From ‘Braveheart’ extra to lead role in transformation of his beloved Trim

A TRIM man born and bred, it was a great honour and privilege for Anthony Conlon to oversee the town as foreman for more than three decades with one of the highlights undoubtedly being Trim winning the national Tidy Towns title in 2022.

Anthony (69) retired earlier this month after 36 years as town foreman but his journey with Meath County Council began in 1973 when he joined the local authority as a retained fireman.

Separate to his council work, he also spent over four decades as a motoring correspondent with the Meath Chronicle and travelled the world test driving cars.

In his time as town foreman, Anthony has seen many changes and developments in Trim and brings with him many happy memories and highlights.

From that iconic summer of 1994 when the buzz of Braveheart lifted the town, to winning the Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) Anti-Litter League in 2012; from a gold medal in the European Entente Floral competition in 2015 to that Tidy Towns title in 2022.

Anthony has seen new streets, new bridges, and many new projects completed in the town as well as Trim's rise as a tourist destination.

Originally from St Patrick's Park, Anthony went to school in the local Christian Brothers. He left school at 16 to take up an apprenticeship as a mechanic and joined his father Joe in Michael Smith's garage.

When Michael decided to close up, Anthony and his father opened their own small garage on Loman Street in 1977. Anthony had also joined Trim Fire Service a few years earlier and all was going well but this his father got sick and passed away in 1979.

Anthony had got engaged to Lilly and they were buying their first home. He started looking for jobs and saw the position of caretaker advertised for the Trim Wastewater Treatment Plant and went for it. It was local and meant he could combine it with his job as a retained firefighter, which was hugely important to him.

He stayed in the caretaker job for 10 years but never loved it the way he did motor mechanics. What did however, keep him sane and feed his interest in cars was a chance encounter that saw him take on another sideline- writing a motoring column.

"A kind of a miracle happened. Joe Sheerin in the VEC contacted me to see would I teach adult education classes in mechanics.

"Tex Mooney was the deputy editor in the Meath Chronicle at the time and was doing the course. He asked me would I write about cars. I said no and he asked me to consider it again and I did. I wrote about things like preparing your car for holidays, or for winter or summer, about doing daily and weekly checks and how to wash your car- that kind of thing. Then I started looking to see where I could get cars to drive and wrote about that.

"Cars opened up a whole new world to me and I got to see a lot of the world through it, from Scandanavia to North Africa to all around Europe to test drive cars." Anthony was also chairman of the Irish Motor Writers Association three times.

His first job with the council 51 years ago was when he joined the fire service and he spent 15 years in that role working his way up to sub-officer and was just there long enough to see the new fire station open.

Then his career ended up taking a different path when he went for the town foreman job. He wasn't allowed to do both, so he very reluctantly made the decision to leave the fire service and take the job as town foreman.

Anthony didn't have similar qualms about leaving the caretaker job behind in the wastewater treatment plant, and said the town foreman job offered much more variety.

He worked closed with Trim Tidy Towns over the years and recalled that the group had its foundations in St Patrick's Park.

"There were only 32 houses but people like Johnny Goggins, Barney Harte, John Corry, Mrs Rayfus and Mrs Hussey looked after the park and then Fr Teehan started off a Tidy Towns committee in the early 1970s.

"St Patrick's Park was always kept tidy and it had a lovely green but the grass would only be cut by a scythe and was too long to play football, and then they came together and bought a lawnmower."

Five lads from the estate, including Anthony were keen footballers and were on the last division one minor team to win the county final in 1972 with Anthony lining out as corner forward. Anthony still has the medal.

"St Patrick's Park, there was great pride. And I brought that with me when I came into the job. To me, you looked after a town like you look after a house. If you do it regularly it is easy to keep clean.”

The town had already enjoyed Tidy Towns success in 1972, 1974 and 1984 and Anthony was anxious to follow on in those footsteps.

However with little or no money it wasn't easy.

"We had little or no money and no transport. We had two barrows that were wheeled around the town sweeping and then later we got a little dumper and eventually a small tractor and trailer and a pick up. We had a small crew of workers."

One of the biggest game changers for the town in terms of tourism was the purchase bythe State of Trim Castle and shortly afterwards it became one of the locations for Mel Gibson blockbuster, ‘Braveheart’. The opening of new hotels also meant there were more beds to accommodate overnight visitors. “Getting ownership of the castle was a game changer for tourism. The way it is maintained to such high standard is a credit to the OPW. Also to get the Porchfields, it is a fantastic amenity."

He described the filming of Braveheart as the best experience of his life, other than winning th Tidy Towns. He even starred as an extra in the movie.

"I saw three new bridges during my lifetime as well - the Watergate Bridge, the bridge at the Ring Road, and the Millennium bridge and two new streets - Finnegan's Way and Jonathon Swift Street."

Other improvements inlcuded the new Trim to Kilcock Road, the upgrade of the Trim-Navan Road, new car parks, new schools, two new hotels, the upgrade of St Joseph's Nursing home, the recycling centre, the new courthouse, the OPW headquarters, Trim GAA and the swimming pool.

In all the changes he has seen, Anthony says the one that brought him the most joy was the Trim playground project. "I call it Trim's little Disneyland".

One of Tony’s fondest memories was Trim winning the National Tidy Towns Title in 2022, made all the sweeter as it came as a huge surprise.

“I nearly died, we weren't expecting it. We were working towards 2023 or 2024, we didn’t think we would win it in 2022, it was amazing.

As national Tidy Towns title holder from 2022, Trim was entered in the International Communties in Bloom competition which involved a huge community effort and judges from the UK and Canada visited the town last month and were very impressed with the town. He even delayed his retirement to help out.

While there were many highlights, Tony recalled there were also tough times.

“The last recession was very tough, temporary staff were let go and they were people that we really needed. “The pandemic was dreadful also. We were requested to work. It was about sanitising, and we were cordoning off seats, the stocks at the castle, disinfecting everywhere. We had plastic sheeting in the van to separate the driver and passenger. “You were also trying to keep morale going, the team were fantastic though."

Anthony finished up on 3rd August and not one for big functions, he agreed to a small celebration in the Trim MD offices where colleagues gathered to wish him well.

“It was emotional, it was a strange feeling, I have plenty of jobs here at home to keep me busy but I will miss the company. It will be a huge transition and a huge change.”

“I was blessed with good staff and good tradesmen and the greatest blessing was having a laugh every day you went in to work."