Jesus but it was a funny little town. It was built at a short distance from the River Slaney on the banks of the Clody river, which joined the Slaney below the town. The work, which went of for quite a number of years was begun in the 18th century by John Maxwell from Farnham, Co. Cavan. He was married to a Judith Barry an heiress. James Barry,her father, was the son of a Cromwellian grantee, Richard Barry of Kellistown in Co. Carlow. He bought the estate of about 10,000 acres from the Annesleys about 1723. They, in turn had been granted the lands of the Kavanaghs following the Cromwellian confiscations. I think John Maxwell began building the town on the Wexford side of the Clody river in the late 1720s or early 1730s. He called the new town Newtownbarry in deference to his wife Judith Barry, the heiress.
There was a castle, a former residence of the Kavanaghs in Carrigduff on the Carlow side of the Clody. When I photographed the castle in the 1990s it didn't look anything like a castle but rather a strong house. So I suspect the house was built on the site of the castle. The last Kavanagh occupant of the castle was Charles Kavanagh who fought against the Cromwellians and was part of the force that killed 50 troopers at Scarawalsh - a tiny hamlet about 8 miles distant from Newtownbarry. He was still resident there in 1719 but must have died shortly afterwards as the castle was occupied by Arthur Annesley the 4th Lord Altham and his young son James in 1721-22. James was subsequently kidnapped by his wicked, greedy uncle Richard and shipped to America as a slave. His father had died an alcoholic and a pauper in 1727. James eventually escaped from America and arrived back in London, where he tried to wrest back his patrimony. However he was poisoned before his case could be heard.
In any event the Maxwells carried out considerable improvements in the area and the town grew over the course of the 18th century. The Protestant Church was built in the 1770s to provide a place of worship for the newly arrived Protestants. At that time the Maxwells introduced a large number of Protestant tenants into the area to provide added security and to reduce the amount of land controlled by the remnants of the Kavanaghs and other native Irish people who were then living on the land. This was the period of the Penal Laws when it was considerably disadvantageous to be a Catholic. I suspect, though I have no proof, that the Kavanaghs were herded westwards and a very large number ended up living near Myshall in Co. Carlow. What is certain is that the land in and around Newtownbarry passed into the possession of Protestant families who were settled there as tenants by the Maxwells. The descendants of those Protestant families still live on those lands today.
During the 18th century, in common with many other estates, Newtownbarry came under serious financial strain and the Maxwells were forced to seek the protection of the Courts and the estate became an encumbered estate. After that it passed into the ownership of a number of persons until 1869 or thereabouts when the Hall-Dares bought the lands. I believe they paid about £60,000 for the estate which was about 10,000 acres in extent in both County Wexford and County Carlow.They built a fine mansion that is still standing today and which is the residence of Clody Norton (nee Hall-Dare) and her family. The Hall-Dares gave considerable employment to the artisans, saddlers, blacksmiths and gardeners who were housed in the estate houses in the town. Until relatively recently most of the houses in the town were in fact subject to Ground Rent which was paid to the Hall-Dares and quite a large number were leasehold properties which were bought out from the Hall-Dares in the latter decades of the 20th century. A typical example was the house where I was born. My father, Jimmy Kavanagh paid a weekly rent of ten shillings for the house in Church Road, opposite the Church gate. I bought the house from the Hall-Dare estate in 1965 for the princely sum of £500. Of course that was a considerable sum but nothing like the £2000 I had paid for a house in Clondalkin in 1963.
Like most of the gentry families in the area the Hall-Dares were Huntin', Shootin', Fishin' folk and well I remember the colourful sight of the hunt riding through the village with the hounds baying and the red coated huntsmen trotting in their rear while one of their number blew loudly on a hunting horn. The Slaney, of course, was their fishery and their ownership of that valuable resource was jealously guarded. I think it stretched from just below Kildavin Bridge down to a point near the New Graveyard - possibly about 3 miles on either side of the river. Even today quite a large section of that fishery still remains in the ownership of the Hall-Dare estate owners. In the 1940s and 1950s the Slaney was famous for its salmon and this was due largely to the work and dedication of Charles Hall-Dare, a brother of the then owner Robert (known locally as Bobby). Charles and Robert built a hatchery on the river Clody and this hatchery was the haven where the young salmon were born and to which they and their descendants returned each year, yielding a plentiful supply of fish for the riparian owners.
In the 1940s the town consisted of the Main Street, Irish Street, Church Road, Chapel Road, and Carrigduff. The Main Street was where most of the 20 or so shops and pubs were located. Irish Street consisted of buildings that were the dwellings and workplaces of artisans - blacksmiths and saddlers in particular. Church Road was home to the Protestant Church built on high ground and opposite the high wall, which acted as a buttress for the ground on which the church was built, was a row of derelict houses with steps leading up to the doors. According to Jim Wall, the priest historian, this road was in fact lowered at some time after or during the famine (maybe a project to give employment at that time) because the incline was so steep up from the town. When the road was lowered steps had to be provided for the houses across from the wall.
Farther up along Church Road the Villas as it was known was built by the Co. Council in the 1930s. It was officially St. Mary's Villas and consisted of about 70 or more small houses built in close proximity to each other. The residents of the houses came from the countryside round about and many of their families still live in the Villas. I think everyone was poor in the 1940s and 50s as many parts of rural Ireland were still just emerging from the Stone Age. In Newtownbarry or Bunclody as it was called by many, most of the people who had no shops or trades were desperately poor and lived by labouring or selling rabbits, blackberries and anything else they could acquire. The Ryan and Lyons families who lived in the Villas were typical examples of such families. They worked when they could and they snared rabbits which were in demand during the war years in particular. I remember some of those men going up Church Road with bicycles laden down with dead rabbits which they sold to buyers from Enniscorthy who came to the town at weekends. I know of a man from Hollyfort, near Gorey, who was so thrifty that he managed to save up enough money from the rabbits that he was able to buy a small farm. But the Ryans and Lyons men weren't quite that thrifty and they spent much of their money on Saturday nights carousing in Redmond's pub in the town.
Of course, just like all towns and villages in Ireland at that time, the Catholic Church was a dominant force, imposing a kind of strangulated civilising influence on those unfortunate enough to have been born to Catholic parents. That controlling influence stifled the natural development of many young people at that time, young people who subsequently found themselves manacled and enslaved mentally. Despite those unkind words it has to be said that the rituals, pageantry, music and adherence to centuries old practices clothed the poverty stricken population in a kind of protective garb. The generality of people felt safe. They were content to live that semi real life where god and saints and angels were everywhere watching. It is most likely that creativity was strangled because of it. Combined with the poverty that haunted most houses the pervasive strictures of the Roman law ensured that people could not even think for themselves. How tragic is that? I don't suppose that young people today can even begin to imagine the mental confinement imposed on the people who lived in those times.
Almost everything was a sin. The basic ten commandments were teased out by theologians until the ten were multiplied tenfold. It was a sin to take the name of the Lord your God in vain. A venial sin granted but a sin none the less. To even consider that God could not exist was a mortal sin. And a mortal sin was very serious indeed because if you happened to die in mortal sin (say following an accident) your soul was condemned to everlasting torment in hell. Keeping holy the Sabbath Day (another mortal sin if you didn't) meant it was a must to attend Mass every Sunday. This of course was most convenient for the control mechanisms of the Church and a large attendance also ensured a brimming collection box. There on Sundays the organ grinder made his monkeys dance to his tune. There was no other tune. The commandment that ensured you were honouring your father and mother scored winning brownie points for the Church as 'honouring' covered all of your relationships with your parents and your family since by definition an older sibling was 'in loco parentis' quite a lot of the time!
In the 40s and 50s the town and its vicinity was inhabited by people with the usual Irish names and some unusual - Kavanagh, Murphy, Cowman, Wall, Bond, Booth, Crowley, Walsh, Tynan, Redmond, Lancaster, Deane, Mulrennan, Doyle, Lewis, Dormer, Noble, Bookey, Meyler, Thorpe, Tackaberry, Carton, Kelly, Kinsella, O'Loughlin, Shanley, Roberts, Tyrell, Stacey, Jordan, Breen, Lennon, O'Connor, Leary, Moorhead, Morrissey, Kempston, Levingstone, Hughes, Hall-Dare, Ryan, Lyons, Mahon, Hayes, Bennett, Somers, Collier, Brownrigg, Behan, Byrne, Dockrell, Francis, Moulton, Lindsay, Kilbride, Dunbar, Doherty, Gaynor, Kenny, Fitzgerald, Keating, McDonald, Nolan, Carroll, Power, Whelan, Bolger, McNicholas, Dempsey, Ford, Deacon, Brennan, Barry, Tully, Clarke, Brooks, Donohoe, Morris, Dillon, McGrath, Shore, Lacey, McKeon, Farrell, Dunne, Jennings, Goodall, Fitzpatrick, Halpin, Canning, Connors, Swaine, Harris, Ralph, Rooney, Cullen, Lawler, Sheridan, O'Reilly, Donnelly, Furlong, Hanrick, Kane, Bagnel, McNamara, Cox and Weston
No comments:
Post a Comment