A man called Joe - genial Doocastle man who made his mark in Mayo, Manchester and beyond
Joe Kennedy pictured outside the family pub in Doocastle in 2014. Picture: Henry Wills
Once upon a time, there was a man called Patrick James Kennedy. He turned up in London one day and began singing in an Irish club.
The singing was merely a sideshow, just something the young Irish emigrant did when he wasn't toiling on the building sites around London. But it was immensely enjoyable and Patrick was only too delighted to be offered a gig in the Round Tower in Holloway Road.
The Master of Ceremonies on the first night was a man named Bobby Farley, a talented Dubliner who knew his music. It was the days of the big bands and there were 26 musicians lined up behind Patrick Kennedy as he made his way onto the stage. The teenage emigrant was approaching the microphone when Bobby Farley shouted: 'Son, what's your name?' Before Patrick James Kennedy could open his mouth, a band member roared at the top of his voice: 'Hey Joe!' All Bobby Farley heard was 'Joe' and 'Kennedy'...
And thus, in the unlikely setting of an Irish club in London, Patrick James Kennedy was re-baptised. He became Joe Kennedy: emigrant, singer, entrepreneur and gentleman. He became the man he is today.
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His life has been dominated by little quirks of fate. Joe Kennedy was born in New York in 1936, the eldest child of two Irish emigrants, who hailed from either side of Tubbercurry.
There was never any chance that Joe's parents would return to Ireland; life in America was too good. They had left their native Sligo years earlier, forced out by the lack of employment and money, so there was no reason for them to return.
But the Kennedys wanted to bring their young children on a holiday to Ireland. Joe had been followed into the world by a younger brother and sister and the children's parents were determined to introduce their American offspring to their relatives in Ireland. A holiday was arranged in 1939. It turned out to be the longest holiday ever.
"My parents came home in 1939 with every intention of returning to the United States after a few weeks," recalls Joe. "But World War II broke out while they were here and they decided not to return until after the war had ended. German submarines were sinking ships in the Atlantic and, I suppose, my parents feared for their own safety and, in particular, the safety of their children. They felt it was better to stay in Ireland."
There weren't too many opportunities to be grasped in Ireland in 1939 as the dark clouds of war loomed large on the horizon. De Valera had declared an 'Emergency', ushering in an era of rationing and sacrifice that must have come as something of a culture shock to the newly-arrived Americans. But the Kennedy family quickly settled into life in the West of Ireland and their plans for a quick return to the United States drifted further and further into the future. In the end, the plans would be cancelled altogether.
"My parents bought a pub and shop in Doocastle [on the Mayo-Sligo border but very definitely in Co Mayo!] and that is where we settled," recalls Joe. "There's no doubt it was a hard time to be growing up in Ireland. I was the oldest in a family of five and I would often hear my parents talking at night about money, asking each other how they would pay this and that bill. I suppose you could say I was conscious of the need for money from a very early age."
Younger readers might be forgiven for thinking that one of the few people in Ireland in the 1940s with a few shillings in his pocket would be a publican-cum-shopkeeper, but everyone was in the same boat together, and they were all rowing furiously against a tide of economic penury.
"There was no money in Doocastle when I was growing up," said Joe. "One person was poorer than the other. My father was what you might call a glorified moneylender. He had no money to lend but someone would come in and ask for a stone of flour on credit. 'We'll pay you when we sell the cow,' they'd say. You couldn't say no to someone like that.
"My parents, in turn, were borrowing from the wholesaler and he wouldn't put them into liquidation because everyone was in the same cart. And the thing was you always got paid in the end. People were very honourable like that. The loan was free, of course - there was no such a thing as interest!"
Joe Kennedy - or Patrick as he was in those days - was still in his mid-teens when he secured his first job, working part-time for Mayo Co Council. More part-time work followed with Sligo Co Council and with a company in Tubbercurry but it was not what Joe wanted: he was already ambitious and resourceful.
"All I wanted was an opportunity," he says. "I was willing to work and I just needed an opportunity to get started in a good job. That was the height of my ambitions in those days."
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Opportunity knocked in the form of the emigrant ship. Joe Kennedy was accustomed to meeting returned emigrants in the family's pub in Doocastle. He would listen to their stories long into the night as they talked of the opportunities that were to be found on the building sites of London and other major British cities. It was the early 1950s and Britain was being rebuilt after the devastation of World War II. Joe Kennedy was only 15 years old when he decided that it was time to try his luck in England.
"There was plenty of work across the water but it was hard work," he recalls. "I got a job working with a farmer in Lincolnshire and I stayed at that for a while before I moved to London where I worked for a sub-contractor. I was making about £15 per week and I'd send half of that home. The money was a great help to my parents as the pub was fairly heavily in debt. They were trying to rear four more children and it wasn't easy. The few bob I sent home made a big difference - and it was the same in nearly every house in the Doocastle area."
It was in London that Joe Kennedy first made his mark as a singer, securing a regular slot at the Irish dances in the Round Tower on Holloway Road. The Dubliner, Bobby Farley, became his mentor.
"Bobby was a lovely man and he taught me an awful lot about life. I suppose you could say he was a confidant. He was always telling me to do the decent thing and to treat people well. I have very fond memories of our days together in London."
The young Joe Kennedy was in his element in London in the 1950s. On a Sunday afternoon, he loved nothing better than to stroll down Camden Town, enjoying the brilliant music that drifted on the city breeze. It was easy to get work in the English capital and Joe was employed by a few different sub-contractors during his years in London. But by the mid-1950s he had started to get itchy feet.
"Myself and another fella, Tom Kelly from Roscommon, decided to go to Manchester," he says. "It was just one of those spur-of-the-moment decisions. We had no cares in the world and we just wanted a change of scene. We took the 12-midnight train from London and arrived in Manchester not knowing anyone.
"It was a big change, I can tell you. Tom and myself spent six weeks tramping the roads around Manchester looking for work. It was a different scene altogether and we didn't know anyone."
Joe eventually found work with the famous Wimpey construction company, which employed thousands of Irishmen in all parts of the United Kingdom. He was quickly promoted to the position of ganger.
"I had been working in the construction industry for a few years at that stage and I could do anything. I'd lay kerbs and pipes, fix steel and timber trenches. Whatever they wanted me to do, I'd do it. And I loved the work. If you're enjoying what you're doing it isn't hard work."
Never a man to be idle, Joe also found time to resume his part-time singing career. He secured a six-night-per-week residency in a well-known Irish club, owned by Ballyhaunis man, Jim Connell.
"Jim was great to me; he was almost like a father figure," recalls Joe, with a smile. "He thought I could sing and sure who was I to put him wise! I was singing six nights a week and it was a great discipline for me. I never missed one of those sessions. Never."
It was in Manchester that Joe met his wife-to-be, Kathleen, from Cloonfad, on the Mayo-Roscommon border. She has been at his side, through thick and thin, for almost half a century.
"I was a lucky man the day I met Kathleen. She has been with me through all these years and I couldn't have done it without her. She is a fantastic woman."
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It was inevitable that an ambitious young man like Joe Kennedy would consider establishing his own construction company. But when the Doocastle man left Wimpey's at the end of the 1950s he was not dreaming of making millions; he was simply hoping to earn enough money to pay the mortgage on his new house and car.
"Myself and the bank had invested in a house and car," he jokes. "And I needed regular income. When I went out on my own I began ringing builders and asking them if they needed foundations laid. I remember when I went to my first job in Cheshire [a suburb of Manchester] the guy who interviewed me asked: 'What equipment have you got?' 'Well,' I said, 'I have a wheelbarrow and four shovels!'"
He might have possessed the most basic equipment but Joe Kennedy was not slow in getting his new business established. He employed three friends from Wimpey - Paddy Curley, from Doocastle, PJ Greally, from Ballyhaunis and Paddy O'Riordan, from Cork - and was soon picking up work in several building sites in the Manchester area.
"I remember when I was going out in the car with the three lads to my first job I told them that I had no money to pay them. They said: 'We'll give you a week and see how it goes.' At the end of the week, I was able to pay them more than they were getting at Wimpey and I was able to pocket a handy profit. I was in business."
Success came quickly for Joe Kennedy. He was still in his twenties when his construction company hit the big time and became one of the largest of its kind in Manchester.
"Back then, the would publish advertisements for houses for sale and rent in the greater Manchester area. At one point in the 1960s, I was laying foundations for 90 per cent of the houses that were advertised in the ."
Joe Kennedy's enterpreneurial antennae was always receptive to new ways to develop his burgeoning construction firm. In the early 1960s, he heard there was a lot of money to be made in the laying of electrical cables throughout Britain. The Doocastle emigrant didn't need any further encouragement.
"I managed to get working for MANWEB [Mid and North Wales Electricity Board] and that was to prove very lucrative for me," he says. "I still remember the day Frank Browne, who was the Chief Engineer with MANWEB, asked me if I would like to come and work for them. I thought I had died and gone to Heaven! It was a nationalised company which meant you were effectively working for the Government. Here I was, little Paddy from the bog, and I had arrived!"
The work paid well but Joe Kennedy was long enough in business at that stage to know that there was no such thing as a free lunch. He was expected to meet demanding deadlines and to work efficiently and effectively on some of the largest infrastructural projects ever undertaken in the United Kingdom. One such project remains in his mind to this day and it still sends a shiver down his spine whenever he thinks of it.
"We were employed by MANWEB to pull an electrical cable across the Menai Straits in Anglesea. The cable would run along a railway bridge from Anglesea to the mainland and that meant that British Rail would have to close the railway while we were doing the work. British Rail agreed to close the railway for five hours from 7am on a Sunday morning. My job was to get 120 Irishmen from Manchester, Liverpool and the surrounding areas down to the Menai Straits at 7am on a Sunday morning - sober! Now that was no easy task! The only way to do it was to bribe all the gangers - heavily - to make sure the men would turn up.
"It really was huge pressure because they were pulling this cable 200 feet over the straits and if one of them fell over that was it - kaput. A failure would have been a disaster because it would take another three to six months to get the railway closed again and I can tell you Joe Kennedy wouldn't be pulling the cable the second time around!
"But thankfully, the job went like a dream and the lads had all the work done by 11 that morning. After that, I could do nothing wrong as far as Frank Browne and MANWEB were concerned. I picked up more and more work from them all over the country."
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It was in the early 1960s too that Joe Kennedy met Matt Busby for the first time. It was the beginning of a love affair with Manchester United that continues to this very day.
"Matt went to the same church as myself and Kathleen in Manchester and we were introduced to him in 1960 by our parish priest, who was from Kerry. Matt was an absolute gentleman and we became good friends. He would ask me to sing for him and, in return, he would give me tickets to the United games."
It was the best of times at Old Trafford. The legendary Busby was rebuilding the great club after the Munich disaster of 1958 and some of the biggest names in world football were wearing the red shirt of United. There was Bobby Charlton, Denis Law, Nobby Stiles and, of course, the inimitable George Best, the Irishman who had the world at his magical feet.
"I remember driving George into town in my car once," recalls Joe. "He was a lovely fella and Matt Busby would always have the highest praise for him - how kind he was and how hard he worked on his football. But George destroyed himself with the booze and the ladies and no-one could save him."
They were heady days. Joe can recall a night in 1968 when Matt Busby visited the Irish Association Club in Manchester with the European Cup. Tony Dunne, who was a native of Dublin, was a defender on the European team and another close friend of Joe's.
"Tony was a wonderful player, very underrated. I would have known Denis Law quite well and Paddy Crerand too. Jimmy Murphy, who was Busby's number two, was also someone with whom I was very friendly. He was a lovely, lovely man. They were different times. United was like a big family. If you had a sore leg or back you could go down to Old Trafford and the physio would have a look at you. That's the way it was back then."
The Manchester United of today is far, far removed from the days of Matt Busby and Jimmy Murphy. Joe Kennedy was reminded of that fact only the other day when a bill dropped in the letter-box from Old Trafford, seeking payment for the Kennedy family corporate box at the famous venue.
"They have put up the price of the box by 25 per cent this year, which is a bit much, to be honest," he says. "The season hasn't even finished yet and the invoices are out for next year already. We've had ten per cent increases most years since the club became a Plc but there has never been anything like this. Football is getting very, very expensive."
One of Joe Kennedy's closest friends at Old Trafford is the Manchester United boss, Alex Ferguson. He has brought the Scot on regular visits to Ireland and earlier this month the two enjoyed a memorable afternoon at Joe's holiday home in Enniscrone.
"Alex is a thorough gentleman and we have been good friends for many, many years. What he has achieved at United is nothing short of amazing."
The success at Old Trafford has had knock-on benefits for the city of Manchester. Once a northern outpost, Manchester is now one of the most fashionable cities in the world.
"The Government pumped money into Manchester a few years ago for the Commonwealth Games," explains Joe. "It has been utterly transformed in the last 15 years and it is now a very, very successful city."
The construction industry has changed a lot, too, since Joe Kennedy's early days in Manchester. Back then, there was little or no regulation in the industry and men were 'paid in the fist'. But all that changed in the mid-1960s.
"When I started there were no cards or insurance and you paid a man in the fist. And if you didn't he jumped on the back of Murphy's or McNicholas' wagon! I think the introduction of compulsory cards was the best thing that ever happened to the men and the contractors. It stabilised the industry. The men were proper people now, they existed, and that was a great change for themselves and their families. They could now buy houses, take paid holidays and get hospital treatment."
But the early 1970s marked the beginning of some tough times for the Irish in England. The bitter conflict in Northern Ireland was creeping into their lives.
"I was aware of the problems in the North but I can honestly say I did not encounter any racism," says Joe. "Maybe some of my tenders were thrown in the bin but I don't know that. Nobody ever said anything derogatory against me. I was just doing my job and they [the British] were doing theirs. In fact, I developed very close friendships with people like Eric Kirkland, who had served in the British Army in Borneo and India. I had to do it if I wanted to develop my business. If you're selling something, sell yourself first and you have a great chance of selling your wares."
It was in 1997 that Joe Kennedy decided to bow out of the construction industry. He sold his company, which had employed 800 people at its peak, for £60m sterling and immediately diversified into other areas, including property investment.
"I was in my early 60s and I felt the time was right. When I had the construction company I had a lot of eggs in one basket. It was time to cash in the chips and spread the eggs around."
The Kennedy business acumen has clearly been inherited by the next generation. The eldest of Joe's five boys and two girls, John, now runs the family's new flagship company, Patrick James Kennedy Investments, which finances the construction of shopping centres, office blocks and car parks in the Manchester area.
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Joe was a leisurely man of retirement, strolling the golf courses of Manchester, until a day five years ago when he received a telephone call from the then parish priest of Knock, Monsignor Dominic Greally. Joe had known Msgr Greally for many years and was not entirely surprised to learn that he was being invited to take a seat on the board of Knock Airport.
"I had spoken to the Monsignor in the past and he had told me that he was concerned about the airport, that he believed it was not doing as well as it should be. I didn't know a lot about airports but I suppose I knew a bit about business and, at the end of the day, business is commonsense, whatever business it is."
Joe was soon given the chance to put his pragmatic business philosophy into practice at the under-achieving airport. He didn't waste any time.
"I was delighted to be elected chairman and I was determined to make a real difference from the beginning," he says. "I knew the airport had the potential because I knew there were hundreds of thousands of people in England who wanted to travel to the west of Ireland. All they needed was the opportunity and it was up to the airport to give them that opportunity."
He was helped by the fact that he was able to appoint a managing director whom he knew would deliver the goods. The man in question was Liam Scollan.
"I knew Liam from my involvement in the Newman Institute in Ballina. He is a total star and he is one of the unsung heroes of the airport. We have a very good working relationship. We have the odd scrap but that's healthy; it's the way it should be."
The new airport chairman also had the benefit of some excellent personal contacts in the United Kingdom, including the manager of Liverpool Airport, Robert Hough.
"Robert has been a close friend for nearly 30 years and he was a big help to me in the early days in Knock. It was through Robert that I was able to organise the daily flights to Birmingham with MyTravelite and that was a great boost in the early days. But the airport has really taken off since then and that's down to Liam and his excellent team - people like Kevin Heery and Robert Grealish. Those fellows could run Dublin Airport better than it's being run."
Joe is not too sure if he will stay in the job for much longer. He turns 70 in 2006 and knows it will soon be time to slow down. But he is only too delighted to be able to offer assistance to an airport in his beloved county of Mayo. It is the perfect swan song for a man who is fiercely proud of his roots.
"I am a Mayo man through and through and I'm truly honoured to be chairman of Ireland-West Airport Knock. I'm very proud, too, that my parents brought me back from America to be raised amongst the people of the West of Ireland. They are my own people and when I get the opportunity to do a good turn for them I'm delighted."
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The rapid growth at Ireland-West Airport Knock has come at a time when the Irish economy is continuing to surge ahead of its European counterparts. It's changed times since the days when Joe Kennedy was sitting in the pub in Doocastle listening to his parents' financial worries.
"I'm pleasantly amazed by what I see in Ireland to-day," he remarks. "Even in Doocastle - at the back of Godspeed - there are new houses going up! It really is fantastic."
But he is long enough in the tooth to realise that nothing lasts forever, least of all a property boom. Joe Kennedy has seen it all before.
"I'm very concerned to see these big, big houses being built all over the West of Ireland. There are couples who have one kid and five bedrooms in their house. It's all wrong and totally lopsided.
"I think the property market is completely over the top. Irish property is now much dearer per square foot than in Manchester. There are ridiculous prices being asked for properties and God forbid if there were to be a slump or if America was to take a battering. There would be an awful lot of trouble."
He is not fooled either by the facade of wealth that is shrouding Ireland's ugly underbelly of poverty. Joe Kennedy has been a contributor to countless charities throughout his life and he has never been found wanting when it comes to supporting a worthy cause in his native Mayo or his adopted Manchester.
"Every bob I give comes back to me," he says quietly. "Not necessarily in money but it comes back in other ways."
He returns to Ireland at least a dozen times a year, either to his holiday home in Enniscrone or to the family pub in Doocastle, which is now run by his brother, Eamonn and his wife, Veronica. There are still a few of the 'older generation' in Doocastle who call him by his original name of Patrick but they are becoming few and far between. The land of Joe Kennedy's youth is rapidly disappearing.
"There's been a lot of changes and, thankfully, most of them are for the better. These days when I fly into Ireland-West Airport Knock I hear staff with English accents. Now, that's some turnaround!
"The few Irish that are going to England these days are highly educated and are getting top jobs in the banks and IT sector. You won't find too many Irish lads digging holes in Manchester now.
"I went to England penniless and I was lucky to make a few bob for myself. I was also lucky to come from an area like Doocastle where I was taught the important things in life - to respect people and to show decency to your fellow man. It's something that I have tried to adopt throughout my life. ."
It is a philosophy that has served Patrick James Kennedy for the last 70 years.
