*Tributes to John Burke senior from West London branch and Joe Sheeran* John Burke died at 10:22 p.m. on Thursday 2nd December in his local hospital in Luton, England, surrounded by his family. His wife, Joan, died 4 years earlier. May they rest in peace. John came over from Sligo on 6/1/1951 looking for work and adventure. He found piece work in Wilkinson’s factory in Acton making razor blades – i.e. he was paid according to what he produced. Unfamiliar with the work, his fingers were cut to pieces at first and he had little pay for his trouble. John applied himself, though, and his pay improved. His adaptability and skill won him respect and responsibility, being put in charge of new machinery when the company modernised. Joan came over from Limerick 4/5/1951. She was mad for the dancing. One night she had a rendez-vous with a young man in a pub in Putney, before heading off to a dance. They caught the bus to the Worlds End pub, Kings Road, Chelsea, where the young man had arranged to meet his friend John. The three of them set off up the road to dance in the Servites’ parish hall, Fulham Road. All’s fair in love and war. Before the night was over John and Joan were an item. John often seemed shy, but he acted with razor-like incisiveness when he had to! Joan used to laugh that she came all the way from Limerick to find a Sligo man in London. As for so many of his contemporaries, the building trade offered opportunities and John took them. He said he was lucky as a young man – indeed throughout his working life – to have been adopted by good people who took an interest in him and who delighted in helping him. Might that say something about the sort of person John was too? Next time you walk between Hammersmith and the Thames using the underpass under the busy A4 have a look around you. One of John’s first bits of work was to lay the building blocks of those tunnels. When Farr’s foreman and the Clerk of Works on a job were looking for a responsible and able person to take over from a bricklayer who had to leave, it was John they spotted as the likely lad. When you’re heading in or out of London to and from the M4 in the West, remember that John was one of those who’s pipe and drain work keeps the world running from Hammersmith to Chiswick. He went on to train, for six years at evening class, and qualified as a master builder. John and Joan married at St Augustine’s church, Hammersmith, 23rd June 1956. Places like Acton, Chiswick, and Hammersmith prospered from the vitality of John and Joan and people like them. They worked and played hard. Many’s the time Joan and John and their friends missed the last bus or train and rambled home from dances in Hammersmith in great humour, along those same roads that John helped build. Lack of sleep from their hectic social life can’t have improved when they were blessed with 3 children – Marian, John and Aidan. But they still found time for music and dancing. Music was part of their day to day life in Perrivale, where they settled for nearly 40 years and brought up their family, with the lovely Kaylan’s as neighbours. The children would play at regular socials at St Augustine’s while their parents danced. Now that is good organisation! Some ten years ago Joan and John moved up to Luton to be close to Marian and her husband and their children – Siobhan, Ryan, Callam and Sinead – who were a joy to them. Every summer when the family was growing up they’d go home to Ireland. John built them a house in Shinrone, Offaly, near the Tipperary border. Joan said if she had to hand pick neighbours she could not have picked better than the ones in Shinrone. At a very young age John would often be seen playing at the local hand ball alley and he later did what he could to keep that tradition alive. He also loved fishing with family in Aiden Bay, not far from his childhood home in Dromore West, Sligo. He’d often be up early morning digging bait and then wait for high tide. Each year this fisherman also taught his family a new prayer. John and Joan’s children and grandchildren delighted in those holidays and treasure those times. To fit it all in was like a work of juggling. One year John had to step straight out of his brickie’s overalls and into his suit for an event as they headed back to England. When the family returned on holiday next summer, the overalls were waiting for him on the floor where he’d left them. Joan and John were founder members both of the first Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann branch in England and of Gasra Na nGael. Gasra promotes Ceili dancing and Comhaltas promotes traditional Irish music and culture. They were for ever working to promote the well-being of others through Comhaltas and Gasra N Gael. Joan was a prominent figure in the Comhaltas movement in these islands and beyond. John was her right-hand man. She was organising the 50th anniversary of this West London branch of Comhaltas when she died in October 2006. John took over the baton and six months later delivered a well-supported weekend programme of events celebrating the anniversary. It was a joyful and fitting tribute to them both. On top of hosting the weekend, John ran a work shop showing how he made fiddles. John generously carried on supporting Comhaltas – as Chairman of West London Branch; as a delegate to the annual Convention; as an Irish speaker when he got a chance; and as a helper at fleadhs and other events. When Joan was alive John seemed to enjoy keeping in the background and he seemed naturally shy. After her death he carried on their life’s work, forcing himself to take a more prominent role. E.g. at West London’s monthly sessions he went out of his way to circulate amongst the audience, meeting and greeting strangers and introducing people to each other. Invariably he’d find some common place or person that connected them and made them feel part of a community. He seemed to know half of London and its people and nearly all of Ireland. John was fond of quoting sayings or poems, sometimes in Irish, that smiled at the way we all sometimes think how important and essential we are and yet how insignificant we are in reality. Ironically though John is one of the most important people that many of us will be lucky enough to have met in the whole of our lives. He and Joan made the world a better place. May they rest in peace. Go raibh siochán ar a anam Thomas Beaumont, West London Vice-chairman 11/12/10 *Tribute to John Burke senior from Joe Sheeran* Thank you to Joe Sheeran for his tribute below at the time that so eloquently expresses our feelings. John and Joan had great respect and affection for Joe and his achievements. A chairde It was with deep sadness that we heard on Friday last of the death of John Burke. He was a rare man in every respect whose gentle but solid presence provided a reassuring addition to Cúlra Sinsearach on the occasions that he participated in its programmes. Indeed, Joan, his wife, was a stout supporter of the Cúlra idea from its inception and she attended every Summer School and Cúlra in Éirinn programme over the twenty years of its life. Some years ago now at one Cúlra Summer School held at Princethorpe College, John and Martin Byrne gave two workshops on instrument-making, himself the fiddle and Martin the harp and fascinating they were. There will be many eulogies given over the next few days and beyond and they will not exaggerate the profound value that both John and Joan added to the Comhaltas venture. Such stalwarts belong to a day that is fast disappearing while the idea of voluntary commitment and dedication is less and less as prevalent a feature as it was in the past. John was a volunteer who offered his services quietly, efficiently and effectively. He didn’t seek prominence or gratitude although both were owed to him in great measure. That John’s legacy of dedication and service to Comhaltas in the Southern Region is a supreme example to us all cannot be gainsaid. The Cúlra experience would have been the poorer had he not been part of it. John and Joan over the years established a tradition of always stewarding/clerking during the Fiddle competition at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann. Music was a leitmotif running through the life of the Burke family evidenced in the subscription to its furtherance and promotion that they both were very active in developing. I suppose a title that captures entirely John’s persona is ‘gentleman’ Comhaltas loses a worker but gains an advocate in Heaven. Ní bheidh a leithéid aris ann. Ar dheis Dé go raibh sé. Joe Sheeran, Bradford.