Service to the community has been Christy Maguire’s life’s work. When he went along in 1968 to a meeting in the C.Y.M.S. which had been called to discuss the setting up of a local Credit Union, he had no idea what a credit union was.

That meeting set the pattern for the rest of his life. He left the room a member of the board, on the proposal of his friend, the late Sean Kennedy. Since then, the credit union has been Christy’s life’s work.

Ringsend and District Credit Union opened to the community on January 1 1969, and nearly 31 years later, Christy is the only remaining founder member on the board.
Talking about life in Ringsend back before the credit union got going, he says: “There were a lot of money lenders then. There used to be a woman outside the gas company. The men working there would get their wages on a Friday and half of it would go to her.

They’d be borrowing off her again on the Monday. They’d get the loan of £2 and maybe give back £2-10s-0d (£2.50).”

For most of the last 30 years Christy has been treasurer of the credit union, as well as board member, but in the last year or so he has given up looking after the figures because he has been unwell after suffering two TIA’s (Transient Ischaemic Attacks) which are minor strokes.

He got his voice back within 24 hours each time, but he feels, as a result, that someone fitter should be doing the job.

He has earned his retirement – after all he is 70 years old, though he does not look it. He is still on the board and he still visits the C.U.’s spanking new premises several times a week.

He was already 40 when he helped found the Credit Union. But this was the start of a whole new career, and to equip him for the job of treasurer he enrolled in night classes in Rathmines – four nights a week after doing a day’s work.

But when be began working for the community through the credit union, he knew he had found his niche.

As well as being voluntary board member and treasurer of Ringsend and District Credit Union, he became manager of Sundrive Road Credit Union. His ‘hobby’ and his job had merged into one and he must have worked at a terrible pace.

Then, fourteen years ago, tragedy struck. He had a heart attack followed by triple by-pass, so he retired from the job in Crumlin. But he remained on the board at Ringsend and continued as treasurer.

When asked what gave him most pleasure over the years, he talks about the growth of the credit union, and building and owning the present premises – after starting 30 years ago in two rooms in a tenement in Bridge Street – and having President Robinson open it a few years ago.

And he is looking forward to Ringsend being connected to places all over the country through the centralised computer system being set up by the credit union league. All from such tiny beginnings.

Many people’s lives have been touched by Christy through his quiet and necessarily almost anonymous work in the credit union.

Now here’s a bit about the man himself. He started life in Power’s Court, just off Mount Street, one of a family of twelve, and he left St. Andrew’s national school at the age of fourteen. Then he got a job as a messenger boy cycling around Dublin doing deliveries.

Christy was a member of the Marist Boys Club in Percy Place and even trod the boards in a few plays. He used to go along to football matches to support the club but he never got picked for the team.

At 16 he got an office job in McNaughton’s, the timber merchants. From then on, it was clerical work all the way for a man who is naturally studious and an avid reader.

On 3rd January, 1956, Christy Maguire and Margaret (Peggy) Morrissey, also from Power’s Court, married in St Andrew’s Church, Westland Row. They had both been baptised and confirmed there, and to this day, Christy still attends the Confraternity of the Sacred Heart there on the first Sunday of the month.

Now they have four married daughters and twelve grandchildren. Their children all live in Ireland: Mary in Wicklow; Deirdre in Dundrum; Anne in Clare and Roisin in Kildare.

Perhaps the best measure of the man is this. Asked to say what he considered a memorable success he told this story, without breaking confidence:

“Years ago, a woman defaulted on her loan. In the terminology of the credit union she was a delinquent. But her husband got to hear about it somehow and he said he would cover all her debts in the credit union.

“She owed money to banks and everywhere and he hadn’t been aware of it. We sorted things out: we gave her another loan although she had defaulted on the first one. They became some of the best members we ever had.”

Typical of the man to take pleasure in someone else’s triumph over adversity.