A life full to the brim with achievement
THEY don’t make them like Des Burton anymore, that’s one thing for sure. The Aughrim resident and Glencree native was announced as the winner of the Lifetime Achievement award at the recent Wicklow GAA County Convention in the county buildings and it’s very fitting that the word ‘achievement’ is in the title of the award.
When any of us reach a certain stage in our lives it’s likely that some of our thoughts will dwell on the road we have travelled and the decisions we have made.
From a brief sit-down with Des Burton, it’s easy to imagine that his reflections on his past will fill him with a great sense of pride and a huge feeling of satisfaction.
Des Burton has drunk deeply from the cup of life. He has tasted many delights, successes, joys, disappointments, losses, despairs. He has lived to the full. He has seized the day. He has left nothing on the field.
Hailing from a place called Curtlestown, half-way between Glencree and Enniskerry, Des has always been a man of the land, working the rich soil of north Wicklow for many years before moving south to a hillside above Aughrim with stunning views, where on a clear day you can see the Irish sea, the odd big ship and on special days the coastline of Wales.
Des Burton is a gentleman. Softly spoken and kind, he never fails to greet you with warmth and sincerity. There’s always a smile, a glint in the eye, a spark, a willingness to share, to chat, to debate, to explore.
We meet on a dark December night at his beautiful home, the gorgeous views consumed by the blackness, the inside lights golden against the cold world, the sounds of children playing happily within crossing the tidy yard.
“Come in, come in,” we are told. Solid handshake, busy house, rich scents of a hearty dinner hang in the warm air. Slow cooking. You are welcome in this house. You can’t fake that. It’s either there or it’s not and it’s very much there in the Burton house.
That gentle exterior of Des Burton belies a tough character. You don’t farm all your life without intelligence and strength. You don’t hurl across six decades without courage and determination. You don’t win GAA titles in four counties without ability. And you don’t raise a beautiful family and be regarded as an incredibly important person in two communities without being a good man. And Des Burton is a good man.
How does winning the Lifetime Achievement award sit with him?
“Well, I was very surprised really because I consider myself just the same as anybody else. Everybody is voluntary in this organisation and I get great enjoyment out of it. Particularly meeting people from other clubs, it’s a great source of... you’re on a farm and you don’t meet anyone for a week and then you meet someone from Donard or someone from Dunlavin or wherever. It’s a great social thing. I used to enjoy that,” said Des.
Des has played GAA in four counties, Wicklow, Dublin, Kildare and Monaghan. He has a Senior hurling medal with Leixlip in Kildare, a Minor medal from Monaghan, a Senior hurling league medal from Dublin and a host of titles from his beloved Garden County, including two Senior hurling crowns with the Bray club St Kevin’s, in 1961 and 1963. In 1961, Des lined out at centre-half back against Forestry College and St Kevin’s scored eight goals to seal a sensational and record victory.
He began his GAA journey with Bray Emmets in 1954.
“I would have started playing hurling and football in 1954. I used to cycle eight miles to Bray that time to play with Bray Emmets. I was from Glencree and I had to cycle though Enniskerry. Then I was playing with Enniskerry at under-13 and under-14. Then we won a championship under Kilmacanogue, they were in the same parish, and we won the first championship at under-14 in 1955, we beat Dunlavin, that was our first championship. That was played in Aughrim. We marched behind the band that day and we thought we were 10 feet tall. It was something else. There’s no photographs or anything,” he said.
“Then we won a Junior; Enniskerry had started an adult team in 1957. We won the Minor with Enniskerry in 1958, we beat St Pat’s. I won a Minor championship in 1959 with Knockatallon/Scotstown in Monaghan and played Minor for the Monaghan county team in 1959. I was in the agricultural college in Monaghan town.
“The following year I moved back and I was working in CPI in Lucan and stopping in Leixlip and I won a Senior hurling championship in Kildare with Leixlip. Came back the following year then and I won the championship with St Kevin’s and in 1962 I won a Junior with Enniskerry, won an Intermediate with Enniskerry in 1963, won the Senior hurling championship – the double – the same year with St Kevin’s, that was a tough match.
Then in 1965, I won an inter-district championship and I had to wait then until 1980, when Enniskerry won a Junior championship after being beaten two or three years in a row. I had to wait from that then until 2008 to get a Junior championship with Aughrim,” he added.
That’s a journey and a half, in fairness. It’s the briefest snapshot of a playing career filled with highs and lows and gut-bursting dedication, friendships, tough blows, dirty digs (received only of course!), big scores and a lifetime of achievement.
Off the pitch, Des was just as busy. Whether it was with Enniskerry or Aughrim or the county, he was never found wanting.
“In the meantime, I would have spent about 10 years coaching Aughrim. I coached them to win the Intermediate championship (hurling) in 1986 along with Liam O’Loughlin and they went up Senior then, the first time they were Senior. I was 10 years with the adult team.
“I would have started helping out then (with the county). I would have been collecting on the gate from the late 70s to 2010, on the road that time, with a bag, and then to the turnstiles. I mowed the pitch down there (Aughrim) in the 1980s when Liam O’Loughlin was County Chairman, when there was no one else to mow it. I spread fertiliser for two years on it.
“I was Chairman of the Aughrim club in the early 1990s and I have been President of the Enniskerry club for the last 35 years. I’ve been treasurer, vice-chairman, captain. I would have represented Wicklow in Minor hurling and senior hurling in the early 60s. I would have represented Wicklow in Senior cross county, represented Kildare and have Senior cross country with Kildare and won an Ulster high jump title when I was in Monaghan. And I won a cross country youths championship when I was in the agricultural college in Monaghan, St Patrick’s College.
“I spent 10 years on management. Three years as county youths officer. I spent seven years on Leinster Council. I still help out, at gates and whenever I’m wanted,” he said.
In his early years, Des Burton was as busy on the field as off it. He’s held many roles and positions in his entertaining and fulfilled years on this planet, from movie extra to bouncer to farmer to grocer. From all those jobs he has a wealth of stories to tell and if we had the time and space we’d gladly bring them all to life on this page but, sadly, space is limited. But we’ll let Des describe some of his roles and some of the events of those formative years.
“I lived in a place called Curtlestown, three miles from Enniskerry and three miles from Glencree. I had a shop in Enniskerry for a few years, groceries and everything. I enjoyed that. There wasn’t much money in it because the supermarkets took over. That was in the 1970s, early 80s.
“I bought the farm here in 1983 and moved to Aughrim. It was purely for farming reasons because I used to have a small farm, 22 or 23 cows and a few acres of raspberries, do a bit of landscape gardening to keep going, and I used to do bouncer in a nightclub with my brother and a brother-inlaw of his for a few years. That was a tough time I can tell you. I would have done a bit of boxing. I was agile and very fit.
“I got loads of jobs on films. I was on the first film ever made in Ardmore, ‘Shake hands with the Devil’. James Cagney was in that. We had him in a horse and cart between shots.
“I was on ‘The Blue Max’. Ursula Andress was in that, and James Mason and George Peppard. That was very good. I enjoyed that. We’d be mingling with them, sitting down between shots. Ursula Andress was a lovely person. I had a Collie dog and she’d sit beside me when we were waiting between shots.
“There were loads of films in Glencree as well. I was on ‘Black Beauty’ as well. I’m probably boring you now.
“I would have run with Bray Harriers that time, they had an athletic club and then we started in Enniskerry. I was very involved in Macra as well, sheep judging and stock judging in the 60s with Macra. I was into everything and I enjoyed it. We started a branch of Macra na Tuaithe in Enniskerry.
“Macra was brilliant in the early years, in the 50s and 60s when a lot of farmers would have had very little education. Like, I left school when I was 12 and a half, and I was about 15 or 16 when I went to Monaghan. I happened to win a scholarship. I had to go into Wicklow town and do an exam and that was great, to get away.
There were about 40 young lads there. There was a priest over us, Fr. McDermott, he was a lovely man, taught me a lot in discipline and how to manage yourself. I looked up to him a lot. He was very firm and very straight. If you were messing at night-time you were stopped a half day from going out. A good man. He could do everything that time, teach you how to weld and all.
“I would have been a fairly strong runner. I was very athletic. Playing hurling, I would have been first out to the ball and take all the punishment that was being given, you were taking big punishment back then. I often said to Liam O’Loughlin – I’d be great friends with Liam – that there were two ways of playing hurling years ago: If you were playing on a gentleman, you could play like a gentleman. He could beat you for nine balls out of the 10 and you’d shake his hand. If you’re playing on a bowsy, you play like a bowsy. When you’re standing out there and a fellow buries the hurl into your stomach and you’re doubled over getting sick and they say, “we’ll take you off”; No! They wouldn’t take Desso Burton off because the devil would be in me.
“Jack Martin would have been very tough, from Newtown, big man. I played with Billy Hilliard, tough as nails but a great sportsman. Jimmy Hatton, I played with him, too, and Paddy Mulligan of Kilmacanogue. There were a lot of smashing players that time.
“I would have been better at hurling than football. I played Senior football, would have played on Joe Fitzpatrick, a Railway Cup man, in the Senior championship of 1964. I would have played on plenty of good footballers and I would have been first to the ball but I wouldn’t have considered myself a footballer. But hurling, yes, I would have been much better.
“I came back then (from Monaghan) and went to work in Davy Browne’s Tractors in Dominic Street. I demonstrated tractors all over the country. After that I went to work in CPI and stayed in Leixlip.
“We won the senior hurling title in Kildare. We beat Broadford in the final. We used to play the Air Corp and the Cadets with their crew cuts. I normally played centre-back for Leixlip. Just the one year up there.
“There’d always be a pull to come back to your own club, Enniskerry and St Kevin’s. I would have had the cousins on the Kevin’s team.
“In 1967 we (Enniskerry) met Kevin’s in a north Junior football final, Kevin’s had started a football team at the time. I was captain of the St Kevin’s hurling team and captain of the Enniskerry football team in the same year, that’s the gospel truth. There was a cousin of mine playing against me that day.
In between the working and the hurling and the football it’s truly amazing that Des found time for the bit of romance. But find time he did and he captured the heart of a wonderful Cavan woman called Josephine who had arrived down to Enniskerry to take up a position in a shop in the village
“She came to work in a shop in Enniskerry from Cavan. That’s how we met. Married in 1971. Three children, two girls and a boy. Laura teaches in Aughrim. Maria, her eldest girl plays with Knockananna, and Manus plays with Ballymanus and Kiltegan. Irene lives in a bungalow down here with her partner John Kinsella. Ronan, our only son, he’s in Sligo, working in a place in Leitrim, they do stone carving. Brilliant at doing stone walls,” said Des proudly.
The increase in traffic in the north of the county prompted Des to seek a new home and before long he settled high on the hills over Aughrim with sweeping views of the valley below and the Irish sea off in the distance. It is a magical place.
“It was a big change. It gave me great scope. The farm was off the road and I had been farming beside the road up in Curtlestown and the traffic got too much so I had to give up milking cows. It got too difficult to hunt cows on the road so I gave up the dairying. I had about 30 acres. I used to have to drive the cows a good bit on the road.
“I loved Aughrim. Straight away I got in to coaching and they got me to look after the adult team and we won the Intermediate hurling against Carnew; it wasn’t easy to beat them. Very good hurling team that time we had. We should have won the Senior that time. If the lads had believed in themselves more. We were able to compete with Kiltegan and Glenealy that time. Aughrim were a bit wayward in those terms, lads didn’t believe, they didn’t have any tradition. I mean, I seen Carnew coming when I was hurling, they weren’t in it, Billy Hilliard would have been on it, and all of a sudden, they started coming in 1965 and won a rake of championships.
“I must say I loved Aughrim and I got straight into it. Outside the school I would have coached young lads and we went to the Féile in 1988 and Shane O’Loughlin would have been on that team, and Pat Bracken and a lot of good hurlers and we got to the semi-final down in Roscrea. We were building up the whole time. At the moment they have brilliant underage teams and they’ve put an awful lot in. Where the adult end of it is struggling, the others will come,” he added.
Out of all the victories, the championships, the leagues, the cups, what is the one win that gives him the most satisfaction or pleasure?
“The one that gave me the most satisfaction was winning the Junior hurling with Enniskerry in 1980 because we had been beaten the two previous years. We had two Tipperary lads who played all up along with us, two Hogans, and one played for the county team, Martin, played for Wicklow and had played Minor for Tipperary. And they had left us the year before to go back to Tipperary and lo and behold we won it. And, that gave me the greatest satisfaction. I was nearly 40. I had broken my leg in 1977, the semi-final. The following year they coaxed me back to play in goals and the following year they got me back to play out the field.
“I was 16 weeks in plaster in 1977 and I had 10 acres of spuds in that year and 28 lads from Enniskerry came up three Saturdays in a row and picked the spuds. Do you think lads would come up now? Every one of them came up for three Saturdays and picked the spuds. 28 lads from within the club.
“That gave the most satisfaction because I got so much hardship. Now, the Junior didn’t mean that much to me because I had a Senior, but I got more satisfaction from that than anything else.
“We had been beaten by Hollywood and Avoca and met Kilbride then the third year. That particular team had Dave Power who played a good bit with us. His brother was Ger Power who won eight All-Irelands with Kerry. His father was Jackie Power who won All-Irelands with Limerick and there’s a statue in a village in Limerick of Jackie Power, one of the greatest hurlers of all time,” he added.
Des Burton’s administration career was a long and healthy one and it is where he made a huge impression on the GAA people of Wicklow. One man whom he served with certainly earned his praise but he remembers plenty of good and intelligent people in the various positions in the County Board over the years.
“I enjoyed that (the administration). As I said there the other week, Andy O’Brien would have been one of the people I would have looked up to.
“He had great time for people. He wouldn’t pass the person on the gate that was doing the simplest of jobs, he’d have a minute for them, and that’s the sign of a decent person. Very intelligent, brought a lot of new things to the table,” said Des.
Alas, our time with Des Burton is up and we must bid him farewell on the dark and cold December night. On January 20, in the Arklow Bay Hotel, Des will collect the Lifetime Achievement award for all his wonderful work on the field and off of it in every corner of the county of Wicklow.
In a playing career spanning six decades he represented his county and his clubs with the utmost pride and passion and dedication. A more apt candidate for this award you would be hard to find.
Des stands at the door to his beautiful home as we head down the hill towards Aughrim. He waves farewell before turning and retiring to the comfort and warmth of his kitchen.
We would do well to appreciate men like Des Burton. They are few and far between.
There were two ways of playing hurling years ago: If you were playing on a gentleman, you could play like a gentleman. He could beat you for nine balls out of the 10 and you’d shake his hand. If you were playing on a bowsy, you played like a bowsy.