Claire calls it a day after long service in DDC

Claire calls it a day after long service in DDC

1 April 2015

ANOTHER familiar face with over 40 years service with Down Council also retires this Friday.

Claire Keenan joined the local authority in 1974, initially working as a clerk/typist before being promoted four years later to office supervisor. In 1982, she was promoted to the chief executive’s assistant and council chairman’s secretary.

It is a role Claire revelled in and it was no surprise that when each council chairman’s term ended the Newcastle woman was one of the first they always praised for her support, diligence, guidance and always making sure they were where they were supposed to be.

In 2000, Claire won the prestigious Local Government Employee of the Year award after being nominated by former council chairman Albert Colmer. She spent 38 years at Down Council’s former administrative base at the Strangford Road before moving to her new home at the Downshire Civic Centre almost two years ago.

“Much as I enjoy the resplendent new admin base, nostalgia is often an uppermost emotion as leaving the Strangford Road was parting with a host of fond memories of personnel — some of whom are deceased or have retired — and many events and practices that are now the stuff of history,” she said.

“Those early years were not the age of technology that was to revolutionise the workplace and when computers and photocopiers arrived life was never the same again.”

Claire is glad the days of her on her hands and knees collating council agendas and supporting documentation for 23 councillors and officials is long since a thing of the past. 

She also recalled that before the arrival of emails, she used to wait outside the old Post Office at Market Street in Downpatrick in the morning to collect a bag of mail which she took to the Strangford Road. And before getting the bus home, Claire would have to hump a bag of outgoing mail back to the Post Office.

As the clock towards her leaving her desk for the final time, Claire said while a pleasant building and modern technology are all very well, “it is really the people you work with that make a happy workplace and a fulfilling and enjoyable job.”