'You just feel like you are watching out for people and that they appreciate it’

SALLY HARDING
In the Covid-19 crisis, post people are playing a crucial role checking in on older customers. 
As a response to the current pandemic crisis, An Post delivery staff are making an extra effort to check in on elderly and vulnerable people along their routes.
But this kind of care for the community is nothing new for local post men and women all over the country.
For generations the post office has been the heartbeat of the community.
Long before the invention of email, WhatsApp and the plague and blessing in equal measures of constant contact via social media, the only way for people to communicate with loved ones in far off places was through handwritten letters. The anticipation of the post person with this arrival was almost palpable.
In years gone by the post office was a place to catch up on the local news and for some people, it may have been the only human interaction they had all week.

 

Julie Mulvaney sorts her post with postmaster and husband, Tom.

The postmaster or postmistress were the reliable comforting figures in whom you could confide in and where a unique trust was built.
That bond was reaffirmed as the Meath Chronicle joined Lobinstown postwoman Julie Mulvaney on her morning route, social distancing practiced at all times of course.
Julie’s husband Tom has been the postmaster in Lobinstown for the past 26 years and both are deeply rooted in the tapestry of community life there.
Julie’s journey starts at the delivery unit at Mullaghboy Industrial estate before making her way to Meath Hill in Drumconrath where she begins her route delivering post and parcels to 450 homes in the area.
“I have been on this route for 36 years.

Off on her rounds...Julie Mulvaney in Lobinstown

“You get to know families. Some of the kids, I've seen them start primary school, and now I'm seeing them go off to work,” Julie says with pride.
“In fact I’ve been on this route before some of them were born.
“People know what time to expect you at and you become a part of their daily lives and routine.”

Who's first? Julie dropping parcels to people's doors.

The role has taken on even more meaning now as she explains:
“If people want prescriptions picked up in the chemist or groceries in the shop, or if they want a few bills paid in the post office we can do all of that.
“Other people like you to check in on their parents, a lot of people are working and they know I’ll check in on them to make sure they are ok.
“We have leaflets that we are handing out to people that may be vulnerable or cocooned so they can’t come out, they can put this leaflet in their window and it just says ‘I have mail to post’ and we just call and collect the post.
“It’s lovely being able to do things for people who are not able to do things for themselves.”
As we make our way to the first stop, Julie tells how the post service goes back generations in her family.
“My mother Rita Ryan had the post office in Lobinstown before me and her aunt had it before her and my husband is the postmaster now.
“My uncle was a postman in the area too so I have grown up with it all of my life.
“I said that I’d never do it, but I absolutely love it now. There is a beautiful community spirit in the area. If anything happens anyone in the area, people rally around.
“We know all of the people in the community from coming into the post office and if they are not in, you kind of say to yourself that’s unusual and you might make a phone call to see did anyone see them today.
“You just feel like you are watching out for people and they all appreciate it.”

Delivered... Julie with Kevin Begley who says: “It’s an absolutely superb service. I can do everything in the post office here beside me."

The first stop on our route is eighty-three-year-old retired postman John Joe Halpin who served Lobinstown for 42 years.
“I started working as a postman on the May 10th 1955 when I was 18 on two pound sixteen shillings a week,” he said.
“It was a lovely job. People years ago had very little and I used to bring them messages of every kind.
“I could bring them their pension or whatever they needed. I probably wasn’t supposed to do it but I did, people had no way of travelling or anything in those times.

Past and present...retired postman John Joe Halpin chats with Julie

“I got sick twenty-three years ago and I had to retire. I’ve had cancer three times and three different cancers over the years.
“I’ve had a hundred or so sessions of chemo and radiotherapy.
“When I got the non Hodgkin’s I asked if I didn’t have the chemo what would be the outcome and I was told I’d live about three months so I’m here seven years later.”
John Joe describes what he loved most about the job.
“You could be bringing a letter to a woman whose son or daughter might be in England or America and when you’d hand her the letter you’d see her face light up.
“When my mother was alive, she had a sister in England who used to write every week. When she’d get the letter she used to put it in her pocket of her coat and she’d take it out everyday and read it again until she’d get the next letter.
“When the phone came, she didn’t like it at all because as soon as the phone call would be over, she’d forget what she was after saying.
“My daughter Caroline lives nearby and I know Julie and Tom only live up the road so I’m well looked after.”

The Lobinstown woman has fond memories of the hustle and bustle of the post office growing up.
“I used to be fascinated by all of the different characters that came into my mother years ago
“She is now retired and sometimes I tell her different yarns of things going on or somebody might say something in the post office to Tom and she can relate back to when that person was a child and tell us funny stories about their family.
“She used to cover my uncle’s holidays and she’d bring us on the route in her car and for us it was so exciting.
Our next drop is to Kevin Begley (76) who is delighted to see Julie and is animated as he tells me the need to keep our rural post offices.
“It’s an absolutely superb service. I can do everything in the post office here beside me.
“Julie and Tom look after me and all of the community here, they are fantastic people.”

Warm welcome from the Matthews family. ALL PHOTOS: SEAMUS FARRELLY

Our next stop off is to the home of Helen and Derek Matthews and daughters Aoibheann (9) and Kayleigh (4). Julie and Tom’s presence in the community is invaluable according to mum Helen.
“I was on surgical leave before Christmas and I wasn’t able to drive for eight weeks and Julie via An Post brought all of the presents that I needed to buy and I couldn’t get out to get.
“Without them we would have been lost.”
I couldn’t leave the area without popping into Tom in the post office who told me how people are now realising how important the local post office is.
“We are busier now then we have ever been. People can come to the post office to lodge in their money or take it out or pay bills.”
In these uncertain times, the familiar and reliable support of our post staff is clearly valued and in some cases a life line for people most affected by this pandemic.
Although, sadly, we have lost some of the close knit community bond that once thrived in localities and modern innovations have made many aspects of the post office service obsolete, the loyal postmen and women continue to be there for us and no slick technological invention will ever emulate that.