Special screening of 'Goodnight Ballivor' in St Kinneth's Library

John Quinn to recall village life in bygone days on Tuesday next

To celebrate the opening of the new library in St Kinneth's Church, Ballivor, village native son, former RTE producer and author, John Quinn, is returning to his old stomping ground for a special showing of the documentary 'Goodnight Ballivor, I'll sleep in Trim', based on his memoir of the same name.

The event will take place on Tuesday 15th October, beginning with the screening of the film at 6pm, followed by readings from the book, with a focus on the 75th anniversary of Meath winning its first All Ireland senior football final, a team which included another famous son of the village, Paddy 'Stonewall' Dixon.

In 2009, award-winning film maker Donal Haughey of Hawkeye Films was commissioned by TG4 to produce a ‘journey into memory’ based on Quinn’s memoir of the sleepy village in the 1950s. Playing the young John Quinn in the production is nine-year old Brendan McKeon, who lives on Main Street, as Quinn himself did all those years ago when his father was a garda sergeant.

The memoir was born out of his radio documentary ‘Goodnight Ballivor, I’ll Sleep in Trim’, a now famous quote of which nobody seems to know the full origin. It is thought to refer to a stranger who was refused accommodation in the village after a day’s drinking, and a possible reference to the County Home in Trim, where the man who uttered the words may have been contemplating heading to.

Quinn takes us up and down the main street and the families, businesses, drapers, shopkeepers and publicans that were in existence along it. Names like McLaughlins, Dargans, Walshs, McGeartys, Kellys, Dempseys and Browns. It was a time when there might have been only five telephones in the village, and as many cars.

Many years after his garda father’s death, John Quinn discovered his little black book, chronicling many of the incidents that he had to look into – from harmless incidents like unlit bicycles or drunkenness to more serious events like a suicide in the army camp on the bog or a child been beaten.

As he steps into the childhood house in which he was born, his boyhood memories bring us back to Radio Eireann, GAA memories, general stores, traffic-free streets, and Ballivor’s own Cinema Paradiso.

Now living in Clarinbridge, Co Galway, John Quinn is a respected broadcaster and radio producer who was the recipient of numerous prestigious radio awards during his 25 years with RTÉ.

He is also an accomplished author and writer of fiction and non-fiction, including 'Sea of Love, Sea of Loss', an intimate and inspiring book, written as a tribute to his late wife Olive McKeever of Navan. A skilful and engaging storyteller, his children’s novel, ‘The Summer of Lily and Esme’, was described as ‘an instant classic’ and won the 1992 Bisto Children’s Book of the Year.

He has published several titles with Veritas, including 'Walking on the Pastures of Wonder', 'A Little Book of Ledwidge'; 'Daily Wisdom Léann an Lae - Irish proverbs and Sayings for Each Day of the Year'; 'A Book of Beginnings'; 'Gratias: A Little Book of Gratitude'; and ‘This Place Speaks to Me, an anthology of people and places’

Other publications include working with former Meath GAA manager, Sean Boylan, on his autobiography 'The Will to Win'; 'The Curious Mind – Twenty-five years of Radio Programmes', 'and his most recent, 'Homage' – A Salute to Fifty Memorable Minds' from his interviews in the RTE sound archives, as well as a commentary of the photographs of press photographer, Colman Doyle.