RETIRED MEMBER PROFILE

too, not just because he was in the 1996 RTÉ documentary covering D Watch Phibsboro, but because he recently appeared in the latest DFB recruitment campaign covered elsewhere in this issue.

Career

Sitting at his kitchen table, he points at each of the many photographs he has put together and says: “ ere’s a story behind that one!” True to his word, his supply of stories and anecdotes is endless, too numerous (and some too risky) to print here, and are testament to the fond memories he has of his career that began in 1963 when he swapped a job as a sheetmetal worker to join the Brigade.

“I got married and needed job security,” he tells me, “and my father said that if I got a job in uniform I would never need for anything, so with my older brother already in the job, I decided to join. My wife Maureen used to say that I had actually married the re brigade, and she was probably right.”

Following a six-week training course at Tara Street, Nobby began working there and stayed for 12 years, though he o en found himself sent to other stations as the need arose.

“ ere were only four stations back then – Tara Street, Dorset Street, Buckingam Street and Rathmines – and Dolphin’s Barn came along a bit later, so it wasn’t too bad,” he says. A er a few years in Buckingham Street, North Strand and Finglas re stations were opened and Nobby spent time at each, with 12 years served at Finglas until another new station was built at Phibsboro.

“I liked Finglas and made some great friends there,” he tells me, “but I wanted to get back into the city, so when Phibsboro came up, I went there and stayed for the rest of my career. For me, it was the best station in the job. I loved every minute of it and never wanted to leave.

“I genuinely enjoyed every single day because you couldn’t get a better bunch of re ghters than the ones I worked with, the likes of Leslie Crowe, Damien Fynes, Peter Kavanagh, Martin Williams, Clippy, Mulligan. You went in at 9am and you started laughing, and you didn’t stop laughing until you went out the door at the end of your shi . You could write a book on the stories and anecdotes. I loved it all, such a great laugh.

“It wasn’t all fun and games and we got our fair share of di cult cases. Nowadays, they have things in place to help you handle that, but back then we used to just come back to the station and talk about it, to get it o our chests, and you couldn’t get a nicer bunch of people to do that with.”

Stories

Over the course of an hour, I’m treated to some of those stories involving soakings, beds going missing, a dummy’s hand he used as a prank prop, and an important piece of advice to never announce you are going to the bathroom when going to bed on a night shi .

ere was serious work done too, with Nobby certainly playing his part in this 41-year career, delivering 12 babies.

“You’d go out on the ambulance and see life going out of this world, and an hour later you get a case where you are bringing life into this world,” he tells me.

He brought extra blankets with him on ambulance duty and handed them out to those in need living on the streets, becoming, as he says ‘a familiar face and they all knew my name’.

Major Incidents

He was also on duty for some of the most memorable incidents in DFB history, including an explosion at a pumping station at North Wall, a major re at a music shop o Gra on Street, the bombing of Nelson’s Pillar in 1966, a plane crash that killed two people at Dublin Airport in 1967, the burning of the British Embassy in 1972, and the Stardust disaster. ere was no lion, but on the oor was a man’s body. Apparently, he had been training them when one of the lions attacked.

He also saw some unusual incidents, including pulling a bull from the Li ey (I won’t share how he says he did it) and tells me that as far as he knows, he is the only person in Dublin Fire Brigade who has ever been called to an attack by a lion.

“I was working in Finglas re station, and it was April Fool’s Day,” he tells me. “I was called out to Ballymun, where the circus was in town. When I arrived there were a few workers standing outside a tent, so I went over and asked what was going on, and was led into the tent where there stood a lion’s cage.

“I put him in the ambulance and drove to Jervis Street Hospital where there was a nurse who hated re ghters for some reason and always gave us short shri . When she asked what we had in the ambulance, I said ‘I know it’s April Fool’s Day but I have a lion tamer who has been badly mauled by a lion’. Well, she tore into me for wasting her time, until she nally came out and saw for herself.”

Personality

With all of that experience, Nobby was always regarded as the senior man, but his good-natured personality meant he o en found himself on the receiving end of practical jokes.

“ e lads I worked with, I was like a father gure in some ways to them,” he says. “Although you mightn’t think that with the slagging I always got.”

Pointing to another photo, he tells the story: “I went to Chicago to visit my sister, and while we were there we went to the zoo, but a monkey escaped from its cage and was running around. When I got back, I told the lads at the station the story, and thought nothing more about it, but a few days later one of the lads dressed up as a monkey, jumped out and chased me around the station.”

To this day, he takes the slagging with his usual good humour. Having overcome skin cancer more than a decade ago, his head bears the scars of skin gra s, and this too has given dark-humoured ammunition to his former colleagues.

“I went to a funeral of a re ghter one day,” he tells me, “and we were all dressed up in our blazers and hats. We were standing outside and Paddy Rooney, who was in Kilbarrack for years, says to me: ‘Nobby, I was looking at a programme on the telly before I came out, it was about the moon, with all the craters on it, and I still think I’m watching it now, looking at your head!’ I thought that was very funny. at’s how the job went, you made jokes about people, even about serious things, but it was all in good humour and you have to know how to take it.

“It was all about personality. I never gave out to anybody, tried to be friendly with everyone I met and get along with them, and was able to brush o challenging incidents and not let them a ect me. I used to tell young lads that the most important thing you needed to come into the Fire Brigade was a good personality, and I was lucky to always have that.”

Memories

Despite his senior man status, Nobby says he never went for promotion because he enjoyed the job too much to move into an O cer role, and didn’t want to leave his colleagues at Phibsboro once there. “I wanted to stay where I was,” he says. “D Watch was the best part of the whole job, I enjoyed it so much. It was a good station and the crew I had, you couldn’t get any better.”

He also speaks fondly of his wife Maureen, who sadly passed away in the last couple of years and who he “relied on for everything outside of my job”, and of his children, including Paul, a former Dublin GAA All-Star and AllIreland winner who works with the Dublin Airport Fire and Rescue Service, before we move to the garage to see his many photos and pieces of memorabilia including helmets, pins and the last ever DFB re engine bell.

With such a bank of memories and stories, Nobby says that staying in touch with former colleagues is as important as ever in his later years, and regularly attends Retired Members Association meet-ups at the Teacher’s Club, and breakfasts at Sportslink with his Phibsboro crew. “ e craic is great at these meet-ups – you are telling stories from years back. It also keeps that line of contact open,” he says, “which is important.” recruitment campaign photoshoot.

“I was sitting at home when I got a call from A/C/F/O Greg O’Dwyer, who said the Chief had mentioned my name while putting together a few people to be in a recruitment campaign, and at rst I thought it was one of my old colleagues pulling my leg,” he tells me.

“I always got on very well with the Chief, and he used to say I was a great man for helping fellas out, so he said a sta car would come over and bring me in to Phibsboro, dress me, etc, to do with an ad for recruitment. So, I said yes, and went along to play the role of a person being helped to an ambulance by a young re ghter.

“It was a very professional shoot and the pictures look great. I told them I wanted to take home one of the bus stop posters to put on my hall door!”

As for how it felt to go back to his old station, Nobby says he got a great reception.

“I knew about four or ve of the crew who are there now, but the strange thing about it is that most of the people had never seen me before, but going into Phibsboro they all said ‘Hi Nobby’ to me. e Chief has said a few times to go in and have dinner with the crews, and that welcome is always there for me I feel, so that is a lovely thing. A lot of people will have heard of me as Nobby, even if they don’t know me personally.”

Back in 2004, he told Firecall: “I only hope I go out of here leaving a mark, that people will say: ‘Ah I remember Nobby Clarke’, and judging by the number of times his name comes up in conversation with other re ghters, many of who describe him as a legend, his popularity and personality, it doesn’t look like that is in any doubt.

When I put that fact to him, his response is be tting of him: “Well, I never set out for people to know who I am, it was always just in my nature to get on with people, and I think that’s maybe why they remember me.”