In 1685, two men travelling along the Highroad from Dublin to Cork paused to rest their horses at the top of a rise near the border between Kildare and Wicklow. They were struck by the beauty of the valley unfolding beneath them. Against a pleasing backdrop of hills rising gently in the distance, they observed an expanse of bogland at the valley's heart through which wound a stream. The newcomers were John Barcroft and Abel Strettel, English Quakers who, though not initially preoccupied with ideas of settling, immediately changed their minds.
They decided to make this valley home for themselves and their families and began reclaiming the land through careful cultivation, planting trees and hedgerows. The settlement became the village of Ballitore, in the valley of the River Griese.
More than 300 years later, the hedgerows are gone - the victims of an agricultural clearance scheme in the 1950s - but many magnificent trees remain and the peace which originally drew those visitors here endures more than might be expected of a place now so close to the ever expanding urban sprawl of Dublin. Ballitore was the first planned Quaker village in either England or Ireland - and remains the only one in Europe. A range of original buildings still stand, although many are in ruins. But the two streets are wide and the sense of the old marketplace remains.
Coming down into the valley off the main road, which is also known as Ballitore Hill Road, there is a choice of two approaches. One is modern, almost anonymous, dominated by a large modern creamery, but the other road, the old mill road, passes Griesemount House, a fine old Quaker building, its yellow wash well faded by time. The house stands at the top of a rise. A visitor is immediately aware of entering into another time.
Beside the river, is Griesebank House, another yellow house, but less grand in scale. Built in about 1700 and once known as the Mill House, it has been recently refurbished and its yellow is bright. It is a pleasing residence with an atmosphere of comfort rather than obvious grandeur. The winding, lanelike road continues past Ballitore Mill, long in ruins, but still a dramatic image against the evening sky. Originally a woollen mill, it was later adapted for use as a corn mill, while flour was milled widely including at Crookstown. At the end of the Mill Road stands Fuller's Court. Built in 1720 it is the early home of the writer Mary Shackleton (later known as Mary Leadbetter) who was born here in 1758. The granddaughter of Abraham Shackleton, a pioneering educator whose pupils included Edmund Burke, Napper Tandy and Paul Cullen (who later became Ireland's first cardinal), Mary had an exciting youth.
On travelling to London with her father Richard in 1784, she met Burke, as well as the Edgeworths, George Crabbe and Sir Joshua Reynolds, and was to sustain a correspondence with them all. She married William Leadbetter in 1791 and became Ballitore's first postmistress. Among her family's descendants is the Irish explorer, Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), a member of Scott's Antarctic expedition, and leader of his own in 1907 aboard the whaler Nimrod which came within 97 miles of the South Pole.
As a writer, Mary Leadbetter was industrious and prolific - publishing her first book in 1794. Several would follow - poetry, short stories and memories, including in 1822, Memoirs of Richard and Elizabeth Shackleton. In her most famous work, The Annals of Ballitore, now valued as grass roots social history, she chronicled village life from 1766 to 1824, during which of course, she was to witness some episodes of the 1798 Rebellion unfolding before her eyes.
The Leadbetter house - built with its gable end facing side on to the main street, looks onto the once busy village market square - and has been carefully restored by a FAS scheme which won a national award worth £100,000 and as a project is competing in a further national competition to be decided later this month. Today, with its sequence of lime-washed, small-windowed rooms opening up on each other, it gives some idea of the meticulously ordered Quaker approach to life. There is no concealing the fact that central to the Quaker ethos is discipline and an avoidance of excess.
Across the road is a modern contribution to Ballitore's Quaker past. Local man Michael Lawler, who lives in a Quaker house which has been his family home for several generations and in which he grew up, runs a business specialising in Shaker furniture (Shakers are a North American Quaker sect and from a remaining community of only seven, all celibate, now only six survive). Lawler's parents and his sister also live in what has become a Lawler compound of sorts, with a vast yard leading to the workshop and showroom. His great, great, great, great, great grandfather Paddy Dempsey was a leader of the United Irishmen and the first man killed in the Ballitore Rebellion, while another ancestor, on his mother's side, Owen Finn, a blacksmith, was also a participant and was executed for making pikes. Both are now honoured by plaques, one on each of the villages two streets. Lawler, a designer by training and inventor by inclination, has an abiding regard for the Shaker ways. He uses the furniture daily and has developed the habit of hanging his chairs, Shaker-style, from a Shaker pegboard on the wall. He is very knowledgeable and, although a businessman, has an easy-going, almost spiritual approach to life.
Beyond the market square is a cluster of small houses where the road eventually leads to the spot where the Shackleton school once stood. A small house now occupies the site but there is a plaque on the wall in memory of the school. Pop music is playing on the radio perched on a window sill, as print curtains are lifted by the breeze. A cat stares in disbelief at the busy terrier who has suddenly materialised. An elderly lady dressed in a house coat is taking a break from her chores and eats an ice cream. Her mind seems a million miles away. Neither the noise from the radio nor the group of boys debating the fastest way to get the rear wheel off the bike lying on the road before them, bothers her. The boys continue to argue, as the bike's swift return to action is looking less likely.
Walking by it is still possible to hear them for almost 100 yards, then the voices begin to grow fainter and the road offers a lane to the right. The new route looks promising - the weeds are running riot, and the strange hum of summer heat emerges over the empty fields. A narrow road leads to Crookstown Mill, built in 1840, and which has been carefully restored over the past 20 years by Jim Maher. Even the mill wheel is in working order, and the spring well beside it is believed to have never run dry. The water has a high mineral content and was once sought by people determined to seek a cure. All in all, there are three sets of millstones and a drying kiln. Maher owns possibly the largest collection of apothecary jars and bottles in the country.
The subject of restoration leads us back up to Fuller's Court house and its various charms. It has been carefully restored, again favouring yellow, and is a working farm. It provides quite a contrast with its neighbouring house. From Fuller's Court House, a short walk back towards the village along a road, also known as Fuller's Court, reveals what appears to be a dense wood visible behind a high wall. This is no random wood, but the remains of the deliberate planting once intended to enhance the beauty of Ballitore House. Having again settled into ruins some years ago, it is currently in the process of being restored. But, even in its derelict state with widespread evidence of builders in occupation, it is as romantic a dwelling as could be imagined. It was once the home of the Strettels, the family of Abel, one of the village's founders. Burnt down by the IRA in 1922, leaving only the original walls, the house was restored in 1926, only to fall into disuse again. The previous owner, Miss Jenny Byrne, a retired teacher, was busily working on it, but she died suddenly. Again, the house was neglected and seemed fated to decay. But not now.
Another fine example of restoration is the Quaker Meeting House, which won a European heritage award in 1979. Historical awareness is not new here - there is a thriving local history group. The stone building typifies the efficiency of Quaker design, and inside is a door from the original Shackleton house in Yorkshire. Now serving as a library and museum, the Meeting House remains in service as a house of prayer. Present day Quakers, most of whom have embraced the religion relatively recently, gather on Sunday mornings. The emphasis is on silent prayer, and the silence is broken only when a member addresses his brothers and sisters - his `Friends'.
Coming up the short staircase to a meeting, a new arrival has, for a couple of seconds, a full view of the soles of people's feet: Ecco shoes were well represented. Outside, quality German motor cars, and not horse drawn carts, are parked along the road.
When George Fox founded his Society of Friends, which became more widely known as the Quaker movement, intent on promoting Christ's teaching while stressing equality among men, its appeal must have seemed so obvious. Surely it was the ideal way to end the contradictions and confusions of established religions. Yet Quakerism was never to enjoy as wide a following in Europe as it did in the young America. Persecution and hardship marred the Quaker experience in Britain. Fox often found himself in the position of having to justify and defend his faith and once confronted a judge with the admonition that he should "tremble at the word of the Lord". Whether or not the judge trembled is left unrecorded, but the phrase appears to have encouraged him to describe Fox and his followers as "Quakers".
Only a few miles from here stands one of the most beautiful and possibly the most elegant of Irish High Crosses, that of Moone. Back up the valley, a small sign says Quaker Graveyard. Unusually for an Irish graveyard dating from the 18th century, there is no church. The yard, containing some fine chestnut trees, is enclosed by four stone walls. The graves inside are simple and uniform - flat slabs announcing names, no rhetorical messages. According to Quaker beliefs, all are equal in death. Mary Leadbetter and her husband lie here side by side. Admittedly the summer growth is currently obscuring their names, but the graves will be revealed again, come winter.
On a slight rise overlooking the graveyard stands a house - stone-coloured and edged in a traditional blue, the yellow gorse quietly compliments it. What appears to be a vernacular style stone cottage is, in fact, a superbly designed modern building dating only from 1991. Built gable-end to the valley below, it not only has beautiful views, it has added to them. If ever a house looked exactly right, and would be missed if absent, this is it. The owner, Patrick Dawson, a solicitor based in Athy, has been utterly sympathetic to the location and the result is a simple house of immense grace and sophistication. At a time when the countryside is being ravaged by poor planning, greed and ugly suburban houses, he and his architect have demonstrated that building a house need not be at best, an act of desecration, and at worst, wanton destruction. The Quakers would certainly have approved of Dawson's traditionally-inspired dwelling which looks so much at home in the village ease of Ballitore.
