He’s been here since the 1950s – but, if you know Jimmy Hogan, it feels like the man’s been in Greystones forever.
Having lived here when there were more hotels than pubs, when a man could take his fishing rod to the harbour and bring home a dinner, when Greystones was a town where everybody knew each other’s name, never mind face, Jimmy Hogan has seen it all. The good, the bad and the marina.
Through it all, he’s been a major part of this town’s growth, through his work as political animal as much as, well, he and his wife Anne having a bunch of strapping kids, each of them inheriting that sense of pride in their hometown, and each with a wicked sense of humour that seems to be pretty much a Hogan trademark.
Sure, where would the Greystones Open Forum be without Declan and Jamie Hogan, always finding a new angle on old problems, or just finding the craic in winding up the crackpots of this town?
As for those who live up in Kindlestown Park, where Hogan HQ is situated, young Jimmy has always felt like our unofficial mayor, ready to fight the little guy’s corner, be a voice for the small Greystonian overwhelmed by WCC shenanigans or municipal madness. Jimmy would always be there, ready to lend a hand, even if there wasn’t a cushy council pension at the end of it all.
Greystones needs more Jimmy Hogans. Even if it’s just to flatten some of those teeth-loosening, coffee-spilling, suspension-battering speed bumps.