The Yard: It's a May launch in February

May Brennan launches The Yard, with author John Brennan and Michael O'Brien, chairman Kilkenny Co Council

For the launch of a book on shipbuilding, The Yard, by a Kilkennyman who made his life in Cork, a special slipway was constructed and a 90-year-old beloved aunt did the honours.

It was a May launch in February!

A handle was turned and a copy of a wonderful book called The Yard slid gently on to the Kilkenny market.

Posh?

No.

Proud as Punch?

Absolutely.

The symbolic ceremony cemented the happy marriage that exists between the Brennan clan in Kilkenny and their namesakes in Cobh, Co Cork.

And it highlighted the love that author John Brennan still cherishes for his native Kilkenny despite spending most of his life as a Cork exile.

The launch was an amazing evening. It was the second launch of The Yard. The first was naturally in Cork as the massive hardback tells the story of the rise and fall of Verolme Dockyard where up to 1,200 people were once employed.

Friday’s launch at Maggie's Lime Tree Bistro at the Square in Castlecomer was the real launch.

John Brennan returned to his roots to spread the shipbuilding gospel. He wanted to be with family, to spend time in the town he loves so well, the town where he was born at 33 Kilkenny Street.

He is the oldest of a family of 14, the son who became a daddy to his younger brothers and sisters when his father died at a young age. The son who started as a shipbuilding apprentice and progressed to a university lecturer.

A plethora of Brennans crowded into Chubby’s for the special occasion. Sisters, brothers and friends spoke softly of author John’s wonderful achievements. They love him to bits as the elder lemon of a united family.

But genial John has no airs or graces. He told family and friends: “I am working class and very proud of it. I love it to bits.”

John traced his roots, spoke of his years in Cobh, of his time at Bushbrooke Verolme Dockyard in particular and of the joy he feels when he returns to his beloved North Kilkenny town.

It was an evening of nostalgia, an occasion to remember absent friends like the Joker and the Miner. If you couldn’t identify with either then you were in the wrong room.

John Brennan was the centre of attraction, the reason for the celebration.

But the quiet and smiling woman who is fondly called Aunty May (Brennan of course!) could easily have stolen the show with the dignity and aplomb with which she performed the launch ceremony.

And then there was master of ceremonies Kierney.

Officially he is Kieran Brennan, retired Garda Sergeant, formerly of Dundrum, Dublin and now of Castlecomer. The wild rover is home!

The son of Castlecomer is back where he is happiest. Larger than life! Brutally partisan when it comes to his native place and he has the sort of smile that would charm the birds out of the trees. The feathered ones of course!

Kierney did a fantastic job. He was seriously funny, if you get my drift.

He sang the praises of John Brennan, he lauded the Brennans past and present who had a branch somewhere on the family tree. He entertained with a string of jokes in a way that only Kierney can.

Seamus Walsh, author of In the Shadow of the Mines, the uncrowned king of the ’Comer pits, spoke from the heart.

He is another who carries the ’Comer flag with pride and in praising John Brennan for his written masterpiece, he couldn’t resist mentioning the people he loves so well, the miners of Castlecomer. Men, he recalled, with whom he toiled hundreds of feet underground, men who, he said, didn’t always come first, but because of recent events would be remembered forever.

He told of how Castlecomer Mining Museum had recently won a Heritage Project Award at the Burlington Hotel, Dublin. He said that the victory and his mining book, now in its fourth print, would ensure that the great miners would never be forgotten.

Follow that!

Kilkenny County Council chairman Michael O’Brien of Thomastown had the unenviable task.

He acquitted himself admirably, spoke of the pride that the people of Kilkenny City and County had in John Brennan and believed that his book would become a best seller.

He said he was proud to be invited to Castlecomer to be part of a novel celebration, to meet people whose town was so close to their hearts.

He made a presentation of a plaque to John Brennan on behalf of Kilkenny County Council.

Also at the launch were Councillor John Brennan, aka The Bogman, and Councillor Maurice Shortall.

Kierney had the last word.

“Ye are all welcome to Bollards for a few jars,” he said.

A few is right!

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About the book

The Yard, a history of Shipbuilding at Bush Brooke, Cobh is an A4 size hard cover book with 750 pages and over 800 photographs and sketches. It should be of particular interest to those who worked in Verolme Dockyard and their families.

The author spent five years researching the history of Verolme Cork Dockyard Ltd with a view to completing an accurate record of the engineering achievements of the yard from 1959 to 1984.

The story of Verolme Cork Dockyard is intertwined with shipbuilding, ship repair, general engineering and the offshore gas and oil business. The Yard operated on a global marked and there has been a shipbuilding and ship repair business at Rushbrooke for 150 years.

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About the author

John Brennan served a shipbuilding apprenticeship in Verolme Cork Dockyard from 1963 to 1968. In 1968 he joined the repair department and two year later was appointed instructor in the apprentice training school.

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In 1974 he joined the Personnel Department with responsibility for apprentice training and left the company in 1979 to take up an appointment as Training Manager with Bowen Mullally, a national construction company.

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In 1997 he returned to the Rushbrooke Commercial Park (Formally VCD) as Group HR Manager with ProsCon and left in 2004 to take on a lecturing appointment in Industrial Relations with the National College of Ireland.

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He is a guest lecturer at The Hague University where he facilitates the MBA residential.

The inimitable Kieran 'Kierney' Brennan

May Brennan with John Brennan, Eileen Byrne, Michael O'Brien, the former Peggy Brennan and Chubby Brennan at the launch

Co Council chairman Michael O'Brien

Katie Brennan

Councillors Maurice Shortall and John Brennan

Michael Brennan, Aughamuckey and Pat Hennessy, Damerstown

Eileen Byrne and Annette O'Connor, Castlecomer

Sinéad and Barry Byrne, Castlecomer

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