Ballivor salutes former beloved postmistress on her 90th birthday

Joan Bagnall was at the heart of the community starting out as an assistant in the post office before taking it over herself in the early sixties. She tells NOELLE FINEGAN how, during her five decades of service she loved meeting people and missed it when she retired

The Bagnall family recently gathered to celebrate the 90th birthday of their mother Joan, former postmistress of Ballivor Post Office who served the community for five decades before her retirement.

For 50 years, Joan Bagnall (nee Brady) was at the heart of the Ballivor community starting out as an assistant in the post office before taking over the post office herself in the early sixties, and the business has continued on in the Bagnall family with her son Brendan taking it over in 2004 following her retirement. She was also a co-founder and president of Ballivor Active Retirement Group.

Joan, who is originally from Milltown, Belturbet, Co Cavan, recalled that Ballivor was a very different place when she arrived in 1954 than it is today.

"Ballivor was very different. It was much smaller," she said.

Reflecting on her years behind the counter in the post office, Joan, said she loved her time there and really missed it when she retired.

"It was very busy in the post office. There were always a lot of people coming in and out. I really enjoyed it. It was very busy but I loved meeting people."

She also spoke of her pride that her son Brendan had taken over the post office and continued it on in the Bagnall family.

"I still go up to the post office most weeks and have a cup of tea with my friends in the cafe," said Joan.

Her lifelong friend Maureen McGearty recalled that Joan caused quite a stir when she arrived in Ballivor in 1954 to work as an assistant in the local post office, then run by Miss Nixon.

Ballivor was delighted to welcome the young, cheerful, smiling post office assistant who was quite the contrast to her boss, a stern, fragile, little old grey-haired lady.

Joan's work started at 7am, as the post man Bob Collins arrived from Athboy on his bicycle with the bag of mail on the front carrier. The mail had to be sorted into pigeon holes for each area. When that was done, the postmen Bob Collins and Frank Dempsey took their bundles of letters and headed off to their assigned districts.

After breakfast, Joan would open the post office door at 9am for the public business, like payment of the old age and widows pension, and children’s allowance, stamps, money orders, postal orders, newspapers and bottles of ink as well as answering the switch board.

Following the arrival of Joan, Maureen told how the sale of stamps soared, with all the young eligible men in the area suddenly taking up letter writing.

"The male staff from the office in Bord na Mona would be rushing to get to the post office before 5pm to buy stamps and check out the new assistant."

In the afternoon, Joan had to frank all the letters for dispatch, and have the mail bags ready.

Maureen spoke of how Joan was always so obliging, helping people use the phone and how often she would run across the road with a message for the GAA secretary about a match fixture.

Among the local men who were keen to catch the eye of the new postal assistant was local farmer Paddy Bagnall from Moyfeagher and the story goes that he came in to buy a teddy that was in the window and asked her out.

Joan recalled that their first date was to a Meath match.

They married in 1959 and lived in Carnisle outside Ballivor. They went on to have nine children, Padraig, Yvonne, Mary, Brendan, Niall, Colette, Anthony, Grainne and Sinead.

When the post mistress Miss Nixon died in 1960, not long after Joan and Paddy were married, all the talk was who would then take over the post office.

Newly married, Joan was also expecting her first child Padraic but this didn't deter the couple from searching for a premises and they bought the former Bird's blacksmiths and redeveloped it as a post office, opening it 1963.

Despite having a young family, Joan continued her work as post mistress and said she had great support from her husband Paddy and also her sister Mairead who helped her in the post office and also helped looked after the children.

The children had great memories of the post office and Brendan, who went on to take over the business in 2004, recalled that there was a shop to one side and the post office to the other.

"We cut tobacco, cheese and butter. I can remember standing on a double milk crate because the counter was so high, we also sold cigarettes and sweets. The phone exchange was 24 hour it had to manually operated."

Anthony, who Joan now lives with, recalled how there was a bed and small living quarters in the post office and someone had to stay every night to man the switchboard.

Joan and Paddy had a long and happy life together and were just months off celebrating their golden jubilee when Paddy passed away in 2009.

Joan continued to live there independently after Paddy's death in 2009 and was driving up until five years ago.

She continued in her role as postmistress until she was turning 70. She lived in Carnisle until four years ago and now lives in a granny flat at her son Anthony's house along with his wife Natasha, and daughters Dalia and Violet. She has 19 grandchildren and one great great grandchild.

After Joan's retirement, Brendan took over the post office and redeveloped the site. He bought the semi-detached house next door and both houses were knocked with a new post office/shop/cafe business built in its place along with apartments and another unit that is now a hairdressers.

Joan said she is very proud of all her family and delighted that the post office is still in the Bagnall family.