Billy Deering

IT TOOK everyone by surprise when Billy Deering, one of the hardest working members in the Logue/Marley Sinn Féin Cumann in Crumlin in Dublin, died suddenly in early April.
Billy helped out in elections and joined the party after the 2002 general election, when Aengus Ó Snodaigh was elected TD for the first time.
Billy was a one-man leafleting team, who would on a morning take out a shopping trolley full of leaflets or Sinn Féin’s Dublin News, to return only when it was empty – hail, rain or sun – and then enjoy quenching his thirst in Ryan’s. ‘Betsy’, as he called his shopping trolley, has now been retired.
A fanatical soccer fan who spent a lot of time over the years playing, running or watching the game, Billy followed Manchester United and had been involved for years in kids’ football teams. When times were tougher, Billy and others would organise weekend trips for children in Crumlin who had little; many who would have had no other holidays bar those camping excursions.
He lived in Crumlin all his life and was a plasterer by trade. He enjoyed the banter in his local during the week.
Billy, a bachelor, was his father Jimmy’s carer for many years, a task he took very seriously. He is survived by his father, Jimmy, his sisters, Marie, Nancy, Angela and his brother, Jimmy.
A guard of honour of local republicans flanked his remains on his final journey to Mount Jerome Cemetery where family, party members and friends paid their last respects to a good man.
I measc laochra na nGael go raibh sé.