Ballitore

History

Ballitore was first developed and founded as a Quaker settlement by John Bancroft and Abel Strettel. They developed the farmland in the area around Ballitore, and built wool and flour mills and help to develop the settlement. During the 1798 Rebellion, the village was plundered and burned and some of its inhabitants were killed. The Quaker school in the village was founded by Abraham Shackleton who was previously a schoolmaster in Yorkshire in 1726. The school catered for Quakers from other parts of Ireland as well as both Protestant and local Catholic children. Parliamentarian Edmund Burke, a student at Shackleton's school from 1741 to 1744, described Shackleton as "the planter of the future age". The Quaker school in Ballitore was founded and run by the Shackleton family and kept within the family for three generations. It was the most successful Quaker private boarding school in Ireland throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The school was the only one in Ireland which provided more than just elementary-level education. It offered modern languages in the 1780s. It held between 50 and 60 pupils ranging greatly in age. It was a well-regarded boarding school, with Napper Tandy, Cardinal Paul Cullen, and the sons of Stratford Eyre among its students. In 2013, the Quaker school was demolished in order to make way for a Glanbia development in the centre of the town. The 18th-century building had been a listed building up until 2011 and was on the Record of Protected Structures (RPS). However, in 2012 Kildare County Council decided to delist it. Mary Leadbeater's house is situated on the corner of Ballitore's central village square, and is a preserved building and is now used as a museum and library. In April 1920, during the War of Independence, the RIC barracks in…