'It can be a sad time of the year but I've lots to be grateful for too'

Christmas still holds its charms for Oliver (Ollie) Plunkett even though now it's a bitter, sweet time of the year but the proud Meathman is sustained by a love for family and football. JIMMY GEOGHEGAN spoke to Ollie as he reflects back on what life was like for him growing up in Navan - and marvels at just how much life has changed in a relatively short spell of time

It's that famous name that initially grabs the attention. Oliver Plunkett.

He has, no doubt, taken his fair share of gentle banter because of it over the years but, you suspect, he would absorb any playful or friendly comments with the kind of good humour that is clearly an integral part of his nature.

Ollie, as he he calls himself, talks down the phone from his home in Navan, outlining in great detail events from many years previously as if they happened yesterday - or last week.

While he talks knowledgeably about current affairs he can step back too in an instant, to the 1940s and '50s. Back to the days of his youth. To special times such as Christmas which he looked forward to with the kind of undiminished, undiluted excitement only a youngster can experience.

He's 81 now and the realities of the pandemic rule out a face-to-face interview but he reflects back on what life was like for him growing up in Navan - and marvels at just how much life has changed in a relatively short spell of time.

Christmas can be a happy time for people; the season of cheer and all that. It can be a deeply poignant time too. A time of sadness when we all remember loved ones now gone. Ollie Plunkett and his family have experienced profound loss too, ensuring that this will be a Christmas of very mixed emotions for them.

He and his wife of almost 60 years, Doreen, had five daughters and in 1999 their eldest Laura passed away because of cancer at just 37, leaving behind her husband Declan and their four children. In June 2019 Doreen also died. Tragedy again struck when early last December Ollie's and Doreen's youngest daughter Christine also passed away suddenly. She was only 48.

“It will be a sad Christmas but I'm lucky too in that I've got two other daughters, Mairead and Angela who live close to me here in Navan while I have another, Carol who lives in Dublin. It can be a sad time of the year but I've a lot to be grateful for a lot as well,” he says.

There are other things that sustain Ollie and among them is the GAA. He was among the Meath supporters who found it difficult to stomach the recent hammering by Dublin in the Leinster SFC.

If he wants to cheer himself up he only has to think back to how his own club Simonstown Gaels won SFC titles in 2017 and 2018, helped along by the considerable, impressive contributions of his two grandsons Nicky and Nathan O'Brien, two of Declan's and Laura's sons. “That was a great consolation,” he adds.

Christmas cheer and a comforting sense of nostalgia can also be evoked when Ollie thinks back to his youth. The 1940s and '50s, was not a time of plenty in Ireland, certainly not in terms of luxuries as we know them today. They were however happy times for one youngster who was christened with a famous name.

PROUDSTOWN

Ollie Plunkett was one of six youngsters raised by ie and Patrick or Paddy Plunkett in their home on the Proudstown Road. “I was born there in a two-roomed thatched cottage, there's a big two-story house there now,” he recalls.

“I often tell the grandchildren how we didn't have electricity. There was no running water, no central heating. We had open fires, everything was cooked on an open fire. The house was thatched, two rooms. We did build another house next door to it around the late 1940s. The only light we had was from the Sacred Heart lamp and an oil lamp, they were very different times.”

Patrick Plunkett found employment in the nearby Blackcastle Estate owned by the Fitzherbert family. “My dad was a labourer, there was a big workhorse he used to have for doing the heavy lifting around the estate and big house.”

Young Ollie atttended the local De La Salle school in Navan, which was then a town well on the way to building up a reputation as the 'furniture capital of Ireland' with factories of various size located around the place. There is an image seared in Ollie's mind from those days that highlights just how important the furniture industry was to the economy of the town.

“A lot of us used to play football in a field close to the old Beechmount Hotel. In the summer evenings when I would be going home, it would be possible to see, on Watergate Street and also on Flower Hill, lots of sawdust.

“It came from the men who worked in all the various furniture factories. Most of them walked or cycled to and from work and the sawdust would be falling off their clothes as they went along. Particularly on dry days you would see the sawdust on the street, it was remarkable when you look back on it.”

The Plunkett family's circumstances radically changed when tragedy stuck. Paddy Plunkett died suddenly in his sixties in 1952 from a chest condition. “He would have a few Woodbines perhaps but didn't smoke much, he couldn't afford to smoke.”

“My mother was left with six children, I was 13, the eldest was 14. Having to exist on a widow's pension in 1952 was certainly not easy.”

Young Ollie was bright and eager to learn and won a scholarship to a De La Salle college in Waterford but “money was tight” so he returned home to take up a job in Spicer's Bakery in Navan. He was later to move to England for a time where he worked with British Transport in London for a time. He went to Germany and it was during his time there he met a young woman, Doreen Gallagher from Mohill, Co Leitrim. They were married in 1961 and returned to Navan, building a home close to the original Plunkett homestead and set about the considerable task of raising their family of five daughters. Ollie Plunkett landed a job in the burgeoning Navan Carpets factory and he was to stay there for close on 40 years until the time came to retire.

In the mid-1960s Ollie was involved in setting up Simonstown Gaels GAA club - and it didn't take him long to make his mark. On his first junior championship outing with the Gaels Ollie scored a remarkable 3-10 “or something like that” which must be some kind of record. “They stuck me in full-forward and I got nearly all the scores that day,” he recalls. Great days. Great memories.

CHRISTMAS

Perhaps it has got something to do with the passing years but as people get older they often look back on their youth with intense detail - especially around this time of the year.

The way Ollie Plunkett remembers it from his own youth preparations for Christmas started early with a huge emphasis put on getting the materials necessary for the making of the seasonal pudding. This was a huge task - and every step was part of a time-honoured ritual.

“The preparations usually began around mid-November and the first thing that had to be bought was calico for the pudding and that was always purchased in Finucane's of Ludlow Street.”

Each week further ingredients would be bought for the pudding the making of which was an detailed, well-pled operation. “The pudding was always made on the first weekend in December, everything was mixed on the first Saturday and it looked like a big gray mass, it looked terrible at that stage.”

It was the next day when the real work got underway. Ollie and his father attended early Mass. When they came home they set about lighting a fire that had to be fed and sustained throughout the day.

“The pudding was tied up, including with a lace that was taken out of my football boots, something I objected to! It was lowered into the big black cooking pot which was hanging from a loop across a steel bar across the fire.”

All the members of the family were involved in the lengthy operation cutting and carrying sticks into the fire. “My mother was a nervous wreck, afraid of her life that the water level would drop too low or went off the boil, then the pudding would have been destroyed which I believe is true. The boiling went on until about 10 at night.”

In the era before ovens cooking was not as straightforward as is the case now and the making of the pudding was a central part of the Christmas experience. There wasn't a big concern about cooking the turkey on Christmas Day because there wasn't any. “We always had chicken instead,” recalls Ollie.

The times have certainly changed from those days long ago. Christmas still has its charms for Ollie Plunkett - even though now it's a bitter, sweet time of the year full of memories, happy and sad.