Community Magazine January 2018 No

Community Magazine

January 2018 No. 361

EDITORIAL CALENDAR

It is good to have reached that time of Wednesday 10th January year when the days can only lengthen Clane Local History Group will host a from now on and hopefully the weather talk by Ms. Margaret Doyle, Archivist improve. Having a renewed Communi- at Clongowes, entitled “Clongowes ty Council with 44 years of successful Wood College Archives” in Clane undertakings and continued community GAA at 8pm. See page 3. support is another cause for optimism. Monday, 29th January On page 3 you will see that 27mem- A.G.M. of Clane Community Council bers were nominated. We are delighted in the Evergreens’ Room of the Abbey to welcome 4 new members. It is dis- Community Centre at 8pm. All wel- appointing that there were not some come. See p. 3 more. It is equally important of course that a substantial number of experi- enced previous members should be prepared to step forward and maintain continuity. We could still do with a big boost in female membership, which increased by 1, but some of the most important community contributions have been and are continuing to be made by those we have. The AGM will be held in the Abbey Community Centre on Monday January 29th at 8pm. Any member of the community is welcome to attend www.clanecommunity.ie and perhaps you will be inspired to get NEW MEMBERS NOMINATED involved when nominations are once more being invited in two years time. Following the recent Community Keep in mind the many achievements Council Nomination process the fol- of past years, which include among lowing, subject to confirmation at our many others, the acquisition of the first meeting, is the list of Members for Stream Park in 2 parts, one of which is the term 2018-2019. We congratulate now the Children’s Playground, The each and everyone on their willingness Abbey Community Centre and Ever- greens’ Centre -reconstructed from the EDITOR’S DEADLINE old Church of St. Michael, roofless The deadline for receipt of material for the since it re-located to Millicent in 1883, February issue of Le Chéile is the Riverside Walk, etc., etc. Monday 25th January To 142 Loughbollard please. We wish all a very Happy New Year. Tel. 045-868474. E-mail: [email protected]

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2 to volunteer and serve the community. requirement is that written evidence of This will take the Community Council nomination by their organization will be forward to its 47th year, having been required and that the organizations con- formed in 1973. cerned should be non party political..

Maurice Austin CLANE LOCAL HISTORY Owen Brennan GROUP Paul Carroll John Daly Clane Local History Group start the Nellie Dillon New Year with a unique talk entitled Marion Doolan “Clongowes Wood College Archives”. Des Drumm The Talk will be given by Ms. Margaret Paul Edwards Doyle, who has been the college archi- Karen Egan vist for many years. The talk takes place Niamh Fitzgerald on Wednesday 10th January 2018 in Nick Fitzgerald Clane GAA Club on the Prosperous Martine Grogan Road at 8pm. Admission is free and all Martina Healy are welcome. John Kennedy Peter Kirwan IRISH WHEELCHAIR ASSOCI- Henry Lowry ATION, JOHN SULLIVAN CEN- Eamonn Lynch TRE, CLANE Rita Mahon Volunteers to assist with Church-gate Robert Mahon Collections for the Irish Wheelchair As- Tom McCreery sociation would be greatly appreciated. John McDonagh They can contact Vicki O’Connell at Padraig McEvoy 045 861 346 or [email protected]. Tony McEvoy Tony McKenna THE EVERGREENS Anne Noonan John Power Michael Quirke Here we are once more into a New Year and may it be a successful one The AGM will take place in the Abbey for each of us. January 1st is the feast Community Centre on Monday 29th of Mary Mother of God. We begin January at 8pm. All members of the by honouring her and praying to her, community are welcome to attend. The placing ourselves in her care. It’s new Committee for the coming year will time to make our New Year resolu- be elected from the above list of mem- tions, but how good are we at keep- bers. ing them; human nature is human Persons nominated by residents nature. I certainly make some but associations and other organizations in the area served by Clane Community most of them are soon gone by the Council are invited to attend subsequent wayside. In January too nature is meetings, from February onwards and resting and trees are bare of leaves represent their organizations at the Ordi- and rustic hues. Nights are long and nary Meetings. The only constitutional days are short, yet though nature 3 sleeps, it is not for long and soon life Of course he has all this practiced in and nature will emerge once more as advance under the watchful eye of we delight in new growth and and Sally. Betty Duffy and Eva Halligan the early days of Spring. entertained us too with some lovely Our Club is doing well with renditions of songs. We all wished four new members this year so far each other Christmas greetings and and more to come. All of us who came home happy. Go mberimíd beo went to see “Aladdin” enjoyed it and ag an am seo arís le cúnamh Dé. those talented artistes supreme of On behalf of the Evergreens I CMDS are really going from strength wish to congratulate the nine young to strength and are really such a people from our parish who received pleasure to watch performing. Our Pope John Paul II Awards from Bish- A.G.M. was held on Tuesday 19th op Denis Nulty. They are Jenna December. There was a good attend- Cross, Niall Little, Lauren Deay, Ste- ance and the meeting went off very phen Doyle, Orla Fitzgerald, Roisin well. The officers elected for the Gorman, Oriana Hackett, Cian coming year are thus:- Chairperson - McKeon and Ciara Flaherty. Well Sally Sheridan, Vice Chairperson - done to these young people. They are Mary Kelly, Secretary -Ita Killaly, a credit to their families, Parish and Treasurer -Maura McCormack, PRO Community and are so active in -Maureen Spain. Committee:- Kevin many ways in doing good in both Cribbin, Mary Smith, Mari Negri, parish and community. Mari Wells and Anne Fusco. As we start the new year we We Evergreens wish to thank Evergreens would like to thank eve- the I.C.A. for the wonderful party ryone once again who has helped us they organized for all senior citizens in any way, both financially and oth- on December 10th. We enjoyed it erwise. Thanks also to Committee very much. Both dinner and enter- Members who are so kind and help- tainment were excellent. On Tuesday ful to us all. There maybe more sen- 12th we Evergreens had a day out in ior citizens out there who might like the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre to start the ney year by joining us -a and came home laden with Christmas céad mile fáilte awaits you. We have goods of all sorts. This place is really many activities, including the art recommended for the quintessential which is so popular and great tuition shopping. On Wednesday 20th De- is imparted each week by our artist cember we had our annual night out supreme -lovely Fiona. For those of at the Westgrove Hotel. The dinner you who like to play cards, well this was superb -complements to the is the place to come to -so we’ll be Chefs. The entertainment by Richie seeing you. Hayden was most enjoyable and had For now I wish everyone a everyone on the floor dancing the safe , healthy and blessed New Year. night away. Santa was busy with us Ath-bhlian fé shonas dhibh go léir le all and gave each of us a lovely gift. gach dea guí. 4

ing their 130th Birthday will be coming Maureen Spain (PRO). to Clane too to entertain us all. Parade Entry Form can be picked CLANE ST. PARICK'S DAY up in Bob and Kates, Clane or by down- FESTIVAL, 2018 loading from our website. Check out our Facebook page in the coming weeks with

updates of all events. Thanks for supporting us by purchasing our 2017 Clane Christmas Anyone is welcome to join our commit- Cards. Thanks also for supporting our tee and get involved in the organising of bagpacking in Supervalu recently. All the Festival. New members are always proceeds raised will go towards the Fes- welcome. tival, 2018. Plans are well underway for our THE ENVIRONMENT St. Patrick's Day Festival, 2018. Theme for the Clane St. Patrick's Day Festival, Man is the only creature which pollutes 2018 is THE SWINGING 60's. The the environment. The trees of the forest Festival will run from 9th - 19th drop tons of leaves every autumn. These March with something for every- rot away in due course and their mineral one. Lots of events being planned for content is recycled to sustain the further the 2018 Festival. growth of forest timbers. The same is Important Message: We are organ- true for the birds and animals which are ising something very special to celebrate our fellow occupants of the globe. Like- our 2018 Clane St. Patrick's Day Festi- wise for the fish and other occupants of val. Theme: THE SWINGING '60's. We the sea. There is a fundamental law of have decided to have a Reunion of all physics which states that: Entropy (or the families who lived in the locality through state of disorder) tends to increase at all the 1960's era. We are planning a very times. Ancient buildings, such as the pyr- special Afternoon Tea Dance/Reunion. amids, will slowly deteriorate until noth- Mick Dunne will be entertaining us. Our ing remains of them other than a pile of Special Guest Mary Byrne will be sing- sand. It takes energy and on-going work ing the 60's music to get us into the to oppose this. Think of the state your mood of that era. Want to be part of this? room would deteriorate into if you did Admission is free but pre-booking is es- not regularly work on restoring its order. sential for the party. Early booking is The Creator designed the plant and ani- also very important as tables will be lim- mal world to avail of the sun’s energy to ited. It promises to be a very nostalgic maintain order at all levels in the plant and memorable afternoon and will take and animal world. place in The Westgrove Hotel on Sunday The irony is that man alone is 11th March, 2018. Time: 3.30 to aware of the consequences of his actions, 6.30pm. Gather your school friends, fam- of what is right and what is wrong. He ily and neighbours to talk about old alone has the option to do what is right times. To book your table, pm us here or or otherwise. Other species are con- email: clanefestival@kildare.ie. trolled by instinct and the forces of na- Fossett's Circus who are celebrat- ture. That having been said, wouldn’t it

5 be a much better world if we didn’t have To keep things up and running to live with litter, graffiti and vandalism, in the meantime we will repeat one among other things. The money saved or two articles of outstanding interest would make a great difference. The pos- from the past. The first of these we itive effects on the environment would carried in June 1984, marking its mean that the world would be much more positive place to grow up in. hundredth anniversary.

44 YEARS OF LE CHÉLE FIRST EVER ATHLETIC MEETING IN CLANE January 2018 marks the 44th year of Advertisement in the Leinster Leader the publication of Le Chéile. Clane June 14th 1884. Community Council published its “Clane Pony Race and Athletic Sports first community magazine in January will be held in Clane on June 12th 1884. 1974. Numerous such magazines Starting 1 o’clock. have come and gone in different Committee: communities in County Kildare in President: A.E. McCracken Esq. the years since . It seems well estab- Vice-President: J.D. Whyte Esq. lished that we now have the longest Stewards: Dr. O’Connor, C.H. Farrell running community magazine in the Esq., J. Geoghegan Esq., T.H. Farrell county if not in the country. It would Esq., J. O’Neill Esq., J. Healy Esq., P. be a great pity if we cannot keep it Crosbie Esq., D. Healy Esq., Ed Dunne Esq., S. Whittle Esq., R. Kearney Esq. running into the future. We make Judge and handicapper, under the laws this point in the knowledge that we of the Amateur Athletic Association, have been experiencing difficulties in Mr. John Dunbar, Irish Sportsman, 36 getting in club reports on time in the North Great George’s Street, Dublin. last few months. In December we Tickets to enclosure 2/- shillings had to go on line 4.5 pages short of Cars 2/6 our usual 12. This was contributed to General Entry fee for all Athletic events by a failure in our email system. The 7/6 Pony Race under 14.3 hands. system has since been repaired. 1st prize £4.00, 2nd prize £1.00. Entry However we have been struggling fee5/- with the January issue. Hopefully Details of athletic events. Slinging 56 lbs without follow. Putting 28 lbs. 100 things will get back on a proper foot- yds open, handicap half mile (confined). ing for the next edition in February. High Jump (open). 440 yds open handi- Problems with January are under- cap. Bicycle Race 3 Miles Open Handi- standable to an extent in that the cap. 2 Miles Walking open handicap. deadline (December 27th) falls in 220 yds Hurdles (confined). 120 yds between Christmas Day and New Hurdles open handicap. For boys u/16 Years Day and people have lots on 220 open handicap. Long Jump open their minds and their hands full. handicap. 220 yds Club Handicap. 1 Hopefully things will pick up from mile handicap. 220 yds Novices. Don- here on. key race and Pony race.”

Report of Clane Athletic Sports in the redoubtable Mick McQuaid. Before Leinster Leader Saturday June 14th closing, we must mention that a great 1884: deal of the success of the meeting is due to the Hon. Sec. Mr. T.J. Farrell and the “It is a pleasure to welcome to the world other members of the Committee. Rr. of manly sports a new athletic club, and D.J. Dempsey fulfilled his duties as it is with genuine satisfaction that we starter in a most satisfactory manner. record the appearance on their own track The above was the first and last of the sterling good men, who claim meeting under the Amateur Athletic As- Clane or its vicinity for their present sociation held in Clane, for on Novem- abode. ber 1st 1884 the meeting to form the As has been said, this was the G.A.A. was held in Thurles. The first first athletic meeting held in Clane, and athletic meeting under the G.A.A. rules we sincerely hope it will not be the last. ever held in Kildare took place in Clane It was completely successful, we have on Thursday, June 4th 1885. At this seldom seen a more animated scene. All meeting, Tommy Conneff, then a lad of sorts of condition of men were there, 17, ran his first race. Tommy won the and as for the ladies-- but we despair of Half Mile open handicap in 2 minutes doing them justice. We had clergymen, 17 seconds, and in the space of two betting men, business men, in short as years, became a world champion. It is we have said, all sorts and conditions of fitting that the G.A.A. Park in Clane men, from the gentlemen to the tatterde- should be called after the man who start- malion. The usual contaminants of a ed his athletic career at the first ever crowded meeting were all to the fore, meeting under G.A.A. rules held in Kil- the thimbleriggers, card sharpers, shoot- dare.” ing galleries and those inevitable stands Comments: Reference to the ad- of lemonade, ginger beer and biscuits mission price and enclosure… It would etc. etc. Almost everybody who has any seem that there was a special enclosure claim to be anybody was there. No won- for those who could afford the admis- der that a remark we overheard, should sion prices of 2/- and 2/6. One must be made ‘Sure its equal to Punch- remember that a farm worker’s wages estown’. were 1/- per day and 1/6 for a plough- The Clane Brass Band, and the St. man. The general entrance fee of 7/6 Patrick’s Fife and Drum Band, New- would suggest that the bridge were present, and played all the “tatterdemalion” , as the Leader reporter popular airs. From the athletic point the described them, could not compete. meeting was much more successful than The location of the athletic events was expected from a first meeting. described was, by general consensus, The pony race was of its kind the the “Fifteen Acres”, which was located event of the day. The winner as every- on the Ballinagappa Road at the site of one expected was Rambling Fanny. This the present-day Oatfield Estate. pony would be better described as a race The above article was published mare, and is certainly not the class that in Le Chéile in June 1984, exactly 100 people associate with the word pony. years after the meeting took place. Second was Spring Daisy and third was Mineral Water. The Donkey race caused THE GIANT IRISH ELK FOUND much amusement, the winner being the AT RATHCOFFEY 7

an forms, such as the reindeer and the In 1947 James Noonan, who was a Musk Ox. They arrived about 12,000 ploughman in Clongowes, was plough- years ago as the last ice was melting dur- ing a low-lying field on their Rathcoffey ing the second late glacial or subarctic farm when his tractor drawn plough be- period. With the spread of more temper- gan turning up an assortment of old ate climatic conditions they moved to bones and soon afterwards struck the their present home in the far north, antlers of what is popularly known as the where many of them still survive, but the Great Irish Elk. The field, which was Irish Giant Deer had become extinct. being ploughed for the first time ever, This second late glacial pe- was traditionally known as the ‘Decoy’. riod was characterised by the deposition It was formerly the site of a pond used on lake beds of water-carried muds con- by Hamilton Rowan, who acquired the taining, for the first time the remains of property in 1775, as a decoy for ducks some plants and animals (including the and other wild fowl. It seems that the Elk). Some of these shallow lakes later pond, which covered an acre or so, be- went on to form bogs, like Ballybetagh, came dried out in the middle of the near the foot of the Three Rock Moun- 1800s when drainage improvements tain, where the remains of over one hun- were carried out on the Lyreen river. The dred ‘Elks’ were found, or became dried Clongowes boys had skated here in the out like the Rathcoffey site. It is only in early years, when hard winter frosts had the last few decades with the develop- frozen it over. ment of the science of pollen analysis, About four skulls or skull frag- that any understanding of post glacial ments were discovered, including one flora and fauna has emerged. complete skeleton which was removed In 1944 Professor G.F. Mitchell, by the Natural History Museum. The who pioneered this type of work in Ire- most recent episode was the discovery in land, discovered pockets of a soil series December 1978 at Rathcoffey of a skull belonging to the second late glacial peri- of the Irish Giant Deer with broken ant- od at Rathcoffey south and Griffin Rath. ler stumps by John Behan of Painstown. It is remarkable that the remains of the An antler of the Red Deer was also Giant Irish Deer are found only in this found. particular stratum. It is found only at a There is surely something remark- few isolated points across the midlands able about this field in the South of and was laid down at a time when Ire- Rathcoffey townsland which adjoins land had a very simple sub-arctic vegeta- Clonaugh. Experts tell us that the Giant tion; dwarf willows and birches formed Irish Deer (Megalervus Giganteus) a tundra, while high wind-swept heaths should not be called an Elk, a true exam- were dominated by the crowberry as in ple of which is the Canadian Moose. The modern Ireland. Giant Irish Deer was a giant indeed and Fr. Brian McMahon, S.J., who had an antler span of up to nine and a was a Prefect of studies at Clongowes in half feet. It has now been extinct for 1947, put forward the very interesting 10,000 years, but originally came south- suggestion that the ‘Elk’, like the present wards into Ireland across ancient land day Moose, were fond of succulent bridges -the seas were shallower in weeds growing under water at lake edg- those days- with kindred North Europe- es. To reach these, they put their heads

8 completely under water, with the result that sometimes their vast spread of antlers became caught in the weeds and before they could extricate themselves, they were drowned. This would also explain the rarity of relics of the female. The female had no antlers and very few female skulls have been found. If true it would seem that the excessive development of the animal’s crowning glory proved its doom.

(Published in Le Chéile in December 1978)