“What is a gentleman? It is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise; and possessed of all these qualities to exercise them in the most graceful manner.”
These words from English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray perfectly sum up the all-round decency of Fianna Fáil councillor Francis Foley. A man with great propriety and consideration for others, the Abbeyfeale native is not your typical politician.
Francis, a man of gentle mind and gentle deeds, does not play a dirty game, which certainly marks him out as bit of a maverick in the political sphere.
As I head out to West Limerick to meet with the former Mayor, I tell myself that trying to get anything saucy out of him about the goings on in local government would be an absolute waste of our time. Cllr Foley does not punch below the waist.
I am keen to know his secret. Does he meditate, tune out at meetings when things get ugly? Why does he never get caught up in the bickering and the rows?
“Look, we’re all there to do a job. I have my own interests here in Abbeyfeale and the Newcastle West district, and obviously that’s at the forefront, but still at the same time you have to work with others, you have to bring everybody on board. I think that’s the best way to operate,” he says sagely.
“I don’t believe in getting involved in political rows. I believe in talking to people, negotiating and working with others — it carries a lot more weight, and I think it gives you that bit more respect.”
First elected to the Newcastle West Municipal District in 2004, Cllr Foley has been re-elected in all subsequent elections to Limerick County Council and latterly Limerick City and County Council. Now in his fifth term, the Fianna Fáil man says he takes every day as it comes and sets out to work with people, not against them.
“That’s what it is all about. I think it is very important if you have an issue that you work through it. Anything we achieve politically can only be done through negotiation,” he muses.
‘The back of the lanes’
Born in Birmingham, his family returned to Abbeyfeale when Francis was only three years old. After meeting in The Square of the West Limerick town, he walks me down to Church Street where he spent his happy formative years.
“My father was from Abbeyfeale and my mother is from Dromkeen. We lived in Dromkeen for a time when we first moved back from Birmingham before moving to Abbeyfeale where my grandparents were,” he recalls on our walk down memory lane.
“My father was the youngest of the family so my grandparents were anxious that he might come back. We eventually moved into the town here where I lived as a young fella in what was known as ‘the back of the lanes’.”
The house Francis spent his younger years in is no more, but the memories are clearly strong as he stirringly recalls happy times on the ghostly side street.
After leaving school at 15, Francis, the oldest of a family of seven, started working 52 years ago in Tadgh O’Connor Hardware in Newcastle, where he still works to this day.
“When I started working first, we didn’t even have a calculator, so we totted everything up, and that was a good thing because you got quick at it. I can remember the first time when a company came around to sell calculators, we were worried we’d make a pile of mistakes by using them. There was no forklift, everything was manual, everything had to be handled,” he shares
Bypass hopes
Change, he points out, is all part of life, and the Abbeyfeale native has certainly seen plenty of that in this historic West Limerick market town over the years.
“One of the key issues at the moment is the public realm plan for Abbeyfeale. I think that’s going to make a big difference. I think the bypassing of Abbeyfeale, which we are working on at the moment, needs to be progressed. I think it will eventually come to fruition. We are progressing it, and I honestly believe it’s moving a lot faster than I thought it was going to,” he tells me.
“I know they feel the same way in Newcastle West, and want to see the bypass happen there as well. I would hope that we will see a bypass within the next seven or eight years.”
Standing on the Main Street of Abbeyfeale talking to Cllr Foley, as traffic passes through at a snail’s pace, is evidence enough of a need for a bypass in the town. Anyone who has ever travelled via Kerry and Limerick will certainly testify to that.
“You can see the traffic. There’s a lot of it. Between 18,000 and 20,000 vehicles pass through here every day. A bypass, no doubt, is needed. I would also like to see more investment in the town. It would be great to see more business coming in,” he opines.
“We just need to nurture the ones we presently have and I think by having traffic lights here at Joys Corner and having our new carpark, will bring people back and make it a nice experience here in the town.
“Personally, I’ve always been the kind of person that always looks at the positive side of things. You can dwell on the negatives, and obviously there are negatives, but the majority is positive. I think if we can get these issues sorted, we can see a lot more being brought into the town. We have to learn to work with change and work through it.”
– Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
