More on Tom's 80th
When popular local man Tom Healy was given an 80th birthday celebration with family and friends recently at his home, St Martin’s, Hillside, he expressed his ‘delight and sense of fulfillment’ in being able to have children and grandchildren there to share his celebration.
“Pride is known as one of the seven deadly sins,” he said, “but I must confess to some pride in my family -- you gathered here. You have fulfilled in your lives many of the ambitions I did not dare to entertain in my own early lifetime.”
He also spoke of his appreciation of good fortune derived from the close association he had enjoyed with the Berney family, which has added considerably to the enhancement of his lifetime.
“My family in turn are lucky and blessed to have experienced and adopted many of the values inculcated by the Berney grandparents -- particularly a sense of altruism, which quality has become somewhat rare in the society of today.”
Tom recalled many clear memories, even from his early childhood growing up in Blessington. Among these was, at the age of three years and ten months, hearing John McCormack sing the Panis Angelicus from the high altar during the official ceremonies of the Eucharistic Congress in the Phoenix Park in Dublin.
Another recollection was of journeys on the Blessington Steam Tram -- subsequently taken out of service in late 1932. “The roadway accommodating the tram was sometimes referred to as ‘the longest graveyard in the world’ because of memorials by the
wayside commemorating those killed by this steam tram.”
As a young man, Tom played a lot of GAA, and was also a Table Tennis Champion in UCD and County Kildare.
Tom studied at UCD’s College of Engineering, and subsequently worked as a Junior Engineer with Kildare County Council. After that he spent 27 years with the Valuation Office, the independent state body which provides property valuing services to local authorities. He was made a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers in ireland in the 1980s.
Tom and Lilian’s children are John (deceased), Tom, Marie, Bernard and James.
Brian Byrne.
