Athy toasts Sanders visit – 'It feels like home'

ATHY proudly played host to a very special visit on Sunday of Jane O’Meara Sanders and US Senator Bernie Sanders.

It was a personal visit for Jane O’Meara Sanders, who was following in her ancestors' footsteps and also unveiling the Made in Athy plaque commemorating the anti-war song Johnny I Hardly New Ye, a song she recounted singing at home and at rallies during the Vietnam War.

Ms O’Meara Sanders met her Coyle cousins in Nicholastown on Sunday while local historian Clem Roche shed extra light for her on some new family connections.

“(Ireland) always feels welcoming. It’s very touching. It really does feel like home. You feel like a family, always welcoming to everybody, and have the same values and principles that we have in our family,” she said.

The day had begun in the home of the Coyle family, where the family matriarch Freda presided over a gathering full of laughter and warmth.

“It was brilliant,” said Colm Walsh of Made in Athy, the event’s brainchild. “It was actually very moving. It felt like you’d known everyone there for 40 years, even if it was your first time meeting.” 

Speaking later as she unveiled the plaque in St Michael’s cemetery at the war memorial, Ms O’Meara Sanders, an academic and activist, recounted her connection to the famous anti-war song through the famous Joan Baez version.

She appealed in hope that the powers that be take the words of the song to heart and not send “any more of our sons and daughters to war”.

Mr Walsh recounted how Johnny I Hardly New Ye tells the story of a woman who meets her Athy lover on the way home from war in Ceylon, where he had fought with the British in the 1860s.

There were activists highlighting the plight of the Palestinian people in Athy and in the cemetery during the visit of the Sanders and Mr Walsh directly acknowledged the connection between the song’s themes and present times.

“We know about the horrors of war,” he said.

Bernie Sanders was happy to take a step back in proceedings. It was his wife’s day, he said, at the Athy Library function, while he also took on the duties of proud family photographer, taking a snap on his phone of his wife receiving a beautiful ceramic piece by Ciara O’Keeffe in the library.

“She is very much a family person. If you talk to Jane, within two minutes she will start telling you about her children,” he said.

“It’s very meaningful for her today, she really had a day today that I know she will never forget. The opportunity to meet her extended family and the community her family came from is very important to her.” 

All branches of Ms O’Meara Sanders family tree hail from Ireland. She had been to Ireland before with Senator Sanders and knew of family in Cork and Dublin, but it was the couple’s first time in Athy and it may not be the last either.

Senator Sanders said his wife was very much interested in genealogy and tracing family history and she had a DNA test a few years ago.

“It was 99.6% Irish. She’d be trying to check out the four-tenths of one percent!” he remarked.

Jokingly, Ms O’Meara Sanders said she still had to trace O’Mearas and she charged locals to find her ancestors.

Historian Clem Roche was able to shed some light along with Michael Donovan on the O’Mearas as he presented a family tree to the guest of honour.

Ms O’Meara Sanders' local roots go back to John Sheridan, a Mayo man, who was an RIC constable at Kilmoroney on the Barrowhouse Road from the 1830s. He married Mary Coyle, believed to be from Nicholastown, and they had four children who were baptised in Athy. Mr Roche believed they had traced the O’Mearas down to a few families in Tipperary.

A print of the old barracks was presented to Ms O’Meara Sanders.

It has to be said that Athy played a blinder on Sunday. From the work of Colm Walsh, the Made in Athy committee, Athy Town Promotoers, the council, gardaí, civil defence, local artists and musicians and locals, it was a great showcase of the town.

The Sanderses were given a little tour of Athy, popping into O’Brien’s Bar, stopping for photos with locals and venturing onto Clifford Reid’s Freedom of the Water, where the Vermont state flag was unfolded on deck.

The Sanderses impressed all who met them. There was little pomp or ceremony with the visitors and they fitted right in. A measure of this was an early suggestion by the Sanders team that they would get the train down to Athy from Dublin, but this was apparently rebuffed by gardaí for security reasons.

There were members of the Kildare Palestinian Solidarity Committee in Athy waving Palestinian flags, but there was no hint of disruption. A young child could even be seen wearing a Palestinian solidarity badge at the ticketed function in Athy Library.

Formally welcoming the Sanderses to Athy, cathaoirleach Aoife Breslin hoped that they would take away the spirit and the culture of “this great town”.

Cllr Breslin said the day recognised the “Trojan work” of the Sanderses in social justice, health, education, equality and liberty.

The couple's visit to Ireland had been arranged with SIPTU, and cllr Breslin noted the strong trade union movement locally and quoted Jim Larkin, her great-great-great-grandfather.

“There must be freedom for all to live, to think, to worship ... no book, no avenue must be closed,” cllr Breslin quoted.

She added: “They are never truer than today, in a world that is drifting towards intolerance, rampant capitalism and attacks on hard-earned rights. We will stand together to protect these rights.” 

Cllr Breslin said Made in Athy celebrated the heritage of the town, including those tales that featured emigration, locals seeking a better future abroad.

In the library, Jack L and Joe Byrne did the occasion justice performing J ohnny I Hardly New Ye, Curragh of Kildare and Lenoard Cohen’s Dance Me to the End of Love.

At St Michael’s cemetery, Makayla Farrell of local band I.F performed a beautiful acapella version of Johnny I Hardly New Yeand Ciara Fitzharris from Maynooth closed proceedings with a stunning sean nós performance.

Several presentations were made to the Sanderses.

Artist Ciara O’Keeffe presented a bespoke piece inspired by Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye which tells how a woman attempts to nurture her child despite hardship.

Artist Emily Rainsford presented the Little Book of Brigid to Ms O’Meara Sanders.

Seamus Taaffee presented a book on Shackleton to the Sanderses on behalf of the Shackleton Museum.

The end of the visit felt like a comma rather than a full stop. There was an open invitation for the Sanderses to return to Athy and Ms O’Meara Sanders was adamant they would be back.