Cavan's 'civil fellow' retires

The Celt joined John’s friends, family, colleagues and well-wishers earlier this month as they gathered at the organisation’s HQ on the Dublin Road to mark the occasion.

John started volunteering with Cavan Civil Defence in 1980, having started working in the roads division of Cavan County Council in the Belturbet area specifically three years previous.

He joined Civil Defence when he started driving, explaining: “I did it in case I might come across an accident. It was in the Courthouse at the time, a first aid class with Jean Good, she was instructor at the time,” says John who succeeded Noel Burke in the role of CDO.

The Farnham native has been the length and breadth of the county involved in Civil Defence duties where and when they were requested and needed. The role has changed significantly from when John first signed up.

“Back then there was a lot of emphasis on war time preparation, nuclear war and that kind of stuff,” he says by way of footnote to the historical context of the time. A decade of political conservatism ensued. Reaganomics was all the rage. In England Thatcher was Prime Minister, a thaw was setting on the Cold War, while at home Ireland was still crippled by political violence, mass emigration and mass unemployment.

“We used to have to look at nuclear fall-out plans, half-lives of isotopes, that sort of craic. There was warden service too, where you had to know whoever lived in your area and account for them if there was a serious accident. That was all part of it. It was based on the Air-Raid Precautions Act (1939) and Civil Defence actually came from that, started in 1951. It was based on building up community resilience. Then in the late 90s they revised what it was about, a programme ‘Towards 2000’, and that look more at assisting communities and assisting the principal response agencies, and that’s the way it should be really.”

John has been involved in, and seen plenty during his time with the service.

Personally, between 2007 and 2010, when the service was being decentralisation to Loughrea he travelled to Galway to train up a generation of new instructors who are now leading the charge in their own respective communities.

And until last week John was also Chair of the national Civil Defence Officers Association.

Covid response

Other memorable events that punctuated his career were the foot and mouth crisis and successive All-Ireland Fleadhanna in Cavan Town.However, nothing in terms of scale and effort comes close in comparison to how Civil Defence responded to Covid.

If anything the pandemic saw the service come into its own, and for the public at large, they witnessed first-hand the value of the huge contribution volunteers put in.

“Cavan was the most active county in the country in terms of Civil Defence response at the start of Covid, for months and months and months. Other counties then fell in behind us, and started doing some of the things we were doing. We were involved in the setting up of Meals-on-Wheels, the shopping and looking after isolated families, all that kind of stuff.”

It earned them national recognition, scooping a LAMA Award for Best Emergency Response Team in Ireland in 2021.

But Covid was “good and bad” for Civil Defence as an organisation too, explains John. “It was bad in that some of the more mature volunteers, they couldn’t come out because anyone of a certain age [was cocooning], and because of that a lot of them fell away, we lost numbers, and experience too. At the same time then there were younger ones, sitting at home doing nothing, and they saw the Civil Defence as a way to get active, get involved, and to give something back to their communities.”

Locally the organisation has around 120 active volunteers, but this is from a height of closer to 200 at one stage.

Storm Éowyn

The last time the Celt spoke with John was in the wake of Storm Éowyn, with Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage James Browne arriving to the county to heap praise on the emergency effort in dealing with the damage and disruption at local level.

“Again, it was afterwards that we were called in, helping vulnerable people. We actually opened this building as a community hub for people looking to charge phones or use the facilities,” says John looking at the walls of the Cavan Civil Defence Headquarters and Training Centre at Pullamore, which officially opened only a year ago this month.

He beams with pride when speaking about the new facility, encompassing three separate commercial units purchased by Cavan County Council and amalgamated at a cost of over €1M.

It houses the Civil Defence’s fleet of boats, ambulances, and vehicles, meeting rooms, training room, special facilities for the water rescue team, canteen, and also office space.

“It’s a testament to the volunteers,” John says of the building, adding his encouragement to anyone who wants to offer their time in support of their community to contact Cavan Civil Defence about signing up.

“It’s a great way of meeting people too,” continues John, who despite retiring from formal outside duties, will still remain on helping behind the scenes. “It’s hard to let go. I say that now, but it’s time to let go,” he laughs. “I’ve met a lot of great people. It’s them who have made this the experience it has been.”

Speaking after receiving a presentation from his fellow colleagues, John told those in attendance: “It’s the volunteers that make Civil Defence what it is, not me.”

Carmel Prior, who steps up into John’s place as CDO, commented that everything he did for Civil Defence Cavan was for the “betterment of the organisation”.

“Not only in Cavan is he looked up to, but all around the country.”