'CROSSROADS' IN COLOUR

Here's an update to yesterday's 'Crossroads' post. Austin Egan had an original colour version of that photo. Makes all the difference!

Mary Orford has told us that rehearsals were held in the Old School with liquid and food refreshments provided by her uncle,  Tommy, who lived next door at Church View. She also provided a selection of cast names, in no particular order: 

Eithne Dempsey, John Linnane, Josie Connolly, show producer (aka Cecil B De Mille with her cast of thousands), Stasia Orford, Frank Morrow, Betty Corrigan, Carmel Talt, Lil Moore, Joe Doyle, Jean Halpin, Susan Halpin, Áine Kelly. Orla Connolly, Henry Talt, Jim Collins, Joe Waldron, Ray Monaghan, Paddy Moloney and Des Hogan.

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WERE YOU IN 'CROSSROADS' IN 1976?

This one is a difficult challenge for recognising faces, as the reproduction in the Leinster Leader of July 3rd 1976 is pretty poor. But there may be some in the picture who remember themselves as playing their part in the Orford's Knockaulin Bar production of 'Crossroads' for the Kilcullen Capers that year. Contributed by Joe Murray.

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OFFICIAL OPENING OF JFK HALL IN 1963

LEINSTER LEADER, SATURDAY, 21st DECEMBER, 1963: Committee members and voluntary workers who helped in the building of Kilcullen's new boxing club premises pictured after the recent blessing and official opening of the Hall. 

Very Rev J L Furlong, PP, is in front centre between Mr Pat Lynch (left) and Mr Joe McGowan. At left centre back are Col and Mrs Loren A Ayers, Ballymore-Eustace. 

Col Ayers officially named the new Hall the J F Kennedy Memorial Hall when he unveiled a picture of the late President of the United States. (Photo: MP Fleming. Clipping courtesy Joe Murray.)

Footnote from your Editor: Col Ayers was an American Army officer who, during the rapid US forces advance into France after getting off the WW2 Normandy D-Day beachheads, devised what became known as the 'Red Ball Express' to get supplies and gasoline to the forward lines. They used 5,958 trucks, and a one-way system on the narrow French roads. 

Ayers was at the time chief of MTB (Motor Transport Brigade), in charge of gathering and training drivers and obtaining equipment. The name “Red Ball” borrowed from a railroad term indicating a freight train that was to be given the right-of-way.

Col Ayers died in 1994, at the age of 86, at his home in California.

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IRISH FARMERS JOURNAL, APRIL 25 1970: BIG MAGGIE WIN

Members of Kilcullen Drama Group cheer Loreto Ginnity (best actress) for the name part in J B Keane's Big Maggie and Paddy Melia, producer, after the group had won the Premier Award and the Whelehan Trophy at the All-Ireland Rural Drama Festival at Loughrea. With them in the picture is Mr T P Whelehan, who presented the trophy. (Clipping courtesy Joe Murray.)

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Looking Back: First Communion 1958

Once again, thanks to our newspaper archives burrower correspondent, Joe Murray, here's a time machine flashback to June 1958. 

It shows Kilcullen children who made their First Communion, pictured with Parish Priest of the time, Fr Joseph Furlong. Were you there?  

The original photography was by H Donnelly Swift of Kildare town.

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Looking Back: Tidy Towns 1969

In the month of Tidy Towns judging, with KCA, residents' associations, and individuals all very busy to show Kilcullen in its best light, we thought it appropriate to show these pics from 1969, of members of the Nicholastown Tidy Towns Committee at work and relaxing. They come courtesy of indefatigable newspaper archives burrower, Joe Murray.

 

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Looking Back: Opening of Kilcullen's new Library in 1978

With the County Kildare Library Service celebrating its 100th anniversary tomorrow, Saturday, it is of local interest to see these pictures from the opening of Kilcullen Library, published in the Leinster Leader of 25 November 1978.

Above are J G 'Gerry' Ward, Kildare County Manager; Dick Robinson, Vice Chairman, County Library Committee; Seamus O'Conchubhair, County Librarian, and Very Reverend P Kehoe, Parish Priest of Kilcullen.

On the right is Julie O'Donoghue, then Library Assistant at the Kilcullen branch.

The photos are courtesy of the Local Studies department of the library service via Kilcullen Librarian Ita Casey. Ita will be hosting complimentary refreshments for visitors to Kilcullen Community Library tomorrow morning.

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Canoe Club: were you there in 1968?

Our thanks once again to our regular correspondent Joe Murray, who trawls old newspaper archives for fun, for this 1968 clipping from the Leinster Leader, showing Kilcullen children being entertained at a party to mark the opening of the then-new Kilcullen Canoe Club pavilion (not to be confused with the opening of the current clubhouse in 2008). 

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Looking Back: Jimmy and Brush, The Spout, 2017

This is a photo montage memory of the late Jimmy Aspell and his great friend Brush Shiels, playing in The Spout in September 2017, in one of their annual fundraising gigs for the Irish Cancer Society. 

Jimmy raised large amounts for cancer support from 2010 before he died of the disease in January 2018.

MUSIC TRACK: Clocks - by Mark Karan, Scott Guberman, Angeline Saris, and Jeremy Hoenig.

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Looking Back: Kilcullen Table Tennis Club, 1968

We're grateful to our regular correspondent Joe Murray, who trawls old newspaper archives for fun, for this photo of Kilcullen Table Tennis Club members.

Pictured in the Leinster Leader, receiving awards at their end-of-season function in Blessington's Downshire House Hotel, on 20 April 1968, there are many familiar faces. And sadly, many who are no longer with us.

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Looking Back: Kilcullen Cinema in 1962

While the revived Kilcullen Bridge Cinema is bringing a curated series of excellent films to local audiences, it only has one or two screenings in a month, writes Brian Byrne. How different it was in the heyday of the cinema in the 1960s, when it was managed by the late Paddy Melia, a man never short of a hyperbolic phrase, and regularly providing cinematic entertainment every night of the week.

Thanks to the continuing archival delvings of Joe Murray, we have here the Leinster Leader advertisement's lineup of a typical week of cinema in Kilcullen, beginning Friday 21 September 1962, on "KILDARE'S W-I-D-E-S-T SCREEN." The offerings began with the adventure of Swiss Family Robinson in Super Cinemascope 55, on Friday, Saturday, and a special Sunday matinee. Sunday also featured "for laughs", Strictly for Pleasure, a Technicolour comedy starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, along with the 20 hits song-filled Teenage Millionaire in a "Smash hit Sunday Show." 

Monday and Tuesday brought "fast and furious action" from the "Magnificent Three" of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr with Peter Lawford, (Yes, they are four. Go figure.) in a "Walloping Western", with "tremendous pace from start to finish", Sergeants 3 in "stunning Super Cinemascope 55 and Technicolour." 

Midweek audiences were to be treated to the "High Drama on the High Seas" of HMS Defiant, a stirring epic in the vein of The Guns of Navarone, featuring Dirk Bogarde, Alec Guinness, and Anthony Quayle, "the screen's most talented actors". The week would reach its dramatic peak with "something entirely new in cinematic entertainment", The Unfrocked, a "searing, searching study of an unfrocked priest." 

The blurb went: "However controversial its subject may be, this film has been hailed by the press as the best film ever shown in this country. The Catholic Herald said: 'It may be distasteful to the squeamish, it may horrify many, it may shock others, but it is THE BEST FILM WE HAVE EVER SEEN.' As this picture is being withdrawn from this country on 30th Sept., IT WILL NOT BE SEEN IN ANY OTHER CINEMA IN IRELAND. Don't miss this only opportunity of seeing the most talked-about film in years. We have obtained a Special Censor's Certificate for the final presentation. STRICTLY ADULTS ONLY. NOBODY under 18 years will be permitted to see this film." That it was a French film, originally released eight years before, probably added to the mystique. 

Looking ahead to the following week, the cinema promised screenings of Johnny Nobody, Taste of Fear, and Twist Around the Clock, and no doubt Paddy had already pencilled his purple prose for the next issue of the Leader.

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Listen Back: Traffic and transport in Kilcullen in the 1930s

Traffic and transport in Kilcullen in the 1930s, as recalled by the late Tom Byrne during the 1990s. The combined clips from two episodes of the Daily Cast, published by the Kilcullen Diary in 2021. 

Produced by Brian Byrne.

Listen Back: Paddy Nugent on Kilcullen in the 1930s

During a mid-1980s interview, the late Paddy Nugent spoke about growing up in Kilcullen in the 1930s. Produced and presented by Brian Byrne for Kilcullen Diary.

This podcast was originally published on SoundCloud five years ago.  This YouTube version was made available a year ago.

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Listen Back: Kilcullen Capers 1982

A listen back to a radio documentary produced in 1982 about the Kilcullen Capers shows of that year, which was unknowingly to be the last in a decade of such annual shows. Produced and presented by Brian Byrne/Kilcullen Diary Podcasts.

Note: This podcast was initially released on SoundCloud five years ago, and the YouTube version was made available 12 months ago.

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Looking Back: Over the bridge

Thanks to Eugene Brennan, here's a very interesting picture of the bridge and the market square area, taken by the Irish Air Corps, writes Brian Byrne. It's from the Military Archives and is a companion to one we published in 2017, taken from the other side. 

The photographs were taken on large coated glass plate negatives, so the definition is very good. When you zoom in close, you can see that almost everybody in the picture looks up at the Air Corps plane.

They include, from the left, a man leaning against one of the houses in market square, with his dog, two young women to the left of the bridge, near a pile of rubble that may have been used to fill in a hole where the former weighbridge had been, and two girls in the yard of what was later the Hibernian Bank building. At the top left, a man in the lane out of the market square appears to be walking away.

On the bridge itself are men with bicycles at either end, and a boy walking down the middle of the bridge, which at that time was half the width it is today and had no footpaths. On the right is a group of three men, one leaning against the telegraph pole.

One very clear thing is the amount of ground at the back of houses used to grow vegetables. 

From the picture published previously, we can date this one to probably 1948, thanks to Geraldine Nugent's detective work.

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Looking Back: keeping Sliabh na mBan alive

Another contribution from Joe Murray, who spends endless hours delving into old local newspapers, is this gem from the Leinster Leader of 28 July 1990, writes Brian Byrne. It's the oft-told story of how generations of the Lynch family of Logstown kept Michael Collins's Sliabh na mBan armoured car in top running order.

The story will always be worth re-reading and re-telling, and there's no doubt that as we head towards Heritage Week, it will interest all the new people who have made Kilcullen their home since this article was written.

The central figure in the piece is the late Pat Lynch, who at the time was about to retire from his position as foreman at the Cavalry Workshops on the Curragh. We lost him only last year, after a life full lived. 

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Looking Back: Kilcullen champion horse

A Kilcullen entry won the Aly Khan Cup for champion young horse at the Kildare County Show in Athy in the summer of 1964, writes Brian Byrne. This clipping is courtesy of regular Diary contributor Joe Murray.

The horse was Dreamy Wood, nicknamed 'Renny', and was owned by Kitty Berney of Kilcullen.

The show was reported to have been a big success, with 300 additional exhibits over the previous year. An average of 80 horses competed in the four jumping competitions, and experts there stated that at least a hundred were of national class standard.

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Looking Back: the '100 Years' Festival

This photo sent in by Enda O'Neill shows himself with Sonya Kavanagh and Eddie Dowling, taken on Saturday 29 October 1994 in The Hideout, writes Brian Byrne. They were dressed in old-time costume during the '100 Years' Festival held to coincide with the opening of the Kilcullen Bypass.

The first 6km section of the M9 was opened on 24 October 1994, changing utterly Kilcullen's position as a landmark point on the main road from Dublin to Kilkenny and Waterford. 

Pictured above at the opening are the then Minister for the Environment Michael Smith TD, watched by Cllr Michael 'Spike' Nolan, chairman of Kildare County Council and Deputy Emmet Stagg TD.

Below during the same festival weekend, dressed appropriately, are Jim Collins, Paul Mullen, Nuala Collins and your Editor.

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