Tag - Retired Members

Retired member profile: Rory Mooney

June 21, 2018
WebEditor
Members, Retired Member Profiles, Retired Members

Above: Marion and Rory.

Conor Forrest sat down with retired firefighter Rory Mooney, who spoke about his career with the brigade and his voluntary work with orphaned children affected by the Chernobyl disaster.

It’s more than 36 years now since the tragic Stardust fire that saw 48 people lose their lives and a further 214 injured when flames tore through the popular nightclub on Dublin’s northside. The harrowing events of that night have echoed through the proceeding decades, with the findings of the tribunal of inquiry – which concluded arson as the likely cause – disputed ever since. One of the emergency responders on duty that night was Dublin Fire Brigade firefighter Rory Mooney, relatively new to the job having joined in 1978. Despite having been marked for ambulance duty, a colleague on sick leave meant he was tasked with manning the phones that night.

“That was a totally different ballgame,” he explains. “The records of the Stardust are all in my handwriting. I ended up eight hours on the stand giving evidence in the Stardust Tribunal. The only person who spent longer on the stand, I believe, was the Chief Fire Officer T.P. O’Brien. Nothing could prepare you for it. I just answered as best I could. ‘And why did you do that?’ ‘Because that’s the way I was trained’. Simple as that.”

Rory’s 31-year career in the brigade began, as with all recruits back then, with a stint in Tara Street, following 14 weeks of training in Kilbarrack – one of the last classes to do so. He recalls being handed the job of being ‘on the bunk’ at headquarters on his first night, manning the phones from midnight to 6am, and taking the 6am to 9am early relief shift the following morning.

“It’s all computerised these days, but it was pen and paper in my day,” he explains. “But it was good, it was an education in itself. During our training we had to go into Tara Street at least one or two nights and visit the control room and see how it worked, give yourself an insight into what was going on in the place.” After five years in Tara Street, where he joined other junior men in manning the northside stations whenever there were shortages, Rory was posted to Buckingham Street station on D watch for three years, before moving to Phibsborough where he would spend the rest of his career, eventually retiring in 2009. Back in those days, he says, the ambulance was as busy as it is today, even in 1978. “If you were in work and you knew, for example, that you were on the ambulance on a weekend night, you’d make sure you were well fed and watered before you go into work,” he says. “We were normally very well. received wherever we went. Especially on the ambulance – anywhere we went people knew we were there to help them. [But] as Nobby Clarke used to say, ‘If your budgie doesn’t sing, call the fire brigade’. And sometimes it seemed like that.”

Rory’s collection of memorabilia.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

For Rory, what brought him into work every day was the opportunity to make a difference to the lives of Dublin’s citizens. “We went out when people were at their lowest, and I mean utter lowest,” he explains. “Their house could be burning down around them or their father may have died, and we would arrive. We tried to make things better. It’s not always possible – sometimes you have to do a bit of damage in a house to put out the fire, but we tried to leave the people and structure in a better shape than [when] we found it. That’s what we’re there for really.”

Rory’s desire to help people in wretched circumstances would take him beyond Ireland’s borders. In 1986, while he was based in Phibsborough, the Chernobyl disaster shook the world. On April 26th the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine was destroyed, releasing radioactive material into the atmosphere, with the fallout spreading across western USSR and Europe. Thirty-one deaths have been directly attributed to the disaster, alongside deformities and defects in children born in Ukraine and Belarus in the years after the explosion.

“Radiation knows no territorial boundaries, it doesn’t apply for an entry or an exit visa, it travels wherever the winds take it,” said Adi Roche, who founded Chernobyl Children International. “At 1.23 am on 26th April 1986 a silent war was declared against the innocent peoples of Belarus, Western Russia and Northern Ukraine. A war in which they could not see the enemy, a war in which they could send no standing army, a war in which there was no weapon, no antidote, no safe haven, no emergency exit. Why? Because the enemy was invisible, the enemy was radiation.” Many of those children wound up in orphanages, grim facilities that provided a roof over their heads and regular meals, but precious little else in the way of a normal life. Stirred by their predicament, Rory joined convoys travelling 1,500 miles from Ireland to Belarus by ground, carrying much-needed medical and humanitarian supplies for the recovery efforts.

“A lot of firefighters died, a lot of children died, and being a father and a firefighter, it tugged at the [heart] strings. So when I had a chance at getting involved I did,” says Rory. His first trip over was in 1996 and by chance he met his future wife Marion the following year, travelling as part of the same convoy. Everything fell into place and their first wedding was at a Russian Orthodox Church on May 4th 2003, but they discovered the marriage wasn’t legal back home. After a four-year wait they were married again in Wales on May 5th 2007. As Marion describes it, “We tried to get as close as we could. So we’re married ten and 14 years!”

Rory and Marion made the trek to Belarus twice a year for 12 years in total, working with the manual team building playgrounds, putting roofs on portacabins, painting wards, renovating shower facilities and whatever else needed to be done. “You carried the kids out to the open air, you put them on swings and roundabouts and you’d amuse [them] for a couple hours during the day. It was very depressing when you’d leave the orphanage because you’d feel very guilty leaving the kids behind,” he recalls. Alongside supplies of medicine, furniture, clothes, shoes and much more, the teams also brought gifts for the children in those institutions – simple items like balloons or rugby jerseys that nonetheless made their day. “To see their faces – you’d give them a jersey and they knew it was theirs to keep, because they were used to being handed gear and it being taken from them,” Rory adds.

Rory also made contact with the fire service in Belarus, an under-resourced organisation that did the best job with what it had. On his first trip he brought over a retired hydraulic cutting tool, which was received with great enthusiasm. As luck would have it, that was placed on a tender with the call sign 32 – Rory spent a lot of time on 3-2 based in Phibsborough. That kickstarted a relationship that would last for years, with the Dubliners bringing a gift of equipment each time, including incubators, infusion pumps and even a laparoscopic instrument for keyhole surgeries. Introductions were made with the Chief Fire Officer, they were brought on tours of the fire brigade training college and their museum, and they were made a gift of Russian Fire Brigade china, now on display in the Dublin Fire Brigade museum at the training centre in Marino. Rory’s colleagues in DFB were instrumental in getting them across the continent every year. Alongside an annual bucket collection on O’Connell Street, the Workshop fitted a fire brigade van with a bed, cooker, fridge and portaloo purchased by Rory and Marion, and insured the pair to drive it. “The Chief Fire Officer at the time was great,” he adds. “He couldn’t do enough charity-wise. ‘What do you need Rory?’ he’d say.”

THE QUIET LIFE

The last few years have by no means been easy for Rory and Marion. Illness forced him out of the job he loved in 2009, having been diagnosed with lung cancer for the first time a year earlier – less than a year after he and Marion were married in Wales. Alongside a back operation and pneumonia he suffered a stroke in 2016, leaving him with short-term memory issues. To make matters worse, doctors found cancer in his other lung while undergoing tests. A tough situation that’s unimaginable unless you’ve gone through it, it’s clear that the same black humour that many firefighters use as a coping mechanism helped him through some difficult times – he recalls asking a surgeon during his first bout of cancer to save ‘a bit of meat for the cat’.

“It’s not a death sentence, it’s just a word. And if you can hang onto that it makes it a bit easier to deal with,” he says. “And it’s not easy to deal with because you don’t know if you’re going to survive, you don’t know if you do survive what way you’re going to be after it. But we got through it. We got through it together.”

It’s also clear that his career as a firefighter means a great deal to him. A shelf above his stairs (Marion’s handiwork) is home to a collection of memorabilia including helmets, patches and medals, a selection of statues received on his retirement takes pride of place along the fireplace, while two detailed and colourful statues of firefighters, souvenirs from Belarus, stand on duty in the back garden. There’s also a more unusual item – half of a good-sized rock that was thrown through the window of his ambulance as he and Leslie Crow travelled along the Navan Road one day, narrowly missing his ear.

Rory keeps in touch with old colleagues too – he joined the Retired Members Association last year, pops into Phibsborough fire station every few months for a visit, helps Paul Hand in the museum every Thursday, and is one of several veterans of No. 3 known as the ROMEOS – Retired Old Men Eating Out – who meet up every few months for dinner and a catch-up. These are friendships cemented over decades, between people who often placed their lives in one another’s hands.

“Nobby Clarke, the Crow [Leslie Crow] – Leslie was one of the best firefighters I ever worked with. I trained as well with Paul Hand, the curator of the museum in the OBI. He is one of the hardest working firefighters I’ve ever met in my life, he really is,” Rory tells me. “You’re in situations where your life could literally be hanging on your friendship with somebody else. It’s very much a second family. It was never just a job. You go into it [at the beginning] and it’s just a job, but once you’re there a while it’s a heck of a lot more – it’s a way of life.”

Retired members: Noel Hayden

September 26, 2017
WebEditor
Historical, Retired Member Profiles, Retired Members

Conor Forrest caught up with retired District Officer Noel Hayden, who spent the best part of his career fighting fires on Dublin’s southside.

In the days when Dún Laoghaire fire station was a standalone unit, yet to become integrated with Dublin Fire Brigade, funds and finances were not so readily available. The process of officially mending or replacing something could be quite bureaucratic, and so it was often easier for a member of the crew to get out their toolbox and mend the broken lock or door. “There was no money for anything, and there was no gear – I had better tools in my car,” recalls retired District Officer Noel Hayden, who spent more than three decades fighting fires in Dún Laoghaire. A Crumlin man born and bred, Noel initially envisaged a life spent working in the trades. Beginning as an apprentice carpenter and joiner in Kennedy’s Bakery, he picked up plumbing, electrical and various other skills in the years that followed, including a stint as a carpenter with the now defunct Modern Display Artists. In fact, the house he and his wife Deirdre (along with their five children) have lived in since around 1983 was built by Noel, his brother-in-law Dennis and colleagues in the brigade at the time.

Though Dennis was a firefighter, the thought of joining the fire brigade had never crossed Noel’s mind. He was working on a job in Kilbarrack Shopping Centre in 1972 when Dennis suggested he join the brigade, and Noel agreed to look into it. A week or two later an advertisement for Dún Laoghaire firefighters appeared in the paper, and Noel’s wife Deirdre duly went to the town hall to collect an application. As they had none printed she was directed to the fire station, where they had none either, though the second officer, Willie Kennedy, accompanied her back to the town hall to duplicate the form. By the time Dublin Fire Brigade launched its own recruitment drive several weeks later, Noel was a firefighter in Dún Laoghaire. 

“It was handy enough until I got the pay!” he recalls of those early weeks with a laugh. Prior to joining the brigade, Noel was earning £35 a week with a builder in the city; the fire brigade’s starting salary was substantially less at £20 a week. Couple that with the fact that he had bought a house on the northside and was commuting down, and circumstances were a little strained.

“It was a bit of a struggle when I went into the fire brigade at first,” he tells me. “Then when the petrol crisis came that really knocked the socks off me. The train wasn’t always a good idea, and we didn’t always have the bridges we have now. If you were coming from the northside you had to go around Butt Bridge and right back down the quays on the far side to get to Dún Laoghaire. It was a long, slow trip.” Noel’s first chief in Dún Laoghaire was Kerryman Michael Murphy, who was cautious about needless spending, but had a sense of humour. “One time the chief officer said ‘You’ll have to act station officer tonight’. I said ‘I never did it at night-time before’. Says he, ‘There’s no difference, it’s just dark’!”

Noel quickly became involved with the social side of life in the brigade, joining the Sports and Social Club and spending 20 years on the committee. During that time they formed a boat club and, with Paddy Lee, a benevolent fund. In 1974 Dún Laoghaire hosted one of the biggest annual dinner dances in its history, with around 340 people attending from brigades around the country. “We improved a lot of things – we reorganised the television room in the station and I made seating for it. We got another recreation room that also had bar seating – one of the boys knew somebody who was closing a bar down,” says Noel.

Noel was one of the
firefighters stationed in Dún Laoghaire when the new station was opened in 1991

Improving conditions

Given his background, and the lack of funding available, Noel would do maintenance work around the station, while lending the mechanics a helping hand from time to time. It was during this time that he became involved with the union, and a committee began to meet with the Corporation manager once a month to voice complaints or request funds. A potato peeler was an early addition, then a dishwasher. A washing machine for PPE was also acquired after some negotiation, and the issue of lighting within the station was a common complaint. “Lights used to be switched off at 11pm in the fire station – it was like being in a reformatory!” he explains with a laugh. “We got extra lights fitted in toilets etc., and generally improved the conditions.”

The funding situation improved under the brigade’s new chief, Tom McDonald, a veteran of DFB. A greater emphasis was placed on training and equipment; the station’s firefighters began with a breathing apparatus course and new appliances were purchased. Sub Officer Christopher Cummins was dispatched around the country, visiting each fire station to see what they had, and made a list of requirements. The result was an impressive emergency tender featuring some of the latest innovations, including radios for communicating with marine rescue, housed in a small onboard control room.

“We did our BA course in the OBI [where his grandfather attended school almost 90 years previous], and other courses too. We did our own pump training in Dún Laoghaire – myself and Aidan Carroll ran that,” Noel explains. Exercises, too, became a regular occurrence, and the crew at Dún Laoghaire took part in one of the earliest Sealink joint rescue exercises in the Irish Sea, conducted alongside Holyhead Fire Brigade, the RAF and the Irish Air Corps. “We continued to progress,” Noel adds. “It was a smaller brigade so it was easier to do, you could train everyone in a couple of weeks.

Despite this increased focus on training and equipment, Dún Laoghaire’s ambulance service ran into difficulties in the late seventies/early eighties. Rewind just a couple of years and there were three Dún Laoghaire fire brigade ambulances operating in the district – two regular ambulances and a fever ambulance. However, staffing issues began to arise and Noel explains how – rather than manning the ambulance for a full shift as happens today – personnel would switch between the fire tender and ambulance throughout the course of a shift. 

“You could come back in, get off the fire tender, wash yourself very quick and get into your dress uniform, get onto the ambulance and be out on a call five minutes later,” he says. The ambulance service finally departed in 1982, falling under the remit of Colmcille’s Hospital in nearby Loughlinstown. Though Dún Laoghaire moved to their present station in 1992, and amalgamated with Dublin Fire Brigade in 1994, the station remains the only one in Dublin without an ambulance today. Still, the crew was by no means underworked. The chimney van was one of the busiest appliances in a time when people were still burning the old coal. “When I was there first you would do 15 chimney fires a night. The best thing Mary Harney ever did for the country was get Dublin smoke free [in 1990]. It cut down on the chimney fires, as did the natural gas and gas-fired heating,” Noel explains.

Noel at his home

Memories

Noel’s time in Dún Laoghaire lasted 30 years, but eventually he moved on. Having been promoted to sub officer in 1984 (acting sub officer since 1979), and station officer in 1994, he joined Donnybrook fire station in 2003. Three years later he was posted to Phibsborough as the district officer and saw out his remaining years on the northside, eventually retiring in 2009. Throughout that time he has met some great characters (some of whom dubbed him ‘Luigi’ on seeing his jet black hair). They’re the type of people you remember years after you’ve left the job, the type of people who take you under their wing, who make you laugh and learn, and most of all who make the job what it is.

“I’ve worked with some great characters, some very skillful and smart people. I had a station officer, Tim Mahony, he was one of the first station officers I worked for. Myself, Aidan Carroll and a few others, we used to be called Tim’s lads. We had some great times working with Tim. He used to say ‘There’s some equal lads and others more equal!” Noel recalls. There are memorable incidents too – good and bad. Noel remembers a call to attend to a 12-year-old girl who wasn’t breathing. Though they quickly reached the scene she was beyond help, and all they could do was bring her to hospital. “I think that’s the one that sticks in my mind the most,” he explains.

But lives have also been saved. One day Noel was teaching another firefighter how to drive the appliance when they were flagged down – a fire was burning outside a nearby shed with two children trapped inside. Leaving his colleague to operate the pumps and raise the alarm in the station across the road, Noel managed to locate and rescue a young boy and his friend. Three years later, the crew were walking out of the station’s kitchen, and could smell something burning. A house was on fire around the corner and they quickly turned out, Noel circling around the back while several others came through the front door. Spotting a crack in a pane of glass from which smoke was emanating, Noel quickly removed the glass and climbed inside, passing two kids out to safety. With colleagues in BA sets approaching and the smoke getting to him, Noel retreated to the back yard having warned that somebody else was trapped in the house. Then he heard a noise, and he was handed a baby.

“It was the same family as the young lad in the shed – that was the four of them I rescued from fires!” he explains. “I must say, in the 37, 38 years there I enjoyed most of it. I might have had about three bad days, and two of them I can’t remember.” Noel has retired from DFB, but life after is by no means quiet. “The things I miss most are the days off!” he laughs. Still quite handy with a toolbox, Noel is the go-to man in the family and his neighbourhood when something goes wrong. He’s also started a family tradition – his son Rod has been in the brigade since 2004, stationed in Dolphin’s Barn, and thoroughly enjoys the hectic life of a firefighter. “He likes being busy,” says Noel. “He’s happy in his work.

Retired members: Harry O’Keeffe

August 29, 2017
WebEditor
Events, Historical, Retired Member Profiles, Retired Members

Harry (bottom row, far left) and his colleagues in DFB.

Conor Forrest caught up with Harry O’Keeffe, a former firefighter who spoke about his career with Dublin Fire Brigade, his role as a special service man, as well as his efforts to improve the workplace for his fellow firefighters.

One hundred years ago, a small group of men and women marched out on the streets of Dublin, Enniscorthy and Meath to proclaim an independent Irish Republic. It was an event that would change the course of Irish history, though perhaps not exactly how Padraig Pearse and his comrades in arms would have imagined. It was also the year in which Dublin Fire Brigade’s oldest firefighter was born, three days after rebel leader James Connolly was executed in Kilmainham – one Harry O’Keeffe.

To say Harry has led an interesting life would be something of an understatement. Born in 22 Holles Street in May 1916, he grew up alongside the new State that had its origins among the ruins of Dublin that year. His childhood was a happy one, with a loving family, and among his earliest memories is attending the State funeral of Michael Collins, perched on his father’s shoulders at the age of six.

In those days, jobs were scarce, but he managed to find employment in his early teens, first with Cantwell and Corcoran, which produced soft drinks, where he was interviewed by union leader Jim Larkin about the company’s employment policies. That was followed by a stint with the Grand Canal Company, and then the Calendars Overhead Cable Company – Harry cycled every day from Boyne Street to work in Drogheda, beginning at 4am and camping out during the week as the work moved further from home. Wicklow became a fond destination during his teenage years, particularly Kilmacanogue, and he often cycled there on his own or with friends to a cottage they had rented on the side of the Sugarloaf. Among the first group of girls invited to the cottage was one Teresa Maxwell, his future wife.

Harry was presented with several tokens on his 100th birthday

Onwards and upwards

Having trained as an electrical and mechanical engineer in his youth, this stood to Harry when an opportunity to join Dublin Fire Brigade arose, halting plans to move to Canada with Calendars. From many hundreds of applicants, only six were ultimately successful – including Harry. The manner in which he secured his job was perhaps an indication of the impact he was to have on DFB. “I was up in Castle Street, I went in before a few men, one of them was the young chief, Comerford. He was doing most of the speaking and he was summing me up,” Harry tells me. “When he was finished, I said ‘do I get the job?’ ‘Do you get the job? We’ll let you know in due time’.” This, however, was an unacceptable response in Harry’s mind. “Says I, ‘I’ve waited a long time to get this far, and I’d like to know where I stand.’ So he talked to the other men and said ‘Well O’Keeffe, you can take it you’ve got the job,” Harry recalls with a smile.

He began his new career in 1938, under the command of Major Comerford, an ex-Irish soldier, and later under Captain Diskin following the untimely death of the former. “Him and I got on pretty well together,” Harry says of Major Comerford. Harry spent the majority of his DFB career in Tara Street as he was what was then known as a ‘special service man’ – because of his electrical knowledge, he was tasked with maintaining and servicing the old fire alarms on the street, which operated before the introduction of telephones.

It was this role that prevented him from travelling to Belfast during the Blitz in 1941 – despite volunteering to travel – as he would have been difficult to replace should the worst happen. Among the many stories from Harry’s career with DFB, that of his role in the bombs that dropped on Dublin during World War II stands out, particularly those that fell on the Terenure area in South Dublin early in the morning of January 2nd 1941. That story was captured in The Bombing of Dublin’s North Strand: The Untold Story by Kevin C. Kearns, as explained by a colleague of Harry’s who joined DFB at the same time, Paddy Walsh.

“This bomb hit the end of a terrace of houses, at the back garden. Made a crater in the garden and the house fell in, but not much fire. They were up-market houses, a place where there was a Jewish settlement. A woman was trapped there, in her bed. The roof had collapsed down and the joists were all criss-crossing on the bed,” Walsh recalled. “Now I was just five foot nine but another lad with me was a hardy fella, Harry O’Keeffe. So we got in and everything was in a heap, the front of the house was still intact, but the whole back was down. There was one joist holding most of the roof still on. So he got down on his hunker, if you like, and held it. Then he says to me, “I’ll hold that and give you time to get in.”

Harry O’Keeffee (seated)

Changing times

Workers’ rights were extremely important to Harry, and he expended great effort in agitating to improve the position of firefighters in Dublin, quickly developing a reputation as a force for change. When he first joined the fire brigade, firefighters brought food with them to work. However, noting that their counterparts in the UK and Northern Ireland had modern catering facilities where Dublin did not, Harry took the cause to City Hall, fighting long and hard for a mess to be provided for the stations.

“It was disgraceful the way the Dublin Corporation treated the working men that had to be fed. There’s not a place in the world that has their staff in but they make some provisions to feed them. I took it up to City Hall and I had a row with one of the officials there,” he explains. That particular official had the temerity to enquire as to whether the firefighters would like their daily dinner at the Gresham Hotel. Harry struck the table and said he would get the men to fi ll their larders with tinned food because it would be a long strike.  Eventually, the Corporation caved. Once they got the mess, however, it still wasn’t quite plain sailing. “We had a woman who used to look after the mess. She had a fancy for George O’Dowd,” says Harry. “George fell in love with a retired schoolteacher. And when she heard that, there was skin and hair flying!”

A life well lived

Harry’s tireless efforts on behalf of his colleagues and peers – which included reducing the retirement age for the city’s firefighters – didn’t cease when he left DFB in 1963 to join the Corporation Rents department, a job which provided a more stable life for Harry and his young family, along with an improved salary. His son Brendan recalls a story of Harry standing before a judge in the case of a tenant in arrears. Despite Harry working for the Corporation, he was pleading on behalf of the tenant, which perplexed the judge. Looking back, it’s clear that Harry’s life was one of dedication – to his family, his colleagues in Dublin Fire Brigade, and to his lifelong principles.

“I believed in the worker getting his right to speak, to criticise whatever was chosen for him. I didn’t believe in a man being too quiet, and not allowed to speak his mind. So I spoke up,” he tells me, his voice suddenly strong. “I stood up on a few occasions and I spoke to the whole lot of them [his colleagues]. I would have a go at them – ‘we can’t be falling out with ourselves, it is important that we unite. Unity is strength, we must stand together’.”

As with all of his tales of his fascinating experiences, Harry sums it up best himself. “It was quite a chequered life,” he says with a characteristic smile.

A man ahead of his time

Harry was an avid reader, a trait sparked in early life, and he would regale his children with stories of exploration and adventure around the fire (his sons Brian and Brendan, son-in-law George and grandson Ciarán would follow him into the brigade). His other passion was singing, and he was known for his rendition of Night Time in Nevada. He was also

He was also fascinated by space. In those days, meat would arrive wrapped in butcher’s paper, and Harry sketched out details of how a moon landing might happen. In July 1969, his visions were vindicated as Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. Nobody knows if this drawing still exists, but included on the sheet was a list of DFB colleagues who had signed up for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Retired members: Paul Hand

May 31, 2017
WebEditor
Historical, Retired Members

From Dolphin’s Barn to the DFB museum, Paul Hand has seen and done it all. Conor Forrest caught up with the busy retired firefighter and current museum curator, to learn more about a career spanning three decades.

As Paul Hand describes it, February 13th 1978 was a fateful day. That was the former butcher’s first day in Dublin Fire Brigade, walking through the doors of Kilbarrack fire station to begin his training in a career that he would leave only following his retirement 32 years later. He was encouraged to join by friends of his already serving in the brigade – Timmy Horgan, Eddie Finley, Jim Murphy and others. “When they heard it was coming up, they said ‘Go for it, why not?’ And I never looked back,” says Paul. When his training was completed, Paul was first sent to Tara Street. “The first night in Tara Street I was checking the motors, and this gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘Do as I tell you and you’ll be alright’,” he recalls. “I said ‘I’m your man’.” Having seen service in Tara Street, Rathmines, Dolphin’s Barn, Finglas, Kilbarrack and Buckingham Street, Paul spent most of his career in North Strand, a busy station with a broad area of responsibility on the city’s northside.

“I was sent to No 4 in 1980 and I was there for 30 years. When I went there first there were three cars there, 4-1, 4-2 and 3-2. Dorset Street had closed and they moved the car over to North Strand. It was one of the busiest cars in the city at the time. If you were on 3-2, forget about it – you were out all night. If there was relief needed anywhere in the city you were up first for that,” he says. “I stayed there and I retired out of there, and I have some great memories. They were good, solid men. The likes of Joe O’Brien, Jack O’Rourke and Martin Messitt – they wouldn’t let you go wrong. They were good men, family men. We were all there just to earn a wage to rear our families.”

Family was important to those within the brigade, but those in the job also thought of one another as their second family, Paul explains. “That’s what the fire brigade was all about. You were part of a family. I had a family at home, I had a wife and three kids, they were my family. But the fire brigade was the other family, they really were,” he says. “When I look at photographs, I look at Terry Fitzpatrick, an elderly man back then, he was an out and out gentleman, he wouldn’t let you go wrong. Officers would say to him ‘What do you think Terry?’”

Learning from the best

Though his training undoubtedly prepared him for life in Dublin Fire Brigade, Paul would go on to learn more about the intricacies of fighting fires from the senior men in the job. “In Tara Street, some of the characters in there, some of the senior men, I must only say they were brilliant, they were never offputting or gruff. They would tell you ‘Do as I tell you, and if I say stop, you stop.’ And that was the teaching we got,” he says. “When I went to North Strand first, Paddy Leavey was the District Officer there, a gentleman. He had a son in the job and his grandson is in the job today. Tony Rowan, he was a station officer, and Johnny McMahon, probably one of the best fire officers in Dublin Fire Brigade. He was straight down the line, he would tell you ‘Do your work and there’ll be no problem’. And you did your work, you weren’t afraid to work.”

It was teaching that would serve Paul and Dublin Fire Brigade’s new recruits well, as they would attend some major incidents over the following years. When he was stationed in North Strand, large scale blazes weren’t out of the ordinary, and Paul tells me about a fire in North Wall that took 20 appliances to contain, following a night of difficult firefighting. “It was a raging inferno. You don’t see that anymore because now it’s all units, so it’s surround and drown. But the likes of Castleforbes was so big that you couldn’t, you had to go in and go after it. We knocked the fire down that night,” he tells me. “Thermal imaging was only in its infancy back then. Nearly every truck now has two or three imaging cameras on it, and rightly so.”

In 1981 Paul was serving on D watch, which responded to the fire at the Stardust nightclub in Artane on the night of February 14th. Around 841 people had attended a disco there that night – 241 people were injured and 48 people lost their lives. Among those who lost loved ones in the fire was Paul’s colleague Jimmy McDermott, who had taken Paul under his wing that first night in Tara Street.

“On the night of the Stardust he lost three children. He was on leave that night and when we came back that morning the phone was ringing. He said ‘Paul, did you see the kids?’ I said ‘Jimmy, it was bedlam out there.’ That was a horrific night. That was a night when everything changed in the city,” Paul recalls sombrely. “People would ask you what sticks in your mind. I suppose the Stardust and children, they’re the two big pitfalls of this job. Children have seen very little of life, we’ve seen a lot. It’s tough to deal with but when you go back to your station and you look at your colleagues, any one of them could be your counsellor. We saw it all together.”

Main image: Class of 1978, including Paul Hand (back row, fifth from the left). Above: Paul (red jumper) with Greg McCann (on his left) and Greg’s family, one of many visitors to the DFB museum.

 

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Taking on the museum

Paul retired from the job in 2009, and joined the Retired Members’ Association. Several years ago he was asked if he would take over the curation of the brigade museum following the departure of Las Fallon, and he agreed. His interest in the brigade’s history began during his time in North Strand. There he met two firefighters – Eamon Fitzpatrick and Tony McCabe – who had talked about starting a museum. Though they were on opposite watches, when they did meet, Eamon would talk about his family history in the job: his father had served in the brigade, fought in the Rising and had died in Rathmines fire station of an injury sustained during a gunfight with members of the National Army on Cavendish Road in 1922. Sitting in one of the old appliances one day, Paul discovered an old, wooden handled axe. “I went back to the station and the next morning, when Eamon was coming on, I said ‘Eamon, I know you’re starting a museum, there you go!’ And that’s how it started with me and him.”

Anyone who has visited the museum will know that it’s a fascinating place, running the gamut of the brigade’s history across two floors in the OBI. The collection is quite diverse, ranging from the old switchboard used in Tara Street in times long past, and the original red woollen uniforms, to a helmet which was once in the possession of James Conway, and early breathing apparatus, attracting not only firefighters past and present but members of the public, tourists, schoolchildren, Men’s Sheds and many others. When I arrived to interview him, Paul had just unearthed the first occurrence book for Kilbarrack when it first opened in 1972.

“There’s a lot of history here. From the time of the red turnout gear, the boots, the brass helmets. The donated helmet which came in from the Conway family, that has pride of place. They are very old – 99 per cent of the stuff here is on loan from families,” he says. “When you look at the pictures around the walls they tell of our history, and some of the men who died in their service.”

Last year was an understandably busy year for the museum, with Las Fallon spearheading various exhibitions around the city on the brigade’s role in the 1916 Rising, which is becoming increasingly well known. “I must say that Las Fallon is absolutely great with what he’s doing. Our chief, in fairness to Mr Fleming, has backed us all the way,” says Paul. “We have an exhibition over in City Hall, we have a number of exhibitions out in libraries as well. Even here we’re getting more and more items, there’s stuff coming into us every week. I need a bigger place!”

From his viewpoint in the museum, where Dublin Fire Brigade’s past and present collides, and in the OBI which operates as the beating heart of training and best practice, Paul believes that DFB is only getting stronger as the years go on. “When we joined the fire service you were trained to a fairly high standard. But now the standard of training is 100 times better. Dublin is the second safest city in the world to have a heart attack – Salt Lake City is the first,” he explains. “Health and safety is coming into it more and more. You now have a welfare officer here, and he’s doing great work. The brigade is going to get stronger.”

Paul’s son has followed in his father’s footsteps, and is loving his chosen career, stationed in Kilbarrack, where his father worked all those years ago. Paul himself looks back on those 32 years with fond memories. “I’d do it all again tomorrow,” he says with a smile.

Class of ’76

May 26, 2017
WebEditor
Events, Members, Retired Members

Jeremiah Greally reports on the 40 year reunion of Class 2 1976, who shared memories and recalled those who have since passed on.

The firefighters of Class 2 1976 had a jovial reunion on September 1st last at the Central Hotel on Exchequer Street in Dublin. The 26 recruit firefighters began their training at Kilbarrack fire station on August 3rd 1976. This was the same year that the Apple computer company was formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Heffo’s army defeated Kerry in the All-Ireland Football final and the Concorde entered service on transatlantic flights. All of this group of firefighters have now retired and there were lots of fond memories and discussions on the night.

Tributes were paid to the training officers: Third Officer Joe Kiernan (RIP), Third Officer Joe Bell (RIP), Third Officer John L’Estrange, District Officer Frank Collins and District Officer Harry Lawlor. All the officers did a sterling job moulding 26 lay people from all walks of life to become professional firefighters and work as a team. Also remembered on the night were some members of this group that have gone to their eternal reward, namely Firefighter Peter Leap (RIP), Sub Officer Gerry O’Byrne (RIP), Firefighter Frank Rock (RIP), Third Officer Martin McDermott (RIP), Third Officer Joe Kiernan (RIP), and Third Officer Joe Bell (RIP).

Standing from the back left: Victor Pointon, Dermot Dowdall, Brian Finney, Niall Farrell, Fintan Lalor, Terry O’Neill, Mick Finglas Larry Madden, Danny Colgan, Tom Byrne, Patrick Duggan, Michael Daly and Jeremiah Greally. Seated training officers:D/O Jim Byrne, D/O Frank Collins, F/F Alan O’Rourke, Third Officer John L’Estrange

The summer of 1976 will be remembered by many as one of the best summers we have had in the last 40 years. Twenty-six recruits assembled at Kilbarrack fire station to learn the craft and techniques required to become professional firefighters and ambulance personnel. The 14-week training was tough and gruelling but the rewards were to be felt for the rest of our careers.

We have seen many changes and improvements in the fire service in the last 40 years and I would like to state that today’s firefighters who also work as ambulance personnel and paramedics are as professional and competent as can be found anywhere in the world, and provide an excellent service to the citizens of Dublin city and county.

Retired Members: Damien Fynes

May 26, 2017
WebEditor
Historical, Retired Members

From planting the seed for Firecall to entertaining Russian firefighters after the cold war, retired D/O Damien Fynes recounts an interesting and eventful life.

One might say that Damien Fynes has had both a fortunate and interesting life. Take an incident that happened before he ever joined the fire brigade. Back in 1974 his wife Ann worked in the GPO, and Damien would pick her up and stroll down Talbot Street to catch the bus. On May 17th 1974 the buses were on strike. Damien had ten shillings in his pocket and on a whim, instead of making for Talbot Street, they went for a drink in a pub on North Earl Street. Not long after they sat down, one of three bombs detonated on Talbot Street near the junction with Lower Gardiner Street, killing twelve people immediately, in an event that would become known as the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.

A life recalled

Damien joined DFB later that year and was posted to B watch Dorset Street for two years alongside Martin O’Brien, who he describes as one of the finest firefighters he ever worked with. It was during these initial years that he and Martin decided to launch a publication which started off as Brigade Call, eventually morphing into the magazine in your hands today. Having moved to Buckingham Street when Dorset Street closed, Damien began to move up through the ranks, first securing promotion to sub officer on B watch and then D watch, where he would remain for the best part of his career. Further promotions resulted in a move to Dún Laoghaire as station officer on D watch, and he retired from No 3 having served as a D/O on D and then C watch.

“Buckingham Street had an atmosphere that was incredible, really close,” he recalls. “When we went in there were stables, and they even had an open water storage tank in the yard that was made up during the war. We went on a fire call from Buckingham Street [one day], and when we came back they had a turntable ladder outside the door – the chimney had gone on fire in the station while we were out, and they had to turn out Tara Street!”

In early 1978, just after his return to the job following an ankle break, he was among those who responded to a fire at Burgerland on O’Connell Street. A number of children were reported to be trapped in a crèche on the top floor – Damien and several other firefighters, including sub officer Fergus Ingram, went in to rescue them, though they had to turn back due to the intense heat (later it emerged that the children had been removed safely from the burning building). During the mop up operation, while he was removing a neon sign with Tommy Giffney, the sign swung loose and spun Damien’s ladder. Falling heavily on the ground, he lost all sensation in his legs, and was rushed to Jervis Street.

Although he left the hospital later than evening on foot to catch a bus to Raheny, Damien later discovered, after a trip to climb the Nine Dragons in Hong Kong, raising funds for DEBRA Ireland with the assistance of DFB many years later, that the accident had resulted in several crushed discs in his back. Luckily a five hour operation proved successful and, despite an offer of early retirement, Damien returned to work, keen to get back to the job he loved.

That attitude was prevalent throughout his career – he enjoyed the varied life in Dublin Fire Brigade and all that came with it. “It’s all about being personable, how you deal with people,” he says. “When I worked on the ambulance, you could always get the homeless people on your side by getting them to sing a song; you’d have them roaring singing by the time you reach Jervis Street or one of the other hospitals. Things seemed to be more harmless then.”

It was also that personable attitude that resulted in an invitation to France on behalf of the French Fire Brigade. While he was serving in No 3 as a D/O, there was a knock at the door one day from a French firefighter and his wife. Having invited the visitors in for coffee, Damien then fired up the D/O’s car and brought them on a mini-tour of the city. Three weeks later Damien, alongside two other firefighters, received an invitation to France to take part in an event celebrating the French fire service. Welcomed as VIPs, they took part in a line up inspected by the president of the French fire brigade, the only non- French personnel given that honour.

Founding fathers

Alongside Brigade Call, as the Sports and Social Club publication was first known, Damien was also a founding member of another DFB institution – the Pipe Band, the result of a simple conversation with John McBride, sparked from marching behind a pipe band in the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day parade. “Did you ever get an idea that just lights you up, and you become so enthused with it that you’re thinking about it all of the time? That’s what happened there,” he says.

Getting the band up and running was no mean feat, particularly during the 1980s – set up costs were estimated at £40,000. Despite initial difficulties, a plan was enacted which involved a loan from the sports and social club, paid back through the weekly subscriptions of members, the same model still in use today. A committee was elected, with Damien taking the role of chairperson, and Joe Brennan acting as secretary. Joe, who later retired as a D/O in Finglas, was one of the driving forces behind the band’s success, alongside Barney Mulhall, Tony Daly (now deceased) and Gerry Aldwell.

Their first major event, however, almost ended in disaster. Joe Brennan was approached about a gig in the National Concert Hall, with a brochure and performers to be funded through advertising organised by an external company. Two weeks beforehand, they got a call to say that the deal was off. Damien was faced with paying Damien leading of the group, and with no mobile phones the phone was usually brought to the table. “By the end of the week these Russians thought I owned the city because ‘Damien, phone call for you’ – everybody knew me!” he explains.

Damien Fynes

Following the parade on St. Patrick’s Day, the group returned to Wynns Hotel where the visiting firefighters were staying, and Damien was summoned upstairs to attend to an urgent matter with one of the generals, bringing Peter Barriscale along with him for support. Both were brought to the general’s room and told to sit on the bed. Perhaps understandably uneasy and confused, they watched as the door suddenly burst open and a dancing Russian entered playing the accordion with great gusto, followed by the general in full dress uniform. It transpired that the generals had experienced such a great time, they wanted to present Damien with the Russian flag, a huge honour he was assured.

Their positive experience also meant that an invitation to Russia was extended to the band, and a group set off for Moscow from Shannon in May. Met at the airport by a Colonel from the Ministry of the Interior, they made an instant impression on several older women cleaning in the airport, who fled as the DFB contingent walked through. Confused, they asked what was going on. The colonel replied, saying “the last time they saw uniforms like yours, it was the Germans.”

During their tour around Moscow and its environs the DFB group were treated as the most important of VIPs, aided by the presence of General Rubtsov, a national hero – wined and dined at the opulent Chudov Monastery, shown around the Russian cosmonaut training centre, brought the transport costs of the Garda Band who had been hired to perform, and for the hall itself. The committee went into action. Tickets were drawn down and sold by members and the brochure was printed on a Communist Party print press, arranged by Tony Daly, who also took on the role as MC in the concert hall. In total, the band made £800 profit. Refusing to touch that money, he explains that he spent around two months’ worth of mortgage payments in buying drinks for those who helped make the night happen. “Without Ann’s involvement or without me putting my house on the line, it would never have happened,” he says.

Entertaining the Russians

One of Damien’s stand out memories is both highly entertaining and almost unbelievable. The year was 1993, the Cold War wasn’t long over, and American firefighters were coming to Dublin to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. In the spirit of reconciliation, an invitation was also extended to the Russian fire brigade through Ann’s brother-in-law, who had business in Russia, with their air tickets sponsored by another brother. Seventeen stepped off the plane in Shannon, including 13 generals and a member of the Ministry for the Interior (formerly the KGB), who sent a fax before their arrival requesting that his presence remain a secret. Included in the party was one General Rubtsov, who had received acclaim as the commander in charge of the fire in Chernobyl in 1986.

“That was the start of the biggest adventure of all,” Damien recalls. The following week would prove to be an interesting one, filled with sightseeing, functions in Guinness and the Russian embassy, and some memorable events that must remain untold. Damien was placed in charge of the Russian contingent, as it had been his idea to invite them over, showing them around the city and ensuring they were well fed (various establishments around the city fed the Russians at no cost). Damien often took calls at the restaurants or pubs from other members on a shopping expedition from which most members of the group returned with pairs of skis for $1 (despite the absence of snow in Ireland) and were guarded by a unit of Spetsnaz (Russian special forces) at their hotel throughout their stay.

During a visit to the fire brigade museum, they were shown a section containing all of the presents given to the general in Ireland, including a photo of Damien and the group. A musical session in Moscow’s Gorky Park with the Russian Army No 1 band and a feast at Mikhail Gorbachev’s summer home rounded off a trip that nobody involved has ever forgotten. Though another Russian visit to Ireland was planned, a visa issue meant that the Russians never boarded their plane, and they never heard from their friends in Moscow again.

Retired Life

These days, Damien still keeps busy. An active member of the Retired Members Association, he also continues his role as drum major with the Pipe Band, which says is still looking for recruits, and occasionally meets with firefighters from other countries, showing them around Dublin city. His sons Dan and Chris have both followed their father into the job, and he has shared with them his own personal motto – never take no for an answer, one that has served him well throughout the years in the fire brigade (and outside).

“As I said to Dan, if you’re going to be the boss, be the boss – take charge, do. Just because somebody tells you that it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it can’t,” he says. “The two things that I started, the magazine and the band, are still going strong. I’d like to think that I contributed something to the brigade. And how many people can say that?”