*Colum Flynn.
THOUSANDS of lives across Ireland were enhanced and made all the better because of Ennis’ Colum Flynn.
Through his working career in the post office or with the gift of his healing hands, Colum took away stress and pain from people across six decades in Co Clare. His contribution to the county’s landscape across sport and communities were remembered as thousands of mourners came out to pay their respects to him and his beloved family on Thursday and Friday of last week while he was even compared to Jesus Christ by the parish priest of Ennis.
It was a sporting who’s who as people from far and near queued outside Daly’s Funeral Home on Thursday evening, they came from boxing, GAA, golf, soccer, rugby and athletic circles. It was a similar tale at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Ennis on Friday morning.
Before Friday’s funeral mass, ‘The Town I Loved So Well’ was sung as the congregation took their seats and Colum certainly loved his native town of Ennis whether it was through his lifelong support for Éire Óg or his integral role in the foundation and history of Ennis Boxing Club.
Gifts to celebrate his life put before the altar by his grand-children Anna and Sam included Éire Óg, Clare and Galway jerseys, boxing gloves and a watch which was presented to him by Muhammad Ali during his visit to his ancestral home in Turnpike in 2009. One of Ireland’s greatest dancers Michael Donnellan and Colum’s grandson Colm Fitzgerald delivered the readings.
Ciara Flynn when paying tribute to her father reflected that it was difficult to put into words the legacy of “the great man that was and is Colum Flynn, I know it took a few days to finalise funeral arrangements but as you know Colum took his time with everything”.
She continued, “How do you sum up a whole life in a few minutes, to so many he was a neighbour but to us he was just Dad, that was his favourite role of all”. Ciara recalled the special moments Colum shared with his children whether it was lifts to town, chats in the kitchen or the way in which he asked how they were doing, “he was always there. If something went wrong, he wanted to fix it, we knew he was there in the background rooting for us. Dad taught us what really matters, not by lectures but by examples, he taught us to treat people with respect and patience, hearing people say Dad was a true gentleman means the world to us because that was him at home, what you saw was what you got, he got on with things”.
“We realise how many lives he touched, we’re so proud to call him our Dad, we’ll miss the simplest things the most, his voice, his laugh, his stories, home won’t feel quite the same without him,” Ciara admitted. She recounted how her father always wrote to people “in their hour of need” and demonstrated his affection for poetry, often quoting William Shakespeare, W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney in his letters. Colum’s skills in the garden ensured his children “were never without window boxes”.
Time keeping was an area where Colum fell down, Ciara quipped. “He was not perfect, he had no concept of time, none. Commitments fell out of his head, I can’t say the amount of times my mother was left waiting in the car for Dad when they were to go for dinner or the cinema”.
His wife Kay was central to Colum having such an influential role in both his successful sporting career and his subsequent coaching success. “None of his achievements would have been possible without our mother, she reared the six of us and he helped so many people to achieve their goals”.
Family was most important for Colum and Ciara noted how he “lit up” when his grand-children were around. “There is a huge space in our lives now, we are so grateful for the years we had, every lesson and memory which now feels precious, Dad gave us everything he had, if we can live our lives with half of the kindness and decency he had then we would be doing us proud. Thank you for being our Dad, that was the greatest gift you gave us”.
Two-time All-Ireland winning manager Ger Loughnane spoke at length on the life and times of his dear friend Colum. He recalled that Kay often quipped Colum “would be late for his own funeral” and noted the “long delay” between his death and the funeral typified this but also gave a chance for people locally and nationally to pay their respects.
Loughnane commented, “he was a national figure”. He said, “The starting point for Colum, people marvel at all he did and how he could do everything together, the strength came from his family, especially from Kay and later the children. If the centre holds, everything will be fine” and “Colum knew Kay, the girls and Padraig were the centre, everything flowed from that. He was a most remarkable man from a young age”.
It was a first year student at St Flannan’s College that Feakle native Loughnane first became aware of Flynn. He recounted that the Clare senior hurlers trained in St Flannan’s at the time, Liam Danaher, Pat Cronin, Jim ‘Puddin’ Cullinan, Naoise Jordan, Milo Keane were among the names recited, “they were our heroes and the reason we played hurling. Training them was this young fella in his early twenties named Colum Flynn, it was incredible, he started out so early, a man called John Hanly a very demanding type of guy gave him the job, from a young age he got the best out of people”.
Three decades before Liam MacCarthy returned to Co Clare, the hurling scene was beginning to change in Clare according to Loughnane. “The early 60s was the start of the rise of Clare again after the huge disappointment of 1955, it took twelve years to get back to Munster final and they did so in 1967, he was the trainer and physio to Fr Harry in the 1970s, I’ll let ye in on a secret, he was never a physio, he was self-taught, he taught himself everything, he knew the technical name for every bone and nerve in the human body, he would bamboozle us with the names. He could have been a professor in a university”.
Flynn possessed “the burning desire for Clare to win,” Ger noted. After becoming disillusioned with “being on the periphery”, Colum got involved with Cyril Farrell in Galway “and everything changed, he made a massive contribution and he was appreciated by Cyril Farrell and Pheilim Murphy”.
Getting Colum back involved with Clare GAA was not easy but Loughnane gave him “responsibility for all injuries” when he became manager. When he returned to the Clare hurling cause he “got on famously” with Dr Padraic Quinn and indeed the Sixmilebridge GP was among the first in the queue to sympathise on Thursday evening.
On why he was keen to bring Colum back to the fold with Clare, Ger explained, “I didn’t want him to get into players heads, he had this boxing background, he knew sport was tough, in boxing you can get belt in the jaw and try get up again, Colum fought in two national finals when it was absolute savagery, he brought the training from that onto the pitch. I myself got a belt in a Munster senior championship game, it was one of the few times I got injured, my ankle was swelling and he said ‘play on, you have to play on’, I said ‘look at my ankle’ and he said ‘look at who is warming up to take your place’. For the next month I was crippled”.
There was no doubt for Loughnane but “his first sporting love was boxing, he loved being in the company of boxers, talking boxing, Tommy Lyons, his overall hero was Ollie Markham, he loved Ollie Markham to the day he died”.
Walking Toby the dog through town while wearing his shades, meeting Kay for a glass of wine, catching up with his Éire Óg comrades, golfing trips and storytelling saw Flynn at his finest, Loughnane recalled. “The range of his knowledge and interests, all a reflection on his intellect, it was his intellect as well as that foundation he got from the security of his family that allowed him to divert into all these other places, every place we went we met people that knew Colum Flynn, people he helped in some way. The one thing people would say to me, how did he do everything, how was he training Clare, the physio for Éire Óg whom he loved above all other teams, the pride he got from Éire Óg winning the double, he even took himself to going to football matches which he hadn’t before, how did he do the boxing, the most demanding thing of all was he’d come home from Cusack Park and there would be a queue a mile long at the house for people looking for physio, people said Kay most have been a great wife because she put the kids to bed”.
Immense pride was evident when Colum was with his family. “You could see a new bounce in his step when Colm was with him, he had a protective air when Colm was there, he told of tales of Sam and Anna of what they said and they did”.
Loughnane continued, “He was a brilliant family man, an outstanding community man, he enhanced the lives of thousands of people, he did countless acts of kindness that were never recorded and that he never spoke about, all of the sport work was only part of his life. As Kay said ‘he had three lives’, at least. His was a life well lived, the respect he has throughout the country is unmatched by most people”.
Fr Tom Ryan addressing the mass said, “we are weighed down with a profound sense of loss but uplifted with a life that has been lived with a sense of goodness”. He referred to Colum’s roles as husband, father, grandfather, friend, colleague and neighbour, “he was entitled to the title Townie”. He added, “Life is not measured in years but in the depth of impact, warmth of kindness, helped, strengthened and improved, Colum has lived a very monumental life. Some people’s goodness is steady and dependable, Colum was one of those people, a very good man, his first priority was to his family, a loving husband to Kay and devoted father and grandfather, every sacrifice was done with his family in mind”.
After transferring from Claremorris, Colum assumed a role in the GPO in Ennis in the early 1960s. “In his work in the post office, he served community of town and county in many ways, part of daily rhythm of people’s lives, he was reliable, approachable, familiar and he could be trusted, he solved many problems with patience, with respect and ability to help people connect,” Fr Ryan stated.
According to Fr Ryan, Colum “was like Jesus Christ”. He said, “As a physio, he helped people recover and get back on their feet, often when they were at their most vulnerable, it required patience and he had it in abundance, he was like Jesus Christ, a healer. He healed with his skilled hands and his knowledge but perhaps more with his greater”.
Sport played “a big part in Colum’s life, the boxing club that he gave his time to, helping young people to find discipline, confidence and have self-respect, his heart firmly was in the GAA, the high profile Clare and Galway but it all began with Éire Óg in this town, the colour, the matches, the conversations were part of the fabric of his life, he know sport was a school for the skills of life, he was the voice of calmness, advice, a steadying hand on the shoulder, a believer in young people”. He added, “he was a man who was kind without fussing, a man who didn’t look for recognition”.
Colum is dearly missed by his loving wife Kay, son Padraig, daughters Ciara, Sorcha, Aoife, Katie and Eilish, brother Donal, sisters Mary & Eileen, son-in-law Seán, daughter-in-law Tracy, much loved grandchildren Colm, Anna and Sam, aunt Eithne, nieces, nephews, relatives, neighbours and his wide circle of friends.
