School: Dean Kelly Memorial (roll number 16639)
- Location:
- Athlone, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: D. Cahalene
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0748, Page 191
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- XML “The Batteries”
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- The Batteries is a large expanse, situated on the outskirts of the town on the Roscommon side of Athlone. It is about twenty acres in size and instead of being a flat low plain of land it consists of hills and hollows. There is a reason why it is like that. At one time there was supposed to be a quantity of sand taken out of it and used for certain purposes as all the land consists of sand. At on time the Batteries was owned by the English but at present it is Church property. At short time ago portion of it was taken over by the Railway Company. It was Archdeacon Crowe who bought it out and made it Church property. At one time it was considered that the New Church would be built on the Batteries.The Batteries is so called because of it's trenches, castles and other fortifications. One castle situated on it is called 'The Brass Castle'. It was on that castle that the guns used to be mounted in order to shoot in any direction. It was when an invasion was expected to this country that those castles and entrenchments were made and that is about a hundren (years) ago. At that time Napoleon was in the height of his power and it was himself that was to attack the country with his army. He was to land in the West of Ireland, march to Athlone, cross the Shannon there and attack Dublin. They were(continues on next page)
