THE BIG READ: Tommy McKeigue: A life of service and community in Tullamore

Tommy McKeigue announced his retirement from politics in 2018 and his last county council meeting took place 2019.

However, at 81, slippers and a rocking chair are not for Tommy, in fact, far from it and he remains as involved in the life of Tullamore as he ever was.

He is the current Chair of Offaly Sportslink on Arden Road in Tullamore. ''This will be my last year. I have given it six years as Chairman. We are on a good footing there. Everything is nearly paid off. We have two playing pitches up and going and another small training area. We can do a bit more with the walkway to encourage more locals to walk there and probably put in a few exercise stations. It's a community effort and a community pitch so we are going to try to keep it that way.''

Tommy also serves on the committee of the Tullamore Housing Association, which oversees Lann Elo at the back of Clontarf Road. Recently, the association handed management over to a Limerick-based group. ''We were micromanaging it ourselves, but it just wasn’t possible,'' Tommy says. ''There’s too much red tape with health and safety. You’re better off with a bigger company taking care of things.'' The change,'' he adds, ''has been positive.''

Previously, some of the houses in Lann Elo were leased to the Simon Community, but those arrangements have now ended leaving six vacant properties in need of refurbishment — a project expected to cost around €200,000. With support from Offaly County Council, Tommy says the work will go ahead.

But apart from being busier than most people, Tommy says he is taking it easy!

''I play a bit of golf a couple of times a week.. Other than that I take things handy. I go and visit my daughter Julianne in Croke Park. She works in the museum there. She is doing quite well. She wrote a book which was a top seller for two weeks in Easons,'' Tommy says proudly. ''It's called 'Twas the Match Before Christmas''. It was about Santy playing with the elves in Croke Park at Christmas.

She has two small children, they are getting bigger now. The young lad Leo is mad into sport, he's 9. He has qualified for the final of community games in running. He is also in the community games with St Vincent's, in the under I0s Leinster Final. There is as much effort goes into that as if he was a senior. The little girl Juliet is into drama and ballet. You are on the road every day when you have children.''

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Early Life

Tommy hails from Kiltomer in Galway. ''It's sad to see the way the hurling and football club has gone down there. We were able to win county senior championships and intermediate football a few years ago. Now we are getting it hard to field a junior team in that part of the country.

There are three schools in the area and between the three schools there are only about 150 pupils so the numbers have gone down. Ballinasloe was our town, I went to secondary school there. There were 7 of us in the family. One has passed on. Padraig died at just 43 he was a self-employed builder he got sick and died. The rest of us are hale and hearty so far anyway thank God.''

Rural Electrification and job opportunity beckons

Rural electrification was starting up when I left school and they were doing our area, the Clontuskert rural area. I got a job with the ESB there. I was only 18 at that time. I went on to the transmission lines after that and I was still kept on with the ESB. We did three rural areas first, Clontuskert, Clonfert and finished up in Roscommon working out of Castlerea.

Then there was a vacancy in Tullamore and I came here in 1968. My first day was a Monday in April. I had a long career here. I was 42 years working for the ESB. I lived on Park Avenue in Grogan's. May and Paddy Grogan were very good to me. They kept lodgers, they were small houses, but that was the way things were. I was getting £8 a week when I first came, then it went up to £14 but my digs were £3 and I had to keep a car as well. Then we went up to £14. That was a huge rise at that particular time. It goes to show the way times have changed.''

Marriage to Ann

I got married to Ann who was working in the ESB shop. It was a pity that service went away from the ESB. They closed all their offices. If the shops were there and you had a fault you could ring their local office. Now the whole thing is numbers, you would be all day getting through.

Working for the ESB

''The ESB was a very good place to work, we were getting more money than most people. For the amount of education we had we were nearly getting an engineer's wages. We were very busy. When I came here, there were two line gangs, two pick up trucks and six man gangs, six in each truck and two electricians. Tommy Gallagher he was parish priest Fr Joe Gallagher's father, Tom Lacumber, father of Barry. They were all very fair people to work for. Everyone pulled their weight no one wanted to slack out of it. You would be busy, but if you had a storm or snow you would be much busier and everyone would row in. Then you would get easier days when you wouldn't be that rushed.''

Politics and a long career

''Seamus Gleeson was organising Fine Gael in Tullamore. Seamus did an awful lot at that time to try to get new people in. Fine Gael got hammered in the election. He asked me to join so I did along with Liam Keegan. We built up a very big branch. There were very few women involved, so we got in women and younger people and built up a very big branch. I was secretary, chairman and treasurer for a time. Eventually there were 3 general elections in the 80s. We did an awful lot of canvassing within18 months.

I was then asked if I would run. I was reluctant at first because I wouldn't have been that well known in Tullamore, even though I was involved in sport before that. I played hurling with Ballinamere and Tullamore. But after a bit of persuasion I went for the council elections that was 1985. I scraped in and got the last seat. Even though I came third in first preference votes, I couldn't attract any transfers because I wasn't a known candidate. Myself and Larry Dunne were elected for Fine Gael at that time. The next time I headed the pole and I ran for the County Council then.

In all I was a councillor for 34 years. The quota was just over 500 votes at that stage. When I started canvassing I knew I would canvass 100 houses a night. There were 2,200 houses in the Tullamore urban area. I said if I did 20 nights I would have most of them done, so I ran a good canvass. Before I left there were 5,500 houses in the urban area, the town more than doubled, the population was less than 8,000 at the time but by the time I left the population had risen to 15,000.

During those early years, the council did everything, they built houses, there was no such thing as an outside housing body, they had full hold on all the houses. They were still collecting rent from 500 to 600 houses and it went back to the council coffers. All that was taken away from the councils by Central Government in 2001.

It was promoted as 'Better Local Government' but it was 'Bad Local Government' because it took away most of the power from the council. But that was the first time we were paid. Up to then you would get travelling expenses only. If you had to travel to a meeting you would get £20 there would be a meeting a month and there would be none in August. Some of the councillors would be looking for a special meeting to try to get more money, but it would be ruled out.

The meetings at that time were at 8pm. We had one estimates meeting that went on until 1 o'clock in the morning. There was total disagreement, the service charges were after coming in and we couldn't agree. It was 1 o'clock before we struck a rate and finished up and we all kind of half fell out with one another. But we all worked together no matter what the party, because there were only 9 people and we all felt the same that we were in for the betterment of the town not for the politics of it. I was Chairman 5 times of the urban council and I was the first Cathaoirleach of the Municipal District.''

Tommy was never Cathaoirleach of Offaly County Council, ''I passed it over, I never took the chair. I gave it to Liam Quinn, I felt I wasn't going to be running any more. Liam Quinn was a young councillor and I felt he had potential to move up the ranks. I forfeited the chair even though I was a senior Fine Gael on the council.''

Quitting politics

I decided to give up in 2019 in my mid 70s. I thought I'm not going for another election. I would be pushing into my 80s by the time it finishes. I said let younger people come in. I was happy I finished when I did. The whole thing was changing as well, it was all emails and all electronic postage. That wasn't my style. I generally went in and met the person in the office. I preferred the common touch. I must say this much, everyone I ever worked with in the council, all the officials all set out to help every councillor. I never saw anyone that was trying to knock you or not do their jobs.''

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The year Tommy retired he had been ill.'' I was in the hospital I had part of my kidney removed so that made up my mind, I was lucky I had good health all during the council. I keep active all the time. I enjoyed the Tidy Towns. I was 19 years Chairman of that. The present committee brought myself and Ann out this year. The new committee has great members now and Tullamore is going from strength to strength. I'm delighted the way they are operating.''

We were a very small committee with the late Mary Theresa Lynch, Sr Xavier and Ray Carroll. I spent 24 years with the Tidy Towns, 19 of them in the Chair.

We came from a very low base, we got the Dirtiest Town in Ireland one year. They had a group playing outside Hayes Hotel at the town singing 'Dirty Old Town.' I was on the late Gerry Ryan's Show and he asked 'what are you going to do?' I said we'll start at the bottom and there is only one way we can go that's up. Within 5 years we won a gold medal for the town we came up in stages. You won't change anything overnight.

Thanks from Tommy

''I would like to thank the people of Tullamore for supporting me for more than 40 years and I only gave back what I got from the town. I hope that other people who come to the town will get on as well as I did.''