Rathkenny Hall at 75: Kathleen Price (102), on the day the Minister came to open the hall

Kathleen Price is 102 years old, but she can still remember preparing tea at the Halligan family home when Seán MacBride, then Minister for External Affairs, came to officially open Rathkenny Hall in 1951.

While the ladies enjoyed their tea, the Minister joined Peter Halligan and Master Carty for a whiskey in the parlour.

Peter, farm manager at Tankardstown House, was one of the original committee’s treasurers, while Thomas P. Carty, schoolmaster at Rathkenny National School, served as honorary secretary. Fr Caffrey chaired the committee, with James Reilly also serving as treasurer.

Once the formalities were over, there was dancing.

Kathleen remembers the Emerald Céilí Band from Slane providing the music, with reels, jigs and hornpipes filling the newly opened hall. Afterwards came sandwiches and, as she remembers distinctly, “there was Christmas cake on the plates”.

Kathleen knew the Blackburne and Townshend families personally, having worked for five years as a cook at nearby Tankardstown House.

She remembers them as people who discussed matters together as a family and believes the arrangements for the land on which Rathkenny Hall was built would have been handled similarly.

She particularly remembers Francis Townshend, who was preparing to leave Ireland for Tasmania. Kathleen recalls his involvement in making the land available and believes his mother looked after arrangements following his departure.

“They were very good to everybody and anybody,” she says.

It was also at Tankardstown that Kathleen met her future husband, Kevin Price, who had taken temporary work as a gardener.

Kevin brought freshly grown vegetables, including tomatoes, from the gardens into the scullery for the cooks to prepare. It was there that their paths first crossed.

Kathleen’s memories of Tankardstown are also memories of the kindness she witnessed there.

“Do a good turn and it will come back a thousand times to you,” she says. “And I can prove that.”

It’s a sentiment that would be familiar to generations of Rathkenny Hall volunteers. From the original committee who worked to get the building opened to those who organised dances, shows, repairs and fundraising, so many gave their time without expecting anything in return.

For Kathleen, the opening of Rathkenny Hall remains a vivid memory. The tea at the Halligans’, the whiskey in the parlour, the Emerald Céilí Band and the Christmas cake after the dancing.

Seventy-five years later, those little details have stayed with her, along with the people who made the occasion possible.