New website dedicated to Old Kilcullen

A new website dedicated to the story of Old Kilcullen has now gone live, writes Brian Byrne. Old Kilcullen Heritage includes a video overview of the monastic site's history and articles on key aspects of its rise and decline. 

The website was developed from an idea by area resident Dr Brendan O'Shea and Kilcullen-born Dr Michael O'Connell, who has extensively researched many local places of historic significance.

The resource is designed for easy mobile phone access, so visitors can quickly gain a sense of Old Kilcullen's place through more than 1,300 years.

The website and video were produced with support from Kildare County Council's Heritage Department in association with the Old Kilcullen Area Community Association.

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Tour de Force meets Donnelly's Arm

Barry, Liliane and Ingrid.

Two women driving around Ireland in a restored 1960s Renault 4L, hosting a series of artistic and cultural events, art installations, performances, talks and live broadcasts under the banner of Tour de Force, came up close and personal to the mummified right arm of 19th-century pugilist Dan Donnelly yesterday, writes Brian Byrne. The history of the arm will be part of a talk on sport, medicine and grave-robbing during that period, by historian Barry Kehoe in Muine Bheag Arts next Wednesday, 16 July.

Barry Kehoe was with artist Liliane Puthod and writer Ingrid Lyons to view the arm, made available by appointment with Josephine Byrne. The Byrne family have been custodians of the famous sporting relic since 1953, when it was displayed in The Hideout following the An Tostal re-enactment of the fighter's famous 1815 contest with English champion George Cooper on the Curragh. It remained on display until 1996 when the family sold the pub.

The historian showed Josephine an interpretive page based on a magnetometry scan of the Bully's Acre burial ground at Kilmainham's Royal Hospital. It was shortly after Donnelly was buried there that his grave was robbed and the body sold to a Dublin surgeon named Hall for anatomical research. Hall retained the arm after being forced to return the body to Donnelly's angry fans and it subsequently was used for medical teaching before eventually taking a tortuous and lengthy route to The Hideout, via Edinburgh, London and Belfast.

Barry Kehoe noted that while many human remains have been found in the Bully's Acre — once the main burial ground for Dublin city — there's no trace of an individual grave related to Donnelly. "I understand that there was a wooden memorial erected to him at the time of his burial, but that's no longer around."

Viewing Dan Donnelly memorabilia.

The Renault 4L car which is carrying the Tour de Force duo will be making 'pit stops' in 11 counties around the island of Ireland from yesterday until the 23rd of August. Liliane Puthod, who has lived in Ireland for the past 12 years, told the Diary how she decided to refurbish the car, belonging to her father, which had languished in a shed for as long as she could remember. Last year, she and Ingrid drove it from France to Dublin, via Rosslare, which had been an assembly centre for Renault cars, including the 4L model, between 1965 and 1986. At the start of their current trip in Dublin yesterday, they were presented with some examples of his work by Ireland's last remaining tin-smith, James Collins, including a specially made tin-smith's lamp as a talisman of good luck for their journey.

Tin-smith James Collins's work.

During their Kilcullen stop, Ingrid Lyons showed her fiddle, which is of a similar age to Donnelly's Arm, and which she will be playing at a number of the Tour de Force events.

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Donnelly's Arm to feature in talk next week

There will be a Kilcullen interest next Wednesday, 16 July, at a County Carlow event in a nationwide tour by two performance artists in a 1960s Renault 4, writes Brian Byrne. Dan Donnelly's arm will feature in a talk at Muine Bheag Arts about 19th-century sport, medicine, media and grave-robbing.

The talk will be given by historian and writer Barry Kehoe between 1pm and 3pm at the Muine Bheag centre. In particular, he will discuss Dan Donnelly’s mummified arm, which was displayed in the Hideout in Kilcullen for four decades from 1953, and subsequently exhibited in New York, Boston, in the Ulster Folk Museum in Omagh, Co Tyrone, Limerick University, and Croke Park, Dublin. 

The free event is part of a summer-long series titled Tour de Force by artist Liliane Puthod and writer Ingrid Lyons. They are travelling around Ireland in Liliane's fully repaired 1960s Renault 4, hosting events, art installations, performances, talks and live broadcasts.

Meanwhile, if you're out and about in Kilcullen today, Wednesday the 9th, the car will be travelling through Kilcullen sometime from midday on. Give them a beep if you're in your own car, or a wave if on foot.

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Big attendance at last Dun Ailinne Open Day

With around 150 people trekking to the top of Dun Ailinne yesterday afternoon, it was a really good turnout for what was the last Open Day on the hill for the foreseeable future, writes Brian Byrne. The annual summer excavations by groups of American archaeology students have been a fixture of Kilcullen life since 2016, but these have come to an end this year.

“It’s not that we have found everything; there are two or three lifetimes of work which could still be done on Dun Ailinne,” says Dr Susan Johnston from George Washington University, who, with her colleague Dr Suzanne Garrett, has been leading the investigations on the ancient site for almost two decades. "When we did the geophysics, we found there are hundreds of little circles and squiggles and things that you could investigate. But as far as the archaeology goes, I feel I'm at a stopping point; I've done this thing. The next stage is to write up the findings for publication in a formal way. The goal is to do that for next year.”

Dr Suzanne Garrett and Dr Susan Johnston.

The work over the years has confirmed the results of the excavations by Dr Bernard Wailes in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and also found significantly more areas of interest under the topsoil of Dun Ailinne. "In addition to those structures discovered by Bernard, we found three more that are slightly smaller, but with a similar pattern of getting more and more elaborate with time."

The use of technologies which weren’t available to Dr Wailes’s investigations, including magnetometry and carbon dating, has added to the bank of knowledge about the site. For instance, Susan Johnston now believes the active period of Dun Ailinne as a place of ritual may have been as short as around 200 years. But that doesn’t diminish its importance as one of the royal sites that are collectively on Ireland’s Tentative List in consideration for UNESCO World Heritage status. "The argument has always been, and I think there's merit to it, is that when Christianity comes in, this place gradually becomes less relevant in ritual terms. But it's still important in historical ways, and I think it's pertinent that they put the Christian monastery on a different hill, instead of plonking it here."

The fact that Dun Ailinne is continuously mentioned in documents from after the early medieval period is significant, she feels. "It's a place that is never really forgotten, a place of importance, and even when O'Donovan came through with his ordnance survey in the 19th century, he said that everybody knows this is Dun Ailinne. So even though it's not in continuous use, it's still known and is still important."

Vanessa and Claire.

Since 2016, Dun Ailinne has been a place for American archaeology students to get down and dirty for a month in the summer and see what field excavations in Ireland are like. This year, six of the cohort were from George Washington University and one from Gettysburg College. For Vanessa, majoring in archaeology and history, and Claire, majoring in anthropology, their first field experience has been both fascinating and enjoyable. "You get thrown into it completely," says Vanessa. "At first it's very heavy work, digging the sod and then you get down and doing more delicate work with the trowel and it's so exciting to see all the features come up." 

For Claire, having the practical experience has helped her to really understand things previously only covered in a classroom. "You have so much more a connection to it when you're actually doing it, and that's been great," she says. Both students say the Kilcullen sojourn — "it's such a cute town, with the river running through it," Claire says — will encourage them to continue in their fields. "I've had such a great experience here," says Vanessa, "and it has been really cool to get to see history up close and learn about it."

The tours of the 13-hectare site conducted by Susan Johnston yesterday reflected both her four decades as a teacher and the underlying humour of her personality, which has a refreshing irreverence. It was very much a two-way interaction as she answered questions and built up a picture of the site's probable role in community identity and hierarchy in a mobile cattle and agriculture economy. Although there's no evidence that Dun Ailinne was a place where kings were inaugurated, as at other royal sites, she suggested that it was used to 'anchor' people through annual or semi-annual rituals, and was still about important people. "The idea is that you're moving around, but you're still part of a community. And every year, perhaps at Bealtaine or whatever, people come back here and do various kinds of rituals. That's what gives them their sense of community, that they are all part of the same group."   

Almost like the place Dun Ailinne was for its own mobile community two thousand years ago, the annual arrival of Susan Johnston and her team to Kilcullen has been its own anchoring of connections since 2006. Now that the current investigations have come to an end, the archaeologists have mixed feelings. But a constant is their view of Kilcullen and its people, especially the Thompson family who own the Dun Ailline land and gave their permission readily for the excavations. "They have been so incredibly good all over the years," Susan Johnston says. "And this community is amazing, and I will miss that. I'll be coming back, but, you know, it won't be quite the same."

Explaining the finds on Dun Ailinne.

NOTE: Dun Ailinne is on a private working farm and not open to the public.

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Little Irish language in 19th century Kilcullen

Images: VRTI and Chris Bellew/Fennell Photography.

Just three people were recorded as being able to speak both Irish and English in Kilcullen in 1871, and there was nobody who spoke Irish only, writes Brian Byrne. Two of the three were males. That's just one local nugget in a newly released trove of recovered documents which have been digitised and made public in the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland. 

The documents cover some seven centuries of Irish life from the Anglo-Norman conquest up through the 1798 Rebellion and 19th-century censuses. They were recovered from copies of material destroyed in the burning of the Irish Public Records Office at the Four Courts in 1922 during the civil war. In all, there are 797 references to Kilcullen.

The VRTI project was initiated in 2022 on the centenary of the burning, led by Trinity College Dublin and involved a global collaboration of academics, historians, computer scientists and other specialists to digitally recreate parts of the lost archive. The work included searching for duplicates and transcripts of the destroyed documents, in libraries and archives in Ireland, the UK, and other parts of the world.

The results are three dedicated portals — The Age of Conquest, The Age of Revolution, and Population — along with 16 'Gold Seams' of documents including a 1766 Religious Census, and 16 curated collections.

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Public consultation on Heritage Plan

Original Credit Union building part of Kilcullen's Architectural heritage.

A public consultation on a new Heritage Plan for Kildare has been organised by Kildare County Council, writes Brian Byrne. The plan, when agreed, will be in place until 2031.

This is a Pre-Draft consultation in the form of a discussion paper and a survey. The purpose is to protect, improve and explain the shared heritage of the county, which can include anything from the past that merits passing onto future generations: inherited traditions, monuments, objects and culture.

Public Information Sessions on the plan are taking place today, Wednesday, 11 June, in Kildare Library, 2pm to 3.30pm; and Naas Library, 6pm to 7.30pm; and tomorrow, Thursday, 12 June in Maynooth Library, 6pm to 7.30pm.

The survey can be accessed at this link. 

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Military History Seminar in two towns

There are two parts to the 9th Irish Military Seminar in this coming week, writes Brian Byrne. Between them, they give Naas a space in the programme as well as the traditional Newbridge base.

Two films of Irish military interest will be shown in the Naas Library & Cultural Centre on Tuesday, 13 May, kicking off at 7pm with a screening of The Rathbride Flying Column, Kildare in the Civil War. It's a documentary produced by Prosperous Heritage Society and tells the story of the flying column and its executed members. This will be followed by a showing of The Land, set in the 1914-1918 War and about two men struggling to survive in the aftermath of a failed mission. It was filmed in Kildare. The evening will conclude with interviews about their works with Joe Murphy of Prosperous Heritage Society, and Joseph Butler, who wrote and produced The Land — the interviewer will be author and film historian Wayne Byrne.

The seminar proper will be launched on Friday, 16 May at 7.30pm by the Cathaoirleach of Kildare County Council, Cllr Kevin Duffy, at the Riverbank Arts Centre. There are three events through the evening: Ray Lane will discuss the contents of his memoir Only a Soldier Knows and his experiences in counter-terrorism and UN and NATO service in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. A presentation on the Irish Military in France, 1690-1815 will be given by military history author and historical novelist Stephen McGarry. A discussion on The Irish in the Resistance features author and journalist Clodagh Finn and WW2 historian John Morgan.

The life and death of IRA leader Rory O'Connor will be detailed by historian Gerard Shannon. Author Michael B Barry and colouriser-photographer John O'Byrne will present Colour of Conflict: Ireland 1922-1945.

The seminar will close at 1pm on Saturday.

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Fascinating story of Fenian John Devoy told in Kilcullen

Noel Cocoman speaking in the Town Hall.

Local history buffs from across Kildare were treated this morning to some fascinating detail of the life of John Devoy, the Kill-born Fenian, writes Brian Byrne. The talk was given by Noel Cocoman, also a native of Kill, whose interest in Devoy's life was triggered when he bought a secondhand collection of the republican's letters and papers, published in the 1940s as Devoy's Post Bag.

The event was the annual seminar hosted in Kilcullen Heritage Centre by the County Kildare Federation of Local History Groups. In addition to the Devoy talk, Naas-based graphic designer Sean Sourke presented a selection of the digital 3D models he has created for a number of heritage monuments and buildings around Kildare. 

Imprisoned for his activities with the Irish Republican Brotherhood, John Devoy was subsequently exiled to the United States, and Noel Cocoman's illustrated account provided intriguing glimpses into Devoy's activities there towards the goal of a free Ireland, His papers, edited by William O'Brien and Desmond Ryan, offer a valuable insight into Devoy's interactions with key Irish republican leaders of his day, including Padraic Pearse, Eamonn de Valera, Tom Clarke and others. Noel Cocoman also gave an account of Devoy's organisation of a daring rescue of six Fenians from Fremantle Prison in Western Australia in 1875.

Noel Cocoman and Sean Sourke.

Sean Sourke's interest in digital photogrammetry has grown substantially since his early work a decade ago with still photographs, and he has made around 40 3D digital models of architectural heritage and monuments across Kildare. He says the technology has advanced very rapidly, and he's now collaborating with drone pilot Jan Nevrkla to scale and geolocate the digital models using GPS, adding further information to make the process a more comprehensive heritage interpretive tool. 

Both presentations were very much appreciated by today's audience. They were followed by the AGM of the Federation.

Brigid Critchley, Brid Reilly, Dermot O'Rourke and Nelly Egan.

Ann McNeil, Ger McCarthy, James Durney and Michael Mullaly.

Brian McCabe, Bob Nugent, Pat Byrne and Raphael Ryan.

Flo Clarke and Nuala Walker, Celbridge.

Noel Cocoman and Devoy's Post Bag.

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Dublin 'has forgotten' Dan Donnelly

Larry Breen and Ger McCarthy of Naas Local History Group with Dan Donnelly's arm.

The fact that there is no significant memorial to the pugilist Dan Donnelly in his native Dublin has been described as a shame, writes Brian Byrne. Naas Local History Group's Larry Breen made the comment last evening during a talk he gave on the life of the man he described as "Ireland's champion when the country badly needed one."

There was a very appreciative audience in the Town House Hotel for the talk, during which Larry detailed the short life of Donnelly, who died suddenly at the age of 32. Much of the presentation centred around the Kildare connections of the pugilist, including the two bare-knuckle fights at the hollow on the Curragh that now bears his name. 

Donnelly was trained by Scots-born Robert Barclay Alderdice at Calverstown under the direction of Capt William Kelly of Maddenstown House. "He wasn't a very disciplined fighter, though," Larry Breen said. "He preferred going to the local taverns than turning up for training." Despite the indiscipline, Donnelly's Curragh fights against English opponents Tom Hall and George Cooper, in 1814 and 1815 respectively, attracted tens of thousands of spectators, according to contemporary reports, with very large sums of betting money changing hands.

Larry Breen described the adulation of the mainly Dublin supporters after his fight against Cooper, which resulted him being set up as a publican in Capel Street in his native city. He subsequently operated public houses in Poolbeg Street and The Coombe, but his lack of business sense and a tendency to drink the profits with his customers left him in debt.

"He toured England on exhibition sparring bouts to earn money, during which he was purportedly knighted by the Prince Regent, later King George IV," Larry Breen told those at last evening's event. It was the prince's extravagant lifestyle that gave the name to the Regency era that reflected it, and which facilitated Donnelly's weaknesses for alcohol and women. "When his wife heard that he had contracted venereal disease, she came to England to keep an eye on him, and after winning a prize fight against Tom Oliver he came back to Dublin, where he was treated as a hero and paraded on a white horse through the city." 

Donnelly's final business venture was a pub in Pill Lane, behind the Four Courts, where he died. "An event brought on by his lifestyle," Larry Breen suggested.

Buried in the Bully's Acre in Kilmainham after a funeral procession that gathered huge crowds, his grave was targeted by robbers and his body sold to "a notorious surgeon named Hall" before his supporters forced the medic to hand it back. Though minus the fighter's right arm, which subsequently became a teaching exhibit at a university in Scotland, and later went through ownership by a variety of colourful business people in London and Northern Ireland. 

The arm finally became a popular attraction in Kilcullen's Hideout museum pub and restaurant, from the early 1950s for more than 40 years. Between 2006–2010 the arm was exhibited in New York and Boston, and in Omagh, Co Tyrone, Croke Park, Dublin, and the University of Limerick as part of a Fighting Irishmen exhibition put together by New York-based realtor Jim Houlihan. Courtesy of the Byrne family in Kilcullen, the arm was made available for last evening's event in Naas.

Though he was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2008, Larry Breen noted that today Dan Donnelly is largely forgotten in his native city, with no monument to him. "Even a plaque that was on a government building erected on the site of his Pill Lane pub has now disappeared," he said. "It is only the Kildare connections that have kept his name and exploits alive."

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Talk on Castlemartin fascinates audience

A talk on the evolution of the Castlemartin estate held an audience rapt last evening in Kilcullen Town Hall, writes Brian Byrne. Part of a Heritage Week presentation by Dr Michael O'Connell on a number of local big houses, a further talk on Thursday evening will discuss New Abbey.

A set of models made by retired GP Michael, on display in Kilcullen Heritage Centre during afternoons this week, includes Castlemartin, Jigginstown, Harristown, New Abbey, Old Kilcullen and Ballyshannon Castle.

Introducing himself as a 'Johnny come lately' to local history, Michael said he was no expert in the field, but that he was curious. "It's like being an amateur detective," he said. "There's nothing I like more than going through old documents, looking to find as many 'dots' as I can and then trying to join them in a fashion that displays a plausible picture of what I'm trying to describe." He began constructing models because they made it easier to explain his theories and discoveries.

On Castlemartin he brought his audience back to the late 12th century when the first castle was constructed on the site, subsequent owners being generations of the FitzEustace Le Poer Norman families until the late 17th century when the estate lands were forfeited. He posited the evolution of the original tower house with a manor house extension, based on tiny sketches in old maps, inhabited until it was burned by Parliamentary forces in the mid-1600s.

Moving to the current house, he detailed its construction by Thomas Harrison MP who bought the lands in 1720, adding some discussion on where an older road to Kinneagh may have gone through the estate. The estate was later bought in 1730 by Thomas Carter.

Michael used detail in old paintings of the house to show architectural changes made subsequently, with the estate going into the ownership of the Blacker family in the mid-19th century, and subsequently purchased by the late Dr Tony O'Reilly in 1972. During his refurbishment and extension of the house, it was noted that a section of the original tower house remained under the hallway, a matter confirmed last evening by Jim Kelly, estate manager for Dr O'Reilly for more than four decades, who was in the audience. He also confirmed the existence of the Harrison road, elements of which are still visible. The estate was purchased by John Malone in 2015.

Details about Castlemartin's long history as revealed during Michael's talk were previously unknown to many in the audience, some of whom expressed their thanks at the end for an 'excellent presentation'.

The models in the Heritage Centre attracted fascinated attention before the talk, with the Castlemartin ones proving to be even more interesting afterwards.

Michael will be on hand in the Heritage Centre from 2pm-4pm today, tomorrow and Friday to guide visitors through the model displays. On Thursday night 22 August, he will talk about New Abbey, New Thoughts, beginning at 8pm.

Des Dunne, Ronan Wade, Jim Kelly and Philip Blake.

Nessa Dunlea, Marguerite Kavanagh, Mary and Michael O'Connell, Phena Bermingham, and Brendan O'Connell.

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