My Greystones: John McGleenan

Is it possible that there are more Greystonians scattered around the world than there are living in Greystones itself today?

There’s every chance that there is, of course, when you count the amount of teenagers and twentysomethings who headed out to America, Australia, London and beyond through the 1970s and 1980s. And it’s happening again.

John McGleenan was one such Greystones son who came to the conclusion that he had a better chance of making a good life for himself way over there rather than just staying here. And he wasn’t wrong.

Starting up his One Union Recording Studio in San Francisco back in the early 1990s, John’s reputation as a sound, eh, soundman grew rapidly, and he was soon working with the likes of Pixar, Disney, Sean Penn and Robin Williams. The latter two being neighbours of sorts, along with Jerry Harrison – of the groovy beat combo Talking Heads – and all were more than happy to hang out with a big, redheaded Irishman from Greystones.

Is it any wonder that so many of our brothers and sisters are drawn to such places? San Francisco is also the little plot of paradise that gave Duncan McNiff a happy home and a beautiful family.

And it’s given John McGleenan a happy home and a beautiful family too, GG catching up with Greystones’ Prodigious Son on a recent visit home with his wife and young daughter in tow. Having a coffee outside Cafe Gray, people-watching, right across the road from the old family pharmacy, John was beaming in the late afternoon August sun.

Beaming because he was with his wife and child, because he had made a great life for himself in a magnificent part of the world, and because it still felt like home in another magnificent part of the world too…

The jammy bastard.

Still, our wandering children are always welcome back to Greystones anytime. Especially if they’re buyin’…