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Patrick Foley's 80th. Birthday Party
A Birthday Party and a Night to Remember.
PHOTO Left to right. Philip Foley, Nora Green, Michael Foley, Anne Coleman,
Mary O Dwyer, David Foley Front Row...(Dad) Patrick Foley.
On Saturday 8th April, widower Patrick Foley originally from Round Hill, but now resident at St Carthage’s Home, Lismore celebrated his 80th birthday in style at the Lismore Hotel.
After a few drinks in the bar, Patrick was treated by his loving family to a slap up meal in the hotel restaurant, which was attended by six of his seven grown up children and their partners, some of his 25 grandchildren and even one of his 15 great grandchildren, baby Emma, as well as by close family friends and well wishers who had all gathered together in the packed room to give Patrick a party to remember.
Patrick who was featured in this column last year, thoroughly enjoyed the night and the rousing recitation of happy birthday sang by all present.
Six of Patrick’s seven children still live in Ireland and one son Patrick ‘Pakie’ who is married and living in London was unfortunately unable to attend.
Patrick Foley's......
WW2 Memories.........
(First published 1999.)
Patrick Foley from Lismore, nearly eighty years of age, is a man with a smile not unlike the famous Hollywood actor, Errol Flynn and at over six feet tall he still stands out in a crowd.
However, about two years ago Pat suffered a severe stroke which was followed by the loss of his wife of over fifty years May, (nee McKenna) and for some months Pat was deprived of his independence.
‘I am getting back to myself at last.’ he recently told Kiely when they met at a local supermarket, where he was doing some shopping.
‘Luckily the stroke did not leave me paralysed, just confused for a while, disoriented you might say!’ added Pat who used to be a daily mass goer before his illness.
Later when Kiely spoke to him at St Carthage’s Home where he is staying at present, Mr Foley from Round Hill, was telling Kiely about his memories of England in WW2. back in 1939.
Pat, one of four brothers and one sister, said, ‘I remember seeing the very first German bomb being dropped on London.
‘I had only been in England a few months when war broke out, having gone there for a bit of adventure.
‘I remember I was having breakfast at my digs in Croydon, when I heard the sound of a plane
overhead and went to the window to look out, it was about 11 am on a Sunday morning. I even remember the date, it was Sept.6th, well the next thing I saw was this black coloured bomb start to drop, some distance away, and then I felt the thud. We all thought it was quite exciting at first, but the novelty soon wore off.’
‘ I remember taking sandwiches downstairs with me into Piccadilly underground station which had been converted into a bomb shelter. One night myself and a friend decided to stay above ground and watch the bombing, I saw all these German planes , there must have been three hundred, arrive in relays to drop bombs on the area of the East India Docks, which was just across the river from where we were watching. A breathtaking sight but very scary.’
Through the war Pat worked for Vickers Armstrong as a welder helping to build planes. ‘Some times we would assemble as many as three hundred in a week, he said, but you had to be thorough knowing that a man’s life depended on your work.’
During this time Pat, met and married his late wife May, ‘who came from the North of Ireland,’ he said.
‘We met at the Tudor Irish Club in Croydon, and moved back to Lismore after the war, and I got a job with CIE. We had seven children, four boys and three girls. They are all in Ireland, except one who is in London, England, and he would like to come back home.’
Just before he went off to have a cup of tea, Mr Foley proudly remarked , ‘Would you believe it, I have twenty five grandchildren, and fifteen great- grandchildren.’
Looking at the young looking Pat Foley, No you wouldn’t!
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