My Greystones: Jennifer O’Hara

12MAY17

ike so many truly beautiful people, Jennifer O’Hara doesn’t think she’s beautiful.

The big eejit.

As is always the case, GG took a bunch of shots for our weekly My Greystones feature, and in every single one of them, Ms O’Hara’s sweet, loving, mischievous nature just shone right on through.

And, as is so very often the case, the sweet, loving, mischievous person behind that bright, shining light was simply embarrassed by the pics, finding flaws where we could only see perfection.

Still, such a call is reflective of Jennifer O’Hara in so many ways, a person who is always keen to help others, and just as keen to stay in the shadows when all her hard work pays off.

It was there even yesterday, at the gala opening of the Little Tern Park in Kilcoole, a space for children from 1 to 101 to play in. Jennifer was asked to speak a few words on behalf of the Kilcoole Area Play Space committee, which she’d helped form 12 years ago, and immediately, upon taking the mic, Ms O’Hara just wanted to shine the light on everyone and anyone else involved.

The woman has form in this area too, being involved in everything from the green school flags, the recent 1914 Gunrunning commemorations (who do you think wrote up that snappy and insightful history for the occasion?), the Street Games Festival that helped mark the Kilcoole Remembers 1916 hooley, and quite a few more community-spirited projects besides.

Naturally, Ms O’Hara told us not to rabbit on about such things. “Any such work is really a group effort,” she says, “so, singling me out would be just unfair…”

See what we mean?

Time for a little background.
Having spent many-a-year working in RTE, writing scripts for the likes of Glenroe and many others, as well as designing and operating the much-loved puppet Aggie The Tortoise on The Den, these days, Jennifer keeps herself busy writing very different kinds of scripts. Taking a break from trying to make solicitors sound sweet and cuddly, Jennifer will be teaching a touch-typing course in Colaiste Chraobh Abhann in September, a class geared towards kids with dyslexia, dyspraxia and ASD.
On top of that, Jennifer will continue her Away With The Fairies work, designing personalised cards, whilst not indulging in such hobbies as ceramics, guerrilla gardening and singing to her heart’s content.

You can find out how the latter is shaping up at next week’s Mia Parsons gig in the Horse & Hound, where Jennifer will be performing Ain’t Misbehavin’ as part of a new workshop. A new workshop that, quite possibly, not even Mia Parsons knows about.

How the woman finds time to keep Kilcoole so feckin’ cool is beyond us.

And, it has to be said, for someone who does so much for her town, it’s interesting to note that Jennifer was actually born on the northside of Dublin, before moving to sunny Newtown. To do some mission work. For the last 17 years though, Kilcoole has been the woman’s home.

Which means Kilcoole has also been home to Jennifer’s three children, Luke, Kim and Hugo, this lucky trio perhaps the people best suited to describing just how loving and lovely their mother is. When we get the full unfiltered truth about Jennifer O’Hara from her kids, we’ll be sure to post it here.

Just to see how red the woman gets when she’s really, really, really embarrassed…