The Irish Santa Clause
Seamus Maguire was born in Thurles in 1950: the only child of James and Eileen Maguire.
He completed his education in 1969 and subsequently worked as a Busdriver, Prisom Officer and Social Worker in Tipperary and Cork.
In 1979, The International Year Of The Child, he founded Youth-In-Need. It was meant to be a one off project to help three young people for six months. Seamus went on to pioneer many projects to help young and old at home and abroad. Over the years he was the recipient of many prestigious awards and commendations.
He headed an organisation, which operated a soup-run in London.
While he and his volunteers were distributing distributing soup, sandwiches and blankets to the Irish homeless Seamus felt that the marginalized exiles needed more.
In December 1979 when Jingle Bells was blaring from loudspeakers in cities around the world and Ireland was coming to terms with the buzz bright about by the cub-Celtic Tiger Seamus was busy.
The unsung hero from Tipperary was approaching the homeless in the English Capital offering them the chance to " go home for Christmas". Because of ******shame or a total rejection of their homeland a minority refused.
Those who availed of his offer were taken to a hostel and given accommodation.
Proper food far a few days and fresh clothes meant that many who had abandoned all hope of a homecoming would be able to met their loved ones looking "fairly respectable".
Amid all the hardship, Seamus and his crew experienced the odd humorous incident.
A volunteer worker, John Cassidy from County Donegal; told the following story to me;
"In early 1992 we arrived in Hammersmith with a forty- foot
lorry loaded with food and blankets for the homeless centres. As we were unloading on a road that was restricted to vehicles under three tons a policeman insisted we move or he would have us arrested and the lorry impounded.
After a few moments of heated discussion Seamus produced a document bearing the seal of both the Irish and British Governments and warned the policeman that it would cause a diplomatic incident if he continued harassing us.
The policeman reached for the document that Seamus was holding hesitated, looked at Seamus and said; "you have four hours to unload and get the truck out of here".
Thankfully the policeman did not insist on checking the paper that Seamus was holding;it was a customs clearance certificate."
