When Hugh Lowry retired from CIE in 1962 after 20 years as a train driver, he wasn't finished working. Not by a long shot, or even by several lengths. He asked horse trainer Kevin Prendergast for a job working with horses, animals he had always loved.
And even when he retired from that second working stint after another 17 years, he still had lots of life left. On Sunday 16 December 2007 he reached his 100th birthday. A party in The Hideout in Kilcullen the day before with his family and friends might have been a few hours early, but it was none the less a great event. A man is entitled to stretch his birthday celebrations over a weekend when he reaches three figures.
Hugh lives with his daughter Niamh in Mile Mill, which is one Kilcullen connection. Another is with the Conlan family of Kilgowan. And, indeed, he spent childhood in nearby Ballitore. But he was born in Kildare and began his working life in 1923 as an engine cleaner in Dublin with the Great Southern & Western Railway. He lied about his age, being six months or so short of the 16 years which was required to be allowed work overnight. "When I admitted it afterwards they didn't hold it against me," he recalls. " I think they were satisfied with my work."
Hugh worked in Dublin until 1927, when he was transferred to Kildare where he worked as assistant fireman at cleaning out the engine fireboxes and other simirarly dirty duties. He then moved up to fireman -- shovelling coal to feed the hungry boilers of the steam train age -- and eventually to engine driver in 1942 when another driver got pensioned off.
His main route was from Kildare to Kilkenny and back in the same day. But he also drove trains to Fermoy and back. And there was shunting work to be done in the meantime in Athy, Maganey, and Colbinstown, among other locations no longer on the network.
His acquaintance with Kevin Prendergast came from his fireman days, which included working trains to many of the race meetings in the region, such as Thurles and Limerick Junction. He went to the meetings between arrival and departure. That, unknowing to either party, was to give him his second lease of working life.
When he finally ceased working properly in 1981, he helped his late wife in the shop they owned in Kildare. The name over the business was 'Waters' because they never got around to changing it. He also spent newly-acquired leisure time 'walking the hills and dales of Ireland'. "I loved walking, and my legs were fine," he says, "until I fell and broke my hip a while ago." His biggest angst at his birthday bash was that he was seated in a wheelchair.
There are no problem with Hugh's mental abilities, and those who know him will talk about his reading of the 'Irish Independent' every day from cover to cover. "And if you ask him what was in it last Thursday week, he'd be able to tell you," one guest at the party noted.
Hugh's immediate family are his daughters Niamh and Maeve, his son Brian, and his grandsons Hugh and Neil. In absensis at the party he was thinking of his 'favourite President of Ireland', Mary McAleese. Of course, at his age he would have been aware of all of Ireland's Presidents.
"But she would be his favourite -- she gave him a cheque for two and a half grand," an acquaintance said. Maybe that's a little unkind. Actually, it is a wish of Hugh's that he would someday shake President McAleese's hand. Don't put that outside possibility.
Another side of Hugh is his singing ability. Which has resulted in him performing with the Carmelite Choir in Kildare for 38 years. "I sang with them in the Gaiety, the Olympia, the old and new Royal Theatres, and in the Tivoli down along the quays," he says. The Tivoli was taken over by De Valera when he started the 'Irish Press'. Among Hugh's century celebrations has been a recital by his former choir in his honour this week.
Back to the Kilcullen connection, Hugh remembers the partner of this writer's grandfather in an auctioneering business, Hugh Cogan of Cogan & Byrne. "He rode a Scott motorbike, and raced it in the Isle of Man." (And though my grandfather, J J Byrne Senior, never raced, he too rode a motorcycle, an Indian.)
He also remembers when Clondalkin was a village on the way to Dublin, and today he still gets upset when he hears news reports of crimes in the area. Drugs he doesn't understand. "When I was young, a lot was made of drink. But when you had a few jars, you went home. Maybe you bumped your shoulder off a wall, but you got home. Of course, these are different times."
Not many of us get to span such different times.
Brian Byrne.
