7 minute read
AN UNEXPECTED REUNION
FF/P Michael Duggan tells Adam Hyland about his coincidental connection to the vintage fire truck that came from Long Island this summer.
The last issue of Firecall featured a story about vintage fire engine collector Liam Moore’s project to bring an old fire truck from New York to Dublin. While many might have read this with interest, for A Watch Donnybrook FF/P Michael Duggan, news of this endeavour was a real blast from the past because he actually had first-hand knowledge of Glen Cove’s Ladder 5211, having helped out the volunteer fire department in the Long Island community back in 1990.
Michael had heard a few snippets of information about a vintage fire truck coming to a private owner in Dublin, but it wasn’t until he watched a video of its arrival that he started to put two and two together, and realised it was the very truck he had seen in action more than 30 years ago.
COINCIDENCE
“It’s the kind of story you see in the media, like those ones where someone rescues a person from a fire many years ago and now they are reunited,” he tells me. “My friend and colleague Willie Bermingham, who has his own old DFB appliance, had brought his into our station in Donnybrook to
Michael Duggan is reunited with the vintage fire truck from Glen Cove.
clean it one evening because he was planning to meet the US fire truck on its arrival, and while I gave him a hand, he told me about it, but I didn’t pay much attention to it because it could have been any truck coming from anywhere.
“He mentioned Glen Cove, and I thought, that’s amazing, it’s the same station I was at when I was in America many years ago, but I didn’t think in my wildest dreams that it would end up being the very same fire truck I was on over there, so I said to him to enjoy the day, and forgot all about it.
“That next day, one of the other members of the Watch went down to the quays with his family to watch the fire truck and escort go by, and he put up a video on our WhatsApp featuring the DFB engines accompanying this old US truck when it arrived off the
A young Michael Duggan standing beside Ladder 5211 in Glen Cove, Long Island in 1990.
boat. I was looking at the video and thinking: that truck looks very familiar. The hairs on my neck stood up. I told my wife, ‘you’re not going to believe this, but…’ and she said ‘Ah no it couldn’t be’, so I went up to the attic to look for my old photographs from my time in America, and when I looked at the characteristics of the truck from my photographs and then from the video, I realised it was absolutely the same truck from more than 30 years ago!”
AMERICAN VISIT
Michael tells me how this coincidence came about. “I joined in 1986 and was stationed in Tara Street until I was sent out to Donnybrook, where I have served for 33 years, but back in the 1980s and 1990s the Donnelly Visas were available via a lottery for Irish people who wanted to go and live in America, and I applied because I had considered the move. I was in Dublin Fire Brigade about three or four years at the time, but was lucky enough to get a visa. However, I was very happy in my job, so I was trying to decide what to do.
“I was finding it hard to make up my mind, so I arranged for leave and went over for six weeks and stayed with a close friend of mine who was living in a place called Glen Cove on Long Island, New York, to see if I liked it. My friend had gotten a visa a year or two beforehand, and had made a new life for himself, and he suggested that while I was over there, I should go down to the Glen Cove fire house and chat to the firefighters there. I went down and ended up talking to the Chief at the time, Mike Smith.”
After speaking to Smith about the possibility of moving over to New York and perhaps joining FDNY, but not being sure about leaving DFB, the Chief said that during his six-week stay Michael should come in for a few nights and go out on the truck, to see what life as a firefighter there would be like.
“I jumped at the chance, because at that stage the fire service was now in my blood,” Michael says, “and Chief Smith arranged for me to stay a few nights, gave me the full set of gear,
Ladder 5211 was met by a welcoming group of DFB members upon its arrival at Dublin Port.
said he would let me go out on a few calls, and showed me the fire truck.
“On one of those nights, I had my photograph taken in my firefighting gear, standing beside Ladder 5211, and that’s the photo I took home with me that I ended up looking at years later.
“I got to know a few of the lads there and kept in touch with them for a good while, but in the end, I decided I wanted to stay in Dublin Fire Brigade, and returned to Dublin after my six weeks. I was too happy in DFB.”
STAYING IN DUBLIN
Michael says he is very happy with the decision he made.
“I would probably have been able to get a career break to go and live and work over in Long Island for a year if I wanted to, but as it happened, I had just managed to get a place in Donnybrook fire station, and I was very happy there. I worked hard to get there and got on really well with the crew, so I was reluctant to go off for a year and then maybe have to return to Tara Street before being assigned to a different Watch or station. You never know what might have been if I had made the decision to move over there – I could still be there now, but I do know that I have had a very enjoyable life in DFB. It’s been a good career, and it is hard to believe it has gone so fast – 35 years!
“I wasn’t one who wanted to be in the fire brigade since childhood, but I have to say it’s like winning the lottery getting in, because of the people in the job, the variety of call outs, that you get to help people, and I have made many great friends, they are like a second family, and I have to say there is no better job.”
FF/P Michael Duggan tries out the truck he was last in 31 years ago.
REUNION
Ladder 5211 making its way to Dublin rekindled fond memories as part of a coincidence he still can’t believe. He got the number for Liam Moore, who confirmed the truck was one and the same. “I told Liam my story and he couldn’t believe the coincidence either,” Michael tells me. “That was a brand new truck when I was in Glen Cove, and now it has retired and come to Dublin.
“The thing is, in Long Island and places like that outside of New York, they have fire houses nearly every mile and a half. That’s the way it works over there – there are volunteer fire houses everywhere – so that’s what makes it such an amazing coincidence for me. Not only was this a fire truck from New York, but from Long Island, and not only that, but from the very one of many, many fire houses that it could have been from. It just so happened to come from the one I went to during my time over there.”
Michael made plans with Liam Moore to visit him and be reunited with Ladder 5211, donning his old gear to replicate the photo from his time in Long Island, and tells me the visit was “a fantastic, interesting trip”.
He also plans to get in touch with Glen Cove to let them know about the coincidence. “I know they are all aware that it has found a new home in Dublin because they had a lot of coverage about it, but it would be nice to get in touch and tell them my story,” he says. “I’m sure they would be interested to know someone who was there 31 years ago ended up being with the truck again so many years later and all the way over here. Like me, they will be happy to know that the truck has a second home, and it will be interesting to see what happens to it now.”
Appliances from HQ and Phibsboro provided an escort when the US fire truck made its first journey on Irish soil.
