How the museum in Athy came about

ON 24 September the previously adjourned AGM of Athy’s Historical Society will be held in the local Community Arts Centre at 8pm.

The society was formed last year in succession to the Athy Museum Society which had been formed in February 1983. The dissolution of the museum society followed on an agreement with Kildare County Council for the council to finance and manage the museum which the society had opened in 1983 and which had evolved over the years to become the Shackleton Museum.

On 24 September, I hope that any of my readers interested in Athy’s history will come to the AGM. If you are not already a member of the Athy Historical Society, you may join on the night on payment of an annual fee of €20. Following the AGM a further short meeting will be called to discuss plans in connection with the protection of Athy’s built heritage and in particular the White Castle.

Let me conclude by quoting some extracts from an Eye on the Past of many years ago in which I dealt with the early years of Athy’s Museum Society.

‘I returned to Athy in 1982 after a period of 21 years away from the town in which I had grown up. During those 21 years I developed an interest in the town’s local history. To start a local history group in Athy seemed an obvious extension to that interest and discussions with Pat Mulhall and Tadgh Brennan offered sufficient encouragement to proceed with the idea.

I believed that a local museum would be the most tangible way of involving the greatest number of local people in local history. In January 1983 I wrote to a number of people whom I thought would be supportive of the idea of starting a museum in Athy.

I mentioned that the matter had already been discussed with a number of local people and with local government officials and that initial response was encouraging. Contact was also made at that early stage with the Federation of Local History Societies of Ireland and with the museum section of the Old Carlow Society, both of whom were extremely helpful.

A meeting was held in the jury room of the Courthouse, Athy on Monday, 31 January 1983. The small group in attendance agreed that Athy was rich in history and with many links to the great events in Irish history should have a museum.

A further meeting was arranged for Monday 14 February and the Athy Museum Society was formally established at the meeting. The society’s first secretary was Mr. Noreen Ryan, while Bertie Doyle, publican of Woodstock Street, was appointed treasurer. Within a few weeks the Kildare County Manager, Gerry Ward, met Pat Mulhall and myself and he agreed to provide space for a small museum in the Town Hall if and when other demands on the building so allowed.

At that stage the Town Hall still housed the Urban District Council offices where the Town Clerk was Jimmy O’Higgins, who himself had attended the inaugural meeting of the society in 1983. In the meantime the museum society was able to use the former classroom in Mount Saint Marys, owing to the generosity of the local Sisters of Mercy. There Ken Sale and others worked on several weekends to install spotlights and to generally prepare the former classroom for use as a local museum.

Shop display cabinets were kindly donated by Trevor Shaw of Shaws Department Store and the museum soon opened every Sunday afternoon between 2pm and 5pm.

Following a major improvement project on the Town Hall, the fire brigade, which occupied the ground floor, moved to new premises and the library services moved into the first floor of the building.

Donegal-born Gerry Ward, Kildare County Manager, was finally able to facilitate the Museum Society and in or about 1989 the ground floor room which had once been home to the Wright family was made available to the society.

The Athy Museum Society played a major part in Athy Urban District Council’s successful application for Heritage Town status. The importance of the museum society to the development of our understanding of the town’s cultural and historical past cannot be overstated. Many people have helped in different ways to transform the dream of a local history museum into what is now the Shackleton Museum.

I will mention just a few who have long passed away, but whose contribution shall not be forgotten. Pat Mulhall, Dick Norris, Patsy O’Neill, Mick Rowan, Tom Prendergast, Noreen Ryan and especially Bertie Doyle, the past treasurer of the Museum Society who shared the dream but did not live to see this day.’ 

People with an interest in local history have a sense of place, a sense of identity and a love for their own town or village. Local history is a subsidiary part of our country’s history, whose value lies in the vivid reminder of people and events of the past which helps us to better understand our country’s history.

The Autumn series of lectures organised by Athy’s Historical Society will open on Tuesday, 17 September at 8pm in the Community Arts Centre with a presentation by Rod and Mary Feely of their trek through Nepal to the Everest base camp. Admission free.