My Greystones: Fiachra Etchingham

27AUG15

t’s always the quiet ones.

Ask anyone who knows Fiachra Etchingham, and you’ll always get pretty much the same response – he’s one of the good guys. Who always fights the good fight.

When it came to recognising early on that Greystones harbour was about to be turned into a war zone if the marina development went ahead, Fiachra was part of that early posse who tried their damndest to cut those bandits off at the pass. As we all know though, that war zone did come to pass, and we have a beautiful scorched earth theme park right now where our glorious harbour once stood.

Part of the Wicklow Planning Alliance – who care about silly stuff, such as the environment we live in, and the planet we’re going to leave behind – Fiachra seems to spend much of his time trying to make sure that the rest of us have somewhere warm and wonderful to call home. When he’s not sailing, of course, admiring this warm and wonderful town that we all live in.

When it came to taking our traditional headshot with that trademark heart-shaped grey stone, Fiachra reminded me that we were at school together, surviving the Christian Brothers, back in the 1970s, when these Sith lords were pretty much at the peak of their evil powers. So, we’re survivors.
Fiachra went on to fight injustice, no matter how big or small, determined to save our landmarks, our futures and our identities from the greedy grasp of cultural philistines. Whereas I went on to write and edit a mildly satirical small town website that tries to be a combination of The Wicklow People and Waterford Whispers.

I think we both know who won that race. Now, check out Fiachra and his new moth here.