Ballyporeen gets ready for Reagan's visit

FROM THE ARCHIVES - MAY 26th, 1984: Preparations were well under way in 1984 for the imminent visit to Ireland of US president…

FROM THE ARCHIVES - MAY 26th, 1984:Preparations were well under way in 1984 for the imminent visit to Ireland of US president Ronald Reagan; protesters were issuing press releases and pamphlets; the American Secret Service was moving into place; and the people of Ballyporeen, birthplace of Reagan's great-grandfather, were ready for their moment of fame, as Ella Shanahan reported from the Co Tipperary village. –

‘THE COFFEE bar is open now since November 1980 ,” county councillor Con Donovan laughs, indicating to the kitchen behind his drapery and grocery shop in Main Street, Ballyporeen.

He might have added: “And the tourist office and the information centre” as well. Con Donovan’s kitchen has been the centre of activity in the south Tipperary village since the day Ronald Reagan’s ancestors were traced to the parish.

In recent weeks, two real coffee and salad bars have come. Three months ago, a temporary tourist office was opened and shortly there will be a tourist information centre, the Ronald Reagan Centre, taking some of the pressure off the Donovan kitchen. But in the years since November 1980, it has been like the house with the railroad track running through. Newspaper and television people from all over the world, politicians and top-ranking civil servants from both sides of the Atlantic have sat around that table, as Nora Donovan has made endless pots of tea and coffee. . .

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Donovan’s shop opens at nine and should close at nine, but Nora, a petite, good-humoured woman, says that you never know whether it is a friend or customer when the bell rings . . . you get used to opening all hours.

Con is the man who announced the president’s visit a week before the White House did. He says now he had no prior knowledge but he grins when he says it and one never can tell. Why Donovan’s shop is the pivot, and not the Ronald Reagan lounge, probably has more to do with Con’s affability and his encyclopaedic local knowledge than with anything else. And he has not put up a sign in his premises as the O’Farrell’s did last week, announcing: “John and Mary O’Farrell will be happy to accomodate the media but have found it necessary to restrict interview times. One or both will be available Mon.-Fri. 3.30p.m.-4.30p.m.

So it was to Con Donovan’s I was directed at the start of my two weeks in Ballyporeen. He found accommodation for me with his brother-in-law, Ned Geary, and his wife Breda at the Fingerpost. Ned and Breda are dairy farmers, and never had kept a paying guest before. With them, a night-cap, tales of uncles who made good in America, and stories of the day’s happenings in the village were included in the price of BB!

It is people like the Donovans . . . who make Ballyporeen what it is. Otherwise, it was an unremarkable Irish village before it had Ronald Reagan and greatness thrust upon it. “Ballyporeen is not an ordinary village now and never will be again, unfortunately,” says the curate, Father Eanna Condon. Con Donovan agrees: “It won’t be the same again but the people of Ballyporeen won’t change. People have more pride in themselves than ever before.”

Martin Neville, the hard-working young chairman of the Community Council, prefers to think of the benefits the US president’s visit have brought and will continue to bring. The roads have been resurfaced, new trees planted, derelict sites cleared, the telephone exchange gone automatic, four new pay phones, new public toilets, a new ESB transformer, a promised tourist centre, a nascent tourist trade. A small industry in this totally agricultural village would be the icing on the cake, he says.