Kilmeaden pub refused crown troops

The unexpected passing of the very popular and widely-known Mrs Mary (Minnie) Daly, The Sweep, Kilmeaden, in the summer of 1966 saw the local press hark back to her family’s moments of fame — being served with a military order placing their pub, O’Briens, “out of bounds” to all Crown Forces during the Troubles of the early twenties.

After the death of Minnie’s father, farmer/publican Patrick O’Brien, her mother, Mary Margaret, took over the sole running of the business. She had held the licence — the premises having been acquired by her family, the Hunts, in the mid-19th-century — before getting married.

At the height of the Anglo-Irish strife, Mary Margaret refused to give drink to a lorry-load of British troops who stopped off while carrying out raids in the Ballyduff and Dunhill areas. The document, served by agents under Martial Law, was placed on the outside of the window of the public house. Minnie, born in mid-1900 and part and parcel of the pub at the time, kept it as a prized possession.

Her mother had become bedridden by the time Minnie married the much-travelled John Daly, who had returned after a number of years working in Canada, in September 1928. The newly-weds took over the pub, renaming it Dalys. Its trade was modest and Jack also farmed some cows.

The couple considered relocating to Canada at an early point in their marriage but Jack couldn’t find work over there so they stayed put and started a family, which included three sons, Patrick, Tommy and John, and three daughters, Maureen, Alice, and Ellen.

The Dalys rented an adjacent garage to Tommy Hayes (no relation to his namesakes across the road) in the post-war ’40s and much of the ’50s. The Ballyduff man fixed cars and served fuel until he decided to move to England.

The Daly Brothers saw an opportunity to make in-roads into the service-station business themselves, with plenty of help from their parents. In 1958 they very successfully opened The Sweep Garage, which Pakie, who set up home at Adamstown, ultimately became proprietor of (Tommy and John being domiciled at Orchardstown).

While his sons “got motoring”, Jack, a likeable and busy character, contentedly took up work with Irish Tanners Ltd in Portlaw and remained a valued employee there till his retirement, but sadly Minnie didn’t get to share much of it. Her widower was similarly hale and hearty when he died suddenly, at 73, in May 1971.

Pakie Daly’s son Donal continues to run a motor sales and rental dealership under the Sweep Garage name.

Top photo: Minnie with her husband Jack (left) and a caller to their garage in the early sixties. [Courtesy of Andy Kelly, Kilmacthomas]