My Greystones: Johnny Cunningham

Here’s Johnny!

e’ve been trying for quite some time to get the great Johnny Cunningham to guest on our My Greystones column.

Mainly because we’ve never met the guy when he didn’t have a wide, conspiratorial grin on his face.

So, naturally, we just wanted to find out what the man is actually up to. And see if we can get up to it too.

Having been born to a family of ten kids to a builder father and a dairy maid mum in deepest, darkest Dalkey, Johnny insists the family were far from posh. “We had a big house, but that was about it in regard to being posh,” he says. “Sure, there were far too many of us to be posh. Posh people never have more than five kids. Max.”

How Johnny got there from here involved a multitude of jobs (including being a clicker for a shoe factory and, for many decades, working as a carpenter), whilst a move to Newcastle after the passing of his father (“my mum was from Three Wells, Aughrim, and always dreamed of moving back to Wicklow) meant many years of enjoying the country life before the death of Johnny’s mother led eventually to a council house here in Greystones.

With an unsure Pat Lynch

“The great thing is, the second I moved to Greystones, I knew I was going to stay,” smiles Johnny. “It felt like I was home, and that everyone I met here was just a new friend. Still feels that way.”

Johnny tries the Hitler look

Spending quite a bit of time down in his second home, The Burnaby, might explain that love for all mankind. It’s where we’re sitting today, on this cold February Thursday, with Johnny’s third home, Paddy Power’s, right next door. And on days like February 23rd, 2016, you could argue that Johnny – whose nickname is, tellingly, Johnny Pernod – truly has found himself a little slice of heaven here.

That shirt works every time

“I’m pretty sure it was the 23rd,” he says, taking a sip on his Beamish, “but, if not, it was definitely the 28th. I’d got me Lotto ticket, and I copied the same numbers for Paddy Power’s. My thinking was, if I got three numbers in the Lotto, I’d get maybe twenty euros. If I got three numbers with Paddy Power, I’d get hundreds!”

In the end, Paddy got his three numbers. And swaggered away with €1,050. It’s possible Johnny hasn’t stopped smiling since.

“I was certainly smiling still when I took the money up to the Credit Union,” he nods. “That was me holiday fund. I love travelling, and I try to go somewhere every year. I’d pretty much go everywhere and anywhere, although, for the last ten years, I’ve been heading to Cancun, in Mexico.

“If it ain’t broke, why fix it…?”

Indeed. It was way back in 1972 that Johnny Cunningham began his many, many years as The Wanderer, heading over to a penpal in Cleveland, Ohio. “I phoned her up out of the blue, and said I’d be there next Thursday,” he explains. “Ended up staying two months, and the whole trip would have been worth it purely for the weekend in Nashville. That just made me want to travel more and more…”

Currently saving up for a trip to California – where Johnny hopes to have a pow-wow with the Choctaw (“What’s going on in Dakota and Standing Rock is just shameful“) – it would seem this 72-year-old backpacker loves not just Greystones, but the entire world.

“Sure, aren’t we all the same deep down? I think people everywhere just want to be friends, soak up the good life, laugh, sing, and be merry. And that’s pretty much what I do every day here in this town. I don’t even have to go out to feel that.

“Even if I’m just collecting wood for the stove – you’ll always find discarded stuff around this town – or working down in my shed, that can be a great day.

“That’s why I go to bed happy, and I wake up happy. There’s magic in every single day. Sometimes it’s on a betting slip, sometimes it’s at the bottom of a skip. It’s always there, if you just look for it…”

You can explore more My Greystones characters right about here.