Richard de Courcy, who celebrated his 90th birthday last Sunday, is still going strong as part of the bell-ringing team at Christ Church Cathedral in Waterford.
“When you’re ringing you’re warming yourself, whether it’s cold or not. It’s great aerobic exercise,” he says.
De Courcy retired in 2000, having worked mostly in Waterford but for the final 13 years of his career in Dublin, after the company he was employed by was taken over. But he has been bellringing since his mid-20s.
“Another member of the parish knocked on my door and said, ‘You and I are going to learn bellringing’. I said, ‘You can think again. I’m not going ringing the bells and be stuck every Sunday.’
“I’m still ringing bells every Sunday at 9.30am for the 10 o’clock service. We ring for 25 minutes. All the people ringing love ringing. We’ve got 13 regular ringers in Waterford.”
[ The Times We Lived In: Bellringers ding-dong merrily on highOpens in new window ]
Is it hard work? “It depends on the weight of the bell, of course. We have eight bells and the heaviest one is a tonne and a pound. Now that I’m 90 I only ring the lighter ones.”
De Courcy has seen a lot of change over the course of his long life.
“I was born in 1935. There were very few cars on the road, no buses, plenty of bicycles. And then during the war there were shortages. Anything imported, you couldn’t get.
“A lot of people grew their own vegetables. There were no supermarkets. You couldn’t hop down to get a ready-made dinner. We didn’t know any different, and we were very happy. I still am.”
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
