Local giant who served Callan in many ways dies The recent passing of Sean Holden of Mill Street was greeted with great sadness in Callan. Sean was through-and-through Callan man and loved everything about the place. In many respects he was a man before his time and was always forward thinking. Sean was born in 1926 and in those 79 years he contributed much to the modern Callan of today. He first attended the Convent of Mercy primary school an later the Christian Brothers School at West Street. His association with the CBS was to be a long and happy one. He was later a founding member of the CBS Past Pupils union serving as president of the Callan Union and also served as president of the Past Pupils union of Ireland. Sean served his time as a plasterer with Griffin's of West Street and later worked with his Brother Hauly who had served his time as a carpenter to his father Patrick who was better known as Lyod. Sean and his close friend Seamus O'Brien were the leading lights in Callan throughout the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Both men were very creative and were the main organisers of most of the entertainment activities in the town. Sean was the main organiser of the carnivals in the 1940s and 1950s. Both Sean and Seamus ran all these popular events to help local to help local charities and clubs. Sean was also involved with the Old Chapter Players staging many fine plays including Spreading the news in 1954 which is pictorially featured in Callan's Pictorial Past Volume 1. This one of the two fine books produced by Sean and his friend John O'Keeffe which featured hundreds of photographs of people and pa;places in Callan. Sean was one of the founding members of the local St Vincent de Paul Society which helped the needy in and around Callan and is still a thriving society today. Sean was also one of the founding members of the Callan Credit Union in 1971. It started in a little unit beside T.J. Hogan's shop before moving next door to larger premises and had since moved to the ultra modern premises across the road. Sean went on to serve with Callan Credit Union for over 20 years until he retired from activities in the 1990s. He also served as president of Chapter 8 of the Credit Union which covered area in Counties Carlow, Laois and Kilkenny. Sean was also a life long member of Fianna Fail and served as secretary with the local cumann for many years. He was an active member of the John Lockes GAA club and served as a officer of the club in the glorious 1950s when the Lockes were at the helm of Kilkenny club hurling, and was very involved in fund raiding in 1957, when the Lockes won their only championship along with his friend Seamus O'Brien who was then club secretary. Sean was often called upon by many organisations to act as master of ceremonies which he very much enjoyed. He acted as MC and judge at all the county Scor events throughout the county for many years with is travelling partner Harry Bryan. Both also adjudicated at Scor events in County Tipperary. Sean loved to record local events and had many tapes of Callan events. He particularly loved to broadcast at hurling matches. He broadcast the1957 County final and later replayed it to those who were unable to attend. Olive O'Neill of Westcourt had fond memories of Sean. Olive was a member of the St Brigid's College Camogie team which won the 1961 Leinster Camogie final. She said that Sean attended that game and recorded a commentary of it. He later relayed the broadcast at the school much to the delight of the students. In 1959 many Callan men were serving in the Irish army in the Congo. Sean recorded messages of best wishes for the soldier's families around Callan and sent the recording to the men for Christmas, which was greeted with great delight by the men. Recordings like Sean's were rare in those times but as mentioned earlier he was a man before his time. Sean will be greatly missed in Callan but will be especially missed by his wife Breda, sons Patrick, John and Michael. Courtesy of the Kilkenny People 4th November 2005 Tweet

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