By Brian McDaid
“NDI 494 … that was the number of my first car” Jimmy O’Donnell says with a smile as he shows off a photo of a blue Roscommon registered Ford Cortina Mk 3.
“That was some car in its day.”
Jimmy O’ Donnell is looking back on his journey through life. He has been on the road for over 50 years serving the public in the hackney business as it was then called (now known as taxis) and then progressing to the taxi and bus business.
He proudly followed in his father Packie’s footsteps into transport.
He recalls the number plate of his father’s first bus, a blue V4 petrol Ford Transit.“SIH 137, I never forget it.” he says as he looks at a painting of the bus by local artist John Baird of Jimmy’s father and mother coming through the old Dry Arch in Letterkenny.
Jimmy O’Donnell – taking the foot off the gas after a wonderful career in motoring.
He recalled that his father bought the bus from a man in Cresslough called John Browne. “Before that we lived in Fahan before my father started the buses,” he explained.
“We owned a bar called the Cyclist’s Rest. There were some boys that came into that pub, ones wanting to sing rebel songs and my mother trying to get them stopped in case they would offend the other customers.”
Jimmy has photos and scaled models of all the buses that his family owned over the years – his brothers Paddy and ‘Swan’ (Sean) and not forgetting his father Packie’s bus which was called Golden Boy.
Jimmy has also collected models of almost every bus and company that ever transported folk to dances back in the day, to schools and colleges and to universities in Dublin, Galway and Belfast. They help make up a miniature museum half way down the hall of his family home in Kirkstown in Letterkenny.
Jimmy will be celebrating a significant birthday this year and with over a half a century behind the wheel, He plans to lift off the gas a bit. His bus sits in one of the tidiest garages you would ever see. There are also photos of old Lough Swilly buses, cuttings from old papers, photos of his favourite hero the great Mohammad Ali. There are more scaled model cars, buses and trucks in a treasure trove of memorabilia parked up high on the shelves.
Jimmy’s father and mother in their first bus, a Blue Ford Transit, painted by local artist John Baird as it passed under the Day Arch.
Beside them there is a collection of old cups and trophies which Jimmy won back in the days when the inter-firms competition was at its height and when Jimmy lined out as part of the old Donegal Bacon Factory team.
“Those were the days, a time when everyone knew everyone in Letterkenny,” Jimmy said.
“Back then when I worked in the Bacon Factory I was getting on the road as a Hackney driver. Garda Sgt Gleason who lived up College Farm Road signed my first Hackney licence.”
Back then there were only a few hackney cars in Letterkenny – Davy McCauley from the foot of the town, Willie Gallagher from out the row, Jimmy Sweeney and his brother Barney, Frank Bradley from the Burmah, then his son Frankie and Martin were there for a while.
Jimmy with a picture of his father Packie O’Donnell’s bus which everyone knew as Golden Boy.
And Paddy Nance down from Fanad was also a hackney driver. Paddy always drove a Peugeot 404 bought from Derick McMahon.
Jimmy has a photo of the first car he owned which is covered in bunting.
“That was the first wedding I did. It was for a neighbour of mine, Nora O’Donnell, who lived in Corky.
A sharp looking Jimmy stands beside his Cortina with a beige three-piece suit. You could be forgiven for thinking he had just stepped out of the window of Evolve Menswear, such was his style.
Fifty years on and Jimmy is looking to get another Ford out on the road, one parked up at the back of his garage under the covers. It’s a beautiful classic Ford Capri 3.0s powered by a glorious Essex V6.
A photo taken a few years ago shows Jimmy with his good friend Sean Doherty with the Capri parked up outside the gates of the old Bacon Factory where Jimmy started to work many moons ago.
Sean Doherty and Jimmy O’Donnell pictured at the old Bacon Factory gates in Letterkenny where Jimmy once worked. They are standing beside Jimmy’s pride and joy, a Ford Capri 3.0s. Photo: Brian McDaid.
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