South Meath Driving School

Close to Tralee is the rural parish of Abbeydorney where one Michael Buckley was born over ninety  years ago. In time, he took over the family farm and married Breda. Land was in the blood for generations and Michael knew the ins and outs of the scene from a young age.

In his spare time, Michael pursued the game of the smaller ball in his younger days, hurling for the Kilflynn Club and, in 1957, landed a North Kerry Senior Championship and added another later on.

The children began to arrive and, to any unassuming Abbeydorney or Knocknagoshel man, the Buckleys were a chip of the old block, set in their ways as tradition would have it. Not exactly, mind you, as there was a latent streak of the Tom Creans lurching in this Mike fellow.

He had observed the  hardships endured by farmers engaged in bringing cattle to fairs at crossroads and market squares and the thousand year old method of buying and selling, or, maybe, not selling at all on the day. Michael was a founder member of Tralee Mart, Cork Marts and FBD Insurance for the farming community.

He looked at his own farm, probably with the same jaundiced eye as Kavanagh when he penned the lines, ‘… They said

That I was bounded by the whitethorn hedges

Of the little farm and did not know the world …’

Soon he was talking to the local Land Commission officer with a view to moving to greener pastures, though now in his early 40’s. Mick and Breda found themselves viewing farms in Straffan, Beaupark,  and Trim. Being forward-thinking people, it was easy settling for the Navan Road, Trim, for its proximity to the town and a good choice of schools.

When Mick told his neighbours of his plans they told him he was mad; he was moving kit and kin. The decision was made and there was no time for tears before, during or after the big move. It was grist to the mill. Cattle, a farm horse and all the farm implements were transported from Kerry in lorries. Michael, accompanied by Breda and their three small children, drove their new Ford Anglia car – Reg. No. FIN-756 and priced at £350.00 – all the way to Trim, a distance of nearly 200 miles. They arrived on the evening of the 26^th of March, 1965, almost fifty years ago. It was in its own right, somehow, comparable to the brave men and women who, in the 1840s onwards, took the Oregon and California Trails West, except that the Buckleys didn’t raft down the Boyne on their run-in to their newest conquest. For this family, it was a monstrous undertaking, a once in a lifetime move that was near irreversible.

At that time, other families from the kingdom also arrived, like the Gouldings, Brosnans and Foleys; they attracted the attention of Telefis Eireann whose News crew interviewed them about their great venture North. Word has it that Buckley was, there and then, offered a job in the RTE Newsroom.

But, it was no soft  landing for those trekkers. While they had a new house to move in to, there was no electricity for Breda for some months to come. Mick embarked on building outhouses and sheds and there were new farming systems to be learned. For, it should be known that Kerry has a climate that’s more akin to the Mediterranean than that of these parts. Well, slightly, they say they are a month ahead of the North-East with their crops and in their first year here a late April frost was a setback to Mick’s early plantings.

In their first years in Trim, Breda’s uncles and cousins arrived from Kerry to assist with the crops and out-buildings, staying a few weeks at a time in the process. Between their ‘foreign’ accents and demands for pints of Single X porter, Marcie Regan is reported to have been at a rare disadvantage.

If neighbourliness was as regular as tea making in Kerry, so the new arrivals found it likewise in their new found land where the likes of Dick Fitzsimons, Paddy Browne and Major Thompson were always on hand to give advice and good counsel.

Trim was a small town in the mid 60’s, but Buckley was soon expanding. He rented land near Navangate and, it was a common sight to see cattle being walked the short mile in and out the Navan Road to this land. Incidentally, Griffin Park was later built on that pasture.

It was common then to have cattle tended in the heart of a town and it isn’t so long since James Brogan and his late father, Michael, were milking cows in the yard of Brogan’s Hotel; Jim Taafe did likewise on Haggard St. And, it seems only like yesterday that Betty McEvoy walked her cattle out the Dublin Road, with bales of hay stacked on her bicycle, to her farm at Maudlins. All a pretty sight.

Buckleys new house was the only one on the Navan Road between Davis’ and  Phil McArdle’s. Whether in the name of progress, all that has changed meanwhile.

Michael and Breda took their skills to Trim golf course at an early stage and his good self didn’t sacrifice all his small ball skills to Kilflynn for, in 1975, he almost stole the show on Captain’s Day when he came in second. Breda revealed a little secret about a record that Michael holds in the Kingdom, or maybe, on this little planet. They were back down there on holidays, playing golf. Mick hit a notorious drive off the 18^th tee. His ball went out of sight in the direction of the car park where Breda was gearing up for home: it landed in the boot of the Anglia and wasn’t recovered until they arrived in Trim – which has to be the longest drive not on record!

Michael loved Wednesdays and Dad’s Army outings at Newtownmoynagh in his latter playing days close to his 90^th birthday. While his fleety foot may have deserted him, his astute brain retains all the alacrity of a young fellow.

Breda drives the family car as ever while Michael quit five years ago. As I teach young people, like their grandson, David, to drive, I exhort them to adopt all the good habits at an early stage as they will stand them in good stead for 70 or even 80 years duration. They might chuckle at such a thought, but, isn’t the old master from Abbeydorney living proof. And, don’t wager too much on not seeing him make his way towards Newtownmoynagh in a grey Anglia some sunny Wednesday morn.

He says his Autumn years have fallen fast upon him recently and he misses the work in the fields and just pottering about the house. He knows, too, his many blessings in his children and grandchildren and, most of all, the brightest ray of sunshine through his good wife.

Michael took the Ralph Emerson way in life –

‘Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.’