‘A great cross-section of ordinary decent people’

Paudie O’Kennedy was among the founding fathers of Nenagh Lions Club in 1973.

He is proud to see how the club has grown from strength to strength over the last 50 years, growth driven by the unwavering commitment of its members and support of the local community.

Serving as president and secretary during his time, Paudie recalls the origins of the Nenagh club stemming from a meeting with John Cahill of Roscrea Lions Club. Mr Cahill had approached a group of Nenagh men – among them Michael Gilmartin and Paudie’s brother Michael O’Kennedy, TD, whom the Roscrea man knew – and they met at O'Meara's Hotel to discuss the setting up of a Lions Club in Nenagh. The 30 men that formed the club in 1973 were, as Paudie remembered, motivated by a desire to do something positive for those less well-off in the community. The membership came from a variety of walks of life and represented what Paudie described as “a great cross-section of ordinary decent people”.

“People like myself that were back working in Nenagh, qualified, and maybe felt that they should be putting something into the community,” he said.

“A lot of people were involved in different businesses. There was a good bunch and there was a lot of fun in it - we had good old craic. That was how we got going - and the townspeople really got behind it. We got wonderful support.”

Paudie talked about how he personally had been looking to join a charitable cause in the town. The Knights of Columbanus were an option at the time, but the Lions Club ethos and approach seemed a more suitable option to him.

“I suppose maybe I felt a bit of a conscience,” he reflected on his reasoning at the time. “Maybe a bit that I was reasonably well-off and that I should be doing something for the community.

“There were guys who joined because they thought it was the up-market thing to be in, but the Nenagh one wasn't like that. I wouldn't say it was down-market! But it had everybody. There was no class distinction whatsoever in the Nenagh Lions Club.”

FUNDRAISING ACHIEVEMENTS

The original members of the burgeoning Nenagh Lions Club raised monies for various worthy causes, but their first major fundraising drive was for the addition of a coronary care and intensive care unit at Nenagh hospital. This took place in 1979 and involved a co-ordinated series of church gate collections across all the parishes that were served by the hospital. Paudie explained how church gate collections were almost dying out at the time. This was because there was a collection every Sunday, the beneficiaries including the likes of local sports clubs but also political parties. The Church was concerned that the frequency of such collections was discouraging people from coming to Mass.

Paudie and fellow founding club member Henry Cleary met with Bishop Michael Harty and asked him to write to the parish priests about their idea. Every parish bought into it. People thought it was a great idea and all expectations were surpassed when the club raised the sum of £18,000; their original estimate was £11,000. Private contributions, and a £1,000 sum raised by Thurles Lions Club, augmented the church gate collection.

Bishop Harty blessed the new unit when it was formally opened the following year by Minister for Health Dr Michael Woods, and the value of Nenagh Lions Club became clear for all to see.

“I still look at that as our biggest achievement,” Paudie said of the fundraising drive for the coronary and intensive care unit, sadly since removed from the hospital.

Another big achievement began in the 1980s when the Lions Club joined forces with Sr Bernard (Sr Breda Quigley) to organise food parcels for the poor for Christmas. Club members manned the local supermarkets with baskets and asked people to leave food into them - non-perishable food, tea, sugar and even chickens - everything bar alcohol. They brought all of the collected goods to Sr Bernard in the Convent, and she put names on parcels for all the people who needed them.

“It was a lot of work,” Paudie said of collecting the food and preparing the parcels. “And then we'd deliver them ourselves.I remember spending nights going out the country, going everywhere, not knowing where I was going and knocking on doors. I can't remember how many years we spent at that but we had busy, busy Christmases for several years.”

Billy Talbot subsequently came up with the idea of collecting money and using it to provide food dockets to those in need - rather than having Lions Club members collecting and delivering food – a practice that continues successfully to this day.

Praising the local community for its wonderful support of such initiatives over the years, Paudie said he never found it difficult to raise money for Nenagh Lions Club, as people across the community have come to realise and appreciate the good work that it does.

“I did always feel that there was great support for us in the town. When I was collecting at supermarkets, I used to be embarrassed at aul craters that would have very little giving in a fiver.

“I'd say to them: ‘Oh God, that's too much’; and they'd say ‘ah, ye do good work’. So there was good feeling for it.”

‘A LAW UNTO OURSELVES’

Nenagh Lions Club became part of a designated area along with the Portumna and Roscrea clubs. Meetings between the clubs would be held once or twice a year but were generally confined to the president, treasurer and secretary of each club.

Like other Lions Clubs around the country, the Nenagh men used to hold dress dinner dances every summer. These were formal occasions, to which the District Governor would be invited, but Nenagh later broke ranks in deciding to discontinue these dances once they no longer saw merit in them.

“We were a bit of a law unto ourselves,” Paudie observed of how the Nenagh Lions found their own way of doing things.

“It's an international organisation but we were kind of half-autonomous here in Nenagh! We kind of went our own way a bit.

“And we were quite successful financial-wise, so no one could say much, whereas there were a lot of clubs that obeyed the rules and did everything properly but wouldn't have raised as much! We believed in what we were at, but we had a good bit of fun too.”

INVITATION TO JOIN

Some Lions Clubs, nationally and internationally, had a reputation for being quite exclusive. But Paudie said Nenagh was never like that.

One had to be asked to join the club – no one could just decide that they wanted to join. Members would generally identify people in the community whom they thought might benefit the club and then ask them to join. This would often be done after a member died or moved on from the club.

“I think that was a good idea,” Paudie said of the process. “Not so much that you could blackball anyone, or anything like that, but the guys that came in, everyone was happy to share with them. We got a lot of people in that we knew would coalesce with the group.”

A big change in this regard came in 2016 when Nenagh Lions Club opened up to female membership, something that Paudie said has been of immeasurable benefit to the organisation.

It is one of a great many changes that he has seen to the club he co-founded 50 years ago. He has fond memories of the many activities he has been involved in over the years, from the golf outings, charity walks (sponsor-a-mile) and cycle rallies, to the famous supper dances that the Lions Club used to hold in the Scouts Hall, with food prepared by members’ wives. There were also the annual outings for older people that the club ran, involving trips to the Shannon or to west Clare for sightseeing and a meal – another facet of Paudie’s involvement that still continues. He also recalled how the Nenagh club gave something back on a regional scale by helping to set up another Lions Club in Shannon.

Having done so much in its formative years, Paudie said he is happy with the direction Nenagh Lions Club has taken and glad to see the cause in good stead for the years ahead.