Football fanatic and poteen maker Robin mourned in Clare

POTEEN maker, Gaelic Football fanatic, Ladies’ Football coach, storyteller and member of Kilkishen Wren Boys – Robin O’Connell was one of the most colourful characters in South-East Clare.

The father-of-three celebrated his 86th birthday recently with a function in the Tail Race Bar, Parteen, where he was feted by family and friends, but on Friday, August 26, he died peacefully in University Hospital Limerick (UHL) following a stroke four days earlier.

Robin was prosecuted at Sixmilebridge District Court on numerous occasions for making poteen in a still at a derelict cottage on his uncle’s farm near the sprawling South-East Clare village.

In 1997, Robin was fined €1,000 or in default three months in jail after he was convicted for the manufacture of alcohol without a licence.

In early September that day he was visited by a Garda who informed him he would have to take him to prison unless he paid the fine. However, Robin volunteered to go to prison after the All-Ireland senior hurling final between Clare and Tipperary.

The Garda returned the following Saturday and transported Robin to Limerick Prison at around 2pm.

In an interview with The Clare Champion a few years ago, he recalled, “I got the finest dinner you ever ate in prison that day. I was prepared to stay in jail for a week to see what it would be like but I was back home in Meelick at 7pm,” he said.

In 1977, a District Court judge asked him was he going to make poteen again. Robin declared: “your honour if you fine me today, I will have to make “poteen” again to pay the fine.

According to Robin, the judge declared “I can’t fine you as I would only be putting you back into business”, so he got off.

His work in the illegal distillery business has become part of local folklore with two poems written about his brushes with the law including one by Willie Sherlock, retired train driver from Knockalisheen and late of Parteen, and another one from T J McCarthy entitled “€1,000 or three months”.

He started making poteen in 1977 and continued up to six years ago. On average, he made about ten gallons a month and used to sell it in a whiskey bottle for €7.

“Around Christmas time, I used to clean up. People used to buy it for Christmas and wedding cakes as the cake would last a lot longer,” he said.

It is illegal to distil poteen in Ireland without a licence. There are a number of manufactures who have a license to produce it.

It is used for medical purposes and some people use it to treat their arthritis by rubbing it around the affected areas to relieve pain.

One report in a newspaper stated garda tests showed his poteen was “high quality stuff”.

In 1996, he was approached by an American couple who had come from Lourdes to purchase poteen.

Before she left his house the American mother was afraid the poteen would be confiscated by customs so Robin transferred holy water out of a statue of Our Lady from Lourdes into an ordinary bottle and replaced it with poteen.

Born in Foynes, County Limerick, he was reared with his two brothers at their uncle’s home in Boola, Meelick near the local national school from the age of three months.

On Fridays, his father, Paddy used to travel in a Shell oil lorry to a location where the Two Mile Inn is situated today where he would be collected by his uncles for the weekly visit of his children.

Two of his uncles Jackie and Bobby Nix, who were members of the 1917 Meelick Intermediate championship winning team were involved in the Cratloe Ambush in 1921.

Another two uncles, Eddie and Georgie were members of the 1930 Junior A hurling championship.

There is a photograph of the 1917 Meelick team in Michael Cusack’s Visitor Centre in Carron.

A former pupil of Meelick National School, he played football for Meelick from 1953 to 1986 “without missing a match” and also doubled up as manager during this period.

When he was a juvenile he returned to his place of birth to help St Senan’s win U-16 West Limerick U-16 football final.

According to Robin, he played minor hurling for Meelick at the age of 25.

“Officials came in at half-time taking names of people they thought were over age and passed me out.

“I played minor hurling at a game in Clonlara with a father and son. The father captained Meelick in 1930 and he played minor hurling with his son in 1952. Players on the other team were as old,” he claimed.

A late comer to Gaelic football, he used to play centre back.

In 1956, when the Hungarians came to the Asylum-Seeker Accommodation Centre in Knockalisheen, he recalled eight or nine Meelick players joined Treaty Sarsfields, Claughan and St Patrick’s GAA clubs in Limerick City.

At the time, he affiliated a Meelick minor hurling team and a junior football with the Clare County Board. Ballysteen were after receiving a five-year suspension in Limerick and Robin recruited seven of them to play for Meelick.

Asked if this was illegal, Robin replied “ah shure, you know it wasn’t right”.

“When Meelick got to the championship final in 1957, one of the Nestors from Ballysteen who was getting ordained as a priest couldn’t come, so we were beaten,” he said.

Back in the forties every Sunday up to 50 people would converge in his uncle’s house to listen to the legendary Gaelic Games commentator Micheál O’Hehir broadcast matches on their old battery radio.

On September 14 1947, the Nix household was full to listen to a commentary of the All-Ireland final between Cavan and Kerry in the Polo Grounds, New York at 7.30pm.

“A crackle came through the radio. One fella said to another, what’s that. It must be the waves another man replied,”Robin recalled.

Jimmy Hurley, who lived in the Windy Gap, had another battery transistor radio, which was very handy for matches.

In 1975, he steered Meelick to a junior hurling championship title. In 1986, Robin was manager when Meelick won the county junior championship decider. In 1987, he started a ladies football team in the parish.

His cabinet is bulging with plaques and presentations he has received over the years thanks to his success on the playing fields, winning a total of 14 league and championship titles with ladies teams.

He steered Meelick to a five-in-a-row string of titles, junior B in 1988, junior A in 1989, 1990 and two Intermediate titles in 1991 and 1992. In 1996, Clare won the All-Ireland Intermediate ladies football title.

Four women who Robin trained were members of this all conquering team – Orla Fitzgerald, Sixmilebridge, Rosie Foley and Annie Flynn, Killaloe and Brid Ahearne, Meelick.
Back in the fifties, he used to bring milk from about 20 cows on a pony and trap to Parteen creamery.

He used to rear calves and put them out on grass on his uncle’s farm.

A member of Kilkishen Wren Boys, he used to be the amadán, Irish for a male fool and won five All-Ireland Wren Boys and three All-Ireland mummers medals in the eighties.
A lot of his friends joked he didn’t have to act at all for this role.

He is deeply missed by his loving family, wife Ann, children John, Robert and Susan, son-in-law Robert, grandchildren Robert and Ava, sister-in-law Nora, nephews and nieces Hester, Jackie, Mary, Declan, Robert, Seán, Ruth and Jenny, extended family, neighbours and a large circle of friends.