The Late Tony McGowan We buried Tony McGowan just before Christmas and as his coffin left the home on the Carrick Road he and Phil had built together with Martin, Diarmaid, Eilish, Lorraine and Mairead for the last time to be borne aloft by his family and friends on the short sad journey up the hill to St. Patrick's Parish Church, the thought occurred to your correspondent that it must have been like this in ages past when they buried a local Chieftain, someone who had made an indelible impression on his time and whole funeral rites would be talked about among future generations. The night they carried Tony's coffin in relays of four and as the cortege wended its way through the silent, darkened streets it was reminiscent of another time when Tony and his generation would have remembered the old Drumshando, where everybody knew everybody and when one of our own passed away, the community threw it's embrace around the event in acknowledgement that something momentous was happening, an occasion to be remembered. Very Rev Fr Peter Burke PP received Tony into the Church of his Baptism and as so often in the past captured the significance of the events unfolding with gifted and inspiring words of comfort for Tony's immediate family and friends and for those present still coming to terms with the loss of a decent human being, a gentleman to his fingertips as Tommy Moran stated so eloquently at the funeral Mass the following morning. There was widespread sadness at the passing of Tony McGowan on Tuesday 18th December. He truly was an outstanding human being. A member of the teaching Staff of Drumshambo Vocational School from 1969 to his retirement in 1999. Tony was also Secretary of Coiste Comhairle Liatdroim Cumann Luthchleas Gael from 1971 to 1980 and Cathaoirleach from 1986 to 1995. He was an active member of several local organisations and a founding member of Drumshanbo Credit Union. A talented musician mainly, though not exclusively, in the traditional style he played in several Ceili Bands competing in various Fleadhanna as well as the local Ideal Showband led by Barney McCormack and in later life a variety of touring music groups. He and his brother Eamonn introduced a generation of youngsters around the town to a variety of sports, many of which took place in the backyard behind the family home in Carrick Road or in the nearest available field. The Annual Carrick Road bonfire of late lamented memory in these political correct times held on June 23rd St John's Eve was also one of the early examples of Tony's initiatives. On completion of his secondary School education in the Presentation Brothers Carrick, Tony worked for a time as manager of the hardware department in TJ McManus before joining several others of his generation in the mid sixties to find work in Dublin at Unidare in Finglas where he was employed as a Cost Accountant studying in the evening for a B.Sc. Degree at UCD. Following his graduation he returned to his native Drumshambo to embark on a teaching career which is still remembered with affection and respect by all those who studied under the unfailingly courteous and engaging Maths & Business Teacher. Tony met Phil from Sooey at a dance in the Mayflower and lived on Church St following their marriage where they raised their five children before re-locating to the former family home on Carrick Road where he was to spend the remainder of his relatively short life. There followed over the last four years a slow and for Phil and his loving family an agonisingly slow decent as the light of former days and achievements dimmed to that inevitable darkness which envelopes those afflicted by this most ungenerous and cruel of human conditions. We buried Tony McGowan, Teacher, Community Activist, Administrator, supreme optimist but mostly a family man par excellence on the Friday morning before Christmas surrounded by Phil, Martin, Diarmuid, Eilish, Lorraine, Mairead, brother Eamonn, sisters Marion and Patricia, their respective partners and spouses, children, grandchildren, cousins, other relatives and a multitude of friends and admirers for whom life will never be just quite the same. Your correspondent extends his deepest sympathy to all of them on their irreplaceable loss. Ni raibh a leitheid ann aris. Ar dheis De go raibh a anam. Courtesy of the Leitrim Observer 4/1/2008 Tweet

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