Pakie reflects on 60 years as an emigrant

AT about 1pm last Sunday Pakie Kearney stepped off the train at Ruislip tube station. You couldn’t miss him. The 82-year-old Ennistymon man, who emigrated to the UK on October 1, 1949, was wearing a round tweed cap, a Clare jersey and a tweed coat. Pakie was on his way to Ruislip, where the Clare senior footballers were due to play London, having left his home in Canvey Island, Essex, at 10am that morning.
Originally from Church Hill in Ennistymon, Pakie even remembers the name of the emigrant boat that took him to England more than 62 years ago.
“I arrived in Liverpool. The name of the boat was the Princess Maud. They reckoned the cattle were down below but we never saw them. I came over with a friend of mine. God rest him, he’s passed away now. I came to a place called Peterborough. I worked there for the London Brick Company,” Pakie recalled.
Then aged 20, he clearly remembers his first job. “I used to put the bricks into the kilns and I used to handle 16,000 bricks a day. We used to get three shillings and six pence a thousand. My first week’s wages was three pounds, 10 shillings. I thought I was a millionaire and that I’d never be able to spend all this money. I was there for about six years. I used to come up and down to London for the Irish dances. That’s where I met my late wife Kathleen. I met her in Hillingdon. She was from Keady in Armagh,” Pakie told The Clare Champion.
All six of Pakie’s siblings emigrated and all bar Joseph still live in England. He moved to New Ross with his wife following his retirement in England.
On leaving Peterborough, Pakie moved to the Old Kent Road in London and changed career.
“I worked for London Transport for 26-and-a-half years. I started off sweeping the trains and then I went to school for about six weeks to become what they call a semi-skilled fitter. When the trains would come out of service, the driver would leave a card saying what was wrong with the train. You had to inspect it and put it right.   It was very interesting, with a lot of night work, a week of days and week of nights. I loved it and of course I get cheap transport now. I don’t pay anything,” he laughed.
Deeply interested in GAA and soccer, Pakie played a bit of hurling many decades ago.
“I played a little bit of hurling with Ennistymon years ago but I was useless. I’m a Gaelic man through and through. I don’t like country and western music. My music is traditional Irish music. I’ve done a bit of set dancing over here too but the health caught up with me. I’m an asthmatic. So when I couldn’t finish the set I didn’t want to participate. I’d have to sit down. They’d say ‘sit down before you have a heart attack,’” he smiled.
Pakie speaks with a distinct Irish brogue. He was delighted to have this confirmed to him. 
“I’ve still got my accent. I can’t change it. What would I want to change it for only to make a fool of myself?” he queried.
A few years after his wife passed away in 1996, Pakie moved to Canvey Island to live near his daughter.
“It took me two years to say yes because I was leaving all my friends behind and I used the watch the Gaelic games at a local pub on the Sunday. I’m quite happy here now though. It’s my home and my family is here,” he reflected.
He visits London now and then, principally to attend Millwall FC matches.
“The last game I saw was against Bolton Wanderers in the FA Cup. I always to go the Millwall end. They’re a bit loud and you get the odd swear and things like that. But you’d get that anywhere. There isn’t any trouble in the ground though because of the security. But they have a bad name from years ago and it’ll always stay with them. I also go to my local football team, Canvey Island. They’re in the Ryman League,” Pakie explained.
Educated by the Christian Brothers at Ennistymon CBS, whom he describes as “very hard men”, Pakie last visited his home town in 2009.
“I could go back tomorrow if I wanted to but my family’s here in England. I’ve two daughters, seven or eight grand-children and two great-grand-children. I wouldn’t know anyone back there now because half of them have gone away and emigrated like myself,” he noted.
With the clock now approaching 2.30pm, Pakie decided that he had talked enough. Throw-in time was approaching and it was time to take his position on the crowded supporters bank at the GAA grounds in Ruislip.