Tommy McKeigue announced his retirement from politics in 2018 and his last county council meeting was in 2019.
However, at 81 years old, the slippers and the rocking chair are not for Tommy, far from it, and he remains as involved as ever in Tullamore life.
He is the current chairman of Offaly Sportslink on Arden Road in Tullamore. “This will be my last year. I gave him six years as President. Here we are on a good basis. Everything is almost paid for. We have two playing fields and another small training area. We can do a little more with the walkway to encourage more residents to walk there and probably install a few exercise stations. It’s a community effort and a community pitch, so we’re going to try to keep it that way.
Tommy also sits on the committee of Tullamore Housing Association, which oversees Lann Elo at the rear of Clontarf Road. Recently the association handed over management to a Limerick-based group. “We were micromanaging ourselves, but it just wasn’t possible,” says Tommy. “There is too much red tape when it comes to health and safety. It’s better to have a bigger company handle things. » The change, he adds, has been positive.
Previously, some homes in Lann Elo were rented to the Simon community, but these agreements have now ended, leaving six vacant properties in need of renovation – a project expected to cost around €200,000. With the support of Offaly County Council, Tommy says the work will continue.
But besides being busier than most people, Tommy says he’s taking it easy!
“I play a little golf a few times a week. Other than that, I take things at hand. I’m going to visit my daughter Julianne in Croke Park. She works there at the museum. She’s doing pretty well. She wrote a book that was a bestseller for two weeks in Easons,’ Tommy says proudly. ”It’s called ‘Twas the Game Before Christmas”. It was about Santy playing with the elves in Croke Park at Christmas.
She has two young children, they are growing up now. Young Léo is crazy about sports, he is 9 years old. He qualified for the community games final in running. He also took part in community matches with St Vincent’s, in the Leinster under-10 final. There is as much effort to be made as if he were a senior. Little girl Juliette loves theater and ballet. You’re on the road every day when you have kids.
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Early life
Tommy is originally from Kiltomer in Galway. “It’s sad to see the way the hurling and football club has deteriorated there. We were able to win the county senior championships and intermediate football a few years ago. Now we’re struggling to field a junior team in this part of the country.
There are three schools in the area and, between them, there are only around 150 pupils, so the numbers have fallen. Ballinasloe was our town, I went to high school there. There were 7 of us in the family. One of them died. Padraig died aged just 43. He was a self-employed builder, fell ill and died. Anyway, the rest of us are healthy so far, thank goodness.
Rural electrification and job opportunities await you
Rural electrification was starting when I left school and they were looking after our area, the rural area of Clontuskert. I found a job at ESB there. I was only 18 at that time. After that I moved to transmission lines and continued working at ESB. We first traveled through three rural areas, Clontuskert, Clonfert and finished in Roscommon working in Castlerea.
Then there was a vacancy in Tullamore and I arrived here in 1968. My first day was a Monday in April. I’ve had a long career here. I worked for 42 years for the ESB. I lived on Park Avenue at Grogan’s. May and Paddy Grogan were very kind to me. They had tenants, they were small houses, but that’s how it was. I earned £8 a week when I arrived, then that rose to £14, but my expenses were £3 and I also had to keep a car. Then we went up to £14. It was a huge increase at that point. This shows how times have changed.
Marriage to Ann
I married Ann who worked in the ESB store. It was a shame that the service disappeared from the ESB. They closed all their offices. If the stores were there and you had a problem, you could call their local office. Now it’s all numbers, you’d spend all day getting by.
Working for the ESB
“ESB was a very good place to work, we made more money than most people. For the level of education we had, we almost earned the salary of an engineer. We were very busy. When I got here there were two line crews, two vans and six crews of men, six in each truck and two electricians. Tommy Gallagher he was the father of the parish priest, Father Joe Gallagher, Tom Lacumber, father of Barry. They were all very fair people to work for. Everyone did their part, no one wanted to slack off. You would be busy, but if you had a storm or snow you would be a lot busier and everyone would be rowing. You would then have easier days where you wouldn’t be in such a hurry.
Politics and long career
“Seamus Gleeson was organizing Fine Gael in Tullamore. Seamus did an enormous amount at that time to try and attract new people. Fine Gael was defeated in the election. He asked me to join, which I did with Liam Keegan. We built a very large branch. There were very few women involved, so we recruited women and young people and built a very large branch. I was secretary, president and treasurer for a while. Eventually, there were three general elections in the 1980s. We did a lot of canvassing in 18 months.
I was then asked if I was going to introduce myself. At first I was reluctant because I wouldn’t have been very well known in Tullamore, even if I was involved in the sport before that. I played hurling with Ballinamere and Tullamore. But after a bit of persuasion, I ran in the 1985 municipal elections. I managed to run and got the last seat. Even though I came third in the first preference votes, I was unable to attract any transfers because I was not a known candidate. Larry Dunne and I were elected for Fine Gael at that time. The next time, I led the center and then presented myself to the Departmental Council.
In total, I have been a counselor for 34 years. The quota was then just over 500 votes. When I started prospecting, I knew I would be prospecting 100 houses a night. There were 2,200 houses in the Tullamore urban area. I said if I did 20 nights I’d do most of them, so I did a good investigation. Before I left there were 5,500 houses in the urban area, the town more than doubled, the population was then less than 8,000 but by the time I left the population had increased to 15,000.
In those early years the municipality did everything, they built houses, there was no external housing authority, they had total control over all the houses. They still collected rent from 500 to 600 houses and this money returned to the municipality’s coffers. All of this was taken away from councils by central government in 2001.
It was touted as “better local government”, but it was “bad local government” because it took most of the power away from the council. But it was the first time we got paid. Until then, you would only receive travel expenses. If you were to go to a meeting you would get £20, there would be one meeting a month and there would be none in August. Some councilors would call for a special meeting to try to get more money, but that would be ruled out.
Meetings at that time were at 8 p.m. We had an Estimates meeting that went on until 1am. There was total disagreement, the service charge was after arrival and we couldn’t agree. It was 1pm before we hit a rate and finished and we all kind of argued with each other. But we all worked together, regardless of party, because we were only 9 people and we all felt the same thing: we were there for the good of the city and not the politics of the city. I was chairman of the urban council 5 times and was the first Cathaoirleach of the municipal district.”
Tommy was never Cathaoirleach of Offaly County Council: “I left it out, I never took the chair. I gave it to Liam Quinn, I felt like I wasn’t going to run anymore. Liam Quinn was a young advisor and I felt he had the potential to move up the ranks. I gave up my position even though I was a senior Fine Gael member on the council.
Leave politics
I decided to give up in 2019, when I was 70 years old. I thought I wouldn’t go to another election. I will reach 80 by the end. I said let the younger ones in. I was happy to be finished when I did. Everything was changing too, there were only e-mails and electronic mailings. It wasn’t my style. Usually I would come in and meet the person in the office. I preferred the common touch. I have to say this: everyone I worked with on the council, every civil servant, went out of their way to help every councillor. I’ve never seen anyone try to hit you or not do their job.
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The year Tommy retired he was ill.” I was in hospital, they had part of my kidney removed, so I made my decision, I was lucky I was healthy throughout the council. I stay active all the time. I enjoyed Tidy Towns. I was president for 19 years. The current committee brought Ann and I out this year. The new committee now has excellent members and Tullamore is going from strength to strength. I’m delighted with how they work.
We were a very small committee with the late Mary Theresa Lynch, Sr. Xavier and Ray Carroll. I spent 24 years with Tidy Towns, 19 of them as president.
We came from very low level and we got the dirtiest town in Ireland one year. They had a band that played outside the Hayes Hotel in town singing “Dirty Old Town.” I was on the late Gerry Ryan’s Show and he asked me, “What are you going to do?” I said we would start at the bottom and there is only one way to progress, and that is up. In 5 years, we won a gold medal for the city which we progressed in stages. You won’t change anything overnight.
Thanks from Tommy
“I would like to thank the people of Tullamore for supporting me for over 40 years and I have only given back what I have received from the town. I hope others who come to the town do as well as I have.
