THE STORY of Billy O’Sullivan’s life as told by his granddaughter Alex O’Sullivan is redolent of hard work and stoicism, but also of a man who had the capacity to enjoy all that life has to offer, including a deep and abiding love of his wife Angela, the creation of a business that still means so much to so many people, and his capacity for friendship.

The bond that Alex forged with her grandfather can be heard in the podcast she did with him, but also in the vigil she and other members of her family maintained at his bedside at the Bon Secours Hospital in the six weeks before his death, at the age of 88, on Monday December 15th.

Alex said the near constant vigil by the family, and his best friend John O’Mahony, only accounted for about a quarter of the visitors to the hospital, as people who claimed a close association with the owner of the bar in Crookhaven that famously serves ‘the most southerly pint in Ireland’, made it their business to visit him and pay their last respects.

‘The doctors said they had never seen so many visitors for one patient,’ said Alex.

‘There were friends, but also old staff members who just loved him and Angela, because they made such an impact on everyone who worked for them.’

She said the outpouring of love and support at the hospital put Billy in mind of the way that the villagers came to his aid when the premises was at risk of being completely engulfed by flames.

It was sitting at his bedside that Alex learned how in the early 1960s Billy had to circle the harbour from where he was working at the ponds to reach the pub that his mother and father had established.

As luck would have it, Alex said the tide was in and with buckets, ladders, and a human chain to the shoreline, they were able to save the building and the business.

Billy had a bone marrow disease called MDS that he was dealing with for years, but Alex said that when they travelled with him to Bantry Hospital he would say the blood transfusions would give him ‘a lift’.

His ‘never say die’ approach to life, work, and love, was sparked by Billy’s own father who urged him to do more with his life than work at ‘the ponds’ at nearby Rock Island harvesting lobsters and shell-fish.

It was there, selling to French traders, that he picked up the lingo and, in time, made O’Sullivan’s a popular spot with visiting tourists, especially the French.

His retinue of visitors included the late Sophie Toscan du Plantier who became a frequent visitor during her holidays at Toormore.Together with a friend, Billy ran a transport business and to keep fit for his footballing career with Goleen, Alex said he’d get out at the bottom of a hill and run behind the driver in the lorry to keep his fitness levels up while busy with the day job.

Not too many people know that Billy was a lighthouse keeper, but TB, and a 20-month stretch in a hospital, put pay to that. He was also the postmaster in Crookhaven for 38 years.

It was when he initially came back to Crookhaven that he gave his mother £10 of the £11 he was earning to run O’Sullivan Bar on his behalf. Billy and Angela were happy to hand over the running of the businesses to their son Dermot in 1999 while they continued to enjoy travelling, having racked up more than 40 destinations during their long and loving life together.

‘Angela became the life and soul of Crookhaven’ said Alex. ‘And, as a man in his 80s, Billy had a better social life than anyone I know. He was so unbelievably generous and kind that people wanted to be around him.’