Eamon Kehoe flying high at 90

By John Harrington

It says a lot about Eamon Kehoe that when he told his family he was going to celebrate his 90^th birthday by doing a skydive for charity no-one was all that surprised.

A man of action who never took a backward step in all his years playing for his beloved Cloughbawn or in any other sphere of his life, jumping out of an aeroplane from 10,000 feet seemed like a very Eamon Kehoe thing to do.

The idea first came to him when he was watching tv one day and saw a woman his own age doing a skydive.

“Well if she can do it, I can do it”, mused Kehoe to himself.

You get the feeling he would have jumped out of the plane for the sheer hell of it, but it quickly struck him that the birthday adventure could also achieve some real good.

The Jack & Jill Children's Foundation is a charity close to his heart because his grand-daughter Aisling, who will soon turn nine, spent the first ten months of her life in hospital and coming home was made possible through the assistance of the charity.

Now that he had a cause, Kehoe was never going to be dissuaded. His family knew better than to even try.

“We always knew that if we told him not to do it then he was definitely going to do it,” says his daughter Jo with a resigned chuckle. “That's the way we were thinking.

“We had no fear of him one bit. He wanted to do it, there was none of us telling him to do it or anything like that. It was he who came up with the idea of doing it for Jack and Jill.

“We had no fear of him because he's active the whole time. He'd be up on the roof of the house. My mother is always happy when he's gone to the golf course because she knows then he's not on top of a shed. He's just one of those people.

“He's high energy. Sure look at him, there's not a pick on him. He's never not at something. He'd be helping out on the farm or fixing a hole in the roof.

“Whatever had to be done in the house, Daddy did it. He never believed in getting in a plumber or a carpenter or an electrician with the result that the house wouldn't be done to the highest standard but it got done. If there was a hot-press to be built he built it. If there were wardrobes to be done he did it.

“If a car needs to be serviced, he'll look after that too. My sister would bring her car down from Dublin for him to get it ready for the NCT.

“Everybody goes to him for everything. If any of my sisters had a leak in the attic she wouldn't get her husband to do it, she'd get my father.”

High energy and a can-do attitude isn’t just a character trait of Eamon’s, it runs like an electric current throughout multiple generations of the Kehoe family who are renowned in Wexford for their contribution to Gaelic games

Eamon is one of 17 siblings, eight brothers and nine sisters, and hurling and football has always been the drumbeat of their lives.

Eamon was a skilful and teak-tough forward who returned any punishment he received from defenders with a good dollop of interest. He and all his brothers played with distinction for Cloughbawn, but the sisters were something extra-special.

All nine played camogie for the club and seven played senior inter-county with five of them winning a total of 10 All-Ireland medals combined.

The Kehoe farmyard was the crucible that hardened them all into such sporting high-achievers.

“When I was growing up there was nothing else to do really other than to play hurling and football,” says Eamon.

“There used to be heavy hurling in the yard at home. Every window around the yard in the house was broken.

“There was heavy slogging between us, both the girls and the men!”

They passed on the same enthusiasm for Gaelic games to the next generation. Eamon Kehoe has eight children and 65 nieces and nephews, almost all of whom played or are currently playing with distinction for their club, and many for their county.

There are 141 in the next generation after that, and they’re just as prolific. In total the Kehoe dynasty has represented or is currently playing for 19 clubs in Wexford and nine clubs outside of the county

Eamon’s daughter Jo won two All-Ireland Camogie Colleges titles and an All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship while another daughter, Jacinta, won a Ladies football All-Star.

Former Irish football international, Kevin Doyle, is a nephew. His grandson, Harry Kehoe, played 133 times for Wexford, winning the Leinster SHC in 2019, while another Grandson, Luke O’Connor, is a Leinster Junior Club Football Championship winner with Rathgarogue Cushinstown.

His granddaughter Eve has two All-Ireland U-21 football medals with the Dublin ladies footballers while two other Granddaughters, Niamh and Rebecca Ogilvie, have played with the Wexford camogie team.

He also has one niece and five grand-nieces on the Wexford senior camogie panel and two grand-nephews on the Wexford senior hurling panel.

The youngest generation is starting to make their mark too – Eamon’s great-grandson Tadhg O’Connor was a member of the Wexford U-14 football development squad this year.

It’s worth saying that Eamon shouldn’t get all the credit for the sporting gene that has passed down his direct line. His wife Betty was a talented camogie player herself.

When driving her to a camogie match one day Eamon stopped off in Enniscorthy and arrived back to the car with an engagement ring he’d just bought in a jewellers.

Betty said, ‘yes’, and they immediately drove on to the match. The penny has surely dropped by now – the Kehoes are about as sports mad a clan as you could come across.

“Listen, we knew nothing else when we were growing up,” says Eamon’s daughter Jo.

“We grew up on a farm and if my uncles or whoever were there doing silage or cutting the corn or whatever, you didn't get back out to the field after dinner.

“Everybody got their hurl and you went out onto the lawn which was quite big, more like a field. And everybody went out there and played a match amongst ourselves for a good half hour or more. That is my memory of home.

“I'm older than Daddy's youngest sister, my aunt Eileen, so I spent a lot of my time growing up down in my Grandmother's house because Eileen and me were the same age and it was the exact same down there.

“It was every day. Everyone was out in their big yard with hurls. Men and women all together with balls flying every place breaking granny's windows and the windows of the outhouses. That was the kind of place it was.

“Growing up we were told to pull first, and apologise later! That was daddy's motto all the time when we were going out to play a match.”

Eamon adopted a similar approach to his sky dive. When he was told that he’d need a doctor’s certificate that he was fit enough to jump he assured his family that he’d gotten one, though that wasn’t quite true.

“When I went to the doctor first he said to go ahead and do it,” says Eamon. “I was talking to him again three weeks later and he said maybe you should let someone else do it.

“I said I fecking won’t let someone else do it! I’m doing it myself now and that’s it!

“I wasn't afraid. I was never afraid. I just said I was going to do it, and that was it. When the money started to get fairly big well then sure I couldn't pull out! I couldn't let them all down.”

Clearly the doctor felt the same, because it was only three days before the skydive that the fitness to jump cert was finally provided.

If he thought twice he needn't have because Eamon is fitter than most men twenty years younger than him.

That much became very obvious when his grandson, former Wexford hurler Harry Kehoe, shot some videos with him to promote the skydive that quickly went viral.

“We had him running around in the garden and lifting weights and he did it all no bother to him, it was easy for him,” says Kehoe.

“There's a gym in New Ross called MEDI-FIT who specialise in exercise for older people. He went in there and they just couldn't believe how fit he was.

“He was on the rowing machine and jogging around and lifting weights here and there and they were telling him to slow down and he just wouldn't do it. He was almost offended that someone was telling him he had to slow down or that he was too old to do something.

“There were other people there who were maybe in their seventies and he was keen to see what these lads were doing because even at his age he's competitive. So he'd keeping an eye on what they were doing on the rower and he'd be trying to match them.

“He's fierce competitive and determined. Even when he's playing golf he'd hate to lose to you and would be trying every trick in the book to beat you. That determination probably helped him with the skydive as well.

“I know it sounds mad when you hear about a 90-year-old going to jump out of a plane, but he's definitely not your typical 90 year old.

“You'd imagine most 90-year-olds are having a little lie-in in the morning, putting on their slippers and getting up to have a slow day and looking for comfort.

“But for Eamon, age is just a number. He doesn't think about the fact that he's 90. He just lives his life the way he lived life 20, 30, 40 years ago.

“He gets up, gets on with his day, has jobs to do whether it's helping out around the farm or whatever it might be.

“He's obsessed with cappucinos and likes to frequent coffee-shops. He might go to New Ross one day, Enniscorthy the next, and Wexford another day for a cappucino.

“He plays a lot of golf and is still a very good golfer. He'd play a few times a month and doesn't drive a golf cart or anything, he'd walk the full 18 holes.

“He wouldn't be thinking about the fact that he's 90. He wouldn't be the type of fella who'd over-think things. Things are very much black or white with him. He wouldn't see a skydive as something that someone his age shouldn't do.

“He's extremely fit and healthy so no-one was worried about the safety point of view or telling him he couldn’t do it."

It takes a brave person to tell Eamon Kehoe he can’t do something. The last person to try it was a Croke Park steward who stopped him invading the pitch after Wexford’s 2019 Leinster Final and got an earful for his troubles.

Eamon didn’t carry through with his threat to jump the fence and had to make do with his Grandson Harry bringing the cup to him. See if you can spot him in the below photograph celebrating with Harry and his team-mates.

Eamon is known far and wide in Wexford for his dedication to supporting county teams and club teams that feature his many relatives so it was no surprise that news quickly spread throughout the county of his charity skydive.

The donations came rolling in as did interview requests from a variety of media, so by the time the day of the big jump came around on August 17 there weren’t too many people in the Model County who didn’t know about it.

The day itself couldn’t have gone any better. The sky was so clear above the Irish Parachute Club in Clonbullogue that Eamon’s small army of supporters spotted him as soon as leaped from the plane.

When he hit the ground he did so with a beaming smile and quickly dusted himself down and got back on his feet with the nonchalance of a man who had paid little heed to heavier blows from opposition defenders back in his playing days.

For all those who had travelled to Offaly to cheer him literally from a height, it was the perfect end to another wonderful chapter in the Kehoe family story.

“It was absolutely tremendous,” says his daughter, Jo. “You would have had to have been up there on the day to experience the buzz and energy about the place. There were loads of other people there doing their jumps and other families.

“It was actually very funny, there was a family whose 75-year-old father was going to do the jump. When they saw Dad at his age they abandoned their own father and began supporting Daddy and getting photographs taken with him!

“They told their father that he was at fecking nothing at all, that he was only a child! The poor man was left standing there on his own!

“The whole airfield supported him. They had a cake with candles for him that day. There was just a mighty, mighty buzz and it was because of him.

“There was around 60 of us there including seven or eight of his brothers and sisters. Some of the older ones wouldn't come because they were afraid they'd get a heart-attack watching him jump!

“His 90^th birthday was the Saturday afterwards and of course all the aunties who wouldn't go to the airfield turned up that night at home and he was like a big child. It's like it's given him a new lease of life. He's on high doh! It's given him a real jizz and perk-up.

“He has my mother worn out. The day he came back he wanted to go to Dunmore East for the day. They've been to Tramore, they've gone to Kilmore Quay, Lady's Island. He's off every day!”

How about the man himself? How did it feel to jump out of a plan at 10,000 feet a week before his 90^th birthday?

“It went well, it was great experience,” says Kehoe. “I'm happy with the money we've raised anyhow.”

He had set himself a target of €5,000, but the sum raised so far is north of €30,000 which will make a huge difference for the Jack and Jill Foundation.

The only question now is what Eamon Kehoe will do next. It’s a safe bet it won’t be to rest on his laurels.

“Knowing Eamon he’ll want to do something for his 100^th birthday,” says his Grandson Harry.

“Sure, look it, if he does, we’ll have support him. If Eamon gets something in his head he's going to do it anyway, that's for sure!”

You can donate to Eamon Kehoe’s Skydive in aid of Jack & Jill’s Children’s Foundation HERE.