The Remarkable Life of Jim Deasy ( Father of Peter Deasy )
Written By Frank O'Brien
Jim Deasy was raised in worlds end and lived his early years in deasys pub, by the trident hotel. The pub collapsed in 1947 when the rear wall fell out, luckily with no loss of life. Jim left school at 15 with little idea of the extraordinary career that lay ahead of him. A modest man, few knew about Jim's adventures, but before his death in October he talked to Frank O'Brien about the strange tourists of fate that took him from Kinsale to Karachi, saw him rub shoulders with sheiks and spies , and earn a special commendation from the Vatican.
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Like all Kinsale children, Jim attended the convent - aka 'The Nuns' - for the first three years of his education. In the infants' class he was taught by Nelle Regan, who lived down from what is now the Black Pig. After infants' the nuns would prepare you for the first communion, including confession practice. Next, you progressed to 'The Monks' - a boys-only school run by the Presentation Brothers, where Kinsale Outdoor Education Centre is today. There were six classes, and Jim's had around 30 pupils. most fellows stayed at primary school until they were 12 or 14 years old, when they took the Primary Certificate. There was an option to stay on the 7th and the 8th class, but only half a dozen of Jim's contemporaries did so, and most went on to join the priesthood, as Jim recalled: '' John Fitzpatrick was a year ahead of me and he became a Carmelite. Michael Barry also joined the Carmelites and was sent to Australia. Davie Griffin from Ballinspittle joined some other Order and went to Japan. Sean O'Shaughnessy joined the Holy Ghost Order, now the Spiritans, and was sent to Kenya. Essentially, most were posted on the Foreign Missions.'' With no secondary school for boys in Kinsale at the time, Jim stayed with the brothers to finish his education: '' The monks could take on a couple of people to prepare for the matriculation exam, a forerunner of the Leaving Cert, which you need to apply for a Civil Service position. Only three of us took the exam - myself, Michael Barry and Liam Ryan, the son of the local Guard. We sat together at the back of the class and worked away on assignments and the monk would check every now and then to see how were were getting on. We all got our matriculation.''
Jim went on to Christ the King at Turners Cross where he passed the Civil Service exam and was 'called' for an interview on 2nd January 1950, which involved an eight-hour journey to Dublin on a steam engine powered by timber and coal. Following several interviews at Civil Service HQ, he was appointed to the Registry of Deeds on Henrietta Street, behind the King's Inns. Staff were not allowed to use the front door and could only enter through the back entrance. He stayed for two years but said: '' On a salary off £22 a month you only existed, and by the time you had your digs paid, there was nothing left.''
In 1952, Jim joined the Munster & Leinster Bank in Carrick-on-Suir. The salary was not much better but he had the opportunity to take the entry exam for the Banking Institute of Ireland. British banks were recruiting for overseas positions, so Jim applied to London. Somewhat to his surprise, he was accepted by the Eastern Bank: ''One of the interviewers was a Director of the National Bank of Ireland, and he asked me what I thought of the banking situation at home. He said he thought Ireland was 'over banked' so i nodded in agreement. Of course, I Hadn't a clue!'' He must have made a better impression than he thought as he was offered a job. His new employers skipped his six-month training course in London and dispatched him immediately to Karachi on Pakistan. It was 1954 and Jim recalled that Heathrow, now the worlds second busiest airport, was ''just a bunch of Nissan hits back then.'
Arriving in Karachi shortly after his partition from India, he found it in a state of chaos, with many sights, sounds and smells he had never before experienced. Jim said he was shocked to see a vast refugee camp on the road in from the airport, and that his new job at the Karachi Eastern Bank was also a steep learning curve: ''In Carrick-On-Suir there were four of us in the bank , but in Karachi there were 30 in my department alone, including ten cashiers dealing with deposit and current accounts. Accommodation was provided and I shared a flat with two other bachelors, where we had a cook, a cleaner and a valet who looked after our shoes and pressed our clothes!''
(Jim on the right, appropriately dressed for the occasion. You wouldn't see this in an Irish bank!)
Jim said he quickly found ways to adapt to his new circumstances: '' There were two social clubs - one for rowing that also had rugby in the wintertime. Living in a Muslim country, the diet consisted of lots of chicken. Pork was seldom available, so there was no bacon, but the Anchor Shipping Line had small ships on a regular Liverpool to Bombay run so once a month we could go to a local hotel and have bacon and eggs. That was a treat, for sure!''
After two years Jim was on the move again - this time to Aden and a place called Crater, on the edge of an extinct volcano. It was another new experience and according to Jim, a not entirely pleasant one: '' It was stinking hot with high humidity. There was air con in the flat so we could get some sleep, but that was about the extent of it. The port had huge international traffic and the Eastern Bank had a sub-office at Steamer Point, where all the big liners called. The passengers came ashore to the souks to buy cameras, watches, jewellery etc. - all the items that were tax free - so they only stayed about 10 hours then headed on their way.'' Social life in Aden revolved around a swimming club and a tennis club where you could have a few beers. Aden was a British protectorate and the RAF had a large base there. Having completed his four-year tour of duty, in late 1958 Jim came home to Kinsale for a well-earned six-moth break. His next assignment was to Doha in Qatar, where business was mostly based on oil exports. Another Muslim country, the sale of alcohol was banned, but Jim said the thirsty ex-pats found a way around the rules: you had to get a medical certificate to say you needed a certain amount of alcohol to keep you going, so we all had a cert and were able to bring drink in from Bahrain for home consumption! Doha was bigger than Dubai.'' During his time in Doha, the currency changed from the Indian Rupee to the Gulf Rupee. One of his regular visits was to a major oil installation where most if the workers were Indian. They were not happy about the a changeover and a mob stormed Jim's Office, until police arrived to quell the crowd. in 1959, the Eastern Bank taken over by Standard Chartered, who had a share in the Commercial Bank of Libya, opening up further avenues for Jim to explore.
His next move was to Dubai, where the British Bank of the Middl East was the only financial institution in the country thanks to an exclusive deal with the local ruler. Jim visited the souks to sort out letters of credit for the merchants who were importing goods that were later smuggled out to Iran
Jim was called in by the political agent for the bank who told him: '' Now Deasy, you know this is a very un-British sort of activity and this is a good British bank. We don't do business like this.'' Alarmed, Jim wrote to a head office in London to seek clarification. They clearly took a different view of his 'un-British' activities and ordered him to carry on exactly as he was doing. Jim said: ''In Dubai, the merchants were mostly Indian and Iranian so during the Diwali Festival of Light that would offer shots of whiskey at each stand. It required a bit of self-control to ensure you didn't get tipsy.''
After two years, he was off to Abu Dhabi, which he said was still fairly primitive: ''There were about five or six small souks down by the creek, but not much else. At one stage I had to meet the sheik and give him some traveler's cheques for his hunting trip to Iran. I was driving on wet sand to where his plane landed. As i applied the brakes, I discovered there were none, so i stopped about a meter short of the plane with the Sheik on board. That would not have been good for business!''
in 1961 Jim came home to Kinsale for Christmas and a three month break before his next two-year posting, this time in Baghdad where the bank had a huge office. One of their major clients was the Sassoon family, cotton merchants known as 'the Rothschilds of the East' due to their immense wealth, with operations in Iraq, India and Pakistan. They also had branches in Mosul, Kirkuk, and Basra and most of the staff were Armenian or Christian Iraqis. Jim said the social scene at the time was buzzing: '' In Baghdad there were at least six nightclubs. I remember one night coming out of the Ali Baba just after a revolution and there was a tank outside and Iraqi soldier sitting on top saying, Taxi, Sahib?' There were three different revolutions during my time there. You would hear the gunfire, so you'd head down to the local shop and get food and beer and go home. After four or five days one side would manage to never have any problem if you kept your nose out of it!''
In 1964, Jim was sent to Beirut and the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies, often called the 'British spy school.' Students included top ranking British diplomats as well as notorious British spies Kim Philby and George Blake, both of whom later defected to the soviet union. Jim Loved Beirut and was amused that an Irish lad who left school at 15 was learning Arabic alongside some of the finest minds from Oxford and Cambridge. Jim enjoyed Lebanon's seasonal weather and was even able to go skiing during December and January. In June 1965 he was promoted to Branch manager and sent to Tripoli, which he said he found surprisingly sophisticated: '' Libya was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1912, when it became an Italian colony. Italy relinquished its claim in 1947 and made way for a joint Franco-British occupation. Kig Idris remained on the throne until he was overthrown in 1969 in a coup d'etat led by Muammar Gaddafi, but there was a very liberal society in Tripoli because of the history and the strong Italian influence.'' Tripoli is also where Jim met his future wife, Deirdre, who worked for an oil company.
As the political situation became unstable, Deirdre returned home to Holyhead in 1968 and Jim was posted to Doha as manager of the standard Chartered bank. It was another period of intense economic change, as Jim explained: '' Doha was still very basic but while I was there, the Gold standard was changed. Gold used to be 35 million dollars an ounce but then it was allowed to float and that's when income from oil went up dramatically and the Sheiks became multi-millionaires.''
By the early '70s, Jim had spent almost 20 years in the Middle East and decided it was time to put down roots. Even the offer of a management post in Hong Kong failed to sway him and he joined Deirdre in Holyhead, where he bought The Valley Stores. The UK was in turmoil, with electricity shortages and power cuts, so he did very well selling gas to his customers, but he did not enjoy dealing with perishable food goods, so he sold the convenience store. In 1978 he bought an Ironmongery with, he said, the help of his 'friendly bank manager.' With a wry smile Jim added: ''I'd spent the last 20 years giving out bank money so i thought i might as well go and borrow some for a change!'' The hardware shop was subsequently bought by the council, who wanted to put a road through it, and Jim was only delighted! The lure of Kinsale proved irresistible and Jim bought land from the Barret family down Delaney's lane, where he built his family home. This is where Jim lived out the remainder of his life, and where he died, at peace and surrounded by his loving family, on 3rd October this year. It was only at his funeral Mass that we learned that Jim had been awarded the 'Bene Merenti' medal by Pope John Paul II for the service to the church in the Middle East - an honor of which he was immensely proud but had shared only with his closest family. Jim was a truly remarkable man, who will be greatly missed by all who had the pleasure to know him. I like to think that he is up in the heavens with his great friend Frank Kiernan, where no doubt they will 'discuss matters over a drink in the dock' and reminisce about their many happy boat trips west along. Fair winds and following seas, Jim. We will not see your like again.
Deasy's pub before the collapse in 1947