The Mayo News

Quenching the flame 

Padraig Burns

ONE of the most distinguished periods of service to the community of Westport and Mayo came to an end earlier this month when John Doyle retired from the Westport Fire Service. John joined the Service in 1963 and 43 years later, on reaching 60 years of age, he retired as the longest-serving member of the Fire Service, not just in Westport, but in Mayo. His is an amazing story of selfless dedication to his community and one that we will hardly ever see the likes of again.
Joining the Fire Brigade is not like any other commitment to an organisation. The fireman cannot leave the area he lives in when he’s on call, and, in most cases that’s every second week. And it doesn’t matter when the call is made, he has to stop what he’s doing immediately and go directly to the Fire Station. In John Doyle’s case his membership of Westport Fire Service meant that he has been unable to leave the Westport urban area for 1,118 weeks in the past 43 years. Convert that into hours and you realise that for a staggering 187,824 hours of the past 43 years John Doyle’s life (and that of his family) was dictated totally by the demands of being a member of Westport Fire Service.
Not that he has ever thought of it in these terms and he’d be mortified if that was the impression conveyed. He knew the rules when he entered. They were the same for everyone, and he has never complained.
The years flew by. He says he didn’t feel any different on his last day than he did when he joined first. “My sister, Eileen, worked in The Mayo News and I was always in and out talking to Joe Berry who was in the Fire Brigade at the time. I think I was taken in by the lads hanging out of the side of the fire engine when it was going to a job, they were like the Keystone Cops! I asked Joe about joining and he told me to go up to Jack Corcoran who was the Station Officer. Well, Jack took one look at me and said ‘you’re awful young looking, are you sure you want to join’. When I said I was, he told me to call up the following Tuesday night and that was it. That was my interview,” he recalled.
His first fire gave him a hint of what the next 43 years of his life would be like. “I was just about to put my boots on for a game at the Sports Park and the siren went. I panicked, looked around and took a brand new bike that belonged to Frank O’Malley and cycled up like a shot to the Fire Station. I was the first one there, but I had used up so much nervous energy cycling so fast that I could hardly move when I got there. My leg couldn’t straighten with the panic,” he said, laughing at the memory of the expression on the face of Frank O’Malley when he took his bike.
And so started years of service that saw him climbing a mountain face at Sheaffrey to rescue a sheep to fighting some of the most serious and dangerous fires that have ever occurred in Westport. There were many poignant moments too; none more so than when two years ago he was called to a road traffic accident only to discover on arrival that his first cousin had been a fatality in the accident. Yet, ever the total professional, he had no option but to do his job and look after the welfare of the other people that were hurt in the crash.
“It wasn’t easy but I had a job to do and I tried to do it the best I could,” he recalled. There was poignancy of a different nature three years ago when he was part of the Westport Fire Service group that visited Ground Zero in New York and while they were there, the rescuers recovered a body from the rubble.
“It brought home to us just how tragic 9/11 was. What really impressed us though was the dignity of the rescuers, the respect that they had for the person they recovered and their family. The memory of the total silence that fell over the site as they removed the body will stay with me forever,” he said.
When John joined 43 years ago he was surrounded by men like Jack Corcoran, Eamon Duffy, Joe Berry, Richie Duffy, Mick Staunton and Mark Malone. He tells a good story about the late Joe Berry and the size of his head - physically, that is. “Joe was the smallest and lightest man in the group but he had the biggest head! When anyone put his hat on by mistake it would nearly cover their face, but he was a great man to go into an attic during a chimney fire. Joe could get to places that none of the rest of us could!”
The Fire Service could not work in any town were it not for the co-operation of the people that employ the members and, in that respect, Westport Fire Service has been extremely fortunate. “Employers have always been very co-operative and their patience must have been tested over the years. I remember once we went to fight a whin fire from a Friday afternoon until a Monday morning. But that wouldn’t work now and I don’t think that anyone could be expected to take so much time off work. It wouldn’t be tolerated,” he believes.
Ultimately, though, while the co-operation of the employers contributes significantly to the smooth running of the service, it’s the selfless devotion of the members that make the operation tick over. There are ten members in the Westport service and within five minutes of notification they have to be at the Fire Station on Altamont Street. Otherwise, the nearest service to Westport is alerted.
“I have to say the men in the Westport Fire Service are some of the finest men you could ask to meet and that’s the way it’s been since I first joined. You don’t realise the commitment you make when you’re involved. There isn’t a choice for any member, they have to be there and it doesn’t matter what you’re at, you just drop it and go. I remember once PJ Mulroy and Ger Geraghty arriving in the fire station in their rugby shorts after leaving a rugby match.
“If you had trouble in your house during the night there’d be ten fellows there within five minutes. You can depend on them. You should see the apparitions that appear in the fire station during the night. Fellows arrive with clothes half on after getting out of bed but they’re always there and they’re always ready. The first question fellows ask is where is it and what is it? There was one occasion when there were two people over from Castlebar and they

were doing some work on the radio when a call went out and within minutes there were ten men bursting in the door. They couldn’t believe it.
“It’s a serious job and it’s very responsible but the people in the Westport service are great men. Everyone looks out for everyone else and there is a great camaraderie in the group. That’s what I’ll miss most, the spirit in the group and the craic that we have.”
Over the years the role of the fire fighter has evolved. When John Doyle started all those years ago hardly a week went by without them having to attend to a whin or a chimney fire. “They’re nearly a thing of the past now and mostly now it’s house fires or road traffic accidents that we deal with. People clean their chimneys more now and there is much more awareness of fire safety. And the whin fires seem to be a thing of the past too, for some reason.”
He remembers spending two months in Clogher pumping from the lake into the pump house when there was a water shortage in Westport. “That was demanding because it was non-stop really. You had to do your ordinary day job as well as fire fighting and whatever spare time you had you were expected to go to Clogher to help with the water shortage. We had a little tent down there and there was two pumps going there around the clock. It wasn’t something you couldn’t do, the town needed water and we were in a position to provide it.”
There’s been amusing times too. Like the time they were called to rescue a sheep that had got trapped on a ledge at Sheaffrey. “He was there for three weeks and everyone had tried to get him down but failed. We put up a 45’ ladder and three of us went up to the top. There was a tiny ledge that the sheep had managed to get onto but he had eaten everything on it and he was starved. Mattie Reidy decided he’d try and grab him and we thought there’d be a big struggle but once Mattie put his hand on the sheep it was like lifting a feather. He was all skin and bone but we heard afterwards that he survived.
“Then, many years later, we got the same request to do the exact same thing and we went at it the same way but when we got to the top the sheep just shook himself and jumped down and we were left up there at the top,” he recalled.
The biggest fire he dealt with was at Westport Textiles in March, 1969. “We were fighting that for nearly three day, around the clock. The Castlebar service was back helping us as well and that was a very difficult one to deal with. It had a huge effect on everyone in the town because so many people worked there.”
The most recent incident that could have had devastating consequences for Westport was just a few weeks ago when a number of gas bottles caught fire in the car park off Bridge Street.
“It could have blown half of Bridge Street up. It was frightening to think what could have happened,” he said. That nothing did happen was down to the expertise of the men of the Westport Fire Brigade, men who badly need a new Fire Station. “There’s an urgent need for a new station. It would allow for the lads to have better training facilities and better equipment and the reality is the entire community will benefit when that happens.”
John will miss the lads now that he has called it a day. The slagging and the craic that was part of his life will have to be replaced by something else. “‘Twas all lighthearted stuff. Once we got in the wagon and on our way, we’d be having the craic. I’ll miss that.”