THE DIARY
St Patrick’s school student Paddy McCloskey cleared a site and helped sell the vegetables
IT would take a book itself to tell the full story of Paddy McCloskey, but looking back through the files of the DI, I came across a great feature from exactly 40 years ago, an interview between Paddy and George Hussey.
Paddy built an empire on hard work, but as he explained, a moment from his childhood helped inspire that ethic.
He was educated in the old St Patrick’s school under headmaster Bill Allen.
Part of the school curriculum was the clearing and cultivating of an old thornstrewn site at the site of the old jail, now Eddie’s Hardware.
‘It made us tough,’ Paddy recalled, pulling down giant thorn bushes, clearing the site, planting vegetables, looking after them and then selling them.
He left school at 14 to work on a parcel van with his dad and the firm of Wordies horse-drawn carriers. But he said his first ‘real job’ was as a driver with Charles Markey at Glaspistol, Clogherhead, who owned a fleet of lorries and the first man in Ireland to own a Charabang.
Paddy adored lorries and when Wordies was absorbed by GNR, who developed their own transport, his father bought hin a motor lorry from Halpennys of Blackrock, Dundalk, who operated the Violet bus service.
The McCloskeys shifted their home from the North Road to Stockwell Street and finally to Dublin Road and when the father died in 1926, the three lads continued the business as agents to the London and North Western Railway and then B&I.
McCloskeys motor vehicles carried the slogan, ‘Anything, Anytime, Anywhere’ and Paddy says people could set their watch by their promptness.
The workers included the likes of Billy Owens from the North Road, Pat Hamill, Stockwell St, ‘Budge’ Newman of Sampson’s Lane, Frank Cassidy, Hardman’s Gardens and Nobbie Cluskey from Stockwell St.
They delivered merchandise from ships like the Colleen Bawn and the Mellifont who plied their trade between Drogheda and Liverpool.
They bought the lease on the old jail in Scarlet St and used it to repair lorries and developed links in Skerries, Dundalk, Carrick, Monaghan, Mullingar and Dublin, a far cry from the days one horse-drawn cart.
Paddy was the traffic manager and brothers, Leo and Frank, directors. They provided a round the clock service and business was flourishing.
Then in 1934, GNR, who were losing out badly to the local company, came calling.
They met around a table in Westmoreland Street and it was agreed - GNR would buy the McCloskey business for £50,000, a huge sum then.
So how did life change for the brothers? Frank branched out on his own, based out of Mornington, buying a number of lorries.
Leo retired, went to Spain to fight for Franco, came back and worked for Texaco and Superquinn.
Paddy’s era wasn’t over. The GNR got him to come and work for them and he was in charge of their entire fleet, north and south. He was District Manager in 1960 when CIE took over. When he decided to retire in 1967, the ink was hardly dry when the Willie O’Neill, later GM of Irish Shipping, came and asked him to stay on - the only person back then they ever requested to stay on.
Paddy married Veronica Murphy from Rostrevor in 1936 and the fanily consisted of Sr Colette, Fidelma, Paddy, Malachy and Phelim, who themselves need little introduction as local business people of note.
Paddy was a man of vision and courage in the lean years between the wars. He had a slogan ‘Prevent Monopoly’ and always said competition was great and spurred him on even more.
In his later years, Paddy tended to his garden in Baltray and even got an honour from Bord Failte for it.