Old Workshops
We come then to a wooden gate at the wall inside
which are the old workshops and sheds used by the quarrymen. Part of
the field is quite sunken now. There are two small buildings there.
Mrs. Haughton, wife of Samuel Haughton who built Greenbank,
travelled extensively and was keen on architecture. She, it was who
got these erected: one is a replica of Italian Shell-house and the
other that of a Grecian Temple.
The next three houses, tenanted by
Messrs Clifton, Kinsella and Lyons, were built by a
Mr. Donnelly who
afterwards went to America. He was the brother-in-law of Margaret
Donnelly who owned property on the other side of the road. The row
of five houses next in order and tenanted by Messrs. Coyne, Craughan,
Horohan, Ralph and Brophy, were thatched. They were rebuilt and
slated by Mrs. Kehoe, Pembroke, in 1908, grandmother of the present
Walter Kehoe.
Oldest House
The two stone-built slated houses tenanted by
Messrs. Payne and Doogue are the oldest of their type on the road.
The Payne family have lived in their house for over 100 years. There
are a further twelve one-storey houses built by the Haughton family.
In one of these opposite the pump lived a Tommy Shelly, who taught
Catechism after Mass on Sundays in the Cathedral. It was Dr.
Delaney. Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, who instituted this
practice — i.e., the teaching by lay people. The Sunday School in
Carlow was in existence for 30 years when J.K.L. collected the
Returns of Schools in 1824. Others who taught were Timothy Deane of
Montgomery St. — a tailor. Tom Murphy of Burrin St., and
John Murphy
of College St. A Mrs. Murphy who lived in Tullow Street in the shop
now occupied by Margaret Walsh taught the girls.
The remainder of
the houses up to those six now demolished and constituting a most
unattractive entrance to Carlow were also built by the Haughtons. We
now approach the bottle-neck of the Dublin Road, with the high wall
of the Mental Hospital on the left and the Christian Brothers House
and Schools on the right. Beeechville — now occupied by Mr. Stevens,
was originally named Gayville, and it is so marked on the Ordnance
Survey Map. At one time it was occupied by a Mr. James, whose son,
Fr. James, was curate in Graiguecullen and now P.P. of Rhode,
Offaly.
Local Writer
For many years “Beechville” was the residence of the
late Mr. Marlborough C. Douglas, the well-known writer on Carlow; he
had been a land agent’s clerk with the late Mr. William Fitzmaurice
of Kelvin Grove. Mr. James was evidently the owner of Beechville at
the time of the construction of the G.S. & W. Railway in 1851, and
after the acquisition of land for the building of the railway, Mr.
James found that a small portion of his garden, at the rere of the
house, had not been acquired, and he declined to sell it in order to
save the amenities of his house.
The consequence was that the plan
of running the railway sidings from the Station to the Railway
Bridge could never be satisfactorily completed as the run-acquired
portion of the “Beechville” garden projected and still projects into
the Railway yard. We now meet two modern houses owned by Mr. Hooper
(Highfield) and Mr. Tom O’Neill (Gayville). When the excavating was
being done under the bridge by the Railway Co., all the earth was
pitched on the site occupied by these houses hence their great
height above road level.
The “Bluebell Inn’’ was the first coaching
inn in Carlow on the road from Dublin. This inn was acquired by the
Railway Company when the line was built and had to be demolished as
it stood in the way. A house, the present Bluebell, was built in its
place some 30 yards nearer the town.
From the Autobahn
As we ascend the hill to our recently-constructed
autobahn and look to the right and view the Fever Hospital built in
1829 and supported by Grand Jury presentments, we can see a built-up
gateway in the stone wall. It is thought that the original roadway,
prior to the building of the Railway, ran across the present
Permanent Way to the hospital.
Co. Infirmary
Let us come back now to the Co. Infirmary, which was
built some time before 1837. In Samuel Lewis’s Topographical
Dictionary of Ireland, published in 1837, he says: “The County
Infirmary is supported by Grand Jury presentments and local
subscriptions aided by a parliamentary grant.” It was controlled by
a Board of Governors mostly drawn from what was then termed “The
Ascendancy Class.” It was a voluntary hospital, to which gifts of
food were supplied annually. After the passing of the Local
Government Act in 1898, the Co. Council gave an annual grant of from
£500 to £600. Some members of the County Council, called Wardens,
the Board of Governors, Clergy and Doctors in the county,
recommended the patients by issuing tickets for entry into the
Infirmary. The late Dr. O’Meara held a Dispensary on three days per
week there. He succeeded a Dr. O’Callaghan.
Paying Patients
I have seen a Register dating from 1895 to 1925. Up
to 1902, all patients were free, but seemingly finances were getting
strained at that stage, as a new column is introduced into the
Register under the heading “Amount to be paid per day.” The amount
paid ranged from 6d per day to 6/- per day. This heading ceases in
1922. The Register finishes in 1925, when the Board of Health took
it over.
Mental Hospital
We now approach the back gate of the Mental
Hospital. I know Miss Treaty has dealt with it in her paper on Athy
Road, so I will deal with it in a few words. It was built in 1826 to
serve the counties of Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford and Kildare at an
expense, including cost of erection and purchase of land and
furniture, of £22,552-10-4. According to Samuel Lewis — “It is under
excellent regulation and is calculated to accommodate 104 lunatics
and attached to it are 153 acres of land. The number of patients in
the summer of 1836 was 99.” This was at a time when the population
of Ireland was 8 million.
Subsequently, in the early sixties, the
Wexford patients were transferred to Enniscorthy. Fr. Hickey says
that his mother well remembered the passage of the Wexford mental
patients to Enniscorthy via Kildavin. They were moved on side-cars.
We mount again to our speed-track and down on our left — -completely
blocked from view — are two neat cottages built by the Bruen family.
They are occupied by the Lyons family. One of them said to me
recently: “We were always known as Lyons’s of the Hill, but now
we’ll have to be called Lyons’s of the Hollow.”
Original Dublin Road
It must not be forgotten that the Dublin Road in its
original direction was the main coach road to Carlow. It therefore
passed through the present demesne of Oak Park, covering a district
that was formerly a parish near Carlow. The original road ran
through the demesne gates, passing Lennon’s cottage on to
Ballaghmoon Cross, and hence to Morrin’s Cross, where it meets the
present road. It can be traced on maps prior to the time that the
Bruen family constructed the present road, which turns off at the
Railway Bridge to the right and has recently been reconstructed and
raised to meet the demands of modern traffic, and to conform with
the excellent highway that stretches nearly three miles outside the
town to meet the boundary of Co. Kildare. I have been told that the
old road coming from the north turned to the right some 100 yard3
inside Oak Park gate on to the present avenue to the Beet Factory
offices and thus joining Athy Road.
The New Road
In the Grand Jury List of Spring 1849 we read of a
contract given to build a new road outside the wall of the Oak Park
demesne. The first reads: “To Charles Nowlan, Contractor, to open,
form, level, fence and drain and make 657 perches of a new road from
Carlow to Baltinglass between the North end of the falling at
Railway Bridge on the Dublin Road in Rathnapish and Ballyvergal
Bridge (the present Knocknagee Cross) at the Co. Kildare bounds.”
The second contract was granted at the General Assizes held in
Carlow on Monday, 22nd July, 1850: “To Charles Nowlan, Contractor,
to open, form, level, fence and drain and make 141 perches of a new
road from Carlow to Kilcullen Bridge between Ballyvergall Bridge and
bounds of the Co. Kildare, near the corner of James Doyle’ field in
Knocknagee in Co. Kildare and between the west bounds of
Gurteengrove in the Co. Carlow near Thomas Byrne’s field in
Knocknagee aforesaid and the east bounds of Gurteengrove aforesaid
at Thomas Byrne’s field in Knocknagee.”
Before we meet Oak Park
Gates on the old road, there is a field on the right, just vast Newholme, owned by the College Trustees. The deed was completed on
December 14th, 1809, when a sum of £488-11-6 was paid to Mr. Matt.
Redmond and Mr. O’Farrell (both brewers in Carlow on site where now
stands the Town Hall) for intrest in lease of 10 acres, 2 roods of
Raheenapish.
Oak Park
Oak Park got its name only when the Bruen family
took over the demesne. It was so called because of the considerable
oak plantations that existed there. Originally it was called
Painstown. The Bruen family came to Carlow from the West of Ireland.
They bought the estate, and the first owner and purchaser of the
lands was Henry Bruen, who took possession of the place in 1787. The
Bruen's had been Cromwellian settlers from Connaught. It was this
Henry Bruen who built the main structure of Oak Park House. His son,
Col. Bruen, built the two wings, east and west.
Later, one of these
wings was burnt down, but was re-built by Col. Bruen’s son, Rt. Hon.
Henry Bruen. The architect of the original part of the house was
Johnston, who was also architect to the General Post Office in
Dublin. He also built the great gateway at Oak Park and, indeed, it
is to him we are indebted for the architecture of Carlow Courthouse,
which is also linked with the Dublin Road. The pillars and capitals
at Oak Park resemble those of the Courthouse.
Bruen Family
The first Henry Bruen of Oak Park. the Colonel, his
son, and his son, Rt. Hon. Henry Bruen and his wife, who was a Miss
Connolly of Celbridge, are buried in the family vault at Nurney, Co.
Carlow. The Bruen family built the village of Nurney and were big
benefactors of the Protestant Church. Though they were a strong
Protestant family, it should be emphasised that the Bruen's did not
confiscate Oak Park, but bought it in the open market. The lands
had, indeed, been confiscated by a Norman family of the name of
Cooke, who were Catholics and espoused the cause of King James II.
Hence their property was taken over by the Crown and sold to the
Bruen family. The great Oak Groves can still be seen and the old
Catholic cemetery of the Cooke family exists to this day. There was
also a Catholic oratory in the grounds. About two years ago a member
of the Cooke family now in England visited Oak Park and was
entertained by the recently deceased Capt. Bruen. The present Oak
Park was in the parish formerly called Painstown, but which is now
included in the parish of Carlow. So much for the outer reaches of
the Dublin Road along which the coaches trundled on their way into
Carlow carrying many a famous person, including the novelist
Thackeray, who visited the town in 1841. (An account of the Convent
of Mercy appears on page 26 as a separate article).
Source: Carloviana Vol 1. No. 3
Dec 1956. p.18 -22.
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