Longford Leader columnist Mattie Fox: Late Ned McEvoy was a hard working and enterprising man

I was aged 6 or 7 - I can’t accurately remember but it was either of those ages - in 1955 or ‘56 I witnessed an extraordinary happening taking place in our garden.

Ned McEvoy was thrashing (I know this is now pronounced threshing, but thrashing is the way we all said it) and had the thrasher parked up along the big garden which came with the cottages at the time.

When the thrashing took place, it was like all such operations, a real event which had to be respected and no children could go near the thrasher. Not within a good safe distance.

I was lying up against a cock of hay, which was grown alongside the oats in the garden. The vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, cabbage, turnips, and potatoes were grown in another area up near the hens.

Ned McEvoy was an enterprising man, and it was from him that my father used to get the plants for the cabbage.....maybe some other seed as well.

My father was bringing in the sheaves of oats, with help from his brother Mick. Ned was in command of all that was going on atop the thrasher, feeding in the sheaves without pause, when it happened.

A rat jumped out of one of the sheaves and darted around quickly before Ned missed him with the grape, and the rat ran off down the garden. Immediately

Ned jumped from the thrasher, in pursuit of the rat across the garden. The speed of him was like a blur. Gaining ground on the rat, the wire fence on Mulligan's side was approaching, and I knew that Ned would have to give up the chase unless he caught the rat first.

But no, although the fence was at least five foot high he cleared it like an Olympic runner and caught the rat just before Airlie’s, the third house that was in the line.

I never forgot that incident, it was truly amazing. Ned returned, perspiring, but happy as the proud custodian of the dead rat hanging on the tines of the grape.

I noted that on the way back he climbed the wire just like any normal person would, and got back on the thrasher, feeding in the sheaves as though nothing had happened.

Last Saturday, I remembered the incident once again, as Ned’s funeral cortège was passing our house, with neighbors all along marking his passing at the age of 96 years.

He was a hardworking man, whose life, alongside his wife, was spent happily in looking after his family, any one of whom is easily identified, as carrying his strong work ethic in their lives.

Living in the close knit town land of Kiltyclough, their lives were lived in harmony and cooperation with great neighbours.
Ned McEvoy, RIP.