County Clare native honoured in Canada
By Desmond Devoy
TORONTO – A former Ennistymon, County Clare native was honoured earlier this year as Irish Person of the Year by Toronto’s Irish community.
Eamonn O’Loghlin, 57, was feted by the Irish-Canadian community in Canada’s largest city at a sold-out luncheon at the Toronto Hilton on Sunday, March 8th, with Ireland’s Ambassador to Canada, His Excellency Declan Kelly, in attendance.
“It is so great to sit down and break bread with so many family and friends at this venue that brings back so many great memories over the years,” said O’Loghlin during his acceptance speech before a packed banquet hall, one of the largest such receptions that the Irish Person of the Year Committee has seen in many years.
“I have said before, and I will publicly state it again, that we are so fortunate to be part of such an incredible Irish community,” O’Loghlin said. “This is a giving community. Thankfully, we seem to have an awful lot more givers than takers. That’s what makes this community so special. When there’s a helping hand needed, there are always some individuals and organizations that step up to the plate and make it happen. We all know that these are challenging times and they will probably get worse before they get better.”
O’Loghlin also thanked his wife of many years, Madeleine, a retired school teacher born in west County Cork, and his daughter Treasa, 26, a student at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, and Rory, 14, a high school student. O’Loghlin and his wife came to Canada in 1975, and have been actively involved in Irish-Canadian life ever since.
“I truly have an amazing family and I count my blessings every day of my good fortune in that regard,” he said, pointing from the head table to his own family table.
O’Loghlin was honoured along with three other radio show hosts whose programs are aimed at the Irish diaspora community in the Greater Toronto Area. Since March 1998, O’Loghlin has hosted his own hour-long Saturday morning radio show, “Ceol agus Craic,” on a Chinese-language radio station, AM 1430 Fairchild Radio. O’Loghlin has joked that his is the “best Irish radio show in Toronto, on a Saturday morning, on a Chinese radio station.”
He was able to joke with some of his fellow on-air hosts at the event, and even made a promise to change his format…if only ever so slightly.
“Based on some candid input I have received, I promise, going forward on the radio, that I'll back off a bit on this Clare fixation I seem to have,” he said with a laugh. “I may play a little more Daniel O’Donnell, if someone will lend me the CDs, and also try to play more jigs and reels especially for some of my Dublin friends who still think its foreign music.”
For many years, O’Loghlin had also edited the “Toronto Irish News” magazine. In March of this year he established his own national Irish-Canadian magazine, under the name “Irish Connections Canada”. Already his new venture has been widely acclaimed and can be viewed on his new website: www.irishcanadamag.com.
“As we reach out to the Irish Canadian diaspora there are more and more every day rediscovering their links to Ireland and revelling in the experience,” O’Loghlin explained to the assembled of his new publication. “Our community which numbers over 4.35 million (13.8% of the Canadian population), is literally spread from coast to coast and we wanted to connect the dots and provide a forum for their stories to be heard”. By July of this year O’Loghlin stated that the new magazine would be available in over 150 locations coast to coast across Canada.
O’Loghlin was at the younger end of a wave of immigration from Ireland to Canada that began in the late 1950s and ended roughly in the 1980s, with immigration all but drying up during the boom times of the 1990s.
“There is hardly a week goes by, as this community begins to turn grey just a little bit, that we don't pull on some heartstrings by having to announce some sad news of someone leaving us,” O’Loghlin said of his weekly obituary announcements, often at the top of the show, since his is the first show of the four to be broadcast on the weekend.
As the economy continues to sour, some Irish people have once again started making their way to Canada and other locales in search of work. He called on the Irish community in Toronto to offer them a hand, and to immigrants from other, more exotic lands as well in Toronto’s very diverse neighborhoods.
“Let's reach out in these difficult times to anyone who is lonely or marginalized. Trust me, you'll feel better when you do,” O’Loghlin said. “With new immigrants arriving in bigger numbers, we also need to lend a helping hand and perhaps remember back to when many of us, as new immigrants, received a helping hand.”
“It has been an extreme honour and a privilege to serve this community in the small way that I do. I hope to continue for many years to come – if you'll have me,” O’Loghlin said in closing.
O’Loghlin was educated at St. Flannan’s College in Ennis, and later completed his Bachelor of Commerce Degree from University College Cork in 1975. He worked for 18 years in marketing with Hallmark Cards, and now runs his own marketing and communications consulting business, O’Loghlin Communications Inc. He also serves as the Executive Director of the Ireland Canada Chamber of Commerce, and is the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Corporate Sponsorship with the Canadian National Exhibition.