22 SATuRdAy, MAy 31, 2014 WWW.WESTMEATHEXAMINER.IE

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characters, children, and the finalists morning start, no battling city centre “ is almost ‘purpose built’ for the Lord and Lady competition. traffic, and no long drive home after- for a Fleadh,” stated Padraic Keena, girls THe The feature on Saturday May 31 is the wards. The North Westmeath Hospice cathaoirleach of Westmeath County BACHelor selection and knighting of the new has, for the last several years, been run- Board Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann at in Junk Kouture Lord and Lady with a special rendition ning an alternative mini-marathon on the recent launch of the fleadh. of the story, but in a day of activities, the June bank holiday Monday – and the The three event venues, Moate JANE Wallace, daughter of John and from 9am, the highlights will be the big difference between it and the Dub- Community School, Tuar Ard Theatre Helen from Ballagh, and Emma Kin- large market in The Square, dog show, lin event is that it’s not a women-only and Moate Community Hall, are all sella, daughter of Pauline and Declan soccer blitz, art exhibition including run/walk. Says Tina Kellegher: “This within walking of each other for events from Lynderry in Mullingar, were se- students, history exhibition include is for the entire family – men, women, on July 11-13. lected as the overall winners in the Junk WWI Exhibition, historical town walk children – even the family pet!” The céílí dancing competitions are Koture 2014 national finals on Friday. and down by the river from 2pm events Registration for the event begins at on Friday July 11 at Moate Community Jane and Emma are students of Our for kids from Mad Hatter’s Tea Party to 10.15am at Dunnes Stores car park with School, along with the céilí bands Lady’s Bower in , and along ribbon workshop by Firemonkeys plus the event kicking off at 11am. Those on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13, while with fellow schoolgirl Ruth Gallagher fancy dress and competitions. who have been collecting sponsorship music, singing and comhrá Gaeilge who modelled their ‘Pine-a-Coladas’ On Sunday June 1, the Lord and don’t need to pay to take part; others competitions will be based in rooms design on stage at The 02 for the Lady will appear at Family Fun are asked to make a €10 donation all over the school on the Saturday and Grand Finale of Junk Kouture Recycled Knights aplenty for Day at Races. Other – all of which goes towards funding Sunday. Tuar Ard Theatre will host Fashion Competition 2014, they beat highlights include a special tug-o-war the invaluable work of the North the sean-nós dancing competitors on off students from across Ireland by Kilbeggan Festival competition, a céilí evening and a finale Westmeath Hospice. Ruth Gallagher (16) models ‘Pine-a- Friday evening along with the sound storming the catwalk in front of a sell- on The Green on Sunday night. “It’s a real social occasion,” says Coladas’ designed by Mullingar girls of button accordions on Saturday and out crowd. THE Kilbeggan Knighthood Festival has Music on The Green from Friday to Tina, adding that after the event, Emma Kinsella and Jane Wallace, who Sunday. Moate Community Hall will The outfit made from rope, pine become one of the most entertaining Sunday will include Conor Quinn and refreshments are served in Kerrigan’s, attend Our Lady’s Bower, Athlone. host the set-dancing competitions on cones and dried pineapple, took first events in the midlands since it started in White Chalk, Mercury, Celtic Blondes, and lots of people stay around mixing Friday evening as well as grupaí cheoil place, winning a cash prize of €2,500 2012. The third year of the event, which and The Lols. The full programme of and mingling and enjoying the buzz and hospice – both the hospice nurses and over the weekend. Meanwhile, the for their school. celebrates the knighting of Thomas events is on the Kilbeggan Knighthood atmosphere.] the voluntary committee, headed up committee is hosting The Fleadh 5K Jane Wallace and Emma Kinsella also Cuffe, innkeeper in 1773 by Lord Lieu- Festival website or the leaflet in Anyone who has T-shirts or high-vis by Veronica Larkin – who fundraise to Road Race/Fun Run/Walk in Moate on won a mini iPad each, a course in the tenant Townsend, is on from Friday circulation. jackets from previous events is asked to keep the service running. Monday June 2, starting at noon. LA College of Creative Arts in May 30 to Sunday June 1. wear them. For more information, contact 087 and €500 in cash. Their teacher Una The event begins with the now This Friday, the North Westmeath 9372361. Great prizes on offer. Kelly was also awarded with an iPad traditional and popular parade on Forget Dublin: do Hospice is also holding a summer ‘Fleadh out’ mini for her efforts. Friday at 7pm with the emphasis on sunflower evening, with a mini period clothing. Mullingar! barbecue at Miller and Cook from 7- in Moate! It will be led by Grand Marshall 10pm. At just €10, it promises to be a Want to wish someone well? Contact The Bachelor: Pat Lynagh and will include sporting FORGET the Dublin mini-marathon: the great night, with food, music and fun. THE Fleadh Cheoil committee email: [email protected], call 044 93 46746 bodies, ethnic communities, Westmeath mini-marathon is where it’s It’s also a chance to meet some of are busy as the date of the event – taking  agriculture, business, cartoon at! No hassle getting parking, no early- the faces who do so much work for the place this year in Moate – draws closer.

My MeMories... Marie Cox Marie: remembering how husband Harry put Kinnegad on the map

THE joke in the house of Marie and Milo Cox, as they raised their family of 12, was that “‘my’ children and ‘your’ children are fighting with ‘our’ children!”. Marie, widowed at just 32, when her beloved first husband, Harry Dunne died, had six children. Milo was also widowed young, and had a son, and when Marie and Milo married they went on to have five more children. “But there was never any distinction, like, if someone said to me: ‘your half- sister’, or ‘half-brother’, I’d never think that way – we’re all brothers and sis- ters,” says Aideen Ginnell, second eldest of the brood, who range in age now from 60 down to mid-40s. Marie, matriarch of the Dunne and Cox clan, a beautiful and lively 87-year- Marie Cox: looking back on a life well- old, with a sparkle in her eye, highly rec- lived. ommends having a large family. “I don’t know why people don’t have Harry’s, in the early days. The late Harry Dunne, after whom big families, because they rear them- Harry’s of Kinnegad is named. selves – and they’re good company for “But I used to feel sorry for them,” gotten all about him. With some degree of prescience, each other, and it’s nice to have them in she says, adding that when she could, “This course came up in Mount Sinai Harry had said to her at one point: “I’m your old age,” she says. sometimes she’d sneak a bit of fruit in hospital in New York, and myself and just thinking: this place would be no Marie’s first husband was ‘the’ Harry to them. another girl applied for it, and got it, and good to you if anything happened to me. of Harry’s in Kinnegad. His name is back After her training, Marie returned we had to get a year’s leave of absence, If anything does, you should put it up on Kinnegad’s main street thanks to the home and spent a year doing midwifery and there was a big ‘do’ for us in the hos- for sale.” present owners’ decision to return to in Holles Street before taking up a job pital, and Harry said to me: ‘Where are As it happened not long afterwards, the name that put Kinnegad on the map, in ‘the county’ [hospital] in Mullingar, you going tomorrow?’, and I said: ‘I’m Mick Dunne, Harry’s brother, who had something that has delighted Marie, who living with Bella Kilmartin – an aunt of Fr going [to Dublin] to get the tickets’. And bought a pub in Kinnegad, which wasn’t still gets emotional talking about the Michael Kilmartin’s – over what is now he said: ‘Get off the bus in Kinnegad, and in great condition, wanted to sell it. man who wooed her, wed her, and then, Eason’s. I will meet you there’. Harry counted the cars driving tragically, was stolen from her by cancer. “I was only three years working as a “And in the car, he said to me: ‘You through Kinnegad, and reckoned if he Marie was born in 1926, at Knock- nurse here, and you had to leave your are not going to get tickets today: we are bought the pub, and if he could get 100 nacreeve, near Sonna, to Annie (nee job when you got married,” she says. going to get the ring! We’ll get married, a day to stop, they’d be doing very well, Cleary), from Cloughan, and Michael That marriage was to Harry Dunne, and I couldn’t believe it, and I said yes. so they decided to buy the pub off his Casey, from Bryanstown, . whom she first encountered at a Bach- And I had to go back then, with just one brother. Four and a half months later, the fam- elors Club dance in the county hall after ticket for the other girl. That was 1958, and thus was born ily loaded up a pony and trap, and made Bella introduced them. “The next morning, I woke up, and “Harry’s”, and it was to that establish- Marie as a young nurse. Marie’s second husband, the late Milo their way to Cloughan, to take up a new “But he was doing a line with another thought I had been dreaming so the first ment that Marie came “home” after they Cox. life as publicans and farmers, and Marie girl,” says Marie. thing I did was looked at my hand and had their fifth child, Kathryn. “Milo was interested in horses and went to school at Loughegar, before Harry was, however, smitten, and he saw the ring.” Harry kept on his job in the skin and used to go racing, and he’d call in and into “The Colt” pub – the forerunner to heading to board at a convent school in began to ask Marie out, but she knocked In February 1954, the couple got hide firm as the two built up the busi- he’d have steak and onion and chips on what is now Danny Byrne’s, deciding it Navan, which she loved. him back. But they managed somehow married, and when Marie asked Harry ness, expanding the premises, and the way back,” recalls Marie. was better to have a pub than a clothes “I wanted to be a hairdresser, but to run into each other often, and the where they were going to live, he sprung growing their trade. It was the first road- Eventually, their friendship became shop, as they’d never have to have a sale. my mother wanted me to be a nurse, conversation flowed easily, and there another surprise: he had a house ar- house to serve bar food. more, and Milo asked Marie to marry “I said ‘we’ll do dinners’, and we were and she had a priest friend in Leeds, Fr was good craic between them. ranged for them in - “St Etch- Two years later, Marie and Vera were him. the first in Mullingar to serve food in a Casey, and she arranged it all, and I went “Then, I fell stone mad in love with en’s”, all furnished, carpeted, and ready doing so well - Marie doing the cooking “I never told anyone I was getting pub, and then we decided to open the there for three years to train,” she says. him,” she recalls. to move in to. and Vera running the bar - that Harry married, only Patty,” she says, referring end as a steak bar, and I did the cooking The war was just over, and many of But from Marie’s point of view, there Children followed soon after, and decided to build a dining room, and the to Patty Conlon who helped her with the there.” the patients were German prisoners of was no future, since he was seeing this while Harry drove to Kinnegad daily to trade grew day by day. The head chef children. They sold The Colt, but after a spell at war, brought to St James’s Hospital as it other girl, and she believed she had no work in the Dunnes’ skin and hide busi- was... Marie herself, even though she “We got married in Dublin, in the Uni- home minding the family, Marie got, as was the first to offer plastic surgery. The chance. ness, Marie stayed at home, minding had never trained as a chef. versity Chapel, and went to London, she puts it, “itchy feet”, and decided to nurses weren’t supposed to speak to the “So I decided to go to America, and the children, their first having arrived in “I started the food. I did weddings, and we came back and said we were open a B&B, and she ran that until 1995, prisoners of war. that when I’d come home, I’d have for- January 1955, the next in April 1956. with my sister, Vera,” says Marie. married.” when she and Milo moved in to Mull- “Harry Dunne put Kinnegad on the Marie sold Harry’s to Tom Bourke, ingar town centre, finally beginning to map.” later of The Covert, and she and Milo scale down on a lifetime of hard work. But as they raised their young family, settled in Pettitswood, with their seven Milo, sadly, died in 2012. and expanded their business, there was children. Coincidentally, there were Although now in her 80s, Marie still My hobbies...Peter beirne tragedy on the way: Harry became ill in now two children with the name Mark drives, and still enjoys an active social January of 1960, with, it turned out, can- in the family – “Mark C” and “Mark life, especially enjoying playing cards cer. He died in September 1960 at just 38 D”, just nine months apart in age. Milo with her sister, Vera, and also, painting. MY name is Peter Beirne and I would years of age. and Marie went on to have Milo, Liz, She begins her day with Mass, saying re- like to tell you about my hobbies. My He had been a keen GAA man – both Stephen, Morgan and Leonard. ligion has always been important to her: favourite hobbies are reading and as a county player and official – and on Missing the challenge that came with “Without God, I wouldn’t have got on. I sport. I especially love sport because his death, a minute’s silence was ob- running a business, Marie’s eyes lit up put it all down to him”. it keeps me fit and active. You have to served at the All-Ireland final in Croke when she saw, one day, a “For Sale” sign When she returns from Mass, vari- be dedicated to whatever sport you do Park that same day. on a pharmacy on Pearse Street. ous family members drop in and out. In and always be on time for training and Marie and Harry had five children first “I said: ‘we’ll buy that’, and Milo said: total, Marie has 36 grandchildren. matches and games. At the moment I – Harry, Aideen, Johnny, Eamon and ‘we won’t!’. But anyway, we got a price In fact, on the day of the interview, play basketball and Gaelic football and Kathryn and Marie was four and a half on it, and went ahead and bought it. present were Marie’s daughters Aideen also athletics. I probably get my love of months pregnant with her sixth child, “I wanted to open a hairdresser’s Ginnell and Liz Tynan, and Aideen’s sport from my mum, who played sport Mark, when he died. – and it would have done well – and daughter, also Aideen. from early childhood. My favourite Despite that, with the help of good Vera said: ‘We’ll open a clothes shop’, “It can be like a train station here!” sport would probably be Gaelic foot- friends and good staff, she carried on because she had served her time in Kee- laughs Aideen. ball. The name of the club I play for is running the business. lan’s in Mullingar.” Marie finishes by saying she is de- Inny Shamrocks and I play U14. This is After some time, she became friendly The sisters opened “Liz Anne” clothes lighted that the new owners of The my first year playing U14 so I am very with a young widower, veterinary sur- shop – but after about five years, when a Hilamar have called it Harry’s, and she excited, My trainers are John Kiernan geon, Milo Cox, whose wife had died pub licence came up for sale, Marie de- wishes them the very best of luck in the and Peter Maguire and we are at the top suddenly, leaving a son, Mark, behind. cided to buy that, and turned Liz Anne future. of our table. My home pitch is in Bun- brosna. A special word of thanks to our two trainers who put blood, sweat and tears into the team during our training Would you like to feature in sessions and matches. I think everyone My Memories or My xxxxxxx? should have hobbies and one should be sport, it so good for your health and fit-  Email [email protected] or call 04493 46747 ness. I really enjoy my hobbies.