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ATHY |
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| On the border with County Laois, five miles north of Kilkea, close
to the point where the Grand Canal meets the River Barrow, sits ATHY (rhymes
with sty, emphasis on the last syllable), one of those places where a
bucketful of imagination is required to envisage it as it once was:
prosperity has turned a formerly handsome Georgian town with a fine main
square into something much more ramshackle. Georgian fanlights sit oddly
with a bizarre modern church: the latter is apparently supposed to make
reference to a dolmen, although the Sydney Opera House seems a stronger
influence. Athy's designation as a heritage town, however, is bringing
its historical resonances to life. By the riverside stands the square
tower of the fifteenth-century White's Castle , built by Sir John Talbot,
Viceroy of Ireland, to protect the ford across the River Barrow and the
inhabitants of the Pale from the dispossessed Irish beyond. The early
eighteenth-century town hall houses a heritage centre (March-Oct Mon-Sat
10am-6pm, Sun 2-6pm; Nov-Feb Mon-Sat 11am-5pm; £2/¬.54), with a
comprehensive exhibition covering the Famine, the 1798 Rebellion, the
part played by Athy men in World War I, and the life of Antarctic
explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, who came from nearby Kilkea. The town
hall is also where you'll find the tourist office (same times). Aside
from some leisurely strolls along the Grand Canal and visiting the
heritage centre, the town's unlikely to detain you for too long - except
to eat or stay at Tonlegee House (tel 0507/31473, tonlegeehouse@eircom.net
; £70-90/¬88.88-114.28; restaurant closed Sun & Mon), signposted off the
Kilkenny road, a solidly built mansion that surveys the countryside just
beyond Athy's suburban sprawl and has a restaurant noted for its
imaginative menu. |
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