Street Wise Athlone – Magazine Road

This series of articles for the Westmeath Independent is run in conjunction with the Street Wise Athlone series on Athlone Community Radio which is broadcast on Wednesdays during Athlone Today at 2.30pm and repeated on Thursday mornings at 10am on The Brekkie Show.

Athlone Miscellany with Gearoid O'Brien

By the late eighteenth century, the defences of Athlone were thought to be inadequate to defend the crossing point of the Shannon. The British authorities feared that the French might decide to invade Ireland and thus set about a major defence initiative which included the building of Martello towers along the east coast and the defence of the various possible crossing points on the River Shannon including Athlone and Shannonbridge, and the fords below Banagher at Meelick and Keelogue.

In July 1798 a report in Faulkner’s Dublin Journal referred to soldiers of the garrison at Athlone being employed in “preparing a platform and raising a parapet” for receiving canon guns on “the hill adjoining the western avenue” leading to the town. This is clearly the area which was then known as Gallows Hill. This area of esker and open ground, of approximately 20 acres, was later taken over by the military authorities to become the site for Batteries No 2,3 4, 5 and 6 which were built in 1803 or 1804, and from which The Batteries takes its name.

Magazine Road

The word ‘magazine’ has a number of possible meanings. The most common one today is a “paperback, periodical publication, usually a heavily illustrated one, containing articles, stories etc by various authors”. However, in the case of Magazine Road, the ‘magazine’ in question was “a room for ammunition, explosives etc”. The old magazine in question was located just inside the back-gate to the army barracks which leads out on to Magazine Road.

Once the Batteries were developed and armed with artillery the military had to have a safe route for bring ammunition to and from the gun-emplacements. It seems that the military commandeered the Battery Bridge in 1804 and developed a series of communication trenches between the bridge and the individual batteries to provide protection for those delivering the ammunition.

As the Battery Bridge was then, part of the road network between Dublin and Galway, the military authorities had to build another bridge across the canal to facilitate civilian traffic some 350 yards to the north. Magazine Road is unnamed on the first Ordnance Survey map of 1837, it was apparently known as Connaught Road (c1840) before becoming known as Magazine Road.

Until the coming of the railway in 1850-51 this road, which runs parallel with Athlone Canal just provided access to the Ranelagh School, on the site later occupied by the Gentex factory and now occupied by Athlone Extrusions.

The Canal Harbour & Canal Store

Athlone Canal dates from 1757 and was Athlone’s original by-pass. Until the Shannon navigation works of the 1840s the Shannon wasn’t navigable through Athlone and this canal by-passed the town giving access to river traffic moving both north and south of Athlone. The original Canal Store which still stands, though greatly altered, at the Connaught Street end of Magazine Road and which is now occupied by Kevin & Mary Dooley and family with their greengrocery and flower shop.

The Store backed on to the canal harbour. The arrival of steamers on the Shannon in 1826 probably heralded the hey-day of the Canal Stores. These stores were used for cargo coming to and from Athlone and they may have been used as a bonded-warehouse for some of the local distilleries especially those at Shannon View (later St Aloysius College) and Shamrock Lodge. This store would have been a bustling place until the Shannon Navigation Works of the 1840s rendered the canal obsolete for navigation by 1849.

Athlone Motors

Athlone Motors on Magazine Road were the main agent for Morris cars. In 1958 you could buy a 2-door Morris Minor 1000 for £515 or pay an extra £40 for the 4-door model. The garage was later managed by Frank Fahy who became the Regional Manager of McCairns Motors before setting up Frank Fahy Commercials and becoming a household name.

Percy Cottages

This quaint Victorian terrace of nine single-bay houses and three two-bay houses is called Percy Cottages after the man who developed them, Henry Percy. In 1901 they were largely occupied by railway personnel and their families or Royal Artillery drivers from the nearby military barracks. In his obituary in the Westmeath Independent in August 1912, Henry Percy, was described as “a considerable property owner in the town” He died at his residence, Larkfield, Athlone aged 84 years. In 1892 he sold his interest in No 3 Victoria Place to John Prior. His only son Harry Prior was a very popular veterinary surgeon in Athlone.

No 17 was the home of the Shine family who ran a convenience store and a famous egg-store. Originally the egg-store was across the road from their house where the opening for St Ruth’s Park is today. However, when the army acquired the old St. Peter’s Rectory to develop St. Ruth’s Park they relocated the egg-store to just below the shop unit. The egg-store was run by Anthony Shine with the help of his brother, Patrick (Packie), while the shop was over-seen by their sister, Mary Kate (known as Miss Shine). The three Shines were unmarried and the last of them. Packie, died in 1987 aged 82. The egg-store was a fascinating place with the mechanical egg-sorter on which the eggs danced on their way down to the light-box and the packing area. I spent many a Sunday morning mesmerised by this operation while my aunt collected dozens and dozens of eggs for use in the Player-Wills canteen in Dublin.

St Asicus Villas & St Ruth’s Park

Athlone UDC built St Asicus Villas in two phases, the ‘high houses’, sometimes called St Asicus Terrace, though referred to as St Asicus Villas in 1947, were built in the 1940s and the cul-de-sac was completed in 1951-52. These houses were largely occupied by the families of workers in the nearby General Textiles factory.

St Ruth’s Park is built on the grounds of the Church of Ireland rectory for St Peter’s Parish. When the rector Rev George K. Birmingham died in 1941 the rectory (known as St Jude’s) was sold off and acquired by Athlone businessman, P.J. Byrne Snr. The Byrne family lived there until they sold it to the Department of Defence in June 1948.

The army let the house to a family called Hensey until they were ready to develop the land. Site clearance commenced in January 1956, which included the demolition of the house and the removal of outhouses, trees etc. The work of building twenty houses for NCOs and men of the garrison was undertaken by the Army Corps of Engineers and built by direct labour. The official opening for St Ruth’s Park, (called after the Marquis de St Ruth, the Jacobite commander who was killed at the Battle of Aughrim in 1691) took place in May 1957.

Next article: Custume Place

The previous articles in this series can be viewed here