Former St Joseph’s student died in air crash during filming
THE old boys from St Joseph’s Secondary School, now on the Termonfeckin Road but once based in the centre of town, went off to enjoy some lives and careers.
But was any more daring than Comdt. Jim Liddy.
He resided for several years in Drogheda in the early 1940s, while his father was Chief Superintendent of the Garda Siochana locally. Seamus, as he was known locally, was educated in Drogheda C.B.S., from which he entered the Army Cadet School. A noted runner, he won the Leinster Colleges’ half mile championships and established a record which stood for 10 years.
A leading member of the old Drogheda Athletic Club, he took part in races with the likes of Christy Quigley, Tom Collins, Prank Heslin, Tom Lynch and Billy Gavin.
Jim’s mother, Nan Breen, had been Ireland’s first female dentist and wanted her son to follow in her footsteps. He had no such interest and served in the Army during the Emergency, transferring to the Air Corps in 1945. Jim flew such planes as Spitfires and Hurricanes and for a short time in the early 1950s was a pilot for Aer Lingus, when Air Corps pilots were seconded to the national airline. However, the daily tedium of being a civilian pilot didn’t appeal and he returned to the Air Corps.
When the Air Corps got its first jets, Vampires, in 1956, he flew those, then flew operationally with the UN in Lebanon. He had his lucky escapes - notably when his plane crashed into a hillside near Shannon. Lucky Jim, who was trapped by his shoes in the wreckage, managed to escape before the aircraft blew up, although he was caught in the blast. The sole survivor of the crash, he was badly burned in the explosion and had to have 165 stitches in his head. But he was back flying within three months.
He was addicted to flying; it must run in the family, because Jim’s brother Jack joined the RAF. When Jack was based in north Wales, flying jets, the two brothers met at 7,500 metres (about 25,000 ft) over the middle of the Irish Sea, for mock dog-fights!
However, his luck ran out in 1970, when aerial scenes for a film called Zeppelin were being filmed off Wicklow Head. A helicopter being used in filming the aerial sequences collided with Jim’s plane and all crew were lost.
Jim died with Mr. Burch Williams, producer of Shillelagh Productions, Dublin; a cameraman, Mr. Skeets Kelly, and Mr. Gilbere Ghromat, French pilot of the helicopter.