A man of substance
Popular ‘Johnno’ leaves legacy of service to Aughrim
THE funeral cortege travelled over the Rednagh Road, slowed to a crawl, and turned left into the Aughrim Community Sportsfield.
As the hearse came into view, the waiting people fell silent. The cortege travelled down past the Sports Complex building as far as the river-side carpark and came back up through two lines of committee members and people from the Aughrim Community who were there to pay their final respects.
Earlier in the day, Aughrim GAA Club had organised the lining of the route from John’s home to the Sacred Heart Church in Aughrim for his private funeral mass. Many people from the Aughrim community joined to pay their respects to John.
As the cortege passed through, a respectful but sustained round of applause was the final farewell given to John O’Shea as the funeral cortege of family went on to Macreddin Cemetery, where ‘Johnno’ was laid to rest at a private family burial.
John O’Shea – Forester – arrived with his family in Aughrim in 1977. He had been posted to Glenmalure Forest, where he would spend the remainder of his career in Forestry until his retirement 22 years later.
That career began in Shelton
Abbey near Arklow, where he joined the incoming class of 1959. When he graduated, he was appointed to Glendalough and lived in Moneystown. Having married Ann in 1965, he was transferred back to his native Cork and remained there until he arrived back in Wicklow in 1977.
His arrival was fortunate for the then Aughrim Hurling Club. They had won a Junior hurling championship in 1976 and went on to win an Intermediate title in 1979. More importantly, they had put in place a juvenile coaching programme and Johnno wholeheartedly threw his shoulder to the wheel. Juvenile championship titles, Feile trips, Minor hurling championships (2) all came Aughrim’s way and another Intermediate title came in 86. By now the club was catering for football as well and Johnno was totally immersed in all of this.
The Community Field project was up and running and involved massive fundraising with Lord Mayor competitions and talent competitions in conjunction with an Annual Festival which ran for many years.
The Sports Club Lotto came on the scene in the mid 90s. It provided funding for the day to day running of the GAA club, camogie club and soccer club. One quarter of the funding was saved for a future project around the Community Field.
When the opportunity arose to purchase the property from the St Laurence O’Toole Trust, the funding was already in place. Johnno was one of the three trustees appointed to hold the property in trust for the Aughrim Community.
By now moves were afoot to build a new Sports Complex and Johnno was very much part of the drive to put in place funding prior to the application for National Lottery funding. He was now retired from the forestry and treasurer of the Field Committee.
The suspension of the National Lotto funding, following the financial crash of 2008, meant the committee had to put in place a plan ‘B’ to finish the project. However, wise use of funding and a marvellous effort by skilled volunteers ensured that the project was completed.
While everyone was very proud of the success of the venture, none was happier than Johnno. He continued to serve on the committee and was assistant treasurer at the time of his death.
We will all miss the red Opel coming down to Londis of a weekday morning, going into Teresa to collect ‘the paper’ (Examiner – Corkman after all!), and then he would drive on over to ‘the Field’ to check how things were going with Katherine and Martin.
We will also greatly miss the craic at the weekly lotto draw meetings on a Monday night. Ann is treasurer and Johnno got involved through helping her. His Cork accent continued to stump us all, right to the end. That delighted him greatly.
Johnno died at St Vincent’s on May 5 after a short illness. His death was a shock to his family and indeed to the whole community.
He leaves behind a great legacy of service to the Aughrim community and his family can feel proud that he continued to serve right to the end. Sincere sympathy is extended to his wife Ann, and children Paul, Kieran, Sean, Angela and Barry, and to all the extended O’Shea families.
Johnno certainly left his mark.