Athy is a market town at the meeting of the River Barrow and the Grand Canal in south-west County Kildare, Ireland, 72 kilometres southwest of Dublin. A population of 9,677 (as of the 2016 census) makes it the sixth largest town in Kildare and the 50th largest in the Republic of Ireland, with a growth rate of approximately 60% since the 2002 census.

Places of interest

Athy’s courthouse was designed by Frederick Darley and built in the 1850s; it was originally the town’s corn exchange.

• O’Brien’s Bar: One of the town’s pubs, Frank O’Brien’s Bar, is considered a tourist attraction and was voted one of the top ten Irish bars in the Sunday Tribune in 1999.^[18][19] Hardware merchants Griffin Hawe now occupy the town’s 6 ft. wide and 12 ft. high 18th-century cockpit.
• Kilkea Castle: Kilkea Castle is located just 5 km (3.1 mi) northwest of Castledermot, near the village of Kilkea. It was a medieval stronghold of the FitzGeralds, Earls of Kildare.
• Woodstock Castle: built in the early 13th century to protect the north end of the ford and its western approach. A stone cuboid.

Whites Castle

• White’s Castle: White’s Castle was built in 1417 by Sir John Talbot, Viceroy of Ireland, to protect the bridge over the Barrow and the inhabitants of the Pale. Built into the wall on either side of the original entrance doorway are two sculptured slabs. On the right of the former doorway is the Earl of Kildare’s coat of arms, signifying the earl’s ownership of the castle in former days. The slab on the left bears the date 1573, and the name Richard Cossen, Sovereign of Athy.
• The Moat of Ardscull: The Moat of Ardscull is the focal point of local legend about “little people”. Assumed to have been built in the late 12th or 13th century, the first clear reference to the moat is in 1654 when the “Book of General Orders” noted a request from the inhabitants of County Kildare for the State to contribute £30 “towards the finishing of a Fort that they have built at the Moate of Ardscull”.
• Athy Workhouse: St Vincent’s Hospital was formally the Athy Workhouse. The Athy Poor Law Union was formally declared on 16 January 1841 and covered an area of 252 sq mi (650 km²). The new Athy Union workhouse was erected in 1842–43 on a 6.5 acres (2.6 ha) site half a mile (800 m) north-west of Athy. Designed by the Poor Law Commissioners’ architect George Wilkinson, the building was based on one of his standard plans to accommodate 600 inmates.

St Michael’s Roman Catholic Church

• St Michael’s Church: Originally built in the fourteenth century. Some of the vestry and side walls have disappeared, but there is still some of the original church remaining. A small cross lies within the church grounds and it is said that a cross or font is buried in a grave, within the ruins. There was at one time an arch that stood in front of St. Michael’s but during some renovations many years ago, this was taken down.
• Quaker Meeting House: Built in 1780 and standing on Meeting Lane. The first Quakers in Athy may have been Thomas Weston and his wife who in 1657 “received the truth” from Thomas Loe, an English preacher, who was visiting some friends in County Carlow (and who later influenced William Penn). They were soon joined by the Bonnett family, the first Quaker family to settle in Carlow. A Quaker meeting was settled in Athy by 1671, the year in which Athy was included in the list of towns where the Leinster Province Meeting was held. The local Quakers met for worship once a week on Wednesdays, and every month a district meeting was held in Carlow to transact church business. Athy, as part of the Carlow district, also sent delegates to the Province’s quarterly meetings.
• The Dominican Church: The Dominicans arrived in Athy in 1253 or 1257. They settled on the eastern bank of the Barrow, first in thatched huts of wood and clay, later in a stone priory and church dedicated to St Peter Martyr, one of the earliest saints of the Order. Today, it is the opposite bank of the river that is dominated by the Dominican Church. In November 2015 the Dominicans finally left Athy due to a lack of friars, and the church and lands have been bought by Kildare County Council. It now operates as the town’s local library.
• Athy Heritage Centre: Athy contains the only permanent exhibition on Ernest Shackleton, who was born at Kilkea House. The exhibit is housed in the heritage centre, which has a collection of artefacts from Athy’s past as well as artefacts from Shackleton’s expeditions. Among the most impressive is a scale model of the Endurance. Each year the Centre arranges and hosts the Shackleton Autumn School, with speakers from around the world discoursing on different aspects of Antarctica and Shackleton’s life.
• Aontas Ógra LogoAontas Ógra: The local youth club in Athy which was set up, originally, as an Irish-speaking revival in 1956. It soon developed into a youth club and was the first boy-girl youth club in Ireland. It is still well-established to this day as an independent youth club in Kildare and is located now, beside ARCH on the Ballylinan road.
• 1798 Rebellion Memorial: This landmark is located in Emily Square and is dedicated to Athy’s role in the 1798 Rebellion, as well as a memorial to local people who died during the famine years.