A happy childhood, health issues and time with friends
“I often say that I was 60 years working, I never had a full time job yet I was never out of work and I had no qualifications,” Ray MacSharry says of his stellar career.
Having left school after failing his Inter Cert, the young teenager ‘ bumped into his uncles’ business partner at a Sligo Rovers game’ where he asked him for a job in their cattle business. As a teenager he had bundles of energy allowing him to work ‘all hours of the day and night.’
“I drove trucks to Dublin arriving back in Sligo at 3am and was out for a morning fair by 7am,” recalls Ray who was never one to shy away from hard work. “I am proud to say I came from a council house in St. Patrick’s Terrace and was one of 10 children. My father was a rent collector for the corporation and my mother was a school teacher from Dromard in West Sligo. My mother was the boss and my father was a good man, a well liked man. People trusted him. Tenants would leave the key in the door and he would go in and collect the few shillings. The honesty of those people was unbelievable.”
Ray remembers a happy childhood of summer days on Rosses Point beach. The family were one of the few with a car - a baby Ford. “There were so many of us that they had to take the back seat out and we’d stand up like cattle in the back. Of course the cars only went at 25 miles an hour at the time. We would make sandwiches the night before for the longer trips to Bundoran.”
After retiring from politics, Ray entered the corporate world and was Chairman of a number of high profile companies, including Ryanair and Eircom. He has enjoyed relatively good health but two years ago had three stints put in his heart and has recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
“I have to inject myself with insulin every day. I never took a drink until I cam back from Europe and only then the odd glass of wine. Now I prefer to have a glass of milk as I don’t like the taste of alcohol. I was helter skelter busy all the time for years. I was not eating proper meals and living only on cigarettes and Mars bars. That took its toll and now I have diabetes,” he says.
Today the retired Ray is more inclined to eat well. In fact he prides himself on his home cooking and is no stranger to the kitchen. “I can rustle up a nice meal. I had a steak and onions, carrots and parsnips and potatoes last night with blueberries and fruit cake for dessert!” He reads the Sligo Champion and watches the Television news. He occasionally buys the Irish Times mainly for the simplex crossword. In his free time, he enjoys playing a round of golf with friends every week in Strandhill and is partial to a game of poker with another group of friends during the winter evenings. His 14 grandchildren, ranging in age from 5 to 25 also keep him busy!