The Wineport centenarian

He has the feet of a dancer and has lived a life of hard work, and joy, throughout the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War, and the two world wars of the last century. Jack Rushe was born 100 years ago this week and has maintained his zest for life throughout his first century of time on earth. He was born in 1911, the year before the Titanic had its maiden voyage, and in the same year as well-known names like the late Ireland President Cearbhall O'Dalaigh, and US President and Hollywood actor, Ronald Reagan. However none of the above people, who were also born in 1911, are still with us. Jack is a phenomenal man with a great interest in living life to the full. Up to his mid 90s, he was driving to and from his home in Wineport to Glasson in his Nissan Micra car, and continuing to enjoy his beloved ballroom dancing. Jack was born on January 22, 1911, as the fifth child of Tom and Julia Rushe, and the family lived in Killeenmore, Killinure, Glasson. Jack's mother was Julia Doolan from Maughera, Annagh. His siblings, Mary, Michael, Judy and Pat were older than Jack, and he had three younger siblings, Paul, Jimmy and Willie. All of Jack's siblings are now deceased, and he is the last surviving member of his immediate family. After Jack left the old Tubberclair school, he went working first as a farm labourer in Andy Flynn's farm on the Dublin Road, and with the coming to Athlone of Gentex in the late 1930s he became a builder's labourer at the factory site. He also worked on the building of Athlone post office, and cycled a bicycle from the countryside into town to work daily. Jack's parents moved to Garrycastle cottages when they were built in 1935, and the Rushes became very popular members of the community there. The house was one of music, and many of their neighbours and friends danced in the kitchen there at least once a week. “We always had music sessions in the house in Garrycastle, and I played the dew harp and a bit on the accordion,†said Jack. Jack got married in the early 1930s to Nellie Quinn, who came originally from Roundstone, Connamara, although her family later moved to Sarsfield Square, Athlone. Jack and Nellie danced to traditional music in the Gaelic League hall in Glasses Lane, Athlone, and in St Mary's Hall and to ballroom music in Healion Hall, in Connaught Street. Nellie was also a musician, and played the accordion and piano. The couple went on to have two children, Johnny and Mary, and moved to live in Wineport, Ballykeeran. Johnny learned to play the button accordion as a very young fellow, and later accompanied Jack and Nellie, in sessions at their home in Wineport, and played in various groups throughout the midlands. Today Johnny is popularly known as 'The Boxman from Wineport', for his accordion playing. In the days of good summer, Johnny and his wife Marie, and their children, spent many Sundays cycling from Athlone to Wineport to Jack and Nellie's house, where after the dinner; the family usually took part in an afternoon session of music. Jack spent 31 years working as a labourer with Westmeath County Council, and he said he spent the happiest days of life living with his family in Wineport. The family had magazines such as 'Ireland's Own', 'The Reader's Digest', and 'The Messenger' on the kitchen table. “We lived in one house on the road, which went on fire, so we were homeless for a while, and lived between my family in Garrycastle, and Nellie's family in Sarsfield Square, until our other house was built about two to three hundred yards away,†said Jack. “We moved into that new house in 1952, and it was a great house, and we couldn't have been happier there, and we had more land there to sow potatoes, rhubarb, carrots, cabbages, lettuce and scallions.†Jack worked very hard throughout all of his life, and instead of going on vacation to foreign parts, when he got time off work during the summer; he went working in the bog. “I spent my time off in the summer in the bog, or making the hay out in Wineport, but the main work I did during the summer was in the bog, rearing the turf, day in and day out, and we got hot summers back then,†said Jack. Jack started driving a car in the 1950s, after years of driving a motorbike. He and Johnny, who also drove a motorbike, sold their two bikes, and between them bought a Honda car. In later years, Jack drove a Ford car, a Fiat, and a Nissan Micra. Jack has a great love of dancing, and while he did traditional music dancing, it was ballroom dancing that was his main hobby. In the later years of his marriage to Nellie, the couple went dancing in such Athlone venues as the Grove, the Shannon Queen, and to the Ballrooms of Romance dances in the Shamrock Lodge and the Royal Hoey Hotels. Nellie died in 1985, and Jack and the family were heartbroken at the time, because she was a very popular and jolly person. Jack remarried in August 1986, to Elizabeth Hoey, who was also widowed, and a sister of his late wife, Nellie. Happiness followed Jack for the second time, and this marriage was also a success, and Jack and Elizabeth were a very popular dancing couple at the Ballroom of Romance dances in the Royal Hoey Hotel and Shamrock Lodge Hotel. Elizabeth too was musical, and had played the concertina at music sessions in Rushes house down through the years, while Jack, Nellie and Johnny were playing their various instruments. However sadly, his second marriage only lasted 10 years, because Elizabeth died suddenly in 1996, leaving Jack and the Rushe family in sadness again. “I picked myself up again and I soldiered on, and I stayed at home and worked in the garden with the vegetables and fed the hens and the ducks, the dog and the donkey, and of course I continued fishing,†said Jack. Fishing was the second biggest hobby of Jack's life, after dancing, and he spent many hours at the lakeside in Ballykeeran fishing for pike, and sometimes perch. Today Jack, who is now approaching his 101st year, continues to love ballroom dancing, and watch football, and particularly snooker on television. He is also very interested in wildlife television programmes, and growing up and living in rural Athlone has been his inspiration on his great love of animal and plant life. He has two children, Johnny and Mary, eight grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren. He is a wonderful character, and has always been a man of good humour, which is a trait he has continued with at all stages of his long life.