THE HISTORY OF THE RED BARONS

We know from examination of ancient manuscripts that Aer Lingus Pilots had regular outings as far back as the 1960’s. The Autumn Outing of 1969 was held in Skerries and the President of IALPA, Captain Jim Sherry presented the prizes. Mick Beary was the winner on the day. Chief amongst the organisers at this time would have been Gerry Headon, Dinny McClune, Eric Martineau, Frank Thompson, Torlough O’Boyle, Colm Moriarty and Tanner Shiel. Later on John O'Farrell and Donal Mc Carthy became involved and they were followed by Rian Murray, Ronan Collins and Mark Dolan.

Currently the affairs of the Red Barons are looked after by Darren Bolton, Ken Gregory and Emily Donoghue. Darren Faherty also was an organiser in recent years.

Notable golfers through the 1960’s and 1970’s were Barney O’Beirne who represented Connacht and was the Captain on the Tuskar Rock Viscount in 1968 and Niall O’Farrell who featured in various Scratch Trophies around the country.

Through the 1970’s and 1980’s, there was no shortage of crises in the airline business, the future of the company was often precarious and at times 20% of the pilot group were working overseas on unpaid leave. It would have been easy for the golf outings to fall by the wayside, but with Gerry Headon, the Red Baron in charge, there was no chance of this happening. He was full of enthusiasm and majored in delegation, plans were made, functions and responsibilities allocated and the Red Barons thrived.

In 1974 Eric Martineau presented a beautiful Silver plated Rose Bowl which was presented to the winner of the Autumn Outing and later, in the 1980’s, Dinny Mc Clune presented a fine bronze statuette by Jan Rynhardt for the winner of the Golfer of the Year competition.

Later still came the Fireball Trophy, in memory of the late Pat McNamara and in 2018 the Captain Ronan Collins memorial Cup was added. If the various outings ran smoothly, the same could not be said for the annual matchplay series. Players delayed matches as their form dropped, there were some genuine excuses, too, of course, but it was a nightmare for the organiser and sometimes they ran into the following year. Note to any future organiser, be ruthless.

The early 1970’s was a very sociable era in Flight Operations. Pilots had a 2/3 day trip to Kelly’s Strand Hotel in Rosslare. John O`Farrell was one of the organisers, fishermen and women headed for the Munster coast and then there was the Annual Dinner Dance in the Shelbourne Hotel and the Annual Pilots Dinner.

Although pilot numbers were not much more than 250, all these events flourished. Support for the Dinner Dance began to wane in the mid 1970’s and the Autumn Golf Outing with its less formal atmosphere, became more and more popular. The trip to Kellys regularly had about 25-30 attendees and all required Olympian stamina to survive, there was hardly a minute to spare. It was Ironman, without the bike and the swimming was done in beer! Participants had to eat 4 meals per day, then there was cabaret, snooker, poker, plenty of lubrication and, of course, some golf at Rosslare G.C., as this report from 1976 recounts:

Records from 1974 show that 45 played golf in the Autumn Outing in Howth, and 130 attended the dinner. Golfers of all abilities, and none, were welcome and on one notable occasion in Clontarf there was a tie for last place and, so, the prize for the golfer with Most Potential was awarded to the golfer who had only 1 point on the back 9, for a total of 3 points. On another occasion in Howth, we were enveloped in fog for about 30 minutes and there were a number of near-misses in the area of the 4th fairway, navigating the route home from Howth, slightly fatigued, also presented some challenges, subsequently, a risk assessment was conducted and it was decided that the Autumn Outing would relocate.

We were fortunate to have a number of pilots who were members of Royal Dublin, Tony O’Doherty, Tanner Sheil, Frank Thompson, Jack O Donnell and, of course, the Red Baron himself Gerry Headon. It became the home for another few years. The Outings were as popular as ever. As soon as the date was known, the page in the Request Book filled up and the pleadings to Crew Planning began. Demand was such that late bookings were accommodated in the annex.

In the mid 70’s it was decided to run a Ladies event in conjunction with the Pilots Autumn outing. This was generally held in Sutton and organised by Molly Williamson and Anne Moriarty. This too was popular with wives and partners and indeed, they didn’t seem to mind the fact that the event was sometimes known as the Red Dragons.

Disposable income must have been getting tighter in the early 1980’s because pilots began to look for an alternative venue for the Spring trip. So now instead of heading south to Kellys, we headed inland with outings to Slieve Russell, Glasson and Mullingar. The food might not have been as good but there was no shortage of craic and good times. There was also a trip to Baltray, where we stayed in the Clubhouse accommodation and even now, 30+ years later, many of the poker players are wondering how a large circular table was moved in the early hours from the meeting room to the bar. Club officials were puzzled and not at all amused the following morning. In Mullingar we were treated to contrasting piano repertoires from John Cole and Phillip Maguire while Dan Murphy pined for “ My Lagan Love “.
Whilst there wasn’t a huge amount of administration involved in running the Red Barons, there were one or two committee meetings each year, sometimes in Royal Dublin and more often in the home of the Red Baron, in Clontarf. Minutes of these meetings have been archived and will be released with the 1970 State Papers in the year 2050.

An issue that did cause some difficulty was how to handicap the few female pilots who competed. Their case wasn’t helped by the fact that they could all outdrive many of their male colleagues off the same tees, hopefully nobody suffered lasting trauma and now we have the WHS system to guide us in these situations.

One of the difficult roles in the organisation, was that of getting support from sponsors. Even in the early 80s, IR£30 was considered reasonable from the banks, we would always get something from Aer Rianta DFS, Aer Lingus Charters were generous too and, of course Flight Operations always had their arms twisted. We bought our prizes in Mc Guirks and they could always be relied on to produce a prize, as well.

Donal McCarthy & Tanner Sheil