The Confey GAA project is now complete. Jodie Price planted the 12 ash trees, 100 dogwood bushes and 80 mixed shrubs. 

Confey GAA Project

The Confey GAA project is now completed. The mountain ash trees and the shrubs have all been planted.

Jodie Price, proprietor of Leixlip’s long-established Gardening Centre in Mill Lane, has completed the Leixlip’s Tidy Town Association’s 75 metre long by 6 metres wide vergeside bed outside Confey GAA Club. In a remarkable gesture of goodwill, Jodie volunteered his own working time towards the project which is otherwise jointly funded by the Club and the LTTA. Topsoil was brought free of charge to the site by County Council workers during the development of Cedar Park car park. Jodie planted 12 mountain ash (rowan) trees, 100 dogwood bushes and over 80 mixed shrubs in front of the trees. The trees will grow to about 4 metres in height and are planted so as to not overhang the carpark. Low maintenance, low height shrubs have been chosen for convenience and safety.

The project complements the "Welcome to Leixlip" decorative bed installed by LTTA last year. Shortly we will be planting coloured plants on each side of the Club’s entrance which will be in the Confey GAA's colours of green and white.  

Michael Kenny (Confey  GAA Chairman) with Jodie Price (Leixlip Garden Centre)

CREIGHTON PARK - Home of Confey GAA

The mountain ash and dogwoods with "Welcome to Leixlip" bed in the foreground

Welcome bed with with new planting in the background

The mountain ash trees and the dogwood bushes

A nice view coming into Leixlip

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A number of the new trees were vandalized over St. Patrick's weekend. Two were completely destroyed.

This tree was completely destroyed

Anyone with information on this incident, please call Leixlip Garda Station (01-6667800).

A number of the new trees were vandalized over St. Patrick's weekend. Two were completely destroyed. Then after we (LTTA) put up the guards vandals tried to pull them down.

This tree was also completely destroyed and the top of the guard bent back

This tree was partially damaged and the guard bent also

This tree (near the church) was totally destroyed

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We have completed the flowerbed where the Rye Linear Park meets the Main Road.

We have completed the flowerbed where the Rye Linear Park meets the Main Road.

The ground tilled and ready for planting

The gang ready to go to work

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"And yet they came to worship

From Confey and the Moor" 

People who enter the Church of Our Lady's Nativity via the old main road gates may not be familar with the holy water font on the Celbridge Road side. Leixlippians who went to school in the Scouts' Den (up to 1953) know it well. After the penal church became a school, c 1833, the old font remained in place until the 1960s, when it was removed for safe keeping by Jim Farrell of Main Street. He presented it to Father Hyland P.P. when Leixlip became a parish in the early 70s. It forms an historic link between the present church and the old penal building.

But lets not forget the other historic link ..........

The Mass Path

This is the path used by the scouts and their leaders, coming and going from the old main road. In older days it was an important and welcome shortcut for weary mass goers, having made their way along the rutted pathway adjoining the banks of the River Rye. Last year Leixlip Tidy Town Association, working with Leixlip Town Council and Kelt, resurfaced the rutted pathway.

This year LTTA with the help and co-operation of Kildare County Council, plans to improve the Mass Path with the installation of steps and handrails. See Mass Steps Project

The Old Font From The Rye   by Conor O'Brien

I am the old font from the Rye 

My age three hundred years

I've seen so many come and go,

In joy and bitter tears.

I've been around since penal times,

When people were so poor,

And yet they came to worship

From Confey and the Moor.

From Barnhall and Rinawade,

And lovely Allensgrove,

They came on foot to sing and pray,

No horse or gig they drove.

Most feet were bare - yet, some were shod,

Brogues donned upon the way,

And breeches patched as Sunday best,

And shawls of black and grey. 

Men from the mills, toil worn limbs,

Dipped in the rugged hand,

With women weak from meagre meals,

And working on the land. 

Memories of the Risings,

Famine fever too,

Pennies for O'Connell - hard times,

But yet so true.

True to the old religion,

True to the old ideals,

How things have changed in present times,

How strange an old font feels.

Fearful for the future,

Yet proud of hard times past,

O god, the old font prays,

May the old ideals last.

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