No more an old men's town

Canon Furlong blessing the site at the cutting of the first sod for the KDA affordable housing in the early 1970s.
"We want to change it from being an old man's town," a member of Kilcullen Development Association told a group of journalists in September 1962, writes Brian Byrne. He was presenting the views of his Association’s members, then comprising Paddy Nugent, Michael St Leger KCC, Tommy Orford, Mrs Margaret Burke, Sean McDonnell, Joe McTernan, Andy Nolan and Tommy Byrne.

The description was apt. At that time it was said that more young Kilcullen men met after work in Reading, England, than in their home town. That was where Kilcullen-born Matty Aspell had a busy building company, and was always ready to give young men from back home a 'start'.

The press conference had been called in part out of frustration. Because Kilcullen Development Association Trust, formed three years earlier, and previous incarnations established in 1949 and 1954, had failed in their efforts to attract an industry to Kilcullen. Chronic unemployment was endemic across Ireland. No less than in any other small Irish town, the Co Kildare village was being bled of its youth virtually at the point of its children leaving school.

KDA had worked with politicians, and with the IDA, and had advertised in Ireland and abroad, seeking industry. Members had even approached Irish embassies directly in those countries for help through their contacts. Among the inducements was a promise of availability of local capital for investment in any enterprise which might come in. But by September of 1962, despite prompt engagement with all promising enquiries, nothing had happened.

A Sunday Independent photograph from 1962 with members of KDA at the press conference.
The press conference was called to announce a very bold step to where no community of Kilcullen’s size, or even larger ones, had gone before. The Association was offering not just the possibility of investment capital, but a complete factory, with all necessary services, for free. The concept made a page lead ‘Special’ in the ‘Sunday Independent’ as well as featuring in other key newspapers of the day.

The ‘Sunday Independent’ story highlighted how the ‘history making offer had everything’ — water from the Liffey, ESB 3-phase power, a soon to be completed dual-channel road to Dublin port 26 miles away, a big labour pool and technical training facilities nearby.

As an interesting aside, the paper reported in a mere two-paragraph story on the same page that Bord Bainne, under the management of one ‘rugby man’ AJF O’Reilly, had just despatched its first export order to Italy of 200 tons of Irish butter.

KDA didn’t actually have a site for any factory at the time, but earlier in the year had identified eight properties in the environs of the town that might be acquirable. A subsequent decision resulted in the purchase of a 44-acre farm owned by Mr Ned Chamney on the then outskirts of Kilcullen, with a quarter mile of road frontage. It was considered to be a ‘very satisfactory’ position, and cost KDA £6,900.

Where the money had come from goes back beyond the earlier history of KDA, when Paddy Nugent had set up an innovative Non Stop Draw in 1950 that raised funds for Kilcullen’s parochial and clubs development needs. In 1959, after some €14,000 had been raised and spent on a variety of necessary projects, it was agreed that half the annual proceeds would be used by KDA, of which Paddy Nugent was a founding member, the remainder to be retained by the Parochial Committee. While both groups continued to benefit, the profits from the Draw were declining. Paddy Nugent and his fellow KDA directors knew that something needed to be done to change the trend.

“At the end of 1962, the Parochial Committee decided that it was no longer necessary for them to participate in the Draw,” KDA Chairman Michael St Leger noted in a later report of the Association’s activities, adding that the ‘unexpected development was most satisfactory’ and would increase KDA’s revenue by 100 percent.

Already having an aggregated fund from the Draw, the Association was in a position to buy a property on which a factory could be built for any industrialist who might be attracted by the bait carefully laid in the national and international press. In that context, Paddy Nugent not only arrested the decline of the Draw profits in subsequent years, but substantially improved them. The Draw at one stage had some 300 collectors, with a large base of regular weekly punters from within and far beyond Kilcullen.

Apart from the purchase price, the income from the Draw — along with the support from Hibernian Bank in Newbridge, which was ‘favourably disposed to make advance by way of overdraft if it should be required’ — allowed KDA to invest in the necessary services to the site. This work included a road, electrical supply, and a private sewerage system because levels and other considerations didn’t allow connection to the then inadequate Kildare County Council system. It was built to Council standards, with the understanding that the authority would repay some of the expenditure when it upgraded the public system.

There continued to be a number of ‘false starts’ in negotiations with many potential enterprises, but eventually a French-based company, Kent Rubber, agreed to set up a fashion swimming hats manufacturing operation. The sod for the construction was turned on 8 December 1965. In July of the following year, the first 40 employees started work.

At this time KDA was looking to the further use of its property. The company had its architect draw up plans for more industrial development, and for housing. That latter might not at first seem part of the Association’s original brief, but it was logical. Keeping young people in the town by having employment opportunities was very good, but KDA’s directors were very aware that these people would also need somewhere to live. Somewhere that was local, and affordable. This concern was to be the foundation of KDA’s next innovation.

In April 1970, then Minister for Finance Charles Haughey opened what he described as an ‘imaginative and enterprising’ scheme of houses, planned eventually to number 120. That first phase was today’s Moanbane Park, and costs for the individual homes on an open-plan site with views to the Wicklow Mountains were kept down by using a new pre-fab building system.

In July 1972 another Minister, Bobby Molloy TD, cut the tape on the next phase of the KDA housing development, Bishop Rogan Park. This was a scheme of again affordable homes, in a more dense terraced design. Paddy Nugent was very proud of the fact that these latter homes were being made available at £2,800 when equivalent houses elsewhere were selling for £5,000. Eventually both housing developments were completed and the homes quickly bought by young families who were destined to become a mainstay of modern Kilcullen.

A more recent estate of houses, Hermitage Park, was built in 2004 when Kilcullen Development Association had come under the management of the late Pat Dunlea. This was consequent on a decision by Paddy Nugent that the company's activities should be wound down, its assets realised, and the resulting funds be distributed to a number of current cultural, social and sporting groups in Kilcullen. Since then, more than €950,000 has been so provided to over 20 different community organisations.

On the industry side, at its maximum production Kent Rubber employed 400 women and 100 men and operated buses to pick up the workers from Castledermot, Athy, Kildare, Allenwood, Naas and Newbridge. The company also set up two piecework factories in Athy and Merchant's Quay in Dublin with material supplied from the Kilcullen factory. For the last 20 years the premises has been the manufacturing base for King Koil Mattresses, owned by Kay Foam Woolsson.

Other industries were located on the campus down the years, notably the electrical components business of Renley Engineering by the late Gay Warren. On his way home to Dublin from Waterford after looking at a potential premises, he called into McTernans for coffee and was quickly redirected locally when he mentioned his mission. Renley at its peak employed 54 men. Other companies included Shelmalier Knitting, Liam Walker Tyres, Saunaland, Quantock, Window Blinds, Elite Engineering, Firestop, Smullen Trucks, M&A Engineering, Casey Trailers, Chem Dry, Tara Equestrian and No 1 Fitness.

The original source of KDA’s income, the Non Stop Draw, was key to the community and social underpinning of the Association’s ethos. From the Draw’s inception in 1950 to raise funds to defray the debts of the Tennis Club, it had helped to fund essential renovations to the church and other parochial buildings, aided a number of clubs including the GAA and the Boxing Club, and was supportive of many community initiatives. It also helped fund the building of Scoil Bhride, a much-needed new National School. Between 1950 and 1963, the money spent in this way totalled around £50,000. In 1978 the Draw was given over to KARE, a county support organisation for people with intellectual disability of which Paddy Nugent had been an early champion, and served for a number of years as its Chairman. Through the next decade, the Draw raised in excess of €200,000 for that organisation. It was discontinued with the establishment of the National Lottery,

On 10 April 2016, drawing a final line under a very important part of Kilcullen’s modern history, a KDA-commissioned sculpture — The Magician, by local artist Noel Scullion — was unveiled in a setting by the bridge, close to what had been Paddy Nugent’s home. It celebrates all local vision and creativity, the work of everybody involved in KDA, and in particular the contribution to the town's mid-20th century development by the late Paddy Nugent and Michael St Leger. From all concerned, local endeavour marked by vision, hope, commitment, perseverance, an ethos of self-help, and a never-ending determination.

Mrs Rita Nugent and members of the extended Nugent family, with the artist Noel Scullion, at the launch of the commemorative sculpture.