Published: Thursday, 28th January, 2010 11:11am

No ordinary Joe

Mullingar's Joe Cronin: a traffic warden in the town for nearly quarter of a century

Joe Cronin is one of Mullingar's great characters. A traffic warden for the past 24 years, he has an unrivalled wit, undoubtedly drawn from his Cork and Tipperary ancestry, polished off with that little bit of Westmeath charm.

"My parents, God rest them, were from Munster. My mother was from Tipperary and my father was a soldier from Cork. I grew up in Mullingar, but spent many a summer in Clonakilty as a young lad," Joe told the Westmeath Examiner.

Joe's dad met his mother in Mullingar while serving as a soldier at the Curragh Camp in Kildare. With military links on both sides of his family, Joe was destined to serve a stint in the Defence Forces himself.

"Joe Mills, my grandfather on my mother's side, was injured while fighting in France during the First World War," he said. "He later came back and joined the Irish Army. My father served as well, so it was inevitable that I would. I still have a few relatives serving in and retired from the Army."

The father-of-five from Ballinderry, who is married to Kathleen, joined the Army in the early 1970s, and completed his basic training at Columb Barracks, Mullingar.

"They have central heating in the barracks now, but in those days we had to draw turf to keep ourselves warm," he said. "I trained to three-star in the barracks, and just as it looked as if I'd have to go abroad, I got the chance to join the Military Police in the Curragh."

Joe served a number of six-week terms as an NCO in the military police. He recalls that not long after he joined the MP, the batch of fellow soldiers who left for UN duty in the Middle East were recalled as a consequence of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings.

He later trained for the Army Ranger Wing, enduring seven weeks of gruelling training in the mountains of Donegal, and climbing Carrauntuohill in Kerry along the way. Border duty followed.

"It was very rough at the time, with the Troubles in full swing," Joe said. "And it was a very sad time. Only a couple of years before in 1969, you had people coming down across the border, after having their houses burned."

But the Ranger course was worth the experience, Joe reckons.

"Every young person should do a stint in the Army. Eighteen months of compulsory service would do them good," he said.

He recalls guarding the old explosives factory in Enfield on many occasions, and as a Ranger, manning armed border checkpoints before and after the funeral of hunger striker Frank Stagg, who was reinterred in Mayo after his death in 1976.

Joe left the Army in the late 1970s to settle down with Kathleen in Mullingar. He took up a post with the Midland Health Board as a driver and maintenance worker, before joining Westmeath County Council a traffic warden in the mid 1980s.

It's a job he enjoys thoroughly.

"I love working with the Council," he enthused. "It's a pleasure to have a job where you get to meet so many people on a day-to-day basis."

And Joe always has a friendly word for everyone, even if the elements can be a drawback at times. "You'd want to have been like Torville and Dean getting through some of the weather over Christmas," he joked.

Ireland's sometimes unforgiving climate isn't the only gremlin he encounters.

"One thing I can't stand, and something I'm very strict on as a traffic warden, is people parking in disabled parking spaces," he said. "I have no time for that.

"My mother died when I was young, and she spent time in a wheelchair towards the end of her life. To leave someone without a facility like that is a nasty thing to do."

Joe has fond memories of his parents, and their regular trips to Cork when he was a child, where he often played football and hurling with his relatives.

Kicking a football around a field in those days nurtured a love for the GAA, which has never left him.

"There was a great Kerry footballer, a centre-forward by the name of Pat Griffin, who was a Garda sergeant in Clonakilty when I was younger, and we used to meet him all the time when we were in Cork.

"I remember he scored a goal against Westmeath in a league semi-final in the late '60s, at a time when Westmeath had a great collection of players like Mick Carley and Des Dolan (senior)."

A couple of years ago, Joe had a cup of coffee with Kerry great, Mick O'Connell when they met in Mullingar, and they recalled the Kerry and Westmeath sides of this era.

He went to his first game with his father in 1967, watching Cork play Cavan. "We were nearly crushed to death in the Canal End, there was so many people in the ground," he recalled. "There were some great players around at the time."

He describes Mick Carley of The Downs and Westmeath as one of his all-time favourite footballers, as well as Cork dual stars Teddy McCarthy and Jimmy Barry-Murphy, Kilkenny hurler Henry Shefflin, and Offaly football legend Tony McTeague.

A veteran of the Mullingar street leagues in his youth, Joe played football in the Army. When he settled down in Mullingar, he took a huge interest in the progress of The Downs' senior footballers, and St. Oliver Plunkett's Hurling Club.

GAA is the most frequent topic of conversation when he meets people in Mullingar.

"It's great to meet people in the streets and talk to the them about sport. You come across so many people who know a lot about football or hurling, and have such a genuine interest in it.

"But you'd also meet the odd collobus monkey roaring and shouting at you on the street about games, and if intelligence was fatal, they'd live forever!" he laughed.

Joe says that the fortunes of Westmeath's footballers and hurlers is the topic on everybody's lips.

"I'm a Westmeath man first and foremost, and I'm proud of it," he said. "I got great enjoyment being in the Cusack Stand when we won Leinster in 2004, and I think we're still a force to be reckoned with.

"It's too early to tell how we'll get on this year, but I'd be quietly confident in them. It's early yet.

"I do hope Dessie Dolan comes back onto the panel. I don't know him personally, but it's clear that he's a serious football man, and he loves wearing the county jersey. So I hope we'll see him back in Croke Park again."

Joe has featured on the hallowed turf of GAA Headquarters on several occasions, as an umpire.

"I was in Croke Park three times, and I umpired for a lot of inter-county matches with Paul McGann when he refereed the 1990s," he said. "I also stood in for one or two of Pat Casserly's games as a referee."

One game in particular - a match between Dublin and Armagh at Parnell Park - was unforgettable occasion.

"It was like the lion's den," he said. "At one point I saw [former Dublin footballer] Charlie Redmond hit one of the Armagh players a belt, and I called Paul McGann over and told him what happened.

"Paul sent Redmond off, and I'll never forget the reaction from the Dubs behind me. What I wasn't called. 'Culchie' was a polite word!"