A Rochfortbridge man’s story of working with Bord na Móna

“The stories, the yarns, the craic, the fun,” that is what Pat Brady from Rochfortbridge remembers of his time working at Bord na Móna.

Pat recently featured on a new podcast called ‘Stories from Bord na Mona’, compiled by the Laois Offaly Education and Training Board (LOETB), which launched on Saturday last (see main story).

Now retired from the semi-state company, which was created 1946 to develop Ireland’s peatlands with the aim of providing economic benefit for midland communities, Pat has fond memories of growing up in the Bord na Móna housing scheme in Rochfortbridge, known as “the buildings”, and how the company provided work for generations.

“My father worked in Bord na Móna. He had come home from England, he’d met my mother, who was from County Clare, he was originally from County Cavan but his parents had took up home in Rochfortbridge. He saw a future to come home from emigration in England, and the big thing was a job and a house,” Pat says in the podcast.

Explaining that his father grew up in a time when jobs weren’t easy to find, Pat says they felt incredibly “lucky” in his time.

“They came [home] and settled because they got a Bord na Móna house. My big recollection is my grandparents talking about – it wasn’t the Bord na Móna house[s] – it was about ‘the buildings’. If they were still alive, and their generation, the locals in Rochfortbridge would call it ‘the buildings’, because it was a big thing for a little village in the early ’60s.

“We were reared in a housing estate that contained 100 houses, a big green out the front, the caretakers were employed by Bord na Móna at the time, there was great pride in the place. We were educated in Rochfortbridge, both national school and secondary school, we were within walking distance. We had great club sporting amenities, we had libraries, we didn’t realise how lucky we were,” he says.

“And we had a job over the road. I was lucky enough to become an apprentice when I was 16 or 17. I had three brothers and the gas thing about it is at one stage, all three of us were apprentices in Bord na Móna. My father worked in Bord na Móna, we often joked around the dinner table with my mother in the evenings, ‘Ma, if you could get into Derrygreenagh in the canteen, we’d have everybody working [there],” he laughs.

Pat says he learned a lot about life during his time at work. “I met great craftsmen willing to share their knowledge. It was absolutely a wonderful time. And of course, you have to not forget the big social aspect, because of that clubs in the locality prospered and our old enemy across the road [Offaly], they won All-Irelands, we were big rivals of course.

“But it was all because of the bog, because of Bord na Móna… The great people that were in Bord na Móna, the diversity, the knowledge we gained, the life experiences. There were serious times, and sad times, but really what kept us all going was the fun times, the social times, the social club was a big thing in Bord na Móna. It kept the whole, between bog and workshop, so united, we were all this one big family. We came together to socialise, to came together to acknowledge the people who were retiring… we probably had one great yearly outing or dinner dance.”

Generations

“My father, like myself, spent all his life in Bord na Móna, and retired out of Bord na Móna… I saw my grandfather, his family were employed with Bord na Móna, they reared a family, and here am I now, and I’ve reared my family and I feel very lucky.

“Every Thursday we had a few bob, it kept us going, and I have to acknowledge that I reared my family because of Bord na Móna, and I’m very proud that I was part of Bord na Móna.”

Speaking of the younger generation coming up through the ranks of BnM, Pat says, “we have some brilliant people”, adding “long may it continue”.

He says that even though he is now retired, it feels like he never left because of all the retraining that was offered to him, through the LOETB.

“I’ve got an opportunity to retrain since I left Bord na Móna… I’ve done the retrofit course, done a healthcare course through the LOETB, numerous computer courses, and they’re in the process of doing HGV training. I wouldn’t say I left Bord na Móna, I would say I changed careers… we were always given opportunities.