Celbridge

Template:Infobox Irish Place Celbridge (Cill Droichid in Irish) is a town situated on the River Liffey in County Kildare in Ireland. Located 22 kilometres (13 miles) from Dublin City. Its population of 17,262 (2006 Census) makes it the third largest town in Kildare and the 36th largest in Ireland. It is the 22nd largest town in the Republic of Ireland. The population increased by 7.8pc between the census returns of 2002 and 2006. Historically this was the town's most rapid growth rate in absolute terms at 3,011 in four years. In percentage terms it was a a slowdown on previous growth rates which were at one stage the highest in Ireland.

As a town within the Dublin Metropolitan Area and the Greater Dublin Area, Celbridge has expanded dramatically in recent years - however most of the towns services and amenities still centre around the single main street.

Demographics

As of the censusTemplate:GR of 2006, there were 17, 262 people () in Celbridge of which 8,732 were male and 8,530 female, 4,307 (25pc) were aged 0-14, 2,678 (15.5pc) were aged 15-24, 6,219 (35pc) were aged 35-44, 3,400 (19.7pc) were aged 45-64 and 658 (3.6pc) were aged 65 years and over. Of these 9,586 were single, 6,602 were married, 715 were widowed and 359 were separated. Just 4, 146 (24.4pc) of the 16, 980 who were recorded by the census as “usually resident in Celbridge” had been born in Co Kildare, 10,071 (59.3pc) had been born elsewhere in Ireland and 2,763 (16.3pc) were born outside of Ireland. The proportion of black people at 2.3pc is one of the highest in the country reflecting the changes in Irish society but is barely comparable with international standards. Local schools have participated in successful programmes to encourage inclusion and integration.

Etymology

The name Celbridge is derived from the Irish Cill Droichid meaning "Church by the Bridge" and has sometimes been spelled Kildrought in English.

History

Origins

There is evidence of 5,000 years of habitation as evidenced by beads and quern stones in the National Museum from Griffinrath and the nearby high ground sloping down to the Liffey. Recent research has linked Celbridge with the Slí Mór possibly crossing the Liffey at a ford located below the site of the mill directly east of the bridge rather than at Castletown House, as previously thought. The etymology of the church at Donaghcumper (Domhnach is one of the earliest Irish words for church) suggests it may have existed as a monastic site from the 5th century. Folklore and heroic literature associate the north bank of Celbridge with both Saint Patrick (hill and church of uncertain antiquity in Ardrass) and Saint Mochua (c570), who was associated with a church in Tea Lane and a well on the site of the current mill where pagan converts were baptised.

Parish of Kildrought

The original Kildrought parish church (built 14th c, burned 1798) stood in the present graveyard at Tea Lane and houses the mausoleums of the Dongan and Conolly families. It was granted by the Normans to the Abbey of St Thomas in Dublin. Pre Norman churches served the adjoining parishes in Donaghcumper and Stacumny (mentioned 1176) to the east, Kilmacreddock to the north east, the tiny parish of Donaghmore (plundered 1150, mentioned in letter 1190) further to the north, Laraghbryan (plundered 1036 and 1171) to the north west, and Killadoon to the south.

Town of Kildrought

The town of Kildrought or Kildroighid developed around the castle, monastery and mill of Kildrought which Thomas de-Hereford, the Norman Lord of Kildrought erected early in the thirteenth century. The one long street running between the de Hereford Castle and lands of Castletown, and the mill, had taken shape by 1314 when Henry le Waleys was charged at a Naas court of “breaking the doors” of houses in the town of Kildrought and by night “taking geese, hens, beer and other victuals” against the will of the people of the town.

By the time of the Down Survey (1654-56) the population was 102 and the Dongan family were in possession of all the land in Celbridge. Killadoon House was the home of John Dongan’s brother in law Richard Talbot Earl of Tyrconnell. Dongan died at the Battle of the Boyne and is buried in Tea Lane cemetery. Talbot died immediately before the Siege of Limerick. His widow remained in Killadoon, outliving the two men who took over the town from her husband and John Dongan, Bartholomew Van Homrigh and William Conolly.

Kildrought to Celbridge

The houses in Celbridge town centre were built over a period of two hundred years, starting with Celbridge Abbey, built in 1703 by Bartholomew Van Homrigh, who was appointed Chief Commissioner for the Stores in Ireland by conquering English King William III and moved to Kildrought Manor in 1695. When William “Speaker” Conolly purchased the Castletown estate in 1709 from John Dongan’s son Thomas Dongan the restored Earl of Limerick and governor of New York, he complained that "all the Earl's tenants were beggars." Conolly built his own mansion at Castletown, cleared the largely Catholic tenantry and left the development of the town to new, all-Protestant improvers and developers who followed what was now the richest man in Ireland to Celbridge. Their leases were granted on condition that they erect stone houses with gable ends and two chimneys on their holdings, replacing in many cases mud cabins and intermixed areas of waste ground.

Existing mercantile buildings such as the 17th century market house, where the town's first school was based in 1709, were incorporated in to the expanding mill complex of buildings near the bridge and developers began to look at the green field sites to the north east of the bridge towards in the direction of Castletown House. The result was to move the axis of Celbridge away from the bridge, corn and tuck mill and road to St Mochua's church to a new Main Street.

The old Irish name Cill Droichid (Kildrought), meaning the church of the bridge, was anglicised first to Cell-bridge and then, after 1724, to Celbridge. Swift in his letters to Vanessa always named the place Kildrought, but she replied from Celbridge.

Celbridge Main Street

The development of the Main Street commenced with the building of Kildrought House by Joseph Rotheny in 1720 for Robert Baillie, a Dublin Upholsterer who was William Conolly's greatest prospect as an improving tenant. A large extension, which included a malt house, was added after Baillie sold in 1749. Kildrought house became home to John Begnall’s (Bagnell?) Academy after 1782. Among the attendees were the sons of Col George Napier, George, Charles, William and Henry, later to be collectively known as “Wellington’s Colonels, ” and their younger brother Richard Napier, and John Jebb (1775–1833), later Church of Ireland bishop of Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe. Jeremiah Haughton, owner of the Mill lived there after 1818. For a time in the early 1800s Kildrought House had a cholera hospital attached to it and served as the local police barracks from 1831 to 1841 when the barrack moved to the site of the current Michaelangelo’s restaurant. After 1861 it was leased by Richard Maunsell of Oakley Park. Next door is the courthouse where the local petty sessions took place every fourth week.

No 22 Main Street, the original home of Conolly’s second agent George Finey was occupied by Richard Guinness for a time and his sons Arthur, founder of the Guinness brewery, and Samuel. Richard married Elizabeth Clere, proprietor of the White Hart Inn, a public house at the site of the current Londis supermarket. Finey’s successor as Conolly’s agent, Dublin cabinetmaker Charles Davis, built Jasmine Lodge, an impressive five-bay house with a weather vane on the junction of Main Street and the Maynooth Road (1750). It was home to seven generations of Mulligans until 1992. One of the Mulligans had the decorative iron arch to the entrance gate constructed from material salvaged from the GPO Dublin after the 1916 Rebellion The Castletown Inn stands where Isaac Annesley, the early 18th century master stonemason lived. One of the oldest houses in the town. No 59 next door, was renovated in the latter half of the 18th century for Thomas Conolly's huntsman. Christopher Barry’s Auctioneers was built in 1840 by Richard Nelson and let to Chief Constable Marley, it replaced an old dwellinghouse with stables and offices where William Wadsworth, the original Irish Straw Manufacturer and exporter lived and operated at the end of the 19th century. On the corner of the Main Street and Liffey Bridge, Broe’s house and shop (1773) is now the Bank of Ireland. Mattew Gogarty came from Clondalkin in 1818 and established his shop on the other side of the street. James Carberry's Brewery (1709) later became Coyles and eventually Norris’s and the Village Inn. Roseville was built in 1796.

Other notable buildings on Main Street include the Catholic Church (1857 JJ McCarthy Architect), the Holy Faith convent (1877) and Christ Church (Church of Ireland, 1884) which retains the tower of an earlier church (1813). Castletown gates at the end of the street were built in 1783 after a design inspired by Batty Langley. According to research by local historian Lena Boylan, the work was by a stone mason named Coates and a blacksmith named Behan.

Temple Mills

The oldest mill in the area is Temple Mills, operated by the Tyrrell family for 300 years, 2km outside the town on the Ardclough Road. Joseph Shaw's flax and flour mills was a major employer in the town until its closure after the death of William Shaw .

Templeplace: A Vanished Town

The now disappeared town of Templeplace is recording as having a population of 279 in 1841, 310 in 1851, 382 in 1861, 402 in 1871 and was, after 1881, included in the townland of Newtown “on which it stood” as it "did not contain 20 inhabited houses." A footnote to the census returns comments “the decline in population is attributed to the discontinuance of the flax mill”. The population of Newtown in 1891 was 128, down from 145.

Celbridge Mill

The Manor Mills (built by Laurence Atkinson 1805, restored 1985) incorporate parts of the old Celbridge Market House. In 1817 owner Jeremiah Houghton told a parliamentary committee that this mill was the biggest wool manufactory in Ireland . The description was repeated in the 1845 Parliamentary Gazeteer. It employed 600 people at full capacity, some of them children who were eight and nine years of age. Workers from Yorkshire who came to work in the mill lived in Tea Lane (so called because of the amount of discarded tea leaves on the street) and English Row. The closure of the mills in 1879 caused the population of Celbridge to plunge from a nineteenth century peak of 1,674 in 1861 (1,391 in 1871) to 988 in 1881 and a low of 811 in 1891.

Under the Fianna Fáil regeneration scheme of the 1930s, Leinster Hand Weaving Company acquired the premises for conversion in to a weaving mill . Celbridge woollen mill was operated by Youghal carpets (acquired 1966, workforce extended from 120 jobs in October 1969). It was a major employer until its closure in May 1982 with the loss of 220 jobs. This ended two centuries of intermittent wool production in the village. The mill now serves as a community centre. Its warehouses which bear a wall-mount dating the Mill to 1785, and a stone commemorating the site of St Mochua’s well.

Mills at Coneyburrow (Newbridge, near St. Wolstan's) were granted to Robert Randall, Dublin paper maker, in 1729, and were later converted for use as a flour-mill.

Brewery

After Celbridge rector Arthur Price married Elizabeth Read (1698-1742), of a brewing family from Bishopscourt and an aunt of Arthur Guinness, he took over the town brewery in 1722 and moved it from the site of the Village Inn to where the entrance forecourt of the Holy Faith convent is today. There he placed his land steward and brother-in-law Richard Guinness in charge of production of "a brew of a very palatable nature". In 1752, Dr Price's estate bequeathed £100 to Richard's son, the 27-year-old Arthur Guinness to help him expand the brewery, first in 1755 on a new site in Leixlip and from 1759 in St James’s Gate in Dublin. Some of the blocked up doors from the original Price-Guinness brewery can still be seen on the perimeter walls of the Catholic church forecourt.

Workhouse

Celbridge workhouse was constructed between 1839 and 1841 and is the smallest of three workhouses in County Kildare. It was built at a cost of stg£6,800 and was designed to house 519 people from Celbridge, Lucan, Rathcoole, Leixlip, Maynooth and Kilcock, an area containing 25,424 people.

A site on the Maynooth road has a memorial to between 1,500 and 2,500 inmates who died and were buried there during the Great Famine of 1845-47, recently restored by the community. According to Tony Doohan’s “History of Celbridge” during the worst of this disaster, a human being died every hour. Another historian Seamus Cummins suggest that the effects of the famine in the Celbridge Poor Law District area were less traumatic than elsewhere (such as south Kildare) because of the availability of wage-economy employment in the district.

After the 1860s the workhouse was used as a fever hospital, regarded as progressive for its time, as a home for the elderly and infirm, and for unmarried mothers. Orphans and illegitimate children were fostered out in to the village community from the workhouse and also from the Holy Faith convents in Dublin.

In 1918 the workhouse was used as a base by the British Army and, after 1922 the Free State army. It was visited by General Michael Collins and there are yet-to-be-verified claims that the barracks was the first in which the uniform of the new Free State army was used. After 1923 the workhouse was closed and the barracks vacated. By 1933 the Union Paint factory had been established on the site and in 1934 there were plans for a rope factory by Henry's from Cork Street in Dublin. In 1939 the current Garda barracks was built on part of the workhouse site.

Other Industry

John Wynn Baker (c.1730–1775), agricultural improver and writer, established the first factory in Ireland in 1765 with the financial assistance of the Dublin Society on a 354-acre (1.43 km²) property in Loughlinstown near the newly constructed Grand Canal at Hazlehatch for manufacturing agricultural implements.

One of Celbridge’s most original industries was the Callender Paper Company established in Celbridge in 1903 to make paper from peat. Despite the report in the Irish Times of 25/6/1904 that facilities of the company were “totally inadequate to cope with demand” and that “Celbridge peat paper is finding its way into almost every village and hamlet in Ireland” the enterprise had already run into financial trouble by November 1904.

In 1977 French electrical group invested £6m in establishing a factory on the Maynooth Road, employing 500 people at peak. Schnieder MGTE group closed the factory in September 2003.

Houses Outside the Town=

Castletown House

Castletown House is situated at the end of an avenue extending from the main street, and is one of Ireland's finest Palladian country houses. and is Ireland's original and largest Palladian country houses. It was begun in 1722 by William "Speaker" Conolly (1662-1729), Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, who came under the influence of the New Junta for Architecture, whose adherents included Alessandro Galilei believed to have designed the main house and Edward Lovett Pearce believed to have designed the entrance-hall and the long gallery in its original form, as well as the colonnades and wings. Pearce did commissions for William Conolly before his speculated involvement with Castletown.

The house was inherited by Tom Conolly (1738–1803) in 1758 and the interior decoration was finished by his wife Lady Louisa (great-granddaughter of Charles II of England and Louise de Keroualle) during the 1760s and 1770s.

Two of the best-known features of Castletown are the "Long Gallery" (an 80-foot (24 m) long room decorated in the Pompeian manner in blue and gold), and the main staircase (which is cantilevered and made of white Portland stone).

Conolly's Folly (also known as "The Obelisk") is an obelisk structure. It is built to the rear of Castletown House which contains two follies, both commissioned by the widow of Speaker William Conolly to provide employment for the poor of Celbridge at a time when famine was rife. As such these monuments serve no real purpose, instead they were dedicated to battles in the 1500s. The Obelisk was built in 1739 after a particularly severe winter. Designed by Richard Castle, it is 42 metres high and is composed of several arches, adorned by stone pineapples and eagles.

The main avenue from the town is no longer accessible by vehicular traffic which must enter the house from the roundabout off the M4.

Celbridge Abbey

Celbridge Abbey was the childhood (1688-1707) and later adult (1714-23) home of Bartholomew Van Homrigh’s daughter Esther (1688–1723), the ill-starred lover of Dean Swift. The poem in which Swift fictionalised her as "Vanessa" "Cadenus and Vanessa" (1713) was written seven years before he visited her in Celbridge in 1720. A rock bower associated with the lovers is a 19th century recreation. The current Celbridge Abbey was constructed by Thomas Marley, grandfather of the Irish parliamentarian Henry Grattan. His daughter Mary was married to James Grattan, Henry Grattan’s father and a member of the Irish House of Commons. A later occupant was Gerald Dease, a Catholic nobleman who entertained the Empress of Austria during her visit to Ireland. He is buried in a prominent position on front of the local Catholic church, the construction of which he helped to fund. The rock bridge in Celbridge Abbey grounds is now the oldest stone bridge across the Liffey since the removal of John Le Decer’s 1308 bridge three miles downriver at Salmon Leap.

Oakley Park (St Raphael's)

Oakley Park, was built in 1724 to a design by Thomas Burgh for Arthur Price, when he was created Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath. The house was built close to the small stone house of his father vicar of Kildrought and Straffan Samuel Price. Dr Price had previously been Bishop of Clonfert, Ferns & Leighlin, and later became Archbishop of Cashel. After his departure for Cashel, Oakley Park became home to Col George Napier, Richard Maunsell, High Sheriff of Kildare and his descendants, and, in 1926 Justin McCarthy. In 1946 it was purchased sold by Philip Guiney the Irish Christian Brothers for use as an industrial school but sold instead to the St John Of God Brothers and opened as St Raphael's Hospital, a home for intellectually disabled boys in 1953.. The grand parents of Henry Grattan are buried in a private graveyard on the site.

Collegiate School (Setanta Hotel)

The former Collegiate School on the Clane Road was built from 1732 by architect Thomas Burgh - who also built the Royal Barracks and famous library building at Trinity College - both in Dublin. The Collegiate School was founded as a charity school and served as a boarding school for Protestant girls until 1973. when the Incorporated Society for Promoting Protestant Schools in Ireland closed the school and transferred the pupils to Kilkenny. . The building reopened as the Setanta Hotel on January 25th 1980.

St Wolstan's

St Wolstan’s gains its name from the site of the ancient Abbey of St Wolstan’s described by Mervyn Archdall in his "Monasticon Hibernicum" in 1786 was originally a monastery in the Order of St Victor. It was founded c1202 by one of Strongbow’s companions for Adam de Hereford. It was named for St Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, then newly canonised by Pope Innocent III. Before the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries it had extensive lands in Kildare and Dublin with buildings covering an estimated 20 acres. It was the first Irish Monastery to be dissolved when Sir Gerald Aylmer of nearby Lyons (d. 1559). It became the home to the ill fated Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Dublin John Alen (1476–1534). St Wolstan’s and the Archbishop’s cousin, also John Alen, who was master of the rolls, travelled with Aylmer to England in 1536 to receive the bill for suppression of the Irish monasteries. The act of St Wolstan's, introduced in September 1536 as a special commission of dissolution, assured Aylmer and his fellow chief justice and brother-in-law Thomas Luttrell an annual rent of £4 during the life of Sir Richard Weston, the last prior, while Alen was granted the monastery estates. The house remained with the Alen family for two subsequent centuries. St Wolstan’s was then home to later Bishops of Clogher (Robert Clayton) and Limerick, a summer resident of the Viceroy in the 1770s, a boy’s school (sold 1809), home to the Cane family for another century and eventually a girl’s school (1957-2002).

Other Houses

Other large houses outside the town include Pickering Forest, associated with the Brooke and Ogilby families, Donaghcumper, and Springfield, associated with the Mitchell family until 1906 . The Shelbourne or Robert Scott’s house (rebuilt 1780) which fell into ruin, became the site of St Patrick’s Park housing estate.

Development

Just five main residential and commercial areas were developed in Celbridge over a period of 250 years, Main Street (1720-50), Tea (or Tay) Lane (1760), Maynooth Road (1790, when construction of Jasmine Lodge replaced six cabins on Main Street and eight cabins on Maynooth Road), English Row (1805-11), Ballyoulster (1948-51), and St Patrick’s Park (two phases 1954-57 and 1964-‘67).

Celbridge was rezoned for rapid growth under the 1967 Kildare Development Plan. That year a consortium of Brian and Tony Rhattigan and the McMullan brother, who owned the Maxol group, purchased most of the former Castletown Estate for development purposes. Planning permission was granted on appeal for a suburban housing estate along the edge of the avenue leading into Castletown House. In response Desmond Guinness personally bought the house in 1967 to save the immediate hinterland from development and established the Irish Georgian Society in the building.

Permission was granted for the first development of 400 houses within the Castletown Gates in 1969 and the first phase of Castletown Estate was opened by Minister for Industry & Commerce Justin Keating on October 1st 1975. This was followed by more than 30 multiple housing developments over the next thirty years. The 1986 census listed Celbridge (+54.9pc) as the fastest growing town in Ireland.

The population, which had been 1,514 in 1966, rose to 1,744 in 1971, 3,230 in 1979, 4,583 in 1981, 7,135 in 1986, 9,629 in 1991, 12,289 in 1996, 14,251 in 2002 and 17,262 in 2006. This new population had a higher proportion of younger people than similar sized towns, had a higher proportion of commuters and one of the highest proportions of clerical workers on the island.

Large estate developments included Abbeyfarm (1990), Beatty Park (1987), Castle Village (1986-90), Castletown Walled Gardens (1983), Castletown Estate (1975-82), Crodaun Forest Park (opened October 1978), the Grove (1979), Oldtown Mill (1999), Primrose Gate (2006), St Raphael’s Manor (1994-98), Wolstan Abbey (2006) and Wolstan Haven (1999).

Medium size developments included Ballygoran View (1998), Beatty Grove (1992), Celbridge Abbey (1992), Dara Court (1976-80), Priory Lodge & Priory Square (1999), Simmonstown Manor (2000), Temple Manor (1992-97), Thornhill Gardens/ Heights (1998), Thornhill Meadows/Ashgrove (1998), Vanessa Lawns (1984), Willowbrook (1984-86).

Small estate developments include Ballygoran Court, Ballymakealy Grove/Lawns (2000), Chelmsford (1991), Chestnut Grove (1999), the Courtyard (2001), Elm Park (1994), Grattan Court (1994), Hawthorn View (1992), Killadoon Park (1992), Larchfield Mews, Oakleigh (1979), Simmonstown Park (1980), Small Grove, Temple Lawns/Primrose Hill (1990).

A 2008 planning application by Devondale Ltd for a new Eu750m mixed-use development at Donaghcumper Demesne for offices, shops, restaurants, six-screen cinema and 108 detached houses on the 98-acre (400,000 m²) site, which is being promoted as “a natural extension” to Celbridge, has been criticised by local planners for being “on a city scale rather than a more acceptable town scale.”

Transport and Access

Road

Celbridge's substantial growth has created considerable traffic congestion. Much of this is attributed to the single bridge over the Liffey in the town - which creates traffic bottlenecks. The Celbridge Interchange (Junction 2a of the M4 motorway) which connects the town to the motorway as well as Intel, opened in 2003 to help address these traffic issues.

Kildare County Council installed a set of traffic lights in 2000 at the junction of the Liffey bridge and Main Street, however there was considerable opposition to the lights from the town shopkeepers. The town traders sponsored an advertising supplement in Dublin's Evening Herald which featured a photograph of a man shaking his fist at the lights to show the trader's opposition to the lights. Shortly afterwards, a motorist suspiciously reversed into the lights, "accidentally" knocking them over and the council switched them off for good. Now motorists have to depend on each other's good will to negotiate the junction.

Bus

The town is served by Dublin Bus along the 67, 67A and 67X routes. These routes link the town to the city centre as well as the nearby towns of Lucan and Maynooth (but notably, no link to Leixlip exists despite the significant employment there).

Some other bus operators also serve Celbridge, notably Circle Line (previously Mortons), linking Celbridge to the city and southside of Dublin, including Ballsbridge, Dundrum and Nutgrove, whose service linking Celbridge to the city and southside of Dublin, including Ballsbridge, Dundrum and Nutgrove was suspended in June 2008 amid allegations of uncompetitive practices against Dublin Bus.

Rail

Iarnród Éireann run commuter rail services to a station in Hazelhatch, about 3 km from Celbridge village. Hazelhatch and Celbridge railway station opened on 4 August 1846 and closed for goods traffic on 9 June 1947. Feeder buses are used to bring passengers to the train station. Commuter suburban rail services from Kildare to Dublin city centre serve Hazelhatch. While the service only brings passengers to Heuston Station, somewhat west of the city centre, there is no charge for extending the range of most tickets to include feeder bus (numbers 90, 91 and 92) from there to the city centre proper. However, additional charges apply to use the Luas tram services. The station is located on one of the most important InterCity lines in the country, with services to Cork, Limerick and Galway. However most of these do not stop at Hazelhatch station.

Under the Transport21 plan Hazelhatch-City will be electrified to provide a new DART service to Balbriggan, using the underground Interconnector tunnel in the city centre. This is to be completed by 2015.

Air

Weston Aerodrome ((IATA: WST, ICAO: EIWT)) was founded in 1931 (licensed circa 1937) by Darby Kennedy - who from the early 1950s operated a number of DeHavilland Dragons and Dragon Rapides aircraft commercially from the Weston flying field. Weston is owned since 2001 by Jim Mansfield and is primarily used for flight training, executive flights and private general aviation. The main terminal was completed in 2007 along with the control tower, hangar, 24hr customs and emigration offices, classrooms for ground-schools and simulator training also the Skyview Cafe is situated on the second floor of the terminal. Weston is Class C airspace.

Education

Celbridge has five primary schools, Primrose Hill (co-ed, COI), St Brigids (girls, RC), Aghards (co-ed, RC), Scoil na Mainistreach (boys, RC) and North Kildare Educate Together (co-ed, Multi-D); one special school, Saint Raphael's,(co-ed, RC) for children with a learning disability; two secondary schools; St Wolstan's Community School for girls (the only single sex community school in Ireland) and Salesian College Celbridge for boys. A sixth primary school, St Patrick's opened in September 2007 on the Hazelhatch Road due to the rising population. Celbridge also has one of the very few Primary Montessori Schools in Ireland, The Glebe Primary Montessori School (est. 1978). Providing Montessori Education to children from 3-12 years. It also home to the eighteenth Educate Together school to open in Ireland, the North Kildare Educate Together School (NKETS)

Politics

Celbridge is located within the Kildare North constituency which elects four TDs to the Dáil. In the past it was only a three seat constituency, but has increased to four due to population growth within the region.

Irish law allows for town councils for towns with a population of greater than 7,500, which Celbridge exceeds twice over, however, despite its size and several proposals, the town does not have a town council, though other smaller towns in the area do, such as Leixlip and Athy. It is perceived that the lack of a town council has impacted town development. For example as it does not have a town council, a Development Plan is developed with considerably less detail and control than a Local Area Plan which town councils develop. The situation effectively means that Kildare County Council, based 20 km away, have full control over zoning land in the area. Owing to this as well as other factors the town has been consumed by the Celtic Tiger fuelled urban sprawl of Dublin, resulting in a fragmented community and a severe lack of sufficient amenities for the scale of the population.

Amenities

The Setanta House Hotel is the only hotel in Celbridge town, and was originally an 18th century school with historic ties to the Conolly family who built Castletown House. Located on the Clane road, the hotel is host to the only after-hours club in Celbridge. The Abbey Lodge pub occasionally runs a late bar and has a restaurant.

Other pubs in the town include: O'Connors Bar and The Kildrought Lounge, Castletown Inn (also with restaurant), The Mucky Duck, The Village Inn and Celbridge House. Last orders in pubs are generally at 11:30pm Mon-Thur, 12:30am Fri-Sat, and 11:00pm on Sundays.

Restaurants include Michaelangelos, Delhi Darbar and Da Mario's and Cafe La Serre at Lyons Estate outside the village www.villageatlyons.com.

Sports and Groups

Celbridge equine racecourse is mentioned in the Freeman’s Journal of 27/9/1763 and 04/10/1763 but was not in use after the end of the 18th century. Locally trained horse Workman, trained by Jack Ruttle out of Hazelhatch Stud was the winner of the Aintree Grand National in 1939.

GAA

Celbridge GAA park and centre on the Hazelhatch Road was opened in 1996, ending 52 years without a home, the club having lost its field in Ballymakealy after abiter court case in 1944. The Celbridge GAA club is the third oldest club in Kildare being formed on the 15 August 1885, eight months after the GAA was founded in Thurles. In 1890 there were two clubs in the parish, one based in Kilwogan, Celbridge Shamrocks with 64 members with officers listed as WJ Sheridan, Hugh Maguire, Luke Ward and Thomas Connor and the other at Hazelhatch where Irish Harpers had 70 members with officers listed as Ambrose Dwyer, Christy Fitzsimons, Michael Saunders and John Cantwell. Celbridge play at senior level in both codes. They won their first Kildare Senior Football Championship in 2008, defeating Newbridge Sarsfields by 1-9 to 0-10, the Kildare Senior Hurling Championship in 1921, 1925 and 2005 and Kildare Senior Camogie Championship in 2005. They were defeated senior football semi-finalists in 1989, the senior football amalgamated side (with Straffan) lost two replayed SF semi-finals in 1974 and 1975 and lost the Senior League final in 1924 and 2008. They were junior football champions in 1923, 1958 and 1986 and Intermediate Football Champions in 1987. Susan O'Carroll and Deirdre Corcoran have been nominated for national All-Star awards in camogie. Celbridge born George Magan was an All-Ireland medalist in 1919. Mark Shaw, Brian Donovan, and Mick Wright played senior football for Kildare.

Association football

The town's two main soccer clubs are Ballyoulster United (an amateur football club which partner with English Premier Division club Everton F.C.[1]), and Celbridge Town AFC. The latter was formed in 1959 and plays home games in St.Patricks Park, with 8 schoolboy teams and 3 senior teams. The Senior Sunday team currently play in the Leinster Senior League Division 1A, and recently qualified for the 2007 FAI Ford Cup 2nd Round against Eircom Premier League side Longford Town. The teams play in the blue and white, and are sponsored by the Kildrought Lounge. Vincent McKenna played youth international for Ireland and for League of Ireland side Shelbourne in the 1970s.

Celbridge Paddlers

Celbridge Paddlers canoe-club is a multi-discipline kayaking club and evolved out of Vanessa Canoe Club. Formed in 1984 it has over 150 members and has been recently represented at world level in sprint, marathon, slalom, wildwater, surf and freestyle. It is affiliated to the national governing body of canoe-sport in Ireland, the Irish Canoe Union where it has representation up to the role of ICU President. Neil Fleming was a contendor for a place on the Irish team at the Beijing Olympics. The annual Liffey Descent Canoe Race passes through Celbridge and where competitors have to navigate the Vanessa weir and Castletown rapids.

Scouting

There are three separate Scout troops in operation in Celbridge. Each troop accepts both boys and girls in the 3 main program sections, and are: 1st Kildare (2nd Celbridge), 3rd Kildare (1st Celbridge), and 19th Kildare.

Celbridge Pentecostal Church

Formed in 2005 this is a small independent church. Services are each Sunday at 11 at the Center for Performing Arts, Celbridge Industrial Estate. The church is lead by Pastor Paul Carley the meetings are open and everyone is welcome to attend.[2]

Celbridge Amenity Group

The Celbridge Amenity Group is currently working in conjunction with the Kildare County Council to plan new improvements around the town such as the new playground built for local children.

Celbridge Youth Drama

Celbridge Youth Drama was founded in 2002 to provide an outlet for young people in the Celbridge area, between the ages of 15 and 25 who have an interest in all aspects of Drama - on stage and behind the scenes.

Celbridge People

Celbridge Born and Resident

• Celbridge is the hometown of noted indie musician Damien Rice (b1973) as well as the bands Juniper and more recently Bell X1.
• John Alen Archbishop of Dublin, and Chancellor of Ireland, (1476–1534), casualty of the "Silken Thomas" Fitzgerald rebellion in 1534.
• Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick (1634-1715), a member of Irish Parliament, Royalist military officer during the English Civil War, and governor of the Province of New York.
• William "Speaker" Conolly (1662–1729) the most powerful and wealthiest politician in Ireland in the first decades of the 18th century.
• Arthur Price (1678/9–1752) serial bishop of four different Church of Ireland dioceses, culminating in the Archbishopric of Archbishop of Cashel, and beneafactor to Brewer Arthur Guinness.
• Col George Napier (1751–1804) and his sons George (1784–1855), Charles (1782–1853), William (1785–1860), and Henry (1789–1853), later to be collectively known as “Wellington’s Colonels.”
• Arthur Guinness (1725–1803) founder of the famous brewery is buried in Oughterard cemetery, near the plot of his uncle William Read. He was the son of Richard Guinness and Elizabeth Read (1698–1742) from Bishopscourt, who was agent and receiver of Dr Arthur Price and lived in Celbridge at the time of Arthur's birth.
• Tom Conolly (1738–1803) radical Irish politician of the 1780s and Grand Nephew of William "Speaker" Conolly.
• Thomas had seven Celbridge-born sisters, Catherine, wife of Ralph Gore, earl of Rosse, Annie, who married [[George Byng, Harriet, who married John Staples, Frances, who married William Howe, a British general during the American Revolutionary War, Caroline, who married John Hobart, second earl of Buckinghamshire, Lucy, and Jane who had an ill-fated marriage to duelist and adventurer George Robert Fitzgerald, famous for having survived twelve duels, more than any other known Irish duelist.
• Lady Louisa Conolly (1743–1821), wife of Tom Conolly and her sister Sarah Napier (1745–1826), wife of George Napier, both daughters of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond. Their lives were celebrated in Stella Tillyard's book Aristocrats and a six part BBC Television series based on the book.
• Simon Bradstreet (1792-1853) from Stacumney, founder member of the Catholic Association and associate of Daniel O’Connell.
• James Lambert (1802-1877). Merchant and politician. Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1856.
• Joshua Jacob (c.1802–1877), founder of the White Quakers, lived in Celbridge in the 1840s.
• John Sheehan (1809–1882), a radical journalist who wrote under the pseudonym of “the Irish Whisky-Drinker’ grew up in Celbridge, the son of Thomas Sheehan, a grazier, and Alicia Dunn. A notorious incident in which Sheehan’s colleague satiric poet and journalist Francis Sylvester Mahony, [pseud. Father Prout] (1804–1866) fell out with Celbridge parish priest Daniel Callinan took place at Sheehan’s home in Celbridge in 1830. Sheehan served a prison sentence in 1833 as a result of his attacks on Dublin Castle in the satirical weekly paper “The Comet”. Sheehan was a contemporary of the English author William Makepeace Thackeray as a young man in Paris, and he is believed to be the original of “Captain Shandon” in “Pendennis.”
• Ivone Kirkpatrick (1897–1964), diplomatist, British Chancellor in Berlin before the second world war, Under-Secretary of the British Foreign Office 1953-57, chairman of the British Independent Television Authority 1957-62 and diehard supporter of old-empire British aggression, lived at Donacomper.
• Anthony O'Reilly (1900-1923) volunteer during the War of Independence and on the anti-treaty side during the Civil War, born in Celbridge workhouse and fostered by the Julia and Mary Cummins in Simmonstown Castle. He joined the Free State Army, then defected to the anti-treaty side after a raid on Baldonnel. He was captured after the battle of Pike's Bridge and executed by firing squad in Portobello Barracks on January 8th 1923, the 44th of the 77 Republicans executed by Free State forces during the Civil War. His remains were reinterred in Donacomper cemetery in 1924. The older of two cumanns of the Fianna Fáil party in Celbridge is named in his honour.
• Art O'Connor (1888-1950), Minister for Agriculture in the second Dáil cabinet (1921) and briefly leader of Sinn Fein after the foundation of Fianna Fáil by Eamon De Valera (1927).
• Writer Aidan Higgins (b1927), whose 1972 novel, ''Balcony of Europe'' was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Celbridge provided material for his 1966 experimental novel, ''Langrishe, Go Down'' which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction and was later adapted as a BBC television film by British playwright Harold Pinter, in association with Radio Telefis Eireann.
• Ben Briscoe (1934-) former Fianna Fáil politician who was a Teachta Dála (TD) for 37 years, representing a series of constituencies in Dublin and Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1989, the city;s millennium year.
• Campaigning television journalist Donal MacIntyre (b1966).

Lived Briefly or Educated in Celbridge

• Writer Caroline Blackwood (1931–1996) lived for a time in Castletown, originally with her husband, the depressive American poet Robert Lowell (1917–1977) and then with the poet Andrew Harvey (b 1951).
• One of the Birmingham Six, Richard McIlkenny (1934-2006), resided in the town until his death on 22 May 2006.
• Celbridge was a childhood home of brewer Arthur Guinness (1725–1803), who is buried in the nearby graveyard at Oughterard.
• William Baillie (1723–1810), art dealer and printmaker, was the second son of Robert Baillie of Celbridge.
• John Wynn Baker (c.1730–1775), who established the first factory in Ireland in 1765 is buried at Celbridge.
• Francis Carey, a bricklayer and father of James Carey the Fenian informer immortalized in George D Hodnett’s song “Take me up to Monto” was from Celbridge.
• Henry Grattan (1746-1821) renowned 18th Irish patriot politician, lived with his uncle Colonel Thomas Marlay at Celbridge Abbey between 1777 and 1780. He afterwards wrote: "Along the banks of that river, amid the groves and bowers of Swift and Vanessa, I grew convinced that I was right."
• Those educated at Celbridge include the disabled world traveller and politician Arthur Macmorrough Kavanagh, (1831–1889), Church of Ireland bishop John Jebb (1775–1833), and broadcaster Ruth Buchanan.
• Barbra Streisand performed in Celbridge at Castletown House on 14 July 2007 as part of her European tour.

Claims to fame

• Celbridge is the largest town in Ireland to have only one commercial street, and no town council despite its large population.
• Weston Airport served as a location for the aerial scenes during the filming of The Blue Max directed by John Guillermin (1966).
• Castletown House served as a location for the 1975 film Barry Lyndon directed by Stanley Kubrick and several subsequent TV and film productions.
• Writer and co-creator of hit TV series "Father Ted", Graham Linehan, was married in the church on main street. Celbridge is also mentioned in an episode of Father Ted, and an episode of Alan Partridge that Linehan scripted.
• Celbridge served as summer residence to two Lord Lieutenants of Ireland prior to the building of the Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park, Castletown House in the 1740s and St Wolstan’s in the 1770s.
• Celbridge was where Eoghan Rua Ó Néill and Thomas Preston pitched their joint camp in June 1647 preparing for an attack on Dublin which never took place.

Bibliography

• A History of Celbridge by Tony Doohan (Celbridge Community Council 1984).
• A Short Description and List, with the Prices of the Instruments of Husbandry, made in the Factory at Laughlinstown near Celbridge, in the County of Kildare. Established and conducted by Mr. J. W. Baker, under the patronage of the Dublin Society by John Wynn Baker (1767)
• Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox 1740 - 1832 (Paperback) by Stella Tillyard (Vintage 1995) ISBN 978-0099477112
• Castletown and its owners by Lena Boylan (1978)
• Castletown, Celbridge, Co. Kildare: Formerly the home of the Conolly family now the headquarters of the Irish Georgian Society by Desmond Guinness (Unknown Binding 1971) ASIN: B0007B4WUQ
• Celbridge Abbey: Its history and its traditions (Cahill 1913) by John R O'Connell
• Celbridge Collegiate School by Michael Quane (Kildare Archaeological Society 1969)
• Celbridge Development Plan 1982 by Patrick Shaffrey (Celbridge Community Council 1982)
• Celbridge Development Plan 2002 (Kildare County Council 2002) ASIN: B001A9YAYC
• Celbridge GAA by Darragh MacIntyre (Celbridge GAA 1984)
• Celbridge GAA Yearbook, by Niall 'The Goalie' McGee 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
• Changing Times: the Story of Religion in 19th Century Celbridge (Maynooth Studies in Local History) by Desmond O'Dowd (Irish Academic Press 1997) ISBN 978-0716526353
• Journals of the Kildare Archaeological Society: Volume I: 256, 301. Volume II: 140, 183, 198, 200-3, 214, 272, 277-283, 285, 288, 312, 324, 361-378. Volume III: 114-115, 117, 428. Volume IV: 68, 70, 89, 91, 98, 99-100, 129, 165, 366. Volume V: 4, 72. Volume V: 465. Volume VI: 175, 209, 303-4, 415. Volume XII: 53, 255-257, 263-264, 268, 452.
• Kildare GAA yearbook, 1972, 1974, 1978, 1979, 1980 and 2000- in sequence especially the Millennium yearbook of 2000
• Kildare GAA: A Centenary History, by Eoghan Corry, CLG Chill Dara, 1984, ISBN 978-0950937007 hb ISBN 978-0950937014 pb
• Lady Louisa Conolly, 1743-1821: An Anglo-Irish Biography (Staples P 1950) ASIN: B0019WXZWI
• Langrishe Go Down by Aidan Higgins (original 1966, new edition New Island Books 2007) ISBN 978-1905494460
• Rebellion in Kildare, 1790-1803 (A 1798 Bicentenary Book) by Liam Chambers (Four Courts Press 1998) ISBN 978-1851823635
• Soaring Sliothars: Centenary of Kildare Camogie 1904-2004 by Joan O'Flynn Kildare County Camogie Board.
• St Wolstans Priory Celbridge by R Cane Claude (Royal Society Of Antiquaries Of Ireland 1919) ASIN: B0018Z2YG4

See also

• List of towns in the Republic of Ireland

External links

• Map http://www.mappingireland.com/county/kildare/celbridge/ Map of Celbridge]
• Development Plan http://kildare.ie/countycouncil/planning/developmentplans/localareaplans/celbridge/...
• Local area plan http://kildare.ie/countycouncil/planning/localareaplans/celbridge/index.html*[*Map
• Local History [3]
• County Kildare Heritage Site [4]
• Kildare Archaeological Society [5]