“ROBBERS’ GULCH” IS NO MORE THANKS TO KILDARE COUNTY COUNCIL.

There was a time when people called it “Robbers’ Gulch”, a stretch some couple of hundred yards long at Mullaghmast on the Athy-Ballitore road. It was cut through a hill, the bank rose high on either side, and there was scarcely enough width for two large vehicles to pass each other safely.

It was an ideal stretch for a hold-up, and in the early days of the State bandits used it for that purpose. It was there that they held up the car conveying bank officials from Athy to Ballitore sub-office and robbed them. No longer is it a narrow, forbidding stretch. At a cost of about £30,000, Kildare Co. Council has removed the high bank on one side and widened the carriageway to modern standards.