The Local Elections come around just every five years so in a local media outlet, generating feature ideas and planning the coverage is a major consideration.
As part of that coverage, we decided to seek out some former county councillors from across the political spectrum to tell their stories.
And one of the first names that comes up is that of Dick Miller from Timahoe, a man who served as chairman of Laois GAA during its most successful era and was a Fianna Fáil councillor at the same time.
He’s reluctant at first about the idea of an interview. “Anything I ever said is on the record,” he tells us on the phone. But he agrees and we fix a time.
On a Friday afternoon, we point the car towards Timahoe and duly get lost in the townlands of Cremorgan and Raheenduff and even find ourselves heading for Ballinclogh at one stage.
Eventually we end up back near the Timahoe football field, where we pull in and look for directions. “You’re very close,” a neighbour tells us. “You’re going up to meet Dick? You’ll get a great interview there.”
And so it transpires. An afternoon drinking tea in his kitchen, reminiscing about his life and times, his experiences and memories.
His wit remains as sharp as ever and his ability to deliver one-liners has always been legendary. Occasionally, during the course of our chat, he’ll tell you what he really thinks about someone or something. “Better not put that into the article,” I tell him. “Put it in if you want,” he responds. “I don’t mind!”
He’ll be 80 next year and lives in the house where he was born and reared, where he reared his own family, many of whom live in the area now too.
Across the decades, he has contributed significantly to his community and to his county in various guises. He’s not as active now as he once was but across his life he has been the epitome of a community man.
He still sells the guts of 30 tickets for Timahoe GAA club in the annual Laois draw but he hasn’t been to a Timahoe football match in nearly three years or to a Laois one in even longer.
But he casts a long shadow, his legacy as Laois GAA chairman being a very strong one.
When he was voted in as county chairman in 1999, with Liam O’Neill alongside him as secretary, things were in a bad way. There was over £200,000 of debt, O’Moore Park was in a decrepit state and despite good underage football success in the ’90s, the county teams were struggling too.
The energy and strong leadership brought by Miller and O’Neill saw the debt cleared in no time, a new stand built within two years and Laois, under Mick O’Dwyer, as Leinster senior football champions within three years.
Our chat touches on all of those things and more. And to tell his story, we go right back to the start.
His father Tom grew up in Vicarstown but bought a farm in Timahoe in the 1930s. Dick was born in 1945, one of 11 children. Chris, John, Jim, Thomas and Julia were all older than him. Pat, Bobby, Mary, Agnes and Maggie were younger.
Growing up on a farm in rural Ireland, there were two main interests, passions, perhaps: the GAA and Fianna Fáil.
One of the first habits his father established was to ensure the Irish Press was kept for him in Kerr’s in Timahoe every morning. And one of Dick’s earliest memories is his father going to the 1949 All Ireland hurling final that Laois were in. “He must have cycled to Portlaoise and he got the train to Dublin.”
“I was the only one of the 11 of us not to go to secondary school,” he recalls. “I went to primary school in Timahoe and I hated it.
“I hated every minute of it. It wasn’t that I was beat or anything, I just hated it. The education I got was off reading the paper, I learned as I went along.”
Years later he would spend a year in the agricultural college in Pallaskenry in Limerick, run by the Salesian priests. His experiences there would prove to be formative, Fr Mannix Hanniffy having a profound influence.
“The rector there was a Fr Mannix Hanniffy, he was known as ‘The Dasher’. He was a great character and took a liking to me because I was into the football and hurling. His brother (Liam) was a doctor in Portlaoise and his son John was very involved in Portlaoise.
“I remember there was this exam and you had to put your name down to do it. I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t think I’d be able for it. But he came to me and said ‘put your name down for that. I’ll help you get ready for it – you might want that when you’re in the County Council’.
“He must have seen something in me. He was a great man. I would have been playing with Timahoe and the county at the time and getting up for matches wasn’t easy.
“But he’d go out on to the main Dublin Road and stop the first car that came along and say ‘get that man to Portlaoise’. I’d get the train back down again afterwards.”
As a child, Timahoe weren’t particularly prominent in championships in Laois. “Most of my memories of going to matches were going to look at Annanough,” he says.
“I’d be on my holidays with my uncle John in Vicarstown and we’d often go to Annanough matches. They were very strong at the time. I think one of the first matches I went to look at was Annanough and Portarlington in the Old Pound.”
An infamous brawl between Annanough and The Heath in O’Moore Park in the 50s is something he vividly recalls too. “I remember it well,” he says. “And I remember going to a pig fair in Abbeyleix a week or two after it with my father and meeting Fran Nerney, who was a great Annanough player.
“When I was on holidays in Vicarstown, the Nerneys would come up the lane and we’d play in a pitch in Pouladuff that Annanough played in. We met Fran a week or two after that row and the talk was all about it.”
With the dealing done on the pigs, they all retired for refreshments. “It was the first time I dined out in the Hibernian Hotel.”
In terms of playing, his earliest football memory is peppered with good humour and a dose of mischief, typical of that time.
Timahoe played Portarlington in an U-12 final in Abbeyleix in the early ’50s. Bizarrely, the prize for the winners was a set of hurls.
“I think I was about eight,” he says. Jim Sayers – the legendary Kerryman who was the primary school principal and known as The Master in Timahoe – was usually in charge.
“I don’t remember any early rounds but there was definitely a final in Abbeyleix. (Jim) Sayers was gone home to Kerry for the summer so Jack Bradley, Tom Joe’s father, was over us.
“We were getting the s***e kicked out of us at half time so Jack brought on my brother John and Mick Carroll for the second half and we came back and won it. John and Mick were two of the best lads in the county – but they were overage,” he laughs.
Port surely objected? “Of course they did,” he chuckles, still getting a kick out of it more than 70 years later. “And they were awarded the title. But Jack always said ‘we won it on the field of play’.”
Yet, despite that act of shenanigans, the seeds were being sown for future success.
Tom Joe Bradley captained them to the club’s only senior championship success in 1969. Dick was centre-forward on that team, one of five Miller brothers in the starting 15. Jim was alongside him at wing-forward. John was full-back. Bobby and Tom were in the middle of the field.
It was a team packed with big Timahoe figures – Clancys and Bergins, Mark Delaney at centre-back. Noel Ramsbottom trained them. Billy Ramsbottom was chairman.
“That was a big thing to win that,” he recalls. They beat a Portlaoise side in the final that were going for four-in-a-row and would come back to win it again in 1970 and 1971.
Timahoe also lost finals in 1965, 1968, 1973 and 1978.
“That Portlaoise team were very good. Only for them we’d have won more. We should have won more.”
Before that he was on the Laois team that reached the first ever All Ireland U-21 final in 1964. But that one doesn’t have great memories.
“I was dropped for the final and they never even told me.” Kerry beat them in the final in Croke Park.
Along the way, he threw his support in behind various community projects, never prepared to stand idly by if something needed to be done.
“I would have been chairman and secretary of different things. I chipped in to do anything but there was never any problem getting a job.”
Festivals were organised, massive funds were raised, facilities in the village and in the GAA grounds were improved. Building a community hall was a huge project.
“Getting that hall built was a big thing. It was here for the community. Before that there was nothing there, no toilets, nothing.
“It’s well looked after now, it’s kept in good condition and it’s a nice size. It’s neither too big nor too small. Getting these things done is a huge job and takes a lot of time – but they get great use for years when they are done.”
He slowly rose through the ranks of Laois GAA too. The Football Board was his domain in the 80s and 90s before he was emphatically voted in as county board chairman in 1999.
“Things were fairly poor at the time. We owed money everywhere, we couldn’t write a cheque. There was no money for anything. It was a common thing at the time. You’d be at meetings and there would be a big folder and they’d be turning page after page with bills.
“As well as that, O’Moore Park was falling down. If you haven’t a place of your own that you can be proud of, you’re at nothing.”
But they got things done. And fairly quickly too. They launched what we know now as the annual €130 draw. It cost £100 to become part of the Millennium Club, a new initiative devised by Miller and O’Neill and they went around to the clubs, one at a time, asking for their support.
In total, they sold more than 1,400 of those, raising more than £140,000 in the space of a couple of months. That put a serious dent in the debt and bought them incredible goodwill.
Fixtures were a mess prior to that as well, clubs calling off matches as they wished and long delays to championships were commonplace. They got heavy-handed on that too and streamlined things.
“We got support from Leinster Council and Central Council (for O’Moore Park) when we were able to prove we could manage it financially. I had to deal with Seamus Aldridge (then Leinster GAA chairman) and I got on great with him. We were turned down first but we had to negotiate and we got it done.
“I think that stand must be the only one in the country that came in under cost. We got other work done too – lights, toilets, tarmacadam.”
And with their house beginning to get in order, they landed arguably the biggest one of all. Mick O’Dwyer.
“Everyone thought I’d have a problem with Micko but I got on great with him. He was brilliant to deal with. He was looked after well but you could send him anywhere. He’d go anywhere for you.”
Winning Leinster in 2003 was a magical moment and there was also an All Ireland minor title that year. From 2003 to 2007, Laois football enjoyed a golden era – four times in those five years, Laois were in Leinster minor and senior finals on the same day. There was also a couple of Leinster U-21 titles and an All Ireland final appearance.
“We nearly had it too good. We were in Croke Park nearly every Sunday in the summer. We never had times like it before or since. People were giving out we were going so often.
“Those years with Micko were great but we should have been able to win another Leinster. We were absolutely robbed out of one in 2005 by Dublin.”
Parallel to those heady Laois GAA days, was, indeed, as Fr Mannix had prophesised, his time as a Laois County Councillor.
After narrowly missing out in 1999, he was elected in the old Luggacurren area in 2004. A changing of the boundaries in 2009, which saw him lose 150 votes in a relative stronghold like Spink, as well as a Fianna Fáil approach on candidates that he disagreed with, contributed to him losing his seat. He went again in 2014 but again narrowly missed out.
“I did enjoy it and I enjoyed helping people and getting things done. But there was a lot of red tape and a lot of aul bull that you had to deal with too.
“Of course you would get satisfaction out of helping people that needed help. But there’s probably a lot of people get stuff they don’t need at all.
“The other thing is there is no loyalty in politics. You could get something done for someone, but you couldn’t always rely on their support.”
Losing his seat – as well as finishing up with Laois GAA – was naturally disappointing but “when it was over and done with, I was delighted”.
“You could see that it wasn’t everything, and you could see how much you were missing at home, how much time you were putting into it, how much money it was costing you.”
And when it comes to his time with Laois GAA, he’s keen to point out one thing.
“I never got one red cent out of it. I never got expenses – I never looked for it, nor would I ever have taken it.”
He’s dismayed at how far Laois have fallen. “They’re worse than ever now. You’d be disappointed that more people aren’t kicking up at meetings about how bad things are.
“A good row can keep people on their toes. When I was there, I’d rather be in a row than be sitting there doing or saying nothing.”
Across the years, he did so much for so many. He trained teams, he loaded kids into his car to bring them around the county to matches, he chaired meetings, raised money and did countless good turns for people, many of whom might never have known it.
Indeed it was probably to his detriment that he rarely looked for credit or praise.
Plamásing people certainly wasn’t his thing. Likewise, you’d be wasting your time trying to plamás him. The many people who have crossed his path though invariably don’t forget him. Straight, honest, decent. And thought a lot of.
He doesn’t work the milking machine any more but says he’s out in the yard every morning at 8 and active all day.
“What I miss most,” he says looking back on his days when he was in thick of everything, “is meeting people and talking to them.”
There is still plenty of old-fashioned visiting though. Some people come to him. He goes to others.
And, of course, funerals. His wife Catherine, who was a rock of support, died in 2015. His brothers John, Bobby, Pat and sisters Julia and Agnes have passed away too.
“When you get to my age, that’s what starts happening unfortunately,” he says matter-of-factly.
And Fianna Fáil? “I’ve supported them all my life. I’m not going to stop now.”
Before we finish up, his son Thomas comes into the kitchen, the cows milked and another day’s work done. He chats for a while before heading on to get ready to go to an U-13 match.
Some things will never change.
SEE ALSO – Check out all our 2024 Local Election coverage here
