Dreams DO come true as Jim gets polishing ‘lost’ car
POIGNANT KILSHARVAN HOUSE WELCOME FOR A ‘LOST’ FRIEND
SIXTY-FIVE years after starting a cleaning job on an historic V8 car, Jim Pickens got to finish the job last Saturday.
And he was delighted to see the vintage vehicle, once owned by a WWII hero, back in its ancestral home of Kilsharvan House – even if it was just for a short few hours.
The car seemed destined to be confined to a rusty end, until Jonesboro man Thomas Morgan rescued it from a shed in Tallanstown and immaculately restored it to its prime.
For Jim, who cleaned the car as a boy when it was in the ownership of Mrs Woods of Kilsharvan, it was like meeting a piece of his childhood again.
IT WAS like meeting an old friend you felt you would never seen again. Decades may have passed, but for Jim Pickens, it was a case of ‘get me a cloth - I have work to do!.’
It was 65 years ago when he first took on the task of washing and polishing the famed V8 at Kilsharvan House.
It had been owned in England by Robert McDonnell, an army man, who was killed in North Africa during WWII.
It returned to the McDonnell family at Kilsharvan - believed to be in the 1940s - and remained there for decades.
It was then that a young Jim got the task of cleaning it. His family lived in a house beside Kilsharvan and he recalled that Mrs Woods would often drive him to mass in the vehicle.
But when the house was sold, the car went wth it, up on 40 years ago.
Edwin Bothwell in Tallanstown was the buyer and he tried to do it up, but gradually it fell into disrepair.
Fast forward to a few years ago and Armagh man Thomas Morgan came across it.
He purchased the car - which was in a poor state - and decided to bring it back to life.
Bit by bit, he restored it, learned of its history and some day dreamed of bringing it ‘ back home’ to Kilsharvan.
Last Saturday morning - for a few hours - that happened.
When Jim Pickens saw it for the first time in many years he could hardly believe it.
‘It looks a lot better now,’ the Laytown resident stated. ‘I never thought I’d see it again.’
Dominic Hoey was another who recalled it, stating he was delighted to see the condition it was now in.
For Thomas Morgan, the man behind the restoration, it was sweet.
‘I have to thank the Duffy family for letting me bring it back to where it came from,’ he stated. ‘It has a great history.’
He spent many long hours bringing it back to its best but admits it was all worth it.
‘It is rare, I think there’s only one other like it in Tipperary and there’s just a handful in the UK.’
It appears while stationed in Dorset in England in 1936, the car was bought by Lt Robert Edward McDonnell of Kilsharvin House.
But within five years, Robert, who was a member of the famed ‘Desert Rats’ - fighting in Libya in WWII - was dead, killed in action. He was just 25.
Trying to trace the journey of his car, from Dorset to Kilsharvin in the years hence, has become a labour of love for Thomas.
The car was originally black but somewhere along the line it was painted a military green colour.
The next owner on the logbook is Mrs Senta Woods, firstly at Milverton, Skerries and then Kilsharvan, in 1955.
The McDonnell family had a great military history with Robert Edward following in the footsteps of his father, Lieutenant Colonel John McDonnell, who was killed in action in September 1918 during the First World War. Robert was just three at the time.
He went to school in Winchester, England, going on to Sandhurst in 1933 and joined the 8th King’s (Royal Irish) Hussars in 1935, when he was 20. He went on to serve in Palestine.
He saw active service in North Africa from 1939, and attached to the headquarters of 7th Armoured Division, the famous ‘Desert Rats’ he was present during the successful campaign in Cyrenaica (Libya) of early 1941.
ITISRARE. I THINK THERE’S ONLY ONE OTHER LIKE IT IN TIPPERARY AND A HANDFUL IN THE UK
The 7th Armoured Division pressed onwards south-west towards Tripoli and Tunisia.
On February 11th, Robert McDonnell was severely wounded in a bombing attack in Benghazi, struck in the legs by a blast from an aerial mine. He died five days later and is buried in Benghazi War Cemetery.
Eva Margaret Senta Woods, his mother, died on May 9 1969.
The Ford V8 has a top speed of 25 miles an hour and ‘drinks petrol’ and has the original body and engine. ‘It has about 50,000 miles on the clock and has been off the road since the 60s,’ Thomas added.
He plans to hold onto the car but says parts can be a problem, with the latest one having to come from the USA.