Tributes are paid to Gus who retires from Loughrea Mart after 43 years

It was something of an emotional occasion when Gus Egan retired as the long-serving manager of Loughrea Mart having had a 43 year long association with the business and is credited for it being a huge success.

 Members of the mart committee held a function for Gus, who is originally from Clostolken near Loughrea, and was actually a member of the committee which founded the mart back in the early 1970s.

Not alone was he an exceptional manager of the mart but he also had a good business brain and made property purchases that proved financially beneficial for the mart.

Gus was the third manager of Loughrea Mart. The first manager from Limerick lasted no more than three months and the next manager was from Kildare and he bowed out after a year.

Then Gus was approached as he had been an organising secretary with the mart for a number of years previously and had actually been offered the job when the mart originally opened.

When the second manager left, he then applied for the position of manager and has been in the job for until recently when he retired and he will now be replaced by Jimmy Cooney, the former hurling All-Star and referee.

Gus was involved in the years preceding the establishment of the mart in Loughrea when the committee were involved in the collection of share capital of £10 per household and farmer in the area in order to get it off to a sound footing.

Prior to that, Gus had worked in England as a carpenter as many had done at the time and then returned home where he acquired a farm in Clostolken which he operated as well as being involved in the mart committee.

“Like many others I took the emigrant ship to England but I came back to buy a place which I farmed in very tough times and it was around then that there were talks of establishing a mart in Loughrea.

“I got involved like so many others and we collected share capital to get it off the ground. It was small to begin with but we canvassed for stock and eventually we built it up and thankfully it is an important part of life in Loughrea today”, Gus told the Tribune.

At the time of its opening the cattle sales were held on Mondays with the sheep on Thursdays but there was a slight change to that arrangement over the years.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.