Paying Tribute

It is easy to forget the importance of the contribution made by Post Office people to the day to day life of their local communities. Retirements, sometimes marked in local newspapers, can often be the opportunity to say thanks to those for whom the Post Office is as much a vocation as a job. Last year, for example, The Clare People marked the retirement of Moira Garry, postmistress of the west Clare village of Cooraclare for 41 years, with a piece in the paper and a nice photograph of herself and her successor, Gerardine Donnellan.

When Moira called in to the GPO shortly after her retirement she told Stephen Ferguson that being at the heart of the community was what she valued most about the job.  People trusted her and the position she represented for the Post Office – be it in telephones, letters or money matters – was there to help and she would often be called on to assist people in ways that went far beyond what was written down in the various rule books.  “Discretion”, she told him, “was a must” for the postmistress sees and hears things that are private and confidential and, being a no-nonsense kind of a woman, she was always quick to remind any curious customers that a person’s business was his own affair and no one elses!

Like so many other postmistresses and postmasters, she ran a shop too and did her bit to make sure local children remembered their “please and thank you” when they came to the shop: the lad who refused to say please when he was doing a message for his mother saw his friends rewarded with a sweet while he cooled his heels to remember his manners!

Moira took over the post office from her aunt’s husband in October 1966 and, as Claire Gallagher in her piece in the The Clare People, puts it:

Moira Garry has quite literally seen and heard it all as the centre for information, services and advice for the rural west Clare village and surrounding area. Up until the late eighties the exchange was centre to the services provided by this busy post office. Moira remembers how her late husband Michael would get up in the middle of the night to answer the exchange. "We had a bell for it outside our bedroom door," she recalled. The exchange was a 24-hour day job, with Moira providing the only connection for many an ex-pat and the family back home.
 
Just as the post office played a central part of Garry family life so too did Moira Garry play a central role in the lives of other families. One child was the fifth generation of her family to get a stamp from the former postmistress. "I put the stamp into her little hand. I have a picture with her," said Moira.

Moira laughs as she recalls how she still continues to provide the local information at the end of a phone line. Since evening Mass has been shared on a monthly basis between Cooraclare and Cree church she often answers the phone to the question "Is Mass above or below tonight?"

 
Looking back over a long career, she admits it was hard work but she enjoyed it hugely. Times change but the needs of people for helpful services with a friendly face remain the same. Someone who has served five generations of the same family knows that this is true!

Thanks to Claire Gallagher and the editor of The Clare People for permission to quote from the paper and reproduce the photograph which was taken by Eamonn Ward.