'I loved the kids and I had a great relationship with them. I brought some of their mams and dads to school'

AINE FAHERTY

It has been an emotional time for Moynalvey based school bus-driver Pauline Munnelly who hung up her keys for the very last time recently.

“I am going to miss it so much,” she says. “I love just getting on the open road. But please God I’ll settle into retirement because after 39 years of doing the same thing, it is going to be a little bit difficult to not be getting up in the morning and not be in tune with everything that’s going on.”

When the industrious lady got her bus licence back in the early 1980s, she started working with Bus Eireann and has been with them continuously ever since. For most of her career, she drove children to Moynalvey Primary School and Scoil Dara Secondary School in Kilcock, but there were other bus routes in the early days too.

Pauline considers herself privileged to have driven her own five children to school not long after starting out, all of whom have now grown and flown.

“My youngest granddaughter has just completed her Leaving Certificate, so that will tell you how long I am at this,” she muses.

“I had four children when I started. And the youngest was a year old,” she recalls with wonder, and says she has to give credit to her late mother-in-law, Margaret Munnelly, for minding the children, as well as some neighbours who had children of the same ages.

“Everybody rowed in so I could get out in the evenings,” she recalls. At morning time, her late husband Michael was usually there until she got back just after 9am and he went off to work.

“It worked out very well for me,” she says.

“There was a great community because the women that lived around where we did, they were all like myself….not long married and had small children. And everybody was there for everybody, very much so.”

To this day Pauline says how people in the community are unwavering in their support of each other, like when Michael got sick, “they couldn’t have been better and were always, always there.”

Bus driving, like any job hasn’t been all plain sailing – or driving if you like! There have been some instances over the years when buses broke down on the back roads and by-roads of the county. Pauline took it all in her stride though. “If I was on the way to school, I was more concerned about it, especially on exam mornings,” she says. “Buses were not good with a lot of breakdowns. They have come up a lot in the last few years.”

As a testament to the respect community members have for Pauline, retirement was marked with a celebratory mass in Moynalvey Church followed by a get-together in the school, where a presentation was made to Pauline in recognition of her dedication and affection to the children of the community over her 39-year career. Pauline describes as ‘very emotional’ her final days and weeks in the job.

“I loved the kids and I had a great relationship with them. Some of them, I had brought their mams and dads to school, second generation down.”

“You’d hear so many stories about their little woes? You know, I've heard a lot of stories over the years. Some of them, I would probably say that the parents didn't know the kids were telling me at all.”

And of course, Pauline showed great empathy, patience and kindness to children who missed the bus or had to run back for something like their coat.

“I love to see them happy, that was always my main aim,” she says “Sometimes there were times when I had to shout, but they knew if I shouted, I meant it. The safety aspect was my priority and getting them there and making sure they had their belts on.”

In retirement she doesn’t have any big immediate plans but hopes to do some travelling to Paris to see her four grandchildren living there and to see a new grandchild due in August in Boston.

Formerly Pauline Elliott of Spring Valley, Summerhill, she made the leap to neighbouring Moynalvey when she married Michael. She is still very active in the Summerhill community, being on the committee of Summerhill Community Centre for the past 20 years. The community centre is ‘fabulous’ place and a hive of activity with something for everyone. “People don’t know what’s in there until they go in. It’s surprising how many people don’t know it is there, even people in the locality.”

This work provides a great social outlet for Pauline. Her sister Mairead Dunne and herself are the two main people who run the social dancing there once a month.

“I love things like that,” she says. “It’s just great for the mind and the body and the soul, you know music and dance.”

Pauline also works as part of the group that run St Vincent de Paul pop-up shops in Summerhill. The SVP accepts donations of goods at the Summerhill Community Centre where pop-up shops are organised.

It sounds like retirement will be anything but quiet for Pauline who will make the most of her new found free time.