Tadgh Brennan

I have written before of Tadhg Brennan but a phone call this afternoon to tell me of his death prompted a re-visit to my memories of a man who was the epitome of what is best in an Irishman. He used the Irish version of his name Tadgh Ó Braonáin as a statement of his Irishness. His was an Irishness which conformed to the traditional understanding of the term. An avid gaelic football follower he gave decades of support and service to the Athy Club both as a player, mentor, official and supporter. He was a life-long supporter of the Fiánna Fáil party which he saw as the legitimate heir to those who championed the cause of Irish freedom in the early decades of the century. He was, in short, an Irish nationalist but devoid of the nasty extremism which is sometimes part and parcel of those who claim a similar allegiance.

I had known of Tadhg Brennan since I was a young lad in Offaly Street, palling around with Teddy Kelly, Willie Moore and others. The street was then a safe playground disturbed only by the very occasional motor car or lorry which sedately passed up and down. I can still picture in my mind’s eye a black Ford Poplar motor car which Tadhg Brennan parked outside his offices in Emily Square. The registration number was “IO …” and the rest is lost on me but I know that if I phone Teddy Kelly he would be able to recall even this little detail after the elapse of over 40 years. That Tadhg could park his car directly outside his offices without impeding traffic gives you some indication of what few cars were around in those days.

I remember Tadhg in those days as well as his father, that noble patrician Fintan Brennan, a district court officer who occupied the first floor offices at the rear of the Court House. Those same offices were reached from the ground floor entrance, the granite jambs which, to this day bear evidence of the handiwork of a 13 year old lad who carved his name into the ancient stone. The mark of the once thoughtless vandal is there to haunt him in his adulthood as he makes his twice monthly trip to the local court to defend others sometimes charged with far lesser offences. However, to return to Fintan Brennan, I am always reminded of my late mother when I think of Tadhg and his father Fintan. The father was a teetotaller, indeed the proud holder of the silver, or was it a gold medal, marking 50 years membership of the P.T.A.A. Tadhg on the other hand conformed to the traditional Irish male convention of imbibing well, sometimes perhaps a little more than was prudent. My mother, who herself quaffed a little sherry at weddings, wakes and such like always regarded a teetotaller, no matter how otherwise disruptive in his or her normal life, as an example for everyone else to follow. For her, the man or woman who drank was no good, although I think she might have had to revise this erroneous opinion when faced with her own sons early digressions into the delights of alcohol. In any event, Fintan and Tadhg were at two extremes of the alcohol barometer and insofar as my mother was concerned, Tadhg would never be as good as his father. The fact that he had bettered himself, qualified as a solicitor, taken up important offices as State Solicitor and later as County Registrar, meant not a jot to my mother who measured ones worth by reference to his drinking or non-drinking habits. Tadhg well knew of my mother’s opinion which she delivered with a matronly chuckle whenever she met Tadgh. Tadhg good naturadely humoured my mother and he often joked to me about her oft repeated claim to him “you’ll never be as good as your father”.

Fintan was a good man and he was undoubtedly an important man in the world of the G.A.A. and Athy social life in the first half of this century. His son Tadgh, who has now passed on in his 79th year was also a very good man who helped many people both professionally and otherwise throughout his long life. Like many more, I owe him a great debt and in my case its one I will continue to acknowledge. Tadgh set up his own legal practice in Athy in 1945 as I was to do 37 years later. He was very encouraging to me when I started 17 years ago and I am forever grateful to him for that encouragement.

As I said at the start of this piece Tadgh featured in an ‘Eye on the Past’ I wrote some years ago. Quite an extensive piece it was, extending over two weeks because of his involvement in so many different areas of life in Athy over the years. As a sportsman, he was a first class footballer winning a senior championship medal with Athy G.F.C. in 1942. The following year he first lined out for the county senior team in a match in Geraldine Park and played again for County Kildare in 1944. He was a leading light in Athy’s social club of the 1940’s and a cast member of the “Righteous Are Bold” which won the All-Ireland Drama Award in 1949. A former member of Athy Urban District Council, he served on the Council with such legendary figures as M. G. Nolan and Paddy Dooley.

I had the pleasure of interviewing, or rather listening to Tadhg, on many occasions and how delightful it was to hear him talk of Athy and its people of 40 or 50 years ago. On one of the last occasions we talked of times past, he later wrote to me setting out his memories of the characters in Athy in his young days. Such was the thoughtfulness of a man who had an abiding love for his adopted town for like me, he was not born here. Monasterevin laid claim as Tadgh’s birthplace but that did not deflect him from regarding Athy as his native place. For me, Tadgh Brennan or as he was wont to write Tadhg Ó Braonáin was an important part of a generation in Athy which has now almost disappeared. Pat Mulhall, Liam Ryan, and Tommy Walsh are but some of the names of his colleagues and friends in the social club who have pre-deceased him. For once I have to disagree with my mother. Tadhg was a good man who made many friends, helped many people and learned to enjoy life for what it is. A time for passing through and leaving the world a better place than you found it.

Last week we also buried Nancy wife of Paddy Walsh. A daughter of Paddy O’Rourke, the harness-maker of Stanhope Street, Nancy moved a few doors down the street when she set up home with her Ring County Waterford-born husband who first came to Athy in 1950. Like her husband Paddy, Nancy was very involved in her local community, and how appropriate it was to see the ladies of the local I.C.A.Guild provide a guard of honour on her last journey to St. Michael’s.

Our sympathies go to the families of Tadgh and Nancy.

Tadgh Brennan (2)

Tadhg Brennan's involvement in the social life of Athy in the post-War years was wholehearted and as befits the man he left his mark in the many areas in which he was involved. But not even he could regard his L.D.F. days during the Second World War as being particularly noteworthy. As a Private he soldiered under the local officers who included John Stafford, Matt McHugh, Paddy Dooley of Levitstown and Norman Plewman. He recalls attending Army Camps in Tramore on two occasions but missed the year when his friend and army colleague Pat Mulhall was accidentally shot while attending a lecture in the camp. Rumour has it that this was the only shot fired by the L.D.F. for the duration of the second World War. The L.D.F. recruits met each week marching from Emily Square to Geraldine Football Park where further marching routines were a major part of their training. Gun practice without ammunition live or otherwise was another part of the Geraldine field training. He remembers patrolling at night armed with a rifle, but again without ammunition spending four hour stints sometimes cycling between Athy and Cloney Bridge other times manning the bridges leading into the town. In his own words "nothing of interest ever happened unless one is to disregard the occasional use of an L.D.F. ground sheet by courting couples in the Peoples Park." The prospect of a Court Martial for misuse of L.D.F. equipment was very much a possibility on one night when the local Garda Sergeant came on a scene in the People's Park which by the light of his torch he could see was adorned by one of his own daughters. The L.D.F. lads as you can imagine were always popular and patrolling without ammunition in your rifle was a cheerless unexciting chore where a "lark in the Park" offered some diversion. I know the feeling of the luckless L.D.F. man on that occasion as a generation later the same scene was played out again. This time it was a different Garda Sergeant whose son was caught in similar circumstances in the same Park. The young man on being caught in the beam of his father's flashlamp bore more than a passing resemblance to a frightened rabbit caught in a lampers spotlight.

From Gaelic football to politics seemed an almost inevitable transition especially for someone like Tadhg involved from a very young age with the best traditions of Gaelic Ireland. In 1949 he joined the local Fianna Fail Cumann and successfully stood for the local Urban District Council in 1959. He remembers discussions even then concerning an Inner Relief Road and an Outer Relief Road for Athy which after 35 years are still being talked about as possibilities for the future. He remembers fondly those who were in the local Cumann at that time, all of whom have passed on. John W. Kehoe, M.G. Nolan, John Stafford, Liam Ryan, Tom Moore, Eddie Purcell, Joe Murphy, Christy "Bluebeard" Dunne, Mick McHugh and Paddy Dooley. Paddy was later to be elected to Dail Eireann as a Fianna Fail T.D. in 1959 following a campaign the success of which owed much to his Athy colleagues M.G. Nolan, Liam Ryan and Tadhg Brennan.

Sport and politics and the practice of law seemed more than enough for one man but he also found time to be involved in the Social Club and amateur dramatics with the Social Club players. He regards the Social Club started by Fr. Morgan Crowe with Joe Hickey, Tim Hickey, M.G. Nolan, Tim O'Sullivan, Liam Ryan, John Stafford and Pat Mulhall as the greatest social asset the town of Athy has had in the last 50 years. The Club commenced as the Geraldine Tennis Club on the Carlow Road and with the purchase of the British Legion Hall in St. John's Lane, added billiards and badminton to the range of Club activities. In 1941 or 1942 the Club started an amateur dramatic society which was a most successful adjunct to the Club for the following 21 years. Highlight of those years on the amateur stage was the Social Club players success in the Fr. Matthew Drama Festival in Dublin in 1949. Tadhg and his colleagues won the highest award then available for amateur dramatics in Ireland with Frank Carney's play "The Righteous Are Bold". Actors and actresses remembered from those days include Jo and Florrie Lawler, Ger Moriarty, Ken Reynolds, Dave Walsh, Tommy Walsh, May Fenelon, Liam Ryan, Kitty McLoughlin, Nellie Fox, Mollie Moore, Dermot Mullan, Patsy O'Neill, Mary Harrington and Joe Martin. The Social Club players worked with many famous dramatists and producers as they sought to scale the dramatic heights. Many still recall the involvement of Lennox Robinson of the Abbey Theatre, also P.J. O'Connor of Radio Eireann and Isley and McCabe of the Gaiety Theatre. They all travelled to Athy as guest Directors of productions put on by the Social Club players in the Town Hall or the Club premises in St. John's Lane. Tadhg was highly regarded as an actor, bringing to his roles an intensity of feeling and expression worthy of many performances on the Dublin stage.

All the time Tadhg continued to carry on a very successful legal practice in Athy and was appointed State Solicitor in 1963. He resigned from his practice in 1978 on taking up an appointment as County Registrar for County Kildare, a position he held until 1990. He moved to Naas on being appointed County Registrar but has returned to live in Athy and has brought with him the rich store of memories of his younger years spent in Athy.

In a legal career stretching back over 50 years Tadhg has witnessed many changes in the law from both sides of what I may call the legal divide. Firstly as a defender of those who stood charged before the Courts, like all good lawyers he brought to his task an extraordinary degree of detachment and an ability to suspend disbelief. In later years as State Solicitor his legal training and experience was put to work in the interest of the State in many successful prosecutions of those who infringed the Criminal Code. In whatever role he performed whether in Court, on stage or on the playing field in his younger days, Tadhg always brought to his task energy, skill and authority.

Tadgh Brennan (1)

So far as I can find out Tadhg Brennan holds the distinction of being the longest qualified Solicitor in County Kildare. It was October 1944 that Tadhg, until then apprenticed to another local Solicitor Paddy O'Neill, qualified as a Solicitor. Legal work in those days was scarce, and the leisurely pace of life and litigation allowed Solicitors offices to operate without Secretaries or staff qualified to churn out the letters which are the trademark of today's lawyers. Indeed Tadhg's first task and on his first day as an apprentice Solicitor was to type out, with two fingers, a couple of letters for his master on an old fashioned manual typewriter.

Paddy O'Neill, brother of Dr. Joe O'Neill, then had offices on the first floor of Michael Anthony's Auctioneers in Emily Square where Tadhg as a young apprentice had Jack Lawler as a work colleague. Tadhg, who was 76 last month, was born in Canal House in Monasterevin where his father Fintan was the canal agent. The Brennan family moved to Athy in 1924 when Fintan was appointed Magistrates Clerk in place of T.J. Bodley. Coincidentally, the Brennan family initially resided in No. 5 Offaly Street where 21 years later another family whose son was also to embark on a legal career also lived. That same house was the offices of the District Court for a few short years after Fintan Brennan's arrival before being relocated in the Town Hall.

It was his father's suggestion, obviously based on his experience as a Magistrate Clerk and later a District Court Clerk which led Tadhg to undertake legal studies and an eventual apprenticeship with Paddy O'Neill. When the time came in March 1945 for Tadhg to set up his own Solicitors practice his aunt Kitty Heffernan, then living in Emily Row, offered her front room as an office. "Tadhg R. O'Braoinan", Solicitor, remains as the name of the practice to this day although Tadhg has long gone from it. The entire house has now been taken over by the practice which the young man started in the front room over 50 years ago.

Business was slow for quite a while and the opening of a branch office in Monasterevin and later in Rathangan helped to pass the hours even if sometimes it did not always increase the fee income. In those leisurely days Tadhg occasionally cycled to his branch offices with a small bundle of files on the bicycle carrier. As he admits himself he often made the same journey the following week, without having taken the tape off the carefully preserved files in the interim. This was a routine he maintained until about 1955 when his own apprentice Aidan O'Donnell qualified as a Solicitor. Judge O'Donnell as he is now, established a legal practice in Portarlington taking with Tadhg's blessing the Monasterevin branch practice which Tadhg had earlier developed.

All the time Tadhg was fulfilling his love for Gaelic games and as a boarder in Knockbeg College he played with the legendary Tommy Murphy in two Leinster Colleges Finals. Unfortunately Knockbeg lost on both occasions to St. Mel's College. Minor football for Athy G.F.C. was soon followed by Senior football for the same Club. With Athy Tadhg played in three Senior County Finals winning his only Championship medal in 1942. He recalls with a chuckle how as a young man of 21 years playing in his first final in 1941 as centre half back he was, to use his own words, "demolished by my opponent, Mick Keating a Garda Sergeant, who was an old man". The following years the same teams contested the County Final and this time Athy won following a replay. It may have been purely a coincidence that the same "old man, Mick Keating" was injured only after five minutes play although Tadhg hastens to add, he was not marking him that day.

In 1943 he played for U.C.D. and was honoured by the County selectors on two occasions playing against Offaly in October 1943 and Wexford in April 1944. On both occasions he joined two other local players Tommy Mulhall and Dinny Fox who were also County players. Tadhg's involvement with the local G.A.A. Club was not confined to playing football and he served in various Officer positions over the years. Recalling the great players who played with Athy he mentions Mick Mannion, a Galway man who taught in the local C.B.S., Paul Matthews, Joe Gibbons, Jack Dunne, George Comerford a Clare Garda stationed in Athy, Jim Malone, Jim Clancy, Stephen Whelan, Barney Dunne, Tommy Mulhall, 'Bird' Rochford and Joe Byrne. The heyday of the Athy football Club according to Tadhg was the years 1931 to 1937 when the Club won three Senior County Championships.

To be concluded next week.
Last week Jim Connor died in England where he had lived since leaving Castlemitchell in the 1950's. Jim and I had corresponded in the past and during the hot summer of 1995 he called on me while on his last holidays in his beloved south Kildare. I later had a great night of chat in Mary Prendergast's house with Jim and John Fennin as they recalled the "old days" in Castlemitchell. Jim's love for his native place was obvious as he brought me around Churchtown Graveyard that same evening, pointing out its many important features and passing on the local lore. He was particularly proud of the water fount which he had rescued on an earlier visit and had preserved on the site. Jim was later the subject of an Eye on the Past which I know gave him immense pleasure. Like so many of the missing generations from our area he had to live out his adult life far from the townlands he loved. His passing follows not so long after that of his friend Joe Bermingham with whom he was involved in the founding of Castlemitchell G.F.C. and the provision of the local Community Hall. Jim will be sadly missed.