Mohammad Ali and the O’Loughlin family

We were all saddened by Mohammad Ali’s death. everyone had their own special memories of him – my sister however relates how personal the memory was to our family:

Ali's Autograph

On the road back from Wexford August 1972, Dad and Mam, 6 kids and 2 dogs and luggage from 6 weeks summer holidays. Everything including kitchen sink in a blue Opel estate car. This journey took at least 4 hours in those days as you had to go through every town on the way back to Dublin and had to make numerous stops because occupants got travel sick. John sitting on my mothers knee in passenger seat of car and no seat belts in those days. Probably not needed as maybe only going 20 miles an hour. Anyway Driving along road from Enniskerry near hotel where Breda got married some years later we spotted a figure out jogging with 3 or 4 guys in black suits. Dad said that’s Mohammad Ali. So he stopped the car and found an piece of cardboard in the car and a pen … Needle in a haystack stuff…. And got one of the lads , Ger or Jim , to run over to get his autograph. Dad was an ardent fan and stay up the whole night to watch Ali’s fights live … because of time difference. Probably on a black and white telly and trying to balance an aerial somewhere to get some kind of reception from BBC. Dad was so thrilled to get this autograph. So Mam gave it to me a good few years ago and it’s been in my safe keeping ever since. What a momento to have of this great guy. Both in and out of the ring . So that’s my story …. Good memories of great times

Carmel

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Author: Breda Fay

I'm retired since end August 2016 and loving the new life! More time now for family and friends and to explore craft, history, travel and certainly more of a chance for, me-time. To paraphrase Seuss: I've no tears that (teaching) is over; but many smiles that it happened!

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