After retirement, I felt I should do something – Christianity in action
allocated for it and a site was got on Connaughton Road, as was a design. “The money seemed to be diverted to the building of the Model, which is of course a superb facility.
“There are very few towns in Ireland with such a gallery. It has Yeats paintings and many other treasures. “There is a plan now to turn the old Stephen Street church, currently the library, into a museum and build a separate library.
“Sligo Library is thriving, but a museum would be special for the town. “There are some great local items that should be in a museum in Sligo. “Much of the Yeats family material and the Moylough belt shrine are all in Dublin. A statue of St Molaise is also in Dublin. They need to be brought back home to Sligo.
“The old church in Sligo is owned by Sligo County Council. And there are two carvings in that church that were made by Pádraig Pearse’s father.”
IN 1997, Larry was closely involved with marking the 150th anniversary of the Famine in Sligo. He was on the committee with, among others, Joe McGowan. Larry said: “There was no commemoration in 1947 because the memories were too close and it was still too raw. “The All-Ireland final that year, between Kerry and Cavan, was held in the Polo Grounds in New York in memory of those who had left the country during the Famine.
“I first met Joe McGowan through his books – he has a lovely, lyrical style of writing.
“I proofread his last book for him. It is due to come out later this month. “The idea came from Joe as it usually does and when he gets an idea he usually sticks with it.
“So, we set up a committee and I was treasurer.
“We thought we should remember the 30,000 people who left the port of Sligo during the Famine.
“And we should also remember the Famine Graveyard which was near the workhouse in Sligo outside St Joseph’s Church in Ballytivnan.
“There was a graveyard there, but nobody knew anything about it. “There could be up to 2,000 buried there. But there was no mark or sign to remember them.
“We decided to put a monument up down at Quayside.
“The bronze monuments were not cheap.
“We did the Famine family on the Quays – Niall Bruton made it. It shows a father, mother and a child pointing west to the safety of America. It cost €25,000.
“Joe Kennedy, a Sligo native from Doocastle, was very kind to us and he paid for the Famine Family. It evoked a memory in him of his own emigration to America as a young man. “Niall told us that he could do gates at the Famine graveyard in the form of a cross, with skeleton heads and on the bottom green shoots coming up to show that out of death comes new life. “The gates cost €20,000.”
“Fred Conlon did the bronze monument inside the graveyard.
“It all came to between €70,000 and €80,000. Sligo County Council contributed €20,000.
“We got it all finished in 1997 and we had a big launch – it was very successful. We actually got a lady who was reared in the workhouse to launch it.” Larry was also involved in a Millenium Project with more or less the same committee to make a memorial for Countess Markievicz.
He said: “She was a remarkable woman and there was no specific monument to her.
“This was a tougher project as she was seen as a founder of Fianna 086 816 5325 / 087 256 9959 Fáil – so the project became a bit political locally.
“John Coll designed the monument, which is in Rathcormac. It is also in bronze.
“The land belongs to the Rathcormac Development Association. They wanted it brought out to that site and they were a great help to us.
“We could not get a suitable site in town. We had hoped to put it outside the Town Hall but it would just not work.
“The council pointed out a lot of potential pitfalls. You could not put it in areas where children would be as they would be climbing up on it.
“We had a meeting with the association and all aspects of society were well represented.”
“That was in the year 2000. Joe said to me write to all the gentry of the county. Sir Josslyn Gore Booth’s sister Eirenice Gore Booth was very interested in it and she came to our meetings. She was a great help to us. “The whole thing cost us around €100,000. We got €30,000 from the Millenium and another €30,000 from the county council.
“I remember sending a letter to a fellow in London. That was David Gore Booth. He replied with a contribution. “They were debating it at the council and of course arguing. So I went to the meeting, where they had to make a decision and I had a copy of David Gore Booth’s letter with me.
“I gave it to every councillor and told them the tide had swung in favour of the monument. I hope you will all vote for it, I said. And they did.
“We got the rest of the money from various sources – Charles Haughey sent on £100.
“The monument was not fully installed until 2002 as we had to get planning permission and jump through a few more hoops.
“We had a big gathering in 2002. The late Pádraig Branley was there as Mayor. It was a great day. The Rathcormac people were great and they now look after the monument. “I would dismiss the suggestion that Countess Markievicz shot a British soldier on Easter Monday – that has not been proven.
“She was a great patriot. She was great for the poor and the disadvantaged, and the monument embodies all her qualities.
“She died in poor circumstances in a public ward, and she had been born with so many advantages. She is buried in the republican plot in Glasnevin.
“Her generation had some exceptional leaders. When a revolutionary fervour rises it lifts everything.
“The tragedy of it was that the Civil War decimated all of that great energy and tore so much apart.
“But the sacrifice of the men of 1916
“I had David Gore Booth’s letter and told the councillors the tide had swung in favour of the monument. I hope you will all vote for it, I said. And they did”
remains undimmed. It was, of course, the supreme sacrifice.
“That was Pearse’s idea when he said that the green land of Ireland must be revived by the red blood of Irish men.
“Soon after the monument project was finished, I discovered that there was a school in Warsaw called the Countess Markievicz School.
“They wrote a letter to the press saying they wanted contact with an Irish school but there had been no response. “I organised for a group of 16 young students from Warsaw to visit. They visited all the sights in Sligo.
“I told them the story of the Mass rock in the Glen in Penal Law times. “I recited a poem called Anseo I Lár An Ghleanna for them. It is about an old man who dresses up as a priest and sacrifices himself to the Redcoats so the young priest can go free.
“They hanged the old man. That happened in the 1740s.”
Larry recited Anseo I Lár An Ghleanna for me. Some believe it originated near Geevagh.
Larry said: “The Polish students told us that they had a similar story about a Polish priest called Fr Maximilan Kolbe in Auschwitz. He took the place of a young man, who had a young family. He was executed. He was later canonised as a saint. “I was also involved in Sligo Social Services. They had a night shelter in a bungalow near St John’s Hospital.
“It was the late Bishop Christy Jones, before he was a bishop, who organised this night shelter.
“The then North Western Health Board agreed to build the house but they would not staff it.
“I volunteered to do that at night, and I was there for nearly 20 years. “This was from the 1980s to the 2000s. It catered for people who were homeless and on the street.
“I used to volunteer one night a month. The people who availed of this service were well mannered generally. But alcoholism is a terrible thing. And we have an ambivalence towards it. “I had an accident last year and I fell outside the house. But I was doing street collections for Social Services up until fairly recently.”
Larry was also involved in Meals on Wheels.
HE SAID: “I resolved when I retired in 2004 that anything I would do after that would be voluntary. “Some people don’t start really working until they retire.
“I did Meals on Wheels for 12 years every week out around CooleraStrandhill in my own car. I felt I should do something – Christianity in action.” Larry returned to history.
He said: “Sligo Gaol is a great asset, and it could be a great tourist attraction if it were properly developed. Frank Carty escaped from that jail in his time.
“My number one republican is Billy Pilkington, who later became a priest. “During the Civil War, when word came to Eoghan MacNeill of the then Free State Government that his son Brian was shot in Sligo fighting for the republicans, he told the mother what had happened, and Brian’s name was never again mentioned.
“There were two other brothers fighting for the Free State.
“Brian was an uncle of former PD leader Michael McDowell.
Larry he has been doing a lot of work with Sligo Volunteer Centre. He said: “The Volunteer Centre meets regularly. A girl called Ciara Herity does great work. It deals with vetting.
“Marian Harkin is very much into volunteering. She is the centre’s honorary president.
“In 2017, Sligo was chosen as European Volunteering Capital. That was a big year for us, and I was chairman of the Volunteer Centre at the time.”
Larry has also been involved with the Northside Centre in Sligo.
He said: “Johnny Stanford is a great character up there and I knew the people there from school in Ballinode. “There is a men’s group there, a history has been produced, and classes were given for the refugees from Globe House.
“There were after-school clubs and various youth clubs. There was a Fás scheme too.
“Today we have a full-time manager, a part-time financial controller and a part-time manager of the centre.
“It is going well – or it was until the pandemic arrived.
Larry is also on the board of management of St Edward’s National School and is a member of Comhrá, an Irish-language group that used to meet regularly.
Larry said: “Volunteering is great for your mental health.
I am also a member of Probus, an organisation for retired men. It was set up by Rotary. It is a social outlet. I joined the year after I retired and I have been there ever since.
“We do the Talking Newspaper for the blind, and you need three or four people for this. You need someone to pick out the stories and three or four people to read them.
“We do it from various venues and we now have a room in Gillooley Hall.” When asked how the pandemic affected him, Larry said it did not due to his accident.
He said: “I was not doing much so I got the injury at the right time.” Larry has travelled fairly extensively since his retirement.
He said: “I went on literary trips to Dublin, to Wordsworth country, to Stratford-upon-Avon and to Haworth for Wuthering Heights and Jane Austen further south.
“I also went to the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea in Wales. Why can’t Sligo have a centre like that for WB Yeats? It is superb. There should be a fixed centre for Yeats.”
“I am re-reading books now as it is the centenary of 1921.
“Ernie O’Malley’s book On Another Man’s Wound is a truly great novel. O’Malley was a major literary figure and I love history.
“I did a diploma in local history some years ago as a cross-border project.” Larry is a strong supporter of Éamon de Valera and thinks that the 1996 film on Michael Collins was a bit biased and that Dev does not come out of it too well.
Larry said: “I remember 1948 and a local woman coming in to tell us that they ‘have thrown out Dev’ after he was beaten in the General Election of 1948. He had come to power in 1932. “He was a great leader, but he is supposed to have said before he died that his biggest regret was that he did not support the Treaty. Dev did not want the Civil War – but he caused it by walking out of the Dáil. But his Republican men were hard to control and that was the other side to it.” Larry gave me some final musings. He said: “A degree in history is great training for a job, because you have to select and to judge things.”
And it is true that in his varied life, Larry has been a very wise and kind man in many respects.
Hesaid: “Sligo is a great place. Look at the Hawk’s Well, the Model, the courthouse and the Ulster Bank – some great buildings. The whole area is beautiful and very inspiring.”
LARRY has always had great time for the people of Sligo. He said: “I have had a good life and I just loved being able to help others.” That is exactly what you have done, Larry – for so many generous years.