Paddy Claffey was born in Noggusboy, Ferbane, on April 17th, 1921, three months before the end of Ireland’s War of Independence. His parents were Sarah (Flaherty) of Gallen and Kieran Claffey, Noggus. The youngest of their ten children, Paddy had six sisters – Maryann, Maggie, Kit, Ellen, Jane, and Sarah – and three brothers – Ned, Kieran, who died aged 27, and Johnny, at birth.
The siblings attended Gallen NS, where Paddy’s teacher was Master Goodwin. In Brendan Ryan’s book, On Gallen Green, a 1927 school photograph on page 122 shows P.J. Claffey in the front row.
For his 90th birthday party in the Bridge House Hotel, I had the pleasure of interviewing my granduncle and writing his story. Paddy was a natural storyteller. Recalling his first time away from home for a long spell, he was thirteen and had taken an awful pain. Doctor Maher advised hiring a car to drive him to Tullamore. The hospital was the very same as a big hayshed, Paddy said, with auld lads smoking; they couldn’t see one another with the smoke. His sister, Ellen, cycled in to see him every day, and the woman who owned Lawless’s shop sent her two daughters with books and sweets. He was glad to go home, but couldn’t get used to the small house in Noggus for the longest time.
As regards his working life, Paddy remembers the day Mary Dolan of Ballinagar married Martin Pearse. He got up at six to cut meadow. Finished at three and cycled thirty-seven miles. Danced until eight the next morning, stopping in Chapman’s on his way home for ice cream. Cut turf until six that evening.
He and his friends, Mick Gloucester, John Joe Brazil, and Ber Coughlan, also worked out in Coole with my father, Connie Browner, who was surveying land for the new ESB Power Station.
Neighbours in Noggus included the Coughlans, Fogartys, Dolans, Bennetts, and Devereys. Himself and Dinny Dolan would go dancing in Ferbane Hall every week. The first girl Paddy asked up to dance, couldn’t dance at all. No matter where he put his foot, hers was there too. When he tried to turn, she fell on the floor, pulling him down. A few more couples came along and fell on top of them. Soon, there was a tier of people, the very same as Beecher’s Brook. Paddy scrambled out from under them and fled. He didn’t get up to dance again for another two years.
His brother, Ned, bought a new bike one time and left Paddy his old one, with the saddle and springs gone. During the War Years, tires were hard got so Paudge Deverey gave him two used ones, but they had no pump. In the middle of the night, there was a knock on the door. It was Leo Woods, a Cloghan shopkeeper, whose van had broken down. They gave him the bike, and off he cycled rat-tat-tat into town. The next day, Paddy saw it outside the barracks and borrowed a pump to get it home.
His mother loved the annual Ferbane carnival. One evening, Ned took her on the horse and trap, along with his wife and two children. Later, the horse came home alone, with only the two shafts and a harness on him. Their father said something horrid must’ve happened.
Then, Ned arrived, linking his mother, who was crying from pain. Paddy lay beside her all night, until she fell into a coma. Sarah Claffey died the next day, July 2nd, 1951, at the age of 73.
Seemingly, a van had met with the trap and ran into the wheel. The horse slipped and broke off the shafts, and she was flung out on the road, where her head hit a rock. The occupants of the van had driven over from Shannonbridge, where they were working on the Brosna drainage dragline. In 1948, a scheme had been set up to dredge the river. Paddy showed me a newspaper cutting of the court case. The driver maintained that the trap had been on the wrong side of the road. If so, Ned had insisted, the van wouldn’t have run into it.
Paddy was thirty years of age when his mother died. Soon after, he met Margaret Wheeler at a dance. She was from Wexford and had come to Ferbane with the Manager of the Ulster Bank and his family, as their housekeeper/childminder. Paddy and Margaret got married on October 19th, 1953, in a double wedding with his sister, Sarah, to John Doyle. Paddy was horrid nervous, so the other couple went up to the altar first. Coming down the aisle, John greeted him, ‘Glory Claffey.’
Paddy and Margaret settled in Noggus and reared three children, Kieran, Brid, and Pat. Their first baby, Margaret, died at three months, from spina bifida. Grandchildren eventually followed – Fiona, Adrian, Liam Claffey, and Shane (Rooney). Unfortunately, Margaret passed away on Christmas Day 2004, leaving Paddy heartbroken. Sadly, she didn’t live to meet her great-grandchildren – Conor, Holly, Isabelle, and Dara Griffin; Shay, and Paidi Claffey.
Paddy worked on the farm and on the bog until well into his nineties. Because of lockdown, his 100th birthday was celebrated outside his house in Noggus, where well-wishers were invited to drive by and beep. Paddy was in his element, waving at the queue of cars. Better than any party, he said. He received a cheque and a congratulatory letter from President Michael D. Higgins. On his 101st and every subsequent birthday since, he has received a specially designed commemorative coin and a Presidential letter.
Five years later, he’s still going strong; still driving the quad; still following horse racing on television and the marts on his tablet. He has been named Grand Marshal of the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Clara this March, invited to a wedding at Easter, and will celebrate his 105th birthday on April 17th.
In January this year, 2026, he was officially pronounced the oldest man in Ireland. Glory Claffey!
104th birthday
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