*Joe Lillis. Photograph: Páraic McMahon.
SUNDAY’s 120th staging of the County Clare Show serves as a milestone but will also mark the end of an era.
Crowds of between 2,500 to 3,000 are expected to be in The Showgrounds in Ennis for the annual Clare show which has been running since 1904. Gates will open from 8am on Sunday.
Within the showjumping, there will be “six good classes,” Chairman of the County Clare Show, Joe Lillis explained. “There’s €500 prize money in four of them and €750 prize money in two of them. The showing horses, we have the yearling class with €1500 prize money, a mare class with €1500, a draft horse class with €1000, all told the horse showing has big money in it”.
85 entries of cattle have been received “which is massive,” he noted. There will be 33 classes of cattle. “There is no other place in Clare with that kind of cattle so the cattle will be monstrous this year,” Joe outlined. “The Show is 120 years on the go this year, it will be bigger than ever this year. We have €7000 in prize money for the cattle class, one particular class has €750 in it. The Showgrounds is a place for everybody, it is not elitist, we’ve the racing pigeons at the end and they were never here until I came in, people were frowning at racing pigeons but I love to see them and I love to see any type of sport played here. It is really a sporting place, it is not an elitist place”.
Duffy’s FunFair, an animal pet farm, tug of war, hanging tough chip vans and ice cream trucks will all be in situ at The Showgrounds on Sunday. In total, there will be 28 stands including Cummins Car Centre, Killanena general merchant John O’Donnell, the Clare Fire and Rescue Service, Elm Tree Landscaping, Whelan’s Garage, TJ Garrihy, knitted garments, honey, children’s toys and clothes plus vintage cars.
Involved with the County Show for just under five decades, Quilty native Lillis has been one of the longest-serving Chairman of the voluntary organisation which also manages the Showgrounds. “Where I came from in West Clare is all football, we didn’t have horses or cattle, my father was a builder. When one of my children started to grow and was hitting twelve years of age, they wanted ponies so I bought a couple of them, one in Mayo and another few down this way so we got involved in ponies, bit by bit they all started riding ponies, my son John, my daughters Danielle, Leona and Alison, they were all riding ponies and horses. Then we started to get a couple of horses, they grew out of it and I sold all the stuff, I thought everything was fine but all of a sudden we ended up five years ago with 29 horses in Ruan”.
Joe told The Clare Echo that this year’s Show is likely to be his last as Chairman. “I started chairing the indoor first, then I did four years in the Chair way back, now this is my twelfth year in the Chair and it could be my swansong because nobody ever does twelve years in the Chair, I think I owe nothing to the Show Society, I’ve it all done. I am doing it gratis, I don’t get paid and I don’t even get expenses. It is too much, I’m 82, who knows how long I’ll be around this world, the fortune teller told me I’d be around for another 17 years”.
Finding a successor and the long-term future of the Show is a worry, the two-time Clare SFC winner with Kilmurry Ibrickane admitted. “This is a problem. I’m 82, where do you get a guy of 82 running a show like this every day of the week and trying to do his own horses too, luckily my daughter Danielle does the horses. The Show is in bother, it is as simple as that. I also chair the FÁS/CE scheme, I chair this and I chair the West Clare Walking Club. We have 62 fellas on the ground for the day, all voluntary people coming in on the day. This place is in trouble I can assure you, I will walk and I have to walk at this stage of my life, I don’t know how many years I’ve left in this world, I want to get out, my wife wants out, people who came in with me when I came in will be going out with me, there’s eleven of the committee moving so that will only leave four or five. I don’t know what will happen this place”.
JJoe and his wife Concepta who hails from Cooraclare are central figures on the fifteen-person committee alongside Newmarket-on-Fergus woman Fiona Duggan who serves as secretary. The Lillis’ celebrated their fifty third wedding anniversary on Tuesday. Joe’s fellow parishioners, Michael Sexton and Kieran Killeen will oversee the cattle section, members of the West Clare Walking Club, Marie Flynn and Bernie Connolly will be on duty along with Johnny Melican, Michael Kelly, Inagh’s PJ Kelly, Georgie Guilfoyle, Doonbeg duo Michael Neenan and Paddy Doyle with Newmarket-on-Fergus brothers Michael and Andrew Costelloe also part of the stewarding team.
His tenure with the County Show followed a lifelong career in forestry where he worked with Coillte. “I joined forestry because there was fellas going away to college and becoming teachers, doctors and every sort of a profession other than forestry and they were on bicycles for about five years, there was three brothers the Darcys in the parish, they were only away a couple of years and they were driving cars so I decided forestry was the job for me. I’m originally from Quilty, I went into forestry and I stayed in forestry. I was the youngest-ever to qualify out of the college, my first appointment was the 29th July 1964 up in Crossmolina in Mayo, it looked desolate and derelict when I looked at it first and I couldn’t believe where I was, I stayed there for two years I was playing county football for Clare so I get a good move down because the Chairman of the Board and myself were very friendly because I worked with his construction outfit in my college days, he gave me a help to get down,” he recalled.
Close to his home in Ballyalla is Dromore Woods which he had a central role in developing. “We came to live in Ballyalla, we got married and lived in Ballyalla. I was transferred on my honeymoon to Killarney to spend a year there, I went there and my wife stayed at home, I fought the transfer and got transferred back to Gort after one year. I did an interview when I was 24 to get on this development for the National Parks and Wildlife Service who were doing parks like Curragh Chase, I developed Dromore too, I went for the interview and there was three guys sitting across the table, one of them was a fella called McGerty in the middle, he was the Chairman, Jack Durant and Rod Lynch, the two fellas on the side were lovely guys and this fella was full of his own importance, one of his questions towards the end of the interview was ‘are you married’, I said ‘no I’m not’, he asked ‘do you intend to get married’ and I said ‘not immediately’, he asked why, I said I didn’t, ‘because nobody would have you,’ he said and he leaned across the table and looked me in the eye, I looked at him for a minute and said would I take the chance or not so I said ‘Mr McGerty I presume you’re married’, ‘that is correct I am’ so I said ‘if you’re married then I have a fair good chance of getting married’. Durant was in charge of the development works, across the hallway he closed the two doors and nearly fell off the chair laughing so I was thinking it went down well, he said ‘he has done that with every fella we interviewed today and you are the first one to come back’ so he offered me the job and I was appointed to Kenmare”.
