Eoin Ó Cionna (1921-2010)
He was not an archaeologist by profession but the death of Eoin Ó Cionna at his home in Dublin on Saturday, 9th January 2010 severed an archaeological link going back to the 1930s. Born in 1921, Eoin often recounted how, as a teenager on holidays in west Wicklow, he was taken by pony and trap to visit the archaeological excavations at the passage tomb on the summit of Baltinglass Hill. This expedition in the mid-1930s, during which the excavation director Patrick Walsh took advantage of Eoin’s light frame by asking him to slip through a small opening in the structure to describe what lay inside, was the beginning of a lifelong interest in archaeology. During the past twenty years this interest found expression in his close involvement with the UCD Adult Education offerings in archaeology.
His father was an engineer from county Offaly and Eoin was duly sent to study engineering in UCD as a prelude to a career in the family company. In the early 1940s, he was a founder member of the UCD Archaeology Society and subsequently retained vivid memories of the various figures from that time. Graduating with a degree in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, he took over the family business and during his working life developed it into one of Ireland’s leading engineering firms, with offices in Dublin, Cork and Galway. He served as President of the IEI and various other professional associations, and was at one time a board member of An Fóras Forbartha. He was a lifelong supporter of Fianna Fáil, participating in several national election campaigns, including the successful Erskine Childers presidential campaign in 1973, for which he designed a special electioneering coach. He also had a passion for the Irish language, spending long summer holidays in the Connemara Gaeltacht with his wife Éibhlín and their children.
Retirement for Eoin was an opportunity to pursue his many interests. He continued to act as a consultant engineer, undertaking his final project in the summer of 2008 at the age of 87. He was a fixture at UCD Adult Education courses in Archaeology and one of the first to book his place on the annual May bank holiday weekend excursion, wherever it might be going. In July 2005, he proudly received his UCD Certificate in Archaeology and typically began to explore how he might progress from there.
Eoin was an enthusiastic student who made friends easily with those around him. Over the years, speakers and new students on the Adult Education classes in archaeology would invariably encounter a core audience of old reliable including Eoin and frequently Éibhlín. If he was unimpressed with a a particular lecturer, he made it his business to pass on word to the course organizer and some speakers might remember him as the voice from the audience encouraging them to ‘speak up!’. What speakers did not know, however, was the number of times he passed on words of praise about the content of their courses or the quality of their delivery.
The funeral arrangements organized by his family reflected his many interests and highlighted especially the pride he took in his UCD Certificate in Archaeology. Traditional Irish airs featured prominently in his funeral mass, and a variety of Irish language hymns were sung by members of his family. They included the following lines from Psalm 22 which would be close to Eoin’s heart:
Cuireann sé i mo luí mé i móinéar féar ghlas,
Seolann sé ar imeall an uisce mé mar a bhfaighim suaimhneas.