It all started way back in ‘89
There was ne’er a mention of a St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Castleisland until Aeneas and Helen Leane lobbied for support and mobilised the schools and the clubs for the first time ever in 1989.
It was successful well beyond all imaginings and has continued since.
At the time of going to print, arrangements were being made for Aeneas and Helen to be chauffeured through the town at the head of the parade for the foundation work they did all those years ago.
There were only two years that the event didn’t go ahead.
One of these was a misunderstanding between several local groups after the Leanes had retired; the other was the year of the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001.
Helen Hussey-Leane celebrated her 80th birthday just before Christmas and she thanks God daily for the good health He bestows on herself and Aeneas.
Helen was born on December 22-1936 and lived at the top-of-the-town with her parents, Maggie and Mick and her siblings. She had four brothers and one sister.
Helen married the love of her life, Aeneas Leane from Anna, Currow when she was 21. They have four children, seven grand-children and two great grand-children.
A community activist who never took no as a satisfactory answer, Helen was instrumental in getting Castleisland’s most famous landmark, The Fountain back into working order in the early 1970s.
The project achieved national notoriety as it was covered by Frank Hall’s Telifís Éireann evening programe, Hall’s Pictorial Weekly.
Frank Hall kept in touch with the Leanes over the years and, in fact, they were invited to his retirement party when he put his final ‘Pictorial Weekly’ to bed in 1986.
Helen’s is a well known face locally as she did the Bingo office for years.
“Castleisland is a great town and we have some wonderful friends and neighbours here and that is so important in life,” said Helen reflecting on her surroundings in the town she loves so well.
Aeneas Leane also celebrated a birthday recently. He was born on January 6, 1931.
While there have been some great people involved in the success of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Castleisland down through the years, it was indeed Helen and Aeneas Leane who got the patriotic feet on the street away back in 1989.