The puzzle of 'Thomas Waldron's Plot'

A puzzle set in the current issue of The Bridge can now be partially resolved by the Diary, writes Brian Byrne.

It relates to a plot of land which is part of the Cross and Passion but the location of which was unknown. The piece in The Bridge was at the request of Sr Maire of the Cross and Passion Sisters.

The only map was a handrawn sketch as shown above, showing 'Thomas Waldron's Plot'. The clues were the 'Castlemartin Road', 'Coogan's Garden' and 'Daileys House', and the lane'.

It was suggested at home that the lane was the Back Lane leading down to the Eurospar Car Park. Then I remembered that in the Ordnance Survey map of the mid-1800s, there was a direct road to Castlemartin House that continued across what are now fields behind the cattle mart.

I paced out the site from the lane today and found that it exactly matched the area down as far as the double house beside the mart, and in the laneway as far as the edge of the garden behind the pink house, formerly known as Bradfield's and currently a solicitor's office.

That garden is part of the Main Street location that's now Dowling Property. And here's the thing, that was where one John Coogan, harness maker, lived and worked in the 1800s. Hence 'Coogan's Garden'.

At the same time, one Edward Daly was an auctioneer and businessman in Kilcullen, and it is possible that 'Dailey's House' was his, or where other members of the Daly families of the time did.

As for Thomas Waldron himself, a Thomas Waldron was a contractor at an extension to the church at Harristown Demesne in 1879, and it is quite likely that this is the same person.

How that piece of land came to be part of the property of the Cross and Passion sisters we will have to wait for further information. I'll keep looking.

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