Gaynor, Ger
October 08, 2013Born Thomas Gerard Gaynor on 12 November 1929 to William and Mary Sarah Gaynor, he was the youngest of three sons. His father, originally from Westmeath established a business 'William Gaynor & Sons' in the early 1930s. The business comprised of an old style grocery/bar and shoe shop on the North Main Street in Wexford as well as a pub in Taghmon.
His mother was a member of the well-known White family who also ran a business on the Main Street in Wexford. From an early age, Ger and his older brother Jimmy took a keen interest in the family business. Eventually, the pub in Taghmon was sold and in 1969 Ger moved the grocery shop and pub to Wygram, while his brother Jimmy remained mainly in the shoe shop on the Main Street.
The pub trade was a passion of Ger's who was regarded as an 'old style publican'. When he started out he operated with the old wooden barrels of stout and the premises had all the traditional elements of an Irish pub including the 'snug'. He served on the committee of the licensed vintners in Wexford along with fellow publicians including Con Macken and Joe Lambert while his wife Doreen served as Secretary, and between them they organised lots of events locally such as the annual dinner dance. The grocery shop was well known to many around the Wexford area and he also ran a mobile shop which served the country areas ensuring people were well stocked up on the essentials, including tea which was packaged in the shop as 'Gaynor's Tea'.
In his youth Ger enjoyed GAA, playing for Young Ireland's GAA club where he earned a reputation as being a tough player. In the 1970's on moving to Wygram, he became involved with St John's Volunteers where he served as a committee member for a number of years. In his spare time he also enjoyed fishing, greyhound racing and playing cards weekly with his friends in Boggan's of Kilmacree.
In 1955, Ger married Doreen McDonald of John Street who sadly pre-deceased him in 1973. As a family man he lived above the pub at Wygram with his six children, Billy, John, Gerry, Caroline, Mary and Peter. Although he remained the 'boss' he took a lesser role in the business in 1995 when his son John took over. In his retirement, Ger along with his long term partner Margaret, travelled extensively.
Apart from work and family, Ger's biggest passion in life was horse racing. In fact the story goes that when planning his honeymoon with Doreen, Ger planned it so that they took in all the race meetings that they could from Killarney to Listowel and even up to Galway! It was when he retired that Ger's passion for horse racing really took over. He joined the Dundalk Racing Club and this was when he got involved in owning horses in a more active way. His biggest success on the race-course came with his friends Thomas Power, Pat O'Hanlon and Hugh Martin as a member of the 'Top of the Hill Syndicate' with Solwhit. That horse, trained by Charles Byrnes in Limerick, enjoyed wonderful success including winning the Aintree and Liverpool Hurdles, the Irish Champion Hurdle and his biggest achievement which came this year when he won the World Hurdle at Cheltenham.
On his return from Cheltenham Ger was diagnosed with a terminal illness. He fought bravely for a number of months but sadly passed away on October 1. He will be sorely missed by his children Billy, John, Gerry, Caroline, Mary and Peter, his loving partner Margaret, brother Willie, sons and daughters-in-law, brothers and sisters-in-law, grandsons, granddaughters, nephews, nieces, relatives and a large circle of friends accumulated over the years.
May he rest in peace. Tweet
