkennyWilliam Barton Wade’s address is givenas Newpark, Co. Kildare.

William Barton Wade died in 1919.

Notes:

1) John Wade, Father of William Barton Wade is listed in 1853 as High Sheriff of Kilkenny City;1854 as resident in St. Canice’s Cottage, as Landagent and Resident Magistrate, with his wiferegistered as a member of the Kilkenny and SouthEast of Ireland Archaeological Society.

2) John Wade was born 1st February 1811 anddied aged 78, 13th May 1889 at Kilkenny. Deborahhis wife died 24th March 1895. Both are buried inthe Churchyard at St. Canices.


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Forbes-Gordon Arthur Newton 57 Head Scotland Retired Captain79 Homelanders

Forbes-Gordon Penelope 53 Wife ScotlandForbes Adeline 22 Daughter DublinForbes Amesbury 18 Daughter Co. Carlow Forbes Ida 17 Daughter Co. CarlowForbes Helen 9 Daughter Scotland ScholarSwann Mary 24 Governess West Indies GovernessMacKenzie Mary 25 Servant Scotland Lady’s MaidRobb Mary 23 Servant Scotland MaidHorsbourough Jane 23 Servant England CookRussel Annie 20 Servant Co. Kilkenny Kitchen MaidBarry Sarah 17 Servant Co. Carlow HousemaidCopland James 17 Servant Scotland FootmanDay Martin 30 Servant Queen’s Co. CoachmanCopland George 16 Servant Scotland Stable Boy

Eastwood House 1901 Census of Ireland

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3) The Companion Order of the Bath (C.B.) wasfounded in 1725 by King George 1 and is conferredon men and women for recognised services ofnational importance, mainly awarded to Officers ofthe Armed Services as well as to a smaller numberof civil servants.

William Ernest Elwell, MerchantEastwood House passed from retiredColonel William Barton Wade on the 3rdof September 1903 to William ErnestElwell formerly of Houghton Hill,Huntingdon and later West Dean Cottage,Chichester. William Ernest Well was abrother of Emily Ada Elwell, wife ofWilliam Barton Wade.

William and his brother Robert JohnElwell of Birmingham, England, were inpartnership with George WalrondHutchinson and Henry Perry Leach, bothof Bridgetown, Barbados, in the WestIndies, and traded as Merchants under thefirm of Elwell and Co. at London andBirmingham. The partnership wasdissolved on the 26th of November 1878.Both Robert John and William Ernestwere born in Birmingham, John Chris-tened 10th January, 1844 and Williamborn 1847. William Ernest died at BathSomerset, England, aged 77 in 1924.

Note:Henry Elwell father of Emily, William and Robertdied on 30th of December 1872 and will proved inthe District Registry at Lichfield Court of Probateon the 30th May, 1873, by Robert John Elwell ofBirmingham, Merchant and William Ernest Elwellof the same place, Merchant, the executors namedin the same will.

Colonel George Ewbank BriggsGeorge Ewbanks Briggs retired ArmyOfficer “residing at 18 FitzwilliamSquare, Dublin purchased lands and build-ings at Bagenalstown commonly called bythe name of Lodge or Demesne of Bage-nalstown” from William Ernest Elwell “ofthe Cottage of West Dean Chichester onthe 7th of September 1904”.

George Ewbanks Briggs was born toGeorge Briggs and Letitia FannyEgginton on the 10th February 1856 inYorkshire. He married Kathleen MarySwifte at St. George, Hanover Square,London on the 1st of June 1898. Hejoined the Royal Fusiliers in which hereached the rank of Colonel. He wasawarded the O.B.E. by the King. In 1919Colonel Briggs sold Eastwood to FrankB. Brown.

George Ewbank Briggs died on the 2ndof July 1940 aged 84 and is buried inWhitechurch Cemetery at the foot of theDublin Mountains in Co. Dublin.Kathleen Mary, wife of George died onthe 5th of May 1962 at the age of 89years and is buried alongside her hus-band, in the same grave in Whitechurch.

Notes:1) O.B. E. = Officer of the British Empire. 2) K.C. = King’s Counsel (Counsel to the Crownwhen the British Monarch is a King).3) Kathleen Mary Swifte was the daughter of SirE.G. Swifte of the Swifte’s Heath, Kilkenny.George Swifte Ewbank Briggs was the last Swifteto reside at Swifte’s Heath. He took possession ofit in 1957 and sold it in 1971. He was buried inCastlecomer in 1990.

The Brown FamilyThe Browns were descended from JohnStewart Brown who came from nearMontrose, a Scottish coastal town situ-ated between the mouths of the Northand South Esk Rivers in Angus,Scotland, 38 miles north of Dundee. JohnStewart Brown married Nicholas Hast-ings who came from Moniaive, Dum-frieshire, in 1820 and they had 12children, 6 boys and 6 girls whichincluded the following children born inMoniaive in the Parish of GlencairnDumfries and christened in the UnitedPresbyterian Church:- William Brownborn 26 January 1821, Jenet Brown (Fe-male) born 11th April 1822, NicolasBrown (Female) born 17th April 1824,Margaret Brown christened 23rd August1826, Robert Brown born 14th Septem-ber 1827, Jane Brown born 11th Septem-ber 1829, Walter Stewart Brown born 8thOctober 1831, Helen Brown born 7th

January 1834, Mary Brown born 1stApril 1836.

William and Walter Brown emigrated toBelfast where they started a flour mill.William married and he and his wife had6 children 2 boys and 4 girls. Two ofthese were Mary Brown who died in1940 and Jane Brown born 1869, died1901. Jane married her first cousin FrankBeveridge Brown, son of Walter Brown.William later moved to Dublin where hefounded the Dock Mills. He lived atGlencairn, Dalkey.

Sometime soon after arrival in BelfastWalter Brown moved to Dublin where hefounded Walter Brown & Co., a millingbusiness in Hanover Street. He lived atRockville, Newtown Park Avenue Black-rock. Walter married Margaret ForbesWatson on the 29th of June 1859 in Aber-lemno, Angus, Scotland. They had 8children; John Hastings Brown born1860, Jessie Brown born 1861,EffieBrown born 1863,the aforementionedFrank Beveridge Brown born 1st October1864, Mary Susan Brown born 9th May1866, Walter Stewart Brown born 29thOctober 1867,William Brown born 14thJuly 1870 and Margaret Watson Brownborn 30th May 1872, all born in Dublin. Walter’s wife Margaret died in 1878 andhe then married her sister EuphemiaWatson in Switzerland because in Irelandit was illegal to marry a deceased wife’ssister. There were no children from thesecond marriage.

The first recording of the Brown familyin Bagenalstown that I have located


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Surname Forename Age Relation to Head


Briggs George Frank 55 Head England Retired ColonelBriggs Kathleen Mary 37 Wife Dublin JS YN Co. Carlow Philips Barbara 3 Visitor EgyptPhilips Di Ann 1 Visitor EnglandBorough Dora Kate 50 Nurse Co. Clare Lady NurseBurland Marcella Ellen 42 Nurse Co. Dublin Hospital NurseCollins Margaeret 40 Servant C. Waterford CookGorey Margaret 28 Servant Co. Kildare Parlour MaidWaton Kate 34 Servant Co. Louth HousemaidRogers Alicia 28 Servant Co. Kildare Kitchen MaidMcLean Elizabeth 23 Servant Co. Carlow 2nd Housemaid

EastwoodHouse 1911 Census of Ireland

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comes from the Montrose StandardNewspaper Scotland in 1885 and isas follows:-

Marriage.At Panmure Place, on the 30th July, 1885by the Rev. W. Douglas Mackenzie , J.Hastings Brown, Bagenalstown, Ireland,to Jessie Mary only daughter ofJames Johnston.

Therefore John Hastings and FrankBeveridge Brown may have arrived inBagenalstown in the early 1880s andlived in the Long Range.

Frank B. Brown purchased Eastwoodand lands of the Demesne of Bagenal-stown on the 19th of August 1919 fromGeorge Ewbank Briggs.

Frank B. Brown was born on the 1st ofOctober 1864 to Walter Stewart Brownand Margaret Watson at 16 CreightonStreet, Dublin. Margaret Watson was thedaughter of Frank Watson and M. JanetForbes (Fife) who lived in Farm, Black-hall, Breckin, Scotland.

Frank Beveridge Brown married his firstcousin Jane Brown in Dublin in 1896.They moved to Bagenalstown where hewent into partnership of the Lodge Millwith Samuel Crosthwait. Frank and Janelived at the Long Range and had 2 sons,Brian Stewart born 1897 and FrankStewart born the 1st of November 1901.Jane died one month after the secondbirth, on the 3rd of December 1901 aged31 years. Jane’s, sister Mary who livednext door in Long Range helped to bringup the two boys and remained there untilshe died in 1940. In the 1901 CensusFrank is recorded in the Long Range,Bagenalstown, along with his wife Janeand son Bryan Stewart Brown. He isrecorded in the 1911 Census in the LongRange as a widower. In the house withhim is his son Stewart Brown (age 9years) and his nephew Eric Brown (age24 years). Frank is recorded in both cen-suses as a Flour Mill Proprietor and CornMerchant. Frank Beveridge Brown diedon the 21st of October 1922 aged 58years and was buried alongside his wifeJane in Mount Jerome cemeteryin Dublin.

Frank’s eldest son Brian joined the armyafter leaving Campell College Belfast

and was killed on the 5th April 1918while serving with the 1/28th LondonRegiment, Artists Rifles. He is buried atthe Hamel Military Cemetery (BeaumontHamel - Somme France) along with 409other casualties, his inscription reads –BROWN BRIAN STEWART UnitedKingdom Rifleman B/201487 RifleBrigade 05/04/1918 Age: 21 11 F. 33/37. The second son of Frank and JaneBrown, Frank Stewart Brown (1901-1993) was born at Long Range on the 1stof November 1901. He developed an eyedisease (Irises) while in his teens atCampell College, had to leave school andwas blind by 21. Nevertheless, in 1930he married Alice Isabella Badham (1904-1996) from Warwickshire England whowas born with a stump in place of a rightarm. Her aunt Christina Alice Bell wasmarried to Frank Beveridge’s youngerbrother Walter Stewart Brown. FrankStewart and Alice farmed at Eastwood(Apples, Bees, Pigs), then later at Rath-wade (milking herd, horses, chickens),and Oldtown (arable, horses, sheep,turkeys,). They had 3 boys and 3 girls;another boy died as a baby. The follow-ing are the children of Frank and Alice:-Robin (1931 – 2006), Sheelagh born1932, Terrance died 1933, Denis born1934, Jane (1936 -2001), Susan born1939, and Rory born 1940. On the 17thNovember 1943 Frank Stewart Brownsold Eastwood and all that parts of the

land of Bagenalstown commonly calledLodge and Demesne of Bagenalstownwith buildings and appurtenances of 71acres 2 roods 24 perches statue measure,to Brown and Crosthwait Ltd., registeredoffice Lodge Mills.

In later life Frank and Alice lived atGarryduff. Frank died in 1993 and Alicedied in 1996; both are buried in Bagenal-stown cemetery on the Fenagh road.

John Hastings Brown (1860-1930) eldestson of Wallter Stewart Brown and Mar-garet Watson married Jessie Mary John-ston from Montrose, Scotland atPanmure Place Montrose, Angus, Scot-land on the 30th of July 1885.

The following news item appeared in theMontrose Standard July 31, 1885:-Handsome Bride’s Cake.

There was exhibited this week in thewindow of Mr. A. C. Burnett, baker, HighStreet, a bride’s cake which for size andfinish, has scarcely been surpassed inMontrose. The cake was prepared on theoccasion of the marriage of Miss John-ston, daughter of James Johnston, Esq.,of the firm of Messrs Joseph Johnston &Sons, fish curers and reflects much crediton the maker, Mr. Burnett.

John and Jessie had 6 sons and 2 daugh-


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Brown Frank B. 36 Head Dublin Flour Merchant &Miller

Brown Jane 30 Wife DublinBrown Brian S. 4 Son Co. CarlowComerford Julia 25 Servant Co. Carlow CookMcArdle Comerford Lizzie 22 Servant Co. Carlow Nurse

1901 Census of Ireland No 1 Long Range



Brown Frank 46 Head Dublin Fl. Mill Proprietor& Corn Merchant

Brown Stewart 9 Son Carlow ScholarBrown Mary 50 Sister-in-Law Kildare ---Brown Eric 24 Nephew Carlow VisitorRyan Rose 31 Servant Carlow Gen. ServantKealy Bridget 24 Servant Carlow Nurse

1911 Census of Ireland N0.1 Long Range

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ters; Eric Johnstone Brown (1886-1959),William Kenneth Brown (1888-1973),Nan Brown (1889-1968), John Brown(1892-1968), Harold Malcolm Brown(1899—1947), Madge Brown 1899-1967), Jerry Brown (1901-1969 andFrank McDonald Brown (1901-1975).Frank spent some time in Natal, SouthAfrica and when he returned home livedin a small house on the estate but laterhad a bungalow built part way up the av-enue to Eastwood House on the left handside and lived there. He suffered from se-vere arthritis and died on the 2nd of July1975. Frank is buried alongside hisbrother Eric in Bagenalstown cemeteryon the Fenagh Road.

William Kenneth Brown was born on the11th of June 1888 at Montrose Scotland

to Jessie and John Hastings Brown wholived at Bagenalstown. He was the sec-ond of 8 children. He married BessieMitchell from Montrose Scotland. Theylived at Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford andhad no children. Ken took over S. and A.G. Davis’s Mill which was located on thebanks of the Urin, a tributary to the RiverSlaney at Enniscorthy. S. & G.Davis (En-niscorthy) Ltd. was set up on Saturday31st of July 1915 in Co. Wexford. TheCompany was dissolved and closed onTuesday 10th of December 2002. Themill operated for just over one year moreas Cooney Grain and finally closed onFriday the 7th of May 2004. WilliamKennet Brown died in 1973.

Eric Johnston Brown eldest son of JohnHastings and Jessie Johnston was born

on the 12th of May 1886 at Bagenal-stown. His father’s occupation is statedas Miller. At the age of 24 years he isrecorded in the 1911 Census at his UncleFrank’s house in the Long RangeBagenalstown. He married the 3rd ofJune, 1912 Margaret Winifred Tibbitsdaughter of Frederick and Mary Tibbitsat Aldridge Staffordshire. Eric and Mar-garet had one son Christopher TibbitsBrown born at Cedar Court, Aldridge onthe 28th of October 1920. Eric emigratedto Canada and went in to the mining busi-ness which was not a successful enter-prise. On the 6th of January 1917 hejoined the Canadian Over-Seas Expedi-tionary Force, the 15th Canadian Battal-ion 48th Highlanders and his wrist bandnumber was E.J.B. 3689 M.T. - C.A.S.C.and previous to that he had spent 3months in the Canadian Militia. In his At-testation Paper he states his date of birthas the 12th of May 1866 born at Bagenal-stown, Co. Carlow and states his next-of-kin as Mrs. M.W. Brown (wife) and heraddress as Cedar Court, Aldridge,Staffordshire and his occupation as RealEstate Agent. The declaration made byhim states I Eric Johnston Brown dosolemnly declare that the above answersmade by me to the above questions aretrue and that I am willing to fulfil the en-gagements by me now made, and Ihereby engage and agree to serve in theCanadian Over-Seas ExpeditionaryForce, and to be attached to any arm ofthe service therein, for the term of oneyear, or during the war now existing be-tween Great Britain and Germany andshould that war last longer than one year,and for six months after the terminationof that war provided His Majesty shouldso long require my services, or untillegally discharged. Date 6th January 1917.

After the end of WW1 and the breakupof his marriage with Margaret Tibbits,Eric returned to Ireland. Sometime after-wards Marjory Stirton from Winnipegleft Canada on board a ship and arrivedin England. Eric was expecting her butdid not know the port of arrival and so hevisited a number of ports until he even-tually succeeded in finding her. Theywere married and spent their honeymoonin Bray Co. Wicklow.

James Stirton lived in Forfarshire, AngusScotland. He married Janet Crichton. On


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Lodge Mill workers 1947/48Front Row seated on ground:Jimmy Johnston, Paddy O’Brien, Ger Clarke, PeterCarton, Mick Purcell, Jim Comerford, Paddy Lawlor, Dick Sheehan.

Middle Row Seated: Tom Kinsella (Jnr), Tommy Kinsella (Snr), Jim Dargan, BillStephenson (Jnr), Eric Brown with son, Jim on his lap, Mr Harvey, Frank Brown,Walter Brown, Billy Stephenson, Emilly Jeffs (Office), Cecil Stephenson, Eric Lewis.

Middle Row Standing: Dick Hughes, Paddy Doyle, Conor McDonald, Jim McEvoy,Richie Lawlor, Johnny Lillis, Sean Walsh, Paddy Kelly, George Darcy (Jnr)Paddy Mc-Donald, Tommy Lawlor, Willy Millbanks, Johnny Dargan, Ted Dargan, Dick Gregory.

Back Row: George Watkins, Christy Pender, John Monaghan (Snr), Jack Walsh(Snr),Peter Hughes, John Doyle, George Darcy (Snr), John Michaels, Jim Geoghegan,Billy Watkins, John Boyle, Frick Doyle, Willy Kinsella, Jack Monaghan (Jnr)

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the 13th of June 1816 Janet gave birth totheir first son whom they called David.When David Stirton was about 11 yearsold he emigrated with his father andmother to Canada. The family settled inthe bush about 5 miles from the presentcity of Guelph. David’s brother WilliamStirton was the first male child born inGuelph. David first toiled as a farmer inthe townships of Guelph and Pulslinch,South Wellington, Nova Scotia. He hadlong connections with municipal affairsin Pulslinch ending in 1867. He then rep-resented South Wellington in the OldCanadian Parliament and for 9 years afterConfederation retained a seat in theHouse of Commons. He retired from Par-liamentary life in in 1876 upon his ap-pointment to the office of Postmaster ofGuelph. David Stirton was twice mar-ried, in 1842 to Mary Beattie of Pulslichand in 1847 to Henrietta (unknown) andhad children by both marriages. In the1901 Census in Canada he is recorded inEast Wellington, Ontario at the age of 84years , widowed along with his daughterMary J. Barlelay age 55 years (born the19th of April 1845 in Ontario). He diedon the 15th of August 1908 at Guelph,Wellington, Ontario.

On the 9th of December 1847 James Stir-ton was born to David and Henrietta Stir-ton near the city of Guelph Ontario.James farmed up to 1879 and then wentin to the grain business in Manitoba until1892. James married firstly Maggie Mar-tin of Dumfries Ontario in 1869 and theyhad 3 children. Maggie died and JamesStirton then married Elizabeth LindsayBarclay from Guelph Manitoba. MarjoryStirton was born to James and Elizabeth Lindsay Stirton in the year 1900 at Man-itoba, Canada. James and Elizabeth hada total of 7 children. James moved in tothe real estate and financial business inMorden and in 1901 he was appointedMorden Postmaster. On the 3rd of June1927 James Stirton died at Morden.

Eric Johnston Brown and Marjory Stirtonsettled in the Long Range at Bagenal-stow.Eric and his younger brother Frankmanaged the Brown and CrosthwaitLodge Mill business. Eric’s Uncle, FrankBeveridge Brown had bought EastwoodHouse and all lands of the Demesne in1919 and had moved in to EastwoodHouse. Frank Beveridge died in 1922 andhis son Frank Stewart Brown and his

wife Alice continued to live onin Eastwood.

Eric and Marjory had one son Jim Brownwho was born on the 7th of May 1945.Eric died on the 4th January 1959 aged83 years. Jim attended a boarding schoolaway from home from an early age andat 13 years of age while away at schoolhis father died. So, Jim’s early memoriesconnect more with his mother.

After the death of his father his motherMarjory discussed with him, whetherthey should return to Canada or stay inIreland and his mother’s preference wasto stay in Ireland and so it happened.

Marjory died on the 26th of March 1983aged 83 years. Eric and Marjory wereboth buried in Bagenalstown cemeteryon the Fenagh road.

Jim Brown married Margaret Blenner-hasset from Beaufort, Co. Kerry and theyhad 4 children, Judy, Eric, Diane, andSusan. Jim managed the farm businessand continued to live on at the LongRange until 1971 when he and Margaretmoved to live at Killinane Farm on the west side of the river Barrow.

Notes:1) Re "Nicholas" Hastings wife of John StewartBrown; the "s" in her first name refers to afamily name.

1) Walter Stewart Brown, younger brother of FrankBeveridge, was a member of the Ireland rugby teamthat won the Triple Crown for the first time in 1894.At that time also he was a member of the DublinUniversity Club.2) John Hastings Brown was captain of the CarlowRugby team at one stage.3) Eric Johnston Brown donated the Green Park(Fair Green) in the centre of Bagenalstown for theuse of the people. 4) Jim Brown’s half-brother Christopher Brownlived in England and when WW2 broke out he wasattending college and so he and two of his friendsdecided to join the forces. One friend joined thearmy, the second friend joined the navy andChristopher joined the R.A.F. Christopher took partin many important bombing missions and at the endof the war he was glad to return once more tocollege where he met up with his two formerfriends, life continued on and Christopher becamea doctor.

Hans Jeffrey WhiteColonel William Flower commenced theconstruction of Castle Durrow in Co.Laois in 1712. The Flower family as-sumed residency in 1716 and continuedto expand and improve their Estate onvarious occasions. The family wereregarded as benevolent Landlords andwere the largest employers of Durrowvillage. They had growing financial prob-lems up to 1919 but kept their Mansionsof Castle Durrow, Cloonageera andKnocknatrina in decent condition. How-ever, in 1922 the banks foreclosed andsome members of the family relocatedback to Britain. Castle Durrow was sold.Robin Flower the inventor was born onthe 1st of April at Castle Durrow. He


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Three generations of the Brown Family.Walter Brown, John Hastings Brown and Eric Brown.

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married Gertrude Sophia daughter ofRev. Sewell Hamilton. They had fivechildren. One of his daughters FrancesMary Flower married Henry ErnestWhite and they lived at KnocknatrinaHouse, Durrow Co. Laois. From 1869Robin Flower lived at Knocknatrina.Frances Mary was widowed in 1923. OnOctober the 2nd 1940 one of her sonsHans Jeffrey White who lived at Knock-natrina married in Dublin, Mary Cather-ine (Reena)Brennan of Eden Hall,Ballyragget, eldest daughter of RichardBrennan and Kathleen Mary Clare Mor-ris. Henry and Mary lived firstly at Cool-more House, Thomastown and in 1945moved to Eastwood House in Bagenal-stown. They had 6 children; Jeffrey,Catherine, Ian, Robert, Richenda andRoger. Catherine White married JohnHart of Chichester, and they lived inChichester, England. In 1968 EastwoodHouse caught fire and extensive damagewas done to the front of the house and theroof. The insurance was not sufficient torestore the front of the house and so itwas demolished. A new front was createdat the remainder of the front building anda new roof was added to the entire build-ing. The basement of the knocked frontbuilding still exists under the front ap-proach to the house but has been sealedoff. Mary Catherine White establishedEastwood Nurseries and she eventually

became a renowned producer of herba-ceous plants. She died on the 1st of Feb-ruary 2002 and her ashes were buried inNicholastown Churchyard. Her husbandHans Jeffrey had predeceased her. Afterthe death of Mary the White family ex-tended an invitation to John Hart to comeand live in Eastwood. His wife Catherinehad died previous to this and so John

Hart, son in law of Hans Jeffrey andMary Catherine White, arrived in East-wood and now resides there along withhis son Edmund.

History and FolkloreIn my recent retirement years I go walk-ing several times a week. One day inearly 2014 I set off as usual up RoyalOak Road, down the Long Range andinto Regent Street, my favoured Street ofDay Dreams. My eyes and mind werefocused on Tom Singleton’s large home(and later Bank of Ireland), as my feetcarried me along. I visualised the houseas it would have been in the glory yearsof canal and milling. Behind the houseand forming a continuous building downto the quay and continuing south downthe quayside, grain stores and stables forhorses. Tom was a respected and prosper-ous business man of the time with 18boats working the canal to Dublin, Wa-terford and towns in between. The stablesof course were for the horses that towedthe canal boats. I was drawn back into re-ality as a voice rang out “that’s a fine bighouse there”. I spied on the other side ofthe street Jimmy and Bridget Kelly, shop-ping bags in hand on the way home. Icrossed the street and opened my mind tothem of how I visualised the street in thepast leading up to the gate entrance ofEastwood House. Jimmy then related tome a story he had heard from an elder of


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Residents of Eastwood House (The Lodge)

Residents of the Lodge Mills House

Bagenal Family Matthew and Richard WeldMichael Carter Matthew Weld Hartstonge & Richard WeldEdward Vigors Samuel Crosthwait (Senior)Richard Mercer Samuel Crosthwait (Son)William Chaigneau ColvilleJoseph WeldMatthew Weld (son of Joseph) Lodge MillersMary Weld (Wife of Matthew) Owen MurphyRobert Wybrants Edward VigorsCaptain Algernon Moreton Richard MercerCaptain Arthur Henley Matthew & Richard WeldAdjutant Arthur Forbes-Gordon M. W. Hartstonge & Richard WeldColonel William Barton Wade Samuel Crosthwait (Senior)William Ernest Elwell Samuel Crosthwait (Son)Colonel George Ewbanks Frank Briggs Brown & Crosthwait Frank Beveridge BrownFrank Stewart BrownHans Jeffrey White

Captains Lieutenants EnsignsThe Colonel William Bourke John ComerfordJames PowerLieutenant Colonel

Thomas Meara Edward Butler

Major - Corbett ------------- Gaffney ----------Geffrey Prendergast Walter Prendergast James PrendergastNicholas Power Richard Wadding Edmund PowerJohn Meagher Edmund Meagher Thomas MeagherDaniel Hogan Richard Morris William HoganRichard Fanning Edmund Connor Thomas ButlerJohn Keating Robert prendergast Piers keatingRichard Mansfield Edmund Roche David Roche Bryan O’Bryan Murtogh O’Bryan Edward ButlerThomas Purcell John Dwyer Nicholas PurcellJohn Moclare Edmund Tobin James MoclarePhilip DwyerGrenadier

Thomas DwyerEdmund Butler

-----Doherty, Quarter Master -- Tobin, Surgeon

King James’s Irish Army List 1689/90Colonel Dudley Bagenal’s Infantry Regiment (Men =515)

Mary Catherine WhiteJohn Hart

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the town in his boyhood days. The storygoes somewhat like “There was a king introuble in Dublin and he had to flee fromthere. He travelled down through Wick-low and was expected to stay overnightin Eastwood House. There was great ex-citement in the big house and greatpreparations were being made to receivethe Royal visitor. However, then camethe disappointment, the King and hiscompanions crossed the bridge at Leigh-lin and stayed in a house at theRoyal Oak.”

Later on that evening I recalled havingheard a similar story from another manthat had heard it from the same source asJimmy Kelly. It was relayed to me that theoriginal source had recorded quite anamount of local folklore that was left inhis house when he died. He was not a manthat had published any of his material.

I have weaved fact, history and folkloretogether and have placed the above re-lated story in what I believe is its histor-ical background. I start with whenDudley Bagenal recruited and com-manded an Infantry Regiment for thearmy of King James 11, first at the Siegeof Derry 18th April – 28th July 1689 andthen at the Battle of the Boyne 1st July1690 and at stake was the British throne.Dudley Bagenal and Henry Luttrellrepresenting County Carlow hadattended the King James Parliament inDublin that sat from the 7th May until the20th July. The battle at the Boyne wasbetween William 111 and his father-in-law the deposed King James 11. It tookplace on the 1st of July 1690 on the banksof the River Boyne. William’s army con-

sisted of 36,000 men and James’s 25,000men. James showed no courage at thebattle and at first intimation of defeat fledto Dublin with a small escort and it ismost likely that this small escort includedDudley Bagenal. They stayed overnightin Dublin and set out next morningthrough Wicklow for the south (Kinsale)or south east coast (Duncannon). Theycrossed the river Barrow at Leighlin-bridge and stayed at a large house in thetownland of Clorusk. The plan may havebeen to stay at the Lodge, a house of theBagenals that we now know as Eastwoodin the townland of Moneybeg but accord-ing to legend that did not happen. Thenext morning they set out for their desti-nation in Ireland and eventually boardeda ship that took them to Brest, Brittany,France. King James set up Court at St.Germain-en-Lay near Paris with DudleyBagenal as Gentleman Usher to him.James died there on the 6th September1701. Dudley Bagenal died at Bruges,Belgium in 1712.

Perhaps King James and his group didcross the bridge at Leighlin, travelled onto the Royal Oak, re-crossed the Barrowat the Royal Oak ford, stayed in East-wood House and that it was from theseevents came the names - Royal Oak,Royal Oak Road and Regent Street andthat it was from Eastwood House in thetownland of Moneybeg grew the townof Bagenalstown.

Notes:1) On the estate of Major Boyle Heuson ofKilkenny circa 1640 a big house was built in thetownland of Clorusk, Co. Carlow. On his demisethe Major left the estate to the Way family in thefirst half of the 1800s. The house was located wherethe present car park is across the road from the pub

in the Royal Oak. Some twenty or thirty houses andcabins formed a sort of a street there. This housemay be where King James and his escort stayed in1690. The house was in 1815 used by Bianconi’scoaches as an Inn, a stopover and for a change ofhorses. A signboard ornamented the front of thehouse in its early years, which depicted a RoyalMonarch hidden in an oak tree. Perhaps this picturecommemorated the visit of King James or it maybe as claimed by some that it commemorated thefamous escape of King Charles 11 (1630-1685) inEngland by concealment in an oak tree.

The satirist poet and author Makepeace Thackeraymade a journey through Ireland in the first half ofthe 19th century and wrote of his visit to the RoyalOak in his journal “The Irish Sketch Book.” He didnot stay overnight but he and his party journeyedon to a farmer’s house situated between Royal Oakand Gowran where they stayed the night. The orig-inal Royal Oak Inn building was demolishedin 1974.

Some 500 metres east of the Royal Oak WalterBagenal built the first bridge across the River Bar-row to Bagenalstown and before that time some 50metres below the bridge was the ancient ford. WhenWalter Bagenal commissioned the building of thebridge at Royal Oak he placed a wager with a con-temporary of his that a horse and carriage wouldcross it within a specific period of months. The timeof the wager was almost up and it became clear thatthe bridge would not be completed in time. Walterordered that planks be placed across the bridgestructure and he drove his carriage across and wonthe wager.2) Juliana Carew daughter of Robert Carew (Bally-boro, Co. Wexford) married secondly Thomas Wayin 1707.3) Other County Carlow electors who were mem-bers of the King James Parliament: – Burrough of Carlow: Mark Baggott, John Warren. Burrough ofOld Leighlin: Darby Long, Daniel Doran.House of Lords –Cheevers, Viscount Mount Leinster (a new creationof King James).Lord William Brereton, of Old Leighlin(not present).Richard Ogle, Viscount Carlow (not present).

Sources and Gratitudes Clerical & Pastoral Records, Cork,Cloyne & Ross by W. Maziere BradyVolumes 1,2,3Asssociation for the Memorials of theDead of Ireland.Visitation of Ireland by Frederick Arthur Crisp.The Irish Tourist by Rev. A. Atkinson

1815.Arthur Young’s Tour of Ireland.Ulster Journal of Archaeology, January1900, Volume 6.The Memoirs (Chiefly Autobiographical)from 1798 to 1886 of Richard Malden.The Liffey in Dublin by J.de Courcy,Dublin 1996.Dictionary of National Biography 1885-


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Front of Eastwood House 2015

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1900.Cliffe Vigors Papers, National Archives Dublin.Registry of Deeds Dublin. History and Antiquities of Carlow byJohn Ryan.The Carlow Gentry by Jimmy O Toole.A Genealogical & Heraldic Dictionaryof the Landed Gentry by Sir BernardBurke. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquar-ies of Ireland Volume 31.The Origins and Development of Bage-nalstown 1680-1900 by Catherine AnnPower.

The Antiquary Volume X1 January –June 1885.Mac Donald’s Iris Directory & Gazetter1929 Edition.Soldiers of the First World War Canada.Griffiths Valuation 1852.Tithe Applotment Book 1825.The Peerage Compiled by Daryl Lundy.Census of Ireland 1901 & 1911.Irish Genealogy.ieFamily Search.org.Mocavo.co.ukSlaters Directory of Ireland 1894.The London Gazette 20th October 1874.The London Gazette 18th February 1879.

The Irish Almanac & Official Directory1884.Pigot & Co’s Provincial Directory of1824.Susan StoneyDenis BrownJim Brown.John Hart.Martin Nevin.Jim Murphy Tommy LawlerKing James’s Irish Army List 1689 byJohn Dalton


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The bridge to bog field 2015

Bachelors Walk and Regent Street showing what was the old Court House, now the Library

Photo of G. Bernard Shawfound among Brown familyphoto collection.

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In the view of one highly-acclaimed warcorrespondent, the capture of Ginchydeserved to be written ‘not in journalist’sprose, but in heroic verse’ and the samereporter went on to claim that thevictorious Irish had added ‘a very nobleepisode to the history of the Celtic race’.1Meanwhile, another prominent news-paper praised the determination andvalour of the soldiers, suggesting that‘the narrative of the battle should be toldin Irish homes for centuries’.2 In addition,an eye-witness account from a Jesuitchaplain who accompanied the troops asthey overwhelmed enemy forces in thevillage of Ginchy, on 9 September 1916,maintained that ‘the wild rush of our Irishlads swept the Germans away likechaff’.3 These accounts, overstated orembellished as they may well have been,are but a sample of the many glowingreports that chronicled the undisputedcourage displayed by the Irish battalions,whose fighting spirit at Ginchy wonwidespread praise and admiration.

Probably the shortest battle of theSomme offensive, Ginchy was, nonethe-less, a significant victory as it deprivedthe Germans of strategic observationposts overlooking the entire combatzone. ‘The strongest of all the manyfortified villages in the German line’, theIrish were said to have broken through‘the intricate defences of the enemy as atorrent sweeps down rubble’.4 Its capture– after a number of earlier assaults byBritish regiments had been repulsed – notonly boosted morale but opened the wayfor further advances along the front.

The success at Ginchy was achieved at ahigh price, with hundreds of casualtiesamong the six battalions of the 16th IrishDivision that participated in the attack.The 9th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers– a battalion whose contribution provedcrucial to the success of the operation –suffered heavily during the bloodyencounter, losing six officers and sixty-one men with countless others wounded.The elation of victory was short-lived asthe decimated battalion struggled tocome to terms with the scale of thecasualties that had been inflicted.Among those that lay dead on the battle-field was the battalion’s commandingofficer, thirty-six year old Captain W JMurphy, a grocer’s son from Tullow,County Carlow.

Background

William Joseph Murphy came from aprominent business family, long assoc-iated with the town of Tullow. His grand-father – also William Murphy – had beena local shopkeeper who first opened hisdoors to the public in the 1840s. Tradingfrom premises on the Market Square inTullow, he established a successful busi-ness, catering for a variety of local needsas a butcher, grocer, wine merchant andironmonger.5As William Murphy’s retailinterests continued to expand, so also didthe size of his family with eight boys andthree girls surviving to adulthood. It wasa measure of his growing prosperity thatno fewer than five of his sons attendedboarding school at St Vincent’s College,Castleknock.6 Career wise, a number of

the boys followed their father into busi-ness but there was also a diocesan priestand a medical doctor, while one of hisdaughters entered the local convent,becoming a Brigidine nun.

As the 19th century drew to a close, theMurphy family was not just the dominantforce in the commercial and business lifeof the town, but they were also substantiallandowners in the wider Tullow area.Trading under the name W. Murphy &Son, Edward, the eldest, operated agrocery and licensed premises, located atthe junction of Market Square and BarrackSt. This establishment, with a spirit bar‘counted as one of the finest in theprovinces of Ireland’, was destroyed byfire in 1898, but it was immediately rebuiltto the highest specifications. The ‘colos-sal’ new building boasted a counter fifty-six feet in length, had ceilings panelledwith Norfolk pine and featured an exteriorfaced with red Bridgewater brick.7Acrossthe street on the other corner – also at thejunction of Barrack St and The Square –his brother Joseph carried on a successfulhardware business. Meanwhile anotherbrother, John George, – better known asJack – who lived at Belmont on NewChapel Lane, was an extensive farmer andhis standing in the town was further en-hanced by an appointment as a local jus-tice of the peace. Apart from theirindividual business interests, Edward andJoe Murphy were also involved in a jointenterprise, Murphy Brothers Auctioneers,a business that operated from premises onBridge St with branch offices in Carlowand Bagenalstown.

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Captain Bill Murphyof Tullow

Unsung hero of the Somme

John O’ Donovan

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Capt Murphy_Layout 1 28/10/2015 17:13 Page 1

Each of the three Murphy brothers thatremained in Tullow made a contributionto public life. Edward was the unanimouschoice of local Nationalists when theygathered in 1899 to select a representa-tive to sit on Carlow’s first County Coun-cil.8 A strong supporter of Home Rule, healso had a genuine concern for the disad-vantaged and was well-known for hisgenerosity towards that particular sectionof society; given his charitable disposi-tion, it was not surprising that he alsoplayed a leading part in the Tullow StVincent de Paul Society. FollowingEdward’s untimely death, his seat on theCounty Council passed to his brotherJack who went on to represent the areafor a number of years. Joe Murphy wasinvolved in municipal affairs, becominga member, and first chairman, of TullowTown Commission when that body wasestablished in 1902.

In January 1879, Edward Murphy hadmarried Mary Joseph Farrelly, a grocer’sdaughter from the Coombe area ofDublin and, the following year, theycelebrated the birth of a son and heir.9Born in Tullow on 16 April 1880, he waschristened William Joseph Murphy, aname that seemed destined to loom largein the business life of Tullow but would,instead, feature in the footnotes of FirstWorld War history.10 An only son withjust one younger sister, he was in line fora considerable inheritance and it wastaken for granted that he would, in time,follow in the footsteps of his father andgrandfather. Bill, as he was generallyknown, grew up in a well-to-do family,helping out in the shop and learning thegrocery trade from his father, while

attending school locally. As a young manhe was ‘extremely popular with the pub-lic owing to his amiability and other goodqualities’ and it was said that he ‘enjoyedthe goodwill and esteem of all classes ofthe community’.11 Bill Murphy’s second-ary education was entrusted to twodifferent religious congregations and intwo highly contrasting establishments.From May 1893 until March 1896 heattended the Patrician Brothers’Monastery Day School in Tullow, there-after transferring to the more prestigiousClongowes Wood College.12 In thisCounty Kildare boarding school, underthe tutelage of the Jesuits, he spent thefinal two years of his formal education.During his short period at Clongowes, hisname does not appear to have come to thefore in the academic, sporting or extracurricular spheres.

Early in 1900, Bill Murphy was forced totake on additional responsibilities whenhis father died unexpectedly at the age offifty-two. Edward Murphy had been toKingstown to see-off his daughter TeresaJane, who was returning to Englandwhere she was completing her education.He contracted influenza that quicklydeveloped into pneumonia and, despitethe best efforts of doctors at a Dublinhospital, he did not respond to treat-ment.13 Although still under the age oftwenty, Bill – along with his mother –took over the management of the groceryin Tullow but, after a couple of years, thefamily decided to step back from front-line shopkeeping.14 Having installed amanager and a number of live-in employ-ees to operate the business, the Murphysmoved permanently to their country

residence, Kilmagarvogue House, aboutthree miles north of the town.

Gentleman and Sportsman

With the transition to country life, BillMurphy became something of a gentle-man farmer, indulging in various leisureactivities, not least of which was a keeninterest in horses and horsemanship.Along with his sister Tess, he was aregular on the hunting circuit and wasalso a frequent participant in jumpingcompetitions; it was not unusual, at thattime, to read in the Nationalist or the Sen-tinel that ‘Mr W J Murphy, Kilmagar-vogue House, Tullow’ had taken thehonours at one or other jumping event.Murphy kept several horses at Kill, hismost successful being a mare named Bito’Skirt, on which he dominated in thejumping arena at the County CarlowAgricultural Society’s Annual Show forfour successive years, beginning in1903.15 At one of these shows, he jumpedon five different horses in the variousevents and while, as usual, Bit o’Skirttook the top award, he also collectedprizes with the more mundane soundingMichael and Little Bill. The Carlow andIsland Hunt Sportsman’s Meeting wasanother annual event where Bill Mur-phy’s equestrian skills were displayed togood effect.

The description of Bill Murphy as being‘full of pluck and daring and a goodall-round sportsman’ was clearly not justa reference to his horsemanship, as hewas actively involved in a number ofother sports as well.16 Rugby – at thetime, still the preserve of the wealthierclasses – was another interest and, in hisearly twenties, he regularly lined out forthe County Carlow Football Club. Hehad, no doubt, first encountered the gameduring his teenage years when he was astudent at Clongowes Wood College, aschool with a strong rugby tradition. Theclaim that he was ‘probably one of thebest players in the United Kingdom’ maywell have been an exaggeration, but hewas highly regarded on the playing fieldand he served as vice-captain of theCarlow club for the 1905-06 season.17

Cricket was yet another game thatappealed to the young Bill Murphy. In1905, he was included in the Carlow XI,

Captain Bill Murphy of Tullow - unsung hero of the Somme

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Early 20th century Tullow with W. Murphy & Son premises extreme left of picture

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perhaps the highlight of his cricketcareer, and he was also involved in thelocal Tullow club.18 During August ofthat year – alongside his uncle Jack – hewas on the Tullow team that defeatedKildare by one run. In addition, heoccasionally took part in matches with hisown selection, known appropriatelyenough as the ‘W J Murphy XI’. But asthe 1906 sporting seasons came to an end,so also did Murphy’s association withlocal sporting organisations and events; hewas coming to a decision on a major life-change that would take him far from theplaying fields and jumping arenas ofCounty Carlow.

Australian Adventure

Murphy was planning to emigrate toAustralia where vast tracts of land wereavailable for leasing by European settlerswith a view to starting farming enter-prises. It is not clear why he opted for sucha drastic change in his way of life,although one source suggests that he didso for unspecified health reasons.19 Thereis every likelihood, however, that it wasthe Murphys close ties with the O’Connorfamily from Western Australia thatprompted consideration of such a move.The O’Connors were a prosperous familythat lived in, and around, the WesternAustralian city of Perth. Their Kerry-bornfather had been an involuntary immigrantbut went on to become a highly successfulbusinessman, acquiring several extensiverural estates as well as investing in prop-erty and land in the city. A number of hissons attended Clongowes Wood JesuitCollege in Kildare and it was during theseyears that they made the acquaintance ofthe Murphys. A friendship developed andthe bond between the families was furtherstrengthened by two marriages: in the

early 1900s, JackMurphy marriedMary Angela O’Con-nor and, a few yearslater, her brotherBernard wed TessMurphy of Kilma-garvogue House.

Encouraged – orperhaps, persuaded –by his Australianfriends, Bill Murphyset out on anexploratory trip to

the colony, landing at the port of Freman-tle towards the end of 1906. First impres-sions must have been favourable for hequickly applied to the Lands Departmentto lease a considerable amount of bush-land in a remote region about one-hun-dred-and-sixty miles north of Perth. Thisisolated area was completely untamed,had no towns and, at that time, a railwaywas only at the planning stages. Follow-ing a survey, he was issued, in October1907, with a Crown lease for an area de-scribed as Ningham Location 55; thisone-hundred-and-sixty acre holding wassouth of Wilgie Hill and close to the em-bryonic towns of Dalwallinu and Pithara,settlements that would develop at stationson the new rail line. The official surveyof the block indicated that the land wasbounded on the west by a road and it wasalso noted that York gums grew on theloamy soil.20 That was only the firstacquisition, as later, several other leaseswould be granted in his own name aswell as those of his mother and a certainThomas Murphy, assumed to be a rela-tive in Ireland. Meanwhile, Bill Murphyhad returned home to Ireland to make thenecessary arrangements for a morepermanent move to Australia.

In November 1907, he was on hand to‘give away’ his sister Tess when shemarried Bernard Maurice O’Connor atUniversity Chapel, St Stephen’s Green,the ceremony being followed by a recep-tion in the Shelbourne Hotel.21 O’Connor,a man with extensive land, business andmining interests in Australia, chose tospend the early years of his married lifeliving and farming at Kill House, whilehis brother-in-law embarked on a verydifferent kind of adventure; and so it wasthat, in the summer of 1908, havingsettled his affairs and made a will,

Murphy took leave of his family andheaded for the wheat belt of WesternAustralia.22

Wilgie Hills

One of the first settlers to arrive in theDalwallinu area, Bill Murphy found thatturning a vast wilderness into arablefarming land was no easy task, so it wasa couple of years before wheat could begrown. The Murphy property, whichcame to be known as Wilgie Hills,amounted, in total, to about four-thou-sand acres, an enormous holding by anystandards. A clearing programme to ridthe land of bush and scrub was com-menced, fencing was erected and a wellto provide fresh water was dug. Theoperation was overseen from a camp thatMurphy had established and it was here,in a canvas tent, that he had his ownaccommodation; living conditions wereextremely basic, in stark contrast to thecomfortable existence that he had pre-viously enjoyed in Tullow. By 1910, thefirst crops had been planted and with thecompletion of the railway, together withthe growth of the town of Dalwallinu,

some type of normality descended on thearea. His isolation from family also easedin 1912 when his sister Tess, with herhusband and two young sons, moved to


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Kilmagarvogue House

Murphy during his years as anAustralian wheat farmer

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Australia, settling on an O’Connor estatenear Toodyay, about one-hundred milessouth of Wilgie Hills.

In a history of Dalwallinu, compiled sev-eral decades after his death, Murphy’stenure at Wilgie Hills is recalled thus:‘Neighbours remembered Bill Murphy asbeing a charming, generous person whodid most things on a grand scale. Whereasthey would buy an axe handle or ahammer, he would purchase a crate ofthem. He welcomed many callers whoasked for water from his well or whowanted to borrow a spade, a pick or awater bag’. Wheat-growing was alwaysthe dominant enterprise at Wilgie Hills butthe Dalwallinu history records one attemptat diversification: ‘Several people alsorecalled that he attempted to run sheepabout 1911. The venture was not a successfor most of the mob died after eatingpoisonous plants while being taken byroad from Moora to Wilgie Hills’.23

Bill Murphy clearly intended to remainin the area for some time and, as soon asthe land was cleared and planted, heturned his attention to the construction ofpermanent buildings at the camp. Workbegan on an H-shaped complex with ma-chinery and feed stores at one end andliving quarters at the other, these twoblocks to be connected by a row ofstables. The building progressed to roof-level but, unfortunately, it was neverfinished. As the world powers preparedfor war in 1914, Murphy decided to visithis mother in Ireland, hardly realising, ashe set out on that long journey, that hewould never return to Wilgie Hills.

Joining the Colours

Holidaying with his mother at Kill Housein the autumn of 1914, Bill Murphy keptup-to-date with the progress of the war,took note of the prevailing politicaldiscourse and, eventually, opted to volun-teer for service. He was said to have‘entered the army from purely nationalmotives’ and that ‘he believed in the wis-

dom of Mr Redmond’s policy, and actedaccordingly’.24 The fact that Murphy’ssojourn at Kill coincided with John Red-mond’s Woodenbridge speech calling forIrish participation in the war – ‘in defenceof right, of freedom and of religion’ – un-doubtedly influenced his decisionto enlist.

In early November, he presented at Fer-moy Barracks where he enlisted as a pri-

vate with the 7th Battalion, Leinster Reg-iment, being given the service number1425. Signing up for three years, or theduration of the war, he gave his national-ity as British, described his occupation asrancher and, for whatever reason, under-stated his age by some five years.25 Hisperiod as a private soldier, however, wasshort, as he quickly became a sergeant-major and, within weeks, joined the reg-iment’s newly established cadet corps,formed to address the dire shortage ofofficers; given Murphy’s background andeducation – not to mention his maturityand life experiences – he would havebeen seen as ideal officer material at thetime. After what appears to have been acursory training, he was gazetted a lieu-tenant on Christmas Day 1914, and thentransferred to the 9th Battalion, RoyalDublin Fusiliers, at Buttevant Barracks.It was said to be ‘the regiment of hisliking’ but his home address may wellhave been a factor, as Carlow was one ofthe four counties that traditionally sup-plied recruits to the Royal DublinFusiliers.26

Against the backdrop of a peacefulCounty Cork countryside the 9thDublins, along with the other battalionsof the 48th Brigade, began preparing forwar. (The 48th, together with the 47thand 49th Brigades comprised the 16thIrish Division) Lieutenant Murphy obvi-ously impressed his superior officerswith the result that, in April 1915, he waspromoted to the rank of temporary cap-tain, being assigned to the battalion’s DCompany. Two months later, he movedwith his battalion from Buttevant to anarmy camp at Ballyhooly near Fermoy,for further training exercises. In Septem-ber 1915, after some ten months of mili-tary manoeuvres in north County Cork,Captain Murphy accompanied the 9thBattalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers toBlackdown Barracks in Aldershot wherefinal preparations for active servicewould begin. As the countdown to warcontinued, Bill Murphy made one lastvisit home to Tullow in November be-fore, as the local press report put it, ‘start-ing to take his place with his company ofDublin Fusiliers in the trenches’.27

To the Front

Just days before Christmas 1915, nine-hundred-and-nineteen men and thirty-


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The Camp at Wilgie Hills with unfinished H-shaped building in centre of picture

Bill Murphy in the uniform ofthe Royal Dublin Fusiliers

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three officers of the 9th Battalion, RoyalDublin Fusiliers, landed at Le Havre withthe 48th Brigade.28 After arriving inFrance, the battalion was constantly onthe move and, as well as trench training,it liaised with other units and wasinvolved in some engagements, in a sup-porting role. Between March and August1916, the 16th Irish Division was intro-duced to trench warfare in the Loos areaof north-eastern France, with the 9thDublins sustaining heavy casualties, par-ticularly during the German gas attacksat Hulluch. Captain Murphy camethrough these hostilities unscathed, buthe was hospitalised for ten days at StOmer, the complaint being nothing moreserious than a bout of measles.29 The warof attrition in the Loos area dragged onbut, towards the end of August, the forcesof the 16th Irish Division were divertedelsewhere, being ordered to relocate tothe valley of the Somme.

During the first week of September someunits of the 16th Division played a sig-nificant part in the capture of the villageof Guillemont. The 9th Battalion, RoyalDublin Fusiliers was not directlyinvolved but, in the support trenches onthe periphery of the hostilities, it wassubjected to a sustained German bom-bardment, resulting in heavy casualties.The battalion’s CO, Lt Colonel Thack-eray – along with a major and two cap-tains – was among the wounded,resulting in the command of the 9thDublins passing to the most senior re-maining officer – Captain W J Murphy.30

Ginchy

Fate had propelled Bill Murphy into aleadership role that he had hardly aspiredto and, given the temporary nature of hiscommission, one for which he was prob-ably ill-prepared. Within hours of takingcommand of the battalion on 6 Septem-ber 1916, he received orders to preparefor an assault on the village of Ginchyand, for this action, the entire operationwas being entrusted to the 16th IrishDivision with the 47th and 48th Brigadesto the fore. He must have realised that theattack would be particularly hazardousfor the commanders, who were forced tolead by example, exposing themselves togreat danger in order to keep their sol-diers moving. On an elevated site at theconfluence of six roads, Ginchy was by

then little more than a pile of rubble butthe 19th Bavarian Regiment wasentrenched in cellars and undergroundfortresses with a vast array of machine-gun emplacements ready to repel allattacks. As the 48th Brigade was taskedwith the capture of Ginchy, CaptainMurphy and his fellow battalion com-manders finalised the strategy to beemployed for the offensive, fixed forSaturday, 9 September. It was arrangedthat the brigade would attack from thesouth-west of the village with fourbattalions, the 7th Royal Irish Rifles andthe 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers in thefront trench with the 8th and 9th Dublinsin the second line.31

The storming of Ginchy was one of thenotable successes of the Somme offensivebut victory came at a high price. Contem-porary reports tended to romanticise thebattle, with references to the ‘dash anddaring of the Irish troops’ and suggestionsthat ‘men wrestled for the privilege ofsharing in the glory’; another account toldhow the Irish ‘swept on triumphantlythrough the village of Ginchy’, displaying‘irresistible dash’ on the field of battle.32The reality, of course, was quite differentand, despite the undoubted courage anddetermination of the Irish, the enemyinflicted a heavy death toll.

Before day-break on 9 September, a tiredand depleted 9th Battalion, Royal DublinFusiliers was already in the assembly

trenches that the men had dug over thetwo previous nights. With the assaulttimed for 4.45 pm, the massed troopsspent most of the day on standby in thetrenches while British artillery poundedthe enemy lines and the Germans repliedwith a counter-barrage that caused sev-eral casualties among the ranks waitingto go into action. At zero hour CaptainMurphy gave the signal and led hisbattalion out of the trenches, followingthe 7th Royal Irish Rifles into battle, withthe 8th Dublins moving forward on theirright. Advancing with four companies,the 9th Dublins leap-frogged the 7thRifles, who had reached their objectiveand consolidated, before facing into thetitanic struggle that lay ahead of them.Daylight was fading and rain was fallingas Murphy’s battalion rushed headlongtowards Ginchy, to be met with a stormof artillery and machine-gun fire.33 Withfierce determination, and despite mount-ing casualties, the 8th and 9th Dublins ledthe assault through Ginchy, reaching theirobjective – a German supply line northof the village – and managing to roundup two-hundred prisoners. But, as the 9thDublins consolidated and dug-in, theydid so without their commanding officerwho had fallen during the final stage ofthe assault, killed-in-action as his battal-ion battled its way to victory and into thehistory books.34

The exact circumstances of CaptainMurphy’s death are unclear but it was


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Map showing the formation for the Battle of Ginchy (Arrow indicatesthe position of Murphy’s battalion)

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afterwards reported that he had been ‘hitin the head by a rifle bullet’ and was seenfalling into a trench.35 The official recordstates that ‘9th RDF advanced to the sec-ond objective at 5.25 pm but sufferedvery heavy officer casualties in doing so.Captain W J Murphy (commanding)being killed as the battalion reachedGinchy’.36 His former commandingofficer later acknowledged Murphy’sheroic contribution to the capture ofGinchy, when he wrote: ‘he met his deathin a gallant and victorious charge at thehead of his battalion’.37 That courage andgallantry was afterwards officially recog-nised when Bill Murphy was posthu-mously Mentioned in Despatches.

The 9th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusilierssuffered up to two-hundred casualties andlost more than sixty men during the storm-ing of Ginchy. Six officers were killedand, with twice that number wounded, justtwo young lieutenants remained to takecharge of the shattered battalion. Onenoteworthy individual who paid the ulti-mate price on that day was LieutenantTom Kettle, poet, Irish nationalist, formerMember of Parliament and universityprofessor, who had joined the 9th Dublinsat the front just weeks earlier. Kettle, whowould have crossed paths with BillMurphy at Clongowes, enlisted mainlybecause of German outrages in Belgium,and was in charge of the battalion’s BCompany when he fell mortally wounded.Because of his national profile, Kettle’srole at Ginchy is generally highlighted,while the likely more significant partplayed by Murphy remains understated.

Bill Murphy was not the only Tullowmanto perish on the battlefield at Ginchy.Forty-two year old Edward Wall, a ser-geant in the 9th Battalion, Royal DublinFusiliers, lost his life during that deadlyencounter on 9 September. It was aremarkable coincidence that, not only didthey come from the same town, but theWall family also lived in Barrack Stwhere the young Bill Murphy had grownup.38 Despite an age gap of almost sixyears, they would previously have knowneach other on the streets of Tullow andsurely that acquaintance was renewed inthe trenches of the Somme before theyboth went to their deaths.

DisengagementThe tragic outcome at Ginchy marked the

beginning of the end of the Murphy fam-ily’s involvement in the business life ofTullow. At the time of her son’s death,Mary Murphy was already in WesternAustralia on an extended visit with herdaughter Tess. Kill would never again beher permanent home, and she wouldspend the rest of her life living with, ornear to, her daughter. Despite her ab-sence, W. Murphy & Son continued totrade in Tullow but the business was dealta serious blow in September 1920 whenCrown Forces torched the premises in amindless and wanton act of retaliation forthe murder of two RIC members in thetown.39 The grocery and bar were re-stored but, while the business continuedto operate for some years, it eventuallyceased trading and the premises was soldin the early 1930s; at that stage the houseand lands at Kill had already passed fromfamily ownership, having been acquiredby the Bolger family in 1925.

Tess O’Connor had, years earlier, opted forthe Australian way of life, raising her fourboys near the small town of Toodyay, aboutfifty miles north-east of Perth. In 1925 shemoved temporarily to London while hersons boarded at Downside, the exclusiveBenedictine school in Somerset. Living,along with her mother at an address in Hen-don, it appears that her husband Bernard di-vided his time between England andAustralia. When Bernard O’Connor died in1932, the family returned to Toodyay butretained business and personal links withthe United Kingdom.

During the Second World War, all four ofTess O’Connor’s sons served in theBritish Armed Forces and, once again,tragedy would be visited upon the family.Kevin O’Connor, a graduate of JesusCollege, Cambridge, where he read eco-nomics and – like his uncle – excelled onthe sports field, was killed-in-action inItaly in October 1943.40 A major in theKing’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, hedied as the Allies fought their way up theAdriatic coast and he is buried in SangroRiver War Cemetery.

A woman of considerable wealth with nu-merous business interests, Tess O’Connormoved to live in Perth and it was there thatshe spent her final years, residing in theaffluent suburb of Peppermint Grove. Shedied, at the age of eighty-seven, inOctober 1968, and is buried along with herhusband and her two Tullow-born sons inthe city’s Karrakatta cemetery.41 There is,however, no such certainty as to theprecise whereabouts of her only brother’sfinal resting place.

In Memoriam

Captain Bill Murphy has no known gravebut he is believed to be buried in Guille-mont Road Cemetery, about a mile fromthe scene of the battle where he died.42 Inthe immediate aftermath of the Battle ofGinchy in September 1916, the deadwere buried in temporary graves, close towhere they fell. It was recorded thatCaptain Murphy’s body was found andburied and his identification disc was


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Telegram from War Office informing family of Bill Murphy’s death,

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included with other personal effects forreturn to his next-of-kin.43 Meanwhile,the War Office telegram had arrived inTullow and, with Mary Murphy absent inAustralia, it was the manager of W.Murphy & Son that took delivery;Stephen Somers then had the unenviableresponsibility of forwarding the tragicand distressing news to the Murphy fam-ily in Toodyay.

Captain Murphy’s death was acknowl-edged by religious and civic leaders inhis native County Carlow. At the begin-ning of October, a month’s mindRequiem Mass and Solemn Office tookplace in Tullow parish church withBishop Patrick Foley of Kildare andLeighlin in attendance, and with thedeceased’s uncle, Fr Arthur Murphy,officiating.44 Carlow Urban DistrictCouncil extended sympathy to theMurphy family with local MP, MichaelMolloy, remarking that ‘he gave his lifefor Ireland’ and ‘a finer type of Irishmanwe could not find’.45

After the war ended, the Imperial WarGraves Commission began the grim taskof clearing the battlefields, a process thatcontinued into the early 1920s. In apainstaking exercise, bodies wereexhumed and re-interred in war cemeter-ies but, at that stage, identification wasdifficult, particularly if discs had been

removed. All the indications are that BillMurphy is buried at Guillemont Road, acemetery where two-thirds of the two-thousand-two-hundred grave-stones donot have a name. However, one of eightspecial memorials located along the backwall of the cemetery is dedicated to hismemory and carries the inscription:

CAPTAINW J MURPHY

ROYAL DUBLIN FUSILIERS9TH SEPTEMBER 1916. AGE 36

REQUIESCAT IN PACE

Closer to home, an inscription on EdwardMurphy’s headstone in Grange church-yard refers to his only son who ‘fell atGinchy’ and he is also listed amongTullow’s war dead on the LeighlinbridgeMemorial. One of ninety-five Old Clon-gownians to die in the Great War, he isremembered on a brass plaque inside theporch of the boys’ chapel at ClongowesWood while, on the other side of theworld, the Murphy name appears on theDalwallinu War Memorial in WesternAustralia. But surely the most tangiblememorial to Bill Murphy is the town hallin Tullow that bears his name.

In June 1929, his mother and sister giftedthe Commercial Club building in BarrackStreet, to be used for ‘the advantage,welfare and benefit of the young men of

the town and district of Tullow’. At thetime, still displaying a palpable sense ofloss, Mary Murphy wrote: ‘I am glad tosay both my daughter and I think it wouldbe fulfilling the wishes of my dear son,who always took such an interest in theClub, to make a gift of the lease for thebenefit of the young men of Tullow anddistrict. My husband built the hall solelyfor the purpose of providing them ameans of recreation and rest during theirleisure time, and I’m sure it is what heand Bill would wish, and we shall love tothink there is somewhere in Tullow inmemory of them’.46 The Captain Mur-phy Memorial Hall, extended and rede-veloped over the years, is an importantpart of the fabric of Tullow and standsas an enduring monument to a native ofthe town who gave his life on a foreignbattlefield. For many years a gilt framedportrait of Bill Murphy looked down onTullow audiences but, during a refur-bishment of the hall, it was removed andis now on display in the town’s museum.In Tullow, one further reference to BillMurphy can be found on the altar in theChurch of the Most Holy Rosary, theplace where he worshipped as a boy andyoung man; on the tabernacle door – pre-sented to the parish by the Murphy fam-ily – an inscription reads: In memory ofCapt. W. J. Murphy. Killed-in-action 9thSept. 1916

Bill Murphy’s death was no greater, or noless, a tragedy than that of any other sol-dier that perished in the Great War. In andaround his home town of Tullow, wherehe was the most prominent and probably


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Bill Murphy’s portrait that hangs inTullow museum

Captain Murphy Memorial Hall, Tullow

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the highest ranking fatality, some sixtyother households also mourned the lossof a family member. He joined the wareffort out of a sense of duty, hardly fore-seeing the terrible slaughter and carnagethat would unfold and not expecting theseriously flawed military strategies thatwould be employed by those in overallcommand. And yet, when duty called ina remote corner of Picardy, he readilystepped into the breach and assumedcommand of a war-weary battalion thatwas facing an immediate and formidablechallenge. A novice in military terms, thisshopkeeper’s son turned Australianwheat-farmer, was only twenty-twomonths in uniform and just three days incommand of his battalion – a responsibil-ity that afterwards merited the paymentof the grand sum of eighteen shillings tothe late officer’s estate.47 But despite thatlack of experience, it has been claimedthat Murphy’s display of leadership andcourage at Ginchy has ‘marked him outas one of the finest Irish soldiers of thewar’.48 With the passage of time, how-ever, the victories, defeats and sacrificesof the Great War have faded from publicconsciousness, but the existence of theCaptain Murphy Memorial Hall ensuresthat, in Tullow at least, Bill Murphy’sname will never be forgotten.

Endnotes:1. Irish Times: Report quoting Philip Gibbs ofthe Daily Telegraph. September 1916.

2. Ibid.: Article quoting William BeachThomas of the Daily Mail. September 1916.3. O’Rahilly, Alfred: Father William Doyle,S.J. (London 1922). Quote from Fr Doyle,Chaplain 8th RDF. (London, 1922)4. Buchan, John: Nelson’s History of the GreatWar. (London, 1916)5. Murphy, Martin: Captain Bill Murphy andhis Kinsfolk. (unpublished)6. Castleknock College Archives.7. Nationalist and Leinster Times: Restorationof premises, July 1899.8. Ibid.: Tullow meeting to select CountyCouncil candidate. February 1899.9. Marriage Certificate: Married in Church ofSt Nicholas, Francis St, Dublin.10. Birth Certificate and Baptismal Records forTullow Parish.11. Carlow Sentinel: Obituary, September1916.12. Delany Archive and Clongowes WoodArchive.13. Nationalist and Leinster Times: EdwardMurphy’s obituary, February 1900.14. Census of Ireland (1901): Return for HouseNo. 1, Barrack St, Tullow.15. Nationalist and Leinster Times: Reportsand results of sporting events 1903-06.16. Carlow Sentinel: Obituary, September1916.17. Nationalist and Leinster Times: Obituary,September 1916.18. Ibid.: Sports reports 1905.19. Crake, Hellen Antonio: A History of Dal-wallinu – A Place To Wait A While. (WA,1985)20. Ibid.21. Times, Nationalist and Sentinel: Announce-ment and wedding report, Nov.1907.22. State Records Office, WA: Copy of will,dated June 1908 – M. Cartan O’Meara, Solic-itors, Kildare St, Dublin.23. Crake, Hellen Antonio: A History of Dal-wallinu – A Place To Wait A While. (WA,1985)24. Nationalist and Leinster Times: Obituary,September 1916.25. War Office File: Short Service AttestationForm, November 1914.26. Nationalist and Leinster Times: Obituary,September 1916.27. Ibid.: Report of home visit, November1915.28. Battalion War Diary: Landed in France,December 1915.29. War Office File: Telegrams informing fam-ily of illness and discharge.30. Battalion War Diary: Assumption of COduties.31. Ibid.: Record of formation of battalions.32. Irish Times: Report on the ‘dash and daring’of the Irish, September 1916.33. Johnstone, Tom: Orange, Green & Khakiprogress of battle. (Dublin, 1992)34. Battalion War Diary: Report on the captureof Ginchy.

35. Clongownian: Letter from Major GeneralW B Hickie to Fr Arthur Murphy. 1917 edi-tion.36. Battalion War Diary: Entry recording Cap-tain Murphy’s death.37. West Australian: Article reporting CaptainMurphy’s death, January 1917.38. Tullow Parish Register: Baptismal records. 39. Nationalist and Leinster Times: Report onfire, September 1920.40. Jesus College Cambridge Archives: Stu-dent records for A P K O’Connor.41. Metropolitan Cemeteries Board, Perth: De-tails from O’Connor headstone.42. Commonwealth War Graves Commission:Details of Captain Murphy’s memorial.43. War Office File: Details of personal ef-fects returned to family.44. Nationalist and Leinster Times: Report ofMass in Tullow, October 1916.45. Ibid.: Carlow UDC report, September1916.46. Counsel’s opinion, May 1944.47. War Office File: Details of payments toCaptain Murphy’s estate.48. Myers, Kevin: Ireland’s Great War.(Dublin, 2014)

Acknowledgements:Christie Andrews, Shire of Dalwallinu Office Rose BolgerAnna Crutchley, Jesus College Cambridge.Catriona Curry, Tullow Parish Office.Bernie Deasy, Delany Archive, Carlow.Margaret Doyle, Clongowes Wood College.Jenny Edgecombe, Toodyay HistoricalSociety.Argyro Francis, Commonwealth War GravesCommission.Jim HealyBrendan KealyJohn KeoghTim Lethorn, State Records Office of WA.Declan Mc Devitt, Castleknock College.Al McDonell, Metropolitan CemeteriesBoard, PerthChristopher McQuinnTim MaddenSteven Parsons, Downside Abbey.Paul & Melissa Sutherland, Wilgie Hills.Billy WrightCella DawsonCarlow Central Library.National Library of Ireland.The National Archives, Kew.Tullow Museum.


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Write a biographical essay on a particularwoman/group of women whose lives areunderstood within the framework ofpatriarchal constraint.

It can be difficult for modern womenliving in the Ireland of 2015 to relate tothe patriarchal constraints that existed forwomen in the Ireland of 1914. Notwith-standing writing an essay on a group ofwomen whose lives are understoodwithin this framework gives one someconsiderable scope and choice. Forpersonal reasons I have decided to writethis paper on the Carlow branch ofCumann na mBan, as my grandmother,Jane Quigley was a member of thatbranch. She received a Military Servicemedal for her contribution during theWar of Independence from 1919-1921when only 16. However, the main biog-raphical focus of this paper will beconcentrated on Brigid Ryan (neeBrophy) who played multiple key roleswithin the same branch from 1917-1923.The paper will also include somereminiscences from talks with my grand-mother about that period. It will examinehow these women’s lives can be under-stood within the patriarchal constraint ofthe period. Indeed the women of Irelandwere not alone in these restraints. Allover Europe and further afield prior toWorld War I women were largelyconfined to the home, the private sphere,carrying out household and childcareduties with few exceptions.

A number of other groups of women areworthy of a brief mention here such asthe Ladies’Land League, the Suffragettesand the women of the Magdalenlaundries, as they were all subjected toconstraints. In fact having studied The

Ladies’ Land League I was originallytempted to write about that organisation.It was originally founded in America andmotivated by ideas of humanitarianismand philanthropy, which gave manywomen the freedom to move outside theprivate sphere into the public sphere ofrespectable good works. In Irelandmoreover in the public sphere, womenwere involved in and contributed to thegrowing climate of cultural nationalismwhich was flourishing at the turn of thecentury. Historically women havealways played a key yet background rolein political or revolutionary events in Ire-land as evidenced in Brigid’s witnessstatement. She describes how ‘a womanwalked all the way from Tullow andplanted three elm saplings on the Crop-pies Hole, one for each of her sons’.(Ryan, 1957). That woman was themother of Ryan’s three great-granduncles who were murdered by theYeomen, and buried there. ThereforeBrigid Ryan’s own revolutionary historygoes back at least as far as 1798. Despitethis however with Ireland and Cumannna mBan ‘women’s participation in mil-itarism was mediated through their sex’.(Ryan, 2000, p77). The fact that theywere women impacted not only on howthey were represented […] but also onthe roles they played within the armedconflict. (Ryan, 2000, p77).

In her thesis Christi McCallum describesthe Ladies’ Land League as ‘an excellentexample of the skill of the women whoorganised it, Anna and Fanny Parnell,and was a remarkable organisation for itstime’. (McCallum, 2005). The womenaided the men by raising funds, doing na-tionalist women’s work, and had thesupport of rural women and Irish peas-

antry. (McCallum, 2005). Unfortunatelyonce Charles Stewart Parnell wasreleased from Kilmainham Jail, theLadies’ Land League was disbanded, aspart of the terms of the KilmainhamTreaty. Publicly they were seen as toomilitaristic, privately and more relevantlythe land question had taken a back seat toParnell’s aim of Home Rule for Ireland.This example of the Ladies’ Land Leagueand its demise illustrates the constraint ofpatriarchal organisations such as theChurch and government politicians.They believed it was women’s domesticand mothering roles that should beemphasised. (Helleiner, 1997, p275). Inspite of their disbandment, the Ladies’Land League highlighted the growingcontribution that women who took partin the movement for Irish national inde-pendence made and whose lives shouldbe understood within the framework ofpatriarchal constraint.

Notwithstanding despite these constraintsMary McAuliffe has noted that ‘the firsttwo decades of the 20th century had seenwomen emerge in great numbers fromthe domestic sphere and participate in thehitherto male-dominated sphere of IrishPolitics’. (McAuliffe, 2014, p48).Women like Jenny Wyse Power whowere involved in Cumann na mBan hadbeen involved in or had been influencedby the Ladies’ Land League. IndeedBrigid Ryan mentions in her witnessstatement that her parents were Parnellitesupporters which no doubt influenced herbeliefs and behaviours. Many womenwere involved in Cumann na mBan at anincreasingly young age as evidenced bymy own grandmother. Nationalist poli-tics had been gradually changing inIreland with the response to the Third

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Home Rule bill, and the formation in1912 of the Ulster Volunteers. (McCoole,2000, p8). These events led to theformation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913.Furthermore the catalyst for the settingup of Cumann na mBan, the first of itskind exclusively for women, was aconsequence of the fact that when theIrish Volunteers were formed womenwere not allowed join the executive.Accordingly in April 1914 they formedtheir own executive.

According to Margaret Ward in April1914 in her inaugural address to Cumannna mBan, Agnes O’Farrelly highlightedsome of the reasons behind the setting upof such a women’s organisation, as being‘due to the fears and turmoil of thepresent moment [which has] broughthere today women who until now wereonly known as home-makers. They arehere because they fear for the liberty ofthe home, and because they realise thatthe blow aimed at the freedom of the menof Ireland strikes the women and childrenas well; our cause is a common cause,our interests are inextricably boundtogether’. (Ward, 1995, p40). Althoughconservative women controlled theorganisation in its early days otherwomen agitated for a more militantstance from the society. (McCallum,2005). Critically by September 1914according to Margaret Ward the organi-sation was seen as ‘the most vigorous andenterprising of all the movements thathave grown out of the idea of arming anddrilling the nation […] it is a force to bereckoned with […] for all the patrioticenergies of the women of the country arerushing towards it’. (Ward, 1995, p44).In addition other key women such asConstance Markievicz believed that ‘aconsciousness of their own dignity andworth should be encouraged in women,they should be urged to get away fromwrong ideals and false standards ofwomanhood, to escape their domesticruts, their feminine pens’. (Ward, 1995,p47) and Cumann na mBan was perfectlyplaced to assist women in this regard.

During WW1 Redmond’s campaign topersuade Irish men to join the Irishregiments during the war led to a split.The male majority sided with Redmond,but Cumann na mBan chose to side withthe Irish Volunteers rather thanRedmond’s group. Agnes O’Farrelly

resigned as president after this decision,which freed the women from conserva-tive leadership. In fact, the women wholeft the organization during the split weremostly the conservative women who feltthat their organisation should not choosesides, but help both the Redmondites andthe Irish Volunteers. The nationalist-feminist constituency of the group thuswon the battle against the most conserva-tive members. (McCallum, 2005).Cumann na mBan soon began recruitingeven larger numbers of women and theseyounger women were a lot moremilitaristic in outlook and belief. Thismilitarism was evident in the first majorevent in the run up to the 1916 Risinginvolving Cumann na mBan which wasthe Howth Gun-running. They werealready in charge of gathering theDefence of Ireland Fund to finish payingoff the guns; their major role here was indistributing and hiding the guns. Womenalso helped by storing ammunition andguns as well as aiding the men by makingcartridges before the Rising. (McCallum,2005).

Historian Sinead McCoole has claimedthat the number of women who took partin the 1916 Rising is unclear as themajority of the women involved were notarrested, however it may be as many asone hundred and fifty out of the one thou-sand six hundred who took part. (Mc-Coole, 1997, p13). Their roles includedfirst-aid, commandeering supplies, cook-ing, as well as gathering information andcarrying dispatches. In the aftermath ofthe 1916 Rising many of the key leaderswere dead, however CountessMarkievicz had her death sentence com-muted since the authorities were fearful‘that the execution of a women wouldbring about an emotional reaction fromthe people of Dublin’. (Kelly, 1988,p106-7). Cumann na mBan were nowpoised to become a widespread moremilitaristic organisation. As noted byhistorian Jason Knirck ‘revolutionarytimes initially seemed to hold greatpromise for Irish women […] with gen-der boundaries seemingly open for rene-gotiation’. (Knirck, 2006, p160).Certainly after the 1916 Rising thosewomen who were associated withdeceased patriots were given a specialposition in Sinn Fein activities, keepingvital links open, and the memory of therevolutionary struggle and sacrifice fresh

in the public mind set, and generating anemotional connection to the revolution-ary effort. (Knirck, 2006, p162).

Mc Coole has done much to reconstructthe lives and activities of the women ofCumann na mBan in her books andarticles. She believes that the women ofthe organisation ‘brought together thedisparate elements under Sinn Fein in themonths following the rising. […] andalso took a leading role in the coordina-tion of relief and support to thosewidowed and orphaned […] in the wakeof the Rising’. (McCoole, 1997, p37).Cumann na mBan members collectedand distributed the monies which werefor the aid of the families of the Volun-teers who had lost their lives, werewithout a breadwinner or in need ofsupport. By 1917 as many as twohundred branches of the organisation hadbeen established all over the country.When the threat of conscription loomedthey organised a Lá Na mBan andbetween 14,000 and 15,000 womensigned an anti-conscription pledge at CityHall. (McCoole, 1997, p37). Howevermore negatively historian Sarah Bentonbelieves ‘the conscription crisis was amajor turning point […] the war wasresponsible for the marginalization ofwomen which […] in turn led them touse different arguments, […] a develop-ment which would have fateful repercus-sions for women during the Treatydebates’. (Benton, 1995, p163).

Cumann na mBan in Carlow

Post 1916 however there was a sense ofexpectation and promise in the air for thewomen of Cumann na mBan in Carlow,and throughout Ireland. Ryan (neeBrophy) was involved in the organisationfrom its Carlow inception in 1917 whenit was set up by Brid Whelan, anotherformidable Carlow woman. At that timeIrish women were idealised symbolising‘all that is unique, pure and good withinthe nation’. (Knirck, 2006, p165). AsLouise Ryan has observed ‘the idealisedCatholic woman was the Mother, Mary.The overlap between Mother Church,Mother Ireland and Irish mother is appar-ent’. (Ryan, 2000, p76). Furthermorepatriarchal constraints extended to the‘representation of Ireland as both theyoung vulnerable maiden (Róisin Dubh)and the motherly old woman (Shan Van


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Vocht) enabling nationalists to enact arange of masculine roles; chivalrous heroand devoted son. Such images alsohelped to construct appropriate roles forwomen; selfless assistants and caringmothers’. (Ryan, 2000, p88).

Biographer Leeann Lane believes thestudy of the life of an individual illumi-nates ‘social, economic, political andcultural change within a society’. (Lane,2010, p1). My grandmother, JaneQuigley was born in 1905 and reared intimes of great unrest and change, livingthrough the Rising, the War of Independ-ence and Civil war. She witnessed first-hand these very social, economic,political and cultural changes going onall around her. Her stories of her youthduring those tumultuous times describedsome of the activities she was involvedin during the War of Independence -moving small firearms about in prams,carrying messages, passing through armycheckpoints, all requiring courage and nosmall amount of organisation by suchyoung women. Although older BrigidRyan (nee Brophy) would have experi-enced the same unrest and change andher witness testimony which I found inthe Military Archives is testament to herinvolvement in Carlow Cumann namBan at a very high level. This testi-mony was compiled in 1957 some 34years after her release from KilmainhamJail. Such a verifiable witness testimonyis hugely important for compiling bothhistorical and biographical accounts andrecords. Archivist Randall Jimerson be-lieves that witness statements and docu-ments ‘provide the most reliableevidence available for understanding thepast’. (Jimerson, 2003, p89).

Historian Lindsey Earner Byrne agrees,highlighting the importance of witnesstestimony by noting that the ‘individualin history can be resurrected to heightenour historical understanding of broaderpatterns’. (Earner-Byrne, 2015, p78). Inher testimony Ryan outlines how theCarlow Cumann na mBan branch wasorganised territorially, on the same basisas the Volunteers. As she explained ‘wehad a branch, or at least a section, inevery area where there was a company ofthe volunteers’. (Ryan, 1957). Indeedfrom her testimony it is clear that Brigidwas actively involved in organisingbranches in several parts of the country.

The Carlow Cumann’s district areacorresponded to the Volunteer battalionarea, and similarly Carlow Cumann’sbrigade area was the same as the Volun-teer brigade area. Crucially ‘there wasclose co-operation between the officersof both organisations’. (Ryan, 1957).

Ryan describes in some detail their ancil-lary activities which included ‘carryingdespatches, arms and ammunition, intel-ligence work, cooking and supplyingfood for I.R.A. men who were on the run,and also for members of ambush parties.We also collected money for the Prison-ers Dependents' Fund, visited the I.R.A.prisoners and supplied them with suchcomforts as warm clothing, cigarettes,tobacco, papers’. (Ryan, 1957). Brigidherself was a 1st lieutenant of the Carlowtown branch of Cumann na mBan from1917-1921, and was the CommandingOfficer of the Carlow Brigade of theorganisation from 1921-1923. Hermatter of fact description of how herhome was the meeting place for thebrigade after its formation, (and as aconsequence it was continually underenemy surveillance), is indicative of herbravery and commitment to the cause.Indeed her home was the ‘first in Carlowtown to be raided by enemy forces, […]it took place on a Sunday night andcaused a great deal of excitement’.(Ryan, 1957). She also carried arms andammunitions to Volunteers about to takepart in ambushes and barrack attacks; sheeven mentions an attack on the RICBarracks in Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow,whereby afterwards she admits ‘some ofthe arms used in the attack were broughtto me and I concealed them’. (Ryan,1957). This testimony shows that forBrigid Ryan the personal was politicaland the political was personal. (www.his-tory.org). They were intertwined in heractivities and would have been a hugeinfluence in her life.

The fact that Brigid was able to concealweapons, was largely due to the fact thatwomen were not under the same level ofsuspicion as men. Consequently theywere able to carry out their activitieswithout detection for longer periods. In-deed as Louise Ryan claims women wereusually seen within the ‘conventionalnarratives of grieving mothers or passivenameless victims’. (Ryan, 2000, p74)rather than as revolutionaries working

against the military. Crucially her state-ment also shows first-hand how thewomen of Cumann na mBan interactedwith the male revolutionaries in the IrishVolunteers, albeit within the patriarchalconstraint of ancillary activities only.

In her thesis Christi McCallum outlineshow the nationalist women were oftendescribed by historians as puppets of themale organisations. She disagrees withthis description, maintaining theyactually had a great degree of agency and‘were able to make more of an impact onthe men than suffragists due to theirrelationship with male revolutionaries’.(McCallum, 2005). Furthermore shebelieves that Cumann na mBan used theirunique position to increase the visibilityof Irish women in the struggle forindependence, and created a formidablepublic persona that set them apart aswomen and revolutionaries’. (McCallum,2005). Historian Cal McCarthy agreeswith McCallum claiming that they weresubstantial players in the Irish Revolu-tion. (McCarthy, 2007, p1). He alsohighlights the fact that many malerevolutionaries acknowledged how muchthe women had contributed to the IrishRepublican Army’s war effort. (Mc-Carthy, 2007, p1). One witness testi-mony compiled in the 1940s fromPadraig O’Cathain (Kane) an IRA manfrom Kilkenny, and Adjutant in theCarlow Brigade of the Irish Volunteers,confirms this, mentioning Cumann namBan women in most glowing terms; ‘Icannot resist naming the Mistresses, […] Brophy, Doyle, Quigley and Woods(Carlow). Some of them were better thanmany of our men’. (O’Cathain, 1940).He describes the ‘great-hearted womenof Cumann na mBan who could neverfind enough to do, and were wonderful inhelping us to maintain communications’.(O’Cathain, 1940).

Nonetheless despite this positive analysisby McCallum and McCarthy, BrigidRyan’s statement conveys perfectly thespecific gendered roles at play within theorganisation, and crucially shows thepatriarchal constraints at play. In spite ofthe fact that Cumann na mBan was thefirst ever solely women’s organisationwith their own executive, they were stillrestrained by the patriarchal ideals of theday and were subordinate to the men, theIrish Volunteers, because of their


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exclusion from their executive. (Mc-Coole, 1997, p13). Historian MargaretWard concurs with this and claims ‘thisseparate but equal formula gave rise toabsolute inequality as women were re-garded as subordinates and excludedfrom the decision making process’,(Ward, 1995, p39) and indeed manyprotested that they were not the auxil-iaries or the handmaidens or the campfollowers of the Volunteers. (McCoole,1997, p13).

It was the Soloheadbeg ambush of 1919which ushered in the War of Independ-ence, a guerrilla war, and widespreadpopular support was key to its success.The women of Cumann na mBan werecrucial in supporting the men who wereon the run and away from home for largeperiods of time. According to MargaretWard the organisation ‘attached a fargreater degree of importance to militarystruggle than to political issues, […] theirprimary loyalty was to the Volunteers andnot to Sinn Fein’. (Ward, 1983, p132).Indeed the militant women of the organi-sation ‘viewed Sinn Fein as the moderatewing of the nationalist movement’. (Ward,1983, p132). Furthermore O’Cathain’switness testimony gives agency to thewomen’s roles ‘particularly in the contextof a guerrilla war fought out in the coun-tryside’. (Ryan, 2000, p78).

Lil Conlon in her memoir stated that moreattention had been focussed on the womenfrom 1919 by the authorities, as they hadbegun to realise that women were playinga major part in the campaign. (Conlon,1969). Certainly an atmosphere of vio-lence and disorder exposed women indomestic settings to considerable fear, in-timidation, gender violence and assault.(Earner-Byrne, 2015, p82). Women ‘whoin the isolated villages remained in the pri-vacy of the domestic sphere were easy tar-gets for frustrated British soldiers andparticularly vulnerable to attack’. (Ryan,2000, p78). Attacks on women variedfrom sexual insults and other humiliationssuch as cutting off their hair, or draggingthem from their beds in their night clothes.

However these attacks can also be seenas a way of getting to the male membersof the population who were on the runand weaken their resistance. In this waythe boundaries between the private homeand the public battlefield become

blurred, and this can be seen in the nu-merous occasions that Brigid’s home wasraided and looted. As Sarah Bentonclaims ‘the British Government wantedto crush the wild men so that through thepropriety of politics, it could reach asettlement’. (Benton, 1995, p165). Thisis another important factor within thecontext of patriarchal constraint and ourunderstanding of Brigid’s life within thisframework.

I see it as hugely important to my grand-mother’s memory, that her depiction ofthe events and roles she undertook insuch a traumatic period of Ireland’shistory were verified by Ryan andO’Cathain. Critically over long periodsof time one’s awareness and memory ofevents can fade. Notwithstanding itshould be noted that archival memory ‘isa social construct reflecting powerrelationships in society […] thusarchivists and manuscript curators playan important role as mediators in select-ing records for preservation […] whichcan provide a more balanced perspectiveon the past’. (Jimerson, 2003, p89). Thisis important as this period in Ireland’shistory still can provoke bitterness andignite old feuds between groups evenafter a period of almost a hundred years.

Recollecting those times with my grand-mother, together with consideration ofBrigid’s testimony, has enabled me torecognise the intersectionality betweenwhat my grandmother told me, and whatI have found out about the other ‘ordi-nary’ women who were involved inCumann na mBan between 1919-1921.Little had been written about the womenof organisation up until more recently, asit is those who were in positions ofauthority, such as Countess Markievicz,who have been eulogised. Neverthelessthe huge numbers of ordinary rank andfile members, described by Lil Conlonas‘mothers, wives, sisters, sweet-hearts,all were dragged into that cauldron ofself- sacrifice’, […] ‘those women whomade diverse sacrifices in many differentways were ‘ordinary’ women’. (Conlon,1969, p3).

Nevertheless McCoole disagrees with thisdescription, arguing that they were not‘ordinary women’ at all. Her own workon Irish revolutionary women in the

period 1900-1923 describes the womenwho played a major part in the fight forIreland’s freedom within Cumann namBan, as originating ‘from every class insociety and all walks of life; titled ladiesand shop assistants, doctors, housewives,laundry workers, artists and teachers.Some were married with children, somewere widowed, and some mere school-children’. (McCoole, 2003, p1).

I have no specific information on howmy grandmother must have felt about thesplit after the signing of the Anglo IrishTreaty in December 1921, however on apersonal level it must have caused a lotof angst for her when considering thesplit in Cumann na mBan, as womenwho had previously fought togetherduring the War of Independence, foundthemselves on opposite sides in the CivilWar. Anecdotal evidence appears toshow my grandmother was a supporter ofthe Treaty as her front parlour inHarcourt Lodge, Dublin gave pride ofplace to two huge paintings, one ofMichael Collins in his army uniform, andanother on his death bed! This wouldappear to confirm that Brigid’s stanceand my grandmother’s stance differed, asduring the Truce Brigid continued heractivities and was appointed as Receiverof Supplies for the brigade training campat Duckett’s Grove, Co. Carlow.

Similarly during the Civil War Brigidwas unstoppable. One of her many‘ancillary’ activities included making allthe arrangements for the funerals of allthe IRA men killed in action. (Ryan,1957). Many of her duties were highlydangerous such as procuring guns andammunition from Free State soldiers andhanding them over to the 1st battalion,ASU, IRA. Despite her activities it isclear that she took her orders from theVolunteers so despite her bravery andcourage she was still subject to patriar-chal constraint.

When the Civil War broke out in June1922 Kilmainham Gaol was taken overby the Free State Government. (Kelly,1988, p112), and many women wereimprisoned there, which is an indicationof the role they had played in the War ofIndependence. A number of Carlowmembers were imprisoned in Kilmain-ham including Brigid Ryan and EssieSnoddy, a young girl of only 16. Accord-


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ing to historian Julian Stover thoseimprisoned ‘had been found guilty of avariety of crimes, ranging from thepossession of seditious documents […]or for breaking curfew, no doubt commit-ted in aid of military operations’. (Stover,2014, p97).

In her witness testimony Brigid claimedshe was arrested on 16th March 1923 andreleased on the 27th of the same month.Whilst in Kilmainham she becameinvolved in a project with Essie Snoddy,making a tri-colour with the Cumann namBan initials embroidered in the centre,and the flag can be seen in KilmainhamJail to this day. Prison crafts could beseen as an articulation of protest by thewomen, as this tri-colour was used todrape over the coffins of Carlow activistskilled in combat. Her previous role inthis type of activity is recorded in herwitness statement where she describeshow she ‘was in charge of the firing partyover the grave of Commandant SeamusO'Toole who was killed in an engage-ment with the enemy in 1922’. (Ryan,1957). Ryan was obviously rearrested asshe also claims to have been on hungerstrike for nine days in June 1923, andwhilst she was in prison her home wasbroken into by Free State forces whowrecked the interior of the café anddwelling apartments, and looted thecontents. (Ryan, 1957). Once againpolitical events in her life had personalrepercussions. Brigid was released inSeptember, 1923. On a lighter note EssieSnoddy was very productive whilst inprison as ‘she brought home souvenirssuch as tea cosies, golliwogs and dolls,as well as a crocheted top’. (McCoole,2004, p113).

Despite the connections the womenassociated with the leaders of the 1916Easter Rising had, it was these sameconnections that led to the women beingcast out of politics in the Irish Free State.The female TDs as well as most of themore politically and militarily involvedwomen had opposed the treaty, includingas mentioned above many Cumann namBan members. Consequently the asso-ciation of the women TDs with thesacrifices made by their loved ones in therising, now became unpopular within thenew Irish Free State government.According to Jason Knirck ‘the FreeStaters marginalised the contribution of

nationalist women and drasticallycurtailed their role in post-revolutionarypolitics’. (Knirck, 2006, p163). Repub-licanism became ‘feminized’, tarred withthe brush of hysteria, irrationality andundue emotion. (Knirck, 2006, p163).This is another example of how thepatriarchal society of the day was able toconstrain the women, playing down theirrole in events and removing them fromthe limelight. Indeed according tohistorian David Fitzpatrick ‘after theTreaty the search for respectabilitydisplaced revolutionary enthusiasm,imitation drove out imagination, thesolemn trappings of familiar institutionsenveloped and began to stifle theiconoclasts’. (Fitzpatrick, 1977, p232).

In the post-Civil War era of the new IrishFree State Irish, independence wasmarked not only by the rise to power ofthe Catholic propertied classes, but alsoby the marginalisation of feministconcerns that were part of the anti-colo-nial movement. (Helleiner, 1997, p277).The new State felt that the contributionof women would be most acceptable inthe domestic sphere. This reflected thegrowing influence of the Catholic Churchthrough the 1920s, which railed againstthe moral deterioration of the world ingeneral and Irish women in particular.(McAuliffe, 2014, p49). However Irishfeminists contested this definition believ-ing that women could and should inhabitthe public and the private spheres, bemothers and wives but also citizens whoadded their talents to the new state.(Valiulis, 1995, p118). Crucially despitethe fact that the 1922 Constitution gavewomen the right to vote, subsequent legislation denied full political identifica-tion for women and by 1937 women’spolitical, economic and reproductiverights had been severely constrained.(Valiulis, 1995 p120).

Consequently women perceived them-selves as forgotten by a state theybelieved owed them recognition andmaterial recompense for their participa-tion. (Lane, 2010, p2). This can be seenin the letters of Brigid Ryan representingOld Cumann na mBan in the late 1930s.Brigid Ryan and Nellie Woods wereinstrumental in petitioning the govern-ment for pensions for the womeninvolved in the period 1919-1923. Theirletters are testament to the continued

bravery of these women and their contin-ued persistence in claiming their right toa pension despite numerous delays andexcuses put to them. In one letter writtenin 1937, signed by Brigid Ryan andNellie Woods, the letter concludes‘kindly let me know at your earliestconvenience when it will be possible foryou to call a number of applicants fromthis area […] as no member of CarlowCumann na mBan has been called up tothe present’. (Ryan, Woods, 1937).Furthermore their pensions, if awarded atall, were at the lowest level payable, andnot on a par with a man’s pension despitetheir service and allegiance. This is yetanother example of patriarchal constraintat work, increasing our cognisance ofhow the women’s lives are understoodwithin that framework.

This paper has shown how women’s livesare understood within the framework ofpatriarchal constraint. Despite BrigidRyan’s monumental participation, andthat of countless other women (includingmy grandmother) in Cumann na mBan,their efforts were indeed mediated by thefact that they were women. Subse-quently this affected the types of rolesthat they performed during the period1914-1923. Patriarchal constraint alsodominated the treatment that theyreceived afterwards. NotwithstandingBrigid Ryan’s participation is writtenlarge in her witness testimony, yet it isonly one woman’s account of her role inhistoric events. Countless more women’shistoric participation is to be found in theMilitary Archives and other archives andrecords. I have little tangible evidence ofmy grandmother’s participation in thesehistoric events with the exception of hermedal, a more tenuous link throughPadraig O’Cathain’s witness testimony,and a mention of a J. Quigley in theCarlow member lists in handwrittenapplications for Pensions in the 1930s.Regardless of this lack of evidence formy grandmother, without doubt she,Brigid and the other ‘ordinary’ woman ofCumann na mBan were heroines. Theydeserve to be recorded in more dominantnarratives similar to the dominant narra-tives of male patriarchy and heroes.

Currently the emphasis on these bravewomen is growing and more recently awider corpus of written work hasemerged. In this era of remembrance and


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commemoration individual stories arebeginning to appear. It is evident theCarlow women were a particularly activebranch in the organisation and BrigidRyan was an extraordinarily brave andcapable woman. I am proud my grand-mother was a member of this group. Thehistory of the women of Cumann namBan, their contribution and courage,which has for so long evaded historicalrecord, (McCoole, 2000, is finally begin-ning to get the recognition it deserves.Many more stories are waiting to be told.

Bibliography

Benton, S. (1995) ‘The Militarisation ofPolitics in Ireland 1913-1923’. FeministReview. No. 50, The Irish Issue: TheBritish Question. (Summer, 1995). pp148-172.

Conlon, L. (1969) Cumann na mBan andthe Women of Ireland 1913-25.Kilkenny: Kilkenny People.

Earner-Byrne, L. (2015) ‘The Rape ofMary M: A Microhistory of Sexual Vio-lence and Moral Redemption in 1920sIreland’. Journal of the History of Sexu-ality, Volume 24, No 1, (January 2015)pp 75-98.

Fitzpatrick, D. (1977) Politics and IrishLife, 1913-1921: Provincial experienceof War and Revolution. Dublin: Gill &MacMillan.

Helleiner, J. ‘Women of the ItinerantClass: Gender and Anti-Traveller Racismin Ireland’. Women’s Studies Interna-tional Forum, Vol 20, No. 2, (1997). pp275-287.

Jimerson, R. C. (2006) ‘Embracing thePower of the Archive’. The AmericanArchivist, Volume 69, No. 1 (Spring-Summer, 2006). pp 19-32.

Kelly, F. (1988) The History of Kilmain-ham Jail: The Dismal House of LittleEase. Dublin: Mercier Press.

Knirck, J. (2006) Women of the Dail:Gender Republicanism and the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Dublin: Irish AcademicPress.

McAuliffe, M. (2014) ‘The Unquiet Sis-ters: Women, Politics and the Irish Free

State Senate 1922-1936’ in Fischer, C,McAuliffe, M. (eds) (2014) Irish Femi-nisms: Past, Present and Future. Essaysin honour of Mary Cullen and MargaretMac Curtain. Dublin: Arlen House.

McCallum, C. (2005) ‘And they’ll marchwith their brothers to freedom; Cumannna mBan, Nationalism, and women’srights in Ireland 1900-1923’. Unpub-lished MA Thesis. Florida State Univer-sity, USA.

McCoole, S. (1997) Guns and Chiffon:Women Revolutionaries and KilmainhamGaol 1916-1923. Dublin: StationaryOffice.

McCoole, S. (2004) No OrdinaryWomen: Irish Female Activists in theRevolutionary Period 1990-1923.Dublin: O’Brien Press.

McCarthy, C. (2007) Cumann na mBanand the Irish Revolution. Cork: Collins

Ryan, L. (2000). ‘Drunken Tans: Repre-sentations of Sex and Violence in theAnglo Irish War 1919-21. FeministReview, No. 66, Political Currents.(Autumn, 2000). pp 73-94.

Stover, J. (2014) ‘Irish Political PrisonerCulture 1916-1923’. Crosscurrents. As-sociation for Religion and IntellectualLife. 2014. pp 90-106.

Valiulis, M. (1995) ‘Power, Gender andIdentity in the Irish Free State’. Journalof Women’s History. Volume 6, No. 4,Volume 7, No. 1 (Winter-Spring, 1995).pp 117-136.

Ward, M. (1993) Suffrage First – AboveAll Else: An Account of the Irish Suf-frage Movement in Smyth. A. (ed) IrishWomen’s Studies Reader (1993) Dublin:Attic Press.

Ward, M. (1995) Unmanageable Revolu-tionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism.Dingle: Brandon.

Ward, M. (1995) In Their Own Voice:Women and Irish Nationalism. Dublin:Attic Press.

http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS1573.B.Ryan.dateac-cessed 21/4/2015.

http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS1572.POOCathain.dateaccessed21/4/2015.

http://www.history.org.uk/resources/stu-dent_resource.dateaccessed 21/4/2015.


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Thomas J. Kennedy, managing editorof The Homiletic and PastoralReview, 53 Park Place, a monthlymagazine for Roman Catholic priests,died of a heart attack on Wednesday athis home, 258 Riverside Drive.

He was born in Ireland, was graduatedfrom Carlow College and the NationalUniversity of Ireland and studied lan-guages at the Universities of Viennaand Bonn. Then he worked in Londonwith the Rev. Herbert Thurston, S. J.,on research projects until 1909, whenhe came to New York and joined theeditorial staff of the CatholicEncyclopedia.

Later for several years Mr. Kennedywas editor of Letters and Arts Press, areligious book publishing concern. In1824 he became managing editor ofThe Homiletic and Pastoral Review.For many years he supervised thepublication and translation of eccleias-tical treatises, and he collaborated inthe preparation and publication of TheCatholic Biblical Encyclopedia.

Surviving are his widow, Mrs. MoiraCoyle Kennedy; two daughters, theMisses Sighle and Ethne Kennedy ofNew York; a brother, Brian of NewYork, and a sister, Mother Mary St.John of Bangalore, India.

50


1509 Nicholas Bagenal was born inNewcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire,England where his father John Bagenalwas Mayor of the town.

1539 Nicholas Bagenal fled Englandafter killing a man in a brawl. He becamea mercenary under Con Bacach O’Neill,chief of the O’Neills of Tyrone.

1543 Through the influence of O’NeillNicholas got a “General pardon of allmurders and felonies by him committed”granted in Westminster, 2nd March 1543by Henry V111.

1544-1547 Nicholas served in theFrench wars where he gained a highreputation for his military prowess.Leighlinbridge Castle rebuilt by EdwardBellingham in 1547.

1548 He was back in Ireland servingunder Sir Edward Bellingham anddefeated a group from Laois, Carlow andKildare led by Cahir O Connor, inflictinga crushing defeat on them in countyKildare.

1550 Nicholas Bagenal became amember of the Irish Privy Council andwas appointed Marshall General of theArmy in Ireland. He received a lease for21 years on the Abbey lands of Newry,Newry Castle and was granted the Lord-

ship of Mourne.

1556 Nicholas Bagenal married Eleanor,3rd daughter and heiress of Sir EdwardGriffith of Penrhy, North Wales, the cou-ple had 9 children Henry, Dudley andAmbrose, and daughters Frances, Mary,Margaret, Isabel, Anne and Mabel. Thismarriage brought Nicholas considerableestates in Wales.

1585 Nicholas bought the Barony ofIdrone from George Carew for his sonDudley for £2,000. Dudley moved thereand lived in Idrone, perhaps the Lodge(later to be known as Eastwood, locatedin the townland of Moneybeg). He wasappointed Constable at LeighlinbridgeCastle (Black Castle). Dudley was of adifferent temper and character from theCarew family and was immediatelyinvolved in a feud with the KavanaghClan, previous owners who had beenousted by the Carews. Dudley had theelderly Clan chief Murtagh Kavanaghkilled along with a servant at Garryhill.

1587 Dudley with followers was killedin an ambush at Ballymoon bythe Kavanaghs.

1598 Henry Bagenal son of NicholasBagenal was killed at the Battle of theYellow Ford by the Irish forces led byHugh O Neill who was married toHenry’s sister Mabel Bagenal.

1602 Nicholas Bagenal son of Dudleyand Katherine Nangle succeeded Dudleyas Constable at Leighlinbridge Castle.

1607 Nicholas died as the result of aduel in Dublin. George Bagenal son ofDudley Bagenal and Mabel Fitzgeraldsucceeded Nicholas (half-brother).1607-1612 George Bagenal built the 1st

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The Bagenalsof IdroneChronology

Myles Kavanagh

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Manor at Dunleckney.

1625 George Bagenal died.

1641 Colonel Thomas Bagenal (leaderin Army of Confederate Catholics) andhis brother Henry Bagenal, sons ofGeorge Bagenal and Lady Joanne Butlerwere banished to Connaught.

1652 Walter Bagenal son of GeorgeBagenal and Lady Joanne Butler, wasexecuted in the Parade Kilkenny by theCromwellian forces. Walter was amember of Army of ConfederateCatholics. The Bagenal family lost theirentire estates.

1660 The Bagenal estates were restoredto Dudley Bagenal, son of Walter Bage-nal and Elizabeth Roper, by KingCharles 11.

1689 Dudley Bagenal recruited andcommanded an Infantry Regiment thatfought at the Siege of Derry.

1690 Dudley Bagenal and HenryLuttrell represented County Carlow andattended the King James Parliament inDublin. Dudley Bagenal commanded hisInfantry Regiment for King James 11 atthe Battle of the Boyne. King James 11loses the battle. King James and DudleyBagenal fled to France. King James setup Court at St. Germain-en-Lay nearParis with Dudley Bagenal as GentlemanUsher to him.

1691 Mary Bagenal daughter of DudleyBagenal and Anne Mathew died inFrance. She was a nun at the Poor Claresat Gravelines.

1701 King James 11 died.

1705 Katherine Bagenal daughter ofDudley Bagenal and Anne Mathew, a nunat the Poor Clare Convent at Gravelines,France was appointed 7th Abbess ofthe convent.

1712 Dudley Bagenal died at Bruges,Belgium.

1710-1745 Walter Bagenal, son ofDudley Bagenal and Anne Mathewbecame a Protestant and regained thefamily estates from the Crown. Walterbegan the layout of the town of Bagenal-

stown. He married firstly EleanorBarnewall and they had 2 children, andsecondly Eleanor Beauchamp and theyhad 3 children.

1726 Walter Bagenal had the first bridgeat the Royal Oak built across the riverBarrow and drove a coach and horsesacross it before its completion to win awager.

1735 Beauchamp Bagenal is born toWalter Bagenal and Eleanor Beauchamp.He became the most renowned and flam-boyant member of the Bagenal family.

1736 Katherine Bagenal (sister of Wal-ter), the Poor Clare nun, died in France.

1745 Walter Bagenal died.

1753 Beauchamp Bagenal entered Trin-ity College, Cambridge and undertook agrand tour of European capitals.

1761-1768 Beauchamp Bagenal Mem-ber of Parliament for Enniscorthy.

1762 Walter Bagenal was born toBeauchamp Bagenal and his wife MariaRyan. They also had 2 daughters Cather-ine and Emelia.

1768-1776 Beauchamp Bagenal enteredpolitics as an M.P. for Carlow. He con-stantly supported Catholic Relief Bills.As a politician, landlord, duellist, liber-tarian and bon viveur he became alegend in his own lifetime. The cost ofhis lifestyle was high as he sold 32,000acres of his estate.

1770 Sarah Westropp, Beauchamp

Bagenal’s natural daughter was born. Shebecame his favourite and eventual heiressof the Bagenal estate.

1778 Bagenal refused to fire his gun atan opponent and neighbour MathewWeld in a duel and accused him of anassault. The judge Mr. Crookshank foundMr. Weld guilty, imposed on him a fineof £70 and ordered him to be imprisonedfor one month.

1778-1783 Beauchamp Bagenal, Mem-ber of Parliament for Co. Carlow.Beauchamp fought as few as a dozenduels, the great duellists of his timefought many. One of his 12 was againsthis own cousin and godson BeauchampBagenal Harvey. Harvey fired first, butmissed, to Bagenal’s delight. “You damnyoung villain. Do you know you had liketo kill your own godfather? Go back toDunleckney, you dog, and have a goodbreakfast ready for us. I only wanted tosee if you were stout.” (Bagenal Harveylater was hanged in the 1798 Rebellionin Wexford).

1785 Sarah Westropp at 15 years of agemarried Colonel Philip Newton ofBennekerry.

1802 Bagenal died and as his sonWalter had no male heir, in his will,Beauchamp left his estate to Sarah.

1817 Sarah’s eldest son Walter Newtoninherited Dunleckney and 5,000 acres ofland. He married Anne Jocelyn,. Sarahand Philip’s second son Philip changedhis name by Royal Licence to Bagenaland inherited the Newton seat atBennekerry.

The bagenals of Idrone Cronology

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Chimney view of Dunleckney Manor

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1818 Philip Jocelyn Newton was bornto Walter Newton and Anne Jocelyn.

1832 Sarah Newton died.

1833 Sarah’s husband Philip Newtondied.

1841 Philip Jocelyn Newton, Walter’sson, married Henrietta Maria Kennedy,daughter of John Kennedy, of Dunbrody,Co. Wexford and had 3 daughters.Walter Newton had plans for the presentTudor-Gothic Manor, at Dunleckney,drawn up by Daniel Robertson. Philip’sson, married Henrietta Maria Kennedydaughter of John Kennedy, of Dunbrody,Co. Wexford and they had 3 daughters.

1851 Philip Jocelyn Newton married hissecond wife Emily Toler Osborne.

1853 Walter Newton died and he wassucceeded by his son Philip JocelynNewton who changed his name to Bage-nal by Royal Licence. Philip was respon-sible for the completion of DunleckneyManor.

1871 Anne Henrietta Newton daughterof Philip Jocelyn Newton and HenriettaMaria Kennedy married WilliamMuschamp Vesey of Abbeyleix. Theyhad 2 sons.

1880 William Vesey died.

1895 Philip Jocelyn Newton died. Hehad 5 daughters from his 2 marriages andhe was succeeded by his eldest survivingdaughter from his first marriage, Mrs.Anne Henrietta Vesey.

1902 Sydney Philip Charles Vesey sonof Anne Henrietta Newton and William Muschamp Vesey married BlancheEdith Power.

1932 Sydney P.C. Vesey died.

1942Mrs. Blanche Edith Vesey sold theDunleckney estate to Thomas Donnely,of the Belfast distillery family, ending thelast Bagenal-Newton connection withDunleckney.

Sources: The Carlow Gentry by Jimmy O’TooleNewry JournalFamous People of IrelandThe Times of London 5th August 1778The Peerage Compiled by Darryl Lundy Wikipedia.

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Panoramic view of St Andrew’s Church

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Carlow MartFounders

Courtesy: John Dowling


While a considerable area of CountyCarlow was under forestation in 1307, acertain amount of information can begleaned regarding, property owners inthe county at the time, following aninquisition held in the town. The inquisi-tion was ordered by King Edward 1, toascertain the Irish possessions of RogerLe Bygod, Earl of Norfolk, and Lord ofCarlow, who died without issue on the11th December, 1306. In 1302 Roger hadconstituted King Edward his heir onhis death.

Roger Le Bygod was a descendent ofWilliam Marshal, Earl of Pembroke andLord of Leinster. Marshal and his wifeIsobel, (daughter of Strongbow and EveMacMurrough), had ten children, fivesons and five daughters. Their five sonsdied without issue, thereby Marshal'sdaughters became co-heirs of hisholdings. Maud the eldest daughter wasallotted the Carlow County area, whichcomprised a much larger area than thepresent county (the county boundarybeing re-defined in the mid fifteen-hundreds following the creation of Coun-ties Laois and Offaly. Joan, the seconddaughter was granted the Wexford area.The third daughter, Isabel received theKilkenny area. Sibilla, a fourth daughterwas allotted the Kildare area, and Eve theyoungest received the Laois area(Dunroe in Ossory).

Maud married Hugh Le Bygod, Earl ofNorfolk, thus entitling the Earl to succeed

to the Lordship of Carlow. They hadthree sons, Roger. Hugh and Ralph. Onthe death of Hugh, Roger, their first born,inherited the titles of Earl of Norfolk andLord of Carlow. Roger died without issuein 1270, and his nephew, also calledRoger Le Bygod succeeded to hishonours and possessions. Roger marriedtwice without iss'ue, and as already statedby means of surrender made in 1302,his estate passed to the King on his death.This comprised his Earldom, Marshalcyand property, which included Carlowcastle, then in a state of disrepair.The King's writ directed Sir John WoganJusticiar of Ireland "to take into theKing's hands, all lands and tenements inIreland, the property of Roger Le Bygod,and cause them to be kept safely". Toenable Wogan to comply with the King’swrit, Walter De La Haye, Escheator ofIreland, was instructed to conduct aninquisition, to establish Roger's holdings,which were mainly in County Carlow.The inquisition was held in Carlow inApri1, 1307. Apart from insight into theproperty owners at the time, some insightis also gleaned as to the condition of thecastle and town. Another inquisition wasalso undertaken to establish the value ofthe Knights’ fees in the county.

The “Yet of Common Pleas”, relating tothe inquisition, is recorded in the Calen-der of Justiciar Rolls of Ireland (35-Edward I) which as already stated givessome insight into the property owners inCounty Carlow at the time, and is set out

as follows:

Yet of Common Pleas, at Dublin, be-fore John Wogan, Justiciar, in thequinzaine of Easter.

The King sends his writ: Edward etc. toWogan etc. Because Roger le Bygod Earlof Norfolk, who held of the King incapite, has died, Wogan is to take into theKing's hand all lands and tenements inIreland, of which he was seised when hedied, and cause them to be kept safely;and to enquire how much land he held ofthe King in capite, and how much ofothers, and by what service, and howmuch they are worth yearly, and who ishis heir and of what age, and return in-quisition. Teste at Lanrecost, 8 Dec.a. r. xxxv.

By pretext of which mandate Walter 'dela Haye, escheator of Ireland, wasdirected to execute it, who made extent:

Inquisition taken at Catherlach, on Sat-urday after the close of Easter a r xxxv.John Sweyn, Will. Baret, Roger theWelshman, Ricard Rys, Will. Went,Thomas Rauf, Adam Leth, ThomasBorne, Peter Borne, Simon. Bryt, Robertson of Ricard, Ric. Harpur, JohiiFraunceys, Robert le Archer, John Cadel,Stephen Cadel, John Tybaund, RobertCadel, James de Valle, John Balymor,Adam Mauncel, Gilbert Maceon, PeterLoppyn, David Cobrath, Thomas Carru,Robert Bremyl, Henry Wyce, Geoffrey

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cÜÉÑxÜàç bãÇxÜá |Ç VÉâÇàç VtÜÄÉã

|Ç à{x lxtÜ DFCJSean O’Shea

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Galbarry, Ric. Galburry, Ric. le Bret,John Marcel, Robert Bendeuill, RemundCheure, Walter de Rupe, Will. Bendeuilland Ric. Graunger.

Who say that Roger Bygod held of theKing in capite, the castle and county ofCatherlach which castle is not wellroofed, and opposite the castle is a hall inwhich pleas of the county and assises areheld, in which are many defects, as wellin roofing as in walls; which are valuedat nothing because no one would hirethem, but they need roofing and care.There are there 68 acres of arable land,of which 50 acres are worths 50s. yearly,to wit, 12d. an acre, and 18 acres areworth 6s. (4d. an acre), 50 acres ofmeadow are worth 50s. yearly, a moorand an island containing 16 acres areworth 16s. yearly. Sum 6ι. 2s.

Ric. Taloun holds the barony of Tame-lyng, and renders for it 4s. yearly. PeterWaas holds there 75 acres opposite thecastle, and renders 20s. yearly. GeoffreyWade junior holds there 20 acres, andrenders yearly 12s. The burgesses of thetown of Catherlach hold there 160burgages, and render for them yearly 8l.16½d. and do suit to the hundred. Sum6/. 17s. 4½d.

Also there is there an oven, which theburgesses hold at will, and it is worthyearly 20s. The burgesses render yearlyfor the toll and farm (sensar') of saidtown, 8s. 3d.; the prise of ale there isworth yearly 40s.; and there are therethree water - mills worth yearly 8 marks,and three weirs worth yearly 5s. Sum8ι. 19s. 11d.

Edmund le Botiller holds one barony ofTulagh Offelmyth, by the service of 8ι,as often as it shall be proclaimed, anddoes suit to the county court; Nich. deCarru holds one barony in Odrone atDonlek', by the service of 10l. and doessuit as above; John de Valle holds oneknight's fee at Ardbrystyn, by the serviceof 40s. and does suit to the court of Foth';Thomas le Boteller holds one knight's feeat Gras by the service of 40s. and doessuit there; Adam Broun holds oneknight's fee at Ardynhch, by the serviceof 40s.; Will. Traherne holds one knight'sfee at Kilcloit, by the service of 40s., anda fourth part of a knight's fee at Kylbolet,

by the service of 10s.; the heir ofReginald de Dene holds two knights' feesat Kenles in Foth', by the service of 4ι. ;Ric. Taloun holds an eighth part of aknight's fee at Balymakele, by the serviceof 5s.; Robert Bremyl holds a third partof a knight's fee at Balyscandyl, by theservice of 1 mark. Sum 44ι. 2s. 4d.

They say that at Foth' there is a stonechamber covered with shingles andboards valued at nothing, and no one willhire it, and a grange of ten principalbeams (furcis), almost fallen, of no valueexcept the beams, and 368 acres ofdemesne land, worth yearly 12ι. 5s. 4d.,to wit, 8d. an acre, 20 acres of meadow,worth yearly 13s. 4d., a pasture calledOxsynles, containing 10a. worth 40d., apasture containing 10a. of no value, adecayed water mill with 12 acres ofpasture adjoining, worth yearly 5 marks.Sum 16ι. 16s. 8d.

Ric. Taloun holds 2 carucates of land inBalymecolye and renders yearly 26s, 8d.;William Traherne holds 1 carucate at leBoly, and renders yearly 30s. 6d. AmiciaManecouena.unf[d] holds two caru-cartes at the Drym and renders yearly 3s.Will., de Bencleuill and Eva his wife holdone carucate at the Kneiston, and renderyearly 2s.

The burgesses of the town of Castle-Foth' hold there 79 burgages, and renderfor them 69s., and there are there 29cottagers who render for their cottages13s. 11½d. Also the burgesses rendereach Michaelmas 10 geese or 20d., andfor each smith’s house, four horse shoes,or 4d. yearly rent. Also they render 3d.yearly rent for one place in the head ofthe town (1 plac’ in cap' ville). Tho.Wade junior holds there 15 acres, andrenders yearly 1lb. of pepper and 1½lb.of cummin, or 16d. Will. Spynel holdsthere 12 acres for 12d. yearly rent. Adamle Tanner holds there half a stang of landand renders yearly ½lb. of cummin, or1d. Sum 7ι. 19s. The toll there is worthyearly 8s. 6d.

And there are at Dunlek’ and Leghlyn 55acres, of which 14 are worth yearly 7s.and the rest lies waste for want of tenantsand poverty of the land; and 6 cottierswho render for their cottages yearly 6s.,of which there are paid to Nich. de Carru

chief lord of that fee 6s., to RobertMauncel 16d., and to Ric. son of Robert20d. Sum; beyond this rent repaid 4s.

And there are at Fynuagh 6 carucates 47caruc' (recte acres) and 1 stang, worthyearly 38 marks 4s. 10d. (to wit 8d. anacre), of which Douenald Mcmurwothheld for term of his life, two carucates 7acres 1 stang; and there are 15a. ofmeadow worth yearly 7s. 6d. The worksof tenants in autumn worth yearly half amark; betaghs render yearly 6s. 8d forsuit which they were accustomed tomake to the mill, which mill is now wasteland prostrate. Sum 26ι. 12s. 4d.

The serjeants of the county of Ceather-lach were accustomed to render 20 marksfor their serjeancies yearly.

Also the perquisites of assises there areworth in common years, deducting thefees- of the Seneschal and other minis-ters, 40/ι. Also the county court there isworth yearly, clear, 5 marks. Also theperquisites of the court of Fothered areworth yearly half a mark. The perquisitesof the hundred of Catherlach are worthyearly 20s. Sum 45ι.

The above “Yet of Common Pleas” isconfined as nearly as possible to thepresent boundary of the Countyof Carlow.

References:

(1) The History and Antiquities of theCounty of Carlow by John Ryan MRSL

(2) Brophy Papers

(3) Carlow Sentinel

(4) The Calendar of JusticiaryRolls of Ireland, 1305-1307, 35th

Edward I

Property Owners in County Carlow in the Year 1307

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Proportional Representation (or P.R. asit's referred to) was first introduced toCarlow when the 1920 Local Electionswere held on the 15th January of thatyear. Sometime earlier, an order issuedby the Local Government Board in ac-cordance with the Local Government(Ireland) Act 1919, brought the proce-dure into effect.

In the town, eligible voters were some-what apprehensive of the new system ofvoting, as was the local paper, whichstated "the election will be the most dras-tic test to which the single transferrablevote has been submitted in any part of theworld"

The system of electing members to localauthorities had varied from early times.While the borough of Carlow possesseda municipal or corporate existence fromthe days of King John, when a charterwas granted to the town by WilliamMarshal, Earl of Pembroke, there is nomention of a corporation or provision forthe election of members to a local author-ity contained in the charter. The systemfor the election of members to CarlowCorporation was not defined until KingJames I granted a second charter to thetown in 1613. This charter established"One Body Corporate and Politique" inthe town and decreed, "the corporatebody consists of one portrieve and twelvefree burgesses" John Kerton was namedthe first portrieve and the twelveburgesses were also named.

Burgesses were elected by a majority ofthe corporate members and held officefor their natural lives. The portrieve (latersovereign) was elected annually by theBurgesses. While other charters weregranted to the town, the procedure forelecting members to the corporation re-mained unchanged until the introductionof the municipal corporation (Ireland)Act 1840 when Carlow Corporation was

dissolved and replaced by a Town Com-mission. Unfortunately, the Town Com-mission of 1840 had a short innings andwas succeeded by a new town commis-sion in 1855.

This followed the adoption of the TownsImprovement (Ireland) Act 1854 by thehouseholders of the town.

Under the provisions of the 1854 Act,property owners of at least £12.00 valu-ation qualified to go forward as candi-dates for the office of TownCommissioner and rate payers with prop-erty of £8.00 valuation and upwards,were entitled to vote. Elections were heldannually with one third of commissionersvacating office each year. Over time,qualifications to hold office and right tovote became more liberal.

The Local Government (Ireland) Act1898 abolished the Town Commissionand it was replaced by an Urban DistrictCouncil. From that period onwards mem-bers held office for a three year period,when new elections were held. Votingwas by way of a single vote with candi-dates receiving the majority of votes de-clared elected.

In January 1920, the single transferrablevote was introduced, unfortunately with-out giving any clear government guid-ance to the electorate on the operation ofthe system. The local papers were helpfulin explaining the new method of votingas were the "Proportional RepresentationSociety of Ireland". The following ex-tract from the Nationalist and LeinsterTimes gives some indication as to the po-sition at the time.

Proportional Representation

Wednesday night last, a lecture was de-livered in the Town Hall, Carlow, on Pro-portional Representation. The lecturer

was Mr. Campbell, in the unavoidableabsence of Mr. Aston. There was a largeattendance and deep interest was takenin the proceedings. Those who listened tothe lecturer and followed the details ofthe model election afterwards, realisedthat after all the system is not so compli-cated as would seem at first sight, andthe various societies and associationsshould take steps to supply informationto their members.

Mr. Michael Governey presided, and atthe close of the proceedings a hearty voteof thanks was passed to the lecturer.

The model election was most interesting."

Carlow Urban District was divided intothree electoral areas (wards) namely:-Carlow North, Carlow South andGraiguecullen. Carlow North to return 9members, Carlow South to return 6 mem-bers and Graiguecullen to return 3members.

On Monday the 5th January 1920,William A. Lawler returning officer at-tended at the Town Hall to receive nom-inations from candidates for membershipof the Urban Council.

The election held on the 15th Januaryevoked considerable interest from theopening of the polling booths at 8amuntil the close of poll twelve hours later.All polling took place within theprecincts of the Town Hall, where sixbooths were provided, and twenty sevencandidates contested the eighteen seats.At 10am on Friday 16th January the sort-ing and counting of votes commenced inthe Council Chamber. The returning of-ficer was W.A. Lawler, Town Clerk, withP.A. Lawler acting as deputy returningofficer, while P.J. Byrne Solicitor was theassessor. T.R. Coyle, clerk of the union,acted as superintendent of elections andD. Fenlon N.T. and P.P Carbery B.S.were calculators. The counters were J.White, P.C. Bergin, J. Lawler and F. Bol-ger. The count took place in the presenceof the candidates and finished at 10am.

Following the completion of each countthe returning officer declared the candi-dates elected in order of preference in theareas:-

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PR Comes toCarlow

Sean O’Shea

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P R comes to Carlow Collected Edited_Layout 1 28/10/2015 18:30 Page 1

Carlow North Area William PurcellEdward DugganJohn BrennanPatrick BreenSean O' FarrellFrederick J. WilliamsCatherine Mc DonnellBridget LaffanMary R. Bolger

Carlow South Area Patrick ComerfordRobert C. Browne-ClaytonJames LeonardJames J. CuddyThomas KirwanFrederick G. Thompson

Graiguecullen AreaMichael GoverneyJohn ByrneEbenezer Shackleton

The Nationalist and Leinster Times report-ing on the election stated that the P.R. sys-tem worked smoothly and the smallpercentage of spoiled votes (54) proved thatthe electorate grasped the principle, al-though the time for educating the publicwas rather short. The various officials didtheir work excellently from the viewpoint ofroutine, impartiality and administration,and showed that a careful study of thescheme had been made.

Interest had waned when the next UrbanCouncil Elections were held in June 1925,with the Nationalist and Leinster Timesreporting as follows:

The first Local Government Elections since1920 were held on Tuesday, and were prob-ably the quietest on record, Co. Carlowbeing no exception. About 55% seemed tobe the average poll.

The only contest in Carlow Urban area wasin the electoral division of Graiguecullen.There were four candidates for three seats,viz.: John Bolger (Maltster), D. Fenlon,N.T. (Labour); P. MacGamhna (Labour)and Ebenezer Shackleton. The latter, whowas the defeated candidate, obtained 13votes. The other three were elected on thefirst count. Mr. John Bolger headed the pollwith 93 votes; Mr. D. Fenlon came secondwith 89 votes, and Mr. P MacGamhna re-ceived 68 votes. The result was announcedabout 10 o' clock on Tuesday night.

P R Comes to Carlow

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P R Comes to Carlow

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Records of the North Area

Records of the South Area

Records of the Graiguecullen Area

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Introduction

Beauchamp Bagenal of DunleckneyManor died on the 1st of January 1802.He was buried in Dunleckney cemeterynext to his favourite grandchild CatherineNewton, daughter of Sarah and PhilipNewton, who died at 14 years of age in1800.

Sarah Westropp (1770 – 1832) daughterof Beauchamp Bagenal married ColonelPhilip Newton. Walter Bagenal, son ofBeauchamp, had no male heir and in hiswill Beauchamp Bagenal left his estateto Sarah.

Newton

Sarah & Philip’s son Walter Newtonmarried Anne Jocelyn, daughter of theHon. George Jocelyn, on the 22nd ofMarch 1817. They had 2 childrenThomasine Jocelyn Newton and PhilipJocelyn Newton. Walter inheritedDunleckney and plans for the presentTudor – Gothic Mansion were drawn upby Daniel Robertson (1770-1849). Walterdied on 28th of August 1853 and his sonPhilip Jocelyn Newton (1818-1895)succeeded him and completed the build-ing of Dunleckney Manor. Sarah andPhilip’s son Philip Newton (1796 – 1856)changed his name to Philip Bagenal byRoyal Licence and this was done inaccordance with the express wishes of his

mother and his grandfather from whomhe thereby inherited the family estates.He lived at the Newton seat in Benne-kerry. During the Bagenal period in Dun-leckney some tenants lived in houses andmud cabins in close vicinity of the Manorand this was acceptable to the Bagenalfamily but the Newtons did not favourthis and gradually tenant residents thatlived close to the Manor were locatedelsewhere on the estate. Daniel Bryan

great grandfather of Richard Sheehanlived at Amore (Dunleckney field name)and he and his family were located to ahouse on the opposite side of the road tothe entrance of Rathwade House whichbelonged to the Newton family.

Anne Henrietta Newton daughter ofPhilip Jocelyn Newton married WilliamMuschamp Vesey of Abbeyleix on the17th of October 1871.

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WâÇÄxv~ÇxçcÉáà @UtzxÇtÄáDKCE@ECDH

Myles Kavanagh Dunleckney Manor as featured in Helen and Derek Sheane’sChristmas Card

Philip Jocelyn Newton seated on the steps and his 2nd wife Emily standing, thethree older children, Adeline, Maria, Anne, from his first marriage and the 2younger children, Harriett and Emily of Philip and Emily. Children’s governess seated

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Dunleckney Post Bagenals_Layout 1 28/10/2015 18:38 Page 1

In 1895 Philip Jocelyn Newton died. Hehad 5 daughters from his 2 marriages andhe was succeeded by his eldest survivingdaughter from his first marriage, Mrs.Anne Henrietta Vesey.

Vesey

William Muschamp Vesey was born to theHon. Rev. Arthur Vesey Rector ofAbbeyleix Co. Laois and Sydney John-stone on the 23rd of June 1827. Williamheld the office of Justice of the Peace inCo. Carlow and at first lived at Borris andthen at Upton House Fenagh. William andAnne lived at Ballyellen and Upton Housebefore moving to Dunleckney Manor.They at first had twins who died at birthand later had two sons Sydney PhilipCharles Vesey born the 9th of March 1873and Charles Vesey born the 10th ofNovember, 1874 at Ballyellen House.

William Vesey died on the 24th ofSeptember 1880 aged 53 years at Aix-La-Chapelle, France and was buriedthere. His wife Anne Henrietta Veseyaged 80 years died the 26th of February1927 and she is buried in Dunleckneywith her mother, Henrietta Maria Newtonwho died at Dunleckney on the 14th ofDecember 1849.

Sydney Vesey attended Rugby School,Warwickshire, England and ChristChurch University Oxford where hegraduated with a B.A and M.A. degree.He gained the rank of Captain in theKings Royal Rifle Corps and served in

the second Bore War in South Africa. Hewas awarded the C.B.E. i.e. Commanderof Order of the British Empire in 1918.Sydney Philip Charles Vesey marriedBlanche Edith Power of Tramore HouseCo. Waterford in 1902 and they lived atDunleckney Manor. She was the grand-daughter of Mr. Henry Denny who beganthe Denny bacon business. BlancheVesey had a cousin who was CatherinePower, (Sister Alphonsus), a nun in thePresentation Order. She was MotherSuperior of the convent in Bagenalstownat one stage of her life. Blanche Veseywould visit her cousin in the convent andtowards the end of the visit all the nunsin the community would join them.Sydney inherited Dunleckney after hismother died in 1927 and he died the 28thof October 1932 aged 59 years. His wifeBlanche Edith Vesey died on the 10th ofJanuary 1955 aged 82 years and both are

buried in Dunleckney.Charles Vesey lived in South Africa anddied there on the 1st of November 1911from Blackwater Fever and was buried inJohannesburg.

During Sydney’s time in Dunleckney hediscontinued the farming business andleased out the fields on an annual basisfor eleven months of each year. The 12thmonth (February) was left vacant so toallow growth before the next rentingauction in March. The majority of peoplethat rented land at this time were sheepfarmers from around the foot of MountLeinster which included Coolasnaghta,

Tomduff and Rathanna along with localresidents which included Michael Shielsof the Market Square Bagenalstown. TheO Toole family from Tomduff rented thefield known as the High Field. Thepresent Pairc Mhuire housing estate inBagenalstown is located in Casey’s andDonald’s fields. Each field in Dunleck-ney became known by the name of theperson who had it rented. During thistime also Richard Sheehan’s fatherRobert worked at Dunleckney as herds-man caring for the sheep and animals inall the fields, along with the maintenanceand upkeep of all the fields, fences andditches. He would round up the sheepwith his collie sheep dog and lambs thatwere motherless or delicate were nursedat his house, as pet lambs, until they werestrong enough to return to the fields. Hehad started at 12 years of age in Dunleck-ney Manor as Pantry Boy, later he movedto Marlfield, Clonmel as Footman, andhe then moved to Kilkea Castle as Foot-man and once more returned to Dunleck-ney as Gardener and finally worked asHerdsman in Dunleckney.

During the Vesey period in Dunleckneyand up to the death of Captain Vesey in1932 the tenant children arrived at thekitchen Manor door on a fixed date atChristmas time and from there they wereescorted into the Servants Hall, the roomwhere the servants sat, had their mealsand relaxed. The children sat at the longtable on which lay cakes, buns, jelly,custard and other goodies. Afterwardsthey were taken into the billiard roomwhere they all sat on cushions on thefloor. There was a Christmas tree in theroom and Mr. and Mrs. Vesey sat at eachside of the fireplace. The older childrenthen individually entertained Mr and MrsVesey with a song, a recitation or someIrish dancing.

When the entertainment concluded eachchild received a present from Mr. andMrs. Vesey. The presents had beenbought by Mrs. Vesey and each waswrapped up in paper with the child’sname written on it. After the presentationof presents the children departed forhome. Richard Sheehan was present onlyonce and that was in 1931 when he wasfive years of age. He received a toy bugleas his present that day at the Christmasparty in Dunleckney.

Dunleckney Post-Bagenal 1802-2015

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Dr Hope Trant home on leave during WWI, visiting her aunt, Mrs Anne Vesey, onthe 3 wheeled Dunleckney Parcel Bicycle with her friend, Ms Tiffeney from SouthAfrica on the basket, in the stable yard in Dunleckney.

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Richard recalls clearly seeing MrsBlanch Vesey’s big shining ArmstrongSiddeley black and blue car with goldlining around it and chrome headlamps.She sat up in it like a queen, he said andduring cold days would place her feet ina foot muff and wrap a rug around herbody. Bill Foster her chauffer who hailedfrom Abbeyleix would pick her up at thefront door of the Manor and take her tothat day’s destination and at Christmastime that would be to Dublin’s GraftonStreet where she would buy the Christ-mas presents. At Christmas each yearMrs. Anne Vesey visited the DistrictHospital in Bagenalstown and presentedthe female patients with toiletries and themale patients with tobacco and ciga-rettes. This custom was continued byMrs. Blanche Vesey. Tenant housesreceived a half hundredweight of coaleach Christmas.

Following the death of her husband,Sydney Philip Charles, Mrs. BlancheEdith Vesey sold the Dunleckney estateto Thomas Donnelly, spirit merchant andwine importer from Co. Antrim, in 1942,ending the last Bagenal-Newton connec-tion with Dunleckney.

Donnelly

Thomas Donnelly and his wife Margaretmodernized Dunleckney Manor and put

in a terrazzo floor in the entrance hall. Allthe Vesey staff had gone to Dublin and sothe Donnelly family employed local stafffor the house and the estate in general.Richard Sheehan, Jim Monaghan, PatCurran and Paddy Finn to name but a few

of the young boys. At one stage duringthe stay of the Donnelly family in Dun-leckney they employed over 30 workersthere in various positions i.e. house staff,garden staff, farm staff, stables andhorses staff. The garden featured promi-nently with all kinds of produce beengrown and transported to the Dublinmarket as well as milk and butter. Flow-ers were grown and were available forpurchase at Dunleckney. One day of eachweek Richard Sheehan, the then houseand garden boy, delivered to Mrs Don-nelly a fresh lot of flowers from thegarden, which were placed on display ineach room of the house and this added tothe ambience. Hunting and horse racingalso played a prominent part in the lifestyle at this time. The Donnelly familywere competent horse riders and bredwell known thoroughbreds of the timewhich included Pink Larkspur and Draw-bridge. Thomas Donnelly at one timebrought over from America the famousjockey, Johnny Longden (1907-2003) toride one of the family horses in a race.

The Italian artist Gaetano de Gennaro(1890-1959) worked in Ireland from1940 to circa 1946 and prior to his depar-ture for Sao Paulo, Brazil where hebecame professor of painting, he stayedat Dunleckney Manor with the Donnellyfamily. During his stay in Dunleckney hepainted portraits of each member of thefamily. He painted one large rectangularportrait of Margaret Donnelly holding a

large Venetian hand mirror in her hand,which later was hung from the woodenpanel on the halfway landing of the stairsfrom the inner hall and it was visible toall that entered the house. After theDonnelly family moved from Dunleck-

ney to Glenageary the painting ofMargaret was so large that it was put into storage and was mislaid. Gaetanoenjoyed walking around the Dunleckneyestate and the general area of Bagenal-stown especially along the banks of theRiver Barrow. The background portraitof each member of the Donnelly familyfeatured picturesque scenes of the localcountryside. The style and fashion ofMargaret Donnelly at Sunday Mass inBagenalstown caught the attentionof many.

Thomas and Margaret had 6 children,Peggy, Anne, Geraldine, Jimmy, Johnand Catherine. Jimmy now manages thefamily wine importing business and spiritbusiness in Belfast while John is based inDublin involved in the same businessalong with additional businesses. Peggymet a young Argentinian who was doinga post graduate course in Trinity CollegeDublin. They got married and settled inArgentina and he was one of officers inthe Argentinian army who occupied theFalkland Islands in the recent conflictthere in 1982. Geraldine carved out acareer in the horse industry business andmoved to America. Anne Donnellybecame an Artist. She studied first at theCollege of Art in Dublin in 1953 and ayear later at the Escuela de Bellas Artesin Madrid. She then went to study at theEcole Julienne in Paris in 1956 where shemet her husband Carlo Mazzantini arenowned Italian writer. Ann lived and


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Margaret Donnelly (nee Nugent)about to depart for the races, cap-tured in a quick sketch in Dunleck-ney, by visiting artist,Gaetano deGennaro.

Catherine Donnelly’s birthday party at Dunleckney. Tom Donnellyseated on deck chair and nannie Sheehan by the seesaw.

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worked in many parts of the world;France in 1956, Morocco 1958-61,returned to Ireland1961-63 and from1963-66 she Carlo and their family tookup residence in Tuscany and from therethey moved to Tivoli. Today she lives andworks close to the ruins of the EmperorHadrian’s Villa. She has had exhibitionsin Dublin, London, New York and Rome.Her works can be found in Collections inIreland, Italy, France and the USA.

The following extract is taken from theIrish Times in October 2014 - “Obituary– Catherine Sheerin-Donnelly; April 29th1948 – October 8th 2014. Writer, artschampion and captivating queen of IrishAdvertising. Catherine Sheerin - Don-nelly who has died aged 66 after a shortillness, was widely regarded as one of thefinest advertising copywriters of hergeneration. Her campaigns for Bally-gowan, the IDA and Barry’s Tea areamong the most iconic Irish advertising

of the 20th century. Catherine Donnellywas the youngest child of Thomas andMargaret Donnelly. She spent her child-hood in the grand 17th- century Dunleck-ney Manor stud farm in Co. Carlow,where she developed a lifelong fondnessfor horses.”

Keenan

In 1958 Thomas Donnelly put Dunleck-ney up for sale and many potential buyersfrom Ireland and abroad came to view itand there were reports of dissatisfactionas some people wanted the land dividedand that delayed the sale but eventuallyThomas Donnelly sold the Dunleckneyestate to the Keenan Brothers (Richard,Patrick & John) of Bagenalstown. TheKeenan Brothers had a business inBagenalstown and then went into farm-ing in Dunleckney which included sheepfarming. John Keenan and his wifeSheila moved in to Dunleckney Manor

and lived there until they built their ownhouse not far from the Manor. They thenleft and lived in their new house. Duringthe ownership period of the Keenanbrothers the Manor also was unoccupiedfor a time and for a time was also let outin apartments. When the Keenan busi-ness firm in Bagenalstown wasdissolved, the estate was divided upamong the family with the DunleckneyManor section passing to the Hughesfamily. Jim Hughes built a house for hisfamily in a field on the farm, a shortdistance up from the entrance to theManor House. Jim’s wife continues tolive in the house while her son and familylive in what was once the Gardener’shouse and at another time the Steward’shouse. The house has since been redeco-rated and extended.

Colloton

In 1980 Mayler and Loretto Collotonfrom Wexford bought DunleckneyManor. They carried out some restorationwork on it and operated it as a Bed andBreakfast business.

Sheane

In 1988 Helen Sheane Wall CoveringsLtd. of London bought DunleckneyManor for a reported £425,000.00 fromthe Colloton family, who returned toWexford and now operate a Bed andBreakfast business at Healthfield Manor,Killurin, Co. Wexford. Michael Hopkinsof Bagenalstown was appointed care-taker of Dunleckney Manor by theproprietors Helen and Derek Sheane.

Jimmy Hickey and Christy Lawler ofBagenalstown were employed in 1990 byDerek and Helen Sheane to work at therestoration of the house from roof towalls, windows and floor. Richard Shee-han of Dunleckney who had started workin the garden at Dunleckney Manor as ayoung boy and had later emigrated toEngland first and then America hadreturned home, was approached byMichael Hopkins to work on the restora-tion of garden and grounds and eventu-ally was persuaded by Michael to take onthe work. Tommy McAssey was the gen-eral workman at Dunleckney at thisperiod of time. Jimmy and Christystripped the roof of the house of all theslates and among them found a slate lined


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Jimmy Donnelly on horseback in the stable yard at Dunleckney

Geraldine competing at the R,D.S. in Dublin

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with names and boxes that showed all theworkdays of March 1845 ticked off,which indicated that all those days hadbeen worked at the time of the construc-tion of the building and the roofing. Thenon -workdays had been left blank. Thenames on the slates were of men fromWales. On the visit to the house by aWelsh couple some years afterwards,Richard Sheehan showed the slate tothem and queried the meaning of a Welshword after one of the names as to what itmeant, the lady pointed out to him that itwas the name of a village and as two menhad the same name on the slate, it distin-guished one from the other.

Jimmy Hickey sourced good qualitysecond hand Bangor (Wales) blue slatesthat had been discarded from houses andthe roof of the Manor was re-slated withthese slates and thus restored to its orig-inal state. Cotton material to cover thewalls rather than wallpaper was installedon the walls and this is the same methodused in French historical houses. Behindthe wall covering of one wall in the housewas placed a white board whichcontained the names of the workers. Theoutdoor swimming pool was restored,walled, roofed and connected to theManor building with an indoor access.Jimmy Hickey and Christy Lawlerworked from January 1990 to June 2007on the restoration of Dunleckney Manoras did Richard Sheehan on the gardenand grounds.

The considerable works to the ManorHouse, the garden, parkland and thesuperb lime tree avenue complement theentire estate and landscape, giving us atrue picture of its former glory.

The owners and the workers have done amemorable and praiseworthy job.

Notes

1) Some field names of Dunleckney:-Amore, Aughney Augh, Casey’s (PaircMhuire), Church Meadow, Crab Bush,Cricket, Donald’s (Pairc Mhuire),Doran’s (McGrath Park), Fourteen Acres,High Field (O’Tooles), Lower Well Field,Mill Field, Orchard Field, Pavilion, PigPaddock, Pump Field, Railway Field,Square Field, Upper Well Field.

2) The Italian artist Gaetano De Genaro


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Threshing Day at Dunleckney -1947L-R Top of rick of straw: Pat Curran, Percy Rogers, Jim Armstrong.Lower straw: Jack Sheehan, John Darcy, Bob Sheehan (hand on head),Lar Fleming (hat on & facing mill),

On the farm at Dunleckney-L-R Robert Sheehan, Tom Sheehan, Jack Sheehan, WilliamDreeland (Ballycrinnigan) and Joe Nolan (Acha).

The pleasure gardens at Dunleckney and Bridie Doyle,the parlour maid circa 1950s

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worked in Ireland from 1940 to c.1946.He exhibited regularly at the RHA from1942. Predominantly a portrait painter, he painted many prominent figures inDublin Society such as Dr Douglas Hyde(first President of Ireland 1938-45),Jerome Connor (Irish sculptor 1874-1943), Jack Yates (Irish Artist & OlympicMedalist 1871-1957), and actor RitaMooney.

Some paintings of De Genaro may beviewed at public collections in: a) Crawford Municipal Gallery, Corkb) Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublinc) National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

SourcesRichard Sheehan, Dunleckney, Bagenal-stown, Co. Carlow.


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Carlow Historical and Archaeological Society outing to Hillsborough

Luxurious and imposing , an Armstrong - Siddeley

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Antrim

Armagh

Carlow

Cavan

Clare

Cork

Derry

Donegal

Down

Dublin

Fermanagh

Galway

Kerry

Kildare

Kilkenny

Laois

Leitrim

Limerick

Longford

Louth

Mayo

Meath

Monaghan

Offaly

Roscommon

Sligo

Tipperary

Tyrone

Waterford

Westmeath

Wexford

Wicklow

County

Belfast

Armagh

Carlow

Cavan

Ennis

Cork

Derry

Lifford

Downpatrick

Dublin

Enniskillen

Galway

Tralee

Naas

Kilkenny

Portlaoise

Carrig-an-Shannon

Limerick

Longford

Dundalk

Castlebar

Navan

Monaghan

Tullamore

Roscommon

Sligo

Nenagh/Clonmel

Omagh

Dungarvan

Mullingar

Wexford

Arklow

2,838 (1,092)

1,254 (483)

896 (347)

1, 890 (730)

3,188 (1,231)

7,459 (2,880)

2,108 (799)

4,830 (1,864)

2466 (953)

922 (355)

1,852 (648)

5,939 (2, 293)

4,701 (1, 814)

1,694 (652)

2, 062 (795)

1,719 (664)

1, 525 (591)

2, 686 (1038)

1, 034 (401)

821 (317)

5, 398 (2, 084)

2, 338 (903)

1, 291 (498)

2, 000 (772)

2, 463 (950)

1,795 (695)

4, 255 (1, 644

3, 263 (1, 220)

1, 838 (710)

1,764 (679)

2, 352 (907)

2, 025 (784)

642,000

119,000

45,845

56,416

103,333

448,181

187,000

13 7,383

63,828

1,122,600

52,000

208, 826

132,424

163,995

80,421

58,732

25,815

175,529

31,127

101,802

117,428

133,936

52,772

63,702

53,803

58,178

140,281

144,000

101,518

72,027

116,543

114,719

CountyTown

Areakm2 Sq. Mls

Population

9

28

31

19

8

1

15

4

11

30

20

2

5

25

16

24

26

10

29

32

3

14

27

18

12

22

6

7

21

23

13

17

Motor car Number Platesof old (pre-1987)

PlaceSize

COUNTY STATISTICS 2002

Co: DZ, IA, KZ, RZ; Belfast AZ, CZ, EZ,

FZ, GZ, MZ, OI,OZ, PZ, TZ, UZ, WZ, XI

IB, LZ, XZ

IC

ID

IE

IF, PI, ZB, ZF, ZT, ZK

City: UI; County: YZ, IW, NZ

IH, ZP

BZ, IJ, JZ, SZ

IK, RI, SI, YI, Z, ZA, ZC, ZD, ZE, ZG, ZH,

ZJ, ZL, ZO, ZS, ZU, ZV, ZZ

IG, IL

IM, ZM

IN, ZX

IO, ZW

IP

CI

IT

IU, IV, TI

IX

IY, ZY

IS, IZ

AI, ZN

BI

IR

DI

EI

FI (North) GI, HI, (South)

HZ, JI, VZ

KI, WI

LI

MI,ZR

NI

Source: Encyclopaedia of Ireland - 2003

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Compiled by John Dowling and Martin Nevin

65

County Statistics reviewed 2_County Statistics.qxd 28/10/2015 18:43 Page 1

In the townland of Mountneill is anearthen mound adjacent to the RiverSlaney. It is recorded as a ‘moatabower’on an early ordnance map, but is notrecorded in the Archaeological Inventoryof Co Carlow (OPW). From the nearbyroad the observer sees a large grassgrown mound encircled by several ma-ture larch trees. (see Fig 1).

However, when viewed from across theriver one is surprised to see a romanesqueentrance leading to a building within.(see Fig 2). Projecting from the entranceportal are the remains of a semicircularbrickwork canopy. The left quadrant hassince collapsed and lies on the grassnearby. The doorway and windows are ofchiselled granite. Strangely there is noevidence for door hangings.

The building within is circular: 4.77M(15’-6”) diameter and topped by a brick-work dome 3.7M (12’-0”), above a stoneflagged floor. On each side of the door-way are large niches in the wall of un-known purpose.The smaller niche is nowused as a den by badgers who havespread loose clay nearby. The floor isalso littered with animal bones and sev-eral sheeps’ skulls. The building is dryand cool within.

The whole scene reminds one of an Indi-ana Jones movie, without the snakes orgiant spiders etc!

So what is the building for? Who built itand when?

The authors’ view is that it is a folly andwas once attached to a big house nearby,probably Mountneill House. Folly build-ing was in fashion during the 18th c inIreland. Our best date estimate for itsconstruction is the 18th c or very early

19th c. Most likely builder was;

1 Edward August Stratford who is saidhad a strong interest in architecture andurban development which manifesteditself not only in follies and obelisks... MrStratford married into the O’Neill family,the landowners of the time.

Historian, Paul Gorry; thinks the struc-ture served as an ice house for Mount-neill House. Ice houses were a feature ofmost big houses up to the invention offreezers. The ice was harvested in winter

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A Carlow FollyJ. M. FeeleyE. A. Moore

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A Carlow Folly Joe Feeley Eamonn Moore collected_Layout 1 28/10/2015 18:48 Page 1

from the river nearby and stored therein.Normally ice houses are of simple shapeand mostly underground. This particularexample is very elaborate for the pur-pose. It quite resembles in particular theFox’s Earth and the Feuillé at LarchhillArcadian Gardens in Co Kildare. Weagree that the structure served MountneillHouse but is rather distant from thehouse, (which burned down in 1806 andshown on early ordnance map as ‘inruins’). Our view is that an earlier bighouse was once located in the same fieldas the mound itself.

Neighbouring counties; Kildare,Wicklowand Dublin have many well known fol-lies. Is this the only example forCo Carlow?

Further Reading;

1 Alborough House Dublin; a construc-tion history by Aidan O’BoyleIrish Architectural and decorative Stud-ies. Vol IV, 20012 Wikipedia; Ice House (building).3. Storage,Preservation & Icehouses(Laois Education Centre).

4. Technology & the Big House in Ire-land c1800-1930. Charles John ThomasCarson.5. Moatabower. Short (Mp4) Movie.http://glasnost.itcarlow.ie/~feeleyjm/ar-chaeology/moatabower.mp4

Sincere thanks to historians; Paul Gorry & Richard.Lennon

Surveyed by; Eamonn Moore, John Kin-sella, & Gabriel Healy.

A Carlow Folly

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A forgotten Carlow landmark,

the Sugar Factory Chimney.

Courtesy: Michael Keenan

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A Carlow Folly Joe Feeley Eamonn Moore collected_Layout 1 28/10/2015 18:48 Page 2

Just a small bit of history to set the scene.

In 1772 the Grand Canal Company was

to build the Grand Canal of Ireland, after

a lot of problems it reached Lowtown, in

Co Kildare. This being junction for the

Shannon and Barrow lines, as there was

trading being carried out on the Barrow

by small boats already it was decided to

build to the Barrow as this would show a

profit quicker. In 1791 the Canal reached

Athy, and at the Lock below entered the

River Barrow. Boats could then carry all

manner of cargo between Dublin and

Waterford, the Boats were drawn at first

by Horses walking along the Tow Path.

In places along the River where the water

was not deep enough for Boats to travel,

short Canals were dug, you will see them

usually going to Locks along the system.

The Locks are built to cope with rising or

falling ground, on the Barrow all Locks

are lower as you go towards St. Mullins,

from there on to New Ross and Water-

ford the river is tidal. So Boats have to

go out with the Falling Tide and come

back with the rising tide. The Scenery as

you go down the Barrow is Beautiful, a

little piece of Heaven

The Stables were on the area which is

now the Town Park, Michael Mealia was

in charge of the them and his son was as-

sistant stable man and another son was

store man in 1901. The Melia family

lived in Bachelors Walk, close to the

stables in Graigue. (The name

Graiguecullen was much later)

The Boatmen of that era, and there was a

lot of them in this Parish then, were

Dennis Fitzpatrick, Daniel Butler, Patrick

Hogan, Terence Hoare, James Neill, John

Hennessy, Michael Hennessy, Martin

Fennell, Edward Haughney, Michael

Haughney, Thomas Hoare, James

Memories of life on the Barrow/Grand canal

Carloviana 2016

Memories of Life on the

Barrow / Grand CanalMary Hoare

This Boat a Horse Boat was owned by Martin Fennell, who was a native ofCarlow and has many relatives still living in Carlow, as you can see she has a bigload of timber on board. This Boat was called a Long Tailed Barrow Boat, the Tillerwhich Martin is holding, as is the Rudder are made of wood and are used to guidethe boat as the Horse pulls it.

Tommy and Jack Anderson comingdown the canal on the 73M

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Dobbyns, Patrick Farrell, John Farrell,

John Meaney, James Byrne, Michael

Callinan, John Keating, Dennis

Haughney, Thomas Begley, John Farrell,

Thomas Moore, Patrick Haughney,

Francis Tobin, William Hoare, Patrick

Hoare, John Fennell. Some of the Boat

owners from this area I remember from

later times than the above

The boatmen of that era, and there was a

lot of them in this parish then, were Denis

Fitzpatrick, Daniel Butler, Patrick

Hohan, Terence Hoare, James Neill,John

Hennessy, Martin Fennell, Edward

Haughney, Michael Haughney, Thomas

Hoare, James Dobbyns, Patrick Farrell,

John Farrell, John Meaney, James Byrne,

Michael Callinan, John Keating, Denis

Haughney, Thomas Begley, John Farrell,

Thomas Moore, Patrick Haughney,

Francis Tobin, William Hoare. Patrick

Hoare, John Fennell, Some of the boat

owners from this area I remember from

later times than the above list are Jack,

Eddie and thomas Moore, They had 54B

(the letter B after the after the number on

the boat means she was privately owned

and paid tolls to the Grand Canal Com-

pany, they were also known as Hack

Boats) Bill O'Neill had 120 B, Mick

Fennell 107 B. They are just some in

remember there were also a lot of people

who would have worked drawing sugar

beet to the factory. Several Boatmen

from other areas found wives in

Graiguecullen, Tom Bolger from

Graignamanagh married Katie O'Brien.

Matt Duggan from Allenwood, Co.

Kildare, married Clare Walsh from Sleaty

Road, their oldest son Pete, whom a lot

of people would know from Knockbeg,

boated with his Dad for a short time.,

Tommie Anderson also from Allenwood

also married down here, and his son Jack

boated for a while before going to

America, where he joined the Army and

become a Paratrooper, Jack saw service

in all the hot spots of the world, that

America was involved in his time. All of

those people still have family here

in Graiguecullen

The letter after the number on the Boats

are M meaning the Boat has an engine as

opposed to Horse drawn Boats," M' for

Motor. `B 'is Bye trader or Hack boat

privately or owned by a company and

paying a toll to the Grand Canal

Company. 'E' engineering boat doing

repairs to Locks, River Banks, Weirs

along the navigation system.

My own family were Boatmen for five or

more generations, my great, great Grand-

father George Hoare his son William was

my great Grandfather, his son again my

Grandfather Patrick my Father Michael

and all of their brothers and nephews and

cousins, so now you know where my

interest in boats comes from. 1 was also

born and reared at a Lock and remember

a lot of Boats and Boatmen. They were

and still the salt of the Earth,

Gentlemen all

Next time you visit the Town Park go to

the Foot Bridge on the Park side of the

River, you will see just beside the bridge

an inlet with stone walls coming in from

the Barrow, this is the Dry- Dock where

Boats were brought in to be repaired, it

would have had Gates like the Lock

Gates, with racks to let water in or out.

Boats needing repairs were sailed in the


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View from the Canal Store in 1908. Note the horse drawn barges, stabel onthe far side (now the Towmn Park) and the Church steeple on the AthyRoadwhich was removed stone by stone and reerected in Graiguecullen.

34B in Sallins Co. Killdare on her way back to base after delivering a loadto Dublin

69

water let out, the boat was sitting on

blocks, ready to be repaired. I know of at

least one Boat 11B which was built there.

Tom Moore sen. brought a Shipwright

from Wexford to build her. She was later

exchanged with the Barrow Mill

Company for 348.

Jack Moore is sitting to the front of her.

This was his Fathers Boat then passed to

Mary Moore nee Hoare on the death of

her husband, and later to Jack. If you

look at the writing at the back of the boat

you will see M MOORE and a

Shamrock. Jack and his brothers Eddie

and Tommie worked this Boat together

for years, and Jack kept her tied up in the

Barrow for a long time and went over to

her every day and sat on her before he

finally parted with her.

The Boat on the opposite page belonged

to Mick Fennell of Sleaty Road, as you

can see the Mill had been closed and was

just reopening; left to right (1) Tom King,

Deckhand and Cook, he worked all his

life with Mick Fennell's Father on the

Barrow and Canal (2) unknown (3) Jack

Flynn, Canal Agent (4) unknown (5)

Frank Mealia, Store man in the Canal

Stores (6) Tommie Anderson, Engineman

(7) Mick Fennell, Skipper and Owner of

107B

The Boats carried all manner of Cargo,

from wheat as seen here sugar beet to the

Sugar Factory and the finished product

from there all over the Country, Coal,

Guinness to name but a few items. They

were the heavy goods vehicles of their

time, the hold of a Boat held 50 ton. (Not

tonne) From stem to stern they measured

60feet, and 13feet across. There was a

small cabin in the front about 12 feet by

12 feet with 3 beds that were tied up

against the side during the day to leave a

bench to sit on, not that the men had a lot

of time for sitting around, and a stove in

the stem for heating and cooking.

The old Canal Stores where the Boats

loaded and unloaded is now the Boat

Club and is a very attractive building;

Jack Flynn was the last Canal Agent

there. I believe he had a very grand title

" Agent of the Grand Canal Company,

Superintendent of the Barrow Navigation

and Collector of Tolls"

Boats approaching the Canal Stores from

Dublin always turned and berthed with

their bows facing up the River. The

prevailing flow of the River meant that

the boats coming down the River would

be travelling quite fast even on reduced

engine power. As the boat drew level

with the Canal Store the Skipper would

put the tiller hard to the right. For many

years the Barrow opposite the Canal was

divided into 2 channels by a long island.

Bystanders watching canal boats turning

would gasp with shock as the blunt round

prow of the boat struck the island causing

the vessel to stop dead in its tracks and

then the southerly flow of the river would

catch the boat now immobile across the

channel and the boat would swing right

around to face up river, a quick juggling

of the throttle control and the tiller again

hard over and the canal boat glided over

to tie up. Yes those boatmen were

extremely skilled in control of those

seemingly awkward and hard to manage

canal boats.


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John Hoare, my uncle and his son, Pat

First boat load of wheat delivered to the reopened BarrowMilling Company in february 11935. Similar baots wereoperated by the Grand Canal Company until 1960. In theearly part of the 20th century boats were converted fromhorse drawn to being powered by diesel engine.

Courtesy: Carlow County Museum. Donated by W. L. Duggan, ccm74-286.

70

This is the wheel of the tug Paddy

McGrath was not a member of that crew

but I think the photo is worth seeing; the

crew of her were Mickie Connolly.

Skipper, Matt Duggan. Engine man and

Tim Connolly, Deck man, I also remem-

ber Paddy Connell as a member of that

crew earlier.

Next to the Lock Keepers; The locks

nearest to Carlow are at Bestfield, on the

census of 1901 the Lock Keeper was

William Hickson, a later lock keeper was

named Barron, at Carlow the lock keeper

was Michael Webster in fact 2 or 3

generations of Websters minded that

lock, must people will recognise Mikie's

photo above. In fact there were 3 locks

looked after by Webster families at

Ardreigh near Athy and at St. Mullins

Co. Carlow. At Clogrennan the Lock

keeper was John Lanigan, the lock

keepers were responsible for looking

after the River banks and drains in their

area as well as the locks.

A Boat that must be remembered is 6 M

the Barrow Tug she was the boat that was

used to bring the other boats up the

Barrow in the high water. Here is a photo

of boats, fully loaded being pulled

against the floods, 5 or 6 boats roped

together behind the tug. There are 4

locks between Carlow and the Barrow

lock in Athy, at each lock the tug would

come up to the lockpull over untie the

boat behind go through the lock, pull in

put the next boat through the lock and

continue this until all the boats were

through, as only 1 boat would fit in the

lock at a time this had to be done at each

lock. When they got through the Barrow

Lock they were on the Canal and tug

would go back to Carlow and do the

same again until the floods subsided. The

tug had a very strong engine.


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The Tug boat at work

Bill Dobson, Storeman Daigean, Co. Offaly; Matt Duggan, Mickie Connolly, Graiguenamanagh and Tommy Anderson

Paddy McGrath

The old canal stores in 1940s

Paddy Gill

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Introduction

The Tudor period is the point in timewhere sufficient records survive toprovide a coherent narrative of thepivotal place of Carlow in the strugglefor control of Ireland between theGaelic Irish, the Old English and theNew English planters. In this contextRobert Hartpole is a key figure and hehas left significant evidence of his life inarchives, physical artefacts and socialmemory. His life provides a uniqueinsight into the rise in social status andrank of a colonial soldier/settler and theestablishment of an interesting and ofteneccentric Anglo Irish dynasty.

Robert Hartpole’s1 service in variousState posts held in County Carlowestablished his reputation and saw himgain honours and rewards which enabledhim to become a major landowner andpolitical figure in both Carlow andLaois2. He continued his associationwith Carlow to the end of his life whenhe was buried in the Parish Church of StMary’s in October 1594.

This period saw Gaelic Irish clansengaged in a terminal struggle forcultural and political survival. The Irishposition was weakened by territorial andclan rivalry with the result that no realunity existed on the Irish side. Loyaltiesoften changed and ‘in those disturbedtimes, the Irish chiefs opposed to eachother often took different sides, accordingas interest or passion dictated’ .3

To quell the ongoing unrest a policy of‘Surrender and Regrant’ meant toassimilate the Gaelic Irish by establishingtheir leaders as an English style gentrywas introduced. When this policy failedthe concept of plantation took shape. Thisaimed at introducing English language,law and culture through the ‘planting’ ofEnglish settlers on Gaelic Irish lands. Asimilar policy had previously beenproposed in February 1537 when LordDeputy Grey and the Privy Council ofIreland suggested to Henry VIII thatsubstantial farmers should be encouragedto 'inhabitie the countrie' and describes'the bridge of Leghlen' as 'a good placeto buylde a towne, there is a house ofFriars there which will helpe well to thatpurpose. Lett another party of them beassigned to Carlaugh being walledalready, another company to Castleder-mot which is alsoo walled already'.4 In1556 the Tudor Administration acteddecisively to subdue the rebellious GaelicIrish to the west of Carlow and the Plan-tation of Laois and Offaly was estab-lished ‘whereby the King and Queen'sMajesties, and the Heires and Successorsof the Queen, be entituled to the Countiesof Leix, Slewmarge, Irry, Glinmaliry, andOffaily, and for making the sameCountries Shire Grounds.’5 The ensuingopposition to this strategy ensured thatCarlow town remained on the front lineand constantly under threat of attackfrom both its eastern and western flanks.Bunbury writes that at this time the 'Eng-lish “Counties” were plunged in a stateof perpetual war with native tribesmenemploying the time honored guerilla tac-

tics to systematically eliminate the hard-nosed English soldiers posted to defendthe planter families’.6 One of thesehard-nosed Englishmen was a youngman from Canterbury in the County ofKent and his name comes down throughhistory as Robert Hartpole.

Origins

Writing in his memoirs, Sir Henry Sidneypraises the ‘service of a faithful country-man of mine, a Kentishman, I meanRobert Harpool, an inveterate soldier ofthat country’.7 The Hartpole familypedigree8 begins seven generationsbefore Robert with William Hartelepole,who on 10th October 1330 is mentionedin a Charter of King Edward III. Thepedigree describes the ‘Harpoles ofEngland’ as of ‘very worthy and of longcontinuance’. His father John is recordedin the family pedigree as having ‘lived inthe city of Canterbury’. The records ofthe Irish branch of the family were main-tained and it is possible to trace the maleline from William Hartelepole to theunfortunate George Hartpole of Shrule,who died after a sad and unlucky life in1795, a period of over 450 years.

In his memoir 'Personal Sketches of HisOwn Times', Sir Jonah Barringtondescribes the character of the Hartpolesas 'the hardest livers in the county'.9 Hemakes reference to the legendary familycurse (or 'doom') which was supposed tohaunt the family and he claims that the'fathers seldom survive the attainment ofthe age of twenty three years by their

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Robert Hartpole

Constable of Carlow

Life and afterlife: a 500 year saga

John Kelly

72

Robert Harpole Jims_Layout 1 28/10/2015 19:09 Page 1

elder sons, which circumstances gaverise to numerous traditionary tales ofsprites and warnings'. Barrington attrib-utes this a fondness for alcohol and statesthe Hartpoles 'will never be found asturdy race'. In her book, ‘Ancientlegends, mystic charms, and superstitionsof Ireland’, Lady Wilde attributes theorigin of this family curse to the execu-tion of a priest named O’Moore by aRichard Hartpole.10 Before he was killedthe priest is said to have let out threescreams and laid down the curse that ‘Soshall you scream, and all yourdescendants in your last agony, as a signof the doom upon your race. You havemurdered my people, you are now goingto take my life ; but I lay the curse of Godon you and yours — your property shallpass away; your race shall perish off theearth ; and by the three death screechesall men shall know that you and yourposterity are accursed.’While this storyis almost certainly apocryphal, it reflectsa reputation for cruelty and severitywhich endured long after Hartpole’sdeath in 1594 and was still strong enoughto result in a severe attack of vandalismon his tomb when it was rediscoveredin 1809.

Early Life

Using surviving information it is possibleto make some reasonable deductions inrelation to Hartpole’s early life. Theinscription on his tomb states that at hisdeath in 1594 he was 'septagenariomaoir'. This has been interpreted asmeaning more than a septuagenarian (i.e.over 80).11 This was a major achievementfor a man whose role was central to theviolent times he lived through and giveshis year of birth as approximately 1514.

A reference in the State Papers forDecember 1567 to ‘Robert Harpoole, asoldier for 18 years in Ireland’ 12 allowshis arrival in Ireland to be dated to 1549when he was about 35 years old. He wasaccompanied (or later joined) by two ofhis brothers; Walter and Thomas. Walterwas appointed Dean of Leighlin in 1588and died in 1596. Thomas, described onhis tomb as 'of Catherlagh' and 'an officerin the army' died sometime after 1596.Both are buried in Ballyadams Church inLaois and their grave slab has the follow-ing inscription (parts of which are stillreadable) around its edge.

'HEARE LYETH VNDER THISSTONE, TOO BRETHEREN ALL INONE, BRITTIANES BORN, HART-POOLES BY NACION, HEARE LIV-ING GOTT GREAT COMENDACION,VALIANT THOMAS WITH HISSWORD, VIRTVOVS WALTER BYTHE WRITTEN WORD'

The first official mention of Hartpole inIreland is on the 31st of December, 1556when he is identified as a suitable settlerfor lands in Laois in the Act of QueenMary. His reputation as a reliable soldierappears well established at this point andboth he and Nicholas Malby are referredto ‘Malbie and Harpoole, two gentlementhat can serve, and the one that hadcharge’.13 At this time he was resident inLeighlin, where he held the post ofDeputy Constable14 and is described as‘Robert Hartpole of Leighlin (CountyCarlow), gentleman and soldier’.15 LordDeputy Edward Bellingham had walleda suppressed monastery and establisheda fort at Leighlin in 1549 as part of hiscampaign against the O’Moores andO’Connors.16 If Hartpole was part ofBellingham’s force this may account forHartpole’s early connection withLeighlin and his official duties there. Heremained associated with that part ofCarlow and in 1567 is listed in a pardonas ‘Robert Hrpoole, of Ballibar'.17

Ryan describes Hartpole as a 'strict,vigilant and active officer' and that hewas 'recommended to the Queen (Eliza-beth) by the Lord Downy of the daye invery flattering terms, which probablyprocured him the honour of knighthoodwhich he afterwards enjoyed'.18 He isalso referred to as Sir Robert Harpole bya number of other authors includingLodge,19 but none give any supportingdetail. Hartpole is not referred anywhere

in the extant records of the period as ‘Sir’and neither his effigy nor his Will makereference to such an honour and hissupposed ennoblement may result fromconfusion with his grandson Sir RobertHartpole. Hartpole had noble ancestry;the family pedigree records that hisgrandfather John was married to Joane

Littlebery, a descendant ofSir Humphrey Littlebery ofLincolnshire. He was wellrespected and after hisdeath the Lord Chancellor(recommending his sonWilliam for the post ofConstable of Carlow)refers to ‘his father's longand faithful service’.20 Sowhile he had a prosperouscareer in the service of theState and died a wealthyman, it is likely that Hart-pole still retained some of

the rough traits of a soldier and it maytherefore have fallen to the secondgeneration of the family in Ireland toattain the honour of Knighthood whenhis son, and successor as Constable,William was knighted on ‘2 daye ofOctober 1603’21 by Sir George Carey,Lord Deputy of Ireland.

A man of property

The selection of Hartpole to participate inQueen Mary’s plantation of Laois andOffaly marked the beginning of a relent-less campaign of land acquisition in bothCarlow and Laois which establishedHartpole as major landowner in bothcounties and ensured that he became a richand influential man.

In 1563 he was granted ‘the lands ofBallyrahene, Rossenalgan, Garroughe,Dormoyle and Cappoyle, in the lordshipof Slewmarge, Queen’s co’.22 As part ofthe conditions of the grant he was tomaintain one English horseman. In thefollowing year 1664, he received 'an oldcastle in Colvanacre, alias Coolbana-hore, in the Queens County, and thelands of Colvanacre, Ballinabeg andSheanbeg, containing 200 acres of thecounty measyre known as 'Irry acres;'and also Ballimolroney, together with aparcel of land there of called Ballinas-traghe'.23 On this occasion, perhapsreflecting the size of the grant, he wasrequired to maintain six English horse-

Robert Hartpole Constable of Carlow

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Walter and Thomas Hartpole’s Grave, Ballyadams,Co Laois

John Kelly, 2015

73


men in the service of the Crown ‘and oftheir attending all hostings and risingsout when summoned and of their givinga plough-day on their lands whensoeverit should be required by the Constable ofthe Castle of Maryborough’.24

In 1565 Hartpole expanded his intereststo the Carlow side of the Barrow and onthe 13th of October 1565 he and HenryDavells are recorded as having leasedlands at ‘Ballevare, Clonmolskye,Kirrikegroghan, Chapelstown andPowerstown, co Carlow, and the customsof the tenants, possessions of the latemonastery of Baltinglass, co. Carlow’25for 21 years. In accordance with thepolicy of promoting English settlementthey were instructed not to let land to anytenant who was not ‘English by bothparents’. They were also not permitted to‘levy coyn or other extractions’. On the27th of June 1568 Hartpole continued theexpansion of his property with theacquisition of ‘lands, and half a wood, inKynnaughe, and half of Tomegroghe,county Carlow,' which were seized fromthe attainted rebel Gerard McDonnoghemoyne Cavenaghe.26

Monksgrange

His acquisitions in Laois continued apaceand on the 24th of October of 1569 hewas granted ‘the advowson of the rectoryand vicarage of S. Fenton of Clowne-naghe, Queen’s co’.27 Five years later, inAugust 1574, he was granted ‘the grangeof Kilmagobock alias the MounkesGrange, with its tithes, Queen's co. ToHold for ever, by the service of atwentieth part of a knights fee’.

Monksgrange castle was a tower houselocated approximately a mile from theHartpole seat at Shrule. Local legend hasit that this was built for his wife Grainnewho would not sleep under the same roofas Robert when she discovered that hehad fathered a child by a serving maid(who the legend claims he subsequentlykilled). The tower had a stone above thedoor inscribed with the year ‘1588’ andthe initials ‘RH’, which may have datedthe structure. An Austin Cooper sketchdated 1782 shows the building in poorcondition and roofless. The remains ofthis castle may have been subsequentlyincorporated into a house on the site.

Shrule

In 1576 Hartpole wasgranted the 523 acres of theManor of Shrule in Slieve-margy. Associated with theHartpole family for the restof their existence, theShrule estate was formerlyin the possession of JohnBarre until his death allowed its transferto Hartpole.28 On the 24th of May‘Daniel, bishop of Laghlen, RogerManeringe, esq., queen's remember-ancer, Robert Bice, of Dublin, andRichard Gos, of Catherlagh, gent’accepted the surrender of lands from‘William Portas, of Blackord, Queen’sco., Robert Harpoll, of Colbanahore,Thomas Myrrick, of Clonrigh, JohnBarre, of Shrowle, and Lishagh McConor, of Ballahide’. Hartpole wasregranted his property on the 2nd ofAugust and his expanded holdings nowincluded ‘the manor of Blackforde, acastle in Moniferick, Rathmadock aliasthe Blackforde, Kilteighan, Garrans,Kilgessin, Ballekilkavan, Dromlin aliasKilliclery, Inche alias Ballicowley, andBavon an old castle in Colvanacre aliasColbanahore, the lands of Colvanacrealias Colbanahore, Ballarighan, Kill-genne, Ballenbeg, Shanebeg, Ballemol-rone, and Ballenestraghe, the lands ofShrowle, Ballyhormer, Ballecollin, Rath-duf, Garribriken, Aghatenan, andCappescribedor, in the lordship ofSlemarge, a ruinous castle and land inClonrere29 alias Merrickstown, lands inCultwerin, Killclonhoberd, Ballekilka-raghe, Knockandiere, Rathnemanaghe,and Knockanbroghe, Rossleachanbege,

and Rosseleaghanmore, thelands of Killehide, Ballehide,Garrenroe, Ballinecard, Far-rinduf, Rossemore, andBallin’-Kegane, in the lord-ship of Slemarge, the lands ofBallirahen, Rossenalgan,Garroughe, Dromoile, andCappoile, or Cappahoile, inthe same lordship; theadvowson of the rectory andvicarage of S. Fenton, ofClowenenaghe, diocese ofLeighlen, all in Queen’s co.to hold forever, by the serviceof a fourth part of a knightsfee; rent £26 1s. 6d’.30 Inkeeping with his obligation

of service Hartpole was required to main-tain six English horsemen as part of theterms of grant.

Shrule Castle, the ancestral seat of theHartpole family, stands on the Laois bankof the River Barrow near the point wherethe River Lerr enters the Barrow. Locatedat the confluence of the counties ofCarlow, Laois and Kildare and at a tradi-tional fording point of the Barrow itoccupies a strategic position. Dating thestructure is difficult but it certainlyexisted by 1576 as an inscription on thefireplace of the stateroom on the firstfloor reads:

1576 ROBART HARPOLGRAIN HARPOLDONAGH O'LALOR


Carloviana 2016

Austin Cooper Sketch Monksgrange Castle 1782Pic: The National Library of Ireland

Stone from Monksgrange CastleJournal Kildare Archaeological Society

Shrule CastlePic: John Kelly, June 2015

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Standing four storeys high, Shrule Castleis a classic example of an Elizabethantower house and contains features typicalto such structures of that period.31 Theseinclude stairs within the walls to theupper floors; a ground floor entranceprotected by a murder hole; stone vaultedroofs on the chambers of the ground floorwhich also form the floor of the first floorstateroom; the other floors beingconstructed of timber and the roofsurrounded by a parapet with defensivecastellations. Interestingly there is also acarving of a Tudor style Rose on a lintelwhich is now part of an adjoining wallbut which may have been part of thestructure at some stage.

The dimensions of the structure are 12 by11 metres and it is 14 metres high. Theupper floors and roof are gone but stairs,walkways and the parapet remain. Thecastellation was removed at a date in the17th century when the castle was con-verted into a more comfortable residence.This was probably done by Sir RobertHartpole, grandson of the original Robertand who died at the battle of Drogheda in1649. He was married to Catherine(Katherine) Lutterell and a plaquelocated on the outside of the castle dated1640 may date the renovation.

Thanks to the great care and affection ofthe present owners, Trevor and WendyFennell, Shrule Castle is now in goodcondition and it has been spared the fateof Hartpole’s other castle at Cool-banagher and will continue to stand as animportant monument for many yearsto come.

The Constableship of Carlow Castle

The return of Sir Henry Sidney to Irelandin 1568 saw the launch of a sustainedcampaign by the Lord Deputy to pacifyand settle Ireland. This provoked a num-

ber of rebellions involving both the OldEnglish and the Gaelic Irish and resultedin an increased military presence and thestrengthening of centers of control (suchas Carlow) to enable a quick response torebel activity in their localities.

Extreme measures were taken by all sidesin engagements. In May 1564 a protec-tive pardon was granted to Hartpole andothers (such as Davells and Cosby) for‘services against the Irish rebels, and inthe execution of martial law, duringwhich they may have offended withoutmalice, against the rigour of the laws’ 32In 1566 a general commission granted toexecute martial law included RobertHartpole for Carlow.33 These pardons andcommissions gave their holders wideranging punitive powers, including sum-mary execution, and were a key tool usedby the Tudor administration to supresslocal resistance.

By 1567 Hartpole’s military abilitiesappear to have caught the notice ofSidney and he wrote to the Queen recom-mending Hartpole’s confirmation to thepost of Constable of Carlow Castle,which he had temporarily been assignedto Hartpole following the death of theprevious Constable, Francis Randolph.Sidney writes; ‘Robert Harpoole whowas Constable, by our Deputy, of theCastle of Carlo, shall have the determi-nation of the lease made thereof toEdward Randolph,34 the same Constable-ship, with the lands thereunto belonging;and in the meantime, he shall have thepension which he enjoyed before he wasappointed Constable, and also a grant ofthe Constableship of the said castle, andof the land therewith occupied’.35 TheQueen appeared to want more informa-tion on the character of Hartpole andresponded on the of 22nd of July that she‘will not give Robert Harpoole a lease inreversion for the castle of Carlow, butwill hear the matter on Sidney'scoming over’.36

Sidney again set out the case for Hartpolein a letter seeking the support of SirWilliam Cecil, chief advisor to the Queenand dated the 17th of August; ‘Thebearer, Robert Harpoole, is the man towhom Sidney has given custody ofprisoners in the castle of Carlow, on thedeath of Francis Randolph. He hasrequested a lease in reversion of the

castle and lands, now in the possessionof Randolph's wife, by a lease for term ofyears yet to come. A good soldier, hedeserves the same’.37 The letter refers toHartpole as bearer and it’s possible thathe travelled to London to pursue hiscase directly.

On the 17th of September the StatePapers record ‘Grant to RobertHarpoole, gent,; of the office of constableof the castle of Catherlaughe’.38 Thisentry is most likely a reminder that hisclaim remained to be decided because inDecember of that year both Hartpole andLangham had suits before the Queenregarding the Constableship of Carlow.39

The issue seemed to be decided inLangham’s favour on the 20th of April1568 when Queen’s instructions to LordDeputy stated ‘Edmund Langham to havecustody of the castle of Carlow withallowance as constable with reservationof rent as in the lease. Robert Harpoolewas appointed constable by the lorddeputy and after expiry of the lease heshall be constable there and have the oc-cupation of the said lands upon reserva-tion of the like rent during pleasure’.40

Sidney either did not receive the Queen’sdecision regarding Langham or chose toignore it because he appointed Hartpoleto lead the Ward of Carlow in September156741 and in an entry dated the 20th ofApril 1568 titled ‘suits for lands inIreland’42 he records that ‘RobertHarpoole sues for the same thing asLangham and is the most sufficient manfor the service’. By June Sidney finallyhad his way and he writes ‘Harpoole tohave his office’.43

A report dated the 31st of March 1572confirms that Langham was dischargedas Constable on the 29th of September1569 and later left for England. It states’Edward Langham entered 16 May 1565and was likewise one of the said numberpaid in England and yet continued in payuntil 20 March 1568 and then beingappointed constable of Carlow wasdischarged of his pension and being afterdischarged again from the ward on 29September 1569 then was entered into hispension again and continued until hisgoing into England by passport sincewhich time he remains checked’.44


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Plaque, Shrule CastleJohn Kelly, June 2015

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In April 1570 the State Papers recordthat‘Robert Harpoole to have Carlow forlife’ 45 and Hartpole’s formal appointmentas Constable of Carlow is definitivelyentered on the record on the 26th ofOctober 1570. The grant reads; ‘toRobert Harpoole, gent.; of the manor ofCatherlaghe, and old strong castle withfour towers on the east side of theBarowe, one tower on the other side, thefishing of the Barrowe, the demesnelands in Barneglasse on the other side ofthe Barrowe, Ardconeryan, Rathmore,Coranmore, Farrancloigh, Heloighe,Monesnekyll, Skeamragh and Rathwvll,Corranbegge, Burlooe on this side of theBarrowe, Knockanecroghe, theErlesmodowe and a water mill there, onthe demesne lands of the manor,messauges, and the land in the town ofCatherlaghe, and the customs of thetenants, lands of Mortelliston, parcel ofthe manor, half of Dowganstown, Ballen-raghe, Ahate, Kyllenore, the customs ofthe tenants of Douganston, Paynston,Johnston and Pollardeston, and theprerequisites of the court of the manor.To hold for 21 years, at a rent of £23 3s.1d. Lessee or his assign to reside in thecastle, and not to assign without license.As many of the tenants of the houses inCatherlaghe as the lord deputy shallappoint to keep bedding and stabling fortravellers. The castle and stable reservedfor the use of the lord deputy whenrequired, lessee providing 100 loads ofhay, at 2s. sterling a load, 200 pecks ofoats, at 16 d., 24 loads of wheat straw, at12 d. And 100 loads of wood, at 12 d. Forhis use. Not to charge coyn’.46 Thisposition added considerably to Hartpole’sland holdings and influence. He retainedthis prestigious position until his death,following which both his son and grand-son held it successively.

The rebellion of Sir Edward Butler47

Among the instances of organisedopposition to Sidney’s Irish policies inthis period, the rebellion of Sir EdmundButler in 1569 is of particular interestfrom a Carlow perspective. Primarily adispute about land title, it also formedpart of the rebellion of the Earl ofDesmond against the policies of theTudor government. Sir Edmund, secondson of James Butler, Earl of Ormond,held the Dullogh (the western part of theBarony of Idrone) with his seat at

Clogrennane Castle. His father hadbought these lands from the Kavanaghs,who had held them without challengesince before the Norman Conquest. Thischanged in 1568 when Sir Peter Carew,a native of Devon, travelled to Ireland topursue claims to Irish lands (includingthe Dullogh) which he believed were hisinheritance through an ancestor’s posses-sion of the title ‘Lord of Idrone’ whichhad been granted to the Carew family bya descendant of Strongbow.

Carew’s claims were supported bySidney, as they would assist his settle-ment policy and reduce the holdings andinfluence of the Ormond family. In 1568Carew’s case came before the LordDeputy and Privy Council and was de-cided in his favour. This was a legallyquestionable departure from the normalprocess where such cases were heard bythe Courts. Carew took legal possessionof the Barony and was shortly afterwardsalso appointed as Constable of Leighlin.In response Butler and his brothers, Piersand Edward, rose in rebellion.

The rebellion had heated up on the 22ndof June 1569 and Edward Langhamwrote to the Lord Deputy warning him ofrumours that the Queen and the Earl ofOrmond had been killed and that this wasthe reason why Sir Edmund Butler wasin rebellion. He also warned ‘they givegreat threatenings to this poor town,which Langham will to the uttermostdefend’.48 Guided by Caher KedaghO'Moore, the Butlers raided plantertowns in Laois on the 29th of June. Inresponse Sidney ordered Carew to takethe lands of the Dullogh and the Butlercastle at Clogrennane. Following aninitial refusal by the garrison to surren-der, Carew misled the Chief Warder bysaying the Lord Deputy was present andthat safe conduct was guaranteed to thegarrison.49 He then took the Castle and‘all in it, men, women, and children, wereput to the sword’.50

The garrison at Carlow prepared todefend itself from imminent attack.Viscount Baltinglass - Roland Eustace,(who was Butler’s father in law), JohnEustace and Hartpole wrote to the LordChancellor and Privy Council on the 12thof August 1569 warning that Piers Butlerwas on the borders of Carlow at theDullogh and Slievemargy. They stated

they had only 28 horsemen and 30 kerneagainst the Butlers’ 50 horsemen and 400footmen and that ‘Aid is needed quicklyfrom the counties of Dublin, Kildare andMeath’.51 The letter also informed theCouncil that Piers Butlers had attackedLeighlinbridge while Carew was absent.Leighlinbridge at this time was thesecond largest town in Carlow, with itsown Constable and garrison. Butler’sattack on the town resulted in the burningof 19 houses, killing 9 men and burningfour children.52

On the 18th of August Hartpole and hisassociates again wrote to the Privy Coun-cil that; ’Yesterday Edmund Butler madecamp within three miles of Carlow andburned Little Nowth in Co. Kildare. Heis now around Tullow which he also tookyesterday’. They stated they couldn’tdefend Carlow against him as theircompany was too small and their locallyraised kerne ‘have defected to the rebels,as have two of O’Byrne’s sons, GeraldOre and Edmund O’Byrne, and Cahirmac Callough along with divers others’.The situation was desperate and theywarned (with perhaps a hint of exagger-ation) ‘If they are not dealt with soon therebellion will approach Dublin’.53 Thecrisis was averted, however, when theEarl of Kildare arrived at Tullow in mid-August and drove the Butlers back overthe Barrow, relieving the situationin Carlow.

In response to the rebellion, ThomasButler, Earl of Ormond, a favourite of theQueen, returned to Ireland in August andimmediately set about bringing histroublesome brothers back in line. Therebellion, while sparked by Carew’s landclaims, was also part of a dispute withinthe Ormond lordship and ‘from the verystart the rebels had striven to destroyEarl Thomas’s power’.54 Accompaniedby senior local notables including Hart-pole, Ormond met his brothers outsideKilkenny on the 1st of September.Edmund complained ‘about the crueltieshe had suffered at the hands of LordDeputy Sidney and Sir Peter Carew, whowished not only to take his lands withoutany recourse to law, but to kill him aswell. They declared him a traitor, the onlyreason being that he had refused to cometo Sidney, who had made threats againstthe life and property’.55 He also wrote tothe Queen placing himself at her mercy.


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He was imprisoned by Sidney in DublinCastle for a short time but escaped. Helater surrendered under the Earl’s bond inFebruary 1570 and was formallypardoned in 1573. In September 1572Hartpole was among a number of gentle-men requested ‘to make enquiry of theancient bounds of the barony of odrone,co Carlow, the lawful inheritance of sirPeter Carewe, knt., and to certify to theChancery’.56 Nothing came of thisinquiry and Carew continued to holdIdrone in the name of the Queen until itwas eventually restored to Butler follow-ing his pardon.

The Carlow Garrison in the 1570s

The main threat to Carlow in the 1570scame from the activities of the Laoischieftain Rory Óg O’Moore. O’Moorehad been pardoned in the mid 1560s butfollowing the departure of Sidney fromIreland in March 1571 he again becameactive. In April it is recorded that ‘FeaghM'Hugh, son of the wily Hugh M'Shane,is joined with Rory Oge’57 and that theyhad done '1,000l' of damage on theborders of the Pale. In November Rory isrecorded as being ‘more peaceable’58 butby July 1572 he was again active andbeing pursued by the Earls of Kildare andOrmond.59 His activities continued untilthe return of Sidney in 1575 (who it ap-pears he feared as a much more danger-ous adversary than the Seneschal ofQueen’s County, Francis Cosby) and hewas again pardoned by Sidney on the 4thof June 1576. This pardon would not lastlong and would be followed by theviolent and fateful events in 1577and 1578.

A commission to implement Martial lawin Carlow was again issued to Hartpoleand Henry Davells (Constable of Leigh-lin) in March 1570.60 The garrison ofCarlow was significantly strengthened inresponse to the threat of O’Moore and onthe 1st of April 157161 the ward ofCarlow is recorded as having 18 men atarms. Interestingly the ward of Leighlinunder Davells had 32 men at this time.This reflects its strategic position andjurisdiction as far as New Ross, as wellas the ever present threat of theKavanaghs to the East and the O’Mooresto the West. On the 28th of SeptemberHartpole, now titled as ‘sheriff of Cather-logh’, and Davells were again commis-

sioned to ‘execute martial law in the co.Catherlogh; with power to search out,after the order of martial law, all disor-ders committed in the county, and onfinding any persons to be felons, rebels,enemies, or other notorious evil-doers, topunish them by death or otherwise, ob-serving however, in all points the instruc-tions of the lord justice’.62

Hartpole was particularly active in hisduties as Constable. In carrying out theseduties (and in common with otherofficers of the colonial administration) heexploited his position to increase hispersonal wealth. In 1571 a number ofindividuals from Forth O'Nolan (modernMyshall, Ballon & Kilbride), Clonegaland Rathvilly who had been subject toHartpole’s extractions made a formalcomplaint against him.63 Bagwelldescribes how Hartpole ‘sheriff ofCarlow and constable of the Castle, andhis sub-sheriff were accused upon oath ofhaving seized a vast number of cattle onall sorts of pretences, of forcing labour-ers to work, and in general of every sortof violence and corruption’ andconcludes that ‘No particular noticeseems to have been taken of the chargesagainst him’.64

On the 1st of January 1572 the Carlow andLeighlin garrisons again stood at 18 and32 men respectively. Hartpole is alsorecorded as a pensioner in service ‘besideshis ward at Carlow’.65 He had enteredservice as a pensioner on 26 May 1567 ‘bythe queen's special instruction to the lorddeputy and is ready to go to any place ofservice’.66 In March 1572 Hartpolereceived £191 4s and Davell’s, £85 19s inpayments for the year ending 20 March1572.67 By this time the threat fromO’Moore must have diminished and theCarlow garrison was reduced to 8 (losing6 horsemen and 4 footmen).68 Leighlinretained its strength of 32 men. In JuneCarlow remained at 8 (2 horsemen, 6 foot-men) .69 The strength of both garrisonsremained the same in November70 andagain in 1574, with the only change beingthat Sir Peter Carew assumed command atLeighlin from Davells.

In September 1573 the Lord Deputy andthe Privy Council ordered Hartpole andDavells to impose a cess of one third onOrmond’s lands for protection against theO’Moores and O’Connors. Cess was a

form a taxation and a major grievance. Itwas generally taken in the form of foodbecause in Ireland’s largely agriculturaleconomy money or other tradable itemsof value were rare. The Lord Deputy andthe Privy Council ordered ‘For the betterextirpation of the proclaimed rebels, theO'Connors and the O'Mores, whocontinue to annoy the queen's subjects inQueen's County and County Carlow, wehave ordered that 100 kern with 50 boysfor the next three months serve and be atthe order of Henry Davells, sheriff andRobert Harpoole and to be divided asyou think meet. Cess the kern and boysand receive and levy the entertainmentaccustomed for the same. Take distressfrom those who refuse to contribute andsell it if it is not redeemed within eightdays. A third part of the land in the ForthO'Nolan appertaining to the earl ofOrmond has been stayed from cess by anorder of the queen's letters. These landsare not part of the lands which the earlholds freed of antiquity and this serviceof defence, being a general servicewhereunto all such freed lands (of theearl's and others) ought to bear cess andcontribute to this charge. Therefore cessthe third part’.71 Hartpole’s continuedservice shows that any complaintsagainst his conduct brought to the atten-tion of the administration were nottreated seriously and he continued to bea central figure in local military andadministrative structures.

1577 and 1578: Rory Óg O’Moore andMullaghmast

1577 and 1578 were to be momentousyears in the life of Robert Hartpole andtheir events cemented the fate of both theGaelic Irish opposition and the future ofthe Tudor settlement in South Leinster.Rory Óg O’Moore, in alliance withConnor MacCormac, leader of theO’Connors, had recommenced hisrebellion in earnest following his failureto be re-instated to the Chieftaincy ofLeix. His claims were dismissed bySidney in his memoir as 'that aspiringeimagination of tytle to the countrie'.

In support of his claims to the chieftancyO'Moore attacked and burned Naas onthe 3rd of March 1577. His men ‘rannethorough the towne lyke hagges andfuries of hell, with flakes of fier fastnedon poles ends’.72 He appears to have been


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a bold and audacious leader, with a fear-some reputation. Unafraid to announcehis intention to attack; by day he led hismen with pipers and at night by lightedtorches. This must have had a devastatingpsychological impact on the determina-tion of his intended victims to resist. Hewas also clever and the attack on Naastook place at the end of a pattern daywhen the local men and troops of thegarrison would not be in a fit state todefend the town after the traditionalpattern celebrations.

Emboldened by this success and uppingthe ante in the hope of a favourablesettlement from Sidney he then attackeda number of towns, including Leighlin-bridge. He burned half the town andnearly took the castle, before Sir PeterCarew (a cousin of the original Sir Peter)leading a much smaller force managed tofend off the attack.

Later in 1577 O'Moore carried out adaring coup when he took CaptainHarrington and Alexander Cosby, son ofFrancis Cosby as prisoners. Sidneywriting in his memoir with a measure ofembarrassment at the naivety of the pairsays Harrington was persuaded by ‘someabout him, and his own credulity’ to meetO’Moore and discuss his submission andthis had led to his capture. Sidney openedransom negotiations to free the prisoners(who were being moved about thecountry in chains and no doubt exhibitedto the local Gaelic Irish as an example ofO’Moore’s bravery and skill as a warleader) but it is likely this was an attemptto buy time for Hartpole to locate theprisoners and rescue them. Hartpole wasthe ideal choice as both an experiencedsoldier and a local landowner familiarwith O’Moore’s territory. Hartpole’sefforts were successful and a disgruntledservant directed him to the hideout; ‘thehouse of a ranger situated in the heart ofa large wood at the north side ofCarlow’.73 Sidney describes O’Moore ashaving twenty six of his best men withhim as well as his Marshall, Shane macRory reagh. O'Moore’s and Mac Rory'swives were also present. Hartpole wasaccompanied by a Captain Furse, Lieu-tenant Parker and about 50 men.74

During the attack to free the prisoners afierce battle occurred and all ofO’Moore’s men, as well as his wife,

Margaret Maol O’Byrne (sister of FeachMacHugh O’Byrne) and possibly two ofO’Moore’s children were killed. MacRory’s wife was captured. Both O'Mooreand Mac Rory escaped by creeping'between the legs of the soldiers into fast-ness of the plashes of trees'. O’Moorehad a very close escape and Sydney in hismemoir claims that 'skirts of his shirtwere with an English sword cut from hisbare body'. However, it wasn’t only therebels who suffered casualties; Sidney’sman, John Parker, was killed in the heatof the battle and Sidney describes HenryHarrington as 'being tied in chains, andhim most shamefully hacked and hewedwith my nephew’s ownsword, to the effusion of sucha quantity of blood as wereincredible to behold. Hebrake his arm with that bluntsword and cut off the littlefinger of one of his hands,and in the sundry parts of hishead so wouned him, as Imyself in his dressing did seehis brains moving’.75 Har-rington was carried away toa safe place by Sydney’smen using their halberds andpikes as a stretcher and helater made a miraculous recovery fromhis wounds.

The outcome of the rescue was recordedon the 26th of November in a report bySidney to the Privy Council; ‘Harpollhas rescued Captain Harrington, Alexan-der Cosbye, and the other prisoners,killing all the rebels in the house wherethey were, save only Rory himself’.76

Enraged, O’Moore immediately attackedand burned Carlow. Bagwell says ‘He en-tered Carlow through one of manybreaches in the wall, and fired all thethatched houses’.77 Carlow’s wallsappeared to be in constant disrepairthroughout their existence. His attackwas unsuccessful and he only succeededin burning ‘some haggards of corn andhouses, after which he retired’. Whilewithdrawing he was attacked by Hartpoleat a ford in the Barrow where he lostsixteen or seventeen men.78 Despite thisO’Moore again had escaped and afrustrated Sidney decided it was time todeal decisively with O’Moore and‘appointed a general hosting to extirpRory Oge, the O'Conors and O'Mores,

who have cost the Crown of England200,000’. 79

The most famous and controversial eventof this short period of intense warfarewas the massacre of leaders of the Clansof Laois at the Rath of Mullaghmast,close to Crookstown in Co Kildare.80 Theevent most likely took place between theend of 1577 and March 1578.81

No direct reference to the event is identi-fiable in State Papers but number of Irishaccounts survive. In an account of themassacre quoted by Fitzgerald, a localsource states ‘those who were chiefly

concerned with this horrid murder werethe Deavils, the Grehams, The Cosbys,the Piggotts, the Bowens, the Hartpoles,the Hovendens and the Dempseys…Thelast four of them were at the time RomanCatholics’.82

The association of the New EnglishSettler families with the event has led tospeculation that it was a local actioncarried out by them to remove Irishopposition to the plantation. While thereis probably an element of truth to thisview, the prior delivery of hostages toSidney as a sign of good will by the Irishstrongly indicates the Lord Deputy had atleast prior knowledge of the event. Givenhis avowed determination to captureO’Moore, it is reasonable to assume hisassent and possible active participation inthe events about to unfold.

The leaders of the Laois Clans, led byMuircheartach O’Mordha, were invitedto Mullaghmast under protection todiscuss alliances. When the parley hadcommenced they were surrounded andslaughtered by an English force led byCosby. Sidney’s strongman Hartpole was


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From John Derricke's Image of Ireland, 1581.The decapitated head of the lady on the right is

reputedly O’Moore’s wife (Quinn, 2006)

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said to be 'responsible for the treacheryaforesaid in the fort of Mullamast’83 andapparently directed the carnage. In aninsertion to the account of the FourMasters Hartpole is reputed to have givenas an excuse for his actions that 'Morishad geven villanous wordes to the breachof his protection'.84 Accounts vary as tothe number of Gaelic Irish killed but itwould appear to be between 60 and 70.85Hartpole’s ruthless determination toachieve Sidney’s aim of ‘the totallextirpacion of those rebells ' is furthersupported by O’Cadhla’s assertion thatHartpole hanged the Irish hostages on thefollowing day.

The massacre resulted in the eliminationof the leaders of the O’Moores, O’Kellys,O'Lalors, Devoys, McEvoys (Mav-aboyd), O'Dorans, O'Dowlings and Keat-ings. O’Moore’s activities in 1577 and1578 ultimately proved fatal and he waskilled by Brian Og MacGillapatrick in anambush on the 30th of June 1578. Fol-lowing his death the remaining GaelicIrish clans submitted to Crown authority.As for Hartpole the impact is bestsummed up by Walsh who states 'thereadiest way to enjoy these lands was tomurder the rightful Irish master of the

whole district'.86Declining Years

By 1578 Hartpole was at least 64 yearsold but remained an active servant of theCrown. In February of that year he wasappointed as a commissioner with othersenior members of the ruling elite suchas the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, SirNicholas Bagnal, Sir Theobald Butler,Richard Shee, Edmund Butler, HenryDavells and Francis Cosby) to survey theprospective county of Wicklow. ‘Thiscounty or country hath, by west of it the

county of Catherlagh; north-west, Kil-dare; flat north, Dublin; east, the mainsea; and south, the county of Wexford’.87

Disputes over cess continued but thistime Hartpole opposed its collection andhe was party to a petition from ‘Gentle-men of the Queens co.’ to the LordDeputy and Privy Council seeking anexemption of payments to support thePale in compensation for cess theyhad paid.88

Hartpole’s star was still ascendant in1579 when he was appointed as HighSheriff of Queen’s County, and in 1580he was also appointed as High Sheriff ofCarlow.89 In August of 1580 the nextgeneration of the Hartpole clan was alsoemerging when his son William, appearsfor the first time on record as a co-lesseeof the Manor of Carlow.90William, livingat Coolbanagher, joined his father againin 1586, when sitting on an Inquisition‘to ascertain what lands Turlough macAlexander MacDonnell, of Gastlenocyalias Newcastle, in the Barony of Slieve-maragy, Queen's County, held from theCrown at the time of his death’.91 Williamwas also commissioned, along with hisfather, Edmund Butler, Josua Mynce andJames Grace to take the muster and arrayof County Carlow in January 1588.92

Hartpole was at the pinnacle of his publiccareer (having been appointed as firstmember of Parliament for Queen’sCounty in Perrot’s Parliament of 1585)when a serious threat to his Carlowholdings and offices emerged. In Januaryof that year the Earl of Kildare wrote tothe Privy Council reminding them of hisclaim for restitution of the Manor ofCarlow.93 He claimed that the ‘theauncient inheritaunce of the Earle ofKildare, have ben held from him thesexvijth yeares by Robert Harpoole, Con-stable of Catherlagh Castle, by vertue ofa lease made unto him by Sir HenrySidney, knight, then, Lord Deputye there,and that thereuppon his Lordship's tytlehaving ben brought in question before theCheefe Justices of both the Benches, theLord Cheife Baron and the Master of theRolles of Ireland, they yeelded theiropinions of the insufficiencye of the lease,and favored his Lordship's tytle’. TheCouncil found that the castle and its landswere too important to the defence of theCounty to return to the Earl and recom-

mended that lands of equivalent value begiven to the him. The Queen agreed, andin September commanded the PrivyCouncil ‘with convenient speed, to passunto the Earl and his heirs as estate infee simpleof such lands and reversions inthis our realm in exchange, as shall beamswerable to like antiquity and good-ness of the lands in Catherlaghe; for suchlands as the Earl is to pass unto us, beingnow annexed to the Fort of Catherlaghe’.Writing in the early 1900s94 Fitzgerald(a descendant of the Earl) wrote that hehad ‘not ascertained which property wasgiven to the Earl in exchange’.

A document dated 1591 ‘Notes on theProvinces of Leinster and Meath’ listsHartpole as a ‘man of power.95 Thisdocument must have been compiled at amuch earlier date as it also mentionsCarew and Davells, both of whom haddied in the 1570s. Hartpole is said to be‘matched with a Coultyeoman and amaintainer of rebels’. This is a referenceto his wife Grainne, who was anO’Byrne. The Coultyeoman aredescribed as ‘notable knaves and rebelspertaining to the Earl of Ormond’. TheCoulteman O’Byrnes were a branch ofthe wider O’Byrne clan and centred onTullow. Piers Butler seized Tullow in1531 and thereafter, despite underlyingclan allegiances, they became allies ofthe Butlers of Ormond.96

On the 11th of October 1594 after a longeventful life Robert Hartpole died. Hemust have known the end was near as hiswill was dated on the 12th of Septemberand stated he was ‘sick in body but wholein mynde and in full and sound memory’.He was buried in the Chancery of St.Mary's Church in Carlow and an elaboratealtar-tomb was erected to his memory.

When, on the 21st of October 1594,Queen Elizabeth appointed his sonWilliam Harpole to the office of the Con-stable of the Castle of the Carlow, thefamily succession was secured. RobertHartpole was dead but his story does notend there.

Family

Robert Hartpole was married to GrainneO'Byrne and Fitzgerald states they ‘left issuefive sons and at least three daughters’.97


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The Rath of Mullaghmast andMemorial to the Laois Clans

John Kelly, 2015

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Sir William Hartpole; Coolbanagher,succeeded his father as Constable ofCarlow Castle and inherited the familyestates. He died in 1616

George Hartpole; Monksgrange, secondson and heir to his brother. AfterWilliams’s death he succeeded to thefamily estates. His son, Robert succeededWilliam as Constable of Carlow and diedin the battle of Drogheda in 1649.

James Hartpole; not mentioned inHartpole’s will and therefore likely deadbefore 1594.

Henry Hartpole; not mentioned inHartpole’s will and therefore likely deadbefore 1594.

Pierce Hartpole; referred to in the will asthe youngest son and was left lands in CoCarlow (including Chaplestown) andQueen’s County. Born in 1559, he diedon the 11th February, 1619.

An unnamed daughter who was marriedto John Hovenden, of Ballyfoyle,Queen's County.

Helen (or Ellen) Hartpole; married 1st,Francis Cosby and after his death in thebattle of Stradbally she married SirThomas Loftus of Timahoe.

Margaret Hartpole, wife of Gerald Grace,Ballylinch, Kilkenny. She died in 1619and both are buried at Jerpoint Abbey.

Will and Burial

Hartpole died in October 1594. His willwas quickly proved after his death on the28th of October. The original of the willappears to have disappeared at an earlydate and Vicar’s ‘Index of PrerogativeWills of Ireland, 1536-1810’ records onlya copy existing in 1897.98

The Will leaves his possessions to histhree sons William, George, and Pierce.A Queen's County inquisition99 mentionstwo other sons, James and Henry, asliving in 1579, but as they are notmentioned in the will. No reference ismade to his daughters.

'In the name of God Amen. I Robert Hart-pole of Catherlough, Esquier, though sickin body but whole in mynde and in full

and sound memory doo make this my lastwill and Testain in manner and fforme asffolloweth.

Ffirdt I bequeath my soule into the handsof Almightie God, and my body to beburyed and interred in the Church ofChancell of Our Blessed lady the VirginMary att Catherlogh.

Item, I doo by this my will and lastTestamt, constitute and appoynte mylovinge wyfe Graine Hartepoole to be myfull and whole executrix.

Itm. Idoo will yt therebe delyvered andgeeven as a ffree token and healpe to mylovinge soone-in-law Mr, John Hoven-den, or to his assignes,one halfe yeareswarrante of myne entertaynmt due on herMaite contayninge ye some of threescorepounds lawffull mooney of Irelande, forto paye suche arrerages as he is behyndeto her Matie in the tyme yt the countreywas waste in ye rebellion of ye O'Mores’

The Will was witnessed by his son in lawJohn Hovenden, David Lea, RobertBowen of Ballyadams and Piers White,the Vicar of Carlow.

As requested in his Will Hartpole waslaid to rest in the Church of the BlessedLady the Virgin Mary in Carlow. Thiswas the church associated with St Mary’sAbbey which is placed by a number ofsources on the hill where the castle standsand was part of the medieval settlementaround the castle. This location issupported by a lease dated 1723 whichrefers to a plot ‘bounding on the southwith the Castle Churchyard, on the northby Gaynor’s plot, on the west by theCastle Yard and on the east by the roadleading to the Barracks’100 and byMalcomson, who refers to ‘the remnantof the burial-ground attached to theannihilated Abbey of St. Mary, on Castle-hill, in the town of Carlow’.101 Archaeo-logical digs carried out as part of theCarlow Main Drainage Scheme in theyears 2010 to 2012 show that the grave-yard associated with this church waslarge and stretched north through CoalMarket to the present St Marys Church.Curiously while Fennell102 notes that StMary’s Church passed to the new Protes-tant faith in 1562 a number of sourcesdescribe Hartpole as a Papist and theHartpoles are stated to be a Roman

Catholic family in Fitzgerald’s accountof Mullaghmast. His wife, an O’Byrne,would almost certainly have retained herCatholic faith. The ‘Papist’ tag was alsoapplied to both his son and grandson andthe family is only definitively recordedas Protestant in the Down Survey inwhere his grandson Robert is describedas Protestant in the surveys of 1641and 1670.

Hartpole was placed in an altar tombmade up of a slab (Mensa) mounted withan effigy and a chest to hold his remains.The effigial slab was bevelled along oneside and at the two ends suggesting thatthe non-bevelled side was placed againsta wall in the chancel of the church. Thechancel is the area of the church aroundthe altar and was a prestigious locationwhich reflected Hartpole’s place in localsociety. The choice of an effigial tombalso reflects his status and wealth. In1614 £230 was paid for the tomb of theEarl of Ormond, and in 1620 the tomb ofthe Earl of Youghal cost £330.103Hartpole’s tomb is apparently of similarquality and would therefore haveincurred a similar cost. This demonstratesthe rising status of the new settler classin relation to the Old English aristocracy.

The effigy was of a knight in a suit ofplate-armour, with the head resting on around helmet. The feet were supported bya dog. The hands lay on the chest, fingersjoined in prayer. A sword was attached bya belt round the waist on the left side ofthe effigy. An inscription was carved intothe right hand side of the tomb:

‘Hic jacet Robartus Hartpoole,Conestabulrius de Catherlagh,Septuagenario maoir, interiit iii dieOctobris 1594’This was later translated (by Fitzgerald)to read: ‘Here lies Robert Hartpoole, Constableof Carlow, he died on the 3rd day ofOctober, 1594, being more than aseptuagenarian [i.e. being eighty yearsof age and over]’.

In the 1630s the churches in Ireland aredescribed as ‘in a deplorable condition,the Cathedrals in many places destroyed,the parish Churches generally ruined,unroofed or unrepaired, the houses of theClergy left desolate’.104 This was also thecase of the Church of the Abbey of St


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Mary which fell into disrepair and‘became untenable in the sixteen thirtiesthrough decay’.105 A new church wasconstructed around the year 1635 at thelocation of the present St Mary’s Church.It is likely the old church was scavengedfor building material and the site becameovergrown and forgotten (although alocal tradition indicates some ruins stillremained as late as 1786).106

This part of Carlow was subject to exten-sive development in the late 18th andearly 19th centuries. The construction ofa new military barracks in Barrack St inthe 1750s made the land of old CavalryBarracks along the River Barrow avail-able for development. In addition thedevelopment of the street of Castle Hill(the emergence of which can be seen onColumbine’s map of 1735) resulted inextensive works in the area. Thesefactors, while altering the landscape ofCastle Hill and obliterating the remainsof medieval settlement in the area,ultimately led to the re-discovery ofHartpole’s tomb.

Discovery

Hartpole’s effigy was rediscovered in1809 when workers ‘engaged cuttingaway a portion of the graveyard forbuilding purposes…….. discovered astone effigy about four feet below thesurface, which they raised and placedupright against a tombstone. The effigywas in a perfect state of preservation,notwithstanding the long period itremained buried beneath the surface ofthe churchyard’.107

This dating is calculated from a diaryentry of 18 year old Elizabeth Cole (neeLeadbetter), who wrote the following; ‘Iwas in Carlow last week, and the daybefore I went there there was a tombstonedug up in an old churchyard bearing theinscription ‘Robertus Hartpold. A.D.1594’ – 215 years ago. It is in highpreservation; about 7 feet long and three[illegible] wide. on the tomb is a man incomplete armour, as large as life, with hishead resting on his helmet; at his feet abloodhound. It is of grey marble, and asgood as if it were done but threeyears ago'.108

The find generated interest and excite-ment and immediately became a local at-

traction. Ms Leadbetter continued; ‘Iwent to see it along with some otheryoung people, but we could not see itsatisfactorily, the crowd was so great. Itlies exposed where it was found foranyone to look at it. I wonder the manwho discovered it did not bring it homeand make something of showing it there.It was no more than 5 feet below thesurface of the earth on Castle Hill’.Speculation began as to who the impres-sive figure was. Initially it appears thelocal people thought it was a long forgot-ten Gaelic Irish King or Chieftain buteventually ‘an old friar visited the spot,and pronounced it to be the effigy ofRobert Harpol, and pointed out a Latininscription which had escaped the noticeof those who had previously examinedit.109 The knowledge of the identity of theeffigy may have stirred latent memoriesof Mullaghmast and aroused the fury ofthe workmen. As a result ’discoveringthat it was not to the memory of an IrishKing, a labourer contemptuouslyknocked the head off. The head wasthrown into the Barrow. To save whatremained, Mr Bruen has the slabremoved to Oak Park, and offered,successfully, a reward for the recovery ofthe head’.110 The destruction of memori-als to persons seen as oppressors of theIrish was not unusual at this time. InBallyadams Churchyard the effigies ofRobert Bowen and his wife Alice Hart-pole (a daughter of Walter Hartpole) weredestroyed by a funeral crowd in 1832.111

Move to Portarlington

The remnants of the tomb resided in thewalled garden of Oak Park House for anumber of years until Charles Hartpole-Bowen, a descendant of Hartpole, gotpermission from Col. Bruen to relocate itto his family home at Kilnacourt,Portarlington. 112

By the 1890s interest in the fate of the ef-figy revived in Carlow and Col. Vigorswrites that he had got information from‘a lady….whose name led me to believeher to be a descendant of the family’, andthat he had ‘traced the old warrior to hispresent resting place, under a grove offine trees in the grounds of KilnacourtHouse, Portarlington’.113 In a letter to theEditor of the Carlow Vindicator Vigorsstates that ‘the head, I am informed, isalso at Kilnacourt, and we may hope to

have it restored to its proper place someday’.114 Alice Hartpole-Bowen, daughterof Charles, was his lady correspondentand she had written to him in January1895 confirming that 'the head of theeffigy, which rested on a helmet, wasbroken off at the neck, and, as a child, Iremember seeing it kept at a garden-house at Kilnacourt, but do not knowwhat has since come of it'.115 She alsogave him an etching of the tomb (a copyof Hewetson’s conjectural representa-tion below).

This lithograph bears very little likenessto the remaining parts of the tomb andmust have been drawn from an oral orwritten description .

Local antiquary Lord Walter Fitzgeraldalso took an interest in the effigy andwrote that ‘The effigy is at present placedon a base of mason- work, built on a littlehillock, under the trees near the lough atthe back of Kilnacourt’.116 The followingyear he dealt with the effigy in moredetail. Having been described at itsuncovering in 1809 as being in very goodcondition it had now badly deteriorated,probably due to the damage caused bythe workmen before Bruen’s rescue.Fitzgerald notes ‘The head is broken offand missing ; ……. finger-tips joined;they are badly broken…….The legs, too,have met with bad treatment. The effigy-slab itself is broken into two parts,


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John Hewetson’s lithograph of theeffigy (From ‘Memoirs of the Family of

Grace’ by Sheffield Grace, 1828).

Photograph of effigy and rubbing ofinscription, Lord Walter Fitzgerald,JPMDI, Vol. VI

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caused by a clean break just above theknees’.117

However, not all of the tomb had foundits way to Portarlington and in 1905Canon Ffrench identified a figure and aheap of debris in the walled garden atOak Park as the remains of the tomb. Hedescribes the figure as made from blackmarble and it details as ‘The presentgross width of the stone, from which thefigure stands in relief, is 2 feet 3 inches.The height of the stone figure, and theheight of the pillar alongside it, is 21inches; the gross width of the figure is 13inches. It seems to be represented asvested in a steel cuirass. Possibly it maybe a long-waisted, peaked, and close-fitting doublet; but it looks more like acuirass, and over it, around the neck,there is a collar turned down. Some lightopen headpiece, probably the “salade”

or morion, was worn, which is nowgreatly defaced. The face shows a shortfringe of hair across the forehead’.118

The Effigy in 2015

In the latter part of the twentieth centurydue to a change of ownership of Kilna-court House the effigy ended up beingstored in the yard of Laois County Coun-cil at Portarlington. At this time Carlowhistorian, Tommy Clarke made efforts tohave the effigy returned to Carlow. Hegained approval for the move but theemergence of some local oppositioncaused him to drop the matter. The effigywas later moved to its present location inthe People’s Park, Portarlington where itnow lies on a platform covered by acanopy constructed of wood andmetal sheeting.

The effigial slab measures 193 x 71cm(76 x 28 inches). The figure appears to beunchanged since Fitzgerald’s examina-tion but the inscription is badly damagedand is now missing its central script onthe lower line. This piece is marked by‘chip’ and ‘break’ in Fitzgerald’s rubbing

and was always in danger of beingbroken off. In its present location theeffigy is subject to graffiti, litter andvulnerable to vandalism.119

While described by some authors asbeing made of black marble, it appearsthe effigy is carved from limestone. Thisis a type of black ‘marble-like limestone’local to Kilkenny which when polishedtakes on the appearance of black mar-ble.120 This effect can be seen in photo-graphs of the effigy. The helmet onwhich the head rested is a Cabasset typehelmet and is very similar to helmets inDerricke’s illustrations. The belt, swordand armour remain well defined and thedog (also headless) is well preserved. Foran artefact over 400 years old the effigy

seems strangely modern in design and itsstout proportions (particularly the largechest) is unlike the Ormond effigies inKilkenny and Tipperary .121 Its distinctivefeatures include the helmet, armour (thebreastplate may be a late Peascod type)and in particular the sword, which is aBritish design and may be a Proto-Mor-tuary type sword.122 The sword has a bas-ket shaped handguard unlike the oldercrossguard type on both the Ormond ef-figies and soldiers in Derricke’s illustra-

tions. These features reflect the transitionin military style and function from themedieval to the early modern period.

The Oak Park weeper also survives andtakes a place of honour in the Oak Parkmuseum. As can be seen in the picturebelow most of the backing slab has goneand the features have become lessdistinct since Ffrench’s discovery. Thepile of debris has unfortunately been lost.An extensive search in the 1980s did notdiscover any more artefacts of the tombat Oak Park and unless serendipity allowssome undiscovered or misplaced piecesto be uncovered in the future the weeperwill remain as the only piece of the tombextant in Carlow.


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Hartpole Tomb Weeper, Oak Park, 1905Pic: Canon Ffrench, JPMDI, Vol VII

The Hartpole effigy in the People’sPark, Portarlington

John Kelly, 2015

Hartpole Tomb Remnant, Oak Park,1905, Canon Ffrench, JPMDI, Vol. VI

Grafitti on effigy

Features of effigy: Helmet, Sword,Dog and Inscription

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SUMMARY

The Robert Hartpole that emerges fromhistory is rightly viewed as a rapaciousland grabber, a ruthless soldier of severetemperament and having a single mindedambition to climb to the top of the socialladder. However Hartpole also had amore enigmatic side. In common withother figures of the period he had am-biguous loyalties; he may have retainedhis Catholic faith, he married a GaelicIrish woman and in at least one accountis said to be a ‘maintainer of rebels’.

Regardless of his personal nature andactivities in life he remains an importantfigure in the history of Carlow and hiseffigy is an important artefact inCarlow’s archaeological history. Itspresent location has no historicalconnection with Hartpole and the familialconnection, the Hartpole-Bowens, whobrought the effigy to Portarlington, nolonger reside there. The canopy coveringthe effigy is not aesthetically appropriateto the artefact nor does not it provide anyprotection from weather or vandalism.Hartpole’s Will directs that he be buriedin St Mary’s Church in Carlow and as norecords exist of discovery of his body, itmust be assumed his remains are stillinterred at Castle Hill.

While two different Carlow historians(Vigors and Clarke) made unsuccessfulattempts to have the effigy returned123 , itis this author’s opinion that a serious andsensitive attempt to return the effigy toCarlow could be successful, particularlyif an assurance could be given it wouldbe reunited with its surviving weeper anda safe location was secured to ensure itspreservation. The present St Mary’sChurch of Ireland would be an eminentlysuitable location. The County Museummay also be suitable. As for the missinghead perhaps some publicity may turn itup in a rockery or on a shelf in the Por-tarlington area.

Thanks are due to the following for theirhelp and assistance in compiling thisarticle; Wendy and Trevor Fennell,Shrule; Ronnie Matthews, Portarlington;Eric Donald and Connie Conway,Teagasc, Oak Park; Pat Comerford andDeirdre, Janet and the excellent andpatient staff of Carlow County Library.

1 The name Hartpole is recorded in a num-ber of different forms. Among archivalsources it is found spelled as Hartlepool,Harpol, Harpool, Harpoole, and in Robert’scase most commonly as Harpole. This articlewill use the modern spelling of Hartpole forthe family, except where quotations are takendirectly from sources.2 The territory of the modern county ofLaois is referred to in original sources as Leixor Queen’s County. In this article the moderntitle of Laois is used except where quotationsare taken directly from sources.3 O’Hanlon, J., & O’Leary, E., History ofthe Queen’s County,1907, P. 4244 The Lord Deputy and Council of Ireland,Memorial for Winning Leinster, State papersof Henry VIII, Vol ii, 1537, p.4135 3 & 4 Phil & Mar, c.2 (1556)6www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_irish/history_irish_mullaghmast.htm7 Brady, C., A Viceroy’s Vindication? SirHenry Sidney’s Memoir of Service in Ireland,2002, P. 978 GO MS 177, National Library of Ireland(NLI)9 Is Barrington referring to their lifestyle ortheir actual Livers? Perhaps a bit of lawyerlydouble entendre at play?10 This is most likely referring to Robertabout whom this story appears in variousguises in a number of sources11 Fitzgerald, W., Journal of the Associationfor the Preservation of the Memorials of theDead in Ireland (JPMDI), Vol. XXX, P13712 SP 63/22 f.17613 SP, Vol 1, P13414 Brady, 2002, P12715 171, Fiants Philip and Mary 16 Ryan, J., The History and Antiquities of theCounty of Carlow, 1833 P.10117 1185, Fiants Elizabeth18 Ryan, 1833, P. 37919 Lodge, J., The Peerage of Ireland, Vol III,PP.183-18420 SP 63/188 f.4321 Official grants and confirmations of arms,GO103-111g, NLI22 953, Fiants Elizabeth23 612, Fiants Elizabeth24 Home of William Hartpole, Roberts’s sonand successor, Coolbanagher castle wasconstructed as part of a ring of towersconstructed to defend the Rock of Dunamasecomplex. It was a tower house and has beendated to the 13th century. The castle stood 3stories high and castle contained a murderhole in the doorway, a typical feature in thistype of structure. Before its demolition threewalls of the original structure remained, thewestern wall having previously collapsed.Unfortunately Storm Darwin caused thecollapse of the southern part of the structureon the 12th of February 2014 and the remain-der was demolished on the 24th of February

2014. More information see Chapple, R.,Demolition of 13th/14th Century Castle,Coolbanagher,Co.Laois,http://rmchapple.blogspot.ie/2014/02/demolition-of-13th14th-cas-tle.html25 808, Fiants Elizabeth26 SP 63/25 f.2527 1599, Fiants Elizabeth28 Cosby, I., The English Settlers in Queen’sCounty, 1570-1603, Laois History and Soci-ety, 1999, PP. 283-32629 Clonreher castle is a four storey towerwith a hall over a vaulted cellar and loft andits remains are located to the north of Port-laoise. See Searle, M., Castles of Leinster:Clonreher, Laois,http://www.geograph.ie/photo/249393830 2838, Fiants Elizabeth31 National Monuments Service, IrelandsTower Houses, Country Living Section, IrishFarmers Journal, 24 March 201232 629, Fiants Elizabeth33 953, Fiants Elizabeth34 This should read Edward Langham whohad married the widow of Francis Randolph 35 Patent and Close Rolls of Ireland, Eliza-beth, 156736 499, Fiants Elizabeth37 SP 63/21 f.18138 1125, Fiants Elizabeth39 SP 63/22 f.176 40 SP 63/24 f.3241 SP 63/22 f.84 42 SP 63/24 f.3243 SP 63/25 f.2244 SP 63/35 f.168 45 SP 63/30 f.94 46 1600, Fiants Elizabeth47 See Hughes, J., “Sir Edmund Butler of theDullogh, Knight”. The Journal of the RoyalHistorical and Archaeological Association ofIreland, Fourth Series, Vol. 1, No. 1, 187048 SP 63/28 f.10649 Butler regarded himself as loyal to theQueen (who was his cousin) and refused toengage with troops which were led in hername. This stance explains the chief warder’sapparent credulity.50 Hughes, 187051 SP 63/29 f.6752 John McLean, The Life and Times of SirPeter Carew Kt, 1857, P22153 SP 63/29 f.72 54 Edwards, D., The Ormond Lordship inCounty Kilkenny, 1515-1642, 2000, PP. 196-19955 SP 63/29 f.10856 2147, Fiants Elizabeth57 SP 12 of 1571 Vol. xxxii58 SP 29 of 1571 Vol. xxxiv59 SP 11 of 1572 Vol. xxxvii60 1505, Fiants Elizabeth61 SP 63/32 f.1 62 1829, Fiants Elizabeth63 This document entitled ‘The Book against


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Robert Hartpole’ will be the subject of afuture article by this author64 Bagwell, R, Ireland Under the Tudors,Vol. II, 1885, P.229 65 SP 63/35 f.2 66 SP 63/35 f.168 67 SP 63/35 f.2 68 SP 63/35 f.140 69 SP 63/36 f.15470 SP 63/38 f.46 71 P 63/42 f.54 72 SP37, Vol LVIII, 157773 O'Neill, J., letter to Editor of the CarlowVindicator, 16th February, 1895.74 Ryan, J., The History and Antiquities ofthe County of Carlow, 1833, P. 37975 Brady,2002, PP. 96-9876 SP 63/59 f.12877 Bagwell, 1885, P. 34578 Ryan, 1833, P. 11079 SP57, Vol LVIII, 157780 For a detailed examination of Mullagh-mast see: Carey, Dr. V., John Derricke'sImage of Ireland, Sir Henry Sidney, and themassacre at Mullaghmast, 1578, Irish Histor-ical Studies, Vol. XXXI No 123, Vincent P.Carey, 199981 While it is traditionally accepted as havingoccurred on New Year’s Day 1577, Careydates the massacre to March 1578. This dif-ference may have resulted from the fact thatthe administrative year until 1752 ran fromLady Day (25th March) and not 1st Januaryand would have resulted in the 1st of January1578 being dated using this notation as the 1stof January 1577. This would be in line withthe earliest Irish account by Corc Og O'-Cadhla dated 22nd of March 1578 and the as-sertion of its editor, Walsh, who states that‘our entry was made a few months after theevent took place’.82 Fitzgerald, W., Mullaghmast: Its Historyand Traditions, Journal of the Co. Kildare Ar-chaeological Society (JCKAS), VI, P379-39083 Walsh, P., Editor, Corc Óg Ó Cadhla,Gleanings From Irish Manuscripts, , 1933, P.

16684 O’Donovan, J., Annals of the Kingdom ofIreland by the Four Masters, 1854, P. 169485 O’Cadhla puts the dead at more than 58,Annals of Lough Ce at 70 and the Annals ofIreland at 4086 Walsh, 1933, P. 17287 Document dated 1596 in Carew Mss88 SP 63/62 f.200 89 3848 Fiants Elizabeth90 SP 63/62 f.200 91 SP 63/117 f.12792 SP 63/123 f.4493 SP 59 of Vol. VII, 1588 94 Fitzgerald, W., The Castle and Manor ofCarlow, JCKAS, Volume 6, 1909-1911, PP.335-33795 SP63/213 f.33 Addenda, 58796 Byrne-Rothwell, D., The Byrnes andO’Byrne’s, Vol. II, 2010, P109 97 Fitzgerald, E., JCKAS, Vol IV, PP. 305-30698 A search of the National Archives in 2015failed to locate a copy of the will and it islikely that it was destroyed in the Civil Wardestruction of State Records. It is possible topiece together most of the terms of the willfrom research carried out by Fitzgerald andVigors. 99 Queens Co Chancery Inquisition, No 13of Charles 1100 Hardy, C., www.excavations.ie, number:2004:0090, Valerie J. Keeley Ltd101 Malcomson, R., The Carlow Parliamen-tary Roll, Dublin, 1872, P.61102 Fennell, H., “History of St Mary’s ParishChurch Carlow”, Carloviana, 1986/87, PP.41-44103 Loeber, R., Sculptured Memorials of theDead in Early Seventeenth-Century Ireland:A Survey from “Monuments Eblane” andother Sources, Proceedings of the Royal IrishAcademy Vol. 81C, 1981, P. 269104 Carte, T., An History of the Life of James,Duke of Ormonde, 1736, Book 2, P.68

105 Fennell, 1986/87, P. 41106 Fennell, 1986/87107 O'Neill, 1895, Carlow Vindicator108 Barrington, A., The Barrington’s, 1917,P. 80 109 O'Neill, 1895, Carlow Vindicator,reprinted in Vol III, JPMDI, 1895, P.P. 135-137110 McCartney, D., W.E.H. Lecky, Carlo-viana, 1966, P. 34111 Fitzgerald, W., JPMDI, Vol II, Part 2,1892-94, P. 536112 Despite a search of Oak Park estaterecords a date for this move cannot be estab-lished but it was definitely before 1880 whenHartpole-Bowen died113 Vigors, P. JPMDI, Vol III, 1895, P.P. 134-145114 Dated 6th March, 1895 and reprinted inVol III, JPMDI, 1895115 JKAS, Vol IV, 1905, P. 433116 See Fitzgerald, W., JKAS, Vol IV, 1905,P.P. 301-311117 Fitzgerald, W., JPMDI, Vol VI, P.137118 Canon Ffrench, JPMDI, Vol VII, Part 2,1907-1909, PP. 521-522119 See Barker, L.W., Gilligan, N. & Fegan,G., Laois Burial Grounds Survey 2011, Vol-ume 2: Gazetteer of Burial Grounds. October2011120 Loeber, 1981, P. 278121 For a detailed examination of theseeffigies see Rae, E.C., “Irish Sepulchral Mon-uments of the Later Middle Ages”, Journal ofthe Royal Society of Antiquities of Ireland,Volume 100, 1970122 Thanks to Dave Swift of Claíomh, IrishLiving History & Military Heritage, who gavethe author useful and thought provoking com-ments on the effigy123 Past opposition to a return may have re-sulted from a misidentification of the effigywith the destroyed effigy of Robert Bowen inBallyadams.


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Daniel Dowling Rode In Famous BritishCharge at Balaklava, Spector to The NewYork Times.

UTICA, July 15.—In the County Alms-house in Rome to-day died a survivor ofthe ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ atBalaklava on October 25, 1854. He wasDaniel Dowling, born in Carlow,Ireland. in 1832. He enlisted in theBritish Army, going at once into theCrimean Peninsula, where he was inmany battles. He was one of the very fewwho came out of the charge of the six

hundred without a wound, and not untilthe battle of Inkerman was he wounded.After the Crimean War Dowling went tomany places, fighting for England. Hesaw service in Malta. Egypt, India,Australia, and South America. He cameto the United States with the intention ofentering the Union Army. When he wason his way here the surrender of Lee wasmade.

Dowling's only sister had gone with herhusband to South America. He began asearch for her and for years traveled in

many countries on his guest, which neverwas successful. He had distant relativesin this region and came here to live,taking up farming. Age coming on, hewas compelled to seek the almshouse.

The veteran had all his discharge papers,but he never received any assistance fromthe British Government. Among the fewpossessions he retained to the last werethe spurs he wore in the famous Chargeand a copy of Tennyson’s poem.

Carlowman in the Charge of the Light Brigade

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In Feb., 2012, on the 90th Anniversary ofhis death Carlow finally honoured itsmost glamorous son, who also was thecentral figure of one of Tinsel Town’smost enduring and infamous mysteries,fit to rank with all the Marilyn Monroedeath conspiracies.

Carlow’s greatest cinematic celebrity(only equalled in recent years by our ownbeloved Seoirse Ronan) WilliamCunningham Deane-Tanner known tohistory and filmdom as WilliamDesmond Taylor would henceforth beremembered with an annual Taylor Fest.Poignant to reflect that of his astonishingcorpus of 87 or so films only 6perhaps survive.

He pioneered many film techniques werevere today, and these are surely hissecond enduring legacy.

Plaudits are due to filmdom’s andCarlow’s native-son Marc-Ivan O’Gor-man and the organizing committee fortheir Trojan efforts. Likewise, CarlowLittle Theatre’s accurate dramatization/synopsis of the complexities of a lifesuch as Taylor’s was awesome! It was,sadly to be the swan-song of that otherCarlow showman/writer/ actor/ directorand fitting interpreter of this epic,Sheamus O’Rourke. God rest his merrytwinkling cultivated and friendly soul.How we miss Sheamus, his beautiful

voice, his Beatle’s cap and hisadventures!

Strawhall –The Gentry & Boyhood

One views Strawhall now with itsvanished Sugar Factory, Gateway Enter-prise Centre and across the Cannery Rd.,Strawhall Industrial Estate’s half-aban-doned commercial units. Book-ended bythe compassion and love of Holy Angelsat the top with Delta Centre at thebottom, it is difficult now to envisage theTanner-O’Brien holdings ensconcedthere at the end of the 19th Century.Typical of the estates of the minor Anglo-Irish gentry it (and its non-absenteefamily) was justly respected in the town.William Cunningham Deane-Tanner wasborn there on April26th, 1872, secondchild and eldest son of the dashing MajorThomas Kearns Deane –Tanner and theland-heiress, Jane O’Brien. The familyname is now immortalized in a modernhousing estate, round the corner on theAthy Rd., called Tanner Hall, completewith green board!

William grew to young manhood in thethen sleepy little hamlet and garrison-town of Carlow which boasted a mere880 souls. Then and now it wasdominated by the already-ruined 13thCentury Castle of the Marshal. The‘insanity ‘(pun intended) of its 1814destruction still causing sniggers among

the locals. The trimmed hedges and neatwhite-painted cottages nestling besidethe broad Barrow, Ireland’s second-great-est river. The town’s only previousexcitement had been the ambush/mas-sacre of the 600 insurgents on its smallmain street 100 years before in 1798.

Family Roots in Strawhall/CarlowRifles/Early Fire Service

Taylor’s father, Major Thomas KearnsDeane-Tanner held his rank from themilitia body known as the King’s RoyalRifle Corps or the Carlow Rifles as thelocals called it. Two years beforeWilliam’s birth, the Major had returnedfrom active service in the ‘Opium Wars’and Britain’s cynical suppression of theT’ai Ping Rebellion when Peking fell tothe imperial forces.

The Major’s maternal grandfather wasSir Thomas Deane, the most influentialarchitect of his time (pointer perhaps toWilliam’s future artistry?). The Majorquickly became founding head ofCarlow’s fledgling fire-service. Set-up in1878, when members of the town counciland locals banded together. Thirty volun-teers were enrolled with buckets andhelmets coughed up from council funds.Major Tanner and his merry men foughtlocal outbreaks from a Merriweather-

Carloviana 2016

William Desmond TaylorCarlow’s Forgotten Celluloid King

Murder most mysterious - Hollywood February, 1922

Martin J. Lynch

William Desmond Taylor in 1921.

Courtesy of Bison Archives

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Taylor William_Layout 1 28/10/2015 19:19 Page 1

Paxton appliance requiring no –less than22 men plus 2 horses! A long long wayfrom our renowned World ChampionService of today!

The dashing Major had wasted no timein ‘nailing down the money’ by marryingthe land-heiress, Jane O’Brien in 1870.Their first-born was the beautiful Ellenwho onto become ‘the most dominant,powerful, trusted, best-married familymember’. This attribute no little aided byher inheriting the many bequests of thismulti-branched family. William camenext, being born in 1872, followed byLizzie(1874) or ‘Daisy’; then Denis(1876); and finally Oswald(1878) whodied of whooping cough before hisfirst birthday.

Their mother had inherited from herfather, Denis, the then enormous sum of£17,000 (£2 million today) supposed tobe held in trust for her children. Incred-ibly, this vast sum was to be nibbledaway by a lavish life-style including atown-house in Dublin, then the ‘secondcity of Empire’. William never got apenny of this birth right or any Tannerinheritances to his eternal rightful anger.

However, he grew to manhood, highly-strung, silent and removed but neitherreclusive nor a weakling. At 17 he washandsome, striking, with dark brown hairand eyes, on top of a lean, well-propor-tioned horseman’s body. An air of intrigu-ing romantic mystery surrounded him.

Cowboy Days

A year later he was packed off to Kansas,by his family for nefarious reasons to ayoung gentlemen’s ‘finishing school’dude ranch. This was run by a youngIrishman Francis (Ned) J. Turnby and hispartner. He arrived there, adept atlanguages, cultivated, an extremely finehorseman with many outdoor skills. Allof which would stand him in good steadas his varied life unfolded! RunnymedeRanch became William’s final founda-tional-experience on his arrival in 1889as the Frontier was settled. He learnedcarpentry, building, shooting from horse-back (Carlow had already taught himstatic marksmanship). It became hisfirst attempt at acting in the ranch’s‘fit-ups’.

Women were plentiful including theprospective gentile Irish and British debsslipped in for just that purpose to thenearby Harper Township. He showedonly a polite interest in all such, hisrepressed bi-sexuality probably firstsurfacing in the all-male environment ofthe ranch. Later, he would in passingrefer to a ‘lost love’, either imagined/real(or self-serving in Hollywood’s hedonis-tic birthing). Was this a man or a woman?

The ranch closed in 1892 and Taylorbegan the life of an itinerant labourer andrailway yardman, even selling magazinesdoor-to-door. Passing thru Missouri andFort Leavenworth he got a job as a15cents-a-plate waiter in St. Paul,Minnesota. He impressed many in thisheyday of immigrant-era America withhis fluent French, German and hisdoggerel verse.

Antique Dealer to the Wealthy

Heading for the 1893 ChicagoColumbian Exposition he was taken onby the once-famous Fannie Davenport’sTheatrical Company by 1895. Here hefinally found solace from his Americanloneliness and poverty. The strugglingcompany and its ailing fading actressoffered him relief on-stage but a hugelydemanding schedule of constant touring.When the dying Davenport in 1898collapsed onstage at the Chicago GrandOpera House he was already gone, tour-ing with other troupes. When he made itto Broadway’s Great White Way by 1900he would be buoyed up by (his sole suchremembrance by family) his belovedsister Lizzie’s bequest (d.1898) of £1092(£30,000 today).

He took over an elegant apartment on 5thAvenue among the rich and famous,many of whom he easily befriended.With a slight knowledge of antiques andas an available English (?) batchelor witha purely imaginary Indian Army back-ground, he became a favourite of LongIsland hostesses. He even laid on mus-icals for the Astor’s and the Vanderbilt’s!!

Backed by wealthy male friends Tayloropened an antique and interior-designer’sstore on 5th Ave. Thus opened up to himthe demi-world of Manhattan’s wealthyhomosexuals. He could also cast many-an-eye on the Precinct’s pretty girls.

Soon he unwisely married a greatpretender, like himself, called Ethel(Effie) Hamilton in an ill-matched anddisastrous union. Her gloom and selfish-ness matched by his indifference towomanly perspective and female sexualdemands. Nonetheless, they wouldremain both at their bluebook addressand married at West 93rd St. for all of 7years. This encompassed the birth of hisdaughter, Ethel Daisy on Nov.15th, 1902.

His wife’s constant weeping anddemanding female intimacy sent himduring these strange years to seek thecompany of the afore-mentioned youngbucks of Manhattan where at he main-tained a batchelor apartment. The greatAmerican financial crash of 1907 andsuspicions about the provenance of someof his antiques (his partner was the trueculprit) saw the rapid decline ofhis fortune.

Owing money to all his wealthy friendsWilliam abandoned backers, apartments,the great city and even his wife and child.He deliberately drove them to Ethel’sfavourite upstate New York retreat andfled. The last she would hear of him wasa courier-delivered $500 draft. Eventu-ally, belatedly she reported him to thepolice, years later, as ‘losinghis memory’!

In 1914, remarried by now to a wealthyrestaurateur, she took Daisy to themovies only to jump up in the middle ofhis most famous acting-film ‘Capt.Alverez’, screaming ‘ That’s yourfather’! No further contact is recordedbetween them. Daisy was spoiled by heradoptive father and would die wealthybut no thanks to the putative erstwhileCarlow man.

Shaving off his moustache for goodWilliam joined a travelling Canadianacting troupe to further cover his tracks.Henceforth he adopted the name he isknown to history by William DesmondTaylor. His Carlow sense of ironyevidenced in the name Taylor which wasthe surname of his cheating partner.

North to the Yukon

He thereafter allowed himself to berecruited by the goldmining offshoot ofthe fabulously wealthy Guggenheims to

William Desmond Taylor Carlow’s forgotten Celluloid King

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work their holdings for the Yukon Gold-mining Co. Onboard the Dolphin hesailed for Scagway on May12th, 1909.He was appointed Timekeeper /StoresController thus assuring himself theenmity of his fellow equally exploitedfellow-workers, under the stingyuncaring Guggenheims, working the mento death on tiny rations in theharsh conditions.

Riding from mine head to mine head hissupreme horsemanship, learned inCarlow and refined in Kansas to the long-stirrup American style enabled him toremain safe and in the saddle across theincredible terrain, over the DismalSwamp with his time books in his saddle-bags. He thus gained the solitude heloved and the self-reliance for whichhe longed.

The creative side of his gifted personashowed when he even gained the friend-ship of the poet of the Yukon, Robert W.Service (‘Dangerous Dan McGrew’ etc.etc.). However, Taylor left Alaska beforewinter closed it and him in. Meantime,his mother died in 1911 leaving him£5000 which he was never to know aboutdespite his then desperate poverty.

An Actor’s Life for Me

Arriving in San Francisco Taylor heardof the fledgling movie industry beingborn in New York and more significantlyin Los Angeles’ suburb, Hollywood. Itwas crying out for a new kind of actor, sogentleman -of-fortune as ever, he caughtthe Southern Pacific train stepping off atLong Mile Pier, Malibu in early 1912.

Round this time James Joyce was launch-ing Ireland’s first purpose-built cinema inDublin’s Mary Street!

Going to work immediately for the bril-liant irascible Thomas Harper Ince forthe modest sum of $40 weekly. Williammade his maiden appearance The Coun-terfeiters wherein he was both actor anddirector. He then went on to complete 11films in 17 months for Ince.

He was headhunted by Vitagraph Studiosin 1914. He then created his most endur-ing success, Captain Alverez. In thisground breaker he began the string ofcinematic innovations for many of his

subsequent movies for which filmdomowes him a debt.

He was also his own stuntman before theterm or the job was even thought of.These stunts involved in executing themost dangerous sequences any moviehad seen up to that time, such as gallop-ing down a precipitous slope at break-neck speed and ‘hitting the mark’ in oneshoot! God bless Carlow and the Yukon!This film’s success finally persuaded theBalboa (!) Studio heads to appoint him afull director and script consultant. Thiswas in spite of having NO such film oreven stage experience.

Taylor’s ‘British’ appearance and accentplus the tall tales surrounding him of alost Irish romance(stable boy and thelady stuff) imprisonment in Dublin(never of course happened). Gold-dig-ging in the Yukon plus equally founda-tionless vaquero adventures in SouthAmerica guaranteed him acceptance,respect and even awe in the newly –bornindustry and its baby celeb magazines.He, of course, did nothing to dispel anyof the rumours strict truth about his pastnever having troubled William before inany case! Both the ladies and the gay setsimply adored him encouraged by hisimpeccable manners and bearing withtime for nearly everyone.

He now embarked on a love-affair withthe female star Neva Gerber at the sametime conducting a passionate sexualrelationship with the set designer, GeorgeHopkins. Both would love him to the endof his life. Taylor was able to cover upmuch of his homoerotic involvement tohis lover Gerber with lies and imaginedstress-related illnesses. He claimed to begetting bad news from Ireland and NewYork while ‘over-working’. It helped thatlike the Carlow man Gerber’s early lifeand birth were shrouded in mysteryand lies.

Taylor added to his macho image whenhe shot and directed Davy Crockett in theblizzard-prone San Bernardino Moun-tains in 1916. After 4 years success as adirector he was honoured by beingelected President of the Motion PicturesL.A. Lodge, the fore runner of the futureOscar’s Academy of Film. He was nowtruly accepted by his fellow artists.

Conscription/ Taylor Meets HisNemesis/ Bisexuality & Obsession

Despite his age, identity cover-up,neuroses, and genuine health problems asthe Great War hoovered up all availablemanhood Taylor now felt the long arm ofBritish desperation when he was com-pelled to submit to conscription in early1918. Rising meteorically from private tomajor inside a year he nonetheless spenthis service in pointless tomfoolery farfrom the Front. He was released from thisPurgatory in May, 1919.

Just before this severe prolonged disrup-tion to his film career, he attended theClub of Forty Halloween Dance withHollywood’s elite. He was then halfwaythru shooting his masterpiece ‘TomSawyer’ in the book’s original settings ofHannibal and St. Petersburg, Missouri.

Taylor would for the very first time atthis dance meet the 15yr. old rising andunstable star, Mary Miles Minter, sweetand dimpled , she was being chapharonedby her equally volatile poisoned mother.Escorting this twosome was the corruptand unscrupleless L.A. District Attorney,Thomas Lee Woolwine. Thus the 4characters and the first act of the tragedy4 years hence, collided like the starryportents foretelling that other murder of


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Taylor in army uniform

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the Ides of March 44 B.C.

His Last Home.

William came back from his ‘War’ to abisexual double welcome, from a coolGeorge Hopkins and an overwroughtweeping Neva Gerber. Emotional womenand tears always irritated and renderedTaylor insensitive. He used this disagree-able welcome as excuse to break offthe engagement.

However, before this rupture Gerber didhim the at-the-time enormous butfate-ridden service of finding for him afashionable stylish address, readyfurnished at upmarket 400B Sth.Alvarado St. Newly built the monthlyrent would be a very steep $132. Here hewould spend 4 happy and productiveyears, surrounded by filmdom’s best, oiland merchant princes. He would makeeven more new friends. But here hewould also meet his obsessed killer andcome to his lonely and undeserved end.

Enter Fatal ‘Romance’

At this time already enduring screen-leg-end Mary Pickford left Taylor’s studio,Famous Players for a rival, First NationalFilms. In her place the fatal (for Taylor)decision was taken to build up theimage/career of the ingénue Mary MilesMinter. To begin this process studioheads paired her with Taylor their leadingdirector and noted for his handling ofactresses. Taylor would be warned by allhis knowledgeable friends to refuse andsteer clear of her. She already had a

reputation as a temperamental nightmare,a romantic fantasist especially towardolder and sometimes gay men. She wasalso aided and abetted by her viperousformidable interfering mother, CharlotteShelby. Both of their names and back-grounds were murky.

Beginning with Taylor’s Anne of GreenGables Minter entered his professionallife. She was 30yrs. his junior. Born inTexas in 1902 on Apr.26th, as a child shewas so beautiful and naturally talentedshe could have been a forerunner toShirley Temple, 15yrs later. In fact, bythen, her film career had been dead for adecade. She lived in a dual world of self-obsessed flighty sexual fantasy and steelymother-domination.

Taylor ignored all the advice and thewarnings of his friends, male and female,even that of his lover and artistic collab-orator, George Hopkins. Much of whatwe know of this time has been recordedby Hopkins and proven by the testimonyof others as to its veracity.

Minter would, over the next 3 years, sendalmost childish letter after letter, manyovert or explicitly sexual. Some stillsecret have never seen the light ofscrutiny. Her mother, aware of her daugh-ter’s nymphomaniac obsession with oldermen would frequently wield a .38 Smithand Wesson revolver at suitors shesuspected. Mother and daughter wouldhysterically conduct continuous scream-ing matches with each other. Often thesewould be over Taylor whom Shelbyparticularly loathed.

Some were even in front of Taylor him-self but he seemed to treat all of this witha dangerous off-handedness? Alloblivious of her mounting possessivenesshe meantime courted many lovers, maleand female.

The Director’s Chair.

Taylor’s output and quality of filmthroughout this period of 1920/21 andright up to his death was prodigious……he was reaching the apogee of his art. Hisstudio, Famous Players even allowed himthe then unheard-of accolade in June,1921 of forming his own film unit andediting his own films!!

He developed a revolutionary pioneeringmethod of under-screen sub-titles ratherthan the tedious narrative-interruptingcard-titles then the standard practice astalkies already loomed. He also started toshock and titillate Hollywood and hisaudiences with lurid sexually explicitfilmic devices, such as naked men(especially) and women, writhing abouton set in such best-sellers as The Furnacein staid still puritanical WASP America!Crowds rushed his sets to feast their eyeson Hollywood’s most beautiful bodies.He even went so far as to force his studiopublicists to concoct stories of his heroinaddiction to improve his public personaand box-office. Some tales were eventrue adding to his machismo.

But finally in March 1921 WilliamTaylor tiring of Minter’s hysterics andshameless sexual overtures, wrote to herexplicitly ordering her to never write,phone or contact him in any form again.But was it all too little too late?

Despite this after a short while sheblatantly phoned only to be wisely toldTaylor was ill. However, at a perform-ance of the opera OthelloMinter and hermother would spot the daring pair ofTaylor and his ‘friend ‘Hopkins. Thisfinally woke her stupefied mind toTaylor’s alternative lifestyle. From thatmoment on the world-renowned formerCarlovian would be doomed.

The stress of this odd incident at theopera and a huge workload caused abreakdown in his health. Undergoingsurgery for a duodenal ulcer he thenunderwent a second and a third operationin those pre-keyhole surgery days. Allthis hospitalized him for a month. A longconvalescence followed in Paris,London, and New York keeping himfrom work into the summer.

At home his two man-servants stole andembezzled $7000, at least, from him. Forgood measure they also wreaked his top-of-the-range automobile. Both were firedand disappeared but both would later besuspect’s further diverting attention fromthe investigations.

Romance, Friendship and Insanity.

When Mary Miles Minter returned toL.A. from filming late in 1921 she found


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Taylor with Mary Miles Minter

Courtesy of Bison Archives

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the now recovered William Taylor hadbegun a new and rewarding romancewith the truly great (as an actress and agenuine human being) Mabel Normand.She was everything Minter was not.Normand was amusing, sweet, unposses-sive, fun-to-be-with, an adorable friendand lover with an even temperament. Sheseemed to be able to ignore his gayfriends, his odd ways and even theirritating proclivities of his everpresent houseman.

She had experienced the great romanceof her life with the immortal MackSennett before WW 1, which would 60yrs. hence be immortalized in the hitmusical Mack and Mabel.

But in that unique special way of her’s,which she exhibited throughout her shortlife, she retained Mack’s friendship, tillher tubercular death in 1929. Like Taylorand so many others in that early filmworld she had invented her past for thepress. She was giddy, full of Irishmischief (a trait she transferred to thescreen), a tomboy. Like him she wasathletic and loved books. Millions ofworking-class girls identified with her.

In his bi-sexual way Taylor was, finally,truly in love with Mabel Normand. Hewould stare, in this his middle-age, at herframed photo night after night. When she

was away he besieged her withtelegrams. He wined and dined her, oftenat Mack Sennett’s parties. He swoppedbooks and constant presents with her. Sheenjoyed his erudition, he her vitality. Justbefore Christmas, 1921 while shoppingfor gifts for her, he was disagreeablyspotted across an aisle by the odiousMary Miles Minter. Minter then turnedup at his door late on Christmas Eve.They exchanged what Taylor vainlyhoped were farewell notes. Minter wouldrelate this to an Asst. District Attorneyafter his murder.

Mabel and Taylor later in that Christmasseason would argue despite their earlierexchange of expensive gifts. However,he was immediately contrite and sent hera $1250 jewelled tassel! Throughout thewhole of January he showered her withroses trimmed with heather daily.

The last Day.

The morning of Mon., 21st Feb., 1922broke frostily and clear as the famedHollywood director, known to moviehistory as William Desmond Taylor wasawoken by his manservant, HenryPeavey with a spoonful of milk ofmagnesia, suffering as he did with severedigestive problems. This same Peaveyhad a chequered past being due to appearfor trial 2 days hence for lewd conduct

with a man and vagrancy inWestlake Park.

The director, just shy of 50 was, at thisstage of his exotic life, handsome in apatrician fashion, with attractive greyhair cut close to his high intellectualbrow. His blue-grey secretive eyes staredintently over his Roman nose. His thin-lipped mouth giving forth an air of finebreeding and silent solitude. Very muchin keeping with his actual background ofIrish minor nobility, duty and service andnot the fictional one which he encour-aged his multitude of admirers to pro-mulgate. Years of horseback riding andmanual labour helped still maintain alean hard physique.

He bathed and took from a drawer hischoice of monogrammed crisp shirtswherein also nestled a lady’s pink night-gown (?). He had just finished The GreenTemptation. Yesterday he had driven intothe San Gabriel Range seeking locationsfor his forthcoming adaption of SomersetMaugham’s society story The Ordeal.Already for this project his homosexuallover and artistic collaborator of 6 yrs..,George Hopkins had designed a brilliantballroom set. Taylor and Hopkins hadbrilliantly cooperated on many such filmsbefore. They had thus given birth to awhole new execution of the previouslyramshackle business of film set-design.

His young chauffeur, Howard Fellowsthen drove him from his Alvarado CourtApartment in his luxury $18,500 McFar-lane to his tax-advisor, Juliet Berger. Hewas then driven on a gift –buying spreefor his lover, star and part-protégée, MabelNormand. Taylor then swam and lunchedat the L.A. Athletic Club. He then wenton to Famous Players Studio to discusswith the rising mogul, Jesse E. Laskey, thepending film and Taylor’s plans for otherfuture projects.

Arriving home at 5.00pm Taylor phonedMabel Normand inviting her to visit laterto receive her presents and render himloving conversational company. Then hesat down to his bland ‘British’ supperbefore being involved in an annoyingmysterious phone call (?). This distrac-tion for the chronically absent-mindeddirector resulted in Mabel Normandhaving to stand in the 32 degrees coldnight for several minutes. She refused his


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Mabel Normand, 1921 (inscribed“Cordially Mabel Normand)

Courtesy the Bison Archives

Henry Peavey, Taylor’s houseman.

Courtesy of Bison Archives.

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offer of supper, being due on-set at Sen-nett Studios very early next morning. Butshe entertained him on his piano whilethey drank 2 Orange Blossoms afavourite tipple for both of them.

Because there was then a Black/Latinocurfew, which still exists today in certainselect parts of L.A., the manservant,Peavey then left having locked the backand side-doors. Taylor and Normandarranged to accompany each other to theCameraman’s Ball that coming Saturdaywhile he ushered her to her car. Thecouple were heard laughing by Taylor’sneighbours the Lawrence family. AsMabel pulled away she blew a kiss toWilliam, little knowing she would neversee him alive again. Nor would anyoneelse except his murderer(s?).

Taylor then went back thru his door tocontinue working on his tax-papers. Aman knocked but left after a few minutesreceiving no answer. Later around8.30p.m.Taylor’s driver left hisMcFarlane limousine round the rear.Walking round he rang the bell but Taylordidn’t answer. So Fellows went home,remarking to himself on his bosses’partial deafness and chronic addictionto work.

Two days before these fateful happeningsTaylor told a lady friend of a most unwel-come midnight visit from the increas-ingly unbalanced child-woman, MaryMiles Minter. Such a visit would be char-acteristic of her erratic behaviour roundTaylor. Minter’s visits would often beinterrupted by a pursuing hystericalvengeful Charlotte Shelby, Minter’sdomineering dangerous and equallyunbalanced mother. Shelby would evengo so far as to petition Taylor’s gayfriends to find her daughter. But whensuch help was offered Shelby wouldrefuse it!

Meantime, at her home Mary Minterreturned from what she claimed had beena failed attempt to talk to Taylor. She thenread aloud to her mother and grand-mother. Slowly the fatal dawn of Feb.22 approached.

Murder Most Mysterious?

Henry Peavey, William’s foppish andeffeminate man-servant was leaving his

cheap lodgings, as this dawn broke.Before boarding the trolley-bus to headfor Alvarado Court he bought a bottle ofmilk of magnesia for his boss’s dyspep-sia. As was stated he would not havebeen allowed to sleep under his whiteemployer’s roof.

Opening the front-door he noticed thestill brightly-lit apartment had its blindsstill down. But his workaholic boss wasperfectly capable of pulling an‘all-nighter’ working on scripts so hethought nothing of this oddity. However,Peavey was surprized to find the front –door locked as Taylor normally forgot.

All was as the servant had left it theprevious evening, except for the prostrateneatly laid-out body of the exiled Irishfilm-maker. Even his tan gabardinejacket and slacks were uncreased!Taylor’s face was in repose, his hands byhis sides and his eyes were closed!?

The terrified boy ran into the streetshouting his head off. He was quicklyjoined by the landlord, Myles Jessurum,ill from his bed. Mrs Jessurum rang adoctor. Then she incredibly rang MabelNormand, rather than the police. ThusFamous Players were alerted and losingno time sent their trouble-shooter,Charles F. Eyton for ‘damage-limitation’,as we now refer to such cover-ups roundcelebrity’s activities.

Far too late to secure this crime-scene thepolice, late in the day, finally arrived.They find the apartment swarming withtenants in night-attire nosing everywhere,touching everything. By then even thebody was grossly disturbed with the rightarm, originally straight by Taylor’s side,lying at right angles with the clenchedfist now forced open (the Coroner’srightful sole duty). Thus time-of-death,rigor mortis, etc. would all be wronglycalculated.

The originally unrumpled body shouldhave indicated the killer had anemotional attachment to the deceased. Ifa man falls in death, shot or not, he fallsin an untidy heap. No death such asTaylor’s, violent or not, was everrecorded where the body ends up almostlying-in-state as William’s corpse orig-inally was found. So it had to have beenthus lovingly so arranged by his killer?

Deputy Sherriff Francis J. Wallis andSargent of Detectives, Thomas A. Zeiglercompounded their late arrival by actinglike green rookies when they still failedto seal the area and secure it for theCoroner. Now appears a never explainedor traced figure, posing as a doctor whoproclaims the director had died of acoronary or internal haemorrhage despitethe blood on the Axminster carpet and thehole under his arm. Nobody stops this‘doctor’ or enquires his bona fides! Ispeculate it may even have been a char-acteristic stunt of a certain hyper-imaginative Mary Miles Minter?!?

The Coroner continues this almost Key-stonesque charade when he fails to notethe presence of the uncongealed blood,indicating a time-of-death of under 12hours. Then in an incredible breach ofjurisprudence this same Coroner allowsstudio trouble-shooter, Charles Eton torecommence an examination of thevictim! Eyton then in a Chaplin parodyeven goes on to instruct the medical manon body-examination procedures! Hewas a mere studio manager with not evena background in security much less onein medicine!

The bullet-hole was eventually foundunder William’s armpit with burn marksaround it indicating a point-blank close-up shot. Also, the killer wasn’t a profes-sional as a pro would realize the victimcould have swung around and seized thegun. Rather the murderer held the victimin a loving embrace given the angle andplace-of-entry of the bullet.

Studio man Eyton now compounded hisfelonies, not that anybody was noticing,by removing vital evidence from themurder scene, thus becoming an acces-sory after-the-fact to the killing. Underthe gaze of 5 police officers he furthermessed –up fingerprints, ransackeddrawers and cupboards for anythingdamaging to his employers. Anything hefound he piled into a wire basket still inplain view of the now dozen orso officials.

Forensics Fouled-up /EvidenceEvaded.

When the police finally got around tosearching the body and the crime scenethemselves, they failed to wear rubber


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gloves for dusting Taylor’s effects forfingerprints, etc..... Mistakes andmishandling continued to pile upon eachother. Still, bystanders were let standaround as more officials and reportersshoved in.

However, in a drawer was found a pinknightie which Taylor was even rumouredto wear? Also an initialled ladies hand-kerchief was found. This would be accu-rately identified as belonging to MaryMiles Minter. A pale lavender notepapersheet from her, embossed with herfavourite butterfly motif fluttered to thefloor from the handkerchief. Written onit was:

Dearest,I love you ---I love you---I love you

xxxxxxxX

Yours Always!

Surely this was proof enough of herproximity to the put-upon Taylor at thetime –of-death?? Both items typical ofher self-centred schoolgirl loony fantasywith him. Also,it was sure evidence ofwhy she would drive the fuss hating

man-of-the-world to distraction.

Various, sometimes conflicting witnessaccounts of Taylor’s last evening and thevaried comings-and-goings at AlvaradoCourt were taken to no avail. Sightingsof men asking for directions in thevicinity proved false. Following in this-now-established pattern of ineptitude thevictim’s clothes were burnt without anyanalysis of forensic evidence or ballisticexamination!

The constant fixation with a malefugitive was explained with the facileexcuse ‘a woman seldom uses a .38 (ref.syndicated columnist Edward Doherty).However, one female very definitely DIDuse one, frequently in public view, and ina bogus suicide attempt years before.That that woman was Mary MilesMinter!!

Taylor’s death –wound when examinedby police Chief Autopsy Surgeon Dr. A.F.Wagner was proven to have burn-marksaround it in the side of his jacket. It indi-cated Taylor at the moment of his deathhad his arms stretched out, in an embrace(?). He had sustained the wound on hisleft-side, between his seventh and eighthrib, penetrating his left lung. In commonwith its initial upward directed entry thebullet passed up into the neck where itdeflected, before hitting the collarbonefour and a half inches inside his flesh.The angle indicated a much shorter per-son (A woman?) than Taylor’s fullsix foot.

The .38 Smith and Wesson death weaponhad been tilted up at the moment of thefatal shot with William’s arms embracinghis killer in affection or in struggle. Thefacial composure indicated it was not ina death defence.

Ballistics established firmly it had beena 10yr. old blue- steel break top 1911model Smith and Wesson .38. This typeof revolver was most uncommon by1922. No official forensic time of deathcould be established but it circumstan-tially could be assumed to be the earlyhours of the morning (ref. Variety, issueApril 10th, 1922).

Minter and her harridan mother werewell-known to own such an unusualweapon but amazingly did not knowingly

dispose of it till years later! This believeddisposal happening, astoundingly, in themiddle of another unrelated criminalhunt! This weapon was never asked foror examined by the investigators.

On Taylor’s jacket were found 3 longstrands of blond hair further indicating afemale with her head on his chest? Thesewere found to match Minter’s blondlocks exactly. Brought in reluctantly forquestioning she lied consistently, oftcontradicting herself against knownfacts. Some facile excuse was offered byher for the presence of her locks onTaylor’s coat. Given that William hadrejected her and even thrown her outagain and again, she could offer noexplanation for her presence in his prox-imity. Neither had she any alibi to indi-cate she had not premeditated the murder.

Innocents Suffer.

Detectives did actually arrest Minter.Going to her mother Shelby’s house theyeven questioned this possessive vindic-tive old woman who plainly hatedWilliam Taylor. She gave every indica-tion of an accomplice preparing to fleeand offered no help.

As previously written Shelby was a long-time close associate of the deeply corrupt(remember L.A. Confidential?) andambitious L.A. District Attorney ThomasL. Woolwine. He would use all his guileand connections to avoid at every turnany attempt to implicate this terriblefemale twosome. Misguided hunts afterany or all other suspects were demandedby him.

Subsequently, the investigative authorCharles Higham (who devoted a lot ofhis life and his veteran Hollywoodcontacts to find the truth) was told byMary Minter that her mother CharlotteShelby had told Minter of Taylor’s deathat 11.00 A.M. However, Shelby had thatmorning already made a fatal incriminat-ing mistake. As early as 7.00 A.M.Shelby had phoned a friend advisor,Mary Berger to say the studio had rungto tell her of William’s murder.

But Peavey did not even open the apart-ment till 7.30 A.M. a time underwrittenby his regular trolley bus ride. Actualmurder was not suspected for a further 20


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minutes! Shelby thus had to know whokilled William Taylor from the verybeginning! Thus the noose should havetightened round both these unsavourywomen way back in 1922. But………………!

If further convincing were needed,mother and daughter now initiated moreheartbreak and tragedy. Shelby disposedof her innocent naïve cook, Belle Simp-son who had seen too much. Shelby hadBelle arrested on a trumped-up chargeand sent quickly to a lunatic asylum in atotally illegal manner (shades of D.A.Woolwine). Poor Belle would spend therest of her life in solitary confinement,while her family for 7 decades vainlysought her release. The family were con-stantly told by the police to ‘notpursue it’.

Another witness to much of the activityin the Shelby-Minter house on that fate-ful night paid an equally high price. Man-ley Earls Tiffany, healthy, young, andwell-connected, seized by a mysteryillness, died 3 weeks later under anunnamed operation?

Stories and Lies.

Minter’s version of the story, in 1922,again 4 years later, subsequently in 1937to her sister, Margaret and finally toAuthor Charles Higham decades later,would contain contradictions and facts atvariance with each other. Al Capone waswise when he advised ‘A liar has to havea long good memory’!

Shelby was not the only one on thatawful morning to make basic mistakes,Minter made at least 2 further mistakeson arrival at Alvarado Court. She askedfor Taylor’s pinkie finger cabochonsapphire and diamond ring. She alsoenquired if he had left a Will? Thirty nineyears later she would continue to regretboth serious lapses (ref. C. Higham). Shethen went, she claimed, to where thebody lay, again inventing fantasiesresembling purple silent melodramaround this sub-incident.

Minter unbelievably called an actualpress conference on the evening of themurder! Feigning an obvious bogus coldshe remained calm throughout curled upon a coach. Lies about her relations with

Taylor percolated her narrative. She hadthe neck to claim William ‘had not anenemy in the world’, a fact she knew tobe patently false (at least Shelby and hismurderer bore a grudge). All this ‘guff’was to slip in her bogus alibi. The wholecharade an opportunistic cheap shot atself-publicity.

Mabel Normand, by contrast, always inher short remaining life, gave then andlater, accurate, true and never changingaccounts of her movements on that fate-ful evening and how she heard themorbid news on-set.

There is not sufficient space here torecount all the dubious and varioussuspects who were used to cover the trailof clear evidence under the nose of thepolice. We make one set of observationsbefore summing up.

Corruption Capitol---Why the MurderRemains ‘Unsolved’.

Los Angeles in the ‘20s was a corrupt anddangerous city, comprising as it still does80 towns strung together in a metropolisof steaming heat and hedonism. Thisunenviable image went back to its 1849Gold Rush days. Opium was freelyavailable, brothels were rife, lynch mobs In this city of then barely three quartersof a million people 91,123 arrests weremade in one bare year! Pickpocketsroamed freely. Policemen were killedwith impunity. Police, for their part,failed to answer alarm calls. Thusvigilantes usurped normal law and order.One police chief resigned after only 3weeks, only to be replaced by the corruptofficer he himself had taken office from!

The D.A. Woolwine, we mentioned inour narrative facing then into an electionhe would lose, was already sufferingfrom the cancer that, 3yrs. hence wouldkill him. Crooked as they come he wouldspin web after web of lies and deceit tohis public. Ironically, it was he who hadoriginally introduced Taylor to MaryMiles Minter! Minter could not have hada more ruthless and powerful ally.

The murder bungalow at 400B AlvaradoCourt was demolished in 1966 to makeway for a supermarket of all things

The Funeral.

St. Pauls, Pershing Square, a shabbycathedral marked for demolition, the siteof the future Biltmore Hotel, sentWilliam Desmond Taylor to his eternalreward. A motley crowd of 10,000 sensa-tion-seekers, idlers, and tourists werebarely kept in order by mounted and footpolice. To the undoubted disappointmentof this crew, none of Hollywood’s bestand brightest bothered to attend. OnlyTaylor’s tried and true friends braved thenotoriety in mourning. Hopkins,Normand, Cecil B. DeMille (who wouldimmortalize Taylor’s orgiastic cast style),and Constance Talmadge were probablythe only notables.

A rival mediocre despised (by Taylor)director, Frank Lloyd devised a vulgartasteless self-promoting spectacle as ifWilliam was royalty or a distinguishedsoldier, complete with Union flag on thecoffin, something the dead man wouldhave hated. However, in the front pewwere his true friends and lovers, of bothsexes, behind wreaths sent by MabelNormand, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fair-banks, Gloria Swanson, RudolfValentino, etc...

But even this awful service could notdrown out the screaming, pushing moboutside. A consolation for his friends wasMary Miles Minter was a no-show. Atthe time she was spinning another of hertasteless fables to an Asst. District Attor-ney. This worthy was helpfully steeringher away from any possible self-incrimi-nation in yet another example of the uttercomplicity of the authorities in the Irish-man’s murder

Two Women and the Legend.

One more myth of the William DesmondTaylor tragedy needs to be cleared up.The killing was supposed to destroy thecareers of both Mabel Normand andMary Miles Minter. Both were rumouredto have been dropped from all futurefilms. For a while the opposite was thecase for Minter began filming a lurid sex-drama South of Suva showing no griefnor missing a days filming. She thenwent on a holiday cruise to Hawaii mak-ing the maximum of all this ill-gainedattention and press interest. She wouldhave many love affairs even one with


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Charlie Chaplin. But by 1925 her filmcareer was permanently washed up.Maybe even the uncaring film worldrealized the truth but never announced it?She ballooned to an enormous size. Shewould, in common with her crone motherlive a very long contentious life buoyedup by bequests, court settlements andfortuitous property deals. Both werenever far from controversy and some-times jail. Despite her many love affairs,in keeping with her lifelong fantasiesespecially in regard to Taylor, she diedclaiming, somewhat outlandishly, to bestill a virgin!! On her deathbed in 1984she was rumoured to have made a con-fession. But the nurse, Amanda Ryland’sdisappeared for good immediately.Minter left $ 4million plus real estate.

Unfortunately, the notorious Smith andWesson’s deadly story was far fromfinished. Minter incredibly kept it in herpossession until her mother stole it,evidently fearing this paranoid selfishgirl-woman might actually use it aslethally again!

Shelby asked a friend, Chauncey Eatonto hide it. However, it would surfaceagain in a 1937 family fall-out murdercase. Police belatedly matched the ballis-tics to the Taylor bullet. Despite thisdamning forensic proof unbelievablyMinter was still not charged thoughmurder has no Statute of Limitations. Insome peculiar way it found its way backto the L.A. Police. Another corrupt-to-the-end D.A., Barren Fits who hadillegally closed the Taylor file in 1938,used it to shoot himself in 1973. 51yrshad passed since it had killed the greatCarlow director. Generations of D.As hadkept it, quite improperly, rather than haveit correctly stored in the secure policeproperty dept...

But this close shave would never stopthese two duplicitous women. In but oneexample, Shelby was involved in anothercourt battles over money. She wasaccused of fraud. Her fellow swindlerLeslie Henry went to jail. She as usualwalked away scot-free. Their lies went onand on.

Mabel Normand his true and abidingfriend saw her career flourish. However,true to her (half) Irish luck she would beinvolved in another murder case. Her

one-time great love Mack Sennett stoodby her and she was totally cleared. Herincreasing bad health required andreceived Sennett’s support but she died atthe Pottenger Sanatorium in Monrovia in1929 at only 32yrs old.

The contention, repeated by the characterDenis (Taylor’s brother) in the script ofCarlow Little Theatre’s ‘Life’, that Mabelwas Hollywood’s ‘Queen of Druggies’ istotally unfounded and I could not trace itin any legitimate source. She was gifted,funny, pretty, vibrant, and a belovedincredible honest soul, a hero of workinggirls. She was the Silent Screen’s PremierComedienne.

Her most enduring 2 memorials are dueto two immortal film and stage produc-tions. Firstly Billy Wilder’s central char-acter in Sunset Boulevard is namedNORMA DESMOND, a consciousmeshing of Mabel’s surname andTaylor’s middle name. The characterrelaunched the career of Mabel’s real lifefriend, Gloria Swanson and who wouldcreate great roles until her death.

Later the great Andrew Lloyd Webberwould relaunch the drama as an immortalmusical. The storyline with its alsounsolved body-in-the-pool, aka Taylor,echoes the anarchic Wild West atmos-phere of Taylor’s ‘20s L.A. Here livedstill such legends as even Wyatt Earp,who only died at his typewriter in 1927!

The great love affair of Mabel’s lifewould be remembered in the hit musicalMack and Mabel. When this opened onBroadway to rave revues in 1970 itstarred the great Robert Preston of MusicMan fame and Bernadette Powers. It hasbeen seen there and in the West Endmany times since always to a fantasticreception.

Other Players.

William’s brother Denis in a starksymbolism of that lost gentile family ofour town would disappeared in the Amer-icas in the year of the ‘Talkies’ 1927,having failed to make a breakthrough inHollywood, never to be seen again.

Ethel Daisy Deane-Tanner (she retainedher father’s Carlow name) Robins,Taylor’s only child whom he had aban-

doned in New York, died in Florida in1974. Her mother had passed away in1928. Neither woman received a pennyfrom the director’s ravaged but originallysubstantial estate. But thanks to hermother’s happy rich second marriage thisill-treated girl died wealthy. She wouldfinally receive recognition only on herfather’s tombstone.

So by the end of the Twenties all of themain characters but one, excepting theharpies’ twosome, were dead. The othersurvivor was the gifted set-designer andTaylor’s gay lover of 6 yrs., George Hop-kins. His unpublished memoir wouldpoint the finger of accusation in a long-overdue but accurate direction.

This gifted gentle man would go on tofame and renown at Warner Bros. Win-ning many Oscars and other awards hismost well-known and loved creationswould be Rick’s Club in Casablanca andthe magnificent chocolate box backdropsof My Fair Lady. One can be sure thelovely George would not have realizedthe ironic connection of Shaw to his lostfriend’s birthplace. This latter was alsomy own beloved Father’s last film!Hopkins died in 1988.

Epilogue/ Appreciation.

What would have been Taylor’s potentialhad he lived? Dying short of 50 he mighthave gone on to, at least 20+ yrs. more ofcreativity. His already large corpus of 84films or so showed great promise. Sadly,only 6 perhaps survive so much can onlybe speculation but the positive contem-porary critiques they elicited give usgood grounds for high expectations.

Given his cultivation, learning, inven-tiveness and lovely speaking voice whatpossibilities might Talkies (only 5yrs.hence) have offered him? Remember,with Alvarez Kelly he had been a pioneerof the full length feature film. Directingand acting in so many films his progresswas always on a rising trajectory.

He had been President of the MotionPicture Directors Association (forerunnerof the Academy) for an impressive 3yrs.Each of all his later films would demon-strate new innovations.

Born to gentility and relative rural


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obscurity he had, in a life of adventure,hardship, and ultimately glamour cometo stride the stage of the world with thegreat, the good and the very ungood. Atthe apogee of his career he would die aninnocent, violent, undeserved, and point-less death. His murderers would go totheir time –distant graves unpunished.He surely was a victim of his gentlemanners and sexually harmlessambivalence.

But perhaps like Valentino or JamesDean, Desmond Taylor’s greatest endur-ing legacy to the world was to die thus atthe height of his potential, fame,and influence!?

Poignantly, his tomb would echo boththis lost legacy and the far-off repudiated(understandably by him) land of his birth.His Hollywood Cemetery’s (final homeof many film and other luminaries)cathedral-like chapel now shelters thebones of William Desmond Taylor. Iron-ically, his famed renowned nomencla-ture, W, D. Taylor was not referred to onhis tombstone. It reads:

William C. Deane-Tanner Beloved Father of Ethel Deane-TannerDied February 22an, 1922.

References: Author’s Note: Charles Higham’s contri-bution to the vast and continuous 90 yrs.on, body of literary investigation of thisinfamous crime is definitive I feel. Hismasterful bio of Taylor’s oft mysteriouslife stands head and shoulders above allother attempts. It was my primary andprinciple source. Higham’s father knewTaylor and many of the protagonists. Healso had access to written posthumoustestimonies. He interviewed all of thesurviving players just in time!

Thus Highiam could draw on evidenceand personal perceptions of all these, asmost others could not. With circumspec-tion, forensic deduction, and painstakingdetective work he goes on to examine thelater actions of our participant players toinfer a bearing on their guilt orinnocence. Having studied, over 3yrs.much that has been extensively writtenon this abiding mystery I believeHigham’s conclusions are beyond doubt.

Murder in HollywoodSolving a Silent Screen MysteryCharles Higham U. of Wisconsin PressTerrace Bks.2004 Caught in the ActGeorge James HopkinsUnpublished William Desmond Taylor’s Murder EarlStanley Gardner Duell, Sloane & Pearce L.A. & New York William Desmond Taylor—A DossierBruce Long The Scarecrow Press Inc. Metuchen, N.J. & London

Acknowledgements.A very special thank you to Carlow manMarc Ivan O’Gorman now of Holly-wood, Los Angeles and New York whotook time out from script-writing andmany other T.V. and film projects toencourage, guide and direct me to copy-right-sources regarding my elusivesubject. Marc is also the founding–fatherof Taylor Fest so both William DesmondTaylor and I have much to thank him for.Thanks also, finally to Bison Studio whoallowed the use of certain photos inthis study.


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The Carlow Polo Club announced a tour-nament, but as the dates clashed withother fixtures, and as there were onlythree entries, it was decided to play aCarlow Team v a Wexford team yester-day, the winners to play Mr. J. J. Roark'steam to-day. Owing to the long-contin-ued drought the ground was very bard,and partly, it not entirely, owing to thisstate of things. the play yesterdayresulted in a chapter of accidents, happilywith no more serious result than a brokencollar-bone. Shortly after three o'clockthe teams lined out as follow, before agoodly number of spectators:—

Carlow - Mr. S. Slocock, Mr. B. Slocock,Mr. W. E. Grogan, Mr. W. Slocock(hack).

Wexford - Mr. Jackson, Mr. Chambers,

Mr. Deathe, Captain Loftus Bryan(back).

Mr. Stewart Duckett acted as umpire.

TheWexford team were allowed a hand-icap of three goals, and the play through-out was fast, and closely contested.Daring the first two chukkars neither sidescored. Just after the commencement ofthe third chukkar Carlow scored firstgoal, and a few minutes later CaptainBryan's pony fell, throwing its riderheavily, and breaking his left collar-hone. After a short delay, during which he wasattended by Drs. Mc Donald andRawson, who were spectators, Capt.Bryan's place was taken by Mr. D. Ross,and at, the end of the fourth chukkar theplay was WI goals each. Give and takeplay followed, Carlow slowly adding to

the N:ure, hut before the finish. Mr. Gro-gan's mounts fell no less than three times.Mr. Grogan continued to play after thetwo first falls, but. was obliged to retireafter the third. though happily not muchhurt, when playing off the deciding goal,both sides being six goals (in; eludingWexford's handicap). At this stage of thegame Wexford retired, leaving Carlowto play Mr. Roark's team. Mr. Roark'steam will be:— Mr. Roark. Mr. Lakin, 11th Ilussars;Captain Rome, 11th Hussars; and Mr. D.J. Ross.

The Irish Times (1874-1920; September12, 1906;

ProQuest Historical Newspapers; TheIrish Times (1859-2012) and The WeeklyIris! pg. 7

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Lardner’s story was not about a life “welllived” as he was a bit of a villain, but hisis the story of a life packed full ofincidents, with dispute and developmentsof the highest importance in 19th centurysociety. His affair and elopement withMrs Heaviside was an international scan-dal that put the Irishman on the frontpage of national papers. Lardner wasalready a household name by 1838having established a publishing empirethat ‘literally’ touched the life of mostmiddle-class of Victorians who proudlyshowed their educational credentials withvolumes of Lardner’s Cyclopaedias orhis derivate books on their bookshelves;the first books to be within their pricerange in middle-class households.Upwardly mobile working class men andtradesmen were able to start to getqualifications from pursuing course inlocal Mechanics Institutes and Collegesbut in 1850 these Institutes faced a threatto their very existence but many trans-formed themselves into famous universi-ties aided in no small part by theavailability for the first time of suitablestudent textbooks streaming out of theLardner publishing empire. Carlow in the1840s had no less than two MechanicsInstitutes, one Protestant and oneCatholic but despite this unique distinc-tion still awaits a university!

Lardner’s great celebrity was partlybased on his colorful and tangled lovelife which culminated in him runningaway to Paris with Mary the wife ofCaptain Richard Heaviside. This scandal

is detailed by Anna Martin giving the fullsalacious detail of the Captain adminis-tering some physical punishment to thesmall Dionysius and then throwing hiswig in the fire. ‘The Villain’ is a pageturner for sure at this point but thesepredictions populate his intriguing storystarting from Denis’s early life in Dublinand marriage to Cecelia Flood a memberof the famous nationalist family and theireventual separation. The Provost ofTrinity, Patrick Prendergast recentlycommented one of the first colourfulaspects of Lardner’s tangled love life.Denis in Trinity adopted the monikerDionysius a name that even today almostmarks him out as being unique, butnot quite.

To give an example of the surprises you’lluncover: Lardner’s liaison with amarried woman in Dublin produced theonly other ‘Dionysius’ in Irish history –one who eventually became much morefamous than his father. This is DionBoucicault, who was in fact christenedDionysius Lardner Boursiquot so notmuch effort was made to hide his pater-nity. Dion Boucicault inherited hisfather’s facility with words, but he wasmore creative again – his plays arestill performed.

What is invariably forgotten is Lardner’sown leading role in educational in thefirst half of the 19th century and his workwas unquestionably culturally transfor-mative. His university mathematics,physics and steam engineering textbooks

opened up university education, while hisschool textbooks on science provided thebasis for the first ever school sciencecourses in the mid-nineteenth century.Steam, scandal and the six shillingsciences: Dionysius Lardner was anexpert in all three. The most famoussavant of his day, he rubbed shoulderswith the rich and famous, commissioningSir Walter Scott, Mary Shelley andRobert Southey to write for his ency-clopaedia, and he supported RowlandHill in the campaign for a cheap postalservice. He wrote also and lectured withprescience in Europe and the USA on theimportance of computers a centurybefore they began their enormous trans-formative role on our modern society.

Anna Martin puts her finger on the verycrucial moment for Lardner’s massproduction of books when in 1824 thepublisher Archibald Constableannounced excitedly at a dinner with SirWalter Scott “printing and bookselling,an instrument for enlightening and enter-taining mankind, as well, of course, asmaking money, are yet in their infancy”.Scott was inveigled into a publishingproject entitled ‘Constable’s Miscellany’which Lardner copied with his lster‘Cabinet Cyclopaedia’ volumes that ranfrom 1829 until Thomas Moore’s Historyof Ireland which was the final volume in1846. After Lardner’s elopement withMrs Heaviside the Cyclopaedia titleswere sold in 1851. Lardner had seized hisopportunity when Constable’s empire raninto trouble and Scott was left financiallydistressed to be recruited by Lardner. TheCyclopaedias thus took the front line in

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“The Villain of Steam

Life of Dionysius Lardner”

By A.L. Martin

Norman McMillan and Martin Nevin

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the commercial war for shelf space on thefrontrooms of Victorian middle-class.Lardner was also to write the first ofmany serial monographs with his hugelyinfluential book ‘Treatise on Mechanics’for the Library of Useful Knowledge(LUK) in in 1829. These monographssold in astonishing numbers and Lardnerpublished an astonishing number of thesewritten by himself and others! Some ofus are old enough to remember glassfronted bookshelves family homes whichalmost invariably had amongst themselections of Encyclopaedias/Cyclopae-dias, smatterings of monographs andalways classic novels usually including acouple of Scott volumes.

The book is a very welcome release andcertainly enlivened this year’s SteamFestival where it was presented as itresurrects a knowledge of the nowforgotten but in his day the foremostinternational celebrity of steam. Lard-ner’s fame was from his acknowledgedauthority on steam engineering, steam-car locomotion, steam railways, streamnavigation, steam economics and lastlyand not least, his lecturing on steam. HisRDS lectures in 1826 on steam were asensation as were his book on theselectures coming before Ireland’s first rail-way built by William Dargan ofLaois/Carlow in 1831. Lardner was anIrish nationalist and Whig, and close toThomas Moore.

Many criticized the idea of setting up anew university in London but Lardner’srole in Gower Street’s UCL was centrallyimportant to the radical’s educationalrevolution. Let it not be forgotten Toriesand enemies of this project where racingto establish their rival King’s College soit was not surprising that politically manywere very rude about Lardner and hischeap publications (Calling the Univer-sity ‘StinkO’m Alley’ is racist butanother term of abuse ‘The Old Lady ofGower Street’ today has become a termof endearment for UCL); it was in truththe birth of one of the world’s greatuniversities. Lardner was the first superstar academic of the new universitydelivering the opening lecture. He tookdirectly from his own Trinity CollegeDublin to the new University CollegeLondon a tradition of the external studentstudying in their own time for degreessupported initially and uniquely for his

course with well-written mathematics,physics and philosophy textbooks. Fromthis launch pad, London by the end ofthat century became the largest ‘exami-nation’ university in the world for suchexternal students. Lardner must there-fore be placed at the very forefront of thefield of pedagogy in both second andthird-level which is overlooked orforgotten because pedagogy was ascience that simply had no recognition inVictorian society.

Anna Martin’s biography is about a manwhose reputation is certainly diminishedin historical studies for various goodreasons, but whose legacy in truth istoday still evident and one of incredibleimportance. Irish people’s self-deprecat-ing humour will enjoy the joke that isrepresented by Lardner’s life describedin this book as it is largely at the expenseof the English establishment. The Britscould not break free from the thencrippling intellectual restrictions of New-ton’s embrace which the analytical re-formers in mathematics called “the‘dot’age” until a reform led by Lardnerthat promoted the continental methods ofdifferential calculus; they refused toallow the anachronistic dominance ofclassics by any introduction of sciencecontent in their school curriculums

despite the outcry in the national papersas Britain fell disastrously behindGermany and France; only very lateindeed did Britain make any attempts toprovide training facilities for workingmen; and most embarrassingly, theBritish Establishment failed to reformtheir government of science as the RoyalSociety scandalously remained a drink-ing club for aristocrats. The joke is thatthe British Establishment recieved anenormous jolt from this man abused asthe ‘Irish Diddler’ and indeed across somany key areas of British society thatwere all in need of such drastic reform.

A L Martin draws together originalmaterial from many sources to rebuildLardner’s aston-ishing, triumphant andsurprisingly hilarious story. This wonder-ful book is the first ever biography ofDionysius Lardner, one of the most well-known men of the Regency Age, whosescientific and cultural publicationshelped transform Victorian society asradically as the advent of Wikipediatransformed the lives of our generation.Wonderfully, to end the story, Lardner“Saw Naples and died”.

Railways, Carlow and LardnerThe disgraced Lardner left from Europeto set up tours (1840-1845) of American

Carlow connections from a new book “The Villain of Steam”

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A.L. Martin with Paddy Prendergast, Provost of Trinity College

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cities having his lectures published in fullin national and regional newspapers theday of the lecture, moving to lecturing inlecture halls rather than lecturing in largeauditoriums, thereby making science andengineering lectures available to largenumbers of both men and women. AnnaMartin noted the historian Paul H Theer-man has estimated Lardner could haveperformed in front of “the equivalent ofa quarter of the civilized America”. Hislecture performances radically extendedthe use educational props, but thisdependence on props spelt the end of thisincredible tour when these weredestroyed in 1844 in a theatre fire inProvidence on Rhode Island. The bookshe published with Longmans were quickbut beautifully edited transcriptions fromnewspaper articles that were full ofwoodcut illustrations made Lardnerfabulously rich. He was already famous,or perhaps more accurately infamous,touring America with Mrs Heaviside whowas by then Mrs Lardner. He was able tomarry Mary as she had been divorced byher husband by an Act of the WestminsterParliament after the couple’s scandalouselopement in 1839.

The disputes Lardner had over Railwayscame from his expert witness roles inmany Westminster Railway Bills. TheEnglish hero worship of Brunel hasdistorted this history badly. Brunel wasemployed by our wonderful entrepreneurWilliam Dargan on early pioneering railconstructions in Wicklow learning a lotabout tunneling and other engineeringmatters. Lardner is constantly deridedand misrepresenting for predictingstream navigation across Atlantic wasimpossible. The truth is as Anna Martindemonstrates that Lardner was objec-tively explaining the advantage of usingIreland (Foynes was established as thehub by Dargan and later importantly ledto the seaplane connection that thenpresaged the Shannon Airport) as thepoint of departure for New York. Lardnerwas proved correct by warning of thecommercial failure of Bristol and Liver-pool Atlantic Communications. He wasclear, as everyone in Ireland now knowsthat England’s connection with the NewWorld should be through Ireland. Thegreat liners steamed to New York fromSouthampton with a stop at Cove. TheGreat Western Railway and Steam Navi-gation Bill evidence given by Lardner

was prescient in explaining the financiallimitations of this proposed Atlanticroute. He was never forgiven for oppos-ing Brunel and still less for being right!Lardner’s greatest recognition came atthe 1835 Dublin British Association forthe Advancement of Science (BAAS)meeting. The reform movement inDublin had been led by ProvostBartholomew Lloyd from the start of the19th century and he was the onlyacademic leader at the founding of theBAAS in York in 1831 which was adevelopment boycotted by the otherestablishment church universities inOxbridge and St Andrews. The reform ofa mathematical curriculum in science andengineering was led by Lardner whointroduced the analytical method for thefirst time in the science of economics.Lardner was the man who wrote thebooks in the early 1820 that deliveredreally this university reform in Britainbecause his books were written for thestudent and at a level that could under-stood by those who really needed profes-sionally to grasp these methods. Theimportance of the books Ladner wrote onmathematics cannot be over-exaggerated.These books were Central Forces (1820),Algebraic Geometry (1823 and repub-lished 1831), Differential and IntegralCalculus (1825), Lines of Curvature ofEllipsoids, hyperboloids and Paraboloids(1825), Spherical Trigonometry (1926),not forgetting his Six Books of Euclid(1830). He recycled these works andindeed produced later mathematicalmasterpieces in his Cyclopaedias articlesand monographs. Lardner did not need torecruit for some of his volumes authorshaving written these wonderful andhugely popular and influential studies.Lardner did howwever recruit specialistssuch as de Morgan works on recentalgebraic developments demonstratingLardner’s appreciation of his ownlimitations.

Lardner established a lecture tour (1840-44) that enable Tyndall in 1872 workingagain with Longmans in a year-long tourof the Eastern Seaboard of the USA toraise enough funds (Billions in today’smoney) to actually establish the firstresearch facilities in the USA’s premierIvy League Universities. The venuesinitially established by Lardner were inplace and indeed primed for exploitationby Tyndall. The Carlowman’s contribu-

tion to the now much Nobel decoratedscience of the USA is something Carlowcan be proud. This notable Irish contri-bution to the USA detailed in McMillan’sbook that was planned and edited withhis friend Bill Brock 250th AnniversaryPublication of the RDS “John Tyndall:Essays in a Natural Philosopher” andfeaturing Katherine Russell Sopka’sstudy in Chapter 15 of “John Tyndall:International Popularizer of Science”pp.193 – 203. The International TyndallSchool and the National EnvironmentalWeek in 1993 run by McMillan and hisson Douglas was opened by the Presidentof Penn State University in a transatlanticbroadcast to acknowledge this debt toCarlow and from this historic event runin Carlow came the establishment of theTyndall Centre for Climate ChangeResearch was almost certainly namedfrom this event as the three foundinguniversities East Anglia, Southamptonand Manchester were in attendance andestablished their project after being inCarlow for that week’s events andlectures on climate change and relatedmatters. This is a new legacy that flowsout internationally from Ireland viaLardner and to Tyndall that should notbe forgotten.

Lardner work is diminished and criti-cized as being simply “That of a popu-larizer” but he was clearly an originalthinker and especially this aspect of hispublished works is most clearlypresented in his ‘Railway Economy’published in New York by Harper Broth-ers in 1850. In this landmark work, heintroduced important graphical methodsand most importantly analytical mathe-matics to economic analysis and predic-tion. This kind of superior analysis ofdata and presentation is seen here asground breaking but is to be found every-where throughout his books and articles.

This is an excellent book and indeed areal-life thriller with lasting value as yourhistorical understanding of Victoriansociety will be much improved by thiswell-researched biography. A good Xmasstocking filler.

Carlow connections from a new book “The Villain of Steam”

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When you travel through Irelandin the summer, you don't needroadsigns to tell you which countyyou’re in. Flags attached to urbangables and farmyard gates, orfluttering from little plastic flagpoles clipped to car-windows,leave you in no doubt.

The Gaelic Athletic Associationseason is in ftll swing andallegiances are proudly displayedin most of the thirty-two countieson the island of Ireland - espe-cially those counties which are inWith a chance of winning some-thing, be it in football or hurling.

The GAA justifiably boasts that itreaches into every village andcrossroads in the country. It has apresence in even the smallestcommunities, but the countystructure is the backbone ofthe organisation.

County allegiance is not confined to suchmatters. The Irish abroad have always bladed together and in many instanceshave formed county associations.

Parts of cities like London and New Yorknot only had 'Irish districts but many ofthese districts had particular streets pop-ulated by people from a particular county.

Ask most Irish people where they arefrom and the chances are they will an-swer with the name, not of their town, butof their county.

We even go so far as to have our owncounty anthems, such as The Rose cfTralee; The Banks of my Own LovelyLee; and 'The Rose of Mooncoin. I wasgoing to say that the list is endless, butactually it ends at thirty-two and I can'tthink of quarter of them.

ANYONE WOULD be forgiven forthinking that the county structure waspart of our DNA, a badge of identity wecan trace back to the time of FinnMcCool’s granny.

In fact, it is the least 'Irish' of our admin-istrative divisions.

The county system was introduced by theNormans and consolidated by theEnglish Tudor monarchs. It replaced thenative Irish divisions of townlands andprovinces in importance and-took overfour hundred years to complete.

Look at an alphabetical list of countiesand it all seems neat and logical, butgetting them all in place was a long andtorturous process. The newly arrivedNormans didn't sit down dter securing atoe-hold at Baginbun and say:

'Right, lads, we'll start here with Antrim,

work our way through and finishwith Wicklow?

IT WASN'T even a question of startingin Dublin and slowly spreadingoutwards from the Pale with thewestern being created last, as manypeople understandably imagine. Theimmediate proof of this is the last ofthe thirty- two to be formed was Wick-low - right on Dublin's doorstep.

So, how did they go about it? An whendid your county come into being?

Before the Normans, Ireland wasdivided into regions controlled bydifferent groups of people, tuatha.These were minor lordships and therewere about ninety of them. The oldtuatha structure didn't suit thebusiness-minded Normans and theyintroduced the county system that hadworked well for them in Franceand England.

As far as they were concerned, PrinceJohn - the baddie in all the Robin Hoodfilms - was Lord of Ireland, and it wasunder his command that the shiring of thecountry (the creation of c unties) began.And some of them will appear odd tomodern readers.

As mentioned, the Normans first arrivedin what is now County Wexford, but itwasn't long before they transferred theirseat of power to Dublin. Not surprisingly,the city and surrounding countryside forseveral miles became the first Irishcounty. That was in 1190.

Which was next - Meath, Kildare orWicklow? Not a bit of it. Try Cork andWaterford.

In fact, try both together, for the Countyof Waterford Cork came into being in1211, with County Munster followinghot on its heels. Yes, County Munster.

This 'Munstershire wasn't really anythingmore than a label. It was so vast that itmight well have been called

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Jim Rees examines the origins of our countysystem, introduced to Ireland by the Normans

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`Monstershire' and the Normans heldlittle sway in ninety per cent of it, but itlooked good on parchment or vellumback in London.

AS NORMAN control increased,however, particularly in urban areas, thismassive 'county' was subdivided inLimerick (1251) and Tipperary (1254). Inthe meantime, both Louth and Kerry hadbeen established in 1233.

But what of the vast area west of theShannon, another region in which theNormans had made little headway, but onwhich they had nonetheless set theirgreedy little eyes?

No problem, they simply did what theyhad done in Munster, and the virtuallyfictitious County of Connacht came intobeing in 1247. Roscommon made itsdebut in 1292, bringing the first stage ofshiring to a close just as the thirteenthcentury came to an end.

So, 120 years after the arrival of theNormans, large sections of Ireland hadbeen parcelled into nine administrativeregions called 'counties:

The man in charge of each county was ashire-reeve, literally a custodian of theshire. Time has shortened this title tosheriff. He was assisted by a coroner whoinvestigated sudden deaths with the mainpurpose of seeing if the deceased's estatecould be forfeited to the crown ('coroner'comes from `crowner'). There was alsoan escheator, a clerk for markets and jus-tices of the peace.

Other areas under Norman rule werecalled 'liberties:

These were slightly different in that theywere much more autonomous thanregular counties. They were controlled bya major lord. The southern half ofmodern Leinster was a liberty, as wasMeath which included most of modernnorth Leinster.

In 1297, the Leinster liberty was sub-divided into the liberties of Wexford,Carlow, Kilkenny and Kildare. Bit by bit,the privileges that made them libertieswere eroded until they were eventuallyreduced to the same subjugated state ofordinary counties.

to shire the entire country, however,were put on hold in the 1300s and 1400sas the Irish started to regain some of theirlost power.

Then came the 1500s and the Tudordynasty of English kings. Henry VIII wasparticularly anxious to bring the Irish toheel, and what we might call 'The Shiringof Ireland Part II' got under way.

The counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth,Kildare, Wexford, Limerick, Kerry andTipperary were consolidated and soonCarlow, Kilkenny, Cork and Waterfordwere also smacked on the wrist, theirliberties taken away, told to be good boysand to take their place in the fold.

IT WAS also decided that Meath .„twastoo big to control as a single unit, soWestmeath was hived off in 1543, withKing's and Queen's Counties (Offaly andLaois) coming into being in 1557. TheCounty of Connacht was divided intoGalway, Mayo and Sligo. Clare wasestablished at this time too, but as part ofthe province of Connacht.

Longford, Antrim and Down soonfollowed and Leitrim was separated fromRoscommon. Tyrone, Fermanagh andCavan were formed in 1579. CountyColeraine was established the same year,but this later became County Derry.

The year 1601 saw the final tragic throwof the dice for the old Gaelic chieftainsand land clivisions. The Battle of Kinsalewas lost and within a few years the Flightof the Earls brought down the curtain.

There was still some land not yetparcelled up and tied in neat ribbons, but

when Monaghan, Armagh and Donegalwere shired in 1604, there was only onesupposedly 'untamed' district left; themountainous region on Dublin's southerndoorstep which was controlled bythe O'Byrnes.

LOT has been said and written about theO'Neills and the O'Donnells and theirresistance to English rule in the north-west. Unfairly, outside his nativeWicklow, little is known of the exploitsof Fiach MacHugh O'Byrne.

The remote and rugged valleys ofGlenmalure and Glen Imaal afforded theO'Byrnes the terrain that made continuedresistance possible. In the 1580s theEnglish administration in Dublin sent anarmy under Lord Grey into the Wicklowmountains to rout the O'Byrnes.

But it didn't work out like that.'Grey said victory was sureThat soon the firebrand he'd secure Until he met at GlenmalureWith Flack MacHugh O'Byrne'

Fiach's triumph over Grey was simplypostponing the inevitable. In 1606, the`O'Byrne Countrie; as it was known,became the last of the thirty-two countiesto be shired, taking the name Wicklow.

Perhaps that's why Wicklow has neverlifted the Sam Maguire or Liam Mac-Carthy trophies - the other counties havehad more time to practise!

Here’s to the 32!

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WHEN WAS YOUR COUNTY FORMEDDifferent sources have slightly varying but

agree with the dates beforeAntrim c.1300 Armagh 1604 Carlow 1306 Cavan 1579 Clare c.1570 Cork 1211Derry 1579 Donegal 1604 Down c.1300 Dublin c.1190 Fermanagh 1579

Galway c.1570Kerry 1233Kildare 1297Kilkenny c.1200Laois 1557Leitrim 1565Limerick 1254Longford 1571Louth 1233Mayo c.1570Meath 1297

Monaghan 1604Offaly 1557Roscommon 1292Sligo c.1570Tipperary 1254Tyrone 1579Waterfors 1211Westmeath 1543Wexford 1247Wicklow 1606

Reproduced here with thre permissionof the author and “Ireland’s Own”

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The Historiography of The Irish War ofIndependence has followed a somewhattortuous road. It began as a predictablestory of, ‘the virgin Eire versus thebloody Saxon’.1 Recent work by authorssuch as Michael Hopkinson and FearghalMcGarry has seen the revision of thisnarrative turning attention to the conductof the IRA during this period.2 Inter-spersed with this work has been heavilydisputed and often controversial work onsectarianism by such writers as KevinMyers, Gerard Murphy and Peter Hart.3Others such as David Leeson, RichardBennett and Pearse Lawlor have detailedthe role of the Black and Tans and theBritish Military.4 Of these accounts, fewdeal with the role of the clergy andsurprisingly, since the release of TheBureau of Military History Collection(BMH)5 in 2001, there has not been anymajor reassessment of that role. Diar-muid Ferriter expressed the opinionsubsequent to the release that the attitudeof the Catholic Church to the crisisdeserved reappraisal.6 This article willexamine these witness statements, focus-ing on Carlow, the second smallestcounty in Ireland. It will be contendedthat the Catholic clergy played a fargreater role than the general historio-graphy indicates. It will also be arguedthat the clerics acted as a legitimisingagent for many combatants.

When faced with sources such as witnesstestimony it is difficult to form a frame-

work for consistent and accurate analy-sis. Instead of assessing what the hierar-chy decreed or following chronologicallythe lists of religious and where theyserved, this article wishes to examine theminutiae of clerical involvement and thereflected attitude of all society to clericalinfluence. Patrick Collinson the religioushistorian encouraged the minute view ofa particular period and the intimateexamination of a story with specificfocus on society.7 Similar to G.R. Elton,Collinson sought to dissuade theresearcher from projecting today’s viewsback to the period under examination. Headvised people to examine history on itsown merits using extensive sources fromthat time.8 Armed with Collinson’sframework this article will assess localevents during the period using thesestatements, local newspapers, and workconducted by other researchers. Histori-ography of the clergy during this periodhas centered on pronouncements by thehierarchy and how local clerics con-demned violence in their area.9 Whilethis is undoubtedly the case, Collinsonwould advise we not be distracted fromthe place that religion had in Ireland dur-ing the period 1913-22. Ireland was acountry where religion influenced everyaspect of life from sexual mores to polit-ical decisions. The chapter Church andState in JJ Lee’s book Ireland, 1912-1985Politics and Society will provide ampleevidence of the power of religion and thereligious in Ireland.10 An intriguing

example from the wider set of militarystatements shows how an IRA operativewas able to identify a detective disguisedas a priest by the amount of time it tookhim to say the rosary.11 Religion was anendemic part of everyday life and anyform of approval by such a powerfulgroup would give legitimacy tooperatives’ actions.

The Carlow Witness Statements indicateclerical influence back as far as 1914when the Ballymurphy Company ofvolunteers was formed. Thomas Ryan(WS1422) describes how Fr. JohnLawler, then C.C. at Borris, was instru-mental in the setting up of the company.Ryan describes how Fr. Lawler intro-duced a Mr. Judge and Mr. L. Mellows tothe men before they signed up.12 Thisalong with other evidence will show thatthe clergy were not merely sympatheticor unsympathetic onlookers in theRepublican fight. They were intimatelyinvolved in the formation of companiesand encouraging volunteers to enlist.Thomas Ryan (WS1422) in the samestatement also describes how in 1918during the Conscription crisis, “thepeople were greatly inspired by the workand advice of Fr. P. Doyle, P.P., Baltin-glass, then C.C. in Borris. A collectionwas made at the church doors onSunday…”.13 This is in contrast to JohnA Murphy’s statement that “the Irishrevolution of 1913-1921 completelybypassed the priests and that it wascarried through without the benefit ofclergy”.14 John Newsinger also describeshow the conversion of the priests torepublicanism occurred in 1917 duringthe conscription crisis. The Carlow State-ments indicate that this had occurredmuch earlier and it was not a conversionto republican politics but an immersionin IRA activities. Puzzlingly, modernhistorical writers such as the excellentFearghal McGarry hardly credit theclergy with any involvement; “TheCatholic Church’s opposition to oathbound societies also deterred manyrecruits and prompted others to leave”15

Nan Nolan’s (WS1441) testimony backsup the clerical involvement thesis. Shedescribes how a new parish priest in theBallon area of Carlow initiated thesetting up of a volunteer company;Things seemed to go easy here for awhile. Then a priest came to the parish

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to do temporary duty for a year... He wasRev. Fr. Francis Fletcher, and while hewas here he set things moving. He organ-ised anti-conscription and Sinn Feinmeetings. A great change came over thepeople.16 She also describes how thesame Fr. Kelly prevented a fairly brutalinterrogation outside the church by theRIC by simply appearing at the Churchdoor.17 This would indicate that theBritish military were also wary of gettingon the wrong side of the clergy. Thisperceived strength by the clergy wouldalmost certainly be noted as a sign ofecclesial importance by a deeplyreligious following. Nan Nolan andThomas Ryan both also describe how theclerics in their area provided transport forthe IRA to deliver dispatches and to get“on-the-runs” out of the area.18 BrigidRyan of Carlow Town (WS1573) backsup the influence of clerics when shedescribes, one day, my home was firedinto by Black and Tans, and later Britishmilitary and Tans were approaching myhouse with the intention of burning it.They were accosted by Rev. Fr. Killian(later Parish Priest, Edenderry, Offaly),and he persuaded them not to do so.19The use of the word ‘accosted’ is inter-esting insofar as it indicated that peoplebelieved in the influence of the clergyand also that priests may have had someinfluence over the British military.

John Hynes (WS1496) describes adisagreement between the IRA and achemist called William Kennedy inBorris, Carlow. After a boycott ofKennedy’s business it was decided tosettle the disagreement; The I.R.A.boycott of Kennedy's business continuedfor a long time and quite a number ofpeople, including Father Dunne, theParish Priest, would like to see it settled.It was arranged that Seán Murphy, theBattalion I.O., and Father Dunne wouldinterview Kennedy with a view to asettlement of the boycott.20 It is clearfrom this that when the local clergywished a dispute to end they had theinfluence to persuade the neighbouringIRA unit to negotiate. Clerical influencedid not prevail in this case however asafter the negotiated settlement hadbroken down, Kennedy was shot by theIRA.21 When a Lieutenant Grundy cameto Borris to investigate, his first port ofcall, according to Hynes, was Fr. Dunne.According to some hagiographic testi-

mony by Hynes, the priests’ remarkablepowers of persuasion convinced theLieutenant not to carry out anyreprisals.22 Although it is hard to believecertain aspects of Hynes’s testimony itseems remarkably similar to otheraccounts of clerical persuasion andinfluence over both the RIC and localIRA units.

It would appear that not only were theclergy in Carlow involved in the settingup of volunteer companies and acting asan influence with both sides. They alsohad the onerous task of hearing the lastconfessions of those convicted by theIRA of alleged crimes against the Repub-lican cause. John Walsh (WS966)describes how an ex-British soldiernamed Kenny who had given informa-tion to the Devonshire regiment in Graig-namanagh was caught, court martialledand sentenced to death.23 The curate inGraignamanagh Fr. Gerry C.C. wascalled and “attended” to Kenny in an eelhouse between Borris and Graigna-managh. The curate subsequently left,according to Walsh, and wished them agood night. As the eel house was tooclose to a RIC post it was decided toexecute Kenny by drowning him in theriver; We gagged and blindfolded himand, having bound his arms and legs, wedropped him into the River Barrow at apoint just a few yards from the eel house.The water at this point would be eight orten feet deep and, as an additionalprecaution, we tied a 56-lb. weight to hisbody before dropping him into the river.24This account is backed up by MichaelO’Carroll’s version in WS1609 and alsoThomas Treacy in WS1093. O’Carrolldescribes the prisoner as “receiving theSpiritual Rites of the Church” before hisexecution.25 Kenny’s blind father had tobe taken away from Graignamanagh bythe security forces according to Walsh.They had, unsurprisingly, no moretrouble with spies. This is not a uniqueincident. More often than not thecondemned man had the local priest at-tend him before being dispatched. Thisinvolving of the priest shows the influ-ence the clergy had as in the midst of thisreprisal the priest was essential to the act.Despite previous examples of clericalinfluence it would appear that the levelof persuasion did not extend to prevent-ing locals being executed. Fr. Gerry alsodid not seem to be able to persuade the

IRA to give up the body after the execu-tion. Even the smallest crumbs ofcomfort were in short supply during thisperiod. Walsh describes how he had thegruesome task of re-submerging the bodywhich surfaced two months after theexecution.26

The theme of clerical attendance pre-execution is further illustrated by SeanWhelan’s testimony (WS1294). Whelandescribes in theatrical detail the detain-ment, court martial and execution ofanother suspected spy named JamesDoyle. Doyle was alleged to have writtena letter to the British Regiment in Ennis-corthy giving details of IRA personnel.Whelan is vague on the details of thealleged crime, forgetting the place whereDoyle was court martialled, not remem-bering if he got an answer to his questionabout the origin of the letter or if indeedDoyle had signed it. Despite this he couldrecall the body of the letter verbatim. AFr. McCormack was sent for to hearDoyle’s last confession. Walsh describes,the scene for the third and final act is laidat Knockroe, near Borris, on theWexford-Carlow border. Doyle's bullet-riddled body is discovered in a field be-side the main road. On his breast hangsa card, with the warning:- SPIES ANDINFORMERS BEWARE!. The executionis confirmed in another less theatricalstatement by Micheal O Ciardubhain(Kirwan) WS1175 and also in the CarlowSentinel Newspaper.28 Unlike the previ-ous example, Doyle’s family of a wifeand seven children were afforded a coffinto carry. They also however, had thestigma of their family member being castas a spy to carry.

While Michael Hopkinson did not attrib-ute clerical influence as a major factorduring this period he did note theChristian Brothers as teachers of futurerevolutionaries.29 What these statementsillustrate is not only did The ChristianBrothers help educate future fighters butthey were also actively involved inmilitary affairs. Patrick Burke (WS1131)describes how while employed inBagenalstown, Carlow he worked withBrother Francis of The De La SalleChristian Brothers to manufacturebombs; Brother Francis secured the helpof his school science instructor and, withthe aid of a mixing drum which I made,the ingredients for making the powder

The involvement of the Catholic Clergy with the republican....

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were put together according to the for-mula”.30 While both John Newsingerand Theodore Hoppen reasoned that itwas Sinn Fein that brought the priests torevolution, this testimony would showthat they were militant much earlier andthat it was of their own volition.31

County Carlow was less disturbed thanmost countries during this period and asa result had fewer statements taken thancounties such as Cork, Tipperary, Clareand others. Despite this and from thesmall amount of statements available onecan see the influence that the clergyexerted. Despite the historiography play-ing down the role of the clergy we cansee that they were deeply involved andpersonally complicit in many of theactivities carried out by the IRA. The factthat priests would come and attend tomen condemned by their neighbourswould have given succour and validationto the IRA operatives in an area. Censureor indeed excommunication dictatesfrom the hierarchy were obviously nodeterrent to the local units for as DonalA. Kerr describes, Despite the excommu-nications almost all Republicans, eventhe more extreme wing, remainedCatholic. Most merely ignored thebishops' condemnation and went to moresympathetic confessors ....32 From theabove testimony we can deduce that bothbody and soul were safe in the hands ofthe local clergy. The fact that the Britishseemed hesitant and unsure when dealingwith the local clergy would also haveadded to the sense of clerical powerwithin the area. The fact that, in thesesmall closed communities when neigh-bour killed neighbour, while suffering nobetrayal by the clergy must have beennoted by those opposed and those sup-porting the IRA campaign. The witnessstatements show that the clergy wereinvolved both in encouraging the rebelsbut also providing, by their involvementa measure of validity for the localIRA units.

Bibliography

Bureau of Military History, Ireland,Statements,Witness Statement No. 1743 given byTom Barry.Witness Statement No. 1743 given byPádraig O Catháin.Witness Statement No. 1294 given by

Sean Whelan.Witness Statement No. 966 given byJohn Walsh.Witness Statement No.1496 given byJohn Hynes.Witness Statement No. 1442 given byThomas Ryan.Witness Statement No. 1572 given byPadraig O Cathain.Witness Statement No. 1441 given byNan Nolan.Witness Statement No 1609 given byMichael O’Carroll.Witness Statement No 1105 given byNicholas Whittle.Witness Statement No 1573 given byBrigid Ryan.Witness Statement No 1131 given byPatrick Burke.Witness Statement No 1609 given byMichael O’Carroll. Witness Statement No 1093 given byThomas Treacy.

Bureau of Military History, Ireland, ‘AnIntroduction to The Bureau of MilitaryHistory 1913-21’, Jennifer Doyle,Frances Clarke, Eibhlis Connaughton,Orna Somerville.

Other Sources

Bennett, Richard. The Black and Tans,Spellmount Limited, Barnsley SouthYorkshire, 2010.

Carlow Sentinel, CARLOW MYSTERY,Sept. 1920.

Collinson, Patrick, ‘The vertical and thehorizontal in religious history: internaland external integration’, in Alan Ford,James McGuire and Kenneth Milne(eds.), As by Law Established: theChurch of Ireland since the Reformation(1995).

Collinson, Patrick, ‘Religion, Societyand the Historian’, in Journal of Reli-gious History, vol. 23, no. 2, June 1999.

Comerford, James J., My Kilkenny Days,Dinan Publishing Company, 1980.

Cotrell, Peter, The Irish Civil War 1922-23, Osprey Publishing, England, 2008.

Dolan, Ann, ‘The British culture of para-military violence in the Irish War of

Independence’, in Oxford ScholarshipOnline, 2012.

Elton, G.R., Return to Essentials. Somereflections on the present state of histor-ical study, Cambridge, 2002.

Ferriter, Diarmuid, ‘in such deadlyearnest’ in Dublin Review, no. 12, Dublin,2003.

Foster, R., Modern Ireland 1600-1972,Penguin, London, 1989.

Freemans Journal,December 13th 1920.

Hart, Peter, ‘The Protestant Experienceof Revolution in Southern Ireland’ inRichard English and G. Walker eds.Unionism in Modern Ireland,Macmillan,Basingstoke, 1996.

Hart, Peter, The I.R.A. and Its EnemiesViolence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923, Oxford University Press, Oxford,1999.

Hopkinson, Michael, The Irish War ofIndependence, Gill and Macmillan,Dublin, 2004.

Hoppen, Theodore, Ireland since 1800Conflict and Conformity 2nd Edition,Pearson Education Limited, Essex, 1999.

Joyce, John, Graiguenamanagh, a Townand Its People: An Historical and SocialAccount of Graiguenamanagh &Tinnahinch, Graigue Press, Graigna-managh, 2009.

Keogh, Dermot, Twentieth Century Ire-land Revolution and State Building, Re-vised Edition, Gill and McMillan, 2005.

Keogh, Dermot ‘The Catholic Churchand the Irish Free State 1923-193’, inHistory Ireland, vol. 2, no. 1, Spring,1994.

Kennedy, Liam, ‘'Was there an Irish Warof Independence?' in Bruce Stewart (ed.),Hearts and minds: Irish culture andsociety under the Act of Union, GerrardsCross, 2002.

KEW National Archives, Deaths ofWilliam Kennedy; 15th March, 1921;Michael John O' Dempsey; 17th March


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1921; Borris, County Carlow, WO35/157A/2

Kerr, Donal A., The Catholic Church andNational States in the 19th and 20th Cen-turies: The Case of Ireland, in KirchlicheZeitgeschichte, Vol. 14, No. 1,Christliche Religion in der Geschichtss-chreibung des 20. Jahrhunderts (2001),

Leeson, D.M., The Black and Tans:British Police and Auxiliaries in the IrishWar of Independence, 1920-1921,OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford, 2011.

Lawlor, Pearse, The Outrages 1920-1922: The IRA and the Ulster SpecialConstabulary in the Border Campaign,Mercier Press, Cork, 2001.

Lee, J.J., Ireland, 1912-1985: Politicsand Society, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 1990.

Leeson, D.M., The Black and Tans:British Police and Auxiliaries in the IrishWar of Independence, 1920-1921, Ox-ford University Press, Oxford, 2011.

McGarry, Fearghal, The Rising. Ireland:Easter 1916, Oxford University Press,New York, 2010.

McGarry, Fearghal, Rebels: Voices fromThe Easter Rising, Penguin, 2011.

McGarry, Fearghal, ‘'Too many histo-ries'? THE BUREAU OF MILITARYHISTORY AND EASTER 1916’ in His-tory Ireland, vol. 19, No. 6,November/December 2011.

Murphy, Gerard, The Year of the Disap-pearances: Political Killings in Cork1921-1922, Gill and McMillan, Dublin,2010.

Murphy, John A., Ireland in the Twenti-eth Century,Gill and Macmillan, Dublin,1989.

Murphy, John A., 'Priests and People inModern Irish History' in Christus Rex,12, October 1969.

Myers, Kevin, The IRA campaign inCork against Protestants and non-repub-licans was on a truly vast scale, in TheIrish Independent, 12/11/2010.

Newsinger, John ‘'I Bring Not Peace buta Sword': The Religious Motif in the IrishWar of Independence’, in Journal ofContemporary History, vol. 13, no. 3,Jul., 1978.

Rubin, Miri, “Religion,” in UlinkaRublack, ed., A Concise Companion toHistory, Oxford University Press, Ox-ford, 2011.

Street, C.J.C., Ireland in 1921, White-head Brothers, London, 1922.

Weekly Irish Times (1876-1920); Oct 2,1920.

1 Fr. Francis Shaw quoted in DermotKeogh, Twentieth Century Ireland Rev-olution and State Building, Revised Edi-tion, 2005, p. xvii.2 Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War ofIndependence, 2004; Fearghal McGarry,Rebels: Voices from The Easter Rising,2011; Fearghal McGarry, ‘'Too many his-tories'? THE BUREAU OF MILITARYHISTORY AND EASTER 1916’ in His-tory Ireland, vol. 19, no. 6(November/December 2011), pp. 26-29;Fearghal McGarry, The Rising: Ireland,Easter 1916, 2010.3 Gerard Murphy, The Year of the Disap-pearances: Political Killings in Cork1921-1922, 2010; Kevin Myers: The IRAcampaign in Cork against Protestants andnon-republicans was on a truly vast scale,The Irish Independent, 12/11/2010, Thisis but one sample of many articles writtenby Myers on sectarianism; Peter Hart ,‘The Protestant Experience of Revolutionin Southern Ireland ‘ in Richard Englishand G. Walker eds. Unionism in ModernIreland, pp. 89-94; Peter Hart, The I.R.A.and Its Enemies Violence and Commu-nity in Cork, 1916-1923, 1999.4 D.M. Leeson, The Black and Tans:British Police and Auxiliaries in the IrishWar of Independence, 1920-1921, 2011;Richard Bennett, The Black and Tans,2010; Pearse Lawlor, The Outrages1920-1922: The IRA and the Ulster Spe-cial Constabulary in the Border Cam-paign, 2001.5 Bureau of Military History, available athttp://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/,accessed 20/03/2015.6 Diarmuid Ferriter, ‘in such deadlyearnest’ in Dublin Review, No. 12(Dublin, 2003), pp. 36-65, available onhttps://thedublinreview.com/in-such-

deadly-earnest/, accessed 20/03/2015.7 Patrick Collinson, ‘Religion, Society,and the Historian’, in The Journal of Re-ligious History, vol.23, no.2 (June 1999),pp. 156-67. ; Patrick Collinson, ‘The ver-tical and the horizontal in religious his-tory: internal and external integration’, inAlan Ford, James McGuire & KennethMilne (eds.), As by law established: theChurch of Ireland since the Reformation(Dublin, 1995), pp.15-32.8 G.R. Elton, Return to Essentials. Somereflections on the present state of histor-ical study (2002).9 Peter Cotrell, The Irish Civil War 1922-23, 2008, p. 57; John A. Murphy, 'Priestsand People in Modern Irish History', inChristus Rex, 12 (October 1969), p. 257;Dermot Keogh, ‘The Catholic Churchand the Irish Free State 1923-193’, inHistory Ireland, vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring,1994), pp. 47-51; John Newsinger, ‘'IBring Not Peace but a Sword': The Reli-gious Motif in the Irish War of Independ-ence’, in Journal of ContemporaryHistory, vol. 13, no. 3 (Jul., 1978), pp.609-628.10 J.J. Lee, Ireland, 1912-1985: Politicsand Society, 1990, pp. 157-167.11 Nicholas Whittle, WS1105, p. 106.12 Thomas Ryan, WS1422, p. 1.13 Thomas Ryan, WS1422, p. 2.14 John A. Murphy, 'Priests and Peoplein Modern Irish History' in Christus Rex,12 (October 1969), p. 257.15 Fearghal McGarry, The Rising. Ire-land: Easter 1916, 2010, p.21.16 Nan Nolan, WS1441, p. 3.17 Ibid, p. 5.18 Ibid, p.10. Thomas Ryan, WS1422, p. 1.19 Brigid Ryan, WS1573, p. 4. 20 John Hynes, WS1496, p. 6.21 John Joyce, Graiguenamanagh, aTown and Its People: An Historical andSocial Account of Graiguenamanagh &Tinnahinch, 2009, pp. 151-61.; KEW Na-tional Archives, Deaths of WilliamKennedy; 15th March, 1921; MichaelJohn O'Dempsey; 17th March 1921; Bor-ris, County Carlow, WO 35/157A/2.22 John Hynes, WS1496, p. 14.23 James J. Comerford, My KilkennyDays, 1980, pp. 535-7. ; John Walsh,WS966, pp. 14-5.24 John Walsh, WS966, p. 16.25 Michael O’Carroll WS1609, p. 7.26 Freemans Journal, December 13th1920. Body of unknown man found in adecomposed state in the river Barrow atGraignamanagh, Co. Kilkenny.


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27 Sean Walsh, WS1294, p. 21-2.28 Carlow Sentinel. Sept. 1920, CAR-LOW MYSTERY On Tuesday eveningthe dead body of an unknown man wasfound in a corn field near Borris, in aplace called Knockroe, Rathanna. A labelattached to his clothing bore the word"spy".

29 Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War ofIndependence, p. 12, p. 106.30 Patrick Burke, WS1131, p. 7.31 Theodore Hoppen, Ireland since 1800Conflict and Conformity, 1999, 2nd Edi-tion, 1999, pp. 173-83.32 Donal A. Kerr, ‘The Catholic Churchand National States in the 19th and 20th

Centuries: The Case of Ireland’, in Kirch-liche Zeitgeschichte, vol. 14, no. 1,Christliche Religion in der Geschichtss-chreibung des 20. Jahrhunderts, 2001, p.103.


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Fenagh House at the turn ofthe 20th century.

Photographs: Courtesy ofTom Somers archives.

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Carmel Lynch, Retired Director of Sportin Institute of Technology Carlow (ITC)and Chairperson of Student Sport Ireland

Carmel gave this interview immediatelyfollowing a meeting she chaired of somecolleagues and coaches a few days beforeher retirement from the ITC. This meet-ing include Anthony Friel a graduate ofthe ITC and former President of theStudent’s Union who in 2014-5 wasSenior Coach of the woman’s GAA Foot-ball team. Anthony was the first SportsIntern and worked with Carmel in heroffice. The other GAA attendee at hermeeting was Brendan Hayden who isSenior Development Officer of the GAAand himself being a legend in local GAAsport whose nephews and nieces camethrough the ITC and represented theInstitute with distinction. This ladiesteam had gained promotion in 2015season and consequently in Septemberthis year will be playing in Division 1.The meeting considered conditioning,better nutrition, motivation, lifestyle,time management, over training/undertraining and including the important

motivational aspect of sport scholarships.Sport scientists will be brought in tosupport this team. This is a real measureof how far the ITC sport has advancedduring Carmel’s time which saw hercome her as a Teacher and now retire asDirector of Sport and Chairperson ofStudent Sport Ireland

The staff members present at this meet-ing were Michael Dempsey a trainer andselector with Kilkenny Hurlers andDonal McNally who is the new Directorof Sport, and was the GAA tutor on oursport and exercise programme. There arethree such programmes at present in theITC. These are the IRFU/Leinster Rugby,FAI and GAA who are ITC’s partners inthe delivery of these courses. There aretwo tutors on each of the courses whichwas a huge development for the ITCsport. These are Bret Igoe, SeniorRugby Tutor and Brian Murray (looks

after gym and deals with strength andconditioning) for Leinster Rugby whoare both excellent coaches; for GAAMichael Dempsey, a selector/coach forKilkenny with the most successful teamin the history of the sport and Donal Mc-Nally from Louth who has since beenreplaced by Alan Nolan, a graduate of theSports Management & Coachingprogramme. Alan currently co-ordinatesall the GAA activities in the college. whohas since moved on and will take on therole of Director of Sport in the ITC in theplace of Carmel; and on the soccer pro-gramme the FAI appointments andcourse leaders for the soccer degree arePaul O’Reilly (Ass. Manager to Irishteam at World University Games just thisyear) and Luke Hardy (InternationalCoach). These three courses are Level 7programmes. There is an add-on-yearand direct entry to level 8. The point’sentry is 300-350 and there are at present

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This is part 9 of the ‘Carlow Regional TechnicalCollege - Institute of Technology Carlow History’ withprevious material published since 2003 in Carloviana.The main article by Carmel Lynch in this part of thehistory is supported by two personal accounts byAnthony Friel and David Barcoe which give personalinsights into actual situation on the ground. This parton the ‘History of Sport in RTC/ITC’ concludes animportant academic study of ITC sport by Carmel andBrenagh Schlingermann.

History of the RTC & ITCContinued (part 9)

Edited by Norman McMillan & Martin Nevin

Lynch Cup winnwers 2010

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IT Sports Carmel Lynch_Layout 1 29/10/2015 10:19 Page 1

300 field sports athletes on these pro-grammes. These elite athlete pro-grammes are in addition to the ITC’sSport Science, Conditioning, HealthScience and Physiology programmes.

Carmel’ background is briefly that shewas born in County Tipperary and camefrom a very sporting family. Her motherplayed Camogie and later golf, her fatherwas from Kerry and not surprisingly agreat footballer but coming to Tipperaryhe also performed credibly in hurling ashe was from North Kerry. Later on whenCarmel was looking at courses JohnnyMoroney who played rugby for Irelandwas a neighbour and indeed the deepTipperary sports environment inspiredher with many track and field champions,GAA All-Ireland winners and others whohad reached high-levels in their chosensport. So from this little village ofClogheen, Co. Tipperary where she grewup there was this huge sporting tradition.Sports Education was a new concept atthe time and Carmel opted on going tothird-level for physical education. Theinitial training of such teachers was in St.Raphaels College of Physical Education,Sion Hill, Dublin the College who pio-neered teacher programmes in physicaleducation in the Republic. These col-lege’s courses were designed by CaptainMichael McDonagh who was so very in-fluential in Department of Education.

Carmel's first teaching role was in DublinCity VEC, Ballyfermot VocationalSchool and then moved onto MontrealCanada where she worked in the centreof an Italian Community as a PE teacher.However, Sports then was something youdid over the weekend. The major issuefor these early days was how to connectsport and health with the academic pro-grammes.

Tom D'Arcy was the catalyst for thedevelopment of the academic sportsprogrammes. Tom’s role expanded intothe academic and programme develop-ment areas. There are now scholarshipstoday for sporting prowess which isCarmel believes really good and such avery long way from the first days in 1980when Carmel came to the RTC. It was apersonal challenge to engage students inactivities and great delight to see themassive progress made. They operatedout of the small gym in the original RTCbuilding and they had just one set of jer-seys for each team that may or may notbe washed! By the time Carmel arrivedin 1980 each team was basically kittedout properly and this was commented onby her fellow appointee in WaterfordRTC at the time.

The real breakthrough was getting sporttimetabled on the existing Science,Engineering and Business course but the

academic sport’s platform Tom set upfrom the Health Science Couse whichwas the successor to the two year HealthCare (known at the time as the Pre-Nurs-ing Course) and from this developed theApplied Physiology degree programmes.The sport’s science thus developedaround physiotherapy, radiography,sports science, and speech therapy wherethere were employment prospects. Thestudents initially transferred then fromCertificate and Diploma programmes inRTC Carlow to course in NorthernIreland and UK (following the successfulPhotonics Course link-up in this regardwith Essex and Hull dealt with in anearlier article). These developments inlate 1970s and 1980s were starting whenCarmel arrived. The RehabilitationTherapy degree Carmel pointed out isone of the strongest such course in thecountry at this time.

The plan from the earliest days was to tryand bring in coaches with expertise.These leaders were first identified andthen encouraged to take an active role.Dick Roche ran hurling, SeamusMcCormack GAA Football, Colm Kellyand Ray Benson on soccer, Tom Darcywas the Rugby coach, and indeed manyothers helped establish the first sportingtraditions in the RTC. The kit was limitedand the other equipment was quitelimited.

The volleyball and basketball in Carlowwere strong in what was called theHigher Education Sports FederationLeague and these RTC teams wonnational competitions. Carlow was at theforefront nationally in these sports. FranMcNamara an international Basketballplayer worked as Art and Design tech-nician in college after graduating andFran coached for year’s basketball at avery high level in his sport. Laois has hada strong contingent in both sports. Untilthis day a high percentage of students oncollege teams come from Laois and agood percentage of these came from PortLaoise. The Volleyball won 8 or was it 9All-Irelands in a row; She stopped count-ing! Carmel noted that these skills inbasketball and volleyball are comple-mentary and indeed players were on bothcollege teams. Today, sport is of coursea very serious business in the ITC.

The Institute has provided support for

History of the RTC & ITC continued (part 9)

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GAA Team training2010 - 2011

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sports considerable resources and this hasraised the self-esteem of the staffinvolved. This is so important Carmelstressed and especially in the practicalmatter of providing financial backing.The support gave them confidence toplan upgrades which led to the Barrowcentre and the incredible facilities thatnow exist. The development of facilitiesdid not just happen. It went back perhapsten years and the sports people would beinvolved at the very first and early plan-ning stages. There was consultation andcommunication both ways betweensports and management at all stages. Theinvestment has been delivering results asevery year the numbers participatinghave increased year-on-year..

More staff members hence became in-volved to assist the growing demand forincreased participation. The names sheremembers at this time on the academicstaff were Paul McKevitt, ApprenticeTeacher in Engineering who wasinvolved in volleyball; Jim Doyle inScience was involved in GAA; ColmKelly and Ray Benson in soccer; EugeneCarbery with rugby; Phil Ryan, BrendanBolger, John Costello and EndaDunicanin Golf; and other staffmentioned earlier. These academic staffmembers were later supported by agrowing support team when the BarrowCentre came on stream in 1994 and withappointment in particular of Paula

Hickey to supervise the Sport’s Office.

Then appointment of external coacheswas a landmark initially in 1980s andthere are 40 such appointments today.The Sports Office was running nearly 24-7 by this time! Sports Clubs in townnotably were supportive of the studentsports and here perhaps golf is a goodexample with Carlow Golf Club mem-bers Des Carbery, John Whitty and JohnCostelloe all active in promoting theirsport with the student body. The CarberyCup was very prestigious student compe-tition in honour of Des’ and Eugene’sbrother Father Brendan Carbery whodied tragically in the 1970s. The impor-tance of the strength & conditioningaspect of sport became apparent veryearly on in the development of sport atRTC. The multi gym was housed in theold gym & served as a training vehiclefor many successful RTC teams. Prior tothe opening of the Barrow Centre Gym& Elite Training Centre strength & con-ditioning modules took place in the fullyequiped Seminar Room of the BarrowCentre.

The growth of areas such as archery withstudents such as Gavin Dunne who hadan international profile in this sport sawsuddenly ITC appearing in such specialinterest sports on the competitive list.Ladies soccer received a very large pushwhen Myles Kelly who was an interna-tional coach became involved as ladiessoccer coach. They were involved in anIntervarsity Competition and this was thefirst time we saw such high-levelinvolvement of this sport. In men’s foot-ball ITC won the Trench Cup which wasa second division competition in 1996And Martin Meagher was coach to aRyan Cup winning side in hurling in2002. At this time the ITC won numerousFreshers’ Cup Competitions and slowlybeginning to find our feet in rugby.Martin Conroy from Port Laoise who isstill an external coach for basketball gavethis sport a tremendous lift in the 1990seeing a re-emergence of this sport thathad fallen from its very high pinnacle ofa decade before. ITC won the Nationalleague Double 4 or 5 years ago andMartin was involved in the Irish nationalteam. This development is ongoing andwe presently have 2 basketball scholarsin a Cross-Border Collaboration betweenNorth and South that has attracted US

sports people to Carlow. The basketballhas gone on to win the NationalLeague.

Cormac O’Toole began the process todevelop the sports facilities, including theGAA pitch and Stadium followed by theBarrow Centre, Soccer & Rugby Pitches.The desire to develop the facilities wasfurther given a boost by the appointmentof President Ruaidhri Neavyn with hispassion for rugby in particular. The‘Levy’ from students has been collectedfor a number of years and the fund startedin the late 1970s or early 1980s had builtup significantly. This was a fund begunby Mr Gallagher when he was Principalof the RTC and came up with this ideaand sought support from local sportsteams and Carlow Rangers AFC forexample contributed a significant amountof money perhaps a few thousand puntsat the time being one of the first activesupporters. All of the soccer clubs inCarlow today are reaping the benefitCarmel said and that is how she sees this.Rea Jordan a mathematics lecturer andTom D’Arcy were to the fore in andthis development.

The combination of the sports and theacademic programmes, first rugby,followed by GAA & soccer was startedin 2008. Martin Meagher and MaebhMaher were the Business Heads ofDepartment and School respectively thatled the GAA degree. The soccer justfollowed on with Carmel being majorlyinvolved as Sports Officer in all these


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Gordon Molloy being tested in thefitness suite at the RTC.

Fr Tom Dillon being accessed usingsome applied physiology equipment.

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developments. John Delaney in the FAItook a personal hand in this coursedesign. Packie Bonner was involved also.On the ground Myles Kelly wasinvolved. Colm Kelly and Declan Doylewould have been the managementsupport. Declan was replaced then byKaren Hennessy in this role. Theacademic interface here were importantand the six full-time Rugby, GAA andsoccer appointments were recruited tolead this development and would playimportant roles. The staff involved inthese initiatives were working with theSchool of Science. Paula Rankin, NoelRichardson, Carmel Roche, AnnO'Ruairc, Paul Byrne and Aine O’Neill,Chemistry Lecturer from pharmaceuticaland the science of health providing abackup of hard science for our scienceprogrammes. The Health and RehabScience staff of course provided thefrontline contribution to theseprogrammes. Pauline Madigan, RitaKelly, Bernadette Scott, Dorothy Keane,Rynagh Buckle; Brian Dunne; JohnFogarty; John Bolger; Myles Kelly, MarkAttride and the Marketing lecturers wereinvolved. In recent times the SportsScience students have been involved inthe teams giving back-up to coacheswhich is an interesting development.

The 1990s were an interim period duringwhich things were developing and wehave some success notably in soccer. Wehad a proliferation of teams for examplethree basketball teams, suddenly anIntermediate football team as well as aSenior, a fourth soccer team, and it wentlike this across all sports. When the newresources came on stream with sports

courses then we had a chanceto expand even further. Nowwe have five soccer teams.

The students were performingwell and it was a very big stepwhen the ITC qualified for theSigerson Cup Competition. Inlatter-years there was AndreasDoyle who was SU Presidentwas important here and hadplayed for Wexford. The teamplays in Division 1 and whenyou maintain your status hereyou qualify for Sigerson.Mark Timmons plays forGraiguecullen. On the hurlingfront there are the Kilkenny

pair - T. J. Reid and PJ Ryan who playedin goal. This year 2015 the hurlers wonthe Division 1 League which they hadnever before done.

Carmel’s legacy has been recognised asthere is a Carmel Lynch Award for Clubsand Societies which is something she isdelighted to see established. This year theaward went to a mature student MichaelBoyhan from Laois (see the photographbelow of the award in the trophy cabi-net). Michael was a volunteer and con-tributed to so many clubs predominantlywith hurling team on strength and condi-tioning. The twins Louise and EmmaByrne are a dynamic pair and had wonthis in previous years. They were internsin the Sports Office and coming on to theend soon and may go onto further stud-ies. The two girls are video analysts forthe Kilkenny Hurling team. Camera tech-nology is being developed in ITC now.

The highlights for Carmel were so manyit is hard to think of which weremost special. Perhaps, the win-ning the soccer All-Ireland stoodout for her as she was so involvedwith this team and this year of thehurling as she was a selector andindeed is still so involved herewith hurling. In the last twoyears the victory of the Camogieteam is one that has a specialplace in her heart we should havebeen in the final of women’s foot-ball. The growth of women’ssport is an important developmentdrawing on Laois, Kildare andother local counties. The best partof her job is the daily interaction

with the students.In July of this year sheattended the World University Games inGwangju, South Korea with a 100 strongIrish delegation. Carmel is now workingwith the Student Sport Ireland. Team Ire-land won a gold, silver and bronze medaland had 100 member competitive squad.Thomas Barr, Ireland’s 400 metre hurdlergold medalist was in the World Champi-onships and narrowly lost out recently inqualifying. Irish college sport is nowgetting to a serious competitive level.Fiona Doyle from Limerick won thesilver and bronze medal and has nowmoved to Calgary. Both were students inUL. A student on Team Ireland GrainneMurphy was an ITC student in theWexford Campus. The satisfaction isFreshers’ Day and seeing the studentshave their lives changed by gettinginvolved in sport was hugely satisfyingand really the most important thingfor Carmel.

Carmel said just look at our TrophyCabinet outside and it will be obviousthat the ITC is an envy of a lot of thecolleges (The photograph of this cabinetwill confirm here what Carmel said as itis full of national awards in so manysports). Carlow has won in soccer at thehighest level including the universitycompetitions which have been won forthe last three years. We have won inDivisions 2, 3 and 4 in soccer, a cleansweep!! ITC won the Division 1 HurlingLeague last year for the first time in thehistory of the college - defeating theholders UCC. In Rugby at Division 1and 2 level, in Women’s Rugby we wonthe Intervarsity at Division 1 level. Wehave a huge success story in women’srugby. We have a Combined Team with


Carloviana 2016

The ITCs Sports TrophyCabinet in 2015 full ofNational Awards

The new Carmei Lynch Award named recognisingthe truly outstanding contribution of Carmel tosport in the ITC

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the County Carlow Rugby Club thatplays in the Leinster League and we alsohave our College team. The combinationteam are called the Carlow Coyotes.They won their Division 2 League andCup two years ago and ended up abovehalf way this year in Division 1. In GAAwe are in Sigerson, FitzGibbon and

Freshers. Women’s Gaelic have nowbeen promoted to Division 1 (See articlein this edition by Anthony Friel fordetails here).

The facilities are part of the developmentappearing through the management andtheir willingness to support sport in theInstitute. The Rugby Pitch was devel-oped as part of the degree programme atSouth end of the sports field. While thiswas developed the ITC used CarlowRugby pitch. The GAA pitch is in thecentre of the sports complex. Thestadium there have seminar roomsupstairs and changing and toilet facilitiesbeneath. The soccer is at the north endof the field and came on board threeyears ago. The pitch is all-weather andteams can train there all year. The five-a-side facilities have been there for morethan a decade and are a great success andused constantly. All Colleges’ competi-tions are now inter-pro/inter-countystandard and very professional. It ischallenging and the college is nowcompeting with DCU and UCD for topathletes. Carmel said that Carlow istrying to build further now from thisimpressive platform of achievement.

The opportunities that are now here itshould be said are wonderful. Everyday for Carmel had stand-out moments,she said she was so lucky and she could

have chosen any other career whichwould not have been half as exciting asthe one she choose !! Carmel is retired inAugust 2015 so she wishes those whocome now behind her all the very bestfor the future.

“From a well-meaning chaos to a fullyprofessional operation for women’sGAA”

Anthony Friel was at Milford VocationalSchool until 1997 in Donegal and hadgone on to London for two years workingto save money for his studies. Not reallyknowing what he wanted to study, helooked for a course that was specialisedand found one in Carlow, the ComputerNetworking degree. Anthony found thisvery demanding in the level of mathe-matics and programing but finished theBSc. He knew at that stage that computernetworking was not for him but was con-tent at having achieved his qualification.

Anthony was a good GAA footballer atunderage level; admittedly not as good ashe thought he was. He played seniorGAA club football for Milford at the veryyoung age of 14 and had good promise.He made the panel for several under-agecounty trial teams but never stood out orstepped up at that level. After severalinjuries and a trip to the dark side ofteenage adolescence, smoking and drink-ing, combined with leaving to work in


Carloviana 2016

Student Award photograph includesAustin Waldron CEO, Carmel Lynch, FrTom Dillon,

Back row: Sean Prendergast, ChairmanBoard of Management, Tom D’Arcy,John Gallagher, Principal, Ciaran TitchMoore & SU President.

Dan Carbery fitness being accessed by Tom D’Arcy in the old RTC. Steve McManus,Carmel Roche and Carmel Lynch are the other staff memberes involved

Anthony Friel

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England, Anthony’s chances of becominga good athlete diminished.

Anthony never saw proper coaching withthe teams that he was involved withthroughout his youth. “The trainingmethods were quite primitive, run untilyou get sick, do push ups until you getsick and teams that were usually writtenon the ‘back of the cigarette box”. How-ever he recalls his first experience ofwhat he called proper coaching. MickDempsey was manager of local Carlowteam O’Hanrahans, Noel Richardson wascoach, and Anthony happened upon thetraining through talk at a bar with a friendin 2001. He didn’t realize at the time howgood the team was he was going to trainwith. But after a 4-year break from foot-ball he returned training and was amazedat the level of detail, commitment andscience applied by the management teamto every training session and match. Hewondered at the time why he wasn’tselected but realizes now—he still wasn’tas good as he thought he was.

Anthony used his time in the IT toengage in a lot of activities and also dida bit of hurling in which he had neverplayed before, and will never play again,on the advice of the coach, ironically afriend and co-coach later on in life. Healso played soccer for Stretford United, alocal Carlow Premier League team,where he later developed quite a contri-bution, training, coaching and indeedplaying until 2014. He also on occasionplayed Junior football at full forward for

Tinryland GAA and scored two goals inhis last game, but was forced to retirebecause of hamstring and other ongoinginjuries. He never looked after himselfproperly as an athlete, and despite hisown confidence and belief, he needed hisbody in full working order to play to anyreasonably good standard, “I regret someof my choices but in truth I never had theright attitude or discipline to be anywhereclose to being a top footballer”. He sawhimself as a journeyman in these varioussporting endeavours, enjoying the craic,making friends and anything else wasa bonus.

Anthony’s coaching began from afortuitous event in 2004 when he justturned up to watch a ladies college foot-

ball GAA match. Brendan Hayden wasthe manager at the time and got Anthonyinterested in doing a bit of training. Hewas shorthanded and started helping,filled the water bottles and got the balls.The girls had reached the prestigiousLynch Cup weekend away under theexcellent tutelage of Brendan, andAnthony tagged along to fill the waterbottles and get the balls. The girls werebeaten in the semi-final stage. Thatsummer, Brendan left his managingposition and Anthony states, “ I wasasked to takeover the team, at the time Iliked to think it was because I was thebest man for the job but in hindsight Ithink I was the only one interested”.

At the start of the new season Anthonyrealized the team that was there theprevious year had been depleted, mainlythrough girls finishing their course orleaving to do their level 8 qualificationselsewhere, “we only had 2 or 3 girls tobuild on but this is not unusual now incollege football, you can have yearswhere you can loose up to half a team”.The team were struggling in Division 3playing against the likes of Athlone IT,GMIT (2), UCD (2), NUI Galway (2)and Dundalk IT. There were about 10teams in total. Two sub-divisions with 5teams and the top two teams played outsemi-finals and a final to decide whowere that year league champions. Thechampionship which takes place afterChristmas normally took the sameformat.

At that time numbers and interest was


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Giles Cup ITC vs Trinity 2015

Chloe Kelly with ball vs St Pats 2015

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very poor at training, 10 or 11 was botha good turnout and that would be rare.Anthony puts this down to both, the levelIT Carlow were at and states “myamateurish approach to training andmatches would not exactly have hadthem queuing out the door”. Sometimesthere were only 4 or 5 at training andtraining is hard to do with that number.He had to make up numbers but startedto build his team around Mary Sheridanfrom Meath. An excellent player andcould have played for any team in thecountry. He would have loved to havehad her as a player in his later years ascoach. Doing a four-year course, whichnot many of the GAA girls did at thattime, Anthony thought she could be thebackbone of a team going forward. Therewas also Grace Weston from Laois therefor a number of these formative years forhis teams. A lot of the time though, therewere players who would only turn out forthe games and Anthony regularly had togo to the canteen the evening or morningbefore matches to ask girls to make upthe team on days they travelled away.

The training was at regular times andMary as captain helped, both in recruit-ment of players and leading by exampleon the training ground. Anthony had noclue at this stage as a manager, he haddigressed by default to the tactics of hisunder-age managers, not unknown towrite his own teams on the ‘back of acigarette pack’, and yet again, thinkinghe was better than he was, “I was PauidiO’Se or Brian McEniff reincarnate and itwas just the players that weren’t perform-ing well enough, or so I thought”. Prim-itive training methods included doinglaps and a few drills with the ball, “Thenhave a game between ourselves, maybe,if we had the numbers”. He did occasion-ally use cones but it was not well struc-tured and an archaic style of coaching.

This chaotic approach persisted for thefirst couple of years. Although he consid-ered himself a ‘manager’ he was a super-visor of poor training at best and going tomatches with the team. Anthony had onlya basic knowledge of tactics. Mary had itall and the game plan was to get the ballto her—she was fit, tall, fast, skillful andhad the right attitude. She was on theHealth Science degree course and knewthe importance of looking after herself.The team rarely got too far in competi-

tion, they could beat the lesser teams(usually by Mary and Grace) but lackeda lot of things required to be the best ofany division. In the third year, 2006, theteam made the Lynch Shield Final week-end, a backdoor competition for thepoorer teams, “it was an All-Irelandcompetition nonetheless and to winanything or be the best of anything is anachievement”. They were defeated wellby a strong Garda College team. Anthonyhowever says, “These were great week-ends to be involved in, prestigious at thehigher levels, the best footballers fromall over the country are competing at thatweekend, unfortunately at that stage wewere watching them from the sidelines”.Despite the level that the ladies were atin this period, the resources and supportwere very good, “we had water bottles, aphysio for finals weekends, good kits,good travel and always good food aftermatches. I always felt that if I asked forsomething we got it”. Over the yearsAnthony worked closely with CarmelLynch who was tremendous supportthroughout and he regularly cited her asa future inspiration to himself.

In the 2007/08 season Anthony recruitedtwo friends to help out with the team.Aindreas Doyle, a Senior County Foot-baller with Wexford who later becamePresident of the Students’ Union andDavid Corbett, a product design studentfrom Offally. Things had improvedminimally over the preceding 3 years butthe addition of the two coaches wouldexpedite changes for the better. “It was abig moment, the two lads—originallycynical of ladies football—wereimpressed greatly by the ability of thegirls and their enthusiasm enthused me”.

From then on the coaching teamattempted to introduce new trainingmethods, “The two lads had played undergood managers, trained at the highestlevel and knew what was needed in train-ing sessions. It started to get serious andthis time was also a light bulb momentfor me. I saw the importance then of whatNoel Richardson and Mick Dempsey hadbeen trying to do with O’HanrahansGAA Club, so I drew on past experiencethat at the time had not been reallyfully appreciated”.

The team started to see improvementsimmediately, training numbers increased,training standards improved and targetswere set. “Before, for me, it was justgood craic but slowly I realized it wasabout the team, the girls and getting thebest out of them”. There was no more ofthe coach going off in training for acigarette. There was a dramatic lift inperformance. The girls returned toGalway for the Championship weekendcompeting again in the Lynch ShieldFinal, but this time against GMIT. Theywon the match and although it was onlythe “backdoor competition of the week-end, we were the best in the backdoorcompetition”.

In 2008-9, despite Andy and Davidmoving on, Anthony started to see thebenefits of the new approach to the team,training and matches, “you get momentsof clarity that should be glaringlyobvious and you should have got themmuch sooner but one for me was, howcan you expect a football team to do wellif you’re not really putting any effort in?I knew effort was needed for work andstudy but it took me a while to spot the


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Team 2012 -2013

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same in football management, howstupid?!”. That year there was no taper-ing off of numbers at training. Anthony,spurred by a new determination intro-duced more professional and serioustraining sessions, the team responded inkind. The girls were runners-up in theDivision 3 league. They also performedbetter in the Championship and althoughthey did not get to the weekend away, itwas a sign that not having to play in the‘backdoor shield’ meant they weregetting beaten at the later stages of thecompetition. The players of real qualityon that team included Sheila Ahern,Laura O’Connor, Nicola Hurst, BridgetGallagher and a young Shona Barry.Anthony’s view was this was a majoradvance “It wasn’t a team reliant on oneor two players any more, it was startingto become a team of 15 good players.”

“After I started taking coaching seriouslymy yardstick for improvement was St.Leo’s, the local girls school team. Theywere consecutive All-Ireland SchoolsChampions. We played them every yearin pre-season and pre-championshipfriendlies. We had been hammered everyyear up until 2007 by margins of maybe30-40 points. But the gap was gettingless. By 2010 we were within a fewpoints of them and I remember when wefinally beat them in 2011. The St. Leo’steam had two excellent men at the helm,Michael Moore was manager and Bren-dan Hayden (never play hurling again)was their coach. This was a real measureof our development”. There were acouple of super players now to build ateam around, there was Rachel Byrne

from Dublin, Vivienne McCormack fromMeath, Emma & Louise Byrne fromMonaghan and a mature Captain, ShonaBarry from Laois. That year Anthonyattended a number of coaching courses.

The degree courses in Sports Science,Heath Science and GAA meant there wasstarting to be real competition for placesand the 2010-11 season started well.Anthony was coaching the team on hisown and getting more ambitious everyyear for the team. Having played andbeaten St. Leo’s he knew this team hadpotential. He asked his predecessorBrendan Hayden, then St. Leo’s coach tocome back to IT Carlow to do a coupleof sessions. “I had seen the differenceAndy and David made when they intro-duced new training methods and attitudesto training, well I only realized how goodBrendan was when he came back. Hewas a professional coach and I immedi-ately took notes”. His input made a bigdifference; the style of training in a briefperiod of time introduced a new dynamicto the team. Intense, ferocious, confidentwith the ball. The girls got to the Division3 League Final and lost to UCD’s secondteam. Two early goals conceded and afterthat it was a very even game, the lessonlearned was don’t start a match slowly.The girls got to the quarterfinals stage ofthe Championship. They were up againstthe championship favourites, UniversityLimerick (2) a team who was relegatedfrom Division 2. “It was the second bestmatch I was involved in with the team,against the odds, travelling to their back-yard we beat them 0.8-0.7 and it was awar of attrition, horrible weather, pitch

torn to shreds. One of them games whereevery player left their heart and soul onthe pitch, fighting tooth and nail for everyinch. I suppose the matches that we alllove to be apart of but don’t come aroundtoo often. I remember ringing theNational Secretary to inform him of theresult and the next day the result was thewrong way around in the paper, he justassumed University Limerick had won”. The team was well prepared and trainedhard. They had reached the Lynch CupFinal Weekend, last achieved by Brendan8 years previous but this time they wereto go a step further. Buoyed by theconfidence of beating UL the girls wonthe semi final beating Trinity CollegeDublin by 2 points. It was a tough hardymatch. Brendan came to the game, whichwas appreciated by Anthony as theadditional support made a difference.Then it was onto the Final. They stayedin a B&B because they were the last teamto qualify for the weekend and could notget into the booked out hotels. The finalswere played in University Limerick.Carmel Lynch was at nearly every gamethat year and was tremendous support inpreparing for this important weekend.And of course was there for both of thefinal games. She never missed a Final.Mick Dempsey was there who wasCourse Director of the GAA programmeon academic staff in ITC. The girlsplayed DCU (2) and it was a game theylead throughout, “at half time I didn’treally have to give a team talk, the girlswere good mentally, they rallied aroundeach other and demanded that they allimprove in the second half, even thoughthey were leading by a couple of points.Shona Barry stood out as a good leaderthat day”. They went on to won theLynch Cup, a first for IT Carlow LadiesGaelic. The team was then nominated bythe local newspaper The Nationalist forCarlow Team of the Year. CormacO’Toole was the management represen-tative at the awards as he was heavilyinvolved in the GAA. The team won theaward and there were great celebrationsall round by the team, now lookingforward to Division 2 football and newchampionship grading.

Anthony’s girlfriend was corner forwardand was important in that championshipwinning team. “I had a bit of a moraldilemma with Mairead, we started datingearly in that season. With my new more


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‘professional attitude’, I knew this prob-ably wasn’t a good idea. Things like thatcan disrupt a team, but it just sort ofhappened and we kept it secret. Anywaycome final day—and team selection—itwas between Mairead and another playerto start at corner forward. The other girlwas good, fast and had an eye for goal.Mairead was good too and was our leftsided free taker so it wasn’t a simpledecision. I hadn’t slept well the previousnight because I was airing on the side ofthe more difficult decision, but haddecided to leave team selection until aslong as I could before making thedecision and naming the team. In thewarm up for the final the other girl gotinjured and I didn’t have to make thedecision, I’ve being going out withMairead since but still sometimeswonder what decision I would havemade, thank God or whoever, I dodged abullet”. She was available for a long timeto his team as she stayed in IT Carlowsubmitting a Masters. Mairead did a lotto help Anthony on the pitch and as aPhysio for the team, he also says hermeticulous ‘doing things right’ naturerubbed off on him. IT Carlow Ladies was now a competitiveteam and a couple of players actuallycame to the degree courses because ofthis fact. The team was continuallymoving forward and the new GAAcourse was introducing a new crop ofcompetitive players. The team henceforthwas annually getting to Semi-finals andFinals. They achieved better success inthe league than they did in Champi-onship. They won the League Division 2in 2013, another first for the collegeinspired by Jackie Kinch from Wicklow,Rachel Byrne from Dublin, VivienneMcCormick from Meath, Ellen Healyfrom Laois and the ever present Byrnetwins from Monaghan. They beat ITTralee on a cold and wintry night inTipperary. A measure of how far the teamhad come was that several county playersdid not start and were on the bench forthe match, such was the new strength anddepth of the team. Division 1 was nowthe new challenge, “we we’re delightedand celebrated well, we now got theopportunity to play against the best play-ers in the country. We didn’t expect to dowell in Division 1 but as I’d learned fromSt. Leo’s, keep playing the better teamsand you will get better”.

Anthony engaged in several courses toimprove his coaching and in 2008 wasalso awarded with a Public Relations andCommunications degree from IT Carlow.This supplemented his IT skills devel-oped in the Networking degree. He wasmore mature by this time and felt, for thefirst time, being a non-student hadcreated a helpful barrier between himselfand the players, “I suppose being anon-student, psychologically, made mefeel more like a mentor and in a strangeway more patriarchal of the team. I hadto be more of a manager and less of afriend but at the same time always beavailable should they need any help”. Hewas an awful manager starting out, eventhough he had deluded himself intothinking he was great, but he was startingto learn things—like you never stoplearning as a coach, how to make animpact and your own attitude will morethan likely affect what drives a team. Hecould see quicker in games if he neededto make a decision or on occasionscorrect the poor decisions he had made.In Division 1, good training just wouldnot be good enough. He started to plantactics and for example in Tralee 2013 heremembered at half time telling the girlsto completely change their game plan toa backup tactic that they had worked on,running with the ball rather than kickingfast ball which their success had beenbuilt on. This completely changed thegame and Carlow won comfortably.Along with Brendan they had a lot ofthought too for example, in coping witha strong player on the opposition team bynullifying her with one-to-one markingto force the player out of the game. Theywould often spend hours analyzingupcoming matches, the players on theopposition team, the style of football andhow best to prepare the team for it.

Brendan Hayden was back working withAnthony as Coach since 2011 and camefrom Éire Óg background in Carlow. Hiscoaching pedigree at underage is topclass and he had also attained greatsuccess as a player, winning severalSenior Leinster Club medals. Anthonygot ‘unexpectedly’ paid from 2008onwards after he stopped being a studentof IT Carlow, he recalls, ‘It was Christ-mas time and I got a letter through thedoor. I opened it and there was a chequefrom IT Carlow – Barrow Centre for,what to me was a sizable amount of

money. I had no idea what the moneywas for. And for not the first time, ITCarlow had presented me with a moraldilemma. I’d like to say I immediatelyrushed over to return the cheque, but Idefinitely spent an ‘hour or two’ toponder going to the bank and lodging it.Honesty or fear of getting caught got thebetter of me and I went over to theBarrow Centre to return the cheque. WellI was never as delighted when I wasinformed it was for coaching the girls,Christmas was paid for”. It wasn’t aboutthe money though, it was a passion now.

Anthony has learned from various coach-ing role models over the years, AndyDoyle and David Corbett stoked hisenthusiasm and maybe knocked a bit ofsense into him; Mick Dempsey and NoelRichardson had set a trigger in his mem-ory to be released at a later date andBrendan Hayden spent hours everydayon the phone discussing ladies Gaelicfootball and taking Anthony’s passion toa new level, all the while Carmel Lynchsat in the background supporting everyaspect of this new professionalteam developing.

IT Carlow still play friendlies against StLeo’s every year but now it is theirsecond team and development teams thatplay them. The training sessions havemoved onto a different level. “We couldhave 30 balls for a training sessioncompared to the 2 when I first startedout”. There are now 5-6 coaches, witheach coach assigned a different role attraining. Coaching tools such as tacklebags, ice baths, training goals, poles, hur-dles are all available. There are specificdrills for specific match case scenarios.Each coach will take a section of the fieldand work with the group of players intheir section. Physio’s, sometimes 2 or 3are available for each training session.Anthony and Brendan spend hourspreparing training sessions, post trainingrecovery programmes and video analysis.The training regime for a normal weekincludes: Monday – Pitch Training 7-8.30pm; Tuesday – High PerformanceGym Work (Lower Body) 7-8pm;Wednesday – Pitch Training 7-8.30pm;Thursday – High Performance GymWork (Upper Body) 7-8pm. The paneltraining at the start of the year could beup to 90 girls. It usually filters down to apanel of 40-50 providing 2 teams. The


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second/development team won Division5 in 2013 and were beaten in the League4 final this year, a feat in winning wouldhave seen the second team enter theLynch Cup and Division 3. Maybenext year.

It is the teams first year in Division 1 in2014/15 after being crowned championsin 2013. They are grouped in the ‘groupof death’ with IT Sligo, Queens Univer-sity and DCU. In their first game theybeat IT Sligo by 6.15 – 3.07. They thenplayed Queens University, reigningDivision 1 champions at IT Carlow,“With out a doubt the best game I wasever involved with, lucky and honouredto be apart of it. The stand was full, proudparents and supporting students, as gooda crowd as I can remember being at aladies football match. We won 1.10 –1.09. The speed of the match was amaz-ing. I’d never been involved in such a fastand intense match. The pace was unbe-lievable, the tackles crunching, girlsthrowing their bodies to defend leads. Itwas neck and neck the whole gamealthough we never trailed in the match. Iremember after the match going into thedressing room to talk to the girls and theywere literally too exhausted to talk, theywere speechless from pain of exhaustionand yet you could see an unspokenadmiration among them all for eachother. How they’d all gone out to wartogether and won by giving everythingthey had. It was an amazing feeling to beapart of that match, the best teamperformance I’ve experienced”. Theywere narrowly beaten away to DCU intheir last group match, which give theman away semi-final against UniversityLimerick where they were also narrowlybeaten. DCU and UL went on to contestthe final in IT Carlow, with Limerickwinning well.

Anthony compares the set up in ITCarlow now and 11 years ago as been‘polar miles’ apart. “We are almostprofessional in our set-up, Carmel madesure we did not want for anything; highprotein milk, fruit or whatever you askedfor it was made available. On match daywe have breakfast, lunch and dinnerprovided sometimes”. The players noware either often very good county foot-ballers or many of the players developinto very good county players.

“The whole structure of the operation haslifted. We recently played several seniorcounty ladies teams in friendlies. Thiswould have been unimaginable for anumber of reasons 10 years ago, mainlywe would not have been good enough. Asimportantly or second team got to thefinal this year in Division 4 and we are inDivision 1.” Brendan and Tom Murphynow are the main support for Anthony.The change was best seen when, in earlydays Anthony came 30 minutes beforethe game and “you really had to see whoturned up before picking the team”.Warm ups were very basic, doing laps.Half-time talks were not good andAnthony had little idea of what wasgoing wrong. Today it is 100% different.He would have reports on players onopposition teams, what kind of kick-outs(short or long) they employ and he wouldgo and view the away teams at everyopportunity. Before the match he goesthrough the main points of the match andgive specific instructions to players. Thisstarts 75 minutes before the gamealthough most of it would be covered intraining with the players either using con-versation, video analysis or powerpointpresentations. He would also explain hisselection and this would be discussedwith Brendan in great detail precedingthe match. “The players are very seriousand to be dropped is a hard thing forthem, we owe it to them to make the mostinformed and best decision we can”.

Through Noel Richardson, sports teamsin IT Carlow are now offered the oppor-tunity to take aspiring coaches on boardthrough the Sports Science degree workplacement programme. “At the start ofthe year we take two students on board tohelp with coaching. It is important to usthat these students become very interac-tive in the work placement role. We have

found the more you empower the studentthe more you get in return from them.”Roles that work placement coaches takeon board with the team can be warm-ups/downs, drills, pre/post and duringmatch analysis, statistic recording andmore. It is now common place that athalf-time Anthony and the coaching teamreview the first half statistics that wouldinclude wide’s, kickouts won/lost,possession, scores and more. This allowsthe team to identify what is going rightand wrong. “Real time sport data isimportant for us. It can sometimes pointout the obvious. You have to be carefulyou don’t get caught up in statistics butit can help you address a problem byhighlighting it.”

Anthony also did a number of yearscoaching soccer team Stretford Unitedfrom 2009 to 2011. He got the confidenceto take this role on from working with theLadies Gaelic. This team performedadequately well and finished mid-tablerather than struggling with relegation.They also got to the Carlow Premier Cupfinal but were defeated. He furthercoached the Oscar Traynor Team, thebest of Carlow’s soccer players playingall the other counties in Ireland, theyreached the All-Ireland quarter final andwere knocked out on penalties. He wasasked to coach County Carlow Ladiesteam, and briefly coached them havingreasonable success, getting beaten byNew York Ladies in the Junior AllIreland Semi-Final

Anthony is now moving on to a DigitalMarketing lecturing position in BahrainPolytechnic (Technical University). Hehad set up his own digital marketingbusiness but found he is not passionateabout developing his own business. He ismoving over with Mairead his girlfriend


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in the middle of August 2015. He hadalways had an academic interest, com-pleting an M.Phil in DIT in 2013. He willbe linking up again with his old class-mate James Egan who had done theNetworking degree and working in theSchool of Science under Dr PhilippePringuet. The plan is to do 4 or 5 yearslecturing in the Middle East, maybe setup a small business out there and hewould like to engage a PhD but is unsureof his “title” yet. He is hoping to getinvolved with the GAA club in Bahrainand perhaps get involved with theLadies Team.

This account shows how incredible thedevelopments have been in IT Carlowand how these developments have takena team, coach and staff to a professionallevel of sports performance.

“On a personal note, I have worked,known and been a friend of CarmelLynch for over 15 years. In my capacityas a student, activity officer, students’union representative and staff of ITCarlow I cannot think of a more support-ive person to students. I have been luckyin my time to have met so many studentsand whenever I meet them again, nomatter how long a period has passed,they always ask about two things: ITCarlow and Carmel Lynch. She was andis a huge influence to so many studentsincluding myself. Personally she is thehardest working person I have workedwith, always the first in and last out. Ihave seen her care and share studentspain, loyalty, sadness and happiness. Ifirmly believe that the success both ourLadies Football team and IT Carlow’sSports clubs have achieved, all whichhave flourished under Carmel, would notbe close to the success they hold todaywith out Carmel. “

Seconds best

Interview with David Barcoe on Car-low’s surprising soccer achievements

David came to the RTC in 1992 and stud-ied Electronics Engineering. He studiedfor 2 years then left and returned in 1996and completed another 2 years, leavingin 1998. In July of 1998. From there hejoined Carl Stuart Limited as a service


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I joined IT Carlow in September 2001 as an Erasmus student and was immediatelywelcomed by all, particularly the Sports and Recreation staff, led by Carmel Lynch.From the beginning sports in IT Carlow has allowed me to make new friends butalso to forget about having to be far from home. I had found a new family and any-one who took part would recognize Carmel as being like a mother to us all. Themany clubs and societies available allowed for a range of activities throughout theweek and even at the weekends with many trips organized for international studentsespecially. Very quickly I was compelled to help out, and eventually started coach-ing the volleyball team. IT Carlow provided a lot of support for coaches, helpingus get appropriate coaching qualifications and health and safety certifications aswell as for teams and players, providing financial support to attend competitionsnationwide. The skills I learnt to become a better coach have also helped me duringmy career. I believe in leading by example, something I have developed on thecourt, never giving up, no matter the circumstances. But team building, whetherin sport or at work, also requires to understand individuals’ personal situation andto incorporate them to ‘buy-in’ to a team. It is essential to find out what motivatespeople in order to bring out their best. These challenges were extremely importantin IT Carlow and in particular in the volleyball team, which included many inter-national students, often only there for a few months. With this type of support ITCarlow offers, also comes greater expectations, and the hard work put by all teamswas often rewarded with ‘Team ITC’ often reaching the final stages of intervarsitycompetition and more often than not bringing some silverware home. On the otherhand, failures were always taken as learning opportunities, turning them intopositives, yet another skill I was able to incorporate in my work. I only have goodmemories of Ireland, but many of the best ones as a student took place in the ‘Bar-row Centre’, home of all sports and activities in IT Carlow. Sports (and the Sportsand Recreation team at IT Carlow) have made me a better leader by giving me theopportunities to develop the skills required in both coaching and management. Thisis vital in my role today.

Philippe’s Sport Inspired Career detailsDegreeBachelor of Science in Software Engineering (2002)

PhD in Computer Science (Data Mining) supervised by Norman McMillan, GregDoyle and Stephen R.P. Smith, Essex University (2010)

First Position in Bahrain and dateStarted in Bahrain polytechnic in August 3009 as Lecturer in Computing

Promotional StepsPromoted to Programme Manager for Bachelor of ICT in 2011Promoted to Head of School of ICT in 2013Promoted to Dean of Faculty of Engineering, Design and ICT (EDICT) in 2014

R-L Dr. P Pringuet, Dean ofFaculty of Engineering;, Mr AFriel, Lecturer and Dr. JamesEgan, Programme Managerof ICT.

Photo of 3 Carlow graduatesoutside Bahrain Polytecnic.

Rapid academic promotion primed by managing College sport

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engineer. I still working with Carl Stuartto this present day.

College Years:

When Dave started his studies he hadmostly played GAA with club and countybut his father coached BagenalstownAFC. The prospect for success in RTClooked most promising in GAA as at thistime both Carlow and Laois had verygood Minors team playing with Laois’sFergal Boyran among others. In the firstyear David played with the Fresher’scollege team as the goalkeeper as he hadalso been playing with Carlow in thisposition. That year Carlow progressed tothe semi-final where they were beaten bya very good Dundalk team.

During the second year David againplayed football as the soccer in the col-lege not going too well and football waswell structured and coached. The yearthough did not provide Carlow with anysilverware again with the team losingearly in the year.

During the third year David was going todo Football again because there was nosoccer team who had been without amanager for a couple of years. David wasrepeating the course and during theFresher’s Week he got speaking to somea number of friends who went to CarmelLynch, Sports Officer in RTC to see ifthey could get soccer started. Carmelsaid there would not be enough for soccerteam that year. The lads were not discour-aged and later a mass group went toCarmel and persuaded her to let them setup soccer for this year. They had oneplayer who was a regular for a top Dublinclub Belvedere Celtic and that influencedCarmel possibly but they then organiseda lunchtime trial and had a very good

turnout. David was a keeper for GAA andhad his gloves with him that day butwhen the keepers were asked to comeforward there were nine and it was clearthen that the number of strikers was verylimited. David threw down his glovesand in the trial game scored 4 and thenwas then a few days later in the next trialshe scored 3. The Second Team he wasplaying for won both games. Then onMonday when teams were posted he wason the seconds but he did not knowanyone else on the team.

The RTC’s First team played two weekslater in Dublin and Carmel made thearrangements for this game. There wasmeeting somewhere in another RTC thatCarmel went to at where the programmeof games for the season was organised.The First game the seconds played wasagainst Kevin Street. There was no kit orshirts for the Seconds as the First teamtook the only shirts. These were actuallyGAA shirts as were the balls. Given thiscrisis for the pending Seconds’ gameCarmel went and found old heavy RugbyJerseys and came up with one old GAAfootball. The game went ahead with theteam looking terrible with all odds andsods. To make matters worse, there wasRugby Match going on and the soccerlads had to get changed in Hall. Theopposition had great gear and notablyboasted a manager and yet Carlow won6-1. The team was mainly comprised offirst year students. A programme ofgroup games with four teams had been

organised before Xmas for both soccerteams. The Second Team played in whatwas called the B Section. The First Teamthen had some seriously difficult fixtures,playing Kevin Street one week and thevery next Bolton Street. They wereconsequently eliminated from the GroupStage playing teams with League ofIreland representatives. The eliminationof the First team had an immediate bonusfor the Seconds in that they inherited theFirst’s jerseys for the next game inAthlone. This was an away fixture whichthey won 3-2 and David got a couple ofgoals. In the last game they played asmall private college and it was a horribleday. There were exams going on forXmas so the team was short vital playersbut they scraped a 2-1 win. David had gotanother goal that day and had then got 6in the three games. Carmel wanted toknow why David was not on the First.

After the Xmas vacation they now wereinto the business end of the season. Oneof the best players was Michael Walsheknown by all as ‘Chaulkie’ who was fromTipperary Town and was a regular for StMichael’s. Chaulkie still work and livesin Carlow. He was a super player andwould have gone onto any first team. Thetraining up until that point was prettyuseless. Previously it had just been a kickabout but now we had someone who wasputting us through a major session. JimNolan a Science Staff member who wasinvolved in Carlow Rugby Club didsome training with the team and this was


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David Barco, Alfie Barco(son) wearing international jersey with FAI Logo onright to college logo, with Andy Barco (father and Coach of Bagenalstown AFC)

David Barco with RTC jersey with hisnickname DOTS from 1996 campaign

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‘very serious training!’ The Seconds lost5 or 6 lads who failed their Xmas examsand did not come back to college Para-doxically the team was greatly strength-ened by a couple of new additions mostnotably Michael Walshe who would haveplayed for the First team had there beenone still operating. There was no lightsbut Jim used the rugby pitch. There werelights that had been put up by CarlowRangers AFC who had operated from thecollege, but had been by this time beingused for Rugby training. The training forthe Seconds had to use the lights up onthe Green Road and they actually turnedone of the street lights and for a fewweeks they used them. There were,however, only then two lights and theywere 20 yards apart! Only 10 or 11turned out for training so it was just thebarest number to field a competitiveteam. While the team had inherited theGAA Football jerseys which were not ofcourse being now used by the First Teamthey still had only GAA balls.

The first game after Xmas was at homeand played Bolton Street Seconds. Theopposition had 25 footballs to warm upand Carlow had by then the absoluteluxury of three footballs! Everyonebelieved the CRTC Seconds were goingto get really hammered. It was a totalshock that Carlow won as the oppositionhad all the gear, water bottles, hadbrought good support arriving on a coachand yet Carlow won 4-2. Dave got twogoals. Having Michael Walshe and JohnGuilfoyle, coming into the Team made abig difference. This Bolton Street teamhad a very well-known manager MickieWhelan, Ex-Dublin GAA Manager, whoreally viewed these Seconds as simplynext year’s First team. There were reallyno weak players. It was the result of theseason for this B Section competition. Inthe Semi Finals Carlow played TheAmerican College. It was very hot andabout 20C that day with not a breath ofwind. Two Shamrock Rovers Reserveplayers were on the opposition team.They had cones to warm up and broughtcoach with supporters for the game.There was visibly a lot of resourcesbehind this opposition. The RTC wasbuilding the car park at back of collegeat this time and the teams had to walkacross a building site to get to the pitchat top of the field. David had brought forthis important game a proper soccer ball

from Bagenalstown as previously therewas only GAA balls. He got these ball onloan from his Dad who was a Manager inBagenalstown. The team turned out againin GAA jerseys. Dave scored a headerfrom cross from the right with the crosssupplied by John Guilfoyle, it was from18 yards. The students from the collegewere out as the weather was so goodstanding along the touch line and Davidestimates there must have been 300 oreven more. The goal caused a wonderfulcelebration. A party atmosphere erupted.Then to the Carlow crowd’s disappoint-ment came an equalizing goal which wasa screamer. The keeper did not move asthere was no point. Carlow scored tomake it 2-1 and the equalised almostfrom the kick-off, 2-2. Carlow then wentbehind 3-2. David then made it 3-3 witha close range finish and then to cap hisday scored a very strange winner. In thelast minute a penalty was awarded.Michael Walshe took this but the keepersaved it parrying it quite wide. David got

it back and it somehow went in before thecentre back could get back. The side linesupporters went mad. Then at the tip offwith only minutes left their centre backcame up who got one under the keeper’sbody although the Carlow keeper got ahand on it. It was going in but Davetracked back to clear off the line. Thereferee blew the final whistle, the pitchwas invaded and David was then carriedoff pitch on the team’s shoulders as thefinal whistle went. From there it wasdown to Tully’s Bar on Tullow Street andplace was hopping and the teamcelebrated.

Carmel was now taking a strong lead andcalled the team in for a consultation. Sheemphasized they needed now to takethings seriously. Shirts were printed withnames on them and David still proudlyhas his. Carmel got a photo taken of theteam in their new shirts. With the ‘AllIreland’ pending there was a great buzzin the RTC about the game. Everyonewas asking when was game and incredi-bly David recalls even one of his lectur-ers the late Frank Delaney was askingabout the game and he had absolutely nointerest in soccer! Getting a bus arrangedto travel to game was a problem thatlanded in Carmel’s lap and the game wasto be in Home Farm. There was a lot ofsupport from Carlow that day but surpris-ingly absolutely none from Athlone ITperhaps because of low expectationsgiven who Carlow had already beatenthem. The crowd were seated a long wayfrom pitch. There was lots of chantingfrom Carlow contingent and this gaveCarlow an extra man. There were,however, lots of groans as chances cameand went but none were converted. Even-tually an Italian chap who was playingscored the first one for Carlow but soonafter Athlone equalised. Then a rightcross came in and Dave got between twocentre halves and rolled one to the backpost for a tap in. We won 2-1 and Davesaid he could not believe it standing inthe middle of the famous Home Farmground where Johnny Giles had begunhis career, with his winner’s medal.There was a medal award ceremony afterthe game in Big Tree Pub. It was amid-week game. The award ceremony inDublin was a limited one with twopresentations namely the award of theCup and the award of the Man of theMatch. The latter was obviously going tobe a Carlow player and associated withthis award was a keg of beer. The teamwere ecstatic when Dave won the latteraward as the team knew he did not drink!Then when they arrived later that nightto Buzz’s Bar downstairs there was thena magnum of champagne presented toDave as captain which was again handedon. There had been drinking going onbefore Dave had got there and when theMagnum was handed to someone whowas so already drunk he dropped it! Theparty went on all night with a singsonggoing on and on. In the annual RTCaward ceremony Dave was given the‘Carlow RTC Soccer Achievement


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Award’ even though he was on theSecond Team which was presented byLarry Murphy of the Wexford All Ireland1996 Hurling Winners.

The next year soccer was no longer theCinderella and Carmel had been busy or-ganising everything. Trainer, kit, facili-ties everything. Dave was then captain offirst team and interest in the soccer wasmassive and totally at odds with yearpreviously. There were that year twoteams. There was timetabled trainingsession and training in Barrow Centre.There was in fact largely a completelynew set of players and 90% of the previ-ous team had not returned to college. TheFirst Team played Bolton Street in theirfirst game and Dave was captain and sentoff. It was only time he had ever in a longcareer been dismissed. A player punchedDave and in retaliating he was dismissed.The team went all out and secureddespite playing with 10 men a 1-1 draw.Carmel appealed Dave’s sending offwhich was successful. The next gamewas Galway and they won a home game1-0. In last group game Carlow Firstsplayed Dundalk and drew that one. Theythus ‘scraped through’ surprisingly asleaders of the Group! In the last 16against Limerick IT and Carlow won 2-1. Dave scored but went off injured.Michael Walsh got the winner. GarethDodrell and Eddie Darcy both playedthere part. Then the big game came forthe team. It was a game against the GardaXI who had won the competition out theyear before. One of their team was a StPat’s First team regular. The Carlow teamtrained really hard and where wellprepared. It was not a surprise when itwas 0-0 halftime and expectations ranhigh for second half. A ball went over thetop midway through the second half andDave got across centre half and from 25yards hit a looped volley into the topcorner. The Carlow crowd went mad onthe touchline. This was not at this point asurprise result.

The team travelled to finals weekend,going up on bus to Galway. In the semi-final, when Carlow played at GMITagainst Waterford RTC. Carlow were notfancied at all. In the game David scoredfirst and they equalised. It went to extratime and Carlow were pressing for a win-ner. The oppositions centre half justlaunched a ball up field to clear it with

Carlow pressing. The Carlow keeper lostthe ball in sun and he was unable to getproperly under it. The sun was very lowin sky as it was setting with game goinginto extra-time. The Carlow keeper wasone of best David had ever played with,but he palmed this ball that had bouncedonto the bar and into the goal while beingharried by their centre forward. From thekick-off the ball was played back toMichael Walshe and he launched it up thefield but final whistle went. The teamwere despondent. They had been beatenby bad luck and had to then play for thirdand fourth place against Limerick IT, agame David said they should have won.The drinking that took place the nightbefore when being away for the Finalsweekend meant the team had to be mixedup with reserve players. As a conse-quence they were far from being at theirstrongest and lost again. Despite thedisappointment Carmel met the teamwhen they returned and asked how theygot on and David said she assure themthis was a fantastic season and they werenot failures but done the Institute proudand to remember that this was an ‘AllIreland’ competition at Level 1.

The week after the Finals WeekendDavid got a phone call from a guy calledGino Brazil who he had never heard ofbut played centre mid-field for ShamrockRovers. They were selecting the NationalColleges team and there were to be trials.Gino was ringing David about the forth-coming trials but he was told he was onthe panel. David travelled up with EddieDarcy but there was confusion over timesand arriving at 3pm they missed thesession that had started an hour earlier.The next week there was a second trial inEnfield and David travelled again. He goton the Panel and played in a trial matchwith University Selection in UCD. Hewas met by Gino off the bus and theywon the game 2-1 which was surprise asRTC teams were not usually competitivewith the universities. The first game wasagainst the Army Selection played inRanelagh Barracks. David managed toscore and was substituted with 10minutes to go. After this challenge gamehe was told they were going across toplay an English Schools XI in a com-petition organised to take place in the Isleof Man. This English team was trainingat Lilleshaw which was the high perform-ance centre for the English national team.

There was a competition organised whichwas called off because of difficulties aris-ing with this English challenge. Davidwas told something else would bearranged. David learned there was to bethree games but it was now just one weekbefore the final Electronics Engineeringexaminations David had to take andwhen he told his mother she was notimpressed. The College RepresentativeTeam played Isle of Man under 19, under17 and Men’s senior teams in gamesplayed over 4 days. The matches wereFriday. Saturday, Sunday and the teamreturned home after the Monday. Theywon all games and some of these gameswere farcical. David was one of theoldest n the team at 21 and still has thejersey which he treasures. It was nosurprise that on his return Carmel wasthere to meet him. He had a friend on thetrip he met and was roomed with that wasa Wexford lad from Rosslare Harbour. Itturned out Barry Roche who was a goodfriend of David’s wife. This is an illus-trated the real the reason of why Davidhad got involved in sport, namely to meetand make friends. Carmel asked David tocome back and do coaching for IT Car-low but with the new job starting in CarlStuart Group it was just too difficultlogistically for him to take on. Having todecline this offer has always has been amajor regret for david but he now isdoing his badges and could perhaps takeup this offer if it was made again!

Just as he was about to leave the college,David played in a Colleges Five-a-SideAll-Ireland Tournament in the Garda

Templemore College. He had not beeninvolved in the first round in January ashe had examinations. In the Finals,Carlow travelled down in a bus and hewas on the team. Carlow played in a littlemini-group and the first game wasagainst the Garda and the poorly organ-


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Editor’s noteDavid Barcoe’s personal memoriesdo not provide any background towhat previously had been a sport inCarlow that had achieved nationalsuccess. In an earlier part of thisRTC/ITC history details of an All-Ireland success in the 1970s of theCollege soccer team managed byColm Kelly were provided showingnotable past success.

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ised team were leathered 7-0. The ITChowever scraped their way through to theSemi-Final playing teams like Athlone,Dundalk and others. The Semi-Finalgame was against Waterford and theywon well enough having learned in thecompetition; they now had a systemplaying 1-2-1-1 formation. They had atthe back the redoubtable Caulkie andEddie Darcy there also at the back whowas a right footed player and a left footedplayer who both could read the game. Inmid-field there was Gareth Dodrell andDavid was up front and modestly said heplayed wonderfully well. In the Final theGarda though they were going to walk itbut lost 4-0 and got a man sent off. In theFinal the Garda amusingly completelylost their discipline got frustrated andkicked the Carlow lads. It was a veryrough game when they lost the Garda gotthe blue flu and did not stay for presen-tation; this was the competition theseGarda trainees had been training for allyear and it was frustrating for them asthey lost so badly after beating Carlow ata canter in the first round game.

When we got back from the five-a-sideto Carlow Carmel said she cannot believethe ITC had won as this was an unheardof success! David then despite hissuccess in the RTC being top scorer forseason and having won two All-IrelandMedals was unable to get a game up frontfor his home club Bagenalstown as therewas the small matter of the incumbentPat O’Neill in this position who had amagic left foot! It was back in goal thenfor David, or it was a matter of goingback to the Bagenalstown Seconds to geta game up front. He has no regrets havinghad a long career playing now for theBagenalstown soccer club and is in-volved today fully in coaching. He careersaw him drifted back into mid-field andthen centre back for Bagenalstown. Heplayed in goal for Carlow GAA. Davidsummarized his RTC experience sayingfor him that the ‘Seconds are Best’ andhis memories are perhaps not he saidSecond Best despite his inauspicious startin the chaos of Seconds in 1996!

Thank you Carmel for the memories!!

Student Activity and Sport

Study Ireland: IT CarlowSport: June 2015 by CarmelLynch and Brenagh Schlingermann,Sports Rehabilitation Student 2012-2015

The Institute of Technology Carlow issituated in Carlow Town in the heart ofSouth Leinster. Carlow is a vibrantbustling town with a population of over20,000. IT Carlow is within walkingdistance of the student focused towncentre and is located 80 km from Dublinand 50Km from Kilkenny. With 6,500students and 40,000 Alumni pursuingsuccessful careers in all walks of life - ITCarlow has rightly earned an outstandingreputation for sporting achievement andstate of the art facilities.

The development of sport in Carlow RTC(IT Carlow) in the early 70’s was drivenby volunteers, predominately staff mem-bers and students. The subsequentappointment of a PE Teacher in 1973,whose role was to provide a PhysicalEducation programme for students, coin-cided with the provision of the firstindoor sports facility for the college.

Following the setting up of the RegionalTechnical Colleges in the early 1970’sthe Higher Education Sports Federationwas formed to coordinate a programmeof sports activities for this new cohort ofstudents in Regional Technical Colleges. The ‘Regional Colleges Sports Council’,recognised by Department of Education,was formally set up in 1971 at a meetingin Athlone RTC, attended by the recentlyappointed Physical Education Teachersand other interested staff members repre-senting six colleges:

Carlow RTC; Dundalk RTC; AthloneRTC; Waterford RTC; Sligo RTC;Letterkenny RTC.

Carlow RTC embraced this new organi-sation and has continued to be at the fore-front of all 3rd level student sportdevelopments from this period right upto the present time.

From 1970 onwards Sport, PhysicalEducation & Health Science in ITCarlow (Carlow RTC) developed inparallel with academic courses as part ofa holistic approach to the health & well-

being of students and staff of the college.In the past 40 years IT Carlow hasexcelled in many areas of sport capturingseveral All Ireland titles & nurturing eliteathletes of national and internationalclass. Alongside the physical educationprogrammes evolved the area of HealthCare, Physiology & RehabilitationTherapy. More recently the addition tothe sports related/health science suite ofcourses is the partnership with NationalGoverning Bodies of GAA, Soccer andRugby in delivering BA Degrees inSports Management & Coaching. Thisstrategic collaboration has reinforced theinstitute’s ethos of placing the health andwell- being of our learners at the heart ofeverything we do since our foundation 45years ago.

Our collaborations with the GAA, IRFUand the FAI are something we areextremely proud of here in IT Carlow. Aswell as developing elite coaches andplayers through the provision of the BASport and Exercise, GAA, Soccer andRugby programmes, our strategicpartners in the three major nationalgoverning bodies recognise IT Carlow’sinclusive community ethos. This under-standing creates fantastic opportunitiesto reach out to local primary and second-ary schools, as well as neighbouringclubs and surrounding counties, provid-ing a programme of Sport, Recreationand Physical Activity appropriate to theneeds of the people of the region.” DonalMcNally, Director of Sport IT Carlow

Over the past ten years IT Carlow hasinvested significant resources in sportand allied facilities and is now ranked inthe top three IOT’s in the country proudlyearning the title, Sunday Times IOT ofthe year in 2014. This investment hasbeen driven by the considerableacademic and sporting success ofstudents on the national & internationalstage and the associated positive public-ity of such achievements. Central to thissuccess is the college wide culture toprovide every student with the opportu-nity to reach their full potential by gettinginvolved in student life. A range of crossdepartmental initiatives, promotingPhysical Activity, Health Well-being areorganised throughout each year empha-sising the fun, recreation aspect ofstaying fit and healthy, supporting the‘Healthy Campus’ philosophy and


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encouraging greater participation infitness activities i.e. Couch2 5k; SantaRun; Operation Transformation;Health Week.

The development of post graduateprogrammes across a range of disciplineshas further accelerated the institute’scommitment to research in the sports andhealth science fields. The new DarganCentre for Research and Innovation wasopened in early 2014, and provides anintegrated high quality research environ-ment for academic staff and postgraduateresearch students.

The development of the Research Centrefor Men’s Health and the RehabilitativeSciences Research Centre at IT Carlowoffers both taught and research mastersprogrammes in Strength & Conditioning,Exercise Rehabilitation, Sports Perform-ance Analysis and is an integral part ofIT Carlow’s activities and a vital linkwith our industrial partners.

The Centre for Men’s Health at ITCarlow is the only dedicated centre formen’s health research in Ireland and hasan established partnership with the HSE.

Investment in FacilitiesIT Carlow has established itself as a cen-

tre of Sporting Excellence within theSouth East region as a result of heavyinvestment by the college in the develop-ment of state of the art sports facilities.The new Barrow Centre complex whichhouses the sports department wasofficially opened in January 2012 and thesports facilities are part of an overallexpansion of the student services area.These new facilities are some of the bestequipped centres for strength and condi-tioning, fitness training and sports activ-ities and they provide an ideal trainingground for elite athletes, college teamsand the recreational users. The facilitiesprovide support for local communitygroups as well as engaging in partnershipand collaborations in the areas of coacheducation and player development withGAA, IRFU and FAI.

Over the last 10 years there has been asignificant investment in sport with anoverall spend of 10million. This capitalinvestment included the development ofthe following :• Floodlit GAA, Soccer, Rugby pitches• 4 G All Weather full size flood litSoccer Pitch• GAA, Rugby Stadium• All Weather 5 aside, 7aside pitches• Sprint Track• 1.5Km Sli Na Slainte Route

• Barrow Centre Sports Centre with :i) Multi- purpose Sports Hall ii) Health & Fitness suite with Sauna &Steam Roomiii) High Performance Strength and Con-ditioning Centreiv) Exercise Studiov) Spinning Roomvi) Clubs & Societies Activity Roomsvii) Performance Analysis Laboratoryviii) Sports Science Laboratoryix) Rehabilitation Therapy Clinicx) Students Union Recreation Centre

As well as the onsite facilities IT Carlowhas established a number of links withsports clubs in the local community toprovide access for our students to a rangeof other sporting activates, not currentlycatered for on campus. These facilitiesinclude, 25m Swimming Pool, 18 HoleGolf Course, Golf Driving Range, Tennisand Squash Courts, Equestrian Centre,Athletics Track, Snooker Hall andRowing Club.

As our reputation in sport continues togrow, the demand for continued expan-sion of our world class facilities increaseyear on year. In order to meet thisdemand, plans are in place to provide anew 40acre South Campus Sports facil-ity, which will include 6 new sand based


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and 4G GAA, Soccer and Rugby pitchesas well as a 400m Athletics Track com-plex. It is envisaged that the South Cam-pus will be open to students in 2017.

Funding for Sport at IT Carlow

Over the last ten years 10 million hasbeen invested in sports development asoutlined above.

On an annual basis sport at IT Carlow isfunded through 3 main income streams:1) Recurrent Grant2) Student Capitation3) Sponsorship Sports Clubs Participation

IT Carlow provides a wide variety ofsports clubs and participation opportuni-ties for its 6000, part and fulltimestudents. With up to 40 active clubs, thereis a huge diversity of activity among themany sports clubs which include GaelicGames, Soccer, Rugby Basketball,Athletics, Archery, Athletics, Badminton,Boxing, Camogie, Cricket, Equestrian,Fencing, Golf, Handball, Hockey, Kart-ing, Rugby, Soccer, Table Tennis, Tennis,Volleyball, Lacross and many more !

As well as the opportunities for friend-ship and social interaction there is theadded bonus of increased physical activ-ity and exercise in all clubs and the veryspecial camaraderie, atmosphere andenjoyment which is part and parcel of ITCarlow’s Sports Club programme.Although the numbers vary from week toweek depending on the activity theparticipation levels at the Hip Hop andSalsa Dance, Equestrian, Pilates, Spin-ning and Swimming remain constant andhave exceeded all expectations.

Elite Sport

Elite Sport at IT Carlow focuses predom-inately on 3 key 1. High Performance Athlete EntryScheme2. NGB’s, Coaching & Elite SportsCourses3. Elite Athlete Support Programme

High Performance Athlete Entry (HPE) Scheme

The institute of Technology Carlowrecognises achievement at the highest

levels of sport. The HPE Scheme hasbeen developed to enable high achieverswho are committed to their sport toachieve their dual ambition of a highquality education and performance at thehighest level within their field. Under theHPE scheme, IT Carlow offers up to 50extra performance points for studentswho have achieved a minimum of 250CAO Points in their Leaving Certificateor FETAC Level 5 award and who meetthe minimum course entry points.

NGB’s, Coaching and Elite SportsCourses.Experienced tutors from the 3 majorgoverning bodies of Soccer Rugby andGAA provide their expertise in Coachingand Player Development through thedelivery of sports programmes, inassociation with the GAA, IRFU andthe FAI.

Elite Sports Courses include, BA Sportand Exercise (GAA), (Soccer) (Rugby),Sports Management and Coaching,BSc(Hons) Sports Science, BScHonsStrength and Conditioning, HC inPhysiology and Health Science,BSc(Hons) Sports Rehabilitation andAthletic Therapy as well as post grad-uate MSc in Performance Analysis andMSc in Strength and Conditioning(September 2015).

Elite Athlete Support Programme

The Elite Athlete Support Programme atIT Carlow is designed specifically forstudents who wish to compete andsucceed at the highest sporting levelwhile pursuing a course of academicstudy. The programme supports highcalibre athletes striving for sportingsuccess, while providing the opportunityto reach their maximum potential both intheir sport and in their academic careers.

Now in its 16th year the sports scholar-ship scheme offers a support packageand/or bursaries to students of excep-tional sporting ability. As well as thegrowth in the number of scholarships, ITCarlow have recently restructured thesports scholarship programme, as werecognise Elite and Gold standardathletes. Scholarships are awarded in arange of sports including, Gaelic Games,Soccer, Rugby, Basketball, Athletics,Golf, Tennis, Equestrian etc. IT Carlow

supports sports scholarship holders bothacademically and in their sporting careerby providing supports such as AthleteProfiling, Athlete Mentoring, S&Cprogrammes, Functional MovementScreening, Fitness Testing, Diet/Nutri-tion and Injury Prevention Advice, InjuryRehabilitation, Skill Development,and Bursary.

Elite Sports Scholarship

The growing academic portfolio of sportsrelated programmes and state of the artsporting facilities means we are now in aposition to attract the very best athletes,who are competing both nationally andinternationally across a wide range ofdisciplines. In line with these develop-ments, our new elite scholarship strandrecognises the very best athletes compet-ing at the very highest level in theirchosen sport.

Gold Sports Scholarship

IT Carlow provides a number of GoldSports Scholarships to students who haveshown exceptional sporting ability eachacademic year. The scheme is designedto nurture and develop individual talentand maintain the Institutes sportingtradition.

Summary

With the huge agenda of reform under-way across the third level educationsector at the moment and a move forInstitutes of Technology towards mergerand designation as Technological Univer-sities, IT Carlow as an institute andthrough its comprehensive vision andprovision of sport is exceptionally wellplaced to move with changing times inthis sector. Our reputation as an outstand-ing learner focused institute is wellfounded with a strong communityenvironment supporting students toachieve their highest academic and per-sonal potential.

Sport at IT Carlow has developed andshaped me into the person I am today. Inan ever revolving world IT Carlow hasgiven me the opportunities, confidenceand friendships to excel academicallyphysically and socially.


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It was an unpleasant experience, to say the least. Pat Doyle tried to shift him-self into a more comfortable positionon the wet grass, as he leaned against atombstone whose chill easily managedto penetrate his damp coat and get tohis very bones. He pulled his thickcollar around his neck and up towardshis cheeks, rubbing his hands togetherwith little effect. He envied his com-rade Mick Byrne who had somehowmanaged to fall asleep beside him,despite the freezing temperatures towhich they were exposed in the grave-yard. In fact, Doyle knew that hewould be unable to sleep. He wasrestless, agitated and on constant alert.The cry of a vixen, a breeze stirring thenearby firs or a dog’s bark from thevillage of Old Leighlin beyond thegraveyard walls sent him into a state ofpanic which did not abate until he man-aged to convince himself that all waswell. Every so often from his crouchedposition, Mick Byrne would yell out inalarm as his forehead slipped off hisknees before he settled back into hisicy slumber.

The night was pitch-black and Pat Doylecould not even make out the silhouette ofthe old cathedral which stood close by.He had come to the graveyard at dusk theprevious evening in the knowledge thathe had a long night ahead of him. He wasso glad of Byrne’s company and theywhiled away a few hours in jovialconversation about their farms, the neigh-bours and the recent Christmas festivi-ties. However, the chat had slackenedafter midnight, and now in the earlyhours of Saturday 9 January 1836, PatDoyle longed for dawn and the end of hisvigil. It had been a sad Christmas andnew year during which he had beentrying to come to terms with the death ofthe head of his family. Only days before,Doyle had stood with his relatives and

friends on this very spot in the graveyardas his father was lowered into his finalresting place, in a grave close to thepublic road that led down from the Ridgetowards Leighlinbridge. The freshmound of clay on the grave was withintouching distance— now hard andundoubtedly speckled with the frost ofthis winter’s night.

Pat realised he was now performing thelast honour he could do for his late fatheras he set about fulfilling a task which wasa common practice in the locality: watch-ing over the grave of a recently-interredloved one, to protect it from the ignominyof being robbed by ruthless body-snatch-ers who would seek to earn a fewshillings or more from the corpse. It wasperhaps the greatest indignity that couldbe done to the recently-deceased and Pat

was determined to protect his father,however uncomfortable and unnervingthe vigil might prove to be. He appreci-ated that the task was nearly over, as soonnature would take its course and hisfather’s corpse would deteriorate to astage where it would be beyond use toany curious student of anatomy at themedical schools in Dublin. Doyle triednot to think about the ghoulish nature ofthe task, or the local stories about ghostlygoings-on in the cemetery or around thewalls of Lazerian’s cathedral. If truth betold, he was more afraid of ghouls of thehuman variety and he had preparedhimself to tackle anybody who might tryto interfere with his father’s grave. Hehad brought a pistol with him that nightand it lay loaded in his coat pocket. Itwas a reassuring asset and when hisnerves reached fever pitch every so often,

A cluster of Doyle headstones in Old Leighlin cemetery, the possible site of Patrick Doyle’s disturbing vigil in the early hours of 9th January 1836

‘Corpse Watching’: a macabre practice in 1830s Leighlin.

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he steadied himself by fingering the trig-ger of his weapon.

It was still dark at around 5 o’clock in themorning when Doyle first heard murmursfrom across the graveyard. His eyes hadbeen closed and they shot open upon thesound. He waited with bated breath fora repetition, almost praying that he hadbeen mistaken. No, this time, he was cer-tain: two male voices, heavy boots on thepublic road outside, even laughter.Doyle’s heart was racing. This was it: thebody-snatchers were here, coming downfrom the direction of the Ridge. Whoelse would be tramping the roads on sucha God-forsaken night at this hour? Hethumped Mick Byrne in the ribs and bothmen jumped to attention. After turningthe cold air blue with swearing, Byrnewas shushed by Doyle and asked tolisten. Byrne’s heart fell to his feet whenhe too heard the voices, wafting acrossthe graveyard on the black winter air.Both corpse-watchers were now panting,their breath making clouds in front oftheir mouths that they could not see.Doyle quickly grabbed the pistol from hispocket, cocked it and pointed it blindly,his eyes desperately trying to pierce thedarkness, darting in the direction of thespine-chilling voices that were comingcloser and closer. They were approach-ing from the road above the village,coming down towards the graveyardwall, closer with every step. Pat Doyle’snerves were in tatters and when thesnatchers were right outside the wall,within feet of his father’s grave, hedecided he’d had enough. He took aimat the invisible men, pulled the triggerand fired, in the name of his father.

* * *Although shamelessly guilty of ‘poeticlicence’ in the foregoing paragraphs, theevent described is very much based ondocumented facts.1 The date, names andlocations are lifted directly from a surviv-ing police report in the ‘Outrage reports’for Co. Carlow in the National Archives,detailing a shooting in Old Leighlingraveyard on 9 January 1836 by twolocal men who were ‘corpse-watching’over a recently-interred body. Fromnotes made about this incident byCarlow’s Chief Constable of police andthe county’s Chief Magistrate (for theinformation of the Inspector General ofPolice in Dublin) and from two othernewspaper reports from the same decade,

it becomes clear that the ‘corpse-watch-ing’ practice was a very common one inthe newly-constituted parish of Leighlinin the mid 1830s.2 To modern ears andimaginations, it smacks of the macabreand the ghoulish, but to the contemporarypopulation, corpse-watching was a finaland necessary act of defence for the bodyof a loved one. Significantly, referencesto the practice are only recorded when acontroversial or violent incidenthappened while a corpse was beingwatched (for example, an accidentalshooting) which would appear to indicatethat it was a widespread post-mortemtradition in the locality, unworthy ofpublic notice because it was regarded asnormal. While only three references tothe practice have come to light in thecourse of researching this article, it’s fairto claim that that it was a very commonoccurrence in the parish in the early1830s and earlier.

In practical terms, newly buried corpseswere watched over by loved ones to foilattempts by ‘body snatchers’ to acquirebodies to be sold to anatomy schools formedical research. The history of Irish

body snatching was documented in afascinating study by Dr John Fleetwoodin 1988.3 The author outlines the neces-sity and demand for relatively-freshcorpses for the students of the newly-established anatomy schools in Dublinfrom the 1760s onwards, where such‘cadavers’ enabled great advances inscientific learning. These students turneda blind eye to the manner in which their‘raw material’ ended up on their dissect-ing tables which usually employed theunsavoury and illegal services of bodysnatchers: also known as ‘Resurrectionmen’ or ‘sack-em-ups’. Much of thetrade was focused on Dublin cemeteries,especially Bully’s Acre in Kilmainham,and the body snatchers earned a fearsomereputation, becoming the subject ofhorror stories and nightmares, whichcame to a peak in Edinburgh in 1828when Irish emigrants, Burke and Haresold their murder victims to the localanatomy schools.

In his study, Dr Fleetwood admits that thephenomenon was centred around thecapital: ‘Outside of Dublin where themedical schools were concentrated, there

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The fate which Patrick Doyle feared would befall his father’s corpse;a body-snatching scene from an early edition of Charles Dickens’ ATale of Two Cities (1859) by John McLenan

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are few records of resurrectionism.Investigations in Galway and Limerick,both sizeable cities even one hundred andeighty years ago, drew a blank’, and theauthor supplies only a handful of refer-ences of body snatching outside the city.4However, body snatching, or at least thefear of body snatching was a very realphenomenon in Carlow county in theearly 1830s. From the three localincidents outlined here (all within theboundaries of the Catholic parish ofLeighlin), it is clear that much of the localpopulation feared the desecration of theirown or a loved one’s corpse, and thecommon practice of having relativesacting as corpse-watchers would seem toindicate that body snatching was not anunknown event in the local cemeteriescirca 1830. Remarkably, this fear wouldappear to have endured even after thepassing of the Anatomy Act in May 1832,which essentially legalised the dissectionof donated corpses by doctors andstudents and made for a freer supply ofbodies, a move which was enacted inresponse to public revulsion with theillegal trade in corpses. According toFleetwood, from this date onwards, ‘theIrish body snatcher passed into history’.5However, a couple of cases of corpse-

watching in Carlow after this date provethat the fear of body snatching persistedfor many years in the county after the actbecame law.

The earliest recorded case of a corpsebeing watched dates to early Septemberof 1831 when a policeman fromKilkenny was buried in Clody graveyardnear Cloydagh church, in the demesne ofthe Rochfort family of Clogrennane,Carlow. It was alleged that thirteen armedmembers of the local yeomanry unit wereinstructed to watch the corpse on its firstnight in the earth.6 The actions of thesemen during the vigil became the sourceof significant controversy in the localpress when 11 sheep were stabbed withbayonets on the night in question, in afield adjacent to the cemetery. At firstGeorge Wilson, a Protestant tenant ofCol. John Staunton Rochfort suggestedthat it was a sectarian attack on hislivestock in the politically-divisiveatmosphere of the time (after two heatedcounty elections in 1830 and 1831).However, the Carlow Morning Postreported that ‘Mr. Wilson is in no waysuspicious of his Catholic neighbours’.7Instead, the finger of suspicion waspointed at the corpse-watching members

of the local ‘Cloydagh & KilleshinYeomanry’ who had been on active dutyin the local graveyard that night.

In the wake of 1798, this militant bodyhad acted as a divisive and provocativeforce in the county and was increasinglyreferred to in the local liberal press as the‘Orange yeomanry’, with as many as 212men in the Carlow ranks in 1831.8 Oneof the new reforming MPs for Carlow,the Catholic Walter Blackney informedthe House of Commons that theyeomanry was the greatest cause ofdisaffection in the county and that it was‘composed of as bad a description ofpersons as any that could be found’, withsheep-stealers, pick-pockets and othercriminals populating its ranks.9 Therewere a notable number of cases at pettysessions in 1831 where yeomen werepresent as defendants. Collusionbetween the landed gentry and the forcewas openly suggested, despite the protes-tations of men like Col. Rochfort.10 TheRochfort Yeomanry corps was undoubt-edly the most controversial in the countyand enjoyed a particularly infamousreputation. Its members (Protestant to aman and bearers of a sectarian reputationsince 1798) were characterised in thelocal press as poor and landless outcastsof Carlow’s foundling hospital, and werecharged with poor conduct and violentbehaviour in the vicinity, includingallegations of poaching, intimidation,sheep-stealing and aggressive displays ofarms in the community.11 Such develop-ments warranted a public meeting in theCatholic chapel yard in Leighlinbridge on7 August to petition parliament forprotection from— and the ultimatedisbanding of— the body.12 Therefore,when so many sheep were killed in afield immediately beside where a groupof these men were spending the nightwatching a corpse, the finger was pointedat what was seen as a debauched and law-less fraternity. Bored with their vigil inthe graveyard, did these men (possiblydrunk) seek sport in a nearby field byattacking its sheep? It seems that pres-sure was brought to bear on the farmerWilson by his landlord, Rochfort (indefence of his men) and Wilson wasapparently induced to re-think his allega-tions in a letter to the local newspaperwhere he withdrew his supposition thatthe wounds on his livestock were madeby bayonets: ‘in my opinion, the wounds

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Another body-snatching scene


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were inflicted in part by a pen-knife, andin part by a reaping hook’. In now plac-ing the blame at the door of other localfarmers, it was hoped Wilson would takethe spotlight away from the raucouscorpse-watching yeomen; indeed, Wilsoneven stated that he been assured by therelatives of the dead policeman interredin Clody graveyard on the day in ques-tion that ‘no person whatever to theirknowledge staid up to watch the corpsethat night’.13 While the deceased police-man remained undisturbed below groundin Clody, the behaviour of his corpse-watchers was somewhat less peaceful.

The next recorded incident is the onewhich opened this article. On the morn-ing of 9 January 1836, Patrick Doyle andMichael Byrne were watching over thegrave of Doyle’s recently interred fatherin Old Leighlin cemetery. Armed with apistol, Doyle fired a shot at around fiveo’clock in the morning at two men whowere coming down the hill past thegraveyard. However, the two men werenot in fact body snatchers, but SubConstables James and Townsend of theIrish Constabulary who were walkingfrom their barracks in the Ridge towardsCarlow town where they were detailedfor duty at the Quarter Sessions later thatday. Undoubtedly startled but unharmedby the shot fired in their direction, thepolicemen quickly entered the graveyardand apprehended the two men, who wereprobably relieved to see men in uniform,rather than Resurrection men. Thecorpse-watchers Doyle and Byrne weremarched through Old Leighlin and intothe village of Leighlinbridge where theywere presented to the local magistrate,Captain William Steuart of Steuart’sLodge. Steuart interviewed the two menand listened to their tale. So satisfied washe with the legitimacy of their explana-tion that he ordered them to bedischarged — although he ordered thatthe pistol be taken from Doyle. Thisspeaks volumes about how the corpse-watching practice was understood incontemporary Carlow: it was seen as anecessary, common and an altogetherlegitimate use of time and effort.Furthermore, it seems to have beenbroadly understood that the traditionrequired the use of a gun. That a manwho had fired a shot at a policemanshould be immediately discharged inJanuary of 1836, during one of the most

controversial and violent periods inCarlow’s history (the two elections of1835 had unleashed a hurricane ofcontroversy and violence between thelandlords and police on the one hand andthe tenantry and Catholic clergy on theother), speaks volumes about the corpse-watching tradition’s place in the localmind, where it was seen as a commonand somewhat legitimate (if unlawful)use of a firearm.

Five years later, we know that the grave-yard attached to the new Catholic churchin Ballinabranna (officially consecratedby the famous ‘J.K.L’ in early April of1830 and referred to at the time as ‘Mil-ford chapel’)14 was another site of thecorpse-watching practice and sawanother incident of violence involving agun. In May of 1836 (four years after thepassing of the Anatomy Act — whichtells much about the local population’slack of faith in the power of legislation toprevent the desecration of their lovedones’ remains) a local man spent thenight watching over the corpse of a rela-tive in this new graveyard which hadonly a handful of occupants. Like PatrickDoyle in Old Leighlin graveyard just fourmonths previously, this man was armedwith a gun while performing his duties—another indication of how seriously thethreat of body-snatching was regarded bythe community. He was alone andoccupied some of his time in smoking hispipe. To get a light, he walked to a nearbycottage and knocked for assistance. Thedoor was opened by Ellen Byrne, a youngwoman who lived in Milford, and shewelcomed the man to her fire. Having lithis pipe, he made to leave the cottage andreturn to the graveyard but slipped on thefloor. In falling, his gun was accidentallyfired and Ellen Byrne was shot in the hip.She was immediately taken to the countyinfirmary for treatment and had recov-ered to the extent of being able to leaveher bed a week later. However, theCarlow Morning Post reported the storyas a cautionary tale ‘to those who incau-tiously hold fire arms’. In this case, anincident of watching a corpse had almostproduced another one.

With regard to the Old Leighlin shooting,the magistrate Captain Steuart and thetwo corpse-watchers Doyle and Byrnewere all local men, while Chief Consta-ble William Fitzgibbon in Carlow town

(to whom the incident was reported laterthat day), and his superior, Chief Magis-trate Captain Samuel Vignoles were fromLimerick and Westmeath respectively —counties where the practice does not ap-pear to have been as prevalent, judgingby their reports about the incident.15Chief Constable Fitzgibbon was unset-tled by the shooting and travelled toLeighlinbridge to speak with CaptainSteuart. In a letter to Vignoles later thatday, Fitzgibbon stated:

‘I beg to add that I have been speaking toCapt. Steuart on the subject, who in-formed me that is usual for persons towatch the remains of their deceasedfriends at that churchyard, and that hedoes not consider that the shot was firedwith any malicious intent’.16

To Steuart it was ‘usual’; to Fitzgibbon,corpse-watching seemed a strange andsuspicious activity. When CaptainVignoles heard of the incident, he wasalso perplexed and felt the need toresearch a little further before making hisreport to police headquarters in DublinCastle. Accordingly, he conducted amini-investigation into the practice. Inhis letter to Col. Sir John Harvey (Inspec-tor General of Police for Leinster),Vignoles claimed that he had made ‘par-ticular enquiry on this subject and findthe practice to prevail of watching inchurchyards after recent burials’.Although only a brief comment, it couldbe argued that Vignoles ascertainedevidence of the existence of the practicein other graveyards in the county outsideof Leighlin parish. Indeed, he lived inStrawhall House (owned by the Bruenfamily of Oak Park) and probablyconducted his enquiries in its immediateenvirons, i.e. in Carlow town.

* * *Although only a brief and incompletehistory of this fascinating phenomenon in1830s Carlow, the evidence presentedhere nevertheless offers some insight intocontemporary fears and shines some lighton post-mortem practices which seemhorrendous to our modern sensibilities.The corpse-watching practice had appar-ently died out by the 1840s (given thelack of references to it in survivingsources), but the abundance of horizontalslab tombstones, many standing onuprights, in most of the county’s grave-yards might be some indication of a

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residual and inherited desire to foil body-snatching attempts, even in the latterdecades of the nineteenth century whenthe infamous ‘Resurrection men’ hadbecome a thing of history. To our ears,the body-snatchers bear the irresistibleallure of a great tale of terror, but formany Carlovians of the past, for men likePatrick Doyle in Old Leighlin cemeteryin 1836, it is clear that the horror was alltoo real.

With thanks to Martin Nevin for assis-tance with tombstone transcriptions inOld Leighlin cemetery.

1 National Archives of Ireland, Outragereports, Co. Carlow, 1836, 3/2, 9 Jan.1836.2 The new parish of Leighlin was erectedby Bishop James Doyle of Kildare andLeighlin (‘J.K.L.’) in 1823. See ThomasMcGrath, Religious renewal and reformin the pastoral ministry of Bishop JamesDoyle of Kildare and Leighlin, 1786-1834 (Dublin, 1999), pp 84-5.3 Dr John Fleetwood, The Irish bodysnatchers: a history of body snatching inIreland (Dublin, 1988).4 Ibid, p. 54.5 Ibid, p. 62.6 Carlow Morning Post, 5 Sep. 1831.7 Carlow Morning Post, 5 Sep. 1831.8 Ibid, 4 Jul. 1831.9

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1831/aug/11/the-irish-yeomanry,accessed 30 Oct. 2013.10 Carlow Morning Post, 14 Jul. 1831.11 Ibid, 16 May, 5 and 15 Sep. 1831; 1Nov. 1834.12 Carlow Morning Post, 4 Jul, 11 Aug.1831.13 Carlow Morning Post, 15 Sep. 1831.14 Carlow Morning Post, 29 Mar. 1830.15 On the careers of Fitzgibbon and Vig-noles, see Jim Herlihy, Royal Irish Con-stabulary officers: a biographicaldictionary and genealogical guide, 1816-1922 (Dublin, 2005), pp 130 and 307 re-spectively.16 National Archives of Ireland, Outragereports, Co. Carlow, 1836, 3/2, 9 Jan.1836.

The O’Brien Press has produced a seriesof books called 16 Lives, conceived, asthe series editors write, “with the objec-tive of recording for posterity the lives ofthe sixteen men who were executed afterthe 1916 Easter Rising”.

One of the least known of the sixteenexecuted leaders was Michael O’Hanra-han, a remarkable man who spent morethan half his life in Carlow town, living,studying and working there.

Dr. Conor Kostik has produced a fulllength biography of Michael O’Hanrahanwhere for the first time we see both therevolutionary and the private man. Hisrole in the Irish Volunteers and the IRBtakes up half of the book with the otherhalf devoted to his other life - upbringing,education, work, the language enthusiastand writer.

The narrative describes the lives of theO’Hanrahan family in Carlow in theperiod 1880 to 1902 and the strongsupport for Michael for his activities thatcame from within the family. Born in1877 in New Ross the O’Hanrahanfamily had strong Fenian tendencies.Michael was three when his father movedhis family to Carlow, securing employ-ment with Corcoran Mineral Works.Having been educated at Carlow CBSMichael refused to join the Civil Serviceon the grounds that an oath of allegianceto the Queen was required and that was astep he refused to contemplate. Instead hejoined his father’s business as acork cutter.

Michael was to spend over half of his lifein Carlow before the family relocated toDublin following the death of his father.His founding of the first branch of theGaelic League in Carlow is well docu-

mented as is his participation, with hisbrother Harry, in the founding of theWorkman’s Club.

Dr. Kostik’s book devotes considerablespace to Michael O’Hanrahan’s writings,some of which were published posthu-mously, from his weekly articles inArthur Griffith’s Sinn Fein to his histori-cal novels A Swordsman of the Brigade(1914) and When the Normans Came(1918). He includes one of his publishedshort stories, “Patches” (1914) in anappendix to the biography so that thereader may judge for himself. He makesthe claim for Michael that “of all theliterary figures involved in the Rising hewas the only one devoted to the novel asan art form”. He analyses with a critic’seye his writing and concludes that “Michael was rapidly gaining confidencein a variety of literary techniques “ butthat “ it is impossible to know the writerhe would have become if he had lived”.

In Dublin in 1902 he worked with ClóCumann, publishers to the GaelicLeague, and threw himself enthusiasti-cally into the Gaelic revival movement.He joined the Irish Volunteers on itsformation in November 1913 and laterthe IRB. He became quartermastergeneral to the second battalion of theIrish Volunteers in March 1915. He wasthird in command under ThomasMcDonagh in Jacob’s Factory and wasexecuted by firing squad on the 4thMay 1916.

Conor Kostik has cast a wide net and,using an impressive range of sources, hasproduced a biography which illustratesthe important role Michael O’Hanrahanplayed in the run up to the Easter Rising.He captures the character of the man, thelanguage enthusiast, the writer andnovelist and the disciplined organiser. Forthe first time we see the totality of theman and it is impressive. His storydeserves to be more widely known andthis biography is a fitting start.

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Book Review

Michael O’Hanrahanby Conor Kostik

ISBN-978-1-84717-335-5

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The Sisters of the Presentation of theBlessed Virgin Mary (PBVM),i alsoknown as the Presentation Sisters, wasthe first religious congregation foundedin Ireland as Ireland began its slow emer-gence from British rule and the ProtestantPenal Code.ii The official year offoundation is 1775, twenty-seven yearsbefore the Christian/PresentationBrothers (1802), the second religiouscongregation established in Ireland, andthirty-two years before the fourthcongregation: Bishop Daniel Delany’sBrigidine Sisters.iii

The founder of the Presentation Sisterswas Nano (Honoria) Nagle, declaredVenerable by Pope Francis in 2013. Shewas born some kilometres west of Corkin 1718, twenty-nine years beforeDelany’s birth. I am not going to go intoa history of the foundation of the Sistershere, I will only mention those facts thatconnect the Sisters to Bishop Delany.iv

A paper on Bishop Delany and thePresentations can be broken up into threemain time-frames: 1788 when BishopDelany approached the Sisters aboutestablishing a house at Tullow; 1807when he founded the Brigidine Sisters;and 1811 when the Sisters established ahouse at Carlow one of the main centresof Delany’s diocese of Kildareand Leighlin.v

Bishop Delany Approaches thePresentation Sisters

Father Delany’s catechetical programmein the form of a Sunday School beganvery soon after his arrival in Tullow in1777. To support and develop this pro-

gramme Bishop Delany established theConfraternity of the Blessed Sacramentin 1785 and then the Confraternity ofChristian Doctrine in 1788 that had itsbeginnings in Delany’s CatecheticalAssociation. It was not only ChristianDoctrine that was being taught but alsosome of the more secular subjects,mainly to assist with the children’s andthe adults’ religious instruction, such asbeing able to read.

Within ten years Bishop Delany was ableto report to Archbishop Troy of Dublinthat in Tullow alone he had eighty teach-ers and seven hundred students in hisSunday Schools. It was not a ministry hefound easy, the main concern was main-taining the number of instructors. Depar-tures from the teaching ranks werebecause of all sorts of reasons: thenovelty wore off; marriage and offspring;relocation; and death. Very soon Delanyrealized he had to find a way to make hispool of teachers, both women and men,more stable and better able to teach. Hisanswer was to have within his diocese,beginning with Tullow, a religiouscongregation of teachers. This is why in1788 he approached the PresentationSisters in Cork, then known as theSociety of Charitable Instruction of theSacred Heart of Jesus, for such a founda-tion – he may have prayed to Nano aboutthis matter, he certainly did not speak toher about it as she had died in 1784. TheSuperioress at the time of Delany’srequest was Nagle’s immediate successorMother Mary Angela Collins.

Why the Presentation Sisters?

Why did Bishop Delany approach the

Presentation Sisters and not some othergroup?vi He would have known well theBenedictine Sisters who had instructedhis good friend Judith Wogan-Browne inYpres, Belgium, and no doubt he wouldhave been very familiar with the UrsulineSisters. In fact, the Ursulines had a veryclose connection with the Presentations:before founding her congregation Naglehad establishedvii the Ursulines in Cork toteach thereviii; Nagle’s first members weretrained in Ursuline convents in Europe;Nano herself had spent time in anUrsuline convent.ix

There could have been several reasonswhy the Presentations were Delany’s firstchoice: they were Irish; there were noother Irish apostolic teaching congrega-tions at the timex; and they were close athand (today 140 road kilometres fromTullow to Cork).xi Whatever the reason,his request was denied.

There were three reasons why the Presen-tations of Cork were unable to respondpositively to Delany’s request. Firstlyand most simply, they just did not haveenough Sisters at the time of therequest.xii Secondly, Delany wanted theSisters to teach girls of both the poor andthe rich, but the Presentations only taughtgirls from the homes of the poor. Andthirdly, Delany was wanting a cloisteredgroup of Sisters, however, at the time ofthe request the Sisters were very muchapostolic not cloistered, this very muchat the insistence of Nano Nagle.xiii Delanyasked once and was disappointed. Itseems he did not ask again.xiv It would benearly twenty years (1807) before heestablished – he could establish – areligious group of Sisters of his own whowould teach both rich and poor girls andlive an enclosed life: the Sisters of StBrigid (Brigidine Sisters).xv

The Presentations and The Brigidines

In 1807, when Bishop Delany felt he hadthe time to commit himself to the foun-dation and management of a newreligious congregation, he gathered in sixwomen from his Confraternity of theBlessed Sacrament to establish theSisters of St Brigid. One might wonderhow much influence, direct or indirect,the Presentation Sisters may have had onthe decisions Bishop Delany made inrelation to the early years of the

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Bishop Daniel Delany

and the Presentation

Sisters (1788–1814)

Brother Stephen Sweetman

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Bishop Delany and the Presentation Sisters_Delany & Presentation 28/10/2015 20:36 Page 1

Brigidines.xvi By this time the Presenta-tions were well settled in relation to theirministry, their constitutions, and theirway of life. By 1800 they had fivecommunities outside of Cork, one closeby to Tullow in Kilkenny. We will lookat four areas in relation to influence:dress, ministry, way of life (apostolic,cloistered, contemplative), andconstitutions.

There is one thing that should be madeclear before we continue. Before 1805the Sisters were under the direct authorityof the bishop of their diocese. So, in Corkthey were under Bishop Moylan’sauthority. When in October 1793 twoSisters moved to Killarney in the dioceseof Kerry at the invitation of Bishop Tea-han they came under his authority, notMoylan’s. When in October of the sameyear two Sisters were invited to Dublinby Archbishop John Troy they cameunder his authority. The houses wereindependent of each other, there was nocentral government as such, but therewas a common charism and ministry.

In 1805 things changed. Pope Pius VIIproclaimed the Sisters the Order ofPresentation of Our Blessed Lady withpontifical rights, solemn vows, andenclosure, so the Sisters came under theauthority of Rome and the ReverendMother of each house. However, majordecisions, such as sending Sisters tobegin a new mission, still had to have theapproval of the local bishop.xvii

Dress

As early as 1776 the Presentations hadadopted in essence the religious habit ofthe Ursuline Sisters.xviii The Ursulineshad been in Cork since 1771 thanks to theencouragement and resources of NanoNagle,xix perhaps it was understandablethat Nagle should copy their habit. Iwonder what the Ursulines thought ofthat. Despite Bishop Delany’s exposureto the Presentations – in 1788 at least –and no doubt very aware of other custom-ary habits for women’s congregations,and despite his imposition of cloisteredlife on his Brigidines, he decided on avery simple religious garb for his sisters.In her 1963 description of the initial habitSr Margaret Dunne states:Doctor Delany next gave them auniform dress consisting of a plain

black gown with a white handker-chief cap and band - on feast-daysand other great occasions the en-tire dress was white.xx

So obviously, here in the case of thereligious habit, there was no influence onDelany by the Presentations. It wasotherwise with Delany’s successorBishop James Doyle (1819 – 1834) who,despite the hopes of the Brigidines them-selvesxxi, had them wear a habit verysimilar to the Presentations. The majordifference being the heart-shape locketthey wore around their neck with theletters “IHS” (Jesus) on one side and“DD” (Daniel Delany) on the other.Delany had a similar locket himself.xxii

Ministry

The primary ministry for both the Presen-tations and the Brigidines was education,both religious and secular. As alreadymentioned, the difference was in the factthat the Presentations were exclusivelyproviding an education for the childrenof the poor whereas Delany wanted toprovide an education for both the poorand the rich. Delany’s emphasis was onreligious education and both the poor andthe rich needed instruction in that. BothNagle and Delany were primarily con-cerned with the religious education oftheir children, the teaching of the moresecular subjects such as reading andwriting were first and foremost aboutenhancing their learning and understand-ing of their Catholic faith, but as aPresentation website states: “However,being a realist with her [their] feet firmlyon the ground, she [they] did not neglecttheir need for a general education in thebasic forms of reading, writing andsimple arithmetic.”xxiii I think we canagree that there was no Presentationinfluence on the Brigidines in this regard:they both received the same vision fromtheir founders.

Way of Life

When Nano Nagle founded her Sisters in1775 she wanted them to minister asmembers of an apostolic congregation.When Bishop Delany founded his Sistersin 1807 he wanted them to minister asmembers of a cloistered community.xxivBut as mentioned in a footnote above, in1805, despite the original intentions of

Nagle who had died in 1784, the Presen-tations sought and were given Papalrecognition as a cloistered order. So didthis influence Delany in his decision onhis Sisters’ way of life? “It could have,”is about the best we can say. We need toremember that when Delany approachedthe Presentations in 1788 they were verymuch an apostolic community – butcertainly there were already cloisteredmurmurings. Does this mean that in 1788Delany was happy to have an apostolicgroup of women in his diocese and not acloistered group? Remember, theUrsuline Sisters, a cloistered order, were,in 1788, quite literally right next door tothe Presentations. If Delany in 1788wanted cloistered Sisters in his diocesehe could have invited the Ursulines. So,as the Presentations changed their mindsabout their way of life did Delany alsochange his mind? And did he change hismind under the influence of the successof the Presentations as cloistered Sisters?Margaret Gibbons in her Delany historyquoted from the Brigidine MountrathAnnals that Delany had the highestrespect for the Presentations but that “hewished for something more. He thereforedetermined to renew the Order of St.Brigid.”xxv Gibbons, like most, if not allBrigidines, has the opinion that Delanydid not found the Brigidines but restoredthem, restored the fifth century Order ofSt Brigid. So, could the timeline be thefollowing: some time pre-1788 Delanydecided he needed to have a group ofwomen – and men – consecrated to theministry of education; 1788 he invitedthe Presentations; when the Presentationswere not able to provide the Sisters andhe realized they were exclusively for thepoor he decided he wanted “somethingmore”; but what?; he saw the Presenta-tions quickly and successfully reach outto other Irish towns; in 1805 he witnessedtheir being declared a cloistered congre-gation and how they continued to beeffective educators of the faith; hedecided his congregation of womenwould be cloistered and that there was nobetter a cloistered model than that of StBrigid’s. Yes, all pure speculation. Butit fits.

Constitutions

Let us look then at the Constitutions usedby the Presentations and the Brigidines.Did the Presentations’ influence the

Bishop Daniel Delany and the Presentation Sisters (1788-1814)

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Brigidines’? This is a very similar storyto that of the religious garb adopted byboth congregations: both went their ownway at the beginning under Nagle andunder Delany, but with the arrival ofBishop Doyle the Presentation rule beganto impact on the Brigidines’.

There were four main rules that could bechosen: St Augustine’s (4th century), StBasil’s (4th century), St Benedict’s (6th

century), and St Francis’s (13th century).In the end, the Ursulines, the Presenta-tions, and the Brigidines, had St Augus-tine’s rule as the foundation of their own.The Ursulines from 1572, the Presenta-tions from 1791, and the Brigidines from1828. As the Rule was taken up by eachgroup it was adapted according to theirneeds and then presented to Romefor approval.

As just mentioned, when Bishop Delanyfounded the Brigidines in 1808 he tookhis time in imposing any Rule. MatthewRussell in his sketch of the life of BishopDelany put it this way:

He had previously given them theRule of St. Augustine with the con-stitutions and directory composedfor the Sisters of the Visitation bySt. Francis de Sales, that theymight study them and ascertain,with his help, what parts suitedtheir special duties and circum-stances. He also (add the domes-tic Annals) procured for them acopy of Rodriguez, and was un-remitting in his efforts to pro-mote their sanctification, oftensaying to them, “What you arethose who come after you will be,and the fountain must itself be purein order that the stream may bepure which flows from it.”xxvi

The Rule is mentioned in one of Delany’sletters. In an 1812 letter to the TullowSisters he comments on how faithful theSisters are to the Rule and how the Rulerestricts the number of times Commun-ion should be received by the Sisters.Another source tells how Bishop Delanymade it very clear that novices jumpingover the convent wall was very muchagainst their Rule.xxvii

Unfortunately with his illness and hisdeath in 1814 he was not able to com-

plete the Rule in a form that would beacceptable to Rome for Papal Approba-tion.ItwasuptoDelany’ssuccessorsBishop Doyle (1819 – 1834) and thenBishop James Lynch (1888–1896) todo that.xxviii

Bishop Doyle’s initial intention was thatthe Brigidines would take on the Rule ofSt Augustine as adapted by Nagle’s Pres-entation Sisters. The Brigidines resistedthis.xxix A compromise was reached in1828. Bishop Doyle expert Dr ThomasMcGrath, explained in 1999:The exact framework of the Pres-entation order’s rules and consti-tutions was retained by Doyle butmodified to allow the Brigidines toretain their original name, tocontinue teaching the fee-payingmiddle classes and to instruct thechildren of the parish in churchSunday schools. On paper Doylehad grafted the Brigidines onto thePresentation order but in practicethey maintained their distinctiveidentity.xxx

The Presentations Invited to Carlow

The final timeframe for this paper isBishop Delany’s dealings with thePresentations from 1811. Now in 2011,on the occasion of the bicentenary offoundation of the Presentations in Car-low, local historian Mr Ted Brophywrote: “In 1814 Bishop Delaney [sic]and Fr Staunton died and were deeplymourned by the nuns.”xxxi Bishop Delanyand Father Henry Staunton are two of thethree clergy who played major roles inestablishing the Presentation Sisters inCarlow.xxxii The third and the actual insti-gator was Fr Andrew Fitzgerald. Thesethree men had two things in common:they saw education of the young as beingat the core of the Catholic renaissance inIreland; and St Patrick’s College, Carlow(Carlow College). Delany was theco-founder of the collegexxxiii; Stauntonwas its inaugural president, as well as theparish priest of Carlow; and Fitzgeraldwas the professor of Theology.

The annals of the Presentation Sistersat Carlow states:The Right Reverend Doctor Lani-gan having appointed Sister Mary

Francis De sales Meighan, Motherand Superioress of this Convent,which appointment was ratifiedand confirmed by the Right Rev-erend Daniel Delany, Lord Bishopof the united Diocese of Kildareand Leighlin, under whose sanc-tion and authority, the foundationof the Convent was commenced.xxxiv

Since the Council of Chalcedon in 451 ithas been Church law that for a religioushouse to be established in a diocesepermission had to be granted by the localbishop. After some years of neglect thelaw was restored by the Council of Trentin the mid 1550s. So, when the Sisterswere invited to Carlow by Fr Fitzgeraldpermission had to be granted byBishop Delany.

The three Sisters came from Kilkenny,the house established by the Presenta-tions in 1800, and so permission also hadto be granted by their bishop, the bishopof the Diocese of Ossory, James Lanigan.Lanigan had played a major role in theestablishment of the Sisters in hisdiocese, and so it was doubly fitting thathe gave his permission and blessing fora foundation to be made from theKilkenny house.xxxv

During the Sisters’ foundation years inCarlow, Fathers Fitzgerald and Staunton,who both lived in Carlow, were theirmain supports, but certainly they had theinterest and the hopes of Bishop Delany,and no doubt he was delighted when inSeptember 1812, he was invited by theSisters to admit their first postulant. It isworth printing here the full letter hewrote to Sr Mary de Sales Meighanaccepting this invitation.

My dear Rev. Mother, I am only just now favoured withyour most grateful and welcomenote of yesterday, and shall feelunspeakable pleasure (or thisheart of mine is an arrant liar) inwaiting on you on the 5th of nextmonth, agreeably to your appoint-ment, for the purpose of admittingour dear spiritual child to theReligious Habit, which I confi-dently trust in God she will not failto adorn with every virtue suitableto the state. But why talk of myconvenience on the present


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occasion? As if I should not reallyfeel alike prompted by duty andinclination to make every otherarrangement instantly yield to thedischarge of so important andgratifying a task. Please to presentmy devout and most affectionateregards to Sisters Magdalene andAgnes, with all that is kind to ourdear little one, and believe verytruly dear and Reverend Mother

Your most faithful and inviolably attached father,

and servant in Christ,

Monastery, Tullow September,1812. DANIEL DELANY

P.S. - I am just now exceedinglyhurried and straitened for time. Ishall go on the eve to Carlow.xxxvi

His affection for the Sisters is only tooobvious in this letter. He sees himselfhumbly as their “inviolably attachedfather”, the postulant his “spiritualchild”, his “dear little one”. One cansense his excitement and hope. For themoment, nothing on this earth is moreimportant. There are no hard feelingsfrom 1788, as with the Jesuitsxxxvii Delanywas only too happy to have more“labourers” in his diocese and, moreimportantly, in God’s vineyard.

We have records of three other commu-nications between Delany and thePresentations: he gave his permission foran ill Presentation from Dublin (George’sHill) to be transferred to Carlow “for thebenefit of her health”; on the 8th Septem-ber, 1812, he wrote a four-page letter tothe community on the vows; and sometime in 1813, restricted to his room in theBrigidine convent in Tullow, he wroteagain to the Presentations in Carlow onthe occasion of a first profession.Obviously then he had a great interest inthe Sisters and their progress.xxxviii

At the beginning of this 1811 section Iquoted Ted Brophy’s line that the Presen-tations Sisters mourned for both BishopDelany and Fr Staunton on their deathsin 1814. That is, unfortunately, the onlymention of Delany in the article celebrat-ing the Sisters’ bicentenary in Carlow.xxxixOn the occasion of Delany’s death a Pres-entation wrote in their Annals:

On 9 July, our saintly bishop, theRight Reverend Doctor DanielDelany, died. His excessivelabours and persevering zeal inthe cause of religion had greatlyimpaired his constitution whichwas unable to contend with thevery severe and complicateddiseases with which it pleasedDivine Providence to visit him.His patience and resignationunder his sufferings were trulyedifying …

The entry concludes with the 1814 tributeto Bishop Delany written by FatherNicholas Prendergast of Bagenalstown.Fr Prendergast last words of tribute were:Never to be sufficiently lamented inproportion to his merits.————Acknowledgement

Thank you to the Presentation Sisters ofCarlow, Ireland, and Sr Noela Fox of theWagga Wagga community, Australia, fortheir assistance by providing extractsfrom their Annals and fine-tuning someof the details.i The Sisters original name was the

Society of Charitable Instruction ofthe Sacred Heart of Jesus. This waschanged to the Presentation Sistersin 1791. At their request, FrLaurence Callanan gave them thisnew name.

ii While we might say that the Penal eradid not formally begin in Ireland until1695, parts of Ireland had been underBritish rule and its laws since HenryVIII in the mid 16th century. By theearly 1770s there were signs thatrelief may have been on its way;more signs of relief by 1780s and1790s. It was in 1829 that the IrishCatholic Emancipation Act waspassed. Many more years after thatuntil true emancipation was gained.Also, the Penal Code affectingCatholics and dissenters(Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists,Congregationalists, Unitarians, andJews) was very much in place andenforced in England at the same time.

iii There is no doubt that thePresentation Sisters were the firstreligious congregation founded inIreland since the beginning of thePenal era. But in relation to theChristian/Presentation Brothers, the

Brigidine Sisters, and the PatricianBrothers, who was next woulddepend on what you mean by“founded”. But that is another paper,but it could be argued that thePatricians were second (1808).

iv A very succinct history will be foundathttp://www.presentationsistersunion.org

v Today Carlow is the main city of thediocese. It is the location of thecathedral, the home of the bishop, andthe location of Bishop Delany’sCarlow College which houses theDelany Archive.

vi The question may be asked, asDelany approached the Presentationsto teach the girls, did he approach theChristian/Presentation Brothers,founded in 1802, to teach the boys? Itseems not, the Christian Brothers’archives in Dublin have no record ofsuch an approach. Which is a littlesurprising. Bishop James Lanigan ofthe Ossory Diocese – next door toKildare and Leighlin and Delany’sbirth diocese - was much involved inthe establishment of the IrishChristian/Presentation Brothers.Delany never consulted Lanigan onthe availability of the Rice’sBrothers? Maybe he did, but for somereason Delany did not follow itthrough.

vii In my original draft I had “helped toestablish”, but Presentation historianSr Noela Fox of the Wagga Waggacommunity in New South Wales,corrected me on that: Nano Nagleherself and the Ursuline Sisters today“regard her as their founder as shedreamed of bringing them to Irelandto carry on her work in the schoolsand her other works with the poor.”(Email, 17th April, 2015.)

viii Before the Presentations were inCork the Ursulines were, and NanoNagle was responsible for both ofthem. In 1771 she sponsored a groupof Ursuline Sisters to establish aconvent in Cork. Four Irish Ursulinesdid so. Nagle’s hope was that theywould be able to help her with theschools she had been establishing andmanaging since 1754 as a laywoman,but the Ursulines, being cloistered,were prevented from teaching outsidethe confines of their convent. FrFrancis Moylan and Nano Naglecertainly worked together in these


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dealings with the Ursuline Sisters.After all, Moylan had two sisters whowere Ursulines and most probablywere members of the convent in theFrench town of Montpellier whereFrancis, and his younger brotherStephen, were educated by theJesuits. But I have found no record ofthis and in his search for Ursulines tocome to Cork Moylan never went toMontpellier but only to Paris and thecoastal town of Dieppe in far northFrance.

ixSeehttp://www.presentationsistersunion.org/news/view_article.cfm?id=1164&loadref=16

x But the Ursuline Sisters in Cork in1788 were all Irish.

xi I was going to add that Delany mayhave come to know of thePresentations via his good friendBishop Francis Moylan of Cork. Nowwhile Delany would have contactedthe Sisters via Moylan as Moylan wasthe Bishop of Cork in 1788, howactive Moylan may have been inintroducing Delany to Presentationsis only conjecture. In 1788 Delanyand Moylan may not have knowneach other, may not have heard ofeach other, but certainly they didbecome very good friends. It is saidthat Moylan “idolized” Delany(William Fitzpatrick, Life, Times,and Correspondence of The RightRev. Dr. Doyle, Bishop of Kildareand Leighlin, Dublin, 1861, page117) but that was well after 1788.

xii Numbers were much improved by1793 and 1794 when the Sisters setup houses in Killarney and Dublinrespectively. But there were noSisters for Waterford it seems whenBishop William Egan asked. (SeeDenis McLaughlin, “The Foundingof Irish Christian Brothers,Navigating the Realities through theMyths”, Australian eJournal ofTheology 5, August 2005, page 15.http://aejt.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/395509/AEJT_5.8_McLaughlin.pdf) By 1800 the Sisters had sixfoundations, one just 47 kilometresaway in Kilkenny which was just 38kilometres from Carlow.

xiii Despite Nano Nagle’s hope that theSisters would remain ministeriallyunfettered by the restrictions ofcloistered life, in 1805 the Sisterswere successful in having their group

recognized by Rome as an Institute ofPontifical Right with solemn vows.Nagle’s vision of a purely apostolicfemale congregation was before itstime. It was believed that for a femalegroup of Religious to survive theyhad to be cloistered. Seehttp://presentationsociety.org.au/about/our-history/

xiv Why didn’t Delany reapply after1805? No doubt because thePresentations continued to be poorspecific in their ministry. WhenDelany founded the Brigidines in1808 he could have turned to thePresentations to educate his religiousneophytes in the way of enclosedliving, as Nano Nagel had doneherself with the Uruslines. But heturned instead to his friend JudithWogan-Browne who had had someyears with the Benedictine Sisters inYrpes when she was a girl in the1770s.

xv The Brigidine Sisters started off as acloistered order of Nuns. This didrestrict their teaching to the confinesof their convent. Eventually theBrigidines found enclosure too muchof a hindrance to the ministry theywished to provide, ministry they felthad to be provided, and so in “theyear 1884 [nearly eighty years aftertheir foundation] the wall was throwndown, and the free air round Wicklowhills permitted once more to sweepunfettered upon their lawns, along thevistas of the lower Slaney.” (MargaretGibbons, Glimpses of CatholicIreland in the 18th Century, Browne& Nolan, Dublin, 1932, page 210.)

xvi Denis McLaughlin in his 2005 paperThe Founding of Irish ChristianBrothers, Navigating the Realitiesthrough the Myths, devoted asubstantial section of this paper to thequestion: How much did thePresentation Sisters influence thefounding of the Christian Brothers?He concluded: “Rice generated hiseducation vision independently ofany substantial Nagle influence.Indeed, a case can be made that someof the female founders adoptedaspects of Rice’s educational vision.”See Australian eJournal of Theology5 (August 2005), pages 10 – 17.http://aejt.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/395509/AEJT_5.8_McLaughlin.pdf

xvii Thank you to Sister Noela Fox of thePresentation Sisters at Wagga Wagga,New South Wales, for explainingthese details to me. Sister alsoinformed me that in 1900 thePresentations changed from solemnvows to simple vows. Readers mightalso like to know that the PatricianBrothers were, for their first 80 years,under the direct authority of thebishops of their dioceses. The manyhouses the Brothers had in Ireland,India, and Australia, up until 1888were independent of each other, butlike the Sisters united in charism andpurpose. In 1888 the Brothers gainedPapal Approbation and all the houseseventually came under a centralizedgovernment in Ireland.

xviii The only difference to the casual eyeseems to be the size of the guimpe,the starched linen that went across theshoulders and chest, the Ursulines’was bigger. All the other elements ofthe habit – the bandeau, the coif, thepleated habit, the belt around thewaist, and the full fifteen decaderosary hanging from the belt – werethere.

xix For those who know something aboutthe relationship between JudithWogan-Browne and the Brigidines,the relationship between Nano Nagleand the Ursulines is somethingsimilar. See the early pages of SrAssumpta O’Neill’s “Nano Nagle’sUrsuline Friends”(http://www.presentationsistersunion.org/_uploads/rsfil/02123.pdf).

xx Margaret Dunne csb Watching for theDawn - The Story of a Great IrishBishop, Enniscorthy, 1963, page 29.

xxi They had hoped that with papalapprobation they may have beenallowed to wear a fully white habit.See Gibbons, Glimpses, page 214.

xxii The Brigidine Sisters also took towearing a scapular, a long, narrowgarment suspended from theshoulders and reaching down to thefeet.

xxiiihttp://www.presentationsistersunion.org/aboutus/default.cfm?loadref=130

xxiv Apostolic, cloistered, andcontemplative, are the three maintypes of religious life. Apostoliccongregations live in community butminister out in the world by teaching,health work, etc. Cloisteredcommunities may also engage in


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education and health, for example,but do so inside their monastery,seldom leaving its walls.Contemplatives, like the cloistered,live their lives within their monasterywalls, their ministry however isprimarily prayer.

xv Gibbons, Glimpses, page 204. xxvi Russell, Matthew S.J. “Sketches in

Irish Biography, No. 28 - Dr. DanielDelany”, Irish Monthly Volume 23,895.

xxvii See Gibbons, Glimpses, page 211.xxviiiSister Margaret Dunne in her

Watching for the Dawn (1963) refersto an 1845 approbation, another in1889, a third 1892, and a final one in1907 when “the Institute wasapproved in perpetuity.” See pages 33and 36.

xxix Some early Brigidines and historianMargaret Gibbons were not alwayscomplimentary of and grateful forBishop Doyle’s involvement with theBrigidines Sisters, his “ill-informedactions” seeming to want theBrigidines to be only “a graft on thePresentation tree”. See Gibbons,Glimpses, pages 364 – 369.

xxx Thomas McGrath, Religious renewaland reform in the pastoral ministry ofBishop James Doyle of Kildare andLeighlin, Four Courts Press, Dublin,1999, page 122. Dr McGrath alsomentions a few other differencesbetween the Presentation andBrigidine Rule: “He [Doyle] allowedfor dispensation from the rule at thediscretion of the superioress; allowednuns to go to an extraordinaryconfessor at any time, and did notdelegate the government of theconvent to a priest. The bishop wouldvisit the convent every year - underthe Presentation rule, the bishopmade a visitation every third year ‘ifhe deem it expedient’.”

xxxi The Nationalist, 25th January, 2011,page 4.

xxxii We could add to that Bishop JamesLanigan of Ossory who allowed thethree Sisters to leave Kilkenny forCarlow. James Lanigan was the uncleof Bishop William Lanigan of theDiocese of Goulburn, New SouthWales, Australia. Bishop Williamwas one of three bishops – JamesMurray and Matthew Quinn the othertwo - who invited the Patrician Broth-

ers to New South Wales in 1883.William Lanigan also played a lead-ing role in the development ofCatholic education in New SouthWales.

xxxiii I would really say “Founder”,but that is another paper.

xxxivThank you to the Presentation Sistersat Carlow for sharing their BishopDelany records.

xxxv Lanigan wanted the Sisters tominister in his diocese and so inNovember 1797 he sent two womenfrom his diocese to Cork to be trainedas Presentations. They returned inSeptember 1800 and set to work. Oneof these two, Catherine Meighan,became Sr Mary Francis De salesMeighan, one of the three pioneers toCarlow. (Seewww.neaa.edu.au/_literature_125537/NPPG_Transcript_of_the_Annalsandhttp://www.preskilkenny.com/history.html)

xxxviI have taken this text from Gibbons,Glimpses, pages 312. The DelanyArchive location is Brigidine section,100.11/12/13. Margaret Gibbons was

of the opinion that Bishop Delanyhad more to do with the Presentationfoundation in Carlow than he wasgiven credit for (see page 311).

xxxvii See my paper on Delany and theJesuits, perhaps in the next issue ofthe Carloviana.

xxxviii Health permission fromPresentation archives, Carlow. Letteron the vows from the DelanyArchive, 100.11/12/13. The firstprofession letter from the DelanyArchives, DD/00.

xxxixWho’s counting, not Bishop Delany Iam sure, but while he is mentionedonce in this article(http://www.presentationsistersunion.org/_uploads/_ckpg/files/Carlow%20Bicentenary/Supplement%20Pages%201-6.pdf) Fr Staunton is mentionedfour times, Fr Fitzgerald also fourtimes. Once again, perhaps, BishopDelany’s contribution is under-appreciated by a historian even in the21st century. I am just hoping he wasnot thinking there is nothing more tosay about Bishop Delany, it was justa matter of available space on thepage.


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Bishop James Keeffe of the diocese ofKildare and Leighlin, the founder ofCarlow College was born over threehundred years ago.1 His life (1702-1787)spanned the period from the intenseexpression of the penal laws in the earlyeighteenth century to their large scalethough not complete removal from thestatute book in the final years of thecentury. In this paper I will considerKeeffe’s episcopal career and hisfoundation of Carlow College, Ireland’soldest third level Catholic college. I willalso consider the bishops of Kildare andLeighlin under whom Keeffe lived andserved before he succeeded to thebishopric in 1752.

It is said that Keeffe was born at Curranein the parish of Borris, County Carlowbut a more reliable authority and traditionplaces his birthplace at Miltown,Ballylinan, in Queen’s County. He wasa child at the height of the penal era andnothing is known about his early life. Atthis time, John Dempsey, was bishop ofthe diocese (1694 until c.1707). Therefollowed a period of eight years duringKeeffe’s childhood when the diocese hadno bishop. In fact there were hardly anybishops in the country at all as it was toodangerous. The failure to fill the vacancyfor several years was a consequence ofthe severity of the penal laws.

Edward Murphy who became bishop ofKildare in 1715 was a priest of thediocese of Dublin who had been ordainedin the Escorial in 1677.2 He wasappointed on the nomination of the Stuart

Old Pretender, James III, the son ofJames II (evicted from the throne in1688), now in exile in Paris, who as aCatholic upheld the monarch’s right ofnomination. The Stuart right ofnomination applied to all Irish Catholicbishops including Keeffe up to 1766. It isvery likely that, as bishop, Dr Murphydid not reside in his diocese butcontinued to live in Dublin at CookStreet. According to Hugh Fenning, ‘thecity [of Dublin] was to prove a saferhaven for many bishops than any to befound in their own dioceses’.3And just aswe know nothing of Keeffe’s early years,we know next to nothing of BishopMurphy’s ministry in Kildareand Leighlin.

In 1724, at the age of seventy three,Murphy became archbishop of Dublin.Another Dublin diocesan priest, theParis-based Bernard Dunne succeededEdward Murphy as bishop of Kildare andLeighlin, 1725-1733. He had been astrong contender for the archbishopric ofDublin when Murphy was appointed.Like his predecessor it seems likely thatDunne was a non-resident bishop, livingin the comparative anonymity ofDublin city.

It may be presumed that James Keeffeafter finishing hedge school and perhapssome classical studies went to Paris in histwenties rather than in his teens. Stayingin the Collège des Lombards, the IrishCollege, he attended the Theologyfaculty at the Sorbonne. Normallystudents at the university were there from

their early teenage years but in the caseof the Irish it was more usual to havestudents in their twenties and eventhirties. We know that Keeffe became asubdeacon in 1726. We do not knowwhen he was ordained as a priest but itwas probably a year or two later.4 Weknow that he received his M.A. from theUniversity of Paris in 1729; this usuallyindicates completion of the Philosophycourse which was essential beforeprogressing to Theology.5

By this time Dr Dunne, Keeffe’s bishopin Kildare and Leighlin had becomeinvolved in a controversy that was to casta shadow over his episcopacy. He wasaccused of Jansenism in Ireland andsuspected of it in Rome.6 Famously in1713, in the Bull Unigenitus, Jansenismhad been again condemned as a heresy byPope Clement XI, at a time when itconvulsed the French Church.

The controversy in Ireland arose when DrDunne issued a Pastoral Letter on theJubilee year of 1725. He was publiclycriticised by the superiors of the regularclergy in Ireland because they consideredthe Pastoral Letter to have beentheologically incorrect in its discussionof the use of sacramental penance and thedoctrine of indulgences.

Bishop Dunne’s Pastoral Letter became alightning rod for serious pre-existingtensions between the regular and secularclergy in Ireland. Partisans on both sideswere quickly in the field. The parties tothe dispute referred the matter for a

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decision to Archbishop Spinelli, the papalnuncio in Brussels (there being no nuncioin London or in Dublin). The nuncioreferred it to Rome.

The death, late in 1728, of ArchbishopMurphy of Dublin, raised the possibilitythat Bishop Dunne would be a successfulcandidate for the archbishopric on thisoccasion. He had huge support forDublin. Although James III wasinundated with recommendations forDunne he decided to nominate LukeFagan, bishop of Meath, to thearchbishopric. James was not going tonominate Dunne when he was underinvestigation by Rome. The seventy-three year old Fagan was a compromisechoice faute de mieux. Two years earlier,he had submitted his resignation asbishop of Meath, on the grounds of oldage and infirmity, and he was surprisedto find himself appointed to Dublin.Indeed, had it been known in Rome thatFagan extraordinarily (despite scruplesand fear), had ordained to the priesthood,twelve Dutch Jansenists of theschismatical Church of Utrecht (whotravelled to Ireland for that purpose), hecertainly would not have been appointedarchbishop of Dublin.

Rome, as was customary, had taken itstime deciding on the merits of BishopDunne’s Pastoral Letter of 1725. Rome’sdecision came in 1729 and it was that ‘itis not alone expedient but necessary thatat an opportune time he compose anotherpastoral’ in which he could express viewsmore clearly in accordance with theobservations of Rome. From Rome,Cardinal Spinola enclosed a plan of thenew pastoral which Bishop Dunne wasasked to follow. Early in 1730, BishopDunne published the second pastoralletter in line with the template andrequirements of Rome.

On 30 August 1733, Archbishop Faganinformed James III (in the quaint semi-coded manner which was typical of penalera communication) of his ‘duty to letYour Majesty know that Mrs Kildare andLeighlin is become widowed by the deathof our brother, Mr Bernard Dunne’.7Bishop Dunne had died. But there wereno expressions of regret from the newpapal nuncio in Brussels. On the contrary,he related that with the news of the deathof Bishop Dunne

‘the Holy See is conveniently saved theembarrassment caused by Dunne’sintroduction into Ireland of books andopinions of a suspect nature; in order toforestall any dangerous consequenceswhich might result from Dunne’sconduct, the Congregation dePropaganda Fide had directed Valenti-Gonzaga to take immediate steps so thatthe seed of false doctrine would not bearfruit and harm the Irish Catholics who tillthen had been above reproach in theirobedience and attachment to theHoly See....’8

From Rome, Cardinal Firrao, Secretaryof State, wrote to the nuncio that BishopDunne was ‘one of those in Ireland who caused thepope [Clement XII, 1730-40] such greatanxiety because he was suspected offavouring the new doctrines. HisHoliness will be especially anxious tochoose a bishop for that diocese who willremove from it every trace of corruptdoctrine and restore it to itsformer purity.’9

After hearing from the Irish archbishops,Cardinal Firrao stated that:‘the pope [Clement XII] is greatlyconsoled to hear that the novel doctrineswhich were spread in the diocese ofKildare under the late bishop have notgained much root there and have not beenpropagated in the other Irish dioceses;hence it should be easy to root them outunder the guidance of a new, zealous andlearned bishop; this is precisely the typeof man the pope intends to appoint tothat diocese.’10

For the succession, Dr James Wogan amember of the Wogan family ofRathcoffey, Co Kildare, and brother ofSir Charles Wogan was proposed toJames. Wogan was on the staff of theIrish College in Paris. He received hisdoctorate in 1730 and taught theology atthe Sorbonne from 1732 until his deathin 1742.11 James III would appear tohave offered the nomination to DrWogan. However, Dr Wogan’s reluctancecould not be overcome; he was ‘veryunwilling the choice should fall onhim’.12 Dr Wogan apparently refused.

The choice for Kildare and Leighlineventually fell on Stephen Dowdall, anative of Navan, County Meath, who was

chaplain at the Austrian Embassy inLondon. He had been educated at theUniversity of Paris. The pope, ClementXII, participated more closely indetermining Dowdall’s appointment thanwas the norm.

From London on 23 April 1734, Dowdallwrote a cloying letter of thanks to JamesIII, for the appointment to Kildare andLeighlin. Dowdall did not moveimmediately to Ireland, ‘then labouringunder new oppressions and tyrannies’,but stayed in London to solicit relief forIrish Catholics through the foreignministries there, especially those ofFrance and Spain. These countriesexerted themselves usefully and Dowdallwas able to inform James III that ‘weshall be connived at as hitherto, this is allthe afflicted Catholics can hope for there,till please God to restore Your MostSacred Majesty to the throne of yourroyal ancestors’.13 Nothing is known ofBishop Dowdall’s brief ministry inKildare and Leighlin. By January 1737,he was dead. It seems unlikely that hehad resided in the diocese.

In the early 1730s Keeffe was resident inthe Collège des Lombards, at a timewhen the number of students was aboutone-hundred. One of his teachers wasalmost certainly the aforementioned DrJames Wogan. Keeffe was on the roll ofthe University’s Theology licentiands. Itusually took about five years to attain thelicence which was awarded after a seriesof oral examinations and public debates.Keeffe received his licentiate inTheology from the University of Paris in1734.14 Most theology licentiates nevertook the doctorate; there was no need.

There is a gap in our knowledge ofKeeffe’s ministry until the year 1748 bywhich time he was parish priest ofTullow.15 During the period from 1737 to1751 the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlinwas James Gallagher. He had been theBishop of Raphoe from 1725 – the firstbishop in that diocese since 1661 – and itis highly unlikely that he would ever havebeen transferred to Kildare and Leighlinin 1737 had he not been subjected topenal harassment. Oppressed in Donegalwhere the civil authorities sought toimprison him, he was obliged towithdraw from the diocese, as wereothers of his clergy, when one of his

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parish priests was mistaken for the bishopand shot dead.16

During his period in hiding on theborders of his Raphoe diocese at LoughErne, Gallagher wrote a devotional textwhich became one of the most widelyread works in the Irish language: SixteenIrish sermons, in an easy and familiarstyle, on useful and necessary subjects:in English characters as being the morefamiliar to the generality of our Irishclergy.

While he spent much time in Dublin andseems to have been absent from Ireland‘for some considerable time’, Gallagherwas the first bishop, so far considered, toreside at least part of each year in Kildareand Leighlin. When resident he lived inAllen parish where he is reputed to havemaintained a school in the 1740s forstudents for the priesthood.

Gallagher’s diocesan statutes for Leighlinin 1748 indicate that the main pastoralproblems he faced were clandestinemarriages, festive wakes and non-fulfillment of the Paschal precept.Marriages conducted by priests ofCatholic and Protestant couples drew theire of the State. Benjamin Burton ofBurtonhall, Carlow, wrote to LordDuncannon on 3 August 1739complaining of such a case and the ‘greatinsolence of the Papists in this County’:‘There was a priest taken last week by MrWolseley for marrying a Papist to aProtestant and accordingly was orderedby him to be carryed [sic] to Carlow jailbut was met by the way by near 500people and rescued from Mr Wolseley’sservants and the constable.

Since which examinations have beentaken against the rogues who rescuedhim. Notwithstanding which they walkthe street publicly here, so great a partyto support them that nobody must attemptto take them. They have alreadyattempted to murder a justice of the peaceand a trooper who gave examinationsagainst them and threatened MrWolseley, Mr Preston and the parson ofthe parish and several other gentlemen.’17Bishop Gallagher may not have sufferedin Kildare and Leighlin the harassmenthe had endured in Raphoe but theCatholic clergy still had to act cautiously,especially after 1743. In the period 1743-

45 there was fear of a Stuart invasionwhich materialized in Scotland. InFebruary 1743 a proclamation issued bythe Lord Lieutenant and Councilincreased the rewards offered for thecapture of a Catholic bishop or dignitaryof the Catholic Church. The convictionof a priest whether he was a secular orregular was worth fifty pounds. Thefollowing year, Faulkner’s DublinJournal, 20 March 1744 reported thecapture of nine priests presented to thegrand jury in Maryborough in theQueen’s County.

In response to the Proclamation of 1743,the Sovereign of Carlow, Philip Bernard,wrote to Dublin Castle that he could notfind Fr John Taaffe, parish priest ofCarlow as he had made his escape out oftown and country but that he wouldapprehend him if he returned. It seemsimprobable that the parish priest couldhave escaped arrest without a measure ofsupport from the Protestant population ifnot some collusion from the authorities.Thomas Moland’s Map of Carlow in1703 refers to Chapel Lane though nochapel is marked. Colombines’ Map ofCarlow in 1735 has Chapel Lane or MassHouse Lane (now College Street) with aMass-house identified. This was sited inan area which was heavily quarried. Itmay well have been that once the 1743-45 hubbub died down it was in theinterests of both Protestants andCatholics that a modus vivendi prevailedbetween them. The strength of Catholicnumbers meant that they were a body notto be trifled with by the dominantminority. Taaffe may have beenunfortunate to have been arrested inDecember 1751. By chance he met theDeputy Lieutenant of the County on thepublic road into Carlow. This was GeorgeBrereton, high sheriff of Carlow whoarrested him and put him in jail.Protestants were indignant and Catholicswere outraged. In fact the arrest caused aserious riot in Carlow town and the highsheriff was lucky to escape serious injurythough his horses had their ears cut off.Taaffe was tried for being an unregisteredpriest at the General Assizes in Carlowon 23 March 1752 and sentenced totwelve months imprisonment withsubsequent transportation as the Stateshould deem appropriate. Faulkner’sDublin Journal reported that he was to betransported for seven years.18 The Chief

Secretary for Ireland, Lord GeorgeSackville informed the Attorney Generaland Solicitor General on 11 May 1752that ‘upon some favourablecircumstances submitted to us on his[Taaffe’s] behalf we think it fit to extendhis Majesty’s mercy unto him as to thesaid confinement’.19 The imprisonmentwas remitted as an act of clemency afterTaaffe pleaded for pardon before theCourt of King’s Bench. However thesentence of transportation remained.Chief Governors, Archbishop GeorgeStone of Armagh, and Lord Newport, theChancellor, wrote to the Lord Mayor andSheriffs of Dublin on 17 July 1752stating: ‘We do hereby order and directthat the said John Taaffe with the firstopportunity be transported to thekingdom of France or Spain and that theLord Mayor of the City of Dublin do takesufficient security by recognisance fromthe Master of the Ship into which he shallbe delivered for that purpose...’.20 Thissentence was carried out and Taaffe tookup residence with the Jacobitecommunity at St Germain-en-Laye nearParis. He was recommended to James IIIas a fit person for a benefice or pensionin the court of Rome.21 The king ofFrance awarded him a pension of 750livres in 1753.22 As this episode indicatesthe middle years of the eighteenthcentury could still be dangerous forCatholic clergy.

James Keeffe became vicar capitularafter the death of Bishop Gallagher in1751 and, after nomination by JamesStuart, he was elected to the see byPropaganda on 7 November 1751. Hisbrief was dated 19 January 1752.23 Hewas consecrated bishop in Wexford on 21March 1752 by Dr James Dunne ofOssory assisted by Dr NicholasSweetman of Ferns. Two days later, asstated above, Fr John Taaffe was on trialat the Carlow Assizes. Bishop Keeffewould have been very familiar with allaspects of the case.

On account of the penal enactmentsagainst Catholic bishops resident in thecountry, Bishop Keeffe did not advertisehis presence in any part of his diocese forfear of being captured and handed overto the authorities. A certificate (ofordination to the priesthood) signed byDr Keeffe in 1757 bore the legend‘Datum in loco nostri refugii’ - from our

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place of refuge.24 It is known that Keeffecarried out ordinations to the priesthoodin Tullow in 1756 and 1772.25 There is atradition that letters addressed to himfrom Rome were sent to ‘Patrick Keeffe,shopkeeper, Tullow’. In the 1766 returnshe is stated as residing at Tullowphelimand Aghade.26 As late as 1772 he signeddocuments - ‘datum in loco nostrirefugii’.27 There was still cause forcaution. The execution or judicial murderof Fr Nicholas Sheehy in Tipperary in1766 was a warning to the Catholicclergy not to be too forward. (In 1770, thehangman who carried out the executionof Fr Sheehy was stoned to death atPhilipstown now Daingean in Kildareand Leighlin diocese.28) Nonetheless, DrKeeffe visited every part of Kildare andLeighlin frequently staying at Kildareand Dunleckney while remaining pastorof Tullow and residing a few miles southof the town at Aghade.29

In October and November 1775, Keeffe,in common with episcopal colleagues inthe south-east, denounced andexcommunicated members of theagrarian terrorist movement, theWhiteboys. In his pastoral letter issuedfrom Tullow, on 7 October 1775, everypriest of Kildare and Leighlin wascharged with reading the sentence ofexcommunication ‘with an audible voiceimmediately after the first gospel’. It wasto be read to their several congregationsfor two Sundays after receiving it. This ispart of what Bishop Keeffe stated:

‘If, after this, any of these lawless peopleshould be so hardened and perverse as tocontinue any longer in their iniquitouscombinations and practices, these may beexcommunicated and accursed; may[they] be accursed in the house, and outof the house, in the city, and in the field,may they be accursed walking orsleeping, eating or drinking, sitting orstanding; may their flesh and bones beaccursed, from the sole of their feet to thecrown of their head; may every othercurse light upon them denounced byMoses, the Servant of God, against theChildren of Iniquity; and moreover, maytheir names be blotted out of the Book ofLife, and their portion be with the Devilin Hell, unless they reform, and ceasetheir wickedness; and let all thecongregation say Amen.’30

A month later, on 7 November 1775,Keeffe was forced to re-visit theWhiteboy issue in another pastoral letteraddressed to his parish priests in whichhe threatened to place the whole parish ofClonenagh (today Mountrath, Raheenand Ballyfin) under interdict forbiddingMass, sacraments and Christian burial.Every priest of the diocese was to publishthis excommunication at their respectivestations with bell, book and candle.31

A decade later, in 1786, Keeffe issued acircular letter to his clergy to be read atall the chapels of the diocese denouncingthe activities of Right Boys in thestrongest terms and pronouncinganathemas on those who would associatewith them and who ‘set at defiance thelaws of their country, and theadmonitions of their pastors’.32

Within the hierarchy in the 1750s, 1760sand 1770s Bishop Keeffe played a hiddenthough apparently leading role in tryingto reach a modus vivendi with the State.His policy of rapprochement with theHouse of Hanover did not find favourwith some of his fellow prelates whowere indebted to the Stuarts for theirnomination and who were wedded to theJacobite cause. There were bitter disputesand Keeffe was accused of Gallicanism.In a letter to Archbishop James Butler ofCashel and Emly he acknowledged thathe would not hesitate to subscribe to thefive Gallican propositions (as understoodby the French Church) which he hadalready signed for his Licence inTheology ‘if I dreaded no scandal itmight give to weak brethren’. He wasquite sanguine about the path to befollowed where necessary.33 In 1775,Keeffe and ten of his diocesan clergywere among the first clergy to take thenew test oath of allegiance to the Crown.They took the oath at the home ofThomas Kavanagh in Borris, CountyCarlow.34

At the age of 79 in 1781 Bishop Keeffereceived a coadjutor, Richard O’Reilly,of Kildangan Castle, Monasterevin. Butwithin a year O’Reilly was transferred toArmagh as Coadjutor Archbishop.35Daniel Delany, a priest in Tullow andVicar General, was then appointedCoadjutor in 1783.

Though it was generally regarded as an

act of folly by his priests, the foundationof Carlow College was the most tangibleevidence of Bishop Keeffe’s foresight inhis thirty-five year rule of the diocese ofKildare and Leighlin. Carlow Collegewas Ireland’s first Catholic third levelcollege and second only to TrinityCollege Dublin in terms of antiquity. Itwas the brain-child of Keeffe ablysupported by his coadjutor, Delany. Theirintention in the early 1780s was to founda Catholic lay college but by the timeCarlow College opened in 1793 anadditional aim of educating Catholicclergy had been joined to the College’smission because of the impact of theFrench Revolution in 1789 and theclosure of Irish colleges on the continent.During the penal era Catholic educationat all levels was officially forbidden. Thelaw was generally disregarded in hedgeschools as elementary schools wereknown; the name indicating the poverty-stricken conditions under whicheducation was provided. Some superiorhedge schools and academies withteachers of classics offered the equivalentof second level education. Third leveleducation was not possible or whereattempted was conducted virtually insecret. Improvised theological schoolsfor the formation of priests which existedin the penal era were, of necessity,shadowy and usually ephemeral and ofcourse poorly documented. As has beenstated, Bishop Gallagher was said to haverun such a school in Allen parish in the1740s. After the Reformation it was notpossible for Catholics to erect anypermanent buildings for this purpose.From the late sixteenth century, Irishcolleges had been founded on thecontinent in cities such as Paris,Salamanca, Lisbon and Rome for theeducation of seminarians and otherstudents from Ireland. There were up tothirty of these colleges spread across theCatholic countries of Europe until theFrench Revolution. Thus, for its time,within Ireland, Carlow College was anoutstanding educational, religious andinstitutional development, a revolution interms of what had gone before and a clearindicator that the penal laws werewaning. At a time when the normalphysical fabric of the Catholic churcheswas one of mud walls and thatched roofs,the building of Carlow College markedthe beginning of the great institutionalbuilding phase of the official Catholic

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re-emergence in Ireland which took placefrom the late eighteenth century (andcontinued until the 1960s).

Why did Keeffe initiate the ambitiousCarlow College project in the early 1780sat a time when he was over eighty yearsold and the financial resources of thediocese were totally inadequate? BishopDoyle commented that Keeffe proceeded‘even against the opinions of those towhose counsel he often had recourse, tocommand the building of a College atCarlow (having failed to obtain aconvenient site for it at Tullow)...’.36

It is clear that originally the college wasintended for the education of lay Catholicyouth rather than seminarians. BishopDelany stated categorically that CarlowCollege had been planned

‘...many years prior to the destruction ofour colleges and seminaries on thecontinent; nay long before the mostdistant surmise, or slightest bodingapprehension had been harboured, atleast in these parts, on the score of theirimpending ruin.’37

Fees for lay students were higher than forseminarians, and in the arable lands ofthe south-east the building of such acollege could have seemed like a goodspeculation.

Apart from the fact of the FrenchRevolution there were other relatedreasons why the second aim of educatingseminarians was included in theCollege’s remit about 1790. Aconsiderable number of Irish clericalstudents on the continent in the thirdquarter of the eighteenth century nevertook orders and never returned to Ireland.Under Enlightenment influences whichpermeated even the continentalseminaries, they lost their faith,succumbed to deistic principles or wereotherwise disaffected by the philosophyof the age of reason. In Ireland itself therewas a distinct rise in the graph ofCatholic landowners who conformed tothe Established religion. They conformedfor property and political reasons but theinfluence of the Enlightenment alsoplayed its part in weakening thedistinctions between religious beliefs andfor some, throwing the whole basis ofChristianity into doubt. Lord Carlow

stated to the English traveller, CharlesTopham Bowden, as they both viewed thefinished but unopened Carlow College in1790, that ‘all the principal Catholicswould prefer it to a foreign college,especially as France, to which hithertothey had sent their children to preservethem from Protestantism, tainted themwith deistical principles’.38 Delanyobserved that Carlow College originated‘from a principle alone of early decidedpreference in the authors of that institutionto a plan of domestic, howevercomparatively expensive to one of foreign,though gratuitous education’.39

The origins of the college may be datedto 1782, the year the penal law againstCatholic education was removed fromthe statute book. Keeffe was keen to seizethe opportunity to advance education inhis diocese. Delany later wrote:

‘No sooner had the repeal of the PenalStatutes taken place [27 July 1782], thatbefore opposed an insuperable bar to theerection of Popish schools in thiskingdom, than Dr Keef[f]e, late RomanCatholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin,in conjunction with the actual incumbent[Delany], instantaneously availedthemselves of the auspicious moment,and with eager zeal, vigorously set aboutat once commencing this foundation...’40It was probably on account of religioushostility that Bishop Keeffe and Delanywere unable to find a site for the collegein Tullow, so they moved to Carlowparish. Keeffe secured approximatelyfive acres, known as Winnet’s field, in theimmediate vicinity of Carlow town. TheFreeman’s Journal, 22 September 1785,

‘So great is the assiduity of theconductors of the Roman Catholiccollege building near this town [Carlow],under the direction of Drs Keeffe andDelany, that the workmen are employedon the fourth, or attic story, and it isexpected that they will have the shell ofthat great building complete in afew weeks.’41

Keeffe leased Winnet’s field from theFishbourne family with whom he hadgood relations. Indeed, a 999-year leaseat an annual rent of 34-2s-6d was notsigned until 25 March 1786.

Bishop Keeffe was then in his eighty-

fourth year, almost blind, and withoutfunds. His clergy were stretched by otherfinancial demands, and hence apatheticabout the expensive new scheme of theiraged bishop and his young coadjutor. InMay 1785, Bishop Keeffe begancollecting financial contributions for thebuilding. The parish priest of Carlow,Dean Gernon, had been re-buildingCarlow Chapel for several years and wasinclined, in Bishop Keeffe’s view, to holdonto parochial subscriptions to this endfor longer than was judicious. The bishopfeared that he would be ‘obliged toproceed to severityes [sic] against him’.42These were inauspicious circumstancesin which to begin a major financialundertaking and as Dr Delany lateradmitted, Carlow College waspronounced ‘by all persons at the firstoutset as an enterprise perfectlyquixotic...’.43 The combined episcopalincomes of Bishop Keeffe and hiscoadjutor did not then amount to morethan one hundred pounds annually. YetFinn’s Leinster Journal, 4 November1786, praised the enterprise:

‘The best of consequences must flowfrom the establishment of a college inCarlow, for the education of RomanCatholic youth. ... the institution willanswer every purpose intended. It isproposed that two or three hundredstudents shall be the number of theinstitution; to be enlarged according tothe capability of the funds and liberalityof subscriptions.’

In March 1787, on the death of DeanGernon, Rev. Henry Staunton becameparish priest of Carlow and he proved tobe a dynamic presence in the parish. Heerected a free school for the elementaryeducation of boys. He completed theerection of a new chapel which wasopened in 1792 (later re-built as theCathedral). The original gateway to thechapel with his initials on it can be seenat the entrance to St Leo’s College.Staunton’s new church replaced a humblepenal era chapel sited in the quarrieswhich stretched into the grounds ofCarlow College from the angle ofChapel Lane (College Street) and OldDublin Street. Staunton became the firstPresident of Carlow College.

The shell of the Carlow College structurehad been erected when Bishop Keeffe

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died on 18 September 1787, aged eighty-five. In founding Carlow College,Bishops Keeffe and Delany had to treadwarily of the law. The passage ofCatholic relief measures in the early1780s and again a decade later, had moreto do with political expediency than withgenuine religious toleration; the spirit andadministration of the law were stillhostile to Catholics. The 1782 relief Act,known as Gardiner’s Act, allowedCatholics to teach school provided theytook the oath of allegiance and receiveda license to teach from the Protestantbishop of the diocese.44 The statute didnot extend to permitting theologicaleducation. A provision in the Act forbadethe erection of Catholic clericalestablishments: ‘...nothing hereincontained shall be construed to allow theerection or endowment of any popishuniversity or endowed school within therealm’.45 This provision was are-statement of penal law. Thus, in lawthe Protestant bishop even if favourablydisposed, had no authority to issue alicense for a seminary. Nonetheless, inpractice the matter appears to have beenat the discretion of individual Protestantbishops rather than the State.

Writing of Carlow College late in theyear 1790, Bowden noted that ‘a veryfine structure has lately been erected forthe education of Roman Catholic youth’and remarked that ‘it is imagined bysome that the established clergy arehostile to the idea’. But he found this hardto believe stating ‘Than the [Established]bishop of this diocese [Euseby Cleaver,bishop of Leighlin and Ferns 1789-1809]no man can be more enlightened andhumane. How unjust then to propagate areport that he forbade any other speciesof learning than classics to be taught here.On the contrary I have reason to believehis Lordship is a friend to theinstitution’.46 Bowden knew BishopCleaver personally.47 He hinted that itwas the Protestant clergy of the dioceseof Leighlin and Ferns rather than thebishop who were hostile to CarlowCollege.48 It may have been that thebishop was under pressure from hisclergy not to grant a licence. A report inFinn’s Leinster Journal of 10 December1791 stated that ‘the bishop of Leighlin and Ferns, at theearnest solicitation of many respectablepersons, has at length given permission

for the establishment of the RomanCatholic College at Carlow; thus, happilyfor himself removing the charge ofbigotry and intolerance which had beenaffixed to his name for the exercise of anunjust though legal power with which theLegislature has invested every suffraganin his own diocese.’

The legal danger of not holding a licensemay explain why the college layunopened but this problem was removedin 1792 when an act was passed makingit no longer necessary to obtain a licenseto open a Catholic school (though not aseminary).

Bowden observed that although thecollege was ready for the reception ofstudents it had not yet been opened. Hesurmised that ‘the means of purchasingfurniture and engaging professors arewanting; and this, I believe is the realcause of its being untenanted at thepresent day’. 49 Lord Carlow ‘expressedsome concern that so fine a buildingshould remain unoccupied’.50 Bowdencalled on Archbishop Troy and theCatholics of Dublin to contributefinancially to promote ‘an institution ofsuch national importance’. 51 It was notuntil 1 October 1793 that Carlow Collegeopened its doors to its first students, bothlay and clerical. The first clerical studentshad already been ordained. In its firstyear the college had thirty-sevenstudents; in the second year sixtystudents. So great was the demand forplaces that the college was obliged toaccommodate lay students outside itsgate on Brown Street.52

By this time Bishop Keeffe had beendead for six years. He had been buried on20 September 1787 in the ‘Old Graves’overlooking the River Barrow in Carlow.The hierarchy of Leinster and Munsterwere well represented at the funeraloffice and interment. Present wereArchbishops Troy of Dublin and Butlerof Cashel and Emly, Bishops Delany ofKildare and Leighlin, Dunne of Ossory,Caulfield of Ferns, Plunket of Meath,Moylan of Cork, Egan of Waterford andTeahan of Kerry. Bishop Plunketdescribed Keeffe as ‘a model ofdisinterestednesss and piety’.53

In conclusion: for most of the eighteenthcentury the restrictions imposed by the

penal laws made the ministry of Catholicbishops a largely hidden if not actually asecret one. Bishop James Keeffe (1752-87) had the longest rule and the mostoutstanding episcopacy of the bishops Ihave considered. He was the first of thesebishops to reside full-time in his diocese.It is with him that the Kildare andLeighlin Diocesan Archive begins – nowhoused in the Delany Archive in CarlowCollege.54

Keeffe’s decision to found CarlowCollege, Ireland’s oldest third levelCatholic college and the first purposebuilt post-Reformation Catholic college,was the highlight of his ministry. Keeffedid not build Carlow College as aseminary but as a lay college. However,by the time the college opened the FrenchRevolution had made the education ofpriests on the continent impossible, andthe seminary aspect was added to theremit of the college. The building ofCarlow College in the 1780s marked thebeginning of the Catholic Church’sinstitutional re-emergence on the urbanlandscape. It was in marked contrast witheven a decade earlier when BishopKeeffe was still signing his letters ‘fromhis place of refuge’. Carlow Collegesignified the progressive improvement ofconditions for Catholic Church life whichoccurred pari passuwith the dismantlingof the penal laws. The foundation ofCarlow College also represented a newcommitment to education in Ireland onthe part of the Church once freedom fromthe restrictions of the penal laws wasachieved. As the penal laws wereconsigned to the past the Catholic Churchbegan to assert itself pastorally innumerous ways in accordance withinternational Church norms.55

1This article is the text of a lecturedelivered at the ‘Carlow 800 HistoryConference’ held in Carlow College on24 August 2013, to mark the eighthhundred anniversary of the foundation ofCarlow Castle. The lecture is anabbreviated version with slightamendments of the author’s articleentitled ‘Bishops of Kildare and Leighlin,1715-1819: pastoral, political andeducational contexts’ in William Nolanand Thomas McGrath (eds), Kildare:History and Society (Dublin, 2006), pp273-326. The reader seeking furtherdetail is referred to that source.

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2 T.W. Moody, F.X Martin and F.J. Byrne(eds), A new history of Ireland (Oxford,1984), ix, 374,376; Michael Comerford,Collections relating to the dioceses ofKildare and Leighlin (3 vols, Dublin1883-6), i, 74.3 Hugh Fenning, ‘The archbishops ofDublin, 1693-1796’ in James Kelly andDáire Keogh (eds), History of theCatholic diocese of Dublin (Dublin,2000), p. 183.4 Certificate of Ordination to Sub-Diaconate, 21 September 1726, in BishopKeeffe papers in Delany Archive, CarlowCollege. See also Martin Brenan, ‘BishopKeeffe of Kildare and Leighlin, AD1702-1787’ in Irish EcclesiasticalRecord, fifth series 1 (July – Dec. 1937),p. 114.5 L.W.B. Brockliss and P. Ferté, ‘Irishclerics in France in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries: a statistical study’in PRIA, 1987, vol, 87, C. Number 9, p. 570.6 This controversy is considered inThomas McGrath, ‘Bishops of Kildareand Leighlin, 1715-1819: pastoral,political and educational contexts’ inWilliam Nolan and Thomas McGrath(eds), Kildare: History and Society(Dublin, 2006), pp 277-283.7 Archbishop Fagan to James III, 30August 1733, in Patrick Fagan (ed.),Ireland in the Stuart papers (2 vols,Dublin, 1995), i, 184.8 Archbishop Valenti-Gonzaga toCardinal Banchieri, Brussels, 2 October1733, in Cathaldus Giblin, ‘Catalogue ofmaterial of Irish interest in the collectionNunziatura di Fiandra, Vatican Archives:part 5, vols 123-132 in CollectaneaHibernica, no. 9 (1966), p. 33.9 Cardinal Firrao to Archbishop Valenti-Gonzaga, Rome, 24 October 1733, inCathaldus Giblin, ‘Catalogue of materialof Irish interest in the collectionNunziatura di Fiandra, Vatican Archives:part 10, vols 153-153D’ in CollectaneaHibernica, no. 14 (1971), p. 49.10 Cardinal Firrao to Archbishop Valenti-Gonzaga, Rome, 28 November 1733, inCathaldus Giblin, ‘Catalogue of materialof Irish interest in the collectionNunziatura di Fiandra, Vatican Archives:part 10, vols 153-153D’ in CollectaneaHibernica, no. 14 (1971), p. 49.11 L.W.B. Brockliss and P. Ferté, ‘Irishclerics in France in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries: a statistical study’in PRIA, 1987, vol, 87, C. Number 9, p.

547.12 James III to Rev John Ingleton, Albano,28 October 1733, in Fagan (ed.), Irelandin the Stuart papers, i. 185.13 Stephen Dowdall to James III, [?]London, 23 April 1734, in Fagan (ed),Ireland in the Stuart papers, i. 197.14 L.W.B. Brockliss and P. Ferté, ‘Irishclerics in France in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries: a statistical study’in PRIA, 1987, vol, 87, C. Number 9, p. 570.15 A Register for the parish of Tullowmade by James Keeffe is extant in theDelany Archive, Carlow College.Beginning on 16 November 1748 itdetails the inhabitants of the parish,baptisms (to August 1763), marriages (toJanuary 1775) and deaths (to September1772).16 For Gallagher’s episcopacy, seeThomas McGrath ‘Bishops of Kildareand Leighlin, 1715-1819’ pp 285-292.17 Benjamin Burton, Burtonhall, to LordDuncannon, 3 August 1739, quoted inWilliam P. Burke, The Irish priest in thepenal times (1660-1760) (Shannon, 1969ed.), p. 325. The spelling in the quotationhas been silently modernised.18 Faulkner’s Dublin Journal, 28 March1752, quoted in John Brady, Catholicsand Catholicism in the eighteenth-century press (Maynooth, 1965), p. 80.19 Lord George Sackville to the Attorneyand Solicitors General, 11 May 1752,quoted in William P. Burke, The Irishpriest in the penal times (1660-1760),(Shannon, 1969 ed.), p. 326.20 George Armagh, Newport Chancellor,to the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, Dublin,17 July 1752 quoted in Burke, The Irishpriest in the penal times, pp 326-7.21 Abbé David Flynn to James Edgar, StGermain, 6 April 1753, in Fagan (ed.),Ireland in the Stuart papers, ii, 169.22 Ibid., ii,169, note 5.23 T.W. Moody, F.X Martin and F.J. Byrne(eds), A new history of Ireland (Oxford,1984), ix, 375.24 Michael Comerford, Collectionsrelating to the dioceses of Kildare andLeighlin, ii, 250.25 William Carrigan, History andantiquities of the diocese of Ossory (4vols, Dublin, 1905), i, 189-190.26 Comerford, Collections, iii, 406.27 Comerford, Collections, iii, 398.28 Sleator’s Public Gazetteer, 18September 1770, quoted in John Brady,Catholics and Catholicism in the

eighteenth-century press (Maynooth,1965), p. 140. See also p. 170.29 In 1777 Bishop Keeffe was on the pointof publishing his own catechism for thediocese of Kildare and Leighlin but hedeferred to Archbishop Butler’s newlypublished catechism which he thoughtwould serve the whole country. SeeBishop Keeffe to Archbishop Butler ofCashel and Emly, 7 October 1777, inBishop Keeffe papers in Delany Archive,Carlow College.30 Freeman’s Journal, 7-10 October 1775.31 Freeman’s Journal, 8-11 November1775.32 Dublin Evening Post, 2 September1786, quoted in Brady, op. cit., pp 243-4.33 Bishop James Keeffe to ArchbishopButler of Cashel and Emly, 14 May 1777,in Bishop Keeffe papers in DelanyArchive, Carlow College. 34 Faulkner’s Dublin Journal, 9December 1775; Patrick Fagan, Dividedloyalties: the question of the oath forIrish Catholics in the eighteenth century(Dublin, 1997), p. 153.35 For O’Reilly see Comerford,Collections, i, 275-7, ii,166.36 Bishop James Doyle in MS ‘DiocesanBook’ in the Kildare and LeighlinDiocesan papers within the DelanyArchive, Carlow College.37 Londonderry (ed.), Memoirs andcorrespondence of Viscount Castlereagh(4 vols, London, 1850), iv, 145.38 Charles Topham Bowden, A tourthrough Ireland (Dublin, 1791), pp 99-100.39 Londonderry (ed.), Memoirs andcorrespondence of Viscount Castlereagh(London, 1850), iv, 145.40 Ibid., iv, 143.41 Quoted in John Brady, Catholics andCatholicism in the eighteenth-centurypress (Maynooth, 1965), p. 230.42 Bishop Keeffe to Bishop Delany, 7May 1785, in Bishop Keeffe papers inDelany Archive, Carlow College.43 Londonderry (ed.), Memoirs andcorrespondence of Viscount Castlereagh(London, 1850), iv, 143.44 See ‘The making of Gardiner’s ReliefAct, 1781-2’ in Maureen Wall, CatholicIreland in the eighteenth century (Dublin,1989), Gerard O’Brien and Tom Dunne(eds), pp 135-48.45 Ibid., p. 144.46 Charles Topham Bowden, A tourthrough Ireland (Dublin, 1791), p. 95.47 Ibid., p. 121.

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48 Ibid., p. 98.49 Ibid., pp 97-8.50 Ibid., p. 99.51 Ibid.52 For the subsequent history of CarlowCollege see John McEvoy, CarlowCollege, 1793-1993 (Carlow, 1993). Seealso John McEvoy, ‘The Carlow Collegepriest - from Australasia to the Americas’in Thomas McGrath (ed.), Carlow:History and Society (Dublin, 2008), pp501-534.53 See A. Cogan, The diocese of Meath,ancient and modern (3 vols, Dublin,1862-1870), ii, 200-201. I am grateful toBishop Denis Nulty, Bishop of Kildare

and Leighlin for drawing this referenceto my attention. Bishop Nulty re-dedicated the Old Graves on 25 August2013. Bishop James Doyle of Kildare andLeighlin had a headstone in Latin andrailings erected at Bishop Keeffe’s grave.In 1987 on the two hundredthanniversary of Keeffe’s death, MonsignorJohn McDonald, then President ofCarlow College, added a furtherheadstone in English which states in aquote taken from Doyle: ‘Here he desiredto be buried among the poor for whom hehad lived’. For Doyle see the three volume study byThomas McGrath, Religious renewal and

reform in the pastoral ministry of BishopJames Doyle of Kildare and Leighlin,1786-1834 (Dublin,1999); Politics,interdenominational relations andeducation in the public ministry of BishopJames Doyle of Kildare and Leighlin,1786-1834 (Dublin, 1999); The pastoraland education letters of Bishop JamesDoyle of Kildare and Leighlin, 1786-1834 (Dublin, 2004).54 For the Delany Archive seewww.delanyarchive.ie55 Bishop Keeffe is remembered inCarlow College where the old CollegeLibrary is named in his honour.

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Standing L-R: Paddy Neill, Pert Nolan, Tony ?, Tess Delaney, ? Stephen Townsend, Gabriel Connolly, Eric Cole,Jimmy Nolan, Myra Phillips.

Sitting L-R: Hellen Gorman, Peader Byrne, Ann Doyle, Oliver Murphy Leslie Cole, Fr. Denis Doyle, Pat Hayden, JohnDowling, Peggy Timmons.

Tinryland Dramatic Society c 1960Taken in the local hall (since demolished)

Courtesy: John Dowling

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The title of this article carries quitedeliberate echoes of Sir CharlesGavan Duffy’s famous autobiog-

raphy, for the careers of Gavan Duffy andEdmund Dwyer Gray Junior are strik-ingly similar in many respects.1 Bothwere born in Ireland – Duffy in 1816,Gray in 1870. Both achieved prominencein Irish public life through their associa-tion with newspapers, and both came toplay a significant role in Irish politics –albeit for brief periods. Both, much dis-illusioned by their experiences in Ireland,emigrated to Australia. In Australia, bothengaged in radical politics, and bothserved as prime minister in a regionalgovernment – again, for relatively shortperiods. Duffy, having attained the officeof premier of the colony of Victoria in1871, fell from power in 1872; and Graywas premier of the state of Tasmania fora period of nine months in 1939. By acurious coincidence, when in 1855 Duffysailed into exile in Australia, one of hisshipmates was Moses Wilson Gray,whose brother, Sir John Gray, was thegrandfather of the subject of this article.Duffy records in his autobiography thatduring the tedious journey to Australia hehad ‘daily confabulations with WilsonGray on the destiny of the new countryand all we hoped to do andachieve there’.2

The two brothers – Wilson Gray and JohnGray – were born of Irish protestant stockin Claremorris, Co. Mayo, in 1813 and1816 respectively. Wilson became alawyer and went to America in 1838.John qualified as a medical doctor; but heenjoyed only a brief career as a physi-cian. Notwithstanding his Protestantism,he was a staunch supporter of O’Con-nell’s campaign for repeal of the Act ofUnion and was thus drawn into political

journalism. In 1841 he purchased theFreeman’s Journal newspaper with someassociates; and when his brother, WilsonGray, returned from America in 1844, hejoined him in managing and editing theFreeman. John Gray became sole pro-

prietor of the newspaper in 1850. In 1852he was elected to Dublin corporation, andin that capacity was responsible forbringing the Vartry water supply to thecity – for which achievement he wasknighted. He was MP for Kilkenny cityfrom 1865 until his death in 1875, and hehad begun to ally himself with IsaacButt’s home rule movement in the lastyear of his life. The statue of him thatstands in O’Connell Street, Dublin, waserected in 1879. Wilson Gray also died in1875. In Australia after 1855, he had beenactive – with Gavan Duffy – in the landreform movement in Victoria, and heserved as a member of the legislativeassembly of Victoria from 1860 to 1862.He then moved to New Zealand, wherein 1864 he became district judge of theOtago goldfields, a position he held untilhis death.

Wilson Gray was not the only connectionthat the Gray family had with Australia.

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Edmund Dwyer Gray Jr:

his life in two hemispheres

Edmund Dwyer Gray, Sr.

Caroline Chisholm as depicted on the Australian $5 banknote in issuebetween 1968 and 1991.

Felix M. Larkin

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Edmund Dwyer Gray Jr._Layout 1 28/10/2015 20:52 Page 1

Sir John Gray’s son and successor asowner of the Freeman’s Journal,Edmund Dwyer Gray Senior, married thedaughter and namesake of the Victorianphilanthropist Caroline Chisholm, cele-brated as ‘the emigrants’ friend’ for herwork for female emigrants to Australia,but caricatured by Charles Dickens asMrs Jellyby in Bleak House.3 Theyounger Caroline, on a visit to Ireland,met her future husband in most unusualcircumstances. A schooner was wreckedduring a storm in Killiney Bay inSeptember 1868 and Gray – whosefamily had a summer house nearby –swam out with a rope to the doomedcraft, saving five lives. Miss Chisholm,by chance, witnessed this heroic deed andwas afterwards introduced to him. Theymarried in the following year. The subjectof this article was their eldest child; asecond son died in infancy, and they alsohad two daughters. Writing in the SidneyMorning Herald in 1924, EdmundDwyer Gray Junior recalled his maternalgrandmother – then an invalid, and livingin London – telling him as a child ‘of thelovely land of Australia’, and there is nodoubt that Australia had a great fascina-tion for him as a result of theseconversations.4

Caroline Gray (née Chisholm) was aCatholic: her children were raised asCatholics, and her husband – EdmundDwyer Gray Senior – converted toCatholicism in 1877. Also in 1877, hebecame MP for Tipperary county. He laterrepresented successively Carlow countyand the St Stephen’s Green division ofDublin. But for the advent of Parnell, hemight have led the Irish parliamentaryparty at Westminster. To protect his ownpolitical prospects, Gray strongly opposedParnell’s rise within the party; and when,after the 1880 general election, Parnellwas elected party leader, Gray was one ofeighteen MPs who voted against him – outof a total of forty-three. Thereafter,however, he largely supported Parnell’sleadership – and the Freeman’s Journalbecame the unofficial organ of the Irishparliamentary party at Westminster.

The Gray family’s involvement with theFreeman’s Journal lasted for fifty yearsand it spanned three generations of thefamily – Sir John Gray, and his son andgrandson, both named Edmund DwyerGray.5 The Grays made the Freeman an

important newspaper, the foremostnationalist daily newspaper published inDublin in the nineteenth century. Therepeal in the 1850s of the oppressive dutyon advertisements and then on the news-papers themselves opened the way for agreat expansion in the newspaper market,and Sir John Gray exploited this oppor-tunity, growing the circulation of theFreeman from as little as 2,000–3,000copies per day to approximately 10,000at the time of his death in 1875. Under hisson, Edmund Senior, the Freeman’s pro-duction capacity was further increased,its circulation again grew threefold — toover 30,000 copies per day — and itbecame extremely profitable. In 1887, heconverted the Freeman into a publiccompany, while retaining control forhimself. He died at the early age of forty-two in 1888, and for the next four yearsthe company was effectively under thecontrol of his widow and their son,Edmund Junior, who was aged only 18when his father died. At that time, theyounger Edmund Dwyer Gray – havingleft school the previous year – was tour-ing in Australia and New Zealand, and helearned of his father’s death while visit-ing the town of Rotorua, in New Zealand,through ‘a small notice in a newspaper’.That quote is taken from the letter that hewrote to his mother from Rotorua, nowin the National Library of Ireland.6 Heimmediately made arrangements toreturn home, but – though his mothercontrolled more than forty per cent of the

share capital of the Freeman company –he was too young to have any real influ-ence in the management of the news-paper, and he returned to Australia inearly 1890.

He was still in Australia when the Parnell‘split’ occurred in December 1890. At theoutset of the ‘split’, the board of the Free-man declared in favour of Parnell – adecision which Mrs. Gray, as the princi-pal shareholder in the company, fullyendorsed. When her son returned toIreland in the following February, he tooindicated that he would support Parnell.However, in March 1891 the anti-Parnel-lites launched their own daily newspaper,the National Press, and the Freemanbegan as a result to lose circulation andrevenue. Young Gray – justifiably fearfulfor his inheritance – then persuaded hismother that the Freeman should abandonParnell. This required a special generalmeeting of the Freeman company, heldon 21 September 1891, at which thepro-Parnell board was replaced with onethat included both Mrs Gray’s son andthe man soon to become her secondhusband, Captain Maurice O’Conor.

After the Freeman switched sides, theParnellites established the Irish DailyIndependent in December 1891 to fill thevacuum caused by the Freeman’s defec-tion. There was not room at that time forthree nationalist daily newspapers inDublin, and certainly it made neithercommercial nor political sense to havetwo anti-Parnell organs. Accordingly, theFreeman and its erstwhile rival, theNational Press, merged in March 1892.In simultaneous transactions, theNational Press company bought MrsGray’s Freeman shares for £36,000 andthe Freeman company purchased theNational Press newspaper for exactly thesame sum – and promptly shut it down.It was a condition of any merger that MrsGray should sell her interest in the Free-man’s Journal; the National Press hadbroken the Gray family’s dominance ofthe nationalist newspaper market inDublin and the Grays would not bepermitted to assume that role again. MrsGray had no option but to accept this –since, quite apart from any other consid-eration, her health had collapsed underthe strain of the previous four years. Herson and Captain O’Conor both ceased tobe directors of the merged company in

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Caroline Gray before her marriagein 1869

Edmund Dwyer Gray Jr

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1893. Edmund Junior was left with noprospects in Ireland, and so he emigratedto Australia in 1894 – never to return,except on a brief visit in 1898 after hismarriage in Sydney to a Miss ClaraAgatha Rose.7

In his early years in Australia, Gray en-joyed little success: he seems to havedabbled in mining and in farming, butnothing more is known of his activitiesuntil he emerges from obscurity as theeditor of the Daily Post, the organ of theLabour Party in Tasmania, in 1912. Hewas now aged 42. He was a leading fig-ure in the Australian labour movement,both as a journalist and as a politician, forthe remainder of his life – but a some-what erratic one, due to heavy drinking.His father too had had a serious drinkproblem which contributed to his earlydeath. Gray Junior continued as editor ofthe Post and of its successor newspaper,the World – with a brief interruption dueto ill health – until 1922, when he wasdismissed after a quarrel with the LabourParty leadership. He then worked brieflyin Sydney as a journalist for Jack Lang,later Labour Prime Minister of NewSouth Wales, before returning to Tasma-nia in 1925 to edit a new Labour weekly,the People’s Voice. He continued as editorof the Voice until his death twenty yearslater in 1945. Despite the Voice’s links tothe Labour Party, Gray strove as editor tomaintain a measure of independencefrom the party. In this, he emulated hisfather’s example as editor and proprietorof the Freeman’s Journal: neither fathernor son ever blindly followed a partyline, though the newspapers theycontrolled were clearly identified withspecific political movements.8

In 1928 Gray was elected to the Tasman-ian parliament for the Labour Party –having first hyphenated his name in orderto gain a higher place on the ballot paper.He became deputy leader of the LabourParty in 1932, and when the party cameto power in Hobart two years later, hewas appointed state treasurer and deputyto premier Albert Ogilvie. When Ogilviedied suddenly in 1939, Gray was thecompromise choice to succeed him – butthis was intended merely as an interimarrangement, and he resigned after sixmonths.9 He was then re-appointed astreasurer under the new premier, RobertCosgrave, and he remained in that office

until his death in 1945. He was regardedas a highly effective treasurer who, toquote the author of his entry in theAustralian Dictionary of Biography,Professor Richard Davis, ‘managed to“bring home the bacon” and laid the basisfor [Albert] Ogilvie’s post-Depressionreforms’.10 The reference to ‘bringinghome the bacon’ refers to Gray’s successin obtaining favourable treatment for

Tasmania from the federal government’sCommonwealth Grants Commissionestablished in 1933 by the Labour primeminister of Australia Joseph Lyons toprovide grants for the smaller, less well-off states like Tasmania.

Lyons was himself a former primeminister of Tasmania, and he shared withGray a sense of grievance about Tasma-nia’s position as a small island dominatedby the adjacent landmass. Like Gray,Lyons had an Irish background – he wasthe grandson of Irish immigrants – andno doubt both were mindful of parallelsbetween Ireland and Tasmania vis-à-visLondon and Canberra respectively. Iron-ically, however, the effect of theCommonwealth Grants Commission wasgradually to increase the influence of thefederal government over the affairs of thestates – and this process was acceleratedby the introduction of a uniform federal

income tax as a war measure by theCanberra government in 1942. Thatmeasure effectively destroyed the auton-omy of the state treasurers, but Gray –unlike other state treasurers – did notoppose it as he felt it offered a better wayof addressing Tasmania’s perennialeconomic problems than anything thestate government could do on its owninitiative.

Gray always retained an interest in Irishpolitics, and as a journalist during theyears 1916 to 1922 he stayed faithful tohis family’s long-standing moderatenationalist sentiments. His newspapers atthat time – the Daily Post and the World– supported the Irish demand forindependence and, in the words ofRichard Davis, rejected ‘the hystericalfear that support for Irish self-determina-tion would lead to the disintegration ofthe British Empire and the end of WhiteAustralia’.11 Gray, however, was unwill-ing to abandon the Irish constitutionalnationalist tradition and espouse SinnFéin. He condemned the Easter Rising in1916, and argued that the insurgentsshould have been suppressed earlier –and later, during the War of Independ-ence, he made it clear that murders onboth sides were equally abhorrent to him.He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of1921, arguing that it should satisfy Irishaspirations, and he opined – somewhatoptimistically – that Ulster ‘would soonjoin the rest of Ireland when she saw howwell the new Free State was governed’.12

Gray’s success as a politician – albeit inTasmania – had been forecast by JustinMcCarthy MP, who wrote of the youngGray in 1891: ‘I see in him the futureprime minister of an Irish parliament’.13This eventuality – Gray as prime ministerof an independent Ireland – is, in fact,conjured up by Patrick Maume in aremarkable piece of counterfactual his-tory, published as an appendix to PaulBew’s recent biography of Parnell,Enigma. Maume postulates that, ifCaptain O’Shea had been struck by ahorse-drawn vehicle and killed whilecrossing a street in, say, 1887, then theParnell ‘split’ would not have occurred;Parnell, happily married to O’Shea’swidow, might have lived on well into thetwentieth century and delivered homerule for Ireland; the Freeman’s Journalwould almost certainly have survived as

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Edmund Dwyer Gray, Jr.Official portrait (by Eileen Brooker) inthe collection of the Tasmanian Parlia-

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the predominant nationalist newspaper inDublin; and, instead of losing his inheri-tance and emigrating to Australia,Edmund Dwyer Gray Junior might havematured into one of Parnell’s chieflieutenants and perhaps his chosensuccessor among a younger generation ofhome rulers.14 Thus would JustinMcCarthy’s prophesy have been fulfilled,but it was not to be.

Felix M. Larkin is academic director ofthe Parnell Summer School. A retiredpublic servant, he now works as ahistorian and freelance writer. He waschairman of the Newspaper andPeriodical History Forum of Ireland from2010 to 2013.

1 Charles Gavan Duffy, My life in twohemispheres, 2 vols (London: T.F.Unwin, 1898). This article is based on apaper given by the author at the confer-ence of the Irish Studies Association ofAustralia and New Zealand held inMaynooth University, 18–20 June 2015. 2 Duffy, My life, vol. ii, pp 130–1.3 There are several biographies of Caro-line Chisholm, the most recent beingCarole Walker, A saviour of living car-goes: the life and work of CarolineChisholm (Walton-on-the-Wolds, Leics.:Wolds Publishing, 2009).4 Sydney Morning Herald, 26 January1924.5 For an account of the history of theFreeman’s Journal, see Felix M. Larkin,“A great daily organ: the Freeman’s Jour-nal, 1763–1924,” in History Ireland, 14:3

(May/June 2006), pp 44–9. Regardingthe Gray family, see Felix M. Larkin,‘Mrs Jellyby’s daughter: Caroline AgnesGray (1848–1927) and the Freeman’sJournal’, in Felix M. Larkin (ed.),Librarians, poets and scholars: aFestschrift for Dónall Ó Luanaigh(Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), pp121–39.6 Edmund Dwyer Gray Jr to CarolineGray, 4 April 1888, ‘Edmund DwyerGray album’, National Library of Ireland,Acc. 6256.7 Irish Daily Independent, 28 March

1898.8 For a more detailed account of EdmundDwyer Gray’s career in Tasmania, seeRichard P. Davis, ‘Edmund Dwyer Grayand the Tasmanian Labour Party’, in Ver-itas: Journal of the Tasmanian HistoryTeachers Association, 1:2 (July 1977), pp2–7.9 Premiers of Tasmania: an artistic re-view (2006). This is a booklet producedfor an exhibition of portraits of Tasma-nia’s premiers marking the 150th an-niversary of the Tasmanian parliament.10 Australian Dictionary of Biography,vol. viii (Melbourne: Melbourne Univer-sity Press, 1981). Richard Davis has alsowritten the entry on Edmund Dwyer GrayJr in the Dictionary of Irish Biography,vol. iv (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy,2009). The Dictionary of Irish Biographyalso has a joint entry on his parents, Ed-mund and Caroline, and entries on SirJohn Gray and Moses Wilson Gray (con-tributed by Felix M. Larkin, ChristopherWoods and Fergus Sinclair respectively). 11 Richard P. Davis, ‘Tasmania and theIrish revolution, 1916–22’, in TasmanianHistorical Research Association: papersand proceedings, 21:2 (June 1974), pp69–88, at p. 82. 12 Ibid., at p. 81. 13 Justin McCarthy and R.M. Praed (eds),Our book of memories: letters of JustinMcCarthy to Mrs Campbell Praed (Lon-don: Chatto & Windus, 1912), p. 290.14 Patrick Maume, ‘Appendix: a counter-factual chief? If Parnell had lived till1918’, in Paul Bew, Enigma: a new lifeof Charles Stewart Parnell (Dublin: Gill& Macmillan, 2011), pp 205-15.

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Gray family tree

Statue of Sir John Gray in O’ConnellSt., Dublin


Obituaries

Since our last issue the following longserving members of our society havepassed away:

• Mrs. Christine Cree• Teddy O’Brien

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‘The wounds, weariness, flesh stabbing,bone pulverising, lunacies, rats, lice andmaggot crawling festerment of the battle-fields’ of World War I were also the bat-tlefields of the chaplains who broughtspiritual comfort to the injured anddying.ii At the outbreak of the war, therewere 117 chaplains in the British ArmyChaplains Department (ACD) of whomjust 17 were Roman Catholic. In fact, be-cause of age and health reasons, onlyseven accompanied the British Expedi-tionary Force (BEF) to France in August1914.iii Furthermore, with little under-standing of the importance of the sacra-ments to the Irish Catholic soldier’sreligiosity there was no urgency in theBritish War Office to increase the numberof Catholic chaplains.iv As a result,Catholic soldiers were going into battlespiritually unprepared and dying withoutreceiving the rites of the Church.

According to Monsignor MichaelO’Riordan, the soldiers believed ‘thattheir own Irish priests understood thembetter than any other and knew how toguide them through the dangers and trialsof military and naval life’.v They and thepeople back home ‘wanted the priest tobe near them’. This explains the publicoutcry in Ireland when it became knownthat it was a German Catholic chaplainwho conducted the service as 127 RoyalMunster Fusiliers were laid to rest duringthe retreat from Mons in August 1914.vi

In response to public feeling the Irishbishops pressed for ‘an efficient numberof Irish priests to minister to the woundedand dying’. When the matter was raisedin Westminster in September, the UnderSecretary for War admitted that he ‘didnot see his way to send more chaplains tothe BEF’ and suggested instead that ‘inthe case of extreme necessity, Frenchpriests would be available’.vii Thisproposal was not acceptable to the Irish

hierarchy since French anticlericalismexisting in the hospitals meant that anywounded soldier needing a priest had tosign a declaration in French that he wasa Catholic and ‘demanded the sacra-ments’. It was, the bishops remonstrated,‘a miserable French device’. Such adeclaration would have been beyondmost Irish soldiers.

On 6 October 1914, the War Officeissued its explanation as to why moreCatholic chaplains were not being sent tothe front. It stated that ‘only a limitednumber of non-combatants could accom-pany the Army in the field, owing todemands on transports and equipment,etc’.viii Such an answer was unacceptableto the Irish hierarchy and the Irish people.O’Riordan caustically noted that:

Whilst the “exigencies of transport andequipment” prevent the sending ofCatholic chaplains with the Catholicsoldiers fighting at the front, the Protes-tant soldiers have more than enough ofthem. Nay! Obstacles of such a kindwere not allowed to stand in the way ofpaying respect to the religious scruples ofHindu and Mohammedan soldiers; goatswere provided for the purpose of supply-ing them with nourishment, as the formerhad an objection to beef and the laterto bacon.ix

The bishops condemned the policy ofputting transport before chaplains assert-ing that ‘the dying Catholic soldier’sneed for the last sacraments was no lessbecause he died at war’.x

By 22 October 1914, although BishopPatrick Foley of Kildare and Leighlin,episcopus loci of the Curragh camp, themain military camp in the country, wasconcerned ‘that the war office peoplewere very unwilling to meet the wishes

of the bishops on the question of thechaplains’, he believed, nevertheless, thatif a proper case were made out the Waroffice ‘would sanction more chaplains’.xi

However, it was from self-interest (fearthat any further neglect of the spiritualinterests of Catholic soldiers would frus-trate any hope of getting Catholicrecruits) that the War Office informedJohn Redmond, M.P. that it had decidedthat ‘every Irish regiment and battalionpredominantly Catholic should have achaplain attached to it’. The ACD wasrestructured and Monsignor Keatinge(later bishop) was appointed AssistantPrincipal Chaplain to Dr John Simms, anIrish Presbyterian and the PrincipalChaplain of the BEF. Keatinge wasdesignated Senior Roman Catholic Chap-lain.xii Despite this restructuring, Cardi-nal Bourne, archbishop of Westminster,retained ecclesiastical control of allCatholic chaplains in the British forces inhis jurisdiction.xiii It was he who nomi-nated the chaplains to the government.Irish priests who wished to serve as eithermilitary or naval chaplains applied firstto their local bishops (or superiors in thecase of regular clergy) who then senttheir names (if suitable) to CardinalBourne and not to Cardinal Logue,Primate of All-Ireland.

Although the men of the diocese ofKildare and Leighlin responded enthusi-astically to the war’s recruiting drivesand to Bishop Foley’s call ‘that it wastheir duty as faithful Christians and loyalcitizens of the great empire’ to do so, thepriests did not respond with any greatfervour to his pleas for chaplains toprovide spiritual succour to the men onthe battle field.xiv In fact, the responsewas so poor throughout Ireland thatCardinal Logue was forced to make anappeal in November 1915 and again inFebruary 1916. Bishop Foley, seen as

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Kildare and Leighlin Roman Catholic Chaplains in World War 1

‘If the men can’t go to the church then the church must go to the men’

Dr Ann Power

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‘West-British’ in clerical circles, sug-gested three possible causes for thepoor response:

The priests were so softened ‘by creaturecomforts’ they were ‘not the type of mento endure physical hardship’ and ‘somedanger to life’.

That although it was unquestionably truethat the War was in a sense Ireland’s war,it was not at all her war in the sameintense sense that it was England’s war.

That many more would have joined wereit not that application for chaplaincieshad to be made to Westminster (CardinalBourne).

But even these reasons, he said, ‘did notin themselves account for the dearth ofIrish chaplains’, a ‘dearth which discred-ited the whole Irish Church’.xv One otherpossible reason was that with the‘younger clergy moving towards SinnFéin’ some believed that ‘the refusal ofthe British Government to put the HomeRule Act into operation’ was justificationenough for not volunteering—the imple-mentation of the Government of IrelandAct (1914) had been postponed at theoutbreak of war.xvi Foley did not thinkthis a plausible enough excuse for letting‘people die without the sacraments’.xvii

By March 1916, sixteen priests of thediocese had volunteered as chaplains—many had not ‘realised things were sobad’.xviii Some were not sanctioned by thebishop and others were not accepted bythe army.xix Along with William Murphywho was army chaplain at the Curraghfrom 1903, the following nine secularpriests were accepted as chaplains: HenryBeauchamp, Michael Bolger, MichaelDoyle, John Hughes (naval chaplain)John Charles Kelly, Daniel Murphy,Edward O’Donoghue, William Phelanand William Rice.xx Foley believed this avery creditable number. It was better thanother dioceses.

On enlistment all chaplains had the statusof commissioned officers and werecontracted to serve for a year—chaplain1st class (colonel), chaplain 2nd class (lieu-tenant-colonel), chaplain 3rd class(major) and chaplain 4th class (captain).The rate of pay for the latter was 10s. aday and allowances according to circum-stances.xxi Chaplains were involved with

units from basic training to operationaltours.xxii After a year they could relin-quish their commission or renew it.xxiii

Like newly recruited soldiers, the fledg-ling army chaplains also received train-ing. Both Monsignor Keatinge and DomStephen Rawlinson, APC, were respon-sible for this. They issued them withguidelines and introduced them tomilitary organisation, command struc-tures and customs. They were instructedin their duties and above all in theirresponsibilities as Catholic priestsserving soldiers.xxiv Moreover, Rawlin-son cautioned them to remember ‘thatone live chaplain was worth more thanfifty dead ones’.xxv But this advice wentmostly unheeded. ‘The Padres’ or the‘Sky Pilots’, as they were known by the

soldiers, went where they were needed.

Father William Murphy CBE

An army chaplain at the Curragh camp(1903‒22), the 48-year-old WilliamMurphy volunteered for active service inearly August 1914. For health and agereasons, Bishop Foley was reluctant to lethis near relative go but was convinced todo so by a letter of recommendation fromthe general at the Curragh Camp.xxvi

Although chaplains were officially meantto be under 45-years of age, the generalthought that ‘it would be a great blessing

to the soldiers to have a chaplain whoknew them so well’.xxvii By March 1916,physical fitness and not age wasthe criterion.xxviii

Murphy’s spiritual charge consisted ofthe 6th and 7th battalions of the RoyalDublin Fusiliers (RDF) and of the RoyalMunster Fusiliers all part of the 30th

Infantry Brigade.xxix He sailed with themto Gallipoli on 10 July 1915 and survivedthe catastrophic landing at Suvla Bayduring which ‘boatloads of Dublin andMunster fusiliers were massacred’.xxx

Nevertheless, Murphy, who was besideWesleyan chaplain, R.H. Spence, washighly critical of Spence’s account of thelanding in the Irish Times. Murphyclaimed that ‘most of the things he putdown did not take place’—admittedlyMurphy was probably offering comfortto his mother who may have readSpence’s story.xxxi Rather tellingly, hestated that ‘It is hard enough to under-stand how anyone has to fall back onimagination to write a letter from here.Facts are sufficiently rank’.xxxii Indeed, heoverheard the colonel of one of thebattalions asking a stretcher-bearer ‘if hehad any idea where the enemy was!xxxiii

Attached to the 31st Field Ambulance,Murphy endured not only shellfire ‘butthe discomforts of living’ on the heightsof Kiretch Tepe Sirt where the ‘abom-inable’ flies infested the latrines and in-stantly covered the exposed food.xxxiv YetMurphy wrote reassuringly to his motherthat ‘an open air life gave one a zest forbully beef, tinned meals and biscuits’.xxxv

Although rest was impossible (the flieswould plague a saint), for him ‘any dis-comfort was amply repaid both by thesimple piety of the poor fellows’ and‘their simple strong faith’.xxxvi

A brief extract from Murphy’s diarygives some insight into the work of theCatholic chaplains:August 15 ‒ Sunday (Lady Day) - Startedfrom Ambulance to bivouac of Dublinsand Munsters on Karakol Dagh at 4am.Said Mass for them respectively at 6 and7a.m. Gave a general absolution. Quite anumber for Holy Communion. Visitedmen along the line afterwards whose dutykept them from Mass. Gave themabsolution and Holy Communion. Haddecided to spend weekend on the hillwith them, when orders arrived after

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1p.m to fall in for battle. Then visitedeach regiment singly, said prayers andgave them absolution just as theymarched into the fight.

August 17 ‒ Went up with stretcher partyto advanced dressing station at 9 p.m. andreturned at 5 a.m. to ambulance. Thewounded of two brigades, the 29th and30th, were collected in two tents on thehill, which was swept by rifle-fire. It wasaffecting to see these poor fellows bear-ing their wounds more solito with thegreatest fortitude. Hardly a sound beyonda suppressed moan broke the stillness. Apeste, bello et fame, libera nos Domine.[Both brigades were shattered forlittle gain.]xxx

August 30 ‒ Captain Hoey, nowCommanding Officer 7th Royal DublinFusiliers, has been a patient. Made withhim for the trenches, 8.45am. Got intothick of shrapnel shelling. No cover, laylow, faced music again at 10 am, this timein peace. Gave Holy Communion to 7thRoyal Dublin Fusiliers.xxxviii

One officer wrote of him: ‘This morningFather Murphy said Mass in the trenches,where bullets, etc, were falling likehailstones. Oh! He is a splendid man’.xxxix

Another wrote of ‘his good friend’ that‘his robust cheerfulness was coupled to afearlessness and devotion to duty’.xl His

devotion to duty was such that he wasmentioned in despatches.

The spirit of ecumenism flourished inthat awful place between Father Murphyand Canon McClean, Rector ofRathkeale, Co. Limerick. BrigadierGeneral Nicol spoke of ‘the fine exam-ple’ set by ‘two such splendid fellows, thebest of friends, working hand in hand forthe common good’.xli McClean, who wasin his fifties, wrote of Murphy’s ‘sterlingcharacter’ and how ‘Murphy was hisconstant adviser and friend in health andsickness and was always looking afterhim’. He declared that ‘the affection hehad for him was shared by officers andmen of all ranks in the brigade’.xlii Suchfriendship (Murphy regarded him as ‘asplendid colleague’) and such a goodworking relationship between the twodifferent denominations was not neces-sarily the norm at a time when someAnglican clergyman believed ‘that therigidity of Roman Catholicism [made]friendship impossible’ hence the impor-tance of Nichol’s acknowledgement andrecognition of the quality of both men.xliii

At the end of October 1915, Murphyaccompanied the poorly equipped 10th

division to Salonika for the newcampaign against the Bulgarians.xliv

Because of the division’s inadequatewinter clothing he was one of over athousand casualties who suffered from

exposure and frost-bite in the great bliz-zard of November 1915.xlv Weak withfever and already debilitated by hisGallipoli experiences (including enteritis)Murphy was evacuated from Mudroshospital on the Mediterranean island ofLemnos and returned to England.xlvi Hehad spent eleven days in hospital.xlvii

After his recovery he was appointedsenior chaplain to Salisbury Plain Districtwhich extended over ninety miles andcomprised about 200,000 men.xlviii There,in January 1916, he found the Irishsoldiers in ‘a state of spiritual destitution’because of the lack of Catholic chaplainsand of Mass. By contrast there was noshortage of chaplains of other denomina-tions with their own churches.xlix Hisreport to Cardinal Bourne of England andthe uproar caused by its release in Irelandby Cardinal Logue helped to bring aboutfar-reaching changes in the supply ofchaplains.l To facilitate these changes, aswell as acting as a liaison to ‘grease thewheels’ between the Irish and Englishhierarchies, Murphy was appointed asAPC, Irish Command at the CurraghCamp with the rank of major in February1916.li The nomination of Irish chaplainswas so fraught between the two cardinalsthat Murphy declared that he would be‘better back at the Front than extricatinghimself from such tangles’.lii

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The pass obtained by Fr. Murphy for Fr. Aloysius to visit James Connolly


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Within a few weeks, circumstances (theEaster Rising) found Murphy acting asmilitary chaplain to Dublin Castle’s RedCross hospital—the state apartmentswere converted to wards in December1914 to treat the war-wounded. Probably,he accompanied the 5th RDF from theCurragh Camp to Dublin where the 5th

joined the British forces securing theapproaches to the Castle, the centre ofBritish rule in Ireland—there had been anattempt by the rebels under SeanConnolly to take the Castle on EasterMonday, 24 April 1916.liii It was bothMurphy’s position as APC, IrishCommand and rank as major that allowedthis experienced military chaplain to beinstrumental in James Connolly, socialist,and leader of the Irish Citizen’s Army andCommandant Dublin IRA receiving thelast rites of the Catholic church.

In his witness account of the Easter Ris-ing to the Bureau of Military History(BMH), Father Aloysius Travers, OFM,Cap., Church St, stated that FatherMurphy sent the son of SuperintendentDunne, DMP to him with the messagethat James Connolly, then a prisoner andpatient in the Castle hospital, wished tosee him.liv Connolly had been shot in thethigh during the fighting in the GPO and,on the surrender, was taken to the Castlehospital. Murphy’s status allowed him tomake all the necessary arrangements andattain permission for Father Aloysius, tovisit Connolly.lv The pass was signed byLord Powerscourt, the Assistant ProvostMarshall of Dublin. However, there hadbeen rumours circulating around theCastle that an attempt would be made torescue Connolly with the result thatguards with rifles and fixed bayonetswere stationed in his room. As it wasagainst regulations, they refused to leaveFather Aloysius alone with Connolly.Father Aloysius sought help fromCaptain Stanley but he could not disobeyregulations either. Both men decided toseek out Father Murphy. On their waythey met with General Lowe andexplained that Father Aloysius neededprivacy to hear Connolly’s confession.On hearing that Father Aloysius hadgiven his word of honour to Murphy thathis purpose in visiting Connolly was ‘forspiritual ministrations only’ and that the‘troubles in the city’ would not bementioned (this pledge is in Murphy’shand on the pass), General Lowe relented

and allowed the private visit. FatherAloysius heard Connolly’s confessionand brought Holy Communion to himover the following days. On 12 May1916, he accompanied Connolly(described by General John Maxwell as‘the worst of the lot’) in the ambulanceto Kilmainham jail’s stone-breakers’yard where he witnessed Connolly’s ex-ecution by firing squad.lvi

Father Murphy is mentioned in anotherwitness statement to the BMH this timeby Senator Harry Colley.lvii The woundedand unconscious Colley had beenbrought to the Castle hospital bythe RAMC:

When I awoke I found a man in militaryuniform waiting beside me. He told mehe was a priest and that I was dying, andhe would like to hear my confession andadminister the Sacraments. He was notwearing a collar. Immediately the storyof the ‘Croppy Boy’ ran through mymind and, though I was now only able tosay one word at a time, I asked him howwas I to know he was a priest, where washis collar or his stole? He told me theywere at the top of the building that I wasin the Castle Hospital, that I might bedead by the time he got them. I do notknow where the strength came from butI shouted at him, as the nurses oftenreferred to afterwards, ‘Go away, goaway, and take those clothes off you’. Iagain relapsed into unconsciousness afterthe effort. When I came to again the samegentlemen was walking up and downwith no coat on him, a plaid waistcoat, aclerical collar and his stole, and was read-ing his breviary. He came to me immedi-ately, heard my confession andanointed me.lviii

In the 1930s, Colley visited Murphy inhis home in Borris where both recalledthe incident.lix

After the Rising, Murphy expedited theappointment of Irish chaplains for thewar-effort. He recognised the difficultyfor ‘parochial clergy to leave the safetyand stability of the home mission, toadapt to life in the trenches, to cope withservices outdoors and with the sudden-ness of death and immediate burial, andto writing letters to bereaved familiesetc’.lx He declared that ‘no one, clergy-man or soldier could guess at the reality

of trench-warfare’. This understandingcoming from his active military serviceenabled him to judge the fitness of thoseoffering themselves as chaplains. Of onepriest volunteer he said ‘it is as well toput him off volunteering. Though a verypious zealous man he has not the tem-perament of a chaplain’.lxi

Murphy continued as APC until 1922.Although his name was one of four putforward for the position of ChaplainGeneral of the new Free State Army,Murphy did not pursue this position—hehad no desire see Irishman kill Irishmanin the civil war that followed the treaty.lxii

Instead he accepted Bishop Keatinge’soffer of a permanent chaplaincy withincreased rank in England with theBritish army where he found that ‘heliked his new station [in Plymouth] verymuch ‒ a nice country and a nice peopleas far as he had seen them’. He returnedto Ireland as parish priest of Borris in1932 and died in 1943.

Monsignor Henry BeauchampCBE, MC, VG.

Henry Beauchamp served as chaplain inEngland, France and Germany. Orphanedwhen a few years old, he was placed inthe guardianship of his uncle, JohnBeauchamp, parish priest of Borris. Hewas educated at Knockbeg College,Carlow from 1897 to 1900 and read

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philosophy at Carlow college from 1900to 1903 before going to Maynoothcollege where he completed his studiesfor the priesthood. He was ordainedpriest in Carlow college on 4April 1908.lxiii

In January 1916 while a curate in Portar-lington he made application to FatherWilliam Murphy to become a chaplain.Murphy believed he would be ‘a veryuseful man’ and that he was ‘very pluckyto volunteer’.lxiv The 33-year-old waspassed medically fit. Indeed, the armydoctors were not in the least inclined topass men as ‘physically undesirable’.lxv

He was commissioned temporary chap-lain to the forces at Ripon training centreon 29 March 1916. When Beauchampoffered to serve abroad in October 1917,Major-General Simpson considered himfit for general service and most suitableas chaplain since he was ‘in close contactwith the troops and very popular’.lxvi Heembarked for France on 22 January 1918with the Argyll and Sutherlands. He waspromoted senior chaplain, 3rd class(major) to the 1st Battalion Tank Corps on21 June 1918. His bravery in going to theaid of men under fire at Beaucort enSanterre on 8 August 1918 was recog-nised when he was awarded the MilitaryCross on 7 November 1918.lxvii Hiscitation read:

For conspicuous gallantry and devotionto duty. Apart from his duties as chaplainwhich he performed in a fearless mannerunder very exposed conditions, he wasalways in the fighting line and renderingassistance to the wounded. He won theadmiration of all ranks.lxviii

In 1918 the Royal Air Force received itscharter as a separate branch of the armedforces. Beauchamp was one of threearmy chaplains selected by MonsignorJames Dey, DSO to form a Catholicchaplains department for the RAF.lxix On20 August 1919, with Bishop Foley’spermission (he was still serving with thearmy as APC to the Rhine army), hetransferred temporarily to the RAF withthe rank of squadron leader. According toP. O’Connell ‘He was made so to speakfrom the moment of his arrival. For, onarrival at the mess, he asked a man stand-ing near the door to help him carry hiscases. This the man readily did, makingseveral journeys. Father Beauchamp gave

him five shillings which he graciously ac-cepted. That night, when Beauchampwent into the ante-room all were waitingto see him introduced to the commandingofficer ... the man to whom he had givenfive shillings for carrying his boxes’.lxx

Dey sought to have him remain perma-nently with the RAF. This created greatdifficulties when Foley demanded his re-turn in 1923. Beauchamp gave Foley’sletter his ‘most mature consideration’ butdecided not to ‘acquiesce to hisrequest’.lxxi He was ‘so engrossed inGod’s work there that he was sure Foleywould forgive him’. He explained why he‘preferred to continue his work there’. Hehad built a ‘Catholic club at a cost of£2,800 (borrowed on his own securitiesof £1,200) to keep his Catholic boystogether’ for religious instruction andretreats. He had five converts and ‘wasdeeply in love with this soldier instruc-tion work’. He ‘had never been so happyand [was] convinced that he could not doa greater work for God in any othervineyard’. He had also received a promo-tion, a pay rise to £750 and could retirein seven years with a pension.lxxii Foleygave his permission and Beauchampremained with the RAF for the rest of hispriesthood. One of his greatest achieve-ments was the institution of Catholicleadership courses during World War IIthrough which thousands of youngairmen were trained to take their place inCatholic action on their return to civilianlife.lxxiii High-ranking RAF officers wereso impressed by the courses that theymade them a model for general adoptionthroughout the service.lxxiv ‘A man whobelonged to the Air Force heart and soul’,‘Harry’ Beauchamp, ‘perhaps one of thebest known and best loved priests inEngland’, died on a visit to his friends inthe diocese on 26 April 1948 having justreturned from a tour of inspection inIndia.lxxv He was one of the mostdecorated chaplains in the service—Domestic Prelate (1940), CBE (1945),Medal of Merit First Class (Czechoslo-vakia), Military Cross First Class(Belgium) and the Military Cross FirstClass (Poland).lxxvi

Father Michael Bolger

Father Michael Bolger was the son ofJohn Bolger and Mary Anne (nee Bren-nan), Carlow. Ordained priest in 1890, he

was commissioned chaplain on 3 March1916 and served in France where he wasfound to be ‘of excellent character’ andwhere ‘his services as chaplain were atall times highly satisfactory’.lxxvii The endof the war did not see an immediatereturn of priests to their parishes sincedemobilisation of chaplains was arrangedaccording to the military requirements ofthe BEF in France. One of those delayedin France was Father Bolger. BishopFoley thought him ‘long enough at theFront (he had been wounded twice inthree years) and that it was desirable thathe return to Graig to take up his duties’but, in the circumstances, ‘he did notrequire him to do so’. Father Bolgerserved in France until 12 June 1919.lxxviii

He was decorated by the French govern-ment ‘for his untiring energy anddevotion to duty in times of stress anddanger’.lxxix A month after his dischargeand in recognition for his services toACD he was appointed an honorarychaplain to the forces, 4th class.lxxx On hisreturn from France he became parishpriest of Graigecullen and died on 17February 1926, possibly as a result of theinjuries he received in France.lxxxi

Father Michael Doyle

Michael Doyle and Daniel Murphy werethe only priests of the diocese posted toMesopotamia (modern day Iraq). What-

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ever pictures the curates may haveconjured up of this region of antiquity(the land of the patriarchs, the home ofAbraham) the reality was quite different.Although Mesopotamia was part of theOttoman empire, an empire heavilyinfluenced by Germany, Britain owned500,000 square miles of its land whichincluded the oilfields at Abadan, whichwere purchased by Britain in 1914.lxxxii

The oil fields and Britain’s trade routesto India had to be defended from Turkishand German forces.

Michael Doyle of Ardoyne, Tullow wasa curate in Myshall when he wascommissioned on 16 March 1916 to jointhe 59th North Midlands Division in StAlbans, Hertfordshire.lxxxiii This divisionwas formed in 1915 from the men of theTerritorial Army and was for homeservice. Suddenly and unexpectedly, twobrigades of the 59th North Midlands(176th and 178th ) under the command ofGeneral Sandbach were despatched toDublin on 25 April 1916. According toDoyle, on his return to St Albans fromLondon, he found all the troops at therailway station in ‘full warequipment’.lxxxiv He was told that the trainwas going to Liverpool, and that theywere taking a roundabout way to Francebecause of submarines in the Channel.On boarding the boat, he lay down to restand, on waking was astonished to findthat he was at Dun Laoghaire Pier. Infact, many of the soldiers believed thatthey were in Flanders.lxxxv He accom-panied the first contingent of troops whomarched into Dublin, and was at ‘thebattle of Mount Street Bridge’ where thetroops (newly recruited, many had neverfired a rifle) suffered heavy casualties.After the suppression of the Rising hewas sent with the Kings Own ScottishBorderers to Tralee.lxxxvi There, and muchto his amusement, ‘groups of Traleeurchins, who, not knowing that he was apriest, used to proceed him down thestreet chanting “Up the King’s Cousin”!Realising that the Scottish Borderers (itwas they who in 1914 opened fire on anunarmed but riotous mob on BachelorsWalk, killing three and wounding manymore) ‘had little use for a Catholic priest’he applied for a transfer and returned tothe Curragh Camp.lxxxvii Doyle left theCurragh in October 1916 when he wasselected temporary chaplain to theMesopotamian Expeditionary Force with

an increase in pay to £30 per month.lxxxviii

Father William Murphy had told theACD that the local clergy would takeover his duties. He embarked forMesopotamia on 3 December 1916where he was posted to the 13th (Western)Division with 40th Field Ambulance inJanuary 1917.lxxxix Conditions inMesopotamia were as dreadful, if notworse than those in Gallipoli. Extremesof temperature (120°F was common),arid desert and regular flooding, flies,mosquitoes and other vermin, all led toappalling levels of sickness and deaththrough disease.xc After six weeks he wastransferred to minister at the 23rd and 31st

British Stationary Hospitals. The WarDiaries show that both stationary hospi-tals had moved from Amara to theadvance base at the newly capturedBaghdad in late March 1917.xci On theexpiration of his contract, Doyle leftMesopotamia for England on the 31October 1917. He relinquished his com-mission on 23 December 1917.xcii He be-came parish priest of Borris and diedin 1950.

Father John Hughes

On 2 April 1915, Father John Hughes ofClashganny House, Borris, Co Carlow,curate in Philipstown (Daingean) Co.Offaly for four years, applied for atemporary naval chaplaincy.xciii In hisrecommendation to Cardinal Bourne,Bishop Foley stated that Hughes was apriest of ten years experience, was steady,intelligent and a good speaker.xciv Notonly had Hughes Foley’s recommenda-tion, he also had that of Bishop Sheehanof Waterford. Friends also maderepresentations to Monsignor Bidwell,secretary to Cardinal Bourne, to ‘use hisgood offices’ on Hughes’ behalf.xcv At thisperiod there was no RC chaplaincydepartment in the Admiralty. Hugheshoped for a chaplaincy on a troopship toEgypt or India. His hopes were dashedwhen the Admiralty sent him to Bermudaas a replacement for Father Watson whowas being transferred from there.xcvi On24 May 1915 he sailed for the RoyalNaval Dockyard, Bermuda on board theMegantic. Although far from the Euro-pean theatre of war, this British depend-ency was not a sinecure.

Despite the disadvantage of having no

church and celebrating Mass in an unlitsail loft, Hughes believed that it wasmore advantageous for him to be in portrather than afloat. At sea, he would belooking after the spiritual welfare of thecrew of only one vessel whereas in thedocklands the average number ofCatholic sailors was about 200 rising toover 800 with visiting convoys. Suchconvoys included many American shipswhich also came under his care.xcvii Beingin port also meant there would be regularMass times and no ships’ complementcould come and go without receiving thesacraments as happened before hisarrival. In Bermuda, all the commandersgave him every facility for the dischargeof his duties and the sailors were appre-ciative of the appointment of a RomanCatholic chaplain. He crossed theAtlantic for holidays in May 1916 andprobably in August 1919. He wasdemobilised on 31 May 1921. He becamea chaplain in the Irish army in 1923 andserved in the Curragh Camp until hisdeath on 17 January 1943.

Father John Charles Kelly

The 33-year-old Father John CharlesKelly from Rathoe, Tullow was six yearsa priest when he was commissioned achaplain on 22 May 1917. He wasattached to the 2/4 Duke of Wellington’swhich held the sector of the French frontat Cambrai where, although he ‘did goodwork as a chaplain’, his army recordstates that he ‘did not care for armywork’.xcviii He relinquished his commis-sion on 21 May 1918. He was curate inRathoe from 1918 to 1925 and thereafterin Abbeyleix where he died in 1939.

Father Daniel Murphy

Little is known of the war service ofDaniel Murphy. Possibly his officer’srecords were destroyed in the Londonblitz as were so many others. However,he is listed with a Father B. Farrell onMichael Doyle’s papers as chaplains to59th North Midland division.xcix He is alsonamed in the Monthly Army List forDecember 1916 as joining on 16 March1916 the same day as Doyle and Farrell.In later life he used to recall that he wasone of two chaplains who, ‘withoutknowing their destination’, were detailedfor duty in Dublin during the EasterRising.c The other chaplain was most

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probably Michael Doyle. In his obituarynotice there is a brief reference that heserved in Mesopotamia. This is corrobo-rated by Tom Johnstone who also statesthat he relinquished his commission on16 July 1916 after a ‘brief war service’.ci

It is possible that he was invalided homesuffering from heat exhaustion. On his re-turn he served in various curacies (he wascurate in Kilcock in 1917) until he wasappointed parish priest of Rathvilly in1942. He died on 5 October 1944.

Father Edward O’Donoghue

Edward O’Donoghue was rector ofKnockbeg College when he was commis-sioned chaplain on 12 December 1914.Most probably due to ill health he did notserve abroad and served instead at theCurragh Camp until demobilised on 20June 1920. He was a curate in Portarling-ton from 1920 until his death on 19November 1923.

Father William Phelan

William Phelan was commissionedchaplain to the forces on 27 April 1915.He too served at the Curragh Camp andresigned ten months later on 9February 1916.

Father William Rice

William Rice, a priest for seventeenyears, was curate in Mountmellick whenon 9 April 1917 he made application toserve as a chaplain. He received hiscommission on 20 April 1917. The 42-year-old sailed for France on the HMSVictoria on 8 May 1917. He spent amonth at the Front and the remainder ofhis time working in either casualty clear-ing stations or stationary hospitals.cii Hiscontract expired on the 7 May 1918 andhe did not seek to renew it. Father Ricebecame parish priest of Kilcock in 1938and died 12 January 1952. The experience of these Kildare andLeighlin priests of the ‘foul thing calledwar’ was one of shared danger with thetroops. While some were cut out for mil-itary life and others found their tempera-ment unsuited to it, all acted with braveryand courage in giving solace and spiritualconsolation to the injured and dying sol-diers.

i A quote from an unknown padre inwww.hellfire-corner.demon.co.uk ac-cessed 20 February 2007.ii Tom Kettle quoted in Beda Herbert,‘Tom Kettle 1880‒1916’ in Capuchin An-nual (1967) pp 420‒27, p. 425.ii James H. Hagerty Benedictine MilitaryChaplains in the First World War,www.catholic-history.org.uk, accessed 19Jun. 2003, p.1.i Ibid. v “Notes regarding the arrangements forthe chaplaincies of the British Army”.This ten page document was written inRome but the accompanying letter as towho the author is, is missing. I believethese notes to be a copy of MonsignorO’Riordan’s Pro Memoria to the Popewhich he sent to accompany the IrishBishops’ petition on army chaplains. SeeO’Riordan to Bishop Patrick Foley,KL/BP/PF/AC/16, p. 8.vi Hagerty, Benedictine Military Chap-lains, p. 2.vii In the initial BEF of five divisions therewere eight Irish infantry battalions andthree cavalry battalions – all predomi-nantly Catholic in Hagerty BenedictineMilitary Chaplains, p.1; ‘Catholic ArmyChaplains: a diary’ in Catholic Bulletin,7 (Apr. 1917), 250‒57, p.250; ICD(1915), p.540; Jane Leonard, ‘TheCatholic Chaplaincy’ in David Fitz-patrick (ed.), Ireland and the First WorldWar (Dublin, 1986), p.3.viii ‘Catholic Army Chaplains’, p.250.ix O’Riordan to Foley, 25 Feb. 1916,KL/BP/PF/AC/16, p.5.x ICD, 1915, p.540. xi Foley to Monsignor Michael J. Murphy,22 Oct. 1914, KL/CL/012/0103.xii Monsignor William Keatinge, Chap-lain First Class with the rank of Colonel.A Benedictine monk, he was ordained in1893, commissioned in 1897 and hadpreviously served in the Boer War. xiii See Tom Johnstone & James Hagerty,The Cross on the Sword: Catholic Chap-lains in the Forces (London, 1996),pp.36‒9.xi Pastoral Letter of Bishop Foley in TheNationalist, 22 Aug. 1914.x Foley to M.J. Murphy, 2 & 25 Jan. &12Feb. 1916, Kl/Cl/012/0107; MonsignorCurran, Dublin, former Secretary toArchbishop Walsh, Dublin and formerRector of the Irish College, Rome, WS.687 (section 1) (1913‒21), Bureau ofMilitary History (BMH), www.bureauof-militaryhistory.ie/ accessed 21 Jul. 2015.

xv Foley to M.J. Murphy, 12 Feb. 1916,KL/CL/012/0107.xv Ibid. xvi Ibid.xi Ibid.x Regular priests also volunteered but arenot among the subjects of this article.xxi Acting chaplains contract with the Ex-peditionary Force.xxii Glenvil Roberts, Royal Army Chap-lains Department.xxiii Sister Eileen M. Grant to author,Chaplains’ Archives, St Michael’s House,Aldershot, 30 Jan.2006.xxiv Hagerty, Benedictine Military Chap-lains, p.3.xxv Ibid.xxvi Foley to M.J. Murphy, Carlow, 11Aug. 1914, KL/CL/012/0103.xxvii Ibid.xxviii W. Murphy, to Foley, Curragh Camp,25 Feb. 1916, KL/PF/AC/10. xxix Henry Hanna, The Pals at Suvla Bay(Dublin, 1916), p.140.xx Terence Denman, ‘The 10th (Irish) Di-vision 1914‒15: A study in Military andPolitical Interaction’ in Irish Sword 17(1987), 23xx W. Murphy to his mother, Gallipoli, 30Sept. 1915, Murphy archives, PhilipMurphy, Graiguenamanagh; TerenceDenman, ‘The 10th (Irish) Division1914‒15’, 23xxx W. Murphy to his mother, Gallipoli, 30Sept. 1915.xxx John Redmond, quoted in CharlesTownshend Easter 1916:The Irish Rebel-lion (London, 2005), p.76.xxx Tom Johnstone, Orange, Green andKhaki (Dunlin, 1992), p.134.xx W. Murphy to his mother, Gallipoli, 17Aug. 1915.xxx Ibid.; Johnstone, Orange, Green andKhaki, p.134.xxx Johnstone & Hagerty, The Cross onthe Sword, p.121.xxxv Hanna, The Pals at Suvla Bay,pp.140‒1.xxx Ibid., p.132.xMajor Bryan Cooper, The Tenth Irish Di-vision in Gallipoli (London, 1918), p.1xli Hanna, The Pals at Suvla Bay, p.133xlii Ibid.xliii Rev Lintin Smith, ‘Fellowship in theChurch’, in F.B. MacNutt (ed.), TheChurch in the Furnace (London, 1917),p.118 quoted in Leonard, ‘Catholic Chap-laincy’, p.12.xliv Johnstone & Hagerty, The Cross onthe Sword, p.124.

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xlv Ibid.xlvi W. Murphy to his mother, en routeSouthampton to London, 4 Nov.1915.xlvii Foley to Father Killian, Carlow, 20Oct. 1915, KL/AC/JJK/149.xlviii Johnstone & Hagerty, The Cross onthe Sword, p.141.xlix W. Murphy, quoted in Johnstone &Hagerty, The Cross on the Sword pp93‒95.l Johnstone & Hagerty, The Cross on theSword, p.141.l W. Murphy to Foley, 19 Feb. 1916,KL/PF/AC/07; Foley to the Press, 18Feb. 1916, in ICD 1917..li W. Murphy to Foley, 15 Feb. 1916,KL/PF/AC/06.liii 5th Battalion RDF during the EasterRising, www.dublin-fusiliers.com ac-cessed 23 Jul. 2015.liv BMH WS 200 (Fr Aloysius, OFM,Cap.)lv Ibid. The original pass is amongWilliam Murphy’s archives held by JohnFoley Snr, solicitor, Bagenalstown.lvi BMH WS 200 (Fr Aloysius, OFM,Cap.); Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel,‘Shaw, Connolly, and the Irish CitizenArmy’ in Shaw, 27 (2007), 125. lvii BMH WS 1687 (Harry Colley). lviii Ibid. lix Ibid.; Harry Colley to Father PeaderMacSuibhne, Dublin, 11 Jan. 1971,DA/P2/325/(52). lx See Johnstone & Hagerty The Sword onthe Cross.lxi W. Murphy to Foley, 28 Feb. 1916,KL/PF/AC/12.lxii In conversation with John Foley, Snr,28 Sept. 2015.

lxiii Memorial of the Right Rev. Monsi-gnor Beauchamp, Halton, 26 Apr. 1951sent to author by D.E. Larkin, RAF, Hal-ton; The Nationalist 1 May 1948; John-stone & Hagerty The Sword on the Crosspp.223‒5 and p.295.lx W. Murphy to Foley, Curragh Camp, 22Jan. 1916, KL/PF/AC/09.lx Ibid., 25 Feb. 1916, KL/PF/AC/10lx Major-General Simpson to A.C.Strange, War Office, 1 Oct. 1917,WO/374/5123.lxv Henry Beauchamp, War Office (WO)374/5712 Officers’ papers; HenryBeauchamp WO372 and WO389/9, Mil-itary Cross Register.lxviii Beauchamp, WO372 and WO389/9,Military Cross Register. lxix Memorial of Mgr Beauchamp.lxx Ibid.lxxi Beauchamp to Bishop Foley, 12 Feb.1923 in KL/BP/PF/1923/10.lxxii Ibid.lxxiii ‘Obituary of Mgr HenryBeauchamp’, in Universe 30 Apr. 1948.lxxiv Ibid.lxxv ‘Mgr Beauchamp Dies in Eire: AnAppreciation’ in Catholic Herald 30 Apr.1948.lxxvi Memorial of Mgr Beauchamp.lxxvii Michael H. Bolger: WO374/7404, 17Jul. 1919.lxxviii Ibid.lxxix The Nationalist, 2 Nov. 1918.lxxx Michael H. Bolger: WO374/7404, 26Jul. 1919.lxx The Nationalist, 27 Feb. 1926.lxx Ibid., p.88lxxx Michael Doyle, WO 339/137501.lxx BMH WS 807 (Father Patrick J.

Doyle). Patrick Doyle was a cousin ofFather Michael Doyle.lxx Sighle Humphrys’ Memoire ‒ earlydays, IE UCDA, P106/976.lxx BMH WS 807 (Father Patrick J.Doyle).lxxx Ibid.lxxx Michael Doyle, WO 339/137501.lxx Ibid.x Chris Baker, The long, long trail, TheBritish campaign in Mesopotamia,www.1914-1918.net accessed 15 Jul.2015.xc Father Tim Bywater to Paul Maguire,Diocese of Middlesbrough, undated(probably 2006) and sent to author.xcii Michael Doyle: WO 339/137501.xciii Father John Hughes to Mgr Bidwell,Carlow, 2 Apr. 1915 in RC Records Of-fice, Bishopric of the Forces, Aldershot,Mrs M.K. Day, Notary to author 27 Jul.2006.xciv Foley to Cardinal Bourne, 16 Apr.1915, RC Records Office. xcv Father Palmer to Mgr Bidwill, 15 Apr.1915, RC Records Office.xcvi O. Murray for Sir Graham Greene toBiddle, 1 May 1915, RC Records Office.xcvii Hughes to Biddle, 16 Feb. 1916, RCRecords Office.xcviii John Charles Kelly: WO374/39030,15 Jun. 1918.xcix Ibid.; D. Murphy is also on a list ofchaplains sent to author by Tom John-stone on 1 Dec. 2006. c Daniel Murphy, obituary, Nationalist,14 Oct. 1944.ci Johnstone to author 1 Dec. 2006.cii William Rice: WO374/57152, 7 May191

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Cllr Anne Ahern,Chairperson ofCarlow Museum

Board, and PadraigDooley, Hon.Sec.of

CHAS, at the presenta-tion of prizes to the

winners of the SchoolsHistory PrizeCompetition

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During my research on theQuakers in Co. Carlow, my firstand immediate impression was

to marvel at the innovation, charisma andmagnetism of their rather better knowntitle ‘The Religious Society of Friends’ –what a charismatic, affable virtuous andall embracing name for a religious group– The Society of friends, after all whowouldn’t want to be a part of a Society ofFriends? So at the outset I must compli-ment their founder George Fox and mydear friends, indeed all members, on sucha fabulously evangelical name.

It was neither a coincidence nor adichotomy that when George Fox initi-ated his ‘friendly’ crusade in England inthe mid seventeenth century it was at atime of great stress and strife. When thecivil war broke out in England Foxrefused point blank to fight on either sideand in 1644 he left home in search of areligious crusade and began preaching hisnew ideology in England, Europe andAmerica. He was frequently imprisonedfor his beliefs. Fox believed in an “innerlight” representing the spirit of JesusChrist, which was his principal tenet andit still remains the central belief of Quak-ers today. Fox and his followers believedthat direct experience with God wasaccessible to all people without theinvolvement of a priest, minister or sacra-ments. The term Quaker is believed tohave originated when Fox told a judge incourt “that he should tremble at the wordof the Lord” to which the judge sarcasti-cally replied by calling him a Quaker.Therefore the origins of the society lie inthe political and civil turmoil of 17thcentury England. The Civil War began in1642 between the Royalists and theParliamentarians, culminating in theexecution of Charles 1st in 1649 and theappointment of a Lord Protector in the alltoo familiar name of one OliverCromwell as its leader.

Consequently, a number of non conform-ist religious groups emerged such as the

Seekers, The Levellers, The Fifth Monar-chy Men, The Ranters, and of course ThePuritans under Oliver Cromwell.Cromwell’s role is well known to us herein Ireland with his campaign of massacreand destruction. He played a significantpart in ensuring that there is one word inthe global vocabulary that caused themost trouble, strife and mayhem andbloody wars, that word is religion.Religion has been at the heart of millionsof deaths, human suffering and distress.

It has been central to the great injusticesof bygone massacres, atrocities, execu-tions, of devastating and detestable deedsof barbarism, torture and cruelty – alldone in the name of religion – all disturb-ing and distressing remnants of a tragicpast that, unfortunately, has greatly andgrossly affected our psyche and at timesour very belief in a God. Religion wasthe cause of the 100 years war, it was atthe heart of our own Anglo Irish battlesand wars and furthermore it continues todominate world news for all the wrong

reasons; we have jihads, Al Queida andIsis committing abominable crimes in thename of religion.

Central to any worthwhile religion andcertainly to all Christian faith is thedogma “Love thy neighbor as thyself”and “do unto others as you would wishthem to do unto you”. Quakerism is areligion/sect that not alone espouses thesebiblical and divine aspirations but alsoforbids war and strife – The ReligiousSociety of Friends espouses so manyvirtues that are central to the Christianmessage. So this is fundamentally thehistorical backdrop to George Fox found-ing the Society of Friends. Before I goon to my central theme may I say that Ido not see myself as an authority onQuakerism but merely one who has apassing interest in the historical natureand evolution of the Society.

Fox’s friend and colleague WilliamEdmundson (1627-1712) is credited withintroducing Quakerism to Ireland whenthe first recorded meeting took place inLurgan, Co. Armagh in 1654. By 1659the Edmundson family had moved toRosenallis in Co. Laois where they set-tled and it is pertinent to note here thatEdmundson’s move to nearby Laois wassignificant in terms of CarlowQuakerism.

Edmundson, a former soldier inCromwell’s Army, together with theirfounder George Fox toured Ireland in1668 and 1669 when they set up thestructure of monthly and quarterly meet-ings. At the core of their message wastheir mantra “that all Friends, whetheryoung or old be weighty and solid, notairy and light” and “in essentials unity, innon essentials liberty, in all things char-ity”. Fox and his followers rejected theestablished church, which meant thatthey refused to pay tithes and they alsorefused to swear any kind of oaths evenof loyalty or allegiance. They were trulynon-conformists – they insisted on busi-ness as usual on holidays as they insistedall days were God’s days. Quakers alsoreferred to weekdays and months simplyby number. They refused to remove theirhats in court or as a mark of respect.They used the singular ‘thee’ and ‘thou’rather then the more polite ‘you’, all ofwhich was part of the Quakers’ insistenceon plainness and simplicity in speech,

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dress and behavior. These were the fun-damental chacteristics which distin-guished them from other beliefs. Perhapswe could say that they were somewhateccentric in their mannerismsand behaviour.

The members of the Society of Friends,sometimes called the Society of Light,were and are totally opposed to war andstrife and the taking up of weapons,instead maintaining the position of non-cooperation. Their refusal to pay tithesor swear oaths and their neutral warstance and generally their non-conformiststance brought them into direct conflictwith the authorities. They were seen as apotent force and a threat to the supremacyof the established Church in Ireland; as aresult many of them were imprisoned andsuffered persecution. One such localCarlow example of Quaker persecutionmade it way onto the pages of the TimesNewspaper on January 13th 1819 underthe heading “Outrage on Quakers inCarlow” and I quote “As a number offemales of the Society of Friends werelately coming out of their meeting houseat Carlow, they were assailed by a vilerabble, who, not content with using suchmissiles as fell directly in their way,raked the very kennels for filth and odourto heap on the persons of theserespectable people”. And furthermore anextract from “A Compendious View ofsome Sufferings of the people calledQuakers” printed by Samuel Fuller at theGlove in Meath St 1713, showed thatCarlow members, “Thomas Weston,Thomas Chaunders, Henry Rose andnine more Friends in Catherlough wereapprehended and committed to prison, —brought before judge Alexander who re-viled them calling them ‘Rogues, Ras-cals, Villains’ etc. and on foot of a Bill ofIndictment for meeting together theywere fined £300”.

It should be noted here that Quakers, bydefinition, were overwhelmingly ofEnglish origin with very few of Irish de-scent, and they were seen locally as a nonconformist breakaway fromProtestantism.

While Quakers brought a new religiouscreed to Ireland they also brought withthem a strong sense of a trade class,which soon became very obvious amongtheir members. For a comparatively

small group of people they boxed wayabove their weight in terms of phil-antropy and entrepreneurial initiative intrade and commerce and the merchantclass generally. Think of chocolate andyou instantly have all well known Quakernames such as Cadbury’s, Fry’s, Terry’sand Rowntree’s. It is not known if JimFiggerty was a Quaker but his bosscertainly was as Jacobs is as well knownfor their biscuits as similarly the QuakerLamb brothers are famous for their jams,as were Bewleys for their tea and coffee.In banking terms Quakers were seen attheir entrepreneurial best as both Lloydsand Barclays’ bank were establishedby Quakers.

Here in Ireland many Quakers also, wereat the forefront of banking – Pike’s bank,Lecky’s bank both in Cork, and Watson’sbank in Clonmel, pertinently all threePike, Lecky and Watson all had verystrong Carlow connections, of which wewill hear more anon. Shipbuilding wasanother area where Quakers excelled, aswas milling, linen and railway construc-tion. The Quaker prominence in tradeand merchant class is perhaps best ex-plained when one considers that by theirrefusal to take up arms, or swear oathsthey effectively excluded themselvesfrom military service, from the medicalprofession and from a legal career, leav-ing them primarily to focus on trade,banking, farming and commercial inter-ests. And as outlined the Quakersexcelled themselves in these areas.

The Society of Friends were pioneers inthe area of non-denominational schoolsand in fact the school which AbrahamShackleton founded in Ballitore in 1726was a classical example and its manyillustrious pupils included EdmundBurke, Henry Grattan, Napper Tandy andPaul Cullen who went on to becomeCardinal of the archdiocese of Dublin.Ballitore village became an importanthub and centre of immense influence dueto the foresight of the Shackleton family.Before setting up the school in BallitoreAbraham Shackleton came to Irealndfrom the village of Harden in West York-shire to take up the post as a tutor to theQuaker Cooper and Duckett families wholived at Coopershill, near Carlow townand at Duckett’s Grove. The schoolbecame so successful that it attractedpupils from France, Norway and Ja-

maica. Many of the Quakers from Co.Carlow attended school in Ballitore,which is a short distance away. It shouldbe noted here that the first Quakers tosettle in Ballitore were John Barcroft andAbel Strettel who bought lands there in1690. (Shackleton – An Irishman inAntarctica P.12&13). Abraham’s son,Richard later took up the running of theschool and his daughter Mary latermarried another famous Ballitore namein William Leadbeater who was also ateacher at the school.

At this time the United Irishmen hadbecome a potent force and with the for-mer Ballitore pupil Napper Tandy as theirsecretary they organized a rebellion in1798 during which Carlow, Kildare andparticularly Ballitore were targeted, andthe bloodshed and loss of life resulted inthe closure of the school in 1801. Theschool reopened five years later.

The Carlow Quaker connection was tohave a major impact on globalexploration when Henrietta Gavan,whose mother was the daughter of JohnFitzmaurice of Carlow, married HenryShackleton in 1872 and they leased alarge tract of land and set up home atKilkea, having leased the lands from theDuke of Leinster. On 15th February 1874Henrietta gave birth to her second childErnest Henry (Athy heritage centre). Thesame Ernest Shackleton, with his motherHenrietta’s Carlow background went onto become famous in the annals ofexploration and heroism with hisattempts to reach the South Pole, and hisattempts to do so on the ship Endurancehave been rightly hailed as the most

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remarkable and heroic in maritimehistory. Therefore it is reasonable to saythat in particular the Shackletons, theLeadberters and their school and Lase atBallitore played a significant role in theevolution of Quakerism in SouthLeinster. All of which begs the questionas to why the Society of Friends did notreplicate the nature and obvious successof their enclave at Ballitore and otherlocations. One would have thought thatsuch an approach would have led to theproliferation of Friends nationally. Apartfrom Ballitore, Quakerism and theirmembers remained a somewhatdisjointed, fragmented and isolatedgroup. Perhaps one possible explanationbeing the fact that unlike other religionsQuakers did not have a leadership struc-ture, as each member was seen to be ofequal importance, and therefore no singleindividual or select group was able tospearhead a structured approach toQuaker leadership, management ordevelopment. We see from the ProvinceMen’s Meeting at Carlow on 21st Decem-ber 1701 that eleven members fromNewgarden, Carlow attended, twelvefrom Louth, Dublin and Wicklow, ninefrom Wexford and seven from Moate.

As I alluded to earlier, William Edmund-son, who introduced Quakerism toIreland, moved to Resenallis in Co. Laoiswhere he and many other Quakerssecured land leased in Laois, Carlow andKildare. Primarily Carlow Quakers weregranted land and many of these wereex-Cromwellian soldiers while manyother refused a land grant as it wasacquired through bloodshed and on theirreligious beliefs they settled on barren,uncultivated land. But many Quakerswere unable to make a living and manylike Henry Rose an early Carlow Quakersettler and also John White left for Penn-sylvania. Interestingly here it is worthnoting that the influx of ex-CarlowQuakers resulted in a Meeting House inPennsylvania being called Newgardenafter the one in Carlow. The conclusionthere is that Quakerism failed to makeany worthwhile progress in the earlyperiod in the Carlow monthly meetingdistrict. However, things were toimprove for the Religious Society ofFriends in Co. Carlow. Quaker recordsshow, that from the period of 1675 to1700, a dramatic increase of recordedbirths took place – a rise from the original

figure of 98 to 274 which represents thehighest ever recorded for CarlowMonthly Meeting’s records. Two wellknown much decorated and documentedgentlemen were responsible for thisdramatic rise in Quaker numbers in Co.Carlow, the men in question being Mr.John Watson and Mr. Robert Lecky. Forexample John Watson’s father, who wasa member of the established church,purchased the entire towns land ofKilconnor near Fenagh, which amountedto 354 acres, 2 roads and 39 perches,which he later divided into lots ofbetween 20 to 85 acre farms. Thesefarms in turn were let out to fellowQuakers who came from Donegal,Tipperary, Wicklow, Kildare and Laois –all of which would have been of Englishorigin. John Watson, came with hisfather from Crosadit Cumberland inEngland in 1658 as a ‘planter’. Shortlyafter arriving and settling at Kilnock, the24-year-old Robert Lecky married MaryWatson, daughter of the above mentionedJohn Watson of Kilconnor. Beforesettling in Kilconnor John Watson

resided and farmed briefly at Ardriston,close to Tullow. At the age of 23 JohnWatson became ‘convinced’ and becamea member of the Quakers, much to thedispleasure of his father. On inheritinghis father’s house in Kilconnor in 1675he used it for Meetings of Worship. Thehostility of the bishop of Leighlin andFerns led to his imprisonment for twoyears, yet another example of Quakerpersecution. So incensed was Watsonthat on release from prison, together withhis fellow prominent Carlow Quaker,John Burnyeat, they published a book tostymie and counteract the animositydirected at the Quakers and to extol thevirtues of Quakerism. The book, “TheHoly Truth and its Professors Defended”,was written and published as a directresponse to a letter published by the thenpriest of Staplestown, Rev. LawrencePotts. Rev. Potts took grave exception toWatson and his colleague Robert Lecky(Lacky) leaving the Established Churchin favour of their belief and conviction asa ‘Friend’. Aside from Kilconnor mem-bers of the wider Watson Quaker families

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lived at Rathrush, Ballydarton, Carlowtown and Clonmacshane all in Co.Carlow. From their settlement in Kilcon-nor in 1658 the Watsons became the sec-ond largest family in the meeting areawith 82-recorded births on the register ofbirths, which represented 5.2% of allQuaker births from 1650 to 1850.

It should also be noted here that IsobelWatson married Fielding Lecky – addinganother famous double barreled name tothe Carlow gentry – and in 1922 theytook up residence in Altamont Housewith their two young daughters Dianaand Corona – and it is Corona who willforever be endearingly credited with themagnificent horticultural paradise that isAltamont Gardens. The very mention ofLecky-Watson brings us to the othergentleman who together with JohnWatson is credited with the dramatic riseof Quakerism in Co. Carlow from themid 1600s to the mid 1700s. That manis none other than Mr. Robert Lecky.Between them John Watson and RobertLecky successively fostered, nurturedand promoted the growth of Quakerismin Co. Carlow. The Lecky family being4.3% of the total number of Quaker

births, making the combined WatsonLecky totals of 9.5% of all Quaker birthsin Carlow.

It is entirely fitting that these two Quakerfamilies played such a prominent role inCarlow Quakerism because the Leckys

and Watsons were intermarried whenJames Lecky from Ballykealy marriedMary Watson at Kilconnor in 1699. Seethe accompanying Lecky-Watson crest,which gives an indication of the impor-tance and significance of the Lecky-Watsons and is symptomatic of theirstatus in the landed class. Similarly whenJohn Lecky, from Kilnock married MaryPike from Co. Cork another well-knowndouble-barreled name Lecky-Pikebecame another prominent name in theannals of Carlow Quakerism. It is worthrecalling here that the Leckys and Pikeswere two of approximately sixty gentryfamilies to reside in Co. Carlow, whichin terms of size made Co. Carlow one ofthe most, if not the most, anglicised coun-ties in Ireland. The British plantersobviously had their homework done andsaw the potential and prosperity ofCarlow as a fertile location in which tolocate some of their favoured sons. Onecan only guess what impact 60 BigHouses had on an otherwise bleak andbarren Carlow landscape in the sixteenthand seventeenth century.

The Leckys being a Quaker landedfamily had an obvious liking and prefer-ence for Co. Carlow. Aside fromBallykealy other family members settledat Kilnock, Rathrush, Kilmeaney, NewGardens and Staplestown.

The Lecky family roots began in Stirlingin Scotland and Thomas and his wife

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Dorothy were the first family members tosettle in Ireland when they pitched theirtent at Ballylin, Co. Donegal in the early1600s. Their son, 24 year old Robert,moved to Carlow and settled at what waslater known as Kilnock House, at thispoint Ballykealy House and its then 708acres was owned by John Dawson BorrerCoats – a Scottish planter who in turn hadthe farm let to Robert’s uncle John Leckywho was later to become the first Leckyto actually own the estate in the late1790s. Similar to his Watson in-lawsLecky brought in vast numbers of fellowQuakers to his workforce from all overthe country. In 1830 Lecky built hismansion at Ballykealy to the design ofnoted architect Thomas Cobden who alsodesigned Carlow Cathedral. At theheight of their power Lecky ownedalmost 1,500 acres of the most fertileland surrounding Ballon village. Againsimilar to the Watsons whose Quakergraveyard at Ballybrou Hill was sited ontheir own land, the Leckys also had theirown private graveyard on their lands,as well as the R.I.C. police barracks.

The Quaker graveyard at Ballybrommel,sited about two miles from the Watsonresidence and meeting house at Kilcon-ner was and is still known as ‘God’s Acre’and the rather serene and very apt ‘TheGarden of Sleep’. This burial ground wasused almost exclusively by the Society ofFriends meetings at Kilcomer. The archi-tectural merit of the entrance is strikingand typical of the period with its archedand mitered granite features. The castiron entrance gate dates back to c.1908which was commissioned and erected byFielding Lecky Watson as a lastingmemorial to the members of the Leckyand Watson families. The most recentburial was that of the aforementionedCorona North (nee Watson) of Altamont.She ever so generously bequeathedAltamont House and Gardents as well asGod’s Acre to the State and both are nowin the care of the O.P.W. In stark contrastthe Lecky Quaker burial ground atBallykealy is a shambles and quitefrankly is a disgrace. There are at least36 members of the Lecky family buriedhere. The wall and entrance have longsince crumbled and fallen and it is totallyovergrown, with open access to cattle andhorses, which adds to the humiliation andlack of respect to those interred there.Penny Alston (nee Lecky) wrote the

following in the Ballon Rathoe Chronicle2002, “The Quaker graveyard can still beseen to this day next to the Leckys’ secondburial ground at Ballykealy. The wallsare tumbling down and cattle wanderwithin the walls. It is a sad and dismalplace and yet there are 36 people buriedthere. I can still remember when I was achild and walls still stood and theentrance was a large blue door, which mymother would open with an enormouskey, set under a square lintel in themassive wall. Now unfortunately a treehas fallen across the gateway demolish-ing it completely. Quakers in the oldendays did not believe in marking a gravewith gravestones”.

Reproduced below is a copy of theoriginal lease of the old Quakers Grave-yard at Ballykealy – dated 2nd month1781. Beside this graveyard is the laterLecky private burial ground which is awalled, well maintained structure with afine cut granite entrance which featuresan ornate granite Celtic cross as seenfrom the photograph. The Lecky familyabandoned their Quaker faith towards theend of the 19th century which explains thereason for their own private burialground. Penny Alston (nee Lecky) fur-

ther adds “by the middle of the 19th cen-tury, my family were still Quakers butwere very wealthy and their dress, look-ing at portraits of that time, certainly didnot conform to the Quaker plain style.Shortly after they ceased to be membersof the Religious Society of Friendsinstead attending the Protestant Churchat Aghade”

A feature of Quaker burial grounds is themodest and unostentatious nature ofgrave markings which mainly consist ofsmall wooden crosses and later smallsimple headstones which is in stark con-trast to other mainstream graveyardswhere even planning permission is nowsometimes requested! However,Ballykealy burial ground is unmarked.Aside from Kilconnor and Ballykealy,New Garden approximately three milesoutside Carlow town on the Athy roadwas the other burial ground in CarlowCounty. It was acquired by the Societyof Friends in 1665 and is still in theirpossession unlike Kilconnor orBallykealy. Newgarden has an impres-sive entrance gate leading to a circularpath. Originally the Society also had aMeeting House here as well which wasgiven to them by Thomas Weston in

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God’s Acre Quaker cemetery, Ballybrommell

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1660, but after a short time this meetinghouse was moved to Tullow Street inCarlow town (see map). A meeting housewas built in 1712 on the North side ofTullow St. at the junction with Mosley’sLane and the land for it was leased in1716 “for ever”. A sum of £78 was raisedamong Friends for the construction andsignificantly the largest contributioncoming from Robert Lecky ofBallykealy. The building seated 250people. Ancillary buildings were erectedin the 19th century and the premises areseen on the town plan of 1873. Thesenew buildings blocked most of thenatural light into the building, leaving themeeting room poorly lit. The meetinghouse here in Tullow St was actively

used up to 1920 but the building was soldin 1927. Most of the building has nowbeen demolished and replaced byshop units.

The only present day reminder of thisonce busy meeting house are the oldwalls retained under a new roof at therear of the shop. Tullow is also listed ashaving a meeting house but very little isknow of it apart from the fact that it onlyconvened on week-days, not on Sundays.However it is believed that the MeetingHouse was sited on the grounds of thepresent Tullow Museum. The twofamilies most prominently associatedwith the Society of Friends in Tullowwere the Leybourne and Blair families.

Mrs. Blair and her daughter were knownto operate a laundry service alongside theMeeting House which was known locallyas The Swaddling House. The Methodistslater used this building as their placeof worship.

Apart from those already mentioned, theHaughton family were important CarlowQuakers. James Haughton was born in1795 in Carlow. His father was SamuelPearson Haughton who was married toMary Pim from Rushin, Queens Co.James Haughton was the first boarder inthe Ballitore School in 1807. He was aclose friend of Richard Allen, one of themost prominent Quakers of his time.Both Haughton and Allen were activists

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in the Hibernian Peace Society, whichagitated strongly against English militaryand political interference in India, Chinaand Afghanistan. Both also playedsignificant roles in the anti-slavery move-ment. They also linked up with Fr.Matthew in the temperance movement.The tell tale signs of faltering trends inQuakerism at this time are seen whenHaughton discontinued as a Friend in1834 when he joined another fringe sectThe Unitarian Congregation in Dublin.Later Haughton supported DanielO’Connell and later still he joined theYoung Irelanders in 1864.

His cousin, Benjamin born in 1823 tookover Barrow Mills in Graiguecullen fromhis father John Haughton who in turn hadbeen in partnership with his father,Samuel, as corn merchants at Burrin St.,in Carlow. Benjamin eventually returnedto his roots in England and The BarrowMills was taken over by Richard Shack-leton of Moone, Co. Kildare.

As alluded to earlier, the vast majority of‘Friends’ were of English origin. Manywere ‘convinced’ from the Church ofIreland while a small number were‘convinced’ from Catholicism. One suchwas Peter Doyle, born at Cooladine Co.Wexford who, when his mother diedwhen he was young was looked after bya ‘Friend’. He too became ‘convinced’.He lived for most of his life at Ballinacar-rig, Co. Carlow where he died in 1774.Another prominent Carlow connection isthe well-known and popular Thompsonfamily who have been noted for theirsteel engineering business for manygenerations. While the followingQuakers appear in the Carlow BoroughList 1832:Henry Biskett, Tullow St., - BakerSamuel Eves, Burrin St., - GentlemanThomas Haughton, Kelvin Grove –DistillerJohn Morris, Graigue – Coal Merchant John Thomspon, John St., - Merchant

The Province Men’s Monthly Meetingheld in Carlow on Dec. 21st was attendedby eleven members from Newgarden,Carlow, twelve from Louth, Dublin andWicklow, nine from Wexford and sevenfrom Moate, Co. Westmeath.

A rather intriguing Quaker marriage tookplace when the Carlow couple Ephraim

Heritage and his bride Elizabeth Churchmarried in 1674, thus bringing togetheran uncanny and quaintly uniqueChurch/Heritage union!

Any appraisal of Carlow Quakers wouldnot be complete without mentioning theimmense humanitarian contributionmade by the Quakers during the Famine.Their generosity and innate wish to helpthose in distress rested easily with theirQuaker beliefs. In every area of relief inCarlow County a member of theReligious Society of Friends were centralin providing relief when many membersof the Society set up soup kitchens andraised much needed money to relieve thechronic starvation and distress of ahumble, impoverished and beleagueredpeasantry.

Notwithstanding the above there seemedto be double standards at play. While theLeckys and their fellow gentry classeswere living extravagant and opulentlifestyles, the story unfolding all aroundthem was in stark contrast. Bear in mindthat this was against the appalling back-drop of widespread oppression of thenative Catholic populations which wascopper fastened in the late 17th to early18th century with the introduction of thedraconian Penal Laws when oppressivelegislation was enacted to protect theminority ruling classes and to furthersuppress an already downtrodden peasantpopulation. The warning signs of strife,poverty and distress finally found theirway onto the pages of The LeinsterReformer on the 13th November 1839under the heading “Great distress inBallon”. A meeting was convened withGeorge R Keogh, Esq in the chair. Of theten resolutions passed by far the mostsalient and disturbing are the lines in thefirst resolution “That within the parishesof Ballon and Aghade, upwards of 150families are in a state of great misery forthe want of firing; and that humanityloudly calls for prompt assistance topreserve them from ruin”. It also seemedsignificant that the parish priest Rev FrWilliam Kinsella and his Church ofIreland counterpart Rev George Dawsonwere involved in the relief. It is pertinentto note here that this distress and suffer-ing took place a mere four years after thecompletion of Ballykealy House, itsextensive landscaping, which includedthe planting of 7,563 trees, its two acre

walled garden and lavish surrounds.Equally noteworthy is the fact that it wasonly five or six years before the onset ofthe great famine which devastated thecountryside. On the one hand the localtenant farmers and cotters who weretrying to eke out a miserable existenceand trying to rear large families in shacks,hovels and cabins, while the aristocracyor gentry reveled in extravagant luxury.Support for the above observation comesfrom a familiar but unlikely source. Inhis History of Ireland in the 18th Century,the noted historian, politician and profes-sor W.E. Lecky, a cousin of theBallykealy landlords, wrote “It is not thepersecution of a sect, but the degradationof a nation ———— to crush to the dustthe people among whom theywere planted”.

However it has to be said that John JamesLecky contributed more than double theamount of other contributors when hedonated the sum of £101, whichobviously rested easily on his Quakershoulders.

The gradual decline and demise ofCarlow Quakers mirrored that elsewhere.For example The Watsons and theLeckys, two of the most powerful andprominent Quaker families, abandonedtheir Quaker beliefs. The rules and prin-ciples, the harsh and strict disciplineforced many to leave. Those who failedto uphold or live up to the Society’sdemanding and challenging code ofdiscipline and behavior were eitherexpelled or left of their own accord. Thedwindling number of Quakers in Carlowand nationally would be hugely disap-pointing to George Fox and his contem-pories, whose missionary zeal wasmatched or replicated by the vast major-ity of later Friends. It would seem thatthe Missionary status of the early Quak-ers was gradually eroded and exchangedfor wealth, power and standing whichwould have conflicted and contrastedgreatly with the simplicity, plainness andspirituality as originally expressed byGeorge Fox.

So in conclusion it is fair to say that theremaining present day Quakers andindeed their ancestors are a justifiablyproud, resilient and spiritual group whohave left and continue to leave an endur-ing valuable, virtuous and ethical legacy

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behind. So perhaps when you next havea Jacob’s biscuit, with a Wedgewood cupof tea – think of those pioneering Quakernames and raise a cup in their honour.

Bibliography:

Irish Quakers – Richard S Harrison 1997.Irish Quakers, 2nd Edition, Richard SHarrison 2008.The Irish Quakers- Maurice J Wigham1992.

Guide to Irish Quaker Records 1654-1860 - Olive C Goodbody – 1967.The Quaker Enterprise, Friends in Busi-ness – David Burns Winsor 1980.Quakers in Science and Industry - ArthurRaistrick, M.Sc, Ph D.The Friends Historical Library – Stock-ing Lane, Dublin.The Allens, Family and Friends, TenGenerations of Quaker Ancestry - CliveAllen and Helen Moss, 2007.Shackleton, An Irishman in Antarctica -

Jonathon Shackleton and JohnMacKenna, 2002.Ballon Rathoe Cronicle 2002.Ballon Rathoe Cronicle, 2006.The Nationalist and Leinster Times –P.18, 1st September 2015.Athy Heritage Centre.

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An Ancient Route Modernised

A Journey Along the Carlow Corridor,The Archaeology of the M9 CarlowBypass is the culmination of the archae-ological work carried out on the CarlowBypass prior to its construction in2005/2006. It contains the reports ofeach of the archaeological excavationscarried out, along with maps, images andreconstructions, all of which help to en-hance our understanding of life in Carlowover the past 10,000 years, from theMesolithic right through to the PostMedieval periods.

Visually the book is amazing. There aremany on site photographs, maps and sitemaps with detailed explanations andreconstructions that provide interpreta-tions of life as it was in Carlow fromprehistory into the historic period.

The book is divided into 8 chapters: SiteSummaries, Environmental Evidence,Hunter-gatherers in Mesolithic Carlow,

The Neolithic Discoveries, ScaredPlaces, Fulachtaí Fia and Settlements,Contextualising Cremations: Evidencefrom Prehistoric Burials and Continuityand Change in the Medieval and PostMedieval Landscape. The chapters arelaid out chronologically and discuss thesites excavated on the by-pass, themonuments, the features and finds thatwere excavated and what they mean inrelation to life in Carlow at the time andhow it all fits into a national context.

There is an impressive amount of infor-mation provided. At times it can getoverly technical and for a non-archaeol-ogist it can seem confusing but the use ofvisual aids provides a great understand-ing of how many of the sites would havelooked during periods of use. Foranybody who wants to delve deeper intothe technical aspects of the work carriedout on the Carlow by-pass the CD-ROMattached to the back cover is full ofreports and information that couldn’t beincluded in the publication.

For anybody with any interest in the ar-chaeology of Carlow this book is a greatread. It whets the appetitive for furtherarchaeological investigation throughoutthe county.

A Journey Along the Carlow Corridor –The Archaeology of the M9 CarlowBypass will appeal to people of all levels– whether you have a passing interest orare an academic archaeologist this bookprovides all levels of detail on prehistoricand historic Carlow.

D.K.

Book Review:

“A Journey Along The Carlow Corridor – The archaeol-ogy of the M9 Carlow Bypass”,

(Ed) Teresa Bolger, Colm Moloney and Damian ShielsISBN 978-0-9574380-9-5

Gary Hughes and DeirdreKearney in authenticmedieval costume

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Introduction

This paper will explore the history of thetown of Carlow from its earliest begin-nings up to the end of the medieval pe-riod.i It is a story of highs and lows, ofgreat possibilities and terrible setbacks.Carlow enjoyed some notable successduring the first centuries of its life. In thelater thirteenth century it was the centrefrom which the Earls of Norfolk admin-istered their valuable lands in Carlow,Kildare and Wexford. From 1364 to 1394Carlow played host to the Irish exchequerand associated courts and saw an influxof royal administrators and civil servants.The fifteenth century was a low point forthe town and by the start of the sixteenthcentury it was but a shadow of itsformer self.

OriginsCarlow town began, like many other set-tlements in the east and south of Ireland,as an Anglo-Norman castle town. TheNormans very often gravitated towardslocations that were already the focus ofsome settlement. It is debateable whetheror not this was the case at Carlow. Thelikely presence of a ford over the RiverBarrow, near to its confluence with theRiver Burren, suggests that the area mayhave attracted some early settlement.Smyth proposes that the Óenach Carmen,a major triennial assembly of the Lein-stermen, originally took place at the junc-tion of the river Barrow with its tributarythe Burren at Carlow.ii He argues that thelocation was in the heartland of Leinster,near to both Dinn Ríg and Mullaghmast,two ancient centres of royal power, andcentral besides for all the tribes ofthe province.

There is some further evidence indicatingthe presence of an early ecclesiastical siteat Carlow. Cron or Cróine ‘of Carlow’ isinvoked as one of the sainted protectorsof Leinster in a poem attributed to StMoling (615-697).iii This saint may be

linked to the area around the present Hay-market, which was formerly called Tem-plecroney Lane.iv A second earlyreference to Carlow appears with refer-ence to a grant by Cormac, King of UiBairrche, to St Comgal of Bangor (d.601-2).v According to Comerford, StComgal then founded a monastery atCarlow and there is later confirmation ofthis in the dedication of the parish churchof Carlow to Comgal.vi

There is also a tradition of an early Car-low monastery dedicated to Mary whichwas located in the Castle Hill area. Ac-cording to some commentators this estab-lishment survived into the later medievalperiod and its ruins could still be seen atthe end of the eighteenth century.vii Thisfoundation, if it existed, escapes all men-tion in the medieval sources and it is notlisted in the documents drawn up at thedissolution of the Irish monasteries in1540-1. Comerford, writing at the end ofthe nineteenth century mentions ‘someslight vestiges of an old ecclesiasticalbuilding with a burial ground attached onCastle Hill….this is traditionally knownas Mary’s Abbey’.viii Comerford was un-derstandably sceptical about the theorythat this was the site of an earlymonastery. There clearly was a burialground in this location; its position wasmarked on the early editions of the Ord-nance survey maps and a raised area witha least one gravestone can still be seenbehind one of the properties on CastleHill. Furthermore, recent excavation hasrevealed burials of late medieval andearly modern date on Castle Hill.ix Theremay have been a late-medieval churchand burial ground in this location, whichcatered for the needs of the castle and itsgarrison and possibly also functioned asthe parish church of the medieval town.It is unlikely, however, that it was at-tached to a religious community or that itdated back to the seventh century.

Arrival of the Anglo-Normans

It is fairly safe to conclude that the earli-est lay people to settle in Carlow were thefirst generation of Anglo and Cambro-Norman colonists who came to live in thesecurity shadow cast by the early castle.These people, or their heirs, were the firstcitizens of Carlow town. The twin con-struct of castle and town was very mucha part of the Anglo-Norman modusoperandi. Building a castle was neces-sary to establish control over land andpeople; founding a town enhanced thatcontrol by providing commercial oppor-tunities.x The Song of Dermot and theEarl, a poem or chanson composed inIreland in the late twelfth century con-tains the following lines:

In such manner, know ye all,Was the country plantedWith castles and with cities,With keeps and with strongholds.Thus well rooted wereThe noble renowned vassals.xi

The ‘noble renowned vassals’ were, ofcourse, the Anglo-Norman knights whoaccompanied Strongbow and Hugh deLacy to Ireland. The Song is describingthe process by which these men put downroots by ‘planting’ towns and castlesacross colonised Ireland. One of thesemen was John de Clahull who Strongbowchoose as marshal of Leinster and towhom he granted the territory of Uí Bair-rche – land on the right side of the Bar-row from above Carlow toLeighlinbridge.xii De Clahull, whose fam-ily may have been associated withNorthamptonshire, was the most frequentwitness of Strongbow’s Irish charters.xiiiThis indicates that he was close toStrongbow and frequently in his com-pany. John’s brother Hugh de Clahull be-came the first prior of the preceptory ofKnights Hospitallers founded by Strong-bow at Kilmainham c.1174.

After Strongbow’s death in 1176, Hughde Lacy became the most powerful mag-

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Growth and decline: the changing fortunes of Carlow town

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nate in Ireland. In 1181 Giraldus Cam-brensis tells us that he embarked on aproject to build ‘a very large number ofcastles throughout Leinster’ in the courseof which he built a castle for John deClahull ‘on the River Barrow not farfrom Leighlin’.xiv There has been muchdebate about the location of this castlebut Kieran O’Conor, who excavated Car-low Castle in the 1990s, made a strongcase for de Clahull as the owner of theearth and timber castle whose remains heuncovered.xv This was most probably amotte, carved out of the natural featuresof a knoll which overlooked the conflu-ence of the Rivers Barrow and Burren.The summit was divided into two wardsby a ditch and the discovery of the re-mains of a corn-drying kiln indicated thatfarming activities were carried out in oneof these wards. De Clahull remained inpossession of Carlow castle until the firstdecade of the thirteenth century and hisclerk Thurstin was granted ecclesiasticaldues out of several churches in the areaincluding St Comgal’s at Carlow, Slettyand Killeshin.xvi

William Marshal and the foundationof the borough of Carlow

In the early thirteenth century a stone cas-tle replaced de Clahull’s earthwork forti-fication. William Marshal, son-in-law ofStrongbow, is generally accepted as thebuilder of this castle. One theory is thatMarshal dispossessed de Clahull, whohad taken part in a rebellion againsthim.xvii William Marshal was not slow torecognise both the defensive and eco-nomic potential of the castle site. Mili-tarily, it was an excellent choice of sitefor a castle; economically, the site al-lowed control of the movement of rivertraffic towards the Marshal port ofNew Ross.xviii

It is likely that people had been attractedto settle in the vicinity of the castle fromits inception in 1181. Some were nodoubt connected with the construction ofthe earth and later the masonry castle,others came to benefit from the securityof the fortification and to provide serv-ices to those who resided there. Anglo-Norman towns grew up beside andaround castles, the main street of thetown literally starting at the castle gate.In the case of Carlow, because of envi-ronmental constraints, the town grew up

at a distance from the castle. Recent ar-chaeological excavation in Carlow un-covered several pits in the Castle Streetarea. Pottery sherds found in the pitsdated them to the early thirteenth centuryor possibly the late twelfth (Fig. 1).xix Itwas suggested by Kenneth Wiggins in theexcavation report that these pits were as-sociated with the very earliest phase ofAnglo-Norman settlement in Carlow.

The earliest documentary references tothe town dwellers of Carlow comes in acharter of 1223 but it is clear from thisdocument that Carlow was given the sta-tus of a borough by William Marshal inthe first decade of the thirteenth century.xxPeople who lived in a borough –burgesses - had certain privileges andthese are laid out in the 1223 charter.They were not obliged to answer anycharge except in the hundred court ofCarlow for any plea arising in the town.They were free of tolls throughout theearl’s lordship. They were at liberty tomarry their sons, daughters and widowswithout feudal constraints. They couldestablish a guild merchant and otherguilds. Most importantly, the burgessesand their heirs could hold their burgageplots for an annual rent of 12 pence inperpetuity. The charter mentions thatthese burgess rents were fixed in the timeof Geoffrey fitz Robert, seneschal ofWilliam Marshal. Fitz Robert died in1211 which indicates the existence of aborough at Carlow before this date. Thecharter was witnessed by John Marshal,Thomas Fitz-Winton, Seneschal of Lein-ster, Fulk FitzWarin, Walter Purcell,William Grasse, Hamond Grasse, RogerHyde, Radolph de Ralegh, Robert deCrupt, Master Henry, Master Hugh,Ralph and Robert, clerks, andmany others.

In the 1220s some Carolovians appear inthe Dublin guild merchant roll. Thisunique document records the names of8,400 individuals who were admitted intothe Dublin guild of merchants between1190 and 1265. A fee was required for ad-mittance and members of the guild wereallowed to trade in Dublin. The place oforigin of many of the individuals isgiven. c.1220 the names of Radulfus deKatherlaht, Hamundus de Katherlaht andRobertus de Katherlaht appear in theroll.xxi It is tempting to link them with theRadolph, Hamond and Robert who ap-

pear as witnesses to the 1223 charter. In1262 David Chapman de Katherlach wasadmitted to the Dublin guild merchant.xxiiA chapman was a small trader who car-ried goods around from place to place. These documents suggest that Carlowwas expanding from a cluster ofdwellings whose people serviced the cas-tle to a town with active commerciallinks. This picture is reinforced in 1247when the Earl Marshal’s lands were par-titioned and valued and the borough ofCarlow was worth £24 12s 4d.xxiii Thisfigure represented the profit that the lordreceived from burgess rents, tolls, millsand so on and it indicates a large andthriving settlement.

Carlow as caput of the Bigod lordshipof Carlow

Carlow town was included in the portionof Leinster assigned to Matilda Marshal,the eldest daughter of WilliamMarshal.xxiv The portion also includedmanors in Kildare, Carlow and Wexfordand the port of New Ross. Forty yearsearlier Matilda had married Hugh Bigod,earl of Norfolk and a member of one ofthe most important families in medievalEngland. The Bigods had extensive es-tates, valued at over £1,000 per annum,administered from their massive castle atFramlingham in Suffolk.xxv The lands thatMatilda Marshal brought to the Bigodsadded considerably to their wealth and aseldest daughter Matilda also was able topass on to her son the office of marshalof England. While there was no thoughtof the family coming to live in Ireland,the earls of Norfolk devoted considerableattention to the management of their Irishpossessions and Carlow was at the centreof the administrative system they set upto develop and exploit these holdings.xxviWe get a unique insight into the adminis-tration of the earls of Norfolk in Irelandfrom a collection of documents dating tothe 1280s. These include manor and bor-ough account rolls for the properties inCarlow, Kildare and Wexford.xxvii One setof documents comprises the accountsrendered by the treasurer of Carlow.xxviiiThe earl’s administration was based inCarlow Castle and comprised a numberof professional officials, many of themrecruited from the Bigod’s East Anglianholdings. They were overseen by theEarl’s Seneschal, who was paid an annualfee of £100. The seneschal earned his fee

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Growth and Decline: the changing fortunes of Carlow Town

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having to constantly travel between thelands of the earl, checking up on all theother officials and having to make goodout of his own pocket any shortfall in theaccounts.xxix Next in line was the treas-urer who presided over the earl’s excheq-uer at Carlow Castle and was paid £13 6s8d per annum.

The treasurer’s accounts reveal many in-teresting details about both the castle andthe town of Carlow at the end of the thir-teenth century. The rent paid by theburgesses of Carlow amounted to £8 11s6d each year.xxx This suggests that therewere around 170 burgage plots in thetown and a population of 680 if a multi-ple of four is used to estimate householdsize. In addition we are told that therewere a number of cottiers whose cottageslay ‘below the castle’. The provosts of thetown were John Hammond and AdamMercator, whose surname indicates amercantile occupation. There were

meadow lands near to the castle fromwhich hay was sold each year. Therewere three mills on the river in which theburgesses ground their corn and the lordtook his portion. Sales of grain fromthese mills amounted to almost £16 in1286.xxxi There were three fishing weirson the river, leased out to Vincent thefisherman for 18s per annum. The docu-ments mention merchants, chapmen, car-penters, carters, and smiths in the town.Repairs done to the castle indicate that itwas possible to buy most building mate-rials locally but lead for the roof had tobe sourced in Dublin and a specialisedtype of nail called an ulernail necessi-tated a trip to New Ross.xxxii

By this period, it can be proposed that thetown of Carlow had taken shape with its170 burgage plots aligned along threemajor streets – Castle Street, DublinStreet and Tullow Street. The street planof the medieval town would therefore ap-

pear to have been of cross-linear patternformed by the intersection of these threestreets.xxxiii The market place may havebeen located at this intersection or possi-bly in Dublin Street, the broadest of themedieval streets. In 1286 the citizens ofCarlow were fined for failing to buildbridges over the Rivers Barrow and Bur-ren.xxxiv There is no further documentaryevidence for bridges until 1540 when thebridge over the Barrow was reported tobe broken and in disrepair but it is likelythat there was a timber bridge over theBarrow in the medieval period.xxxv

The position of the medieval parishchurch is debateable, although it has beenproposed that the later St Mary’s churchoccupies the site of its medieval prede-cessor.xxxvi Documentary references to thechurch are very scanty. It is known thatat the end of the twelfth century, whenJohn de Clahull was the patron, it wasdedicated to St Comgall but it appears tohave changed its dedication to St Mary inthe course of the thirteenth century. In1304 Roger Bigod’s right to present ornominate the rector of the church of StMary of Carlow was valued at 50 marks(£33 6s 8d).xxxvii The value of this right,or advowson as it was known, reflectedthe value of the church and 50 marks sug-gests a large parish church with manytithe-paying parishioners.

The second half of the thirteenth centurywas therefore a very good time in Car-low’s history. Although the town lackeda resident noble family – Roger Bigod,the fourth earl only visited once – thepresence of the Earl of Norfolk’s admin-istration all clad in their characteristic liv-ery must have created a distinctiveatmosphere in the town. The treasurer’saccount for 1293-4 shows £39 9s 10dspent on red and green cloth and fur forthe robes of the officials.xxxviiiThe buildingwork on the castle created employmentand the passing traffic meant lots of busi-ness for the inns and wine taverns. Theremust have been a growing awareness thattrouble was brewing in the surroundingcountryside but the town would haveseen itself as relatively secure. There isno evidence for stone walls around thetown in this period although earthenbanks and ditches may have defined theurban area.

Although Roger Bigod profited greatly

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Fig 1. Pit excavated at Castle Street and medieval pottery sherds foundthere. Images reproduced with permission of Judith Carroll and Company


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from his Irish lands, he was living waybeyond his means and owed very sub-stantial sums to Italian money lenders.xxxixHe also, despite two marriages, had notproduced any children so had no heirs. In1302 he took the momentous step of sur-rendering to King Edward I all his cas-tles, towns and lands in England, Walesand Ireland.xl He received them backfrom the king on the condition that,should he die without heirs all of hislands would revert to the crown. This iswhat happened in 1306 and the descrip-tions of his lands which were drawn upat that time show that they were alreadyin a rundown state.xli In Carlow 160 bur-gages are still recorded but various build-ings in and around the castle aredescribed as ‘in need of repair’. Therewere three watermills worth eight marks(£5 6s 8d) per annum and three fishingweirs worth five shillings, a considerablereduction from their value in the 1280s.Carlow was granted to Thomas de Broth-erton, the king’s half-brother and in 1348the lands of Carlow were divided be-tween his two daughters.xlii The king,however, kept the castle in his own handsat this time. The first half of the four-teenth century was a difficult period forthe town. The rural hinterland sufferednot only from absence of lordship butalso from the famine of 1315-18 and theBruce invasion of the same period. Therewas increasing threat from the Gaelicfamilies of the area and in 1326 the O’-Mores of Laois killed eighty men of Car-low and its neighbourhood.xliii The BlackDeath, which probably reached in townearly in 1349 also took its toll. Some ofthe townspeople may have joined thethousands who went to bathe in the wa-ters of St Moling’s well in St Mullins inan effort to ward off the deadly plague.

Carlow as administrative capital ofIreland

It was at this low point that the rather sur-prising decision was taken by the newJusticiar of Ireland, Lionel of Clarence,son of King Edward III, to transfer themost important department of the Anglo-Irish administration, the exchequer, toCarlow. The decision was made for sev-eral reasons but the fact that there was astrong royal castle in the town was a sig-nificant factor.xliv It was also hoped thatCarlow would be easier of access thanDublin for the sheriffs and local officials

of the southern parts. In addition, it wasfelt that increasing the garrison in the cas-tle and improving the defences of thetown would deter attacks by the Irish andhelp maintain peace in the surround-ing area.

The exchequer was established in Carlowby October 1361 when an order was is-sued for the transport of boards and otheritems to Carlow for the repair and re-building of the castle and exchequerthere.xlv The move was short lived and theexchequer moved back to Dublin in 1363reporting that: The said town and the castle there arenot adequate for the safe custody ofthe rolls, writs and memoranda, be-cause the town is almost totally de-stroyed and burned by the Irishenemies on many occasions.xlvi

The exchequer was back in Carlow by1364 and this time they remained forthirty years. The decision was taken tospend large sums of money in makingCarlow a secure home for the financialadministration and between 1364 and1366 a total of £182. 10s 3d was spent onthe castle and the town.xlvii This includedthe wages of masons and carpentersworking on the castle, repairing and roof-ing the towers and the hall, constructinga house within the castle walls and an-other beside the castle for the exchequercourt.

One source records that Lionel gave £500– a huge sum – for the walling of thetown.xlviii In 1375 three exchequer offi-cials were ordered to supervise all work-men ‘working on the walls of Carlow andelsewhere in connection with the enclos-ing of the said town”.xlix In 1384 the treas-urer accounted for £18 for the cost ofmaking new gates for Carlow includinglocks and keys for the gates.l

These new defences did not deter theIrish and Carlow continued to be attackedand burned. The exchequer officials andclerks who had been forced to move fromDublin to Carlow sent in a continuousstream of complaints about their lack ofsecurity and also about the high price ofaccommodation and foodstuffs in Carlowas a result of the great influx of peoplefrom various parts of the land. They weregiven an extra allowance but still werenot happy.

The townspeople of Carlow were nothappy either. There was a definite percep-tion that the presence of the exchequer inCarlow made it an even more attractivetarget for the Irish. The burgesses ownedlands outside of the town and found thatthey could not go to cultivate their landsfor fear of attack. Richard Wade a promi-nent burgess who was involved in the de-fence of the town and who had killedmembers of the Mac Murrough and O’-More families complained that he wasleft almost destitute and could not leavethe town because all the Irish of Leinsterhad been offered a reward for cutting offhis head.li

In 1392 Richard Walsh, former chamber-lain of the exchequer and rector of Car-low sent a plaintive petition to KingRichard II.lii He informed the king that hehad been in his service for close to fortyyears and now in his old age was ruinedas his houses and goods had been burntand robbed. Despite the arson and rob-bery he must continue to dwell in Carlowtown for comfort and aid of the Com-mons, ‘or otherwise they will have toleave the said town waste without beingre-inhabited for ever’.

On the eve of King Richard II’s first visitto Ireland in 1394 conditions in Carlowand the surrounding area were extremelyunsettled. In 1392-3 the inhabitants ofCarlow petitioned the king for an al-lowance to rebuild their town which theysaid ‘is the head and comfort of Lein-ster’.liii They told the king that many in-habitants had fled and asked for the repairof the gates and enclosures of the saidtown. Those still living in the town ‘hadit in mind to go and better themselveselsewhere’. The response was not exactlygenerous; twenty pounds was granted tobe divided equally between those whowere willing to reinhabit the town to bepaid in proportion to the building carriedout by them. In 1394 a master RichardGonner of Dublin was sent to Carlow forthree months to make ‘gunnes and otherarmaments for the defence of the town’.livAll this proved to no avail however andwhen the exchequer finally moved backto Dublin in 1394, Carlow was left aban-doned, its castle no longer a seat of gov-ernment although it did remain as a royalfortress on the frontier with theLeinster Irish.Fifteenth Century

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The Fifteenth Century opened with an at-tack on the town of Carlow by Art MacMurrough in 1405.lv By 1435 it was re-ported that the county of Carlow hadbeen completely overrun by Irish ene-mies and that only the castles of Tullowand Carlow remained in the hands of thecrown and those loyal to it.lvi The castleand town had at some point been grantedto Sir John de Mowbray, duke of Norfolkwho held it at his death in 1432.lvii In1463 both town and castle were de-scribed as ruined, waste and desolate andtaken into the king’s hand for 60 yearsduring which custody was given to theEarl of Desmond.lviii

In the last quarter of the fifteenth century,the Fitzgerald earls of Kildare were ex-panding their power and territory withinLeinster and in the 1480s much ofCounty Carlow was brought back underthe control of the administration.lix In1495 Gearoid Mor, earl of Kildare fellout of favour with the English crown andwas imprisoned in London. His brotherJames Fitzgerald seized Carlow castlefrom its royal constable and held itagainst the king. It eventually surren-dered after a four month siege.lx The cas-tle was then rather surprisingly placedinto the hands of Mac Murrough and O’-Conor Faly for safekeeping. WhenGearoid Mor was reappointed deputylieutenant in 1496 he had to raid the landsof these Gaelic lords to get them to returnCarlow castle to the crown.lxi As the me-dieval period ended and the early modernperiod began Carlow faced into a periodof even more turmoil. A document whichwas drawn up in 1540 gives us a snapshotof the town and castle at that date and isan appropriate note on which to end.lxiiIn 1540 the castle was described as strongand defensive but the bridge over theBarrow was broken and in disrepair. Inthe town of Carlow there were 22 cot-tages and the inhabitants rendered eachyear one and a half beef carcases and 72gallons of ale. The contrast with the townof 170 burgesses each paying their 12drent in the 1280s is very striking. Thenames of those witnessing the charter, de-scribed as 15 honest and lawful men fromCarlow and its locality are similarly re-vealing. There are still some Anglo-Nor-man names such as William Power,Walter Wall and Edmund Barry but Irishnames predominate. These includePatrick McDonelsyn, Donald McColla-

tan and Thadh O’Gonan. There are alsosome ‘mixed’ names such as EdmundMcRory, indicating mixed ethnicities.Carlow town ended the medieval periodtransformed from a thriving Anglo-Nor-man borough to a small community com-prising some descendants of the originalsettlers but with a much stronger Gaelicelement among its inhabitants.

i This paper was delivered at the Carlow800 history conference, Carlow College,August 2013.ii A.P. Smyth, Celtic Leinster. Towards anHistorical Geography of Early Irish Civ-ilization A.D. 500-1000, (Dublin, 1982),p. 35.ii Pádraig Ó Riain, A dictionary of IrishSaints, (Dublin, 2011), p. 232.iv W. Ellis, ‘A forgotten Carlow TownCemetery’, Carloviana, 47, (1999), p. 17. v Ó Riain, Dictionary of Irish Saints, p.218.vi Rev. M. Comerford, Collections Relat-ing to the Diocese of Kildare and Leigh-lin, vol. iii (Dublin, 1886), p. 33; AubreyGwynn and R.N. Hadcock, Medieval Re-ligious Houses Ireland (Dublin, 1988), p.375; J. T. Gilbert (ed.) Crede Mihi. Themost ancient register book of the Arch-bishops of Dublin before the Reforma-tion, (Dublin, 1897), p.52.vii William Windsor, The Post-chaiseCompanion: Or, Travellers’ DirectoryThrough Ireland. (Dublin, 1786) p. 220.The foundation date of 643 is given andthis is repeated by Rev Patrick Moran inhis 1873 edition of Archdall’s Monasti-con Hibernicum. Archdall does not men-tion a religious foundation at Carlow.Mervyn Archdall, Monasticon Hiber-nicum: or, a history of the abbeys, prior-ies, and other religious houses in Ireland,ed. P. Moran (Dublin, 1873), vol I, p. 62. viii Comerford, Collections Relating to theDiocese of Kildare and Leighlin, vol. iii,p. 34.ix Judith Carroll and Kenneth Wiggins,‘Report on archaeological monitoringand excavation carried out for the Carlowmain drainage scheme 2010-2012’ (Un-published Report for Carlow CountyCouncil and Carlow Town Council,2013), p. 2.x See O. H. Creighton Castles and land-scapes. Power, community and fortifica-tion in medieval England. (London,2002), p. 153.xi The Song of Dermot and the Earl, ed.

G.H. Orpen, (Oxford, 1892), pp 232-3.xii Song of Dermot, pp 226-7, 306. Eric StJohn Brooks (ed.), Knights’ fees in coun-ties Wexford, Carlow and Kilkenny(Dublin, 1950), pp 56-8.xiii Marie Therese Flanagan, Irish society,Anglo-Norman settlers, Angevin king-ship. Interactions in Ireland in the latetwelfth century, (Oxford, 1989), pp 159-60.xiv Gerald of Wales: Expugnatio Hiber-nica, the conquest of Ireland: by GiraldusCambrensis, ed. A.B. Scott and F.X. Mar-tin (Dublin, 1978), p. 195.xv Kieran O Conor, ‘The origins of Car-low castle’, Archaeology Ireland, 11:3(Autumn, 1997), 13-16; Kieran O’Conor,‘Castle of Carlow’ Carloviana, 46(1998), 37-42.xvi Crede Mihi, p. 52.xvii Kieran O’Conor and Rev. AdrianEmpey (personal comments).xviii Linda Doran, ‘Lords of the river val-leys: economic and military lordship inthe Carlow Corridor, c. 1200-1350 – Eu-ropean model in an Irish context’ inLinda Doran & James Lyttleton (eds)Lordship in Medieval Ireland Image andreality. (Dublin, 2007), pp 99-129 atp.114.xix Carroll and Wiggins, ‘Report on

archaeological monitoring andexcavation carried out for theCarlow main drainage scheme2010-2012’, p. 25.

xx G. Mac Niocaill (ed.) Na Buirgéisí XII-XV aois. 2 vols. (Dublin, 1964), vol. 2, pp130-4.xxi Philomena Connolly and GeoffreyMartin, (eds) The Dublin guild merchantroll, c.1190–1265, (Dublin, 1992), pp 26,28, 45.xxii Connolly & Martin, Dublin guild mer-chant roll, p. 106.xxiii H.S. Sweetman (ed.) Calendar of doc-uments relating to Ireland 1171-1307,(CDI) 5 vols (London, 1875-86), vol. 2,1252-84, no. 933, p. 161.xxiv Margaret Murphy, ‘The profits oflordship. Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolkand the lordship of Carlow 1270-1306’ inLinda Doran and James Lyttleton, (eds.),Lordship in medieval Ireland: image andreality (Dublin, 2007), pp 75-98.xxv Marc Morris, The Bigod Earls of Nor-folk in the thirteenth century (Gateshead,2005).xxvi W.F. Nugent, ‘Carlow in the middleages’ Journal of the Royal Society of An-tiquaries of Ireland (JRSAI), 85 (1955),

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pp 62-76.xxvii Murphy, ‘Profits of Lordship’, Ap-pendix 2.xxviii The National Archives of the UnitedKingdom (TNA) PRO SC6/1239/1-9.The account for 1282-3 was published inJames Mills, ‘Accounts of the earl ofNorfolk’s estates in Ireland, 1279-94’JRSAI, 22, (1892), pp 50-62.xxix Murphy, ‘Profits of lordship’, pp 92-3.xxx TNA: PRO SC6/1237/12-3.xxxi TNA: PRO SC6/1237/18.xxxii TNA: PRO SC6/1239/5.xxxiii J. Bradley and H.A. King, Urban Ar-chaeological Survey. Part X: Co. Carlow.Office of Public Works (unpublished,1990), p. 5.xxxiv Mills, ‘Accounts of the Earl of Nor-folk’s estates’, p. 54.

xxxv Crown surveys of lands 1540–41,with the Kildare rental begun in 1518, ed.Gearóid Mac Niocaill (Dublin, 1992), pp2-3; A.A. Horner, ‘Two eighteenth-cen-tury maps of Carlow town’ in Proceed-ings of the Royal Irish Academy, 78(1978), 115-26 at p. 125.xxxvi Bradley and King, Urban Archaeo-logical Survey, pp 9-10; Horner, ‘Twoeighteen-century maps’, p. 124; AvrilThomas, The Walled Towns of Ireland, 2vols (Dublin, 1992), vol. 2, p. 35.xxxvii CDI, vol. 5, 1302-1307, no. 367,p. 124 xxxviii TNA: PRO SC6/1239/9.xxxix Murphy, ‘Profits of lordship’, p. 94

xl Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward I,vol. 4, 1301-07, pp 29-30.xli CDI, vol. 5, 1302-1307, no. 617,pp 172-3.

xlii Calendar of Close Rolls, 1346-9, p. 560.

xliii The Annals of Ireland by Friar JohnClyn, ed. B. Williams (Dublin, 2007), p.186.xliv Philomena Connolly, The head andcomfort of Leinster’: Carlow as the ad-ministrative capital of Ireland, 1361-1394’ in Thomas McGrath (ed.) Carlow

History and Society. (Dublin, 2008). pp 307-330 at p. 310.xlv Connolly, ‘The head and comfort ofLeinster’, p. 311.xlvi Connolly, ‘The head and comfort ofLeinster’, p. 311.xlvii Connolly, ‘The head and comfort ofLeinster’, p. 313.xlviii Chartularies of St Mary’s abbey,Dublin, … and annals of Ireland, 1162–1370, ed. J.T. Gilbert (2 vols, London,1884), vol. ii, p. 396.xlix Connolly, ‘The head and comfort ofLeinster’, p. 314.l Irish exchequer payments, 1270-1446,ed. Philomena Connolly (Dublin,1998),p. 544.li Connolly, ‘The head and comfort of Le-inster’, pp 316-7. lii A roll of the proceedings of the King’scouncil in Ireland: for a portion of thesixteenth year of the reign of Richard theSecond, A. D. 1392, ed. James Graves

(London, 1877), no. 7, pp 11-12.liii A roll of the proceedings of the King’scouncil in Ireland, no. 5, pp 8-10.liv Rotulorum patentium et clausorumcancellariae Hiberniae calendarium, ed.Edward Tresham (Dublin, 1828), p. 151.lv Art Cosgrove, ‘The emergence of thePale, 1399-1447’ in idem ed. A New His-tory of Ireland II. Medieval Ireland 1169-1534. (Oxford, 1987), p. 453.lvi A.J. Otway-Ruthven, A History of Me-dieval Ireland. 2nd Edition. (New York,1979), pp 369-70.lvii Lord Walter Fitzgerald, 1909-11) ‘Thecastle and manor of Carlow. Part I’ inJournal of the County Kildare Archaeo-logical Society, 5, pp 311-338 at p. 328.lviii Statute rolls of the parliament of Ire-land, 1st to the 12th years of the reign ofKing Edward IV, ed. H.F. Berry (Dublin,1914), pp 54-7.ix Stephen Ellis, Tudor Ireland: crown,community and the conflict of cultures,1470-1603. (London, 1985), pp 65-6.lx Art Cosgrove, Art Late Medieval Ire-land, 1370-1541. (Dublin, 1981), p. 68.lxi Ellis, Tudor Ireland, pp 85-6.lxii Crown surveys of lands 1540–41, withthe Kildare rental begun in 1518, ed.Gearóid Mac Niocaill (Dublin, 1992), pp2-3.

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Fig. 2: Detail from Uto Hogerzeil’s reconstruction drawing of Carlow castle showing a portion of thewall and the Castle Gate


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.Introduction

My first close contact with Fiacc wasarranged by a noted Carlow historian,the late Alec Burns of happy memory.The essential elements of Alec’shairdressing business grace the centreof the ground floor of Carlow CountyMuseum. When I was a very youngmember of the Old Carlow Society(since renamed Carlow Historical andArchaeological Society), he gave me abook, so that I could read out the tradi-tions of Fiacc for an audience ofamateur historians on an outing to theMoat in Rathvilly, County Carlow.That was about the year 1957.

Saint Fiacc today

2015 is the sixteen hundredth anniversaryof Fiacc’s birth in 415 A.D. This date hasbeen calculated from his presence as “anadolescent poet” at the arrival of Patrickfor the first time at Tara in 432 A.D andis endorsed by many scholars throughoutthe intervening centuries.

For more than five hundred years, Sleaty,just three km North of Carlow on theWest bank of the Barrow, was a thrivingecclesiastical centre. It is the burial placeof saints, scholars and at least one King.It was the seat of the first Irish-bornbishop of all Leinster. Now it is a quietcarefully tended cemetery, holding(among many modern monuments eachtelling a fascinating story) two granitecrosses, both more than fourteen hundredyears old.

O'Donovan in his Ordnance Surveyletters expresses the belief that the HighCross dates from the time of Fiacchimself.

Saint Patrick and Saint Fiacc.

Saint Patrick himself was present when

the site, obviously much more extensivethan the present walled area, was markedout and the positions of the church andthe refectory were chosen. The buildingserected then were built of wood andperhaps wattle and daub, so no trace ofthem can be identified at present. Tradi-tion says the high cross marks Fiacc’sgrave and the present church ruin istherefore unlikely to be on the site of theoriginal gathering place. There is the po-tential for archaeologists of the future toexplore the area in the hope of findingevidence such as the Neolithic buildingremains that were unearthed along theroute of the M9 before construction atRussellstown, not far to the East acrossthe river Barrow. After all, the remains ofSaint Fiacc’s bishopric head-quarters area couple of thousand years younger thanthose from the New Stone Age excavatedahead of the motor-way construction.They can therefore be expected to be atleast equally fruitful in enriching ourknowledge of how life was lived at thosedistant times.

While we await more concrete evidenceof the glorious period of Graiguecullenand Killeshin history, there are many

illustrious records and legends of ourpatron saint.

The first life history of Saint Patrick,outside those written by the great manhimself, is attributed to Fiacc, son of Ercmac Dara. This is contained in thirty fourshort verses in old Irish. The extent towhich the importance and provenance ofthis work is recognised can be gaugedfrom the ubiquitous appearance ofreference to it throughout the interveningcenturies wherever biographical sourcesfor Patrick are discussed. Most recentlythe on-line library of Saint Pachomiuscontains a translation of the hymn. Thislibrary is a source file of documentsconnected to the Greek Orthodox Faith.The translation presented there is thatprepared by Eugene O’Curry (1796 -1862) the notable self-taught nineteenthcentury scholar who is one of theout-standing specialist experts in the fieldof medieval Irish manuscripts.

Before pursuing the fascinating subjectof the hymn further, I would like to intro-duce Fiacc himself in so far as my child-like scratching of the surface of hislegacy has given me insight.

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Saint Fiacc.The Steve Jobs of Fifth Century Ireland

High Cross at Sleaty

Hugh O’Rourke

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Saint Fiacc_Layout 1 28/10/2015 21:40 Page 1

Fiacc was not, unfortunately, a native ofGraigue. He was born into a noble familybased at Rathvilly. His mother died whilehe was still a child and he was fostered byan influential maternal uncle, DubthachMac Ua Lugair who was chief Bard ofIreland at the Court of Laoghaire at Tara.There is a very detailed legend concerningthe progress of Fiacc toward the vocationof bishop by way of his close associationwith his illustrious uncle.

My perception of the career of Fiacc isthat it might be compared to the SteveJobs of fifth century Ireland. He wassomething of an orphan adopted into ascholarly profession. It was a time of in-formation revolution. While he followedthe initial apprenticeship in the bardicpoet/lawyer profession, the first writtenworks in the manuscript format that wasto dominate the scriptoria of the Isles ofthe North for the next five centuries cameinto being. Simultaneously the code oflaws that had for centuries ruled Irishcivilisation were for the first time writtenin the new fonts and purged of much oftheir anti-Christian content. (TheSenchus Mór)

There is no documented record of Fiacc’spresence during the compilation ofSenchus Mór, yet in view of the centralposition of his patron uncle in the trialleading up to it, and in the execution ofthe work, there can be little doubt of hisclose association with the project. As theadopted protégé of Dubtach Mac UaLugair, he must have shared in theresearch, discussion and indeed therecitation of some of the ancientobservances that were reviewed, redactedand recorded in that seminal book of theBrehon Laws.

In the context of European parallel devel-opment, the Theodosian code, providingsimilar Christianisation of Roman Law,from which Senchus Mór was separatedby a mere three years in its publication,Fiacc was very probably fully integratedinto the Global developments ofhis profession.

Biography.

Cathair Mór was King of Leinster andÁrd Rí at the end of the second centuryA.D. The Uí Bairriche, ancestors of theO’ Gormans were descendants of this

Royal line and a member of the sept wasErc mac Dara father of Fiacc. Throughthe Cathair Mór connection, Fiacc wasalso related to Dermot, founder ofKilleshin in 503 A.D. and to Moling ofSt. Mullins with a consequent connectionto the ancestors of Mc MorroughKavanaghs.

The first record of Fiacc is his presencewith his uncle at Saint Patrick’s entranceto the Court of Laoghaire at Tara, onMarch 25th, 433 A.D. He followed theexample of Dubthach and stood tohonour Patrick and his companionsdespite the Royal interdict.

Tradition (and the asides in the TripartiteLife of Saint Patrick attributed to SaintEvin) tells us that he advanced to theprofession of bard, married (there is noname remembered for his wife), had ason and was widowed in early life. Thenext recorded meeting is with Patrick andDubthach when the New Irish ChristianChurch has advanced to the stage wherea need arose for a structure for the admin-istration of the Faithful in the province ofLeinster. It is worth noting that at thisperiod, the Roman Empire was unravel-ling under the pressure of several outsidetribes who over the following centurieswould be converted to Christianity, inmany cases by the successors of Fiaccand other abbot / bishops established by

Patrick.

Although in later life, (Fiacc lived to theripe old age of 105 years) he was notedfor his monastic life of prayer and fasting,at the time of his induction as bishop, hehad reached only the level in Christianfaith of a learner or “catechumen”. I feeltherefore that his acceptance of the posi-tion offered was driven by his dedicationto the talent of his uncle Dubthach to agreater extent than by religious zeal.

In his Collections of the Dioeceses ofKildare and Leighlin, written at the endof the nineteenth century, BishopComerford quotes from the TripartiteLife of Saint Patrick.

“Then Patrick placed over all Leinster, assupreme Bishop, Saint Fiacc, a man ofmost celebrated sanctity, whose firstconversion and ordination occurred inthis manner. When Saint Patrickproceeded from Tara to the territory ofSouthern Leinster, called Hy-Kennselach, he met in the plain com-monly called Mag-Craithar, whereafterwards was built the church ofDomhnach Mór, that royal poet,Dubthach, the son of Lugaire, who, aswell on account of his great piety towardsGod, and devotion to Patrick, as onaccount of his excellence in the metricalart, and his ancient and eloquent works,

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is of very celebrated memory and fameamong the historians of Ireland. To thisman, who had already embraced theChristian faith, the blessed Prelate wasmuch attached and devoted, as well onaccount of the singular probity of theman, as for the skill, on account of whichhe was the arch-poet or the prince ofpoets of the age of the Kingdom. Theblessed man, then conversing familiarlywith him asked of him where he shouldfind, according to the principle of theApostle, a man, the husband of one wife,sober, prudent, of good behaviour,hospitable, a teacher; whom havingordained him Bishop, he might placeover that province. Dubthach answeredthat all these qualities were (to be) foundin a certain disciple of his, Fiacc the sonof Erc, whose wife had lately departed,leaving an only son, by name Fiacra, andwhom he had sent into Connaught topresent certain poems of his to theprinces of that land. While they wereengaged in these discourses they beheldFiacc returning; whom when he saw themind of Patrick was borne towards him,Dubthach resolved to induce him toconsent to the wishes of the holy man,although otherwise he would not, withoutreluctance, forego his presence. And tothis end Dubthach and Patrick devise thispious craft. For they pretend thatDubthach is immediately to receive theclerical tonsure from the hand of Patrick.Which, when Fiacc coming up, under-stood, he says to the holy prelate---HolyFather, whether would it not be better thatI should receive clerical tonsure, who amof younger age and less necessary to thestate than my master, who is advanced inyears and very necessary for his children,and is (held) in great esteem by the chiefsof the kingdom; Patrick answered that thespontaneous offering was grateful to him.Patrick, therefore first baptized Fiacc,who before was only a catechumen, andafterwards gave him tonsure, and deliv-ered to him an alphabet written with hisown hand, and imparted his benediction,which he having obtained, learned the en-tire alphabet in one day (or in fifteen daysas others say), and written within a shortspace of time, assisted by the Grace ofthe Holy Ghost, made such progress inthe study of sanctity and letters, that heseemed to his master worthy, not only tobe ordained bishop, first of all Lagenians,but also to be placed over that provinceas supreme prelate. Patrick ordained also

by his own hand also Fiacc’s son, Fiacra,after he had become mature in years andlearning. Saint Fiacc first built a churchin a place which, from his name, wasafterwards called Domhnach-Fiacc i.e.the Church of Fiacc, and he (SaintPatrick) left him sacred utensils, namely,a ministerial bell, the epistles of St. Pauland a pastoral staff. He left seven of his(disciples) companions of his labours,and imitators of his actions, namely,Muchatoc of Innisfail; Augustin of Innis-beg; Tecan, Diarmait, Nainnid, Paul andFedhelim but the most holy bishop andabbot, Fiacc remained in the church ofDomhnach-Fiacc until he had sent beforehim to heaven sixty saints of his disci-ples. But afterwards an angel of the Lordcame to him, saying that the place of hisresurrection would not be there butbeyond the river to the West; and he bidshim to build a monastery there, in a placecalled Cuil-muige, assigning a proper andconvenient place for each of the officials,for he directed him to build a Refectorywhere (he should find) a boar, and achurch where he should find a doe. Theholy man, a pattern of obedience,answered the angel that he would notdare to commence building a churchunless his Father and master, Patrick,

would first measure and consecrate itssite and dimensions. Patrick therefore,being informed and requested, came tothat place which is commonly calledSlebhte, i.e. mountains and there accord-ing to the directions of the angel, he laidand consecrated the foundations of achurch and a monastery, but that place inwhich the church and monastery ofSlebhte were built, was granted, not toFiacc, but to Patrick by Crimthann theson of Kenselah King of Leinster, whowas washed a little before in the savinglaver of Baptism, and was afterwardsburied in that same place. For the noblefamily from which Fiacc sprang, wasthen very much oppressed, and banishedinto various parts of Ireland by the afore-said Crimthann, King of Leinster. Fromit monks in the territory of Hy-Crimthannderive their origin and monks in Ulster,and the people of Kinnell-Ena in Mun-ster. And amongst others then banishedwere four brothers of Saint Fiacc-namely,Ailill, Aengus mór, Conal and Ether-schel; and their father’s name wasMac-Erc. Whence although the place inwhich the church of Slebhte was built,was in the patrimony of Saint Fiacc, hewould not have received it from the Kingon account of the animosities anddiscords just mentioned, which existedbetween him and the family and brothersof Saint Fiacc, had not Saint Patrickinterposed; at whose intercession KingCrimthann, granted to Saint Fiacc notonly a place for building, but also aportion adjoining it, or a fifth part of hispaternal lands, with which he enrichedthat church, in which he placed anEpiscopal see. Notwithstanding this,Crimthann was a King pious towardsGod and devoted to the servant of God,Patrick, and piously liberal and bountifulin erecting and endowing the churches ofGod. For he built and endowed withlands, first thirty churches, and after-wards forty, to God and Patrick, in theterritory of Hy-Kennselach, and EasternLeinster; among which were the churchof Domhnach-Craithar, of which above;and of Inis-fail, in which he left SaintsMochonic and Machadoc and another inInis-beg, in which he left Erditusand Augustine.”

This is the core of our knowledge ofFiacc from the currently available trans-lations of early written records. Someother manuscripts and glosses fill out the

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picture just a little more. The only phys-ical feature of Fiacc reported is that hewas fair-haired. Even that statement isnot universally accepted. He travelled onfoot throughout his bishopric, scorningthe use of a chariot until he becameextremely lame due to a chafer lodgingin a wound on his leg, gnawing the bone.Even then he accepted the chariot sent tohim by Patrick only after most pressingpersuasion.

Each Ash Wednesday he set out on footfrom Sleaty and walked to Clopook nearTimahoe where he lived on five smallloaves sprinkled with ashes until hisreturn to the abbey on Palm Sunday.Writing in 1972, An tAth. Peadar MacSuibhne reported that a local traditionstill survived at Clopook of a holy man(not naming Fiacc) who spent each lentthere and returned to his monastery byway of an underground passage.

At Sleaty, a well has been venerated inFiacc’s honour and was the scene of abush where token rags were tied in livingmemory. The Kearns Family were activein maintaining it as a place of pilgrimageup to thirty five years ago and currentlyare restoring access to it.

Saint Fiacc's Hymn

Returning to the hymn of Fiacc, one tra-dition has it composed in the cave atClopook. By reference to a line that has

been translated as a reference to the de-struction of Tara as an accomplished fact,scholars generally refuse to accept thecurrent twelfth century copy as a wordfor word copy of Fiacc’s original compo-sition. As noted below, politics andscholarly competition have broughtsignificant discussion to the provenance,structure and integrity of this document.

There are two copies of this hymn in oldIrish surviving in manuscript form fromthe twelfth-century. It is contained withother hymns in a volume Liber Hymno-rum one version of which is in TrinityCollege and the other is held at theMícheál Ó Chléirig Institute at UCD.Both appear to have been at one time inthe possession of Bishop Ussher (1581-1656) at Trinity College Dublin whereone still resides. The other has sincefollowed a path that traces not just thetravails of Ireland but the majorcataclysms of modern Europe in forma-tion. There is evidence that it was loaned/ given or in some other way exchangedinto the hands of the Franciscans atDonegal by Ussher himself. It nextappears as source material for JohnColgan (Franciscan and one of the FourMasters) writing at the Irish College inLouvain in the seventeenth century. It isColgan’s translation of the Old Irish intoLatin that is used by Sir James Ware inhis work and Dr. Todd of Trinity writingin the nineteenth century pays sinceretribute to Colgan for his scholarship and

honesty. From Louvain it was moved forsafety with other treasures to SaintIsidore’s College at Rome in 1793.Between 1798 and 1810, St. Isidore’swas suppressed by the French Army andmany of its treasures including the IrishManuscript were removed to Paris. LiberHymnorum with other items was subse-quently returned to Rome and in 1872 thebook was brought back to MerchantsQuay Franciscan foundation in Dublin.As numbers in the Franciscan Order inIreland declined, the treasures weremoved to UCD where they are nowconserved in the Mícheál Ó’ ChléirigInstitute.

No name or location has been as far as Ican trace suggested for the creation ofeither of the two extant copies of LiberHymnorum.

The earliest source in English that I havebeen able to find is the book “The wholeworks of Sir James Ware” which waswritten in Latin and then translated intoEnglish and “improved!” by WalterHarris in 1739.

This work of James Ware introducesSaint Patrick as follows and credits theHymn of Fiacc as a source written nearto the time of Patrick himself.

Ware wrote in Latin and Harris’s transla-tion runs “This primitive bishop was aperson of such exemplary piety and

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virtue and his labours and success in con-verting this once pagan and barbarouspeople to Christianity were so wonderfuland useful, that the actions of his lifewere worthy of being transmitted toposterity by the most faithful and ableand pen. But unhappily this task hathfallen into the most weak and injudicioushands who have crouded it with suchnumberless fictions, and monstrousfables that like the legends of KingArthur, they would almost tempt one todoubt the reality of the person. It isobservable that (as the purest streamsflow always nearest the fountain) so,among the main writers of the life of thisprelate, those, who lived nearest his time,have had the greatest regard to truth, andhave been most sparing in recounting hismiracles. Thus Fiech, bishop of Slettyand contemporary with our Saint com-prehended the most material events of hislife in an Irish Hymn which John Colgantranslated literally into Latin”

Additional details are included by ascholiast in the preamble to the Hymn ofSaint Fiacc, the earliest copy of which iseither manuscript 1441 at Trinity Collegeor manuscript A2 in the CapuchinArchive at the Micheál Ó ChléirigInstitute at UCD.

In the late eighteenth and from the middleof the nineteenth century there was akeen interest in everything connectedwith Patrician history and the authenticityof the Church of Ireland as his truesuccessor among scholars at TrinityCollege, in particular Dr. James HenthornTodd, D.D., M.R.I.A., F.S.A. SeniorFellow of Trinity College and Praecentorof Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.

Dr. Todd credits John Colgan the Fran-ciscan writing at Louvain in the seven-teenth century with the most authentictranslation of the Hymn of Saint Fiaccfrom the original Irish.

In the American Journal of Philology of1909, vol. 30, no.4 J. Fraser devotes asixteen page article to the discussion ofSaturnian meter as a possible influence inthe construction of Old Irish verse andbases much of the discussion on theHymn of Saint Fiacc.

While the earliest extant written recordof Fiacc dates from the ninth century in

the book of Armagh, there are sustainableclaims that the documentation for thatwork was dictated by Aed, retired abbotof Sleaty to Muirciu, a scribe at Armaghat about the year 696 A.D. In someversions of the appointment of Fiacc asfirst native Irish bishop of Leinster, oneof the gifts presented by Patrick to thenew recruit is reported to be an alphabetso that he might record the work ofPatrick for posterity. This dovetails neatlywith the belief that the metrical life ofPatrick described by John Colgan as theVita Prima of biographies of our apostle,was composed by Fiacc himself.

It is reasonable therefore to see Sleaty asthe fountain-head of the skill-base thatflowered also in scriptoria at Rathmelshnear Milford and further South at SaintMullins.

Through the last sixteen hundred years,many scribes, bishops, monks andscholars from many different callingshave recorded, translated and interpretedthe works of Patrick and of his closeassociate Fiacc.

Controversy and politics are never farfrom the scene when these matters areaired. Really major intellects haveapplied themselves to the interpretationof single words of Latin or old Irish in thesurviving medieval manuscripts, manytimes over the last nine hundred years.Prior to that, at the end of the seventhcentury, Aed of Sleaty and Muircu beganthe task of committing the traditions andnotes existing at that time to more perma-nent documents. Even these first stepsand the subsequent major project of theLiber Armanachus itself have beenclothed by commentators, centuries later,with the guise of conspiracy to emphasisethe primacy of Armagh among all theepiscopal sees of all-Ireland.

Sources:Collections relating to the Dioceses ofKildare and Leighlin, by Rev. M. Com-erford MRIA. 1886.

The Book of Hymns of the AncientChurch of Ireland. 1869. Author JamesHenthorn Todd, Praecentor of SaintPatrick’s Cathedral and Senior Fellow ofTrinity College for The Irish Archaeolog-ical and Celtic society.I Follow Saint Patrick by Oliver St. John

Gogarty, 1938

The Whole Works of Sir James WareConcerning Ireland, revised andimproved by Oliver Harris, 1739Yahoo Group: Celtic and Old Irish Saintsdownloaded July 2015Liber Armanachus, Edited and producedby Dr. John Gwynn D.D. 1913.Parish of Killeshin Peadar Mac Suibhne1972Carloviana 1949- Mac Suibhne, 1955-P.J. Madden, 1985-P.J. BrophyGoidilica: Notes on the Gaelic Manu-scripts. Author Whitely Stokes 1866Google Search download for EugeneO’Curry, life, works, criticism, commen-tary, quotations and reference works.Saint Pachomius Library- Hymn ofFiacc, O’Curry translation.-GoogleSearch.Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: edited byWhitely Stokes and J. Strachan, (a collec-tion of Old Irish glosses, scholia, proseand verse. / Cambridge 1903, reproduc-tion Dublin 1987.)

Review of Bieler’s “Patrician Texts of theBook of Armagh”: Joseph F. Kelly 1981.American Journal of Philology 1909, vol.4 pp 430-446Margaret Ann Cusack:1868

Loca Patriciana, an identification of thelocalities chiefly in Leinster, visited bySaint Patrick and his assistant missionar-ies, by Rev John Francis Shearman,Dublin 1879.

http://www.libraryireland.com/Histo-ryIreland/Louvain-Collection.phpIrish Ecclesiastical Record Vol. XVIII1921

Acknowledgement:I would like to thank the staff of theLocal History Department of CarlowCounty Library for their expert and pa-tient help in compiling these notes.

I also wish to acknowledge the sustainedunstinted assistance and encouragementreceived from John Mc Darby at CarlowCounty Museum.

Also, Paul O’Neill for help includingphotographs, Rosaleen Kearns, Tom McDonald, Fr. John Dunphy and Fr. LiamLawton and Denise O’Rourke havehelped me in this work.

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NINETEEN year old James Aloy-sius Cullen arrived to meet Dr.Dunne, President of Carlow

College in January 1861 to begin hisstudies for the priesthood for the FernsDiocese. The front line of college build-ings he saw from inside the front gatewas the same as you would see today.The college consisted of a middle housewith a north and south wing.

He arrived to a modern gas lit college,founded in 1782, opened on 1st October1793 with the aims of educating Catholicyouth and training clergyi. The SouthWing was built in 1819, North Wing1824 and the Gateway and Gatehouse in1832.ii Gaslight had been installed inCarlow College in 1846.

The college opened just fourteen yearsafter American Declaration of Independ-ence. The building was started in 1785by Bishop James Keeffe on Winnet’sField, which he leased for 999 years fromthe Fishbourne Estate in 1786. Furtherland was acquired as it became available.It appears building started before thelease was completed. This was beforeCatholic Emancipation in Ireland andbefore any relaxation of the Penal Laws.

The Gardiner Act of 1782 and furtherActs of 1792 and 1793 eliminated theneed for permission of the ProtestantBishop to open a Catholic school andmade it unnecessary to take the Oathof Allegiance.

The college motto is “Rescissa VegetiorAssurgit” Pruned back, it grows up morefruitfully. Studies, according to the ear-liest prospectus, “commence on the 1st ofSeptember, and end on the 30th June. Themonths of July and August are vacation.Only a week of recess is allowed aftereach examination of Christmasand Easter.”iii

Students would have been aware of emi-nent predecessors: - Two Corkonians Fr.

John Therry, the Apostle of Australia andBishop John England, first bishop ofCharleston in the U.S. to name but two.

Jemmy Cullen was remembered as veryexact and piousiv. He is remembered forbeing active “in the organising of de-bates, academies and dramatic pieces.”vHis biographer Fr. Lambert McKenna S.Jquotes a fellow student of the Ferns Dio-cese, Dean O’Neill, stating that Jemmy“was from the beginning remarkable forhis talent. In his last year, 1864, he re-ceived from his professor, Dr. Kavanagh,a very high distinction in Theology andCanon Law.” “He was greatly revered and loved by hisfellow-students, with all of whom he wasalways familiar; in particular, he had agreat influence over the young studentswhom he led to the practice of piety. Tothe Blessed Sacrament he had an extraor-dinary devotion, not being content withthe ordinary prescribed visits to theChapel, but constantly paying our Lordother visits, in which he was generallyaccompanied by those underhis influence.”

“Punctual in all his duties, he was firstdown to the Chapel in the morning andthe last to leave at night. His daily recep-tion of the Blessed Sacrament stimulatedmany to imitate him in this practice,which was in those days ratherexceptional.”“He both sang and played well. TheFerns students were remarkable for theirconstant singing of part-songs and cho-ruses, most of which he had arranged forthem and taught them.”vi

Fr. McKenna quotes another priest whoknew Jemmy Cullen advising, “Withthree or four others, he established aLeague of the Blessed Sacrament.During recreation hours and free time amember of the League was deputed tokeep watch before Our Eucharistic Lord.These students formed a force whoseinfluence for good radiated through the

whole college.”vii

James Cullen was ordained in CarlowCathedral by Dr. Walshe, Bishop ofKildare and Leighlin on 28th October,1864 only five days after he had reachedthe Canonical age. His biographer tellsus that on the anniversary of his ordina-tion each year “he renewed his gratitudeto God for the gift and prayed to be wor-thy of it.”viii

BibliographyBrophy, Rev P.J., The Birth of CarlowCollege, Carloviana 1956Duggan, Sr Maura MA, The Foundationof Carlow College, Carloviana 1972Mc Donnell, Fr. Tom, A History of theBuildings of Carlow College, Carlovian1992Mc Evoy, Fr John, Carlow College – Twohundred years of education, Carloviana1983McKenna, Rev Lambers SJ, Life andWork of Rev James Aloysius Cullen SJ,Publ: Longmans, Green & CO., London1924

Footnotesi McEvoy, Fr John, Carlow College-twohundred years of education,“Carloviana” 1993 p2ii McDonnell, Fr Tom, A History of theBuildings of Carlow College,“Carlovian” 1992 pp 9-18iii McEvoy, Fr John, Carlow College-twohundred years of education,“Carloviana” 1993 p4iv McKenna, Fr. Lambert SJ, Life andWork of Rev James A Cullen, SJ ,Publ:Longmans, Green & Co. London 1924v Ibid p26vi Ibid p26vii Ibid p27viii Ibid

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Fr. James Cullen, Founder of the

Pioneer Total Abstinence Association

Fr James Cullen

John McDarby

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The presence of hare-slips in the walls ofa field, known as the Deerpark, in thetownland of Ardattin is an interestingfeature of the Carlow landscape. It seemsthis field, with its two-metre high wall,was specially designed to control deer ina confined space on the Butler Estate inBallintemple (Fig.2). The wall was builtsome time before the first OrdnanceSurvey map was published in 1839. Thesix-sided field is enclosed by walls ofequal length (approx. 135m) with twoentrance gates on the southern side of thefield. Although the 4.96-hectare hexag-onal field is contained by walls of equallength it is still not a true hexagonbecause the walls are set at unequalangles. It is interesting to note that someof the walls contain specially constructedhare-slips which, according to local folk-lore, allowed hares to escape into thesafety of the Deerpark when chased bydogs (Fig. 1). It is even more interesting

to note that such features have not beenrecorded heretofore in published litera-ture, in the Oxford English dictionary oron the Internet.

A study of the two-metre high wallsaround the Deerpark showed that theywere constructed almost exclusively ofgranite stone and lime mortar. Apart fromthe piers at the entrance gates the stan-dard of construction was generally poor.The walls were constructed mainly ofrounded field stones and partially dressedcut stone. The quality of the lime mortarwas also poor and there was littleevidence that sufficient thorough orthrough-stones were inserted in the walls.As a result of the large scale use ofrounded field stones, the use of poor limemortar, different masonry skills andneglect over the years, most of the wallsare now in a general state of disrepair.The problem of finding the hare-slips

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Fig. 2.The six granite walls of equal lengthsurrounding the hexagonal field inArdattin, known as the Deerpark, werebuilt prior to 1839

Hare-slips

in the

walls of the

Deerpark

on

Ballintemple

EstateFig. 1.The hare-slips in the walls of the Deerpark allowed the hare to

escape from chasing dogs.Courtesy: Janet Murphy

Michael J. Conry

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was exacerbated by the growth of ivy andbrambles. As a result only three hare slipswere discovered in the six walls, oneeach on the two northerly-facing wallsand another well-defined hare slip in theeast-facing wall.

The entrance at ground level to the hareslip in the east-facing wall is 15 cm wideand 30 cm high. It is connected by a 55cm long cavity in the centre of the wallto the exit hole on the inside of the wall.This exit hole consists of a rectangular

hole, roughly 20 cm wideand 18 cm high, approx-imately 60 cm aboveground level (Fig. 3).

When Jim Quinlan, Ardat-tin, was a boy he playedwith other children in thevicinity of the hare-slip.An elderly man, MichaelDonohoe, who residednearby informed them thatthe hole in the wall was anescape hole for the harewhen chased by dogs.

The hole on the outside ofthe wall shows markswhich indicate that thehole may still be used asan escape hole by hares orpossibly rabbits. Themarks on the exit hole on

the other side of the wall are even moreconvincing. Darkening on the outsideof the bottom granite stone of the hole in-dicates that it was used extensively (Fig.4). Even more convincing is the fact thatthis granite stone shows obvious signs ofwear in the exact places where the harewould grip the stone with its nails whenpulling itself up through the cavity andexiting from the wall.

The hare-slips in the Deerpark walls inArdattin are interesting features in theirown right. However, they pose some im-portant questions. How were the harestrained to use them, if indeed they weretrained at all or did they learn intuitivelyto use them of their own intuitive in-stinct? Are those hare-slips the only onesof their kind in the World? The lack ofpublished evidence would indicate thatthey are. If so, ipso facto, they are aunique feature of the Irish landscape.

AcknowledgementThe author is indedted to Jim Quinlanand the Murphy family Ardattin forpermission to access the site.

Hare-slips in the walls of the Deerpark on Ballintemple Estate

Fig. 4.The bottom stone of the exit hole in theeast-facing wall is discoloured anderoded indicating prolonged use anderosion by sharp nails on the hare’s paws

Fig. 5.The entrance to the hare-slip is visiblethrough the exit hole on the inside ofthe wall.

Fig. 3.The ground-level entrance to the hare-slip on the east-facing wall was 15cmwide and 30cm high approximately.

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Introduction

It was, and still is, common to seeAfrican and Asian women of all agescarrying goods on their head. In 1978, itwas simply amazing to see a youngLesotho girl carrying a packet of sugaron her head as she walked home fromschool when it seemed much easier tocarry it in her hand. It was marvellous toobserve the skill of another girl crossingthe River Hololo in the mountainous areaof Lesotho, walking with a medium-sizedaluminium saucepan perfectly balancedon her head. Not only was she able tobalance the saucepan on her head but shecrossed the rough, pebble-strewn bed ofthe river and climbed up the bank on theother side without touching the saucepanwith either hand.

There are numerous 18th and 19thcentury recorded references to girls andwomen carrying goods on their heads invarious parts of Ireland in the archives ofthe Folklore Department, UCD. Forinstance, S. Ó’Dala recorded in 1937 thatin Kerry Bínn-se támall nuair a bhínn ógagus ní gá aon lámh a beith agam ar‘can’ uisce Bhíoch ar mo cheann whileMíceál Ó Cuileannáin (1937) recorded in

Béaloideas that Donal Ó Suilleabháinmet a young lady in 1742 carrying ‘calán[gallon] uisce-ar-ceann aici’. Similarly,S. Ó’Flannagáin, An Tullach, Co. An

Cláir, recorded in 1937 that ‘In themtimes you’d see young women and theyused to carry milk-cans and buckets ontheir heads. One woman used to balancea full bucket on her head and carry twomore in her hands’. Other archivalrecords in the Folklore Department showthat women carried baskets of eggs,‘eodgens’ of turf and sea-weed on theirhead using a sugán (hay rope) head-ring onwhich to rest the vessels. T. P. O’Neill(1977) lists many other items carried on thehead, such as pails of milk, tubs of butter(firkins), baskets of clothes and fish invarious parts of Ireland. However, he goeson to conclude that ‘the custom of carryinggoods on the top of a person’s head waswidespread in many areas until thebeginning of this [20th] century’ (p. 70). Irish men and women are not surprisedby these phenomena but they are sur-prised to learn that women carryinggoods on their head was still quite com-mon in Ireland in the early decades of the20th century and that, perhaps, we are notas long “civilised” as some people wouldlike to think.

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Irish women carried goods on their heads in the early decadesof the twentieth century

Fig. 2 – Johanna Hayes (1845-1922), walked to her home inBallincrea from Myshall villagecarrying groceries in a basket onher head and two buckets of water.

Michael J. Conry

Fig, 1, The pump in Myshall village

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Twentieth Century

Oral evidence suggests that it was notunusual for women to carry a firkin ofbutter to the nearest market town on theirhead. John Brophy (1912-2002), Crogh-tenclogh, Coon, Co. Kilkenny, oftenheard his father, Thomas Brophy (1867-1947) describing how Bridget Brennan,better known as Biddy ‘Kieran’, carrieda firkin of butter on her head all the wayfrom Croghtenclogh to the market inCarlow around the turn of the 20thcentury. Biddy was one of two elderlysisters living in an old thatched houseaway down in the fields when JohnBrophy was a boy. She ‘walked downthrough the fields from her house’,according to John’s father, ‘came out onthe road at the back of our house, took tothe fields again at the end of the lane,passing Monawee and Rossmore bogs onthe way to Rice’s Cross Roads at the topof Rossmore and down along the roadthrough the Cut in Killeshin to the Malland into Carlow with the firkin on herhead and her two hands by her side’. Shetravelled home by the same route in theevening carrying her groceries andhousehold commodities on her head.Whether this occurred in the 19th or 20thcentury (or both) is not possible to say. Inthe same general area, Paddy Brennan‘Arnott’ (1910-94), Coon West saw hismother, Maria Keightly (1874-1945), anative of Slatts, Wolfhill, Co. Laoiscarrying a pail of water on her head.According to Paddy, she was able to raisethe bucket of water and balance it on herhead without any difficulty.

Several people in the Myshall arearecalled hearing of or seeing MrsJohanna Hayes (née Kealy), wife of JackHayes, carrying goods on her head fromMyshall village to her home in Balli-nacrea. Joseph O’Neill (1905-95), Craan,Bunclody, recalled meeting a MrsSmithers walking home to Ballincreacarrying two shopping bags, one in eachhand, and a can of water on her headfrom the pump in the village.(Fig. 1).According to Joe, ‘she was a very oldwoman at the time and barely able towalk [in 1920]’. Tom Butler (b. 1922),Ballaghmore, Myshall, often heard hismother, Ellen Butler (1882-1964), sayingthat Johanna Hayes carried a basket onher head and two buckets of water fromthe village to her home in Ballincrea

(Fig. 2). In 2003, John Smithers (1912-2006), Ballincrea, confirmed beyonddoubt, after much searching and discus-sion, that the elderly lady was noneother than his grandmother, JohannaHayes (1845-1922), the rural ‘midwife’familiarly known as ‘Joanie’ Hayes.

Perhaps, Mary Joyce (c. 1837-1928),Borris, was the best known exponent ofcarrying goods on her head in Co.Carlow. Mary, who was a neighbour ofTom Fitzpatrick’s (1918-2005), was anelderly spinster living alone in a littlehouse with a galvanised roof, in thetownland of Kilcloney, close to whereTom lived. She wore the traditional longblack skirt and a shawl with a praiscín(meal sack) across her shoulders. Tomestimated that she must have been eightyyears old when he was a young boy.

Mary carried a large wicker basket with

a handle when going to shop in Borris.Tom saw her carrying ‘the wicker basketon her head a hundred times if I saw heronce. If you had some bit of gossip forher, she could stay talking to you for halfan hour with the basket on her head allthe time’. Tom wasn’t the only one whoremembered Mary carrying the wickerbasket. Luke Walsh (1907-99) saw hercoming to Joyce’s shop in Borris with acouple dozen eggs in the basket on herhead and going home with her groceriesin the same basket ‘walking along asstraight as a die’. Mary had a parcel ofland in Ballinasilloge where she grazedthe cows in the summer time. Again,according to Tom Fitzpatrick, she carriedthe milk home in a tinker’s boiler on herhead. The tinker’s boiler was made by thetravellers with a lid on top and a rim(hoop) on the bottom. It could hold aboutthree gallons. Mary Joyce was not theonly one who carried goods on her headin the Borris area in the 20th centurybecause both Darby Doyle (1913-97),Lacken, and Lizzie Cushen (1908-98),Newtown, saw women carrying pails ofwater on their heads.

It seems most of the older women in thevillage of Raheedoran carried water andbundles of sticks on their heads well intothe early decades of the 20th century.Many of the older generation includingthe McDonald brothers, Tom Lawlor andJames O’Brien in the Ballinabranagharea recalled seeing them drawing homewater from Fonthill well situated belowthe road opposite Clogrenan limeworks.Tom ‘Butler’ Lawlor (1906-89) saw hisneighbours, Mrs Ellie Brennan, MrsPursell, and many other women in thevillage carrying water on their heads.Ellie Brennan climbed up the steps fromthe well carrying two buckets of water inher hands and a bucket of water on herhead. As she walked down the road to herhome she ‘could stop and chat with herneighbours for ten minutes or more withthe bucket still on her head and would notspill a drop until she laid it on her ownfloor’. According to Paddy McDonald(1910-2002), she placed a little roundwoollen mat on her head before sheraised the can to her head.

These same women carried homebundles of sticks almost daily fromRedmond’s wood in Clogrenan. JamesO’Brien (1913-98) remembered when

Irish women carried goods on their heads in the early 20th cent.

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Fig. 3 – John Smithers (with his grand-son) saw his grandmother, JohannaHayes, carrying goods on her headaround 1920.

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the wood was cut down leaving a lot ofbranches lying around. According toJames, ‘these women in Raheen village(including Mrs Mathews, Mrs Walsh,Mrs McDonald and Mrs Glynn) went upthere in the 1920s and 1930s, day afterday, and tied bundles of sticks with arope, known as a bresna of sticks, putthem standing on their ends and raisedthem up on their heads like the Africanwomen’. Paddy McDonald’s wife Kath-leen Price (1913-94) related how she,accompanied by Mrs Cis Lawlor and MrsNolan, ‘carried a lot of sticks on my headfrom Redmond’s wood, with a cloth orsomething thick on my head, with myhand on the bresna but you could walk agood bit without hands’. Kathleen alsohad vivid memories of seeing EllieBrennan coming home from Fonthillwell with three buckets of water, one ineach hand and another on her head.

There is no evidence that those womencarried water or bresna’s of sticks ontheir heads while barefoot. However, an1843 etching in the Irish Times (22-9-12)shows a bare-footed peasant girl, outsidea peasant dwelling, carrying a woodenpail on her head.

Carrying goods on the head was notconfined to counties Carlow andKilkenny only. John Headon, Spink, Co.Laois, often heard his older customerstalking in the pub about the wives ofcarmen and coalminers carrying goods(i.e. bags of flour) home from the shop inSpink on their heads. It was the surestway the housewives could take the flourhome in clean condition. These womenincluded Mrs Whelan, Knockbawn, MrsBreen, Graiguenahown and Mrs Neill,Aughnacross. According to JohnHeadon, one of them, Kate Whelan (néePhillips), had ‘a round bag with a rim onit to fit snugly on her head’. Both JamesFitzpatrick (b. 1921), Knockbawn, andAndy Daly (b. 1934), Fossy, Timahoe,saw Kate Whelan walking home fromRamsbottom’s shop in Spink in the 1930sand 1940s, carrying a two-stone bag offlour on her head and two shopping bags,one in each hand (Fig. 4).

It seems carrying goods on the head wasalso common in the south and west ofIreland in the early decades of the 20thcentury. John Lee (b. 1923), Corofin, Co.Clare, was reared in an old-fashionedthatched house on Jacko Studdart’sout-farm in Knocknareeha on theEnnistymon road. His father, Jack Lee,was herdsman on the farm and had thegrazing rights for two cows and a donkeytogether with permission to keep hensand ducks and rear a couple pigs. Therewas an excellent source of spring waterin a beautifully-constructed well on theroadside above Jack Morgan’s forge inWillbrook (Figs. 5 and 6), In the 1930s,when John Lee was a boy he rememberstwo older girls, Biddy and Nan O’Hehir,coming to collect water at the well withtheir mother. The two girls and theirmother placed buckets of water on thesteps of the stile in the roadside wallgoing into the well, placed a straw mattor mash on their head and lifted the buck-


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Fig. 5. Willbrook Well

In the 1930s, John Lee, Corofin, Co.Clare, saw the O’Hehir girls carryingwater home on their heads fromthis well.

Fig. 4

In the 1930s and 1940s, Kate Whelan,walked from Rambottom’s shop inSpink to her home in Knockbawn car-rying two stone of flour on her headand two bags of groceries.

Courtesy: Janet Murphy

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ets up on their heads. In John’s words‘they walked up the road to their home,walking as straight as the handle of abrush, with the buckets of water perfectlybalanced on their heads’.

When Eily Buckley (née Corkery) mar-ried Dan Buckley in 1957, her mother-in-law, Nora Buckley (née Lane, 1900-87)in Geararoe, Millstreet, Co. Cork, toldher that when her mother, Julia Horganin Ballinastona, Millstreet, was ‘going tothe well for water she would take abucket and a towel. She wrapped thetowel on her head, placed the bucket ofwater on top of the towel and made forhome – crossing stiles and streams andnever dropped the bucket until shearrived home’. Nora went on to tell Eilythat ‘all the old women used to do itwhen she was a child’ growing up inBallinastona in the early decades of the20th century. The women also took abasket of goods (i.e. eggs) to the marketor a beart (bundle) of clothes on theirheads when going to wash them in theriver. It was no wonder, according toEily, that they all walked so straight andstately. When Eily (b. 1933) was growingup, ‘the practice of carrying ewers ofwater on their head had long gone’.

The overwhelming body of information,both oral and written, indicates thatcarrying goods on the head was practicedby girls and older women. Bairbre NíFloinn (2015), however, remembersbread men carrying trays of bread on theheads in Dublin in the recent past. Simi-larly, a recent film on BBC (The FishMarket: Inside Billingsgate, BBC, 3Episodes, 2014) showed archival mate-rial of men carrying trays of fish on theirheads in London’s Billingsgate Fish Mar-ket in the 1930s .

ConclusionThe practice of women carrying goodson their heads in various parts of Irelandcontinued in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

Acknowledgements

The help and cooperation of all thepeople mentioned in the text – many ofwhom have since passed to their eternalreward – is gratefully acknowledged andthanked for their contributions. Mythanks is also due to Bairbre Ní Floinn, who provided access to sources of mate-rial in the Folklore Department, UCD.

References

1. O’Neill, T. P, 1977. Life and Traditionin Rural Ireland. Dent and Sons Ltd,London.

2. Ó Cuileannáin, M, 1937. Béaloideas,Vol.7, No. 1: 99-120.

3. Floinn, B. Ní, 2015. Private communi-cation.


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Fig. 6.Willbrook Well is now engulfed in brambles and ivy.

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National Heritage Week is anannual set of events in Irelandco-ordinated by The Heritage

Council. These are generally organisedby various institutions, museums,societies, County Councils, individualsand organisations with an interest in thearts, culture and heritage. Carlow Histor-ical and Archaeological Society and itsmembers have played their part over theyears organising tours and lectures whichhave touched on a variety of themes andtopics from the past.

Plans were put in place by the Society inearly 2015 to organise a free, family-friendly event which would not onlyinform the public on aspects of ourcounty’s rich archaeological and historicaltradition, but would also bring it to life.When we visit museums today such as ourCounty Museum on College St. or theNational Museum in Dublin, the artefactswe see on display are generally thefinished product. The items and processesthat went into their manufacture aregenerally absent. In some cases we are noteven presented with the full product. Takearrowheads, axes and blades such asswords or knives for example; years,decades, centuries and millennia of lyingin the ground have meant that their organiccomponents have rotted away. Onlydurable parts will survive such as thebronze axe, stone arrowhead or iron swordblade; the wooden handles, grass sheathsor rope bonds are now lost. Thus, in orderto picture the object in its entirety, weoften have to rely on our imaginations orartists’ impressions.

CHAS wished to aid this process and notonly present objects from the past in their

complete form, but also the processesthat went into their production. An after-noon event titled “Carlow – A Journey tothe Past” was put together on Saturday22nd August in Carlow Town Park,Graiguecullen, showcasing displays ledby re-enactment and living history

groups. The public were encouraged tomove between the various displays intheir own time, all of which wereinteractive. Hundreds of people of allages attended across the day making it anall-round success.

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“Carlow — A Journey to the Past”;

Heritage Week 2015

Medieval armour

Photo: Bri Greene

Séamus Ó Murchú (Séamus Murphy Jnr.)

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Ireland is blessed with a growing numberof re-enactment or living history groups.Experimental archaeology is anotherexpanding field, a method of studywhereby hypotheses and questions aretested and answered by archaeologiststhrough the re-creation of objects fromthe past and using them for a variety oftasks. Some of these groups presentedtheir expertise on Carlow’s past and thecounty’s role in events further afield.Everything on display was replicatedfrom objects found during archaeologicalexcavations, recent collections ordescribed in historical manuscriptsand images.

“Ancient Music Ireland” showcasedprehistoric, medieval and internationalmusical horns and other instruments.Sounds not heard for thousands of yearsechoed along the shores of the RiverBarrow once more. Horns of all shapesand sizes were on display from replicasof the huge Loughnashade Bronze Agehorns to Fijian conk shells.

Sticking with the prehistoric period“Reliqua Outreach” presented stone tool,prehistoric pottery firing and bronze cast-ing demonstrations. Members of the“University College Dublin Centre forExperimental Archaeology and AncientTechnologies” recreated objects from thepast and the processes that went into theirproduction. Flakes of flint were brokenfrom larger cores and shaped into bladesand arrowheads. A pit fire dug and main-tained across the day in which prehistoricpots were fired; decorated with the samedesigns as was done in the Neolithic andBronze Age. Most excitingly, a replicaearthen furnace was also built into whichcrucibles filled with scrap bronze wereplaced. Once melted, the molten metalwas poured into moulds to make axeheads, chisels and other tools found onBronze Age sites across the country.

Moving into the early medieval period,“2015: The 1600th Centenary year of St.Fiacc of Sleaty” group presented a replicaof the nearby Sleaty high cross. This year

marks the 1600th anniversary of the birthof St. Fiacc who, according to tradition,was ordained by St. Patrick. Sleaty alsoplayed an important role in the push byArmagh to obtain primacy of the IrishChurch in the early medieval period.

Claíomh Living History Group intro-duced the medieval period and the worldof the Gaelic Irish and Anglo-Normans.Small medieval style pavilions wereerected as a backdrop and leaning againstthe side of one was a shield decoratedwith a red lion on a green and yellowfield, the coat of arms of WilliamMarshall who built nearby Carlow castle.

Hourly discussions centred on themesranging from pottery, the household, bas-ketry, weaponry and dress. Replica coinsfrom the reign of King John (1199-1216)were also minted and discussed.

Nearby, Woodlands Falconry (Tullow)had a number of birds of prey to show,the pets and hunting companions of manymedieval elites. As well as native owlsand buzzards, birds now extinct inIreland such as eagles were also shown,which once soared through Carlow’sskies. Tastes of medieval Carlow werealso recreated by Gordan & Philip Roweof Ballybannon Farm, Milford who had

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Weapons Photo: Bri Greene

“Carlow - AJourney to the Past”

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people feasting like the Norman lords ofCarlow Castle with a roast pig on a spitprovided by O’Shea’s of Ballickmoyler.

Jumping to the more recent past CountyCarlow Military Museum presented theuniforms and weaponry worn and usedboth on Carlow’s streets and byCarlovians who found themselvesinvolved in national and internationalconflicts over the last 200 years. Red coatand croppy boy outfits which would havebeen a common site in the 1798 periodwere on display next to the United Statesarmy uniform of Carlovian MylesKeogh, commander of Company I in the7th Cavalry Regiment and killed along-side General Custer at the Battle of theLittle Bighorn in 1876. Also on displaywere early 20th Century British armyuniforms; another formerly common siteon the streets of Carlow and worn byCarlovians in the various campaigns ofthe First World War. Alongside this wasthe uniform of a Republican Volunteerfrom the War of Independence period.Weapons and helmets from variousarmies and campaigns could also be

handled and tried on for size.

Many of the displays could not have beenpossible without knowledge gleanedfrom archaeological excavations. To

highlight this, Carlow County Museumco-ordinated a special sandpit excavationof the Town Park for our younger visitorswho learned how archaeologists workand use what they find in the ground tobuild a picture of the past. The manyarchaeological excavations carried out inadvance of developments over the lastnumber of years in County Carlow werealso presented and a special site reportcompleted. Facepainting was anotherfeature of the day for the archaeologistsand historians of the future, carried outby Caoimhe O’Leary as people enteredthe park, many of them already incostume. Three walking tours were alsoled from the park across the day detailingaspects of the town’s streets andbuilt heritage.

Thanks are due to Carlow County Coun-cil for the use of the park for the day andfor providing some of the materialsneeded as well as some members of the5th Carlow- Carlow Town Scout Groupwho assisted in the set up and constructedan entrance gateway. Thanks also to theCarlow Branch Order of Malta whoprovided first aid cover. The event wasvery generously supported by the

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The musical instruments display

Photo : Bri Greene

Ladies in medieval costume

Photo: Bri Greene


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Heritage Council as well as a number oflocal businesses without whom, it couldnot have gone ahead!

No such event had taken place in Carlowto date and it is hoped that this willbecome an annual feature of HeritageWeek in the county. The huge turnout andinterest should serve as a reminder thatthere is a huge appetite for the past in thecounty and that public interest is certainlyalive and thriving. Heritage is too often atarget for budgetary cuts but it is this verything that gives us our local, regional andnational identity. It also boosts tourismand visitor numbers which has a knockon effect on business in the area. Thiswas evident in the town park on the 22nd

of August not only in the huge turnout butalso in the numerous internationalvisitors in attendance and the crowds atother events across the county at the sametime. The past is all around us in Carlowtown and county, hidden in plain sightwith many of us oblivious to its traces.Too often this has led to its loss with littleoutcry. Heritage is something that shouldbe promoted, not only to boost pride in

our localities but also to fuel the rebuild-ing of the local and national economy.Conservation of what is left of ourarchaeological, historical, built andnatural heritage across our towns andcountryside is crucial as well as dissemi-nating knowledge and research throughpublications, information signs, toursand events.

If you found your interest piqued by anyof the displays, pursue it further andencourage the preservation and conserva-tion of the past. Go to the many museumsacross the county and country. Take timeto visit the library, carry out someresearch of your own, attend some of theother Society events held across the yearand maybe organise an event of your ownfor Heritage Week 2016 or another date.Only through public interest will ourheritage be maintained.

We sincerely hope all our visitorsenjoyed the afternoon and for those whomissed it, we are hoping to put togethera similar event with a different themenext year so keep Heritage Week 2016(20th-28th August) free in your diaries!

“Carlow – A Journey to the Past” couldnot have happened without the kind andgenerous support of a number of organisa-tions and businesses around the Carlow area.

Carlow Historical and ArchaeologicalSociety would like to thank:The Heritage CouncilAska Sykes Ltd., Dublin Rd., CarlowCarlow County CouncilCarlow County Museum, College St.,CarlowCarpenter’s Bar, Barrack St., CarlowDean’s Newsagents, Barrack St., CarlowDetail Clothing, Potato Market, CarlowEmo Oil, Hacketstown Rd., CarlowEwing’s Bar, Centaur St., CarlowFlames Stoves, O’Brien Rd., CarlowHeaton Buckley Builders Merchants,Hacketstown Rd., CarlowIrishSigns.com, Jerusalem, CarlowMaxi Zoo, Dublin Rd., CarlowMichael O’Shea, Farnans Ballickmoyler,CarlowMicron Filtration, Quinagh, CarlowMunnelly’s, Garage, Kilkenny Rd., Car-lowRay Maher Properties, Staplestown Rd.,CarlowSwan’s Electrical, Strawhall, CarlowThe Tavern Bar, Castle St., CarlowWise Eyes Creative, Tullow, CarlowMary Hughes5th Carlow (Carlow Town) Scout Group

Thanks also to all those who took leafletsand posters to promote the event.

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Bertie Watchorn, President of CHAS, helping to roast the pig

Photo: Bri Greene

A medieval-style furnace


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The History Prize Competition for Na-tional Schools was run as usual in thesecond term of the school year. Circularsinviting entries were sent immediatelyafter Christmas to all National Schools inthe county. Pupils in fifth and sixthclasses were eligible to enter. They wereinvited to submit a project on any histor-ical person, place, or event relating toCounty Carlow. Projects were to be theunaided work of the individual pupil, andeach project was to be presented on notmore than five A4 pages.

The Society offered three prizes, €100 forthe winning entry, and €50 each for thoseplaced second and third.

Once again we had a very gratifying re-sponse, with over a hundred pupils enter-ing projects, many of a very high standard.The judges, Richard Codd and Jim Shan-non, were very impressed by the level ofenthusiasm shown by these young histori-ans, and by the quality of research and thecare taken in presenting their findings.

Great credit is due to them and to the

teachers and parents who supported andencouraged them in their work.

First prize went to Eoin Cummins ofBallinkillen N.S, for his project on “TheBorris Railway Line and Viaduct.” Eoin’sproject is published elsewhere inthis journal.

Second prize was awarded to Anna Col-gan of St. Patrick’s N.S, Rathvilly for herentry on “Huntingdon Castle.”

The judges were unable to separate thenext two entries and so they awardedjoint third prize to Sophie Byrne ofGrange N.S., whose project on the life ofher late grandmother was entitled “BrigidByrne, 1925 – 2015,” and to MichaelaFlood of Ballon N.S. for her entry “TheNight of the Big Wind, Carlow.”

Carlow County Museum graciouslyhosted the presentation ceremony on thenight of May 20th, and the four prize-win-ning projects were displayed in the mu-seum during the summer. Our thanks toDermot Mulligan, Curator of the mu-seum, and to his staff for their supportand hospitality.

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CHAS HISTORY PRIZE COMPETITIONFOR NATIONAL SCHOOLS

Bertie Watchorn, President of CHAS presents First Prize to Eoin Cummins

The President and the judges with the winners

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B’ócáid stairiúil í ganamhras, nuair a bhronnFondúireacht an Phiarsaigh

“Gradam an Phiarsaigh” ar Bhrídede Róiste ar an 19 Bealtaine 2015,i gCultúrlann na hÉireann, imBaile Átha Cliath.

Ó 1980 i leith, roghnaíodh duine ameasadh go raibh sár-iarrachtdéanta nó á déanamh aige/aicichun idéalacha an laoichnáisiúnta, Pádraig Mac Piarais, achur chun cinn i gcúrsaíoideachais, ealaíne, litríochta,agus sna meáin chumarsáide agusi measc an phobail.

Éachtaí

Ní aon ionadh é mar sin, gurainmníodh Bríde de Róiste marbhuaiteoir an ardghradaim seo,toisc go raibh sí bainteach lechuile gníomh a leanas: sanoideachas, bunú an Naíonra i1970, Gaelscoil Eoghain UíThuairisc i 1982, agus cabhrú lebunú Gaelcholáiste Cheatharlach i1990; sna Dána, bunú Fhéile‘Éigse’ i 1979 agus cabhrú le bunúAisteoirí an Lochrainn mar aon leFéilte Scoil Drámaíochta agusFéilte Drámaíochta do dhaoinefásta. Sa litríocht agus sna meáinchumarsáide, bhí clár raidióseachtainúil aici ar KCLR96FMagus roimhe sin ar CKR. Idteannta sin, bíonn colún Gaeilgeseachtainúil á reáchtáil aici sa nu-

achtán “The Nationalist”. Agus lechuile rud déanta aici i leith anphobail, bíonn aifreann as Gaeilgeá reáchtáil aici dhá uair sa mhí,agus ciorcail chomhrá á n-eagrúgach seachtain in IarsmalannChontae Cheatharlach agusi Reddys.

Aitheantas

Bhronn Mícheál Ó Muirc-heartaigh, iar-chraoltóir cáiliúil leRTÉ, an duais ar Bhríde ar son na

Fondúireachta. Is iontach ant-aitheantas seo, agus beidh ahainm ar an stádas céanna le hain-mneacha móra eile ar nós Seán ÓCuirreáin, an iar-choimisinéirteanga, agus Adi Roche, angníomhaíoch cearta daonna.

Bhronn Comhairle ChontaeCheatharlach teastas ar Bhrídemar aitheantas ar na heachtaí ion-tacha atá bainte amach aici nuair asheol sí an Féile Idirnáisiúnta PanCheilteach 2016-2017, i gCeathar-lach, i Mí an Mheithimh 2015.

Faoi stiúir Bhríde de Róiste, tánithe iontacha curtha ar bun.Isduine tábhactach í faoi láthair igCeatharlach, i stair Cheatharlachagus i todhchaí Cheatharlachchomh maith. Comhghairdeas!

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GRADAM ANPHIARSAIGH 2015

TOMMY MAC DIARMADA

BL. 5 GAELCHOLÁISTE CEATHARLACH

Lábhrás Ó Murchú, Cathaoirleach Fondúireacht an Phiarsaigh, Bríde deRóiste, buaitheoir Gradam an Phiarsaigh 2015 agus MícheálÓ Muircheartaigh a bhron an Gradam.

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On a late October morning circa 1910 thestars were still shining brightly in the skyas the Red Lad gently closed the doorbehind him in the Bridge Lane in Hack-etstown. Over his left shoulder was slungan old canvas ex-army haversack and inhis right hand he carried a carbide lampwhich would only be lit when he reachedhis destination. Ten minutes before heleft the house he had seen the R.I.C.patrol move at a normal walking pacedown Bridge Lane and he knew theywould walk as far as Conran’s Cross, asthey did every Wednesday morning,before returning to their barracks in EagleHill Lane, a journey that usually took twohours to complete. He walked at a smartpace up Penny Hill and crossed the mainroad into Slate Row. At the high wallsurrounding the Church of Ireland rectoryhe stopped briefly to remove an item hehad hidden there on the previous eveningfrom the thick covering of ivy that hungover and clung to this wall. It was an oldthree-piece greenheart fishing rod thathad seen better days. This rod was tenfeet long, still quite sound and just aboutright for the purpose for which the RedLad intended it.

As he approached the gate leading intothe Minister’s field he saw standing in theshadows the dark outline of a man in ahat. The Red Lad knew right away that itwas his poaching partner, Tom, who wasbetter known by his nickname “Blunt”because of his outspoken manner. “Goodmorning Tom,” said the Red Lad, and thereply came, “Oh good morning Jim, andwhat the divil kept you till now?” “Wellnow, my good fellow, you know as well

as I do that I had to wait until the patrolpassed the house before I could ventureout, because if they lay eyes on you theywant to know why you are out so early,where you are going, and what youintend to do when you get there. Inquisi-tive boyos some of those R.I.C. men andthey might insist on searching you aswell.” “Oh dammit Jim, some of themcan be sore bucks all right, so I supposethe best thing to do is to keep out of theirway as much as possible. As the sayinggoes, out of sight out of mind.” The RedLad now insisted that they quicken theirpace, complete their task and get backhome before the patrol’s return to town.

At this point he told Blunt that ConstableHanrahan was the only one on duty in thetown while the patrol was away frombarracks, a decent enough fellow as longas you took him the right way.

These two Hacketstown poachers wereon their way to snatch some roostingpheasants out of the trees on lands atWoodside, less than a mile from thetown. To do this they intended to try outa new method using a wire slip nooseattached to the top section of the old fish-ing rod with a control cord that camedown to the left hand. The Red Lad heardabout this set up from a man who had

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The Red Lad and Blunt –

Hacketstown poachers of the

early 20th Century

Patrick M. Byrne

Thomas Leniston aka. “Blunt”

”Photo: P.M. Byrne

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seen it being used on an estate in CountyKildare. It was very effective this mansaid if used properly in snaring youngfully-grown pheasants not yet one yearold. Such birds are not as wary or aseasily disturbed as older birds and moreinclined to stick their necks out in orderto see what is happening at ground levelwhen the men with the snare and the lightarrive under their tree. The previousevening Blunt had surveyed the lie of theland around Woodside and had observedat least nine pheasants going up to roostin seven small stunted Scots Pine treesgrowing on a low ditch which was a gooddistance from the big house. These treeswere ideal for pheasant fishing as the RedLad called it, because there was a canopyof pine needles overhead with mostlybare branches underneath, and thus notwigs to get in the way of the slipnoose snare.

As they approached the first tree Blunt litthe carbide lamp and then he immedi-ately shaded off the light from it with hishand, as there were no switches oncarbide lamps. The light produced bythese lamps was pretty dim but just aboutgood enough to let you see objects 20 to25 feet away. The Red Lad by this timehad assembled the old fishing rod withthe noose open on the top section, and heheld in his left hand a length of sash cordwhich was attached to the slip noose, soboth men were now ready for action.Blunt removed his hand from the lampand let the dim light shine into the tree,but all that was there was a sleepingwoodpigeon. They moved on to thesecond tree about ten yards away andBlunt again shone the light into itscanopy. This time it revealed the outlinesof two roosting pheasants, a cock and ahen. Both were fully grown young birdsand in no hurry to leave the shelter ofthe tree.

The first dim rays of daylight were light-ing the sky behind Shielstown Hill as theRed Lad slowly manoeuvred the slipnoose over the cock Pheasant’s neck andthen with a quick jerk of his left hand thenoose tightened and the bird was pulledfrom its roost, to be quickly dispatchedby Blunt as soon as it hit the ground. Thehen by now had left the tree with a loudclattering of wings as she flew off intothe semi-darkness. By now they had timefor just one more try with the slip noose

as the R.I.C. patrol would be half wayback to the town by this time of themorning. Our two poachers moved on tothe next tree but there was nothing thereso they moved on again. This time whenBlunt shone up the light it revealed afully grown cock pheasant on a barebranch about eight or ten feet above theirheads. For a minute or two he seemedvery uneasy in the dim light and heseemed to be about to take flight, but thecrafty old bird had left it too late as thenoose was already around his neck and ashe flew from his perch it tightened, andwith wings flailing madly he came crash-ing to the ground and he too had his lightspermanently put out by Blunt beforebeing stuffed into the Red Lad’s oldcanvas haversack. By now it was time tohead for home, so our two friends split upand like the wise men went there bydifferent roads, thinking they had notbeen detected.

Constable Hanrahan who was patrollingthe town that morning was a man notedfor standing in the shadows to observethe comings and goings of people aroundthe town, and from where he was stand-ing that morning he had seen Blunt walk-ing up Slate Row, followed by the RedLad about twenty minutes later. Beforejoining the R.I.C. it appears thatHanrahan himself was a very accom-plished poacher and so he knew all the

tricks of the trade. It was said that hewouldn’t go out of his way to catch menwho were poaching in order to put foodon the table to feed their families.

Living in Hacketstown in those days wasa man named Belcam (Béal cam)Murphy, so called because of his crookedmouth and crooked smile. Most peoplewere very wary of him as they said hewould”hang you” to the police. He was aworkshy cornerboy who carried all kindsof rumours and half-truths to the barracksto fill the police in on things they mighthave missed around the town.

That morning Belcam had seen the RedLad leaving his house in Bridge Lane andhaving nothing better to do he decided tofollow at a distance to see where he wasgoing and what he was up to. In so doinghe observed some of what happened thatmorning and reported it all back toConstable Hanrahan. Hanrahan, being apoacher himself, didn’t particularly likeBelcam and his sly methods, and consid-ered him to be a a little troublemaker orstirring stick, who ran with the hare andhunted with the hounds. However he toldBelcam that either himself or one of theother constables would investigate thematter as soon as possible. What Belcamdidn’t know was that Hanrahan had, touse the local expression, a “dirty liking”for the Red Lad and he didn’t want to see

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Hacketstown Poachers

James Byrne “The Red Lad” mowing a meadow

Photo: P. M. Byrne

186


him brought before the local magistratescharged with trespassing and poaching.Hanrahan knew he would have to actquickly in order to keep a lid on things.As he walked back to the barracks he wasalready planning how to get the Red Ladand Blunt off the hook, put a nail inBelcam’s coffin, and get both himself andhis wife a free meal into the bargain.

We know that Constable Hanrahan hadseen the two lads going up Slate rowearly that morning and he guessed theywere going poaching somewhere in theWoodside area. He had no intentionhowever of doing anything about it, as,apart from doing a bit of poaching ofgame and fish to put food on their tablesthese two gave the police no trouble atall. Belcam Murphy’s interventionchanged the situation and ConstableHanrahan had to be seen to act on theinformation received or he could becalled before the District Inspector togive an account of himself as to why heshouldn’t be dismissed from the force.

When he entered the barracks to make hisreport to the sergeant omn duty he wastold that Mr. Fred Murphy had alreadygiven all the details of what had takenplace that morning to the sergeant as soonas he got back from patrolling theKiltegan road. The sergeant now toldConstable Hanrahan that they wouldsearch the homes of James Byrne andThomas L———n at 1.30 p.m. that dayto search for several pheasants allegedlytaken from Woodside farm early thatmorning without the owner’s consent.

Constable Hanrahan now went back topatrolling the town, and knowing that theRed Lad nearly always went into thechapel around 11.45 a.m. each day hekept a sharp look-out for him. Hanrahanwas hopping mad because Belcam hadgone directly to the sergeant beforetelling him, and with this in mind he wasdetermined to soften Belcam’s coughfor him.

The Angelus bell was ringing as Hanra-han came walking smartly aroundJordan’s corner just as the Red Lad wascoming out through the chapel gate.“Good day to you, constable Hanrahan,”said the Red Lad, who seemed to sensethat the constable was in a serious mood.“Good day, Jim,” came the reply, “ and

could I have a quiet word in your ear?”

Hanrahan now suggested that they movein off the road to the gallery porch of thechapel. “Is there something wrong or amI in trouble?” asked the Red Lad, whowas now showing signs of anxiety atbeing called aside by the police. Hanra-han now explained that unless both thepoachers got rid of the evidence before1.30 p.m. they would be in very serioustrouble as Fred Murphy had reportedthem to the sergeant. He now instructedthe Red Lad to hurry home, put thepheasant in a sack along with any feath-ers that might be lying around, then go toTom’s house and there do the same.When he had both birds snugly rolled upin the sack he was to proceed as quicklyand quietly as possible to the back doorof Hanrahan’s rented house and handthem in to Mrs. Hanrahan who wouldprepare them for tomorrow’s dinner.Hanrahan would dig a hole in the backgarden into which he would put theheads, legs and feathers of both birds andthen he and his wife would eat the rest ofthe evidence.

Before the Red Lad left to collect thebirds Hanrahan schooled him well inwhat he was to say when questioned bythe sergeant or himself later on.

At exactly 1.30 the sergeant and Consta-ble Hanrahan knocked loudly on the RedLad’s door while two other constablesknocked on Blunt’s and demanded to beallowed in to search for evidence ofpoaching. The Red Lad, who had beeneating his dinner, immediately invited thesergeant and Constable Hanrahan into thehouse, telling them to search to theirheart’s content both inside and outsidethe house as he had nothing to hide,

A short distance away a similar scenariowas taking place at Blunt’s house, wherethe police also were invited in. Blunt,being of an explosive or volatile disposi-tion had no love for the R.I.C. and he wasfinding it extremely difficult to keep a lidon the situation, but this time he some-how managed to keep reasonably calm,and without any hesitation he answeredall the questions that were put to him. Asthe two constables were leaving hishouse, having found nothing, Bluntshowed some annoyance at the state inwhich they were leaving the place, and

he said to them, “Who the hell is goingto clean up this mess that ye are leavingafter ye? Youse two boyos must comefrom lovely homes!”

Further up Bridge Lane the sergeant andHanrahan had just finished searching theRed Lad’s house, but all they found weretwo recently caught rabbits that werehanging behind the back door. Thesergeant asked if he had the farmer’spermission to catch the rabbits, to whichthe Red Lad replied that he most certainlyhad, and he gave the sergeant thefarmer’s name and address so that hecould check it out for himself. ConstableHanrahan, who at this stage was trying tosuppress a grin, asked the Red Lad if Tomand himself had been out early thatmorning carrying a lamp and somethingthat looked like a net tied on the end of abamboo rod and if so to what purposewere these things put. Without anyhesitation the Red Lad answered thequestion, telling Hanrahan and thesergeant that they were out early as theyhad gone lamping skylarks. This answerseemed to take the sergeant by surpriseand he retorted, “What the blazes do youmean by saying you were lampingskylarks? Do you think that we are foolsor knaves to believe that story?”

At this point Hanrahan called the ser-geant to one side and explained that whatJames Byrne had just told them couldwell be true as this was one of themethods used to catch cock skylarks sothey could be caged for singing in thespring and summer. What ConstableHanrahan was now explaining to hissergeant was correct in every detail as itwas the method used on many occasionsby the Red Lad and Blunt to catch cockskylarks in late autumn and early winter,except that on this occasion they wereusing it as an excuse for being out poach-ing pheasants.

In late autumn and early winter skylarksform flocks of up to 150 birds and movefrom the west of Ireland over to the richeragricultural lands in the east and south ofthe country where they roost on theground at night in small corners of fieldswith rough sedgy grass, where they caneasily be taken by the trappers using alamp and a net. The frame of the net usedby the Hacketstown trappers was madefrom a circle of bull wire with a diameter

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of about 14 inches which was tied firmlyto a stout bamboo cane of about 6 feetlong. The actual net itself was made ofwhite muslin that had been died black sothat it wouldn’t show up in the light.When a lark was spotted in a tuft of grassand identified as a cock the net wasgently placed over him and he was thenput in a small wooden box with ventila-tion holes and a hinged lid on it. A boxlike this could comfortably hold at leastsix larks.

When all this had been explained to thesergeant, who had calmed down slightlyat this stage, he said to Hanrahan, “Let usbe off out of here; we have wasted toomuch time on this wild goose chase.”Turning to the Red Lad, who at this pointin the proceedings looked the picture ofinnocence, he said, “James Byrne, if youintend going out with a light for anypurpose whatsoever, morning noon ornight, you better call to the barracks andmake known your intentions.”

As they walked away from the housethey could see Belcam standing atSmithers’ corner (McCall’s) keeping aneye on what was taking place, and onseeing him the sergeant was anything buthappy. He told Hanrahan that all thiswould have to be written into thebarracks note book and it would showthem up in a very bad light at the nextbarracks inspection which was due inthree weeks time. Hanrahan now saw anopportunity to have Belcam chastisedand taken down a peg or two. His replyto his superior was, “Sergeant, you dorealise that this situation has come aboutbecause of one of Fred Murphy’s fantasystories, where he sees one and one, addsthem together and comes up with elevenas the answer.” The sergeant was nowred-faced and angry and he toldHanrahan to bring Fred Murphy to thebarracks by 10 the next morning to givean account of why he so badly misledthe police.

On reaching the barracks the sergeantimmediately went behind a table-likedesk to begin the task of writing up hisreport on the alleged poaching incidentwhich had been brought to his attentionby Fred Murphy. In this report heincluded all the details of the raid on thehomes of the Red Lad and Blunt, and ofhow the police had been misled by Fred

Murphy, including the sergeant’s ownopinion of him. This report would be readand commented on by the DistrictInspector on his next visit.

The sergeant in every barracks wasresponsible for keeping the record booksmaintained and up-to-date and ready forinspection at short notice. These booksincluded the Patrol Book, the Barracks

Note Book, Postage Book, Order Book,Evicted Farms Register, Fines Book,Sub-district Crime and Offence Book,Clothing and Stores Book, Register ofHouseholders, Private Register, RevenueSeizure Book, Warrant Book, Stray DogsRegister and Lost Property Book.

When he had finished writing his reportthe sergeant re-read it and he knew thatthe Inspector would pass some verycaustic remarks on how this case washandled and on how things should bedone in the future.

At a quarter to ten the next morningBelcam met with Constable Hanrahan atthe Pound Lane as arranged and theywalked along together towards thebarracks at the bottom of Eagle HillLane. Belcam at this point was in great

form as he said himself, as he wasconvinced that he was going to be highlycommended by the sergeant and given afried breakfast as had happened a fewtimes before for passing on informationto the R.I.C. As they walked along hemade his thoughts known to Hanrahanwho smiled and whistled a few bars of“The Young May Moon,” which ofcourse was the R.I.C. marching tune. He

then replied to Belcam saying, “I think,Mr. Murphy, the menu has been changedand you are much more likely to getlashings of hot tongue followed by plentyof cold shoulder.”

Word had it that the sergeant tore stripsoff Belcam, while all the time headdressed him as “Mr. Murphy” and hefinished his tirade by telling him that, ifhe ever again came to the barracks withfairy tales or half-truths about anybody,he would regret the day he was born.

That evening Blunt and the Red Lad metfor a chat at the Short Cut steps to discusswhat had happened that morning andhow they had heard about Belcam beingseverely reprimanded by the sergeant forgiving them misleading information.Blunt opened the discussion, saying, “I

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Water St./Moffat St., Hacketstown. The R.I. C. barracks is the two-storey building at left

Photo: P.M.


188


tell you this, Jim Byrne, if that ould baw-man of a Belcam ever informs on us tothe polis again, I swear by the two holystatues on top of the pillars beside thealtar in the chapel that I’ll feed his longnose to the ferrets!” The Red Lad inter-jected at this point and said with a greatdeal of sense, “Leave him alone, Tom.Just give him enough rope and he willhang himself. Hanrahan is keeping an eyeon his movements and if he slips up at allhe will be in deep trouble, so, like a goodfellow, leave well enough alone.”

Belcam at this stage was in his mid 50s,but in his early years he was known as“the bag of lime man,” because of themethod he used to catch trout. No half-decent poacher worth his salt would everconsider using it as it killed everything itcame in contact with in the brook orstream where it was used.

At the beginning of February the follow-ing year Belcam was seen buying twostone of lime in a jute sack, which he saidhe was going to use to whitewash hishouse. Word of this was brought toConstable Hanrahan’s attention by aperson who shall remain nameless, but

who had a fair idea of what Belcam reallyintended to do with the lime. A waitinggame now started and even when Hanra-han was off duty he still kept a close eyeon Belcam’s movements, while givingthe impression of not watching anybodyin particular. That year the local brooksand small streams remained high due toconstant heavy spring rain, so Belcamhad to wait until the water levels droppedand ran clear as only then could he put touse the tactics for killing fish that mostpeople including most other poachersfrowned on.

Hanrahan had received information thatBelcam was showing great interest inwalking along the banks of ScotlandBrook and opening gaps in the furzebushes that grew along beside it. Onhearing this the good constable decidedto conceal himself in some bushes thatwere growing about 30 yards upfieldfrom the brook. He cleared this plan withthe sergeant who gave him permission tospend about one and a half hours per dayfor one week to see if he could catch Bel-cam liming the brook. Hanrahan setabout his task with high hopes, but eachmorning for five days his hopes were

dashed as he drew blank after blank sit-ting in the cold. The sixth day was aSunday which dawned bright and crisp.Hanrahan was under cover in the bushesby 7.30 a.m. He was not feeling veryoptimistic, but suddenly the man with thecrooked smile came walking along theside of the brook carrying a bag over hisshoulder. He looked furtively around tomake sure nobody was watching beforewalking through a gap in the furze bushesand stepping into the brook. As soon ashe entered the water, which was about 8or 10 inches deep, he took the bagcontaining two stone of lime off hisshoulder and immersed it in the flowingwater. He then placed his right foot on thebag and used an up and down pumpingaction to squeeze the lime out and mix itwith the water. The brook now lookedlike someone was pouring milk into it.Trout, eels and minnows were splashingand floating on the surface.

Constable Hanrahan by this time hadquietly reached the gap in the furze andwas standing behind Belcam observingthe goings on. When he had seen enoughhe cleared his throat and said in a loudvoice, “Good morning, Mr. Murphy, andmight I ask are you panning for gold, oris it something more sinister that you areinvolved in?” Belcam was picking updead and dying fish and had a trout ineach hand when Hanrahan spoke frombehind him, causing him to stumble andalmost to fall flat on his face into thestream with the fright. Belcam Murphy,“the bag of lime man,” was arrested onthe spot and brought back to the barracksto be questioned, and so ended his careeras a police informer and poacher.

Meanwhile back at the Short Cut stepsthe Red Lad and Blunt were makingplans on how they would catchgoldfinches, bullfinches and linnets laterin the Spring, but the next day they weregoing to catch some trout – legally, asthey were going fly fishing.

Carloviana 2016


The monument to Irish victims of the Great Famine, Charlottetown, Prince EdwardIsland, Canada.The circle contains a stone from each of the 32 counties. The stonewas sourced through Stone Developments Ltd., Old Leighlin.

189


Carloviana 2016

77M was built in 1937 by the Ringsend

Dockyard Company and known as a

McMillan boat after the boat builder.

Together with 78M and 79M it was built

slightly longer and wider than the

standard M boat, so it measured 61 ft 9

ins by 13 ft 3 ins

In the early 1950's Eddie Cummins from

Edenderry worked with Paddy Aungier

on this boat. Poor old Eddie had a sad

ending when he drowned off 77M in

Daingean in 1954/5. It happened while

loading beet around Christmas time.

That wasn't the only tragedy connected

to 77M as George Fitzpatrick from

Dublin drowned off her below Portumna,

while towing a row boat for a man from

Garry Kennedy. The row boat was being

towed up the lake behind the barge,

coming up the lake George pulled the

boat up to the barge and got into it. After

a while he decided to go back to the

barge so he went to the front of the row

boat and pulled on the tow rope. The

combination of his weight and the pull on

the rope pulled down the nose of the boat

and he fell in the lake. His body was

picked up by another boat the

following day.

At another time Robert Mahon was

skipper with Paddy Mahon and Paddy

Delaney. Her last crew were all from

Banagher, Andy Maloney was in charge

(Skipper), Tom 'Thick' Donnelan was the

Driver/Engineman and Will 'Able'

Maloney was Dockhand.

77M was not sold by CIE but was con-

verted to a dredger. Its bow was cut down

to the waterline and a Priestman dredger

fitted. Its Bolinder engine was replaced

with a 59hp air cooled Lister diesel

engine. Tommy Doyle and Christy Daly

were her first crew. John Doherty. John

Whelan of Graiguenamanagh and Joe

Logan also worked on her. In 1986/7 Kit

Moran and Ger Nolan was the crew when

she worked on the Circular Line in

Dublin. 77M moved to the Barrow

around 1995 and was retired from service

on 1997

It still belongs to Waterways Ireland and

is currently lying in the canal outside the

Maintenance Depot at Fenniscourt Lock.

77M

The McMillanBoat

67M 72M

Negotiating Rathvinden lock north ofLeighlinbridge on the morning ofOctober 7th, 2011

Moored at the quay atLeighlinbridge

In dry dock at Fenniscourt, Co Carlow

Printed here with full credit to the

anonymous author.

Photos added by editorial team

190

The McMillan Boat

Carloviana 2016

Negotiating Rathvinden Lock northof Leighlinbridge

The Parish Pound was located on the road thatlinks the N9 with R 7085The above stone, set in the wall, marked itslocation. The wall was replaced by theentrance to the IT Carlow.

Where is it now?

Photo: Willie Ellis

The Parish Pound marker

The letter M stands for motor.

191

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192

Museum_Layout 1 29/10/2015 10:50 Page 1

Carlow CountJ Museum

Ireland's County Museum of the Year 2014 - 2015

See what you're missing fJ ~

COUNTY MUSEUM OPENlNG HOURS

June to August Monday - Saturday 10.00 a.m. - 5.00 p.m.

Sundays & Banks Holidays 2.00 p.m. - 4.30 p.m.

Septern ber to May Monday- Saturday 10.00 a.m. - 4.30 p.m.

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Carlow County Museum, College Street, Carlow Town, Co. Carlow

Tel: 059 913 1554 Email: [email protected] Web: www.carlowcountymuseum.ie

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We are always looking for new volunteers. If you have an interest in history/archaeology or would like to try something new you can contact us by email, telephone or just drop in to us.

Carloviana 2016

to Showcase 1916 Commemorative Eventsoudly Partnering with Carlow Historical SocietyPr

Institute of T

to Showcase 1916 Commemorative Eventsoudly Partnering with Carlow Historical Society

echnology f T Technology Carlow


echnology Carlow


Find out more about IT Carlow at www.itcarlow.ieKilkenny Road Carlow T: 059 917 5280 E: [email protected] W: www.itcarlow.ie



ALLIS CHALMERS D.272 T.V.O. £525 0 0ALLIS CHALMERS D.272 Diesel £625 0 0DAVID BROWN 900D. 40 h.p. Livedrive Diesel £798 0 0DAVID BROWN 900 40 h.p. Livedrive V.O. £740 0 0DAVID BROWN 25D. 31 h.p. Diesel 6 £665 0 0DAVID BROWN 25 31 h.p. V.O. £590 0DAVID BROWN 2D £470 0 0FORDSON MAJOR DIESEL—Standard equipment £663 9 0FORDSON DEXTA DIESEL—Standard equipment £616 0 0MASSEY-FERGUSON 35 Diesel £650 9 0MASSEY-FERGUSON 35 Diesel De Luxe £680 0 0MASSEY-FERGUSON 35 Petrol £546 0 0MASSEY-FERGUSON 35 Petrol De Luxe £570 0 0MASSEY-FERGUSON 35 V.O. £558 0 0MASSEY-F'ERGUSON 35 V.0, De Luxe £588 0 0MASSEY-FERGUSON 35Diesel Single Clutch Vineyard £720 0 0MASSEY-FERGUSON 35 Diesel Dual Clutch Vineyard £752 0 0MASSEY-FERGUSON 35 Petrol Single Clutch Vineyard £628 0 0

MASSEY-FERGUSON 35 Petrol Dual Clutch Vineyard £652 0 0MASSEY-FERGUSON 35 V.O.Single Clutch Vineyard £640 0 0

MASSEY-FERGUSON 35 V.O. Dual Clutch Vineyard £664 0 0MASSEY-FERGUSON 65 Standard Diesel £815 0 0NUF•FIELD 3DL, Diesel 37.2 £596 0 0NUFFIELD DM4 Diesel 45 h.p. £696 0 0 PORSCHE Diesel Super complete, 42 h.p. £790 0 0PORSCHE Diesel Standard, 28 h.p. £689 0 0PORSCHE Diesel AP.Standard. 26 h.p. £647 0 0PORSCHE Diesel Junior, 16 h.p. £497 0 0

Tractor prices in 1958

193

ITCarlow_Layout 1 29/10/2015 17:25 Page 1

Carloviana 2016

2016Officers and Members

of theCarlow Historical and Archaeological Society

Patron

Professor Donal McCartney

President

Bertie Watchorn

Vice President

Joe Brennan

Secretary

Padraig Dooley

Treasurer

David Dooley

Editor

Jim Shannon

Committee

Pat O'Neill, Joe Brennan, Deirdre Kearney, David Dooley, Martin Nevin, Jim Shannon,Dan Carbery, Seamus O'Murchu, Padraig Dooley, Gary Hughes, Lynn Whelan, Bertie Watchorn, Noreen Whelan, Richard Codd,John Kelly, Padraig Dooley.

Honorary Life Members

Michael Conry, Kevin Kennedy, Rose Murphy, Margaret Minchin,Seamus Murphy, Martin Nevin, Edward McDonald

194

Officers_Layout 1 29/10/2015 11:01 Page 1

Noel Alcock, 42 Staunton Ave., Graiguecullen, CarlowThomas Alcock, Oisin, Derrymoyle, CarlowJohn Alexander, Milford, Co. CarlowAndrew Ashmore, Ballaghmoon House, CarlowBernie Atkinson, 56 The downs, Pollerton Big, CarlowRobert Aughney, Lumcloone Cross, Fenagh, Co. CarlowMargaret Baragry, “Maryville”,Larkfield, Rathnapish, CarlowMichael Boyce, “Mulroy”, 14 Braganza, CarlowIvor Bowe, Bowe Consulting, Strawhall, CarlowJohn & Bernadette Boyd, 8 Shaw Park, Athy Rd., CarlowDr. Geoffrey Bremble, Chapel Hse., 11 Cothill, Ox136Jn, UKJoseph & Mary Brennan, 63 Green Road, CarlowPhyllis Brennan, 32 College Gardens, Granby Row, CarlowSheila Brennan, 32 College Gardens, Granby Row, CarlowMs Brid Brett, Ballyhide, CarlowEdward Brophy, 1 Sycamore Road, Rathnapish, CarlowGregory Brophy, Castlemore, Tullow, Co. CarlowMrs. Brigid Brophy, Slievereagh, Rathdangan, Co. WicklowJohn Burke, “Aghaboe”, Knocknagee, CarlowFergal Browne, “Churchview”, Rutland, CarlowJames Brown, Killinane, Bagenalstown, Co. CarlowMaurice Bursey, 101Longwood Pl.,Chapel Hill, NC, USAMsgr Brendan Byrne, The Shroughawn, Tullow, Co.CarlowRev. Gerald Byrne P.P., Graiguenamanagh, Co. KilkennyMargaret Byrne, 16 Sutton Grove, Sutton, Dublin 13Joseph Callinan, The Field, Pollerton Little, CarlowDan & Attracta Carbery, Glencarrig, Green Road, CarlowKay Carbery, 58 Monacurragh, CarlowEugene & Patricia Carbery, Mortarstown, CarlowMichael Carbery, 1 Pembroke, CarlowSr. Mary Carmody, 4 Pinewood Avenue, CarlowAnthony Clarkson, St. Catherine’s, Regent St., BagenalstownMatthew Cleary, Erindale Lodge, Kilkenny Road, CarlowRichard Codd, Munny, Coolkenno, Tullow, Co. CarlowMrs. Frances Cole, “Ballybar, “ CarlowSr Eileen Comerford, Apt.7, Poachers Lock, LeighlinbridgeJames & Brenda Conway, Coppenagh, Tullow, Co. CarlowL.V. & Rita Conway, Straboe, Tullow, Co.CarlowJohn Conway, Rathvinden, Leighlinbridge, Co.CarlowJohn & Dawn Coogan, Castlemore, Tullow, Co. CarlowGemma Corrigan, 9 Cathedral Close, CarlowThomas Corrigan, Knockfield, Castledermot, Co. KildareClaire Cotter, 33 College Gardens, Granby Row, CarlowThomas & Kathleen Cox, Ballyknockan, Fenagh, Co.CarlowNorman Cree, Ballyknockan, LeighlinbridgeKathleen Cullen, Killamoat, Rathdangan, Co. WicklowPeadar Cullen, Killamoat, Rathdangan, Co. WicklowBarry Dalby, Clonegal, Enniscorthy, Co. WexfordMichael Daly, Caherea, Browneshill, CarlowPat Darcy, Crossneen, CarlowJames & MarleneDavis, 2 Borlum Wood, Green Rd., CarlowJames Deane, The Shop, Tinryland, Co.CarlowCynthia Deane, Kilkenny- Carlow ETB, Athy Road, CarlowPatrick Deane, Rathellen, Leighlinbridge, Co. CarlowEamon & Cathleen Delaney, Tobacco Meadows, CarlowJames Dempsey, Ballinacarrig, CarlowHugh Dolan, 35 Oakley Park, Tullow Road, CarlowJohn & Mary Dollard, 10 Barrowville, Kilkenny Rd., CarlowJames Donegan, St. Killian’s Crescent, CarlowEddie Donohue, Rathvarrin, Ardattin, Co.Carlow

Margaret Donohue, 13 Sherwood, Hacketstown Rd., CarlowMartin & Bernadette Doogue, Hillcrest, BaltinglassThomas & Mairead Doolan, Ballinacarrig, CarlowAnthony & Phil Dooley, Barrowside , CarlowDavid Dooley, 7 Lerr View, Abbeylands, CastledermotPadraig Dooley, 23 Dolmen Gardens, CarlowMichael Doran, Leighlinbridge, Co. CarlowLeslie Dowley, Oak Park,CarlowAnne E. Dowling, Kellistown, CarlowMrs Lil Doyle, Ballycullane, Hacketstown, Co.CarlowMichael P. & Anne Doyle, Innisfree, Railway Rd., CarlowThomas & Patricia Doyle, Browneshill Ave., CarlowPercy Drea, Wells, Bagenalstown , Co.CarlowDr Colmain Etchingham, Ballinguilky, Hacketstown James Farrell, Grosvenor, Kilkenny Road, CarlowLeslie & Cora Farrer, Crossneen, CarlowJoseph Feeley, Moytura, Dunleckney, BagenalstownGeorge & Nuala Fitzgerald, 25 Riverside, CarlowWilliam Fitzgerald, 50 Sycamore Road, Rathnapish, CarlowDr Tom Foley, Leighlinbridge, Co.CarlowDesmond & Jean Foot, Pound Lane, Borris, Co. CarlowAndreas & Mary Frohlich, Sandfield, Oakpark Road, CarlowSean Gavin, “Garryduff House,” Paulstown, Co. KilkennyThomas & Marian Geoghegan, Ballincarrig, CarlowBernard Geraghty, Oakpark, CarlowMrs. Kathleen Goodwin,7 Aylesbury, Dublin Road, CarlowRobert & Betty Graham, Crossneen, CarlowPatrick Healy, Pollerton Castle, CarlowRory Healy, Pollerton Castle, CarlowNoel Heffernan, 7 Bullock Park, CarlowMrs. Anna Hennessy, Ballytiglea, Borris, Co. CarlowJohn & Avril Hogan, 8 Highfield, CarlowSeamus & Mary Hogan, Rathrush, Rathoe, Co.CarlowPaddy Holohan, Ballycarney, Blackbog Road, CarlowMichael & Pauline Hosey, The Boulders, TinrylandWilliam & Kathleen Hosey, Castlemore, Tullow, Co. CarlowRobert Gerald Howson, Carlow Road, LeighlinbridgeMrs Betty Hughes, Ballinabranna, Milford, Carlow.Gary Hughes, 5 Ashfield, CarlowRobin & Nora James, “The Dormer”, Brownshill Rd.,CarlowBrigid A. Johnson, 36 Eastwood,Bagenalstown, Co.CarlowJim & Helen Jordan, Ratheadan House, LeighlinbridgeMrs Pauline Jordan, Church Road, Bagenalstown,Co.CarlowThomas Joyce, Rathgorvan, Ballymurphy, Borris, Co. CarlowMyles Kavanagh, Royal Oak Rd., BagenalstownLarry Kavanagh, 17 Shillelagh Grove, Tullow, Co.CarlowDeirdre Kearney, “Ardmore”, Brownshill Road, CarlowAnne Keating, 95 Beechwood Park, CarlowSean Kehoe, 17 Ilex Hse., Mespil Estate, Sussex Rd., D 14Thomas Kehoe, 57 Dublin Street, CarlowPatrick Keogh, 1Foxrock Green, Foxrock, Dublin 18Edward Kelly, 118 St. Clare’s Road, Graiguecullen, CarlowJohn Kelly, Raheenkillane, Ballon, Co. CarlowGeorge Kenny, 4 Frederick Avenue, CarlowDavid Kenny, Crosslow, Tullow, Co. CarlowDermot Kennedy, Glebe Hse., Clonmore, HacketstownWilliam & BrigidKeppel, Rathrush, Rathoe, Co. CarlowJohn Kinsella, Rathrush, Rathoe, Co. CarlowRita Lacey, Closh, Ballylinan, Athy, Co. KildareMichael & Margaret Lawlor, 20 New Oak Estate, Carlow

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Members

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Members 2015-16_Members 29/10/2015 17:05 Page 1

Fr Andy Leahy P.P., Parochial House, Tullow, Co.CarlowJohn Lohan, 33 Pairc Mhuire, Muinebheag, Co. CarlowMartin J Lynch, 118 Beechwood Park, Pollerton, CarlowBrian & Mary Lyons, Crossneen, CarlowPaul Lyons, Oakpark Road, CarlowTony Lyons, Boherbee, Paulstown, Co. KilkennyMary Mackey, Ballypreacus, Bunclody, Co. WexfordLouise Maher, Clonegal, Co. CarlowJim & Bridget Matthews, 12 Luttrellstown Green,Luttrellstown, Co.DublinBrendan May, Gardenfield, Tuam, Co. GalwayKathleen McCarthy, Clonburrin House, Fenagh,Muine BheagMichael McCarthy, Clonburrin House, Fenagh,Muine BheagJoseph McDonald, 4 Heatherfield Court, CarlowTony McEvoy, Cheshire Home, Tullow, Co. Carlow Rev. John McEvoy P.P., Paulstown, Co.KilkennyMrs Catherine McGuill, Blackbog Road, CarlowBarry McHugh, Mountain View House, Green Road, CarlowMargaret McKenna, Ashwood, Browneshill Rd., CarlowNorman McMillan, White Bulls, Portlaoise Rd.,Graiguecullen, CarlowChristopher McQuinn, 18 Shillelagh Grove, TullowFonsie Mealey, Georgian Mews, The Square, CastlecomerAnne T Meaney,3 Kilcarrig Street,Bagenalstown,Co. CarlowPeter Minchin, Coolnacuppogue , BagenalstownMichael & Mary Monahan, Johnsduffwood, Old Leighlin Anne T. Mooney, 42 Bourlum Wood, Green Road, CarlowCharles & Ann L Moore, Tullow Lodge, Tullow, Co. CarlowEamonn A. Moore, Link Road, Chapelstown, Carlow.Eunice Moore, 2 Clarendon Rd., Scunthorpe, LincolnshireMargaret Moran, 109 Beechwood Park, Pollerton, CarlowMrs. Sheila Moss, Monbeg, Ballindaggin, EnniscorthyJames Mulhall, Castlemore, Tullow, Co. CarlowDermot Mulligan, 19 Marble Court, Paulstown,Co. KilkennyFrank Mulvey, 44 Feltham Hall, Blackbog Road, CarlowAnne Murphy, Pollerton Little, CarlowEileen Murphy, Drumphea, Garryhill, Co. CarlowGer & Kathyrn Murphy, “Duncar”, Browneshill, CarlowPatricia Murphy, Killinure, Tullow, Co. CarlowPatrick E.Murphy, Ratheadon, Bagenalstown, Co. CarlowPatrick Murphy, 2 Oak Park Drive, CarlowJohn Murphy, Killinure, Tullow, Co.CarlowMatthew & Kathleen Murray, Ballyhide, CarlowThomas & Anne Neville, Oak Park, CarlowMrs. Rosaleen Nevin, Carlow Road, LeighlinbridgeAnn Nolan, Wayside, Station Rd, Bagenalstown,Co. CarlowBreda Nolan, Station Road, Bagenalstown, Co. CarlowKatie Nolan, 6 Bagnal Court, Court Place, CarlowFrank Nolan, “Sunnydale”, Oak Park Road, CarlowLiam & Sheila Nolan, Newtown, Bagenalstown,Co. CarlowEamonn A. Nolan, 90 Green Road, CarlowPatrick M. Nolan, College Road, Kilkenny Claire Nolan-Moore, 6 The Orchards, Tullow Rd., CarlowKennedy & Bernie O’Brien, Tinryland, CarlowMrs Eileen O’Connor, Rosemount, Borris, Co.CarlowJohn O’Donovan, Kilnock, Ballon, Co. CarlowPeter O’Dowd, Shankhill, Paulstown, Co. KilkennyCarmel O’Dwyer, 14 Sharon Avenue, Brownshill, CarlowJohn O’Gorman, Solicitors, Athy Road, CarlowMrs. Betty O’Gorman, 59 Dublin Street, Carlow

Una O’Gorman, Cullenagh, Ballylinan, co. LaoisAnne O’Hara, 13 Frederick Avenue , CarlowP J O’Hare, Glenamoy, Leighlinbridge, Co. CarlowDes & Breda O’Mahony, “The Kerries”,22 Braganza,CarlowGerry O’Malley, 64 Green Road, CarlowSeamus Ó Murchú, Friary Lane, Pollerton Little, CarlowMsgr Kevin O’Neill, St.Patrick’s College, CarlowLiam & Sheila O’Neill, Baile Eamoinn, Spiddal, Co. GalwayMaurice O’Neill, Kilmurry, Ballon, Co. CarlowNial O’Neill, 43 Connolly Villas, Ennis, Co.ClarePatrick O’Neill, 21 Bullock Park, CarlowPaul O’Neill, Everton, Springhill, CarlowEileen O’Rourke, 35 Quinagh Green, CarlowHugh & Denise O’Rourke, St. Anthony’s, Ballyhide, CarlowBernard O’Shea, 34 Bullock Park, CarlowFr PhilipO’Shea P.E., Ballinakill, Garryhill, Co. CarlowJames&Carmel O’Toole,Borlum House, Kilkenny Rd,CarlowSéamus & Máire Parkes, “Dun Eoghain,” Chapelstown, Co. CarlowMrs. Helen Pender, Russellstown, Palatine, CarlowTerry Pratt, Clonmore, Killeshin, CarlowMrs.Ann Power, 42 Kilcarrig St, Bagenalstown, Co. CarlowMrs Marie Quirke, Newtown, Bagenalstown , Co.CarlowT..G. & Margaret Redmond, Heywood, Oakpark, CarlowMrs Mena Rice, Main Street, Borris, Co. CarlowBrid De Roiste, 15 Clarence Gate, Kilkenny Road, CarlowPeter Rose, Spahill House, Borris, Co.CarlowDes & Rose Scully, 8 Burrindale, Pollerton, CarlowDenis Shannon, Tinryland, Co.CarlowJames Shannon, “Lorien”, Scotland,Hacketstown,Co. CarlowJack Sheehan, Dunleckney, Bagenalstown, Co. CarlowRichard Sheehan, Dunleckney, Bagenalstown, Co. CarlowRory Sheerin, The Ridge, Old Leighlin, CarlowKae Slattery,“Windover”15 Sycamore Rd,Rathnapish,CarlowFr. Martin Smith, 1 Green Road, CarlowBernie Smyth, 12 Villarea Park, Glenageary, Co. Dublin John Smyth, Conaberry, Ballon, Co. Carlow Seamus & Bridget Somers, Killinane, BagenalstownEmma Sparks, Kilnock, Ballon, Co. CarlowDerek Stacey, Brannockstown, Naas, Co. KildareJack Stratton, “Rockdale”, Kilmeaney, CarlowValerie Stratton, “Rockdale”, Kilmeaney, CarlowRev. Peter Tarleton, The Rectory, Maidenhead, BallickmoylerDerek & Joan Treacy, 57 Highfield, Dublin Road, CarlowRobert & Irene Watchorn, Ballinakill, Ballickmoyler, CarlowSeosamh Watson, Glenview, Nurney, Co. CarlowOliver & Mary Whelan, 152 Seapark, Malahide, Co. DublinMrs Noreen Whelan, 17 Sycamore Road, Rathnapish,CarlowFr Edward Whelan P.E., Ballon, Co.CarlowLynne Whelan, 66 Oakley Crescent, Graiguecullen, CarlowPaul White, Oakpark, CarlowArthur Willis, Rathrush, Rathoe, Co.CarlowTony Wynne, 92 Jennings Lane, Atherton, California

Carloviana 2016

Members

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Members 2015-16_Members 29/10/2015 17:05 Page 2

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SPONSORS

Brophy Agri-Services Ltd GRAIN MERCHANTS

Carlow Road, Tullow, Co. Carlow

Tel: 059 9151242 Email: [email protected]

ELM CONSTRUCTION Sandbrook Lodge, Blackbog Road, Carlow.

Phone: 087 - 925 8081 / 059 - 913 7060

MATT D. DOYLE HEADSTONES Pembroke, Carlow

Tel: 059 9142048. Mobile: 087 2453413. Email: [email protected] Web: www.mattddoyleheadstones.com

R. HEALY & SON FUNERAL DIRECTORS Polle1ion Castle, Carlow

Phone: 059 / 9131286 Email: rhea!y@iol. ieIWeb:www.funeral-directors. ie

# C Green Lane, Carlow, Ireland.

SHEEHY Tel: +353 (059) 9174000 Fax: +353(059)9131150

Email: [email protected] Web: www.sheehymotors.ie ~o r. g r o~

CL<?~M8,!~,N~!~TS~ T: 059 91 31976 M: 087 261 2827 E: clonmoremeats mail.corn

ST. MARY'S ACADEMY, CARLOW Acadamh Mhuire

D 11

RAlLWAY ROAD, CARLOW --- - --•----- -

Phone: 059 9142419 Fax: 059 9130922. Web: www.cbscarlow.ne/.

BERNARD JENNINGS, F.A.0.1. Optometrist

2 DUBLIN STREET, CARLOW Phone: 059 9143808. Fax: 059 9143245

Email: [email protected]

PAUL WIDTE, M.P.S.I. Prescriptions, Health & Beauty

44 TULLOW STREET, CARLOW

Phone: 059 9 131229

Wright 15 Dublin Street , Carlow T: 059 9137077

E: [email protected] W: www.wrightcover.ie

Insurance Brokers Wright Group Brokers Ltd tla Wright Insurance Brokers, Wrightcover is regulated

by the Central Bank of Ireland.

HOSEYS SUPERMARKET & POST OFFICE

Staplestown Road, Carlow Tel: 059 9131562 / 9132269

Fax: 059 9140333

GAELSCOIL EOGHAIN Ui THUAIRISC Garran na Fuinseoige, Ceatharlach Fon: 059 9131634. Faics: 059 9140861

Web: www.cgscoil.ie Email: cgscoil@iol. ie

Pr·c:iud to support. Carlow's tocal commu, 1ty sin.c-e the late I 880's.

A.lB Carlow • OS9 9 13 1758

ST. MARY'S, KNOCKBEG COLLEGE, CARLOW COLAISTE MUIRE, CNOC BEAG, CEATHARLACH

Phone: 059 9142127 / 059 9143705 Fax: 059 9134437

Email: [email protected]. Web: www.knockbegcollege. ie

DOOLEY MOTORS SLEATY ROUNDABOUT, CARLOW » Tel: 059 9131665. Fax: 059 9142118 Web: www.dooleymotors.com Email: [email protected]

BALLON MEATS Ballon, Co. Carlow, Ireland.

Tel: 059 9159132 Fax: 059 9159102 Web: www.ballonmeats.ie Email: [email protected]

Producers of th.e}h:t'sr Irish Be,f Lamb, Pork & C 1\.~\Tt1c Meats

C!l:amonn ~olan.& ~ons Jltb ELECTRICAL CONTRACTORS

16 Burrin Street, Carlow Phone: 059 9135035. Eamonn: 086 2482735 ..

David: 087 2666225. Frank: 086 8474705.

WALSH WHISKEY OiSTILLERY

BENNE.KERRY, CARLOW. T: 059-9140771 M: 087 2632324 E: info@cand\.10urs.ie www.candytours.ie if you ha1:e a tour 111 mind, gr1:e us a call!

Walsh Whiskey Distillery Equity House, Deerpark Business Park,

Dublin Road, Carlow, Ireland.

Tel: +353 59 9133232 I Fax: +353 59 9133291 Web: www.walshwhiskey.com

Email: in [email protected]

Suppliers of Original Brand, Compatible & Remanufaclured Inks & Toner

Cartridges, Papers & Accessories

Unit 1, Burrin Arcade, Burrin Street, Carlow telephone: 059 9132735 email: [email protected]

~ F~JL~P~N«k www.earlowprint.eom Strawhall Ind Est, Carlow I 059-91315121 [email protected]

Carloviana 2016

ISSN 0790 - 0813 5 5

9 770790 081008

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