Postman Mick puts his stamp on retirement
IRELAND’S longest-serving postman has finally hung up his satchel after 52 years.
Kilkenny postman Mick Cahill, started off as a telegram boy in 1966, when Seán Lemass was Taoiseach, and spent many years being bitten by dogs... until he learned a survival trick.
He said: ‘I was never afraid of the dogs because I always carried a packet of biscuits with me. I had all the dogs ruined. I got bitten around nine or ten times over the years. Nothing that needed stitches. Just a few tetanus injections.’
Mick, who spent the last 14 years of his career in Freshford, Co. Kilkenny, said that he believes letters will soon go the way of the telegram as digital technology replaces paper services.
However, he says parcels have become a huge part of the postman’s job, a claim backed up by An Post which said that Amazon and other online shopping companies have led to a resurgence in the postal service.
Mick said he is used to new technology and remembers how telegrams died out when more people got phones.
‘I was 15 when I started delivering telegrams around Kilkenny. The telegrams are gone now. They were only out then because the majority of people didn’t have a phone ,’ he said.
He added: ‘Now, the letters have gone down a lot and the parcels are up. You have to deliver the parcels, but letters could be a thing of the past one day.’
Now the father of three, and grandfather to three more, plans to spend his spare time watching sport.
He said: ‘I follow the hurling and the soccer. I played with O’Loughlin Gaels in Kilkenny and Freebooters AFC, so I’ll support them more now.’