Athy's Emily Square ideal place for revamped market

People on social media during the past week raised concerns about Athy’s Tuesday market. Their concerns were raised in the light of the planned redevelopment of Emily Square or as Kildare County Council would tell us “the improvement of the public realm”.

Athy’s Tuesday market came into existence following the granting of a charter by King Henry VIII in 1515. The charter written in Latin specified that the market was to be held every Tuesday in a place chosen by Gerald Earl of Kildare at whose request the charter was granted.

The same charter granted borough status to the medieval village of Athy and provided for the annual election of a town provost whose modern day equivalent would be the mayor.

The primary purpose of the charter was to fund the erection of walls around the medieval village and so provide greater security for the villagers whom we are told “lived in the frontiers of the Irish enemy”.

The continuation of the market 529 years later is wonderful to behold but the present market traders, many of whom have been coming to Athy for over forty years, are concerned as to how they will be catered for when Emily Square is closed during the redevelopment work.

During the 18th century, the marketplace was identified as the area immediately in front of the town hall which had been built in or around 1720. Immediately behind the town hall was St. Michael’s Church of Ireland Church which was demolished following the opening of the new St Michael’s Church at the top of Offaly Street in 1840.

The area between the old church and the nearby river barrow was marshland which would tend to indicate that the marketplace chosen by the Earl of Kildare was the area now known as Emily Square.

Interestingly, Athy Urban District Council adopted market bye-laws in July 1907 in which twelve marketplaces in Athy were designated. These included markets for specific agricultural produce which were allocated to the market square, markets on the west and south side of the courthouse and the calf market on the east side of the courthouse. The market for second-hand clothes was sited between the Barrow bridge and the south side of the chains on the Barrow Quay while the turf market was located opposite the chains on Barrow Quay.

This would tend to show that the market right first established in 1515 by a decision of the Urban District Council in 1907 had been extended beyond its original location in the market square.

These bye-laws were published in local newspapers on 1 July 1907 and they reimposed market tolls on goods sold in the market and reaffirmed Tuesday as the town market day. This latter declaration was probably deemed necessary because the Commissioners on Municipal Corporations in Ireland Report stated: ‘Tuesday and Saturday in each week are the market days.’ Strangely, Athy town commissioners at its meeting on the 2 August 1852 agreed that ‘a second market be established in Athy on every Saturday to commence on the 1st September 1852’.

The Tuesday market is a market right created by charter that cannot be extinguished, unlike the Saturday market where the right to hold the same has long disappeared and cannot now be revived.

The right to hold the Tuesday market under the 1515 charter was given to the Provost of Athy and he was succeeded in time by the heads of subsequent local authorities resulting in Kildare County Council having ownership of the market right and effective control of the Tuesday market.

Under The Casual Trading Act 1995, Kildare County Council can extinguish the market but only to relocate it to a different area. It is not suggested that this be done as the redeveloped Emily Square would be the ideal location for a revamped Tuesday Market.

I have written on several occasions over the years calling on Athy Urban District Council and Kildare County Council to adopt casual trading bye-laws, the purpose of which would be to improve the market and make it more attractive for locals and visitors alike.

The county council must ensure that the new location provides facilities reasonably corresponding in size to those currently provided. The work on the Emily Square development is, I understand, to start next September.

In the meantime, the traders entitled to benefit from the market rights of 1515 wonder what arrangements are to be made in terms of temporary market relocation when the “public realm” development is ongoing.