George Cannon County Manager

I haven’t yet developed the habit of reading the death notices in my daily paper, although I suppose I should, since I’m told it is a traditional pastime associated with someone of my age.  This morning I was prompted, why I don’t know, to glance at those same notices and my gaze fell upon a name well known to me from 35 years ago.  George Cannon, former County Manager from Monaghan, had passed away in what must have been his 94^th year or so.  I was Town Clerk in Monaghan town when George was County Manager.  His was a name legendary in the Local Government services, even while he was still serving.  Small of stature, what he lacked in height he made up for with a determined independent streak which saw him command the respect, if not the friendship, of his peers. 

County Managers are one part of government service at local level, where the other side is represented by the elected members.  The disparity amongst elected members in terms of ability, experience and knowledge invariably creates an imbalance when pitted against the same well honed qualities in a person who after many years service in local government comes to occupy the most senior management post in the county.

George Cannon was one of the wiliest men I had ever met up to 35 years ago.  A few more have crossed my path since then but their stories are for another time.  I described George as a legendary character, as indeed he was, and legion are the stories which circulated amongst local officials about the man in Monaghan.  George, unlike his fellow County Managers, did not bother with being a member of the County Managers Association.  He ploughed his own furrow according to his own directions, not feeling the need to consult or associate with his peers.

Council meetings which he always attended, invariably threw up one or two “Cannon gems”  which when polished and adapted were added to the bank of stories in circulation about George.  I recall one such Council meeting, the annual estimates meeting of the local Urban District Council when the estimates for the following year prepared by the Town Clerk and approved by the County Manager were up for discussion and ultimately for decision by the elected members.  Invariably a small percentage increase in the rates was sought by the officials, but the elected members, as is usual on such occasions, waded through the estimates making reductions here and there in order to effect savings.  George Cannon sat through the meeting, impassively as ever, noting on the back of an envelope the reductions made by the members, never once protesting or demurring in the decisions being made.  At the end of the process the members, fully satisfied with their work, passed onto the next stage which was the striking of the rate in pound.  Before they did however George turned to me and in his quiet Donegal accent said, “Town Clerk, will you contact the E.S.B. in the morning to arrange to have the public lights switched off at 8.00 p.m. each evening, also draw up a list of the Council workmen so that we can decide which two men are to be let go”.

The Councillors fell silent.  There was some shuffling of feet underneath the table and a few coughs were heard as the nine members of the Council took in what the County Manager had said.  No one ever contradicted George Cannon.  In many ways he was the last of the old style county managers made of the same mould as the Parish Priests of old.  His word was law and if you disagreed you kept your thoughts to yourself.  Not even the elected members of Monaghan Urban District Council felt able to trade word with the diminutive County Manager and so the night of the estimates saw the meeting go on a bit longer than usual as the necessary additions were made to the estimates to ensure the continuity of services for the following year.  I have to admit I enjoyed the moment.  George Cannon died this week after a long life full of achievements.

Next Friday morning about 11 o’clock or so 30 or 40 vintage cars will arrive in Emily Square as part of a commemoration run to celebrate the 101^st anniversary of the Gordon Bennett Race.  The vintage car enthusiasts will drop into the Heritage Centre where there is a permanent display relating to the race which has always been associated with Athy.  Incidentally, the Heritage Centre has a new manager.  Margaret Walsh from Monasterevin started work two weeks ago and we extend good wishes to her in her new post.

Another welcome newcomer to the town is Rev. Cliff Peter Jeffers who was instituted as the new Vicar of the Athy Union of Parishes on 3^rd June.  He is a successor in a long line of vicars stretching back nearly 500 years and will administer in the Church of St. Michael’s at the top of Offaly Street.  He also has charge of Kilberry, Fontstown and Kilkea and all of us wish him well in his ministry.

Some weeks I wrote of roadside memorials to victims of road traffic accidents following which I was contacted by a long time resident of St. Joseph’s Terrace who brought to my attention an old iron cross on the roadside opposite No. 8 Upper St. Joseph’s.  It is believed to mark the place where a young boy of twelve years or so was killed in the 1920’s by a steamroller.  Does anyone recall the name of the youngster whose tragic death is recalled in the simply metal cross which has been in position on the edge of the roadway for almost 80 years.  If you can help with this query I would be delighted to hear from you.

Many of my readers will recall Garda Johnny McMahon who lived with his wife Molly in St. Patrick’s Avenue.  I was reminded of Johnny this week as I watched a young Garda directing traffic at the town’s main cross-roads.  The young Garda energetically and with total command directed the traffic coming from the Dublin, Kilkenny, Monasterevin and Carlow directions with practised ease.  The traffic nowadays exceeds anything Johnny McMahon had to deal with, but Garda Ciara Holmes set to her task with such energy and panache that I could picture the doyen of traffic controllers of 40 years ago, Johnny McMahon, as he twisted and turned, pointed and directed a steady stream of traffic on its way.  Until I saw Garda Holmes on traffic duty last week I had quite forgotten about the Mayo man who was part of our lives here in Athy for almost four decades and who retired from the Gardai in the mid 1960’s.

Of county managers and sporting success

The first county manager I came across was the legendary Matt Macken. He was the Carlow/Kildare county manager when I got my first job as a clerical officer with Kildare County Council in St Mary’s Naas. He was the nearest thing to God and he received as much obsequious treat-ment from the Council staff as you might expect the Pope to receive today. Well I remember if he appeared in the hallway of the Council offices, mere clerical officers such as myself ducked out of view in much the same way as servants did in the days of the big houses.

My next encounter with that heady level of administrative excellence was when I went to Kells as town clerk. My first day on the job coincided with the monthly meeting of the urban council, which the county manager in those days always attended. Denis Candy was the manager’s name and he too came from Athy, the scion of a well-known Athy family.

Belying his name, he was not all sweetness. Indeed, Denis Candy was a difficult man to get on with at the best of times but, given my lowly position in the ranks, I just had to knuckle under and get on with the job. Legendary are the stories told of Denis Candy’s time in County Meath, equalled only by those told of my next county manager, George Cannon of Monaghan. I have written before of George Cannon, a man small in terms of physique but an intellectual giant who stood apart from his colleagues as much for his waspish contrariness as for the individual streak which marked his daily activities.

Denis Candy, as I have said earlier, was an Athy man and strangely and perhaps uniquely the South Kildare town has given us three county managers since the first County Management Act of 1940. Apart from Denis Candy there was Jack Taaffe, the now retired county manager for Westmeath and John Keyes, presently occupying the premier local government position in the county of Cavan.

John is the son of the late Jackie and Liz Keyes of William Street. Jackie Keyes was office manager in the Asbestos factory in the 1950s and was one of three Keyes brothers who worked for the same company. Jackie’s brothers, Billy and Tommy, worked in the Asbestos company’s head office in Dublin. Their father, William Keyes, was local postman and in the days before footballing of all kinds held sway, was a cricketer of note who played for Athy Cricket Club. Indeed, the Keyes’ involvement in the game of cricket passed from father William to his sons and Jackie Keyes was an excellent cricketer in his younger days. Apart from the three sons, William and his wife, the former Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, had four daughters, Katie, Margaret, Angie and Mamie, all of whom married, uniting in marriage the Rowan, Ryan, Prendergast and McNamara families.

John Keyes, who now holds the reins of municipal power in County Cavan, started his education in the local Christian Brothers School. He was a member of the under-15 school team which won the 1967 Leinster College Championship. Athy CBS played what was the country final against Portlarlington in Mullingar and emerged winners, courtesy of two goals scored by Christy Delahunt. The final saw the country winners, Athy CBS, pitched against St Declan’s, the Dublin City winners in the provincial final played on the GAA pitch in Naas. Athy won, with the Stapleton brothers, Dan and Martin, between them amassing a wealth of scores to ensure Athy’s victory. That year also saw the young footballer, John Keyes, take up association football with Athy Soccer Club, where he played on the under-15 team before graduating to the seniors, where he achieved more success. He was a member of the Athy soccer team which won the Sheeran Cup in 1972. John played on the Athy team with the likes of Cha Chanders and Vincent Gray, who later had a stint with Shamrock Rovers and Limerick City and he recalls one of the more memorable football occasions outside the cup final of 1972 as the last soccer game of what was Cha Chanders long footballing career.

John went to university in Dublin, from where in time he graduated from UCD with an engineering degree. While in university, he played rugby, the game at which his father and his uncle Billy had won Provincial Towns Cup medals with Athy. He was a member of the Anderson cupwinning team of the 1972/73 season and played on the Athy team which competed for the Provincial Towns Cup in the 1975/ 76 season. The photograph of that team shows John sixth from the left at the back row with his father Jackie, then the president of Athy Rugby Club on the extreme left of the same row.

John’s biggest regret is that he transferred from the Athy Club to play senior rugby with Monkstown in Dublin soon thereafter and missed out on the Provincial Towns Cup victories which came Athy’s way in the latter part of the 1970s. John retired from rugby playing following a serious injury in 1981, but continued his involvement in the game as a coach.

The Keyes family name goes back several generations in Athy and over the decades from William onwards the Keyes name has graced the cricket pitch, the rugby pitch, the soccer pitch and the Gaelic playing field. Sport played an important part in the life of at least three generations of the Keyes family, but perhaps none had a more varied sporting career than John Keyes. The holder of winning medals in Gaelic football, association football and rugby, his is a record to be envied. His sporting achievements are in a sense mirrored by the successes in his professional life.

Graduating as an engineer from UCD, he first worked for Dublin Corporation in the mid-1980s, transferring in 1991 to Offaly County Council as a senior executive engineer. He spent 12 years in County Offaly becoming the director of community enterprise and planning in 1999, before taking up the appointment of county manager in Cavan in 2004.

The drive which gave John his successful sporting and professional career may owe something to his spirited grandmother Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, who married the postman William Keyes. It was she who in the early 1930s opened the shop at the corner of William Street and Shrewleen Lane which proved so important after William suffered a stroke a few years later. Elizabeth died in 1963, but the Keyes’ shop was a readily identifiable landmark during the ’40s and ’50s and continued in business right up to the early 1960s, coinciding with the opening of Dreamland Ballroom on the Kilkenny road.

It is a wonderful achievement for a former Christian Brothers schoolboy to climb the highest rung on the local government ladder and for Athy to boast no less than three county managers is a great tribute to the town and to our local schools.