Amongst the warm tributes for the late Jimmy Dundas, one of his long-time friends has remembered Jimmy and his contribution to the people of Irvinestown and the running of the Lady of the Lake festival.
Joe Mahon who worked alongside Jimmy during the Lady of the Lake festival for many years paid tribute to Jimmy, who tragically died last week.
He said: “Jimmy had a real heart and was involved with the whole community, that’s why the festival started over the years and Jimmy played a big part in it.
“He was the kind of fella where he’d do anything for you, if you asked him he’d do it for you.”
READ MORE: Tributes to Lough Erne boater Jimmy following tragic death
Acknowledging Jimmy’s contribution to the running of the festival, Joe said: “Jimmy had been out of the festival for a few years now, he was chairman for a good few years, at least seven or eight years. He was chairman and I was his vice-chairman. We would have had good craic at the meetings which might have started at nine or ten o’clock at night and went on to three or four o’clock in the morning.
Speaking of a fond memory of Jimmy, Joe said: “There were that many things.” In conversation with the Impartial Reporter Joe listed his memories involving exploits with dalmatians, leprechauns, cowboys, and pigs.
Telling the story of one of their escapades, Joe said: “We did the 101 dalmatians and Jimmy said he didn’t like dalmatians because they were a stupid animal and he wanted nothing to do with them.
“But I had sent a fax through to the Belfast Telegraph for an ad saying if anyone has a Dalmatian bring it to Irvinestown for the parade. At the time Jimmy had gundogs for sale and the next evening he came to me and said: ‘All these ones are ringing me about Dalmatians and I told them to go catch themselves on because I wouldn’t have anything to do with Dalmatians .”
The penny dropped for the pair, Joe explained: “I said to him, ‘I hope you got their numbers’, basically Jimmy had the festival phone and we had to ring everyone back and explain Jimmy had gundogs for sale but we wanted dalmatians for the festival parade, the show went ahead anyway!”
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