Published: Tuesday, 6th October, 2009 10:00am

Making his mark on the social fabric of Westmeath

Barney Dempsey is a name readily associated with music and athletics. Since he went to live in his mother's homeplace of Coolvuck in 1931, Barney has been a major part of the social fabric of rural Westmeath, particularly in traditional music, athletics and club football.

He has left his mark, not only on the music and sporting scenes of Westmeath, but physically on the town of Athlone, having been involved in the building of Our Lady's Bower in the 1950s.

Barney, who is a talented fiddler and dew harp musician, was one of a family of five siblings who moved from Gorey, Co Wexford, to Maughera, Annagh, with their parents Brian and Kate (nee Doolin from Maughera, Annagh). The family moved because Barney's uncle John Doolin had died, and John's sister, Nan didn't want to live alone.

Barney's brothers, Peter, Frank and John are now deceased. He has one sister Maggie Lowry, who lives in Caurawn, Walderstown, who is also an accomplished musician who plays mouthorgan, spoons and bodhrán. Barney, who is more than 83 years old, has an aunt, Minnie Whelan living hale and hearty in Gorey at the age of 98 years.

Music was in the Dempseys of Gorey and Barney's father, Brian, played a fiddle for many years, and it was on that fiddle that Barney learned his first notes as a ten year old. He played a couple of tunes with his neighbour Tommy Hughes in Maughera, and then when Barney was working as a young man for farmer, Mick Geoghegan, he learned a few more tunes from his boss.

"I always played music by ear, and I played my father's fiddle for years, but I bought my first fiddle in Egan's, Connaught Street, for £6, and it was a nice fiddle, but I also played the dew harp, the spoons and the mouthorgan," said Barney, who has been playing trad music in local sessions for over 60 years.

Whilst a pupil of Lower Warren School in Baylin, being taught by Mrs Donoghue and Master Cox, Barney got involved in athletics and he would spend his lunchtime hour, practicing the long and high jumps. He practiced with the jumps until he achieved great heights.

"Master Cox from the school would have me jumping hard, and kept me at it, and I used to land down hard on concrete, but nobody else could come near me," said Barney laughing. "Later on then, I took part in summer tournaments in Glasson, Tang and Mount Temple and won them all. The first year I went to Glasson, for the long jump, I saw one fellow winning at a jump of 19 foot, 4 inches, and I did 18 foot, 6 inches. I said to myself that he wouldn't win again next year, and I did a lot of training, and won next year with a jump of 20 foot, seven and a half inches."

Barney and his siblings were required, like other children, to bring a lot of turf up the stairs of Lower Warren school for the school fire.

"There were about 60 pupils going to Lower Warren, and we all brought in our own turf, and it was all carried upstairs, where the fire was," said Barney, who was christened Bernard Dempsey.

After his schooldays, he continued doing the sporting tournaments, and besides competing in the jumps, he also competed in pole vault, and in his middle aged years, competed in tug of war competitions.

"In those days, the poles were rigid, not like the spring ones nowadays," laughed Barney.

Barney was also a sprinter and ran his first race in Walderstown before he was twelve years old.

The Dempsey family moved from Maughera to Coolvuck to Barney's uncle Frank Doolin's house.

"I can remember the big snow of 1933, and that was a huge one that people got lost in," said Barney. "There was seven foot of snow outside of our house in Maughera."

Barney made his Holy Communion at Tubberclair Church, and every Sunday himself, his parents and siblings used to walk across many miles of fields and ditches from Maughera to mass in Tubberclair Church.

"The weather always seemed to be good that time, but we all got bikes later on and went by road to the church," said Barney.

It was as natural as breathing to Barney to be an athlete, and he continued on that pursuit throughout his adulthood.

He laughs about winning the high jump at a tournament in Glasson in 1964 when he was 38, considering he beat a 22 year old athlete.

He also cycled in and out of work from his later family home of Coolvuck, and played football, at centre-field position with many local teams, first of which was Moydrum, where he played minor.

In 1946, Barney, at age 20 was a sub for Drumraney when they won the Junior Cup. He cycled to the football match, like he cycled to every other match he played for the next 20 years.

"I cycled to the matches in Mullingar or Longford or wherever and we togged out under ditches, and got no refreshments, no tea or anything, and I just back on the bike and cycled home," said Barney. "I also never had injuries of any kind except in later years when I put my ankle out. I also played for Caulry, and on the Athlone senior team for two years in the late 40s. I played on the Westmeath county team for a while, and finished up playing with Tubberclair."

But despite having a great record, Barney became the Georgie Best of local GAA by leaving football behind at the young age of 27, due to his many work commitments. However he returned to an over 40s team in the late 1960s, and played again with many of his old teammates.

Barney worked with farmers, as a labourer and he milked cows by hand from the time he left school, as well as footing turf in Moydrum at the age of 16 years. He worked on a three year project of building Our Lady's Bower Boarding School in the late 1950s with the Sisk builders.

"That was a great building site, and there was no muck or dirt, and it was pure dry," said Barney.

In those days, if you worked for three years with the ESB, you could not be let go, and Barney was just a mere two years and nine months with the state sponsored body in the mid-1950s before he was let go. However, he returned to work for the ESB when the Bower building project finished in 1962.

He worked on the Rural Electrification Scheme throughout the midlands, and was involved in the pulling and dragging of that work, which included dragging the wooden poles throughout the acres of fields and miles of roads.

"It was good to see electricity coming because I grew up in two houses without electricity where we had the paraffin lamps, but during the Rural Electrification I had to be up for work at six, and got back home late, and didn't see daylight except on Sunday," said Barney.

For the past 40 years Barney has been known as a talented water diviner throughout the South Westmeath area, and has divined many wells for many households and families.

Barney was married to Rose Malone from Mount Temple, and the loving couple met at the Annagh Cross Maypole in the 1950s. Barney and Rose had five children Peter, Rosemary, Bertha, and twins Joan and Sandra, and also five grandchildren. Sadly Rose, who was a very fine traditional music singer, died in 2003, after suffering a long illness, and is missed very much by Barney and his children, all of whom live close to him in Coolvuck.

A constant in Barney's life has been the music. He is one of Westmeath's best known fiddle players, and played in sessions with his many contemporaries over the years, including the now deceased legends Tom McHale and Willie Reynolds. He has competed successfully in competitions in Scór and at the Mansion House, Dublin, over the years.

He has played in popular music sessions throughout the midlands and for more than 25 years, Barney has played with two other contemporaries, Billy Henshaw and Teddy Quinn each Friday night at Grogan's in Glasson.

Barney has graced the cover of the American magazine, Irish American News in June 2006, playing the fiddle beside a beautiful warm fire in Sean's Bar, Athlone.

He continues the tradition of being an athlete and a musician, sometimes at the same time, as anyone who has heard and seen Barney on the fiddle can testify.

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