Obituary: Cyril Jones, Miltown Malbay grocery owner who was fascinated by local and aviation history

Irish Independent

27-04-2025

Jones was born in 1936 on the town's Church Street. In 2020, he quietly unveiled a plaque to mark the centenary of the destruction of his family's home by the Black and Tans and the Royal Irish Constabulary ­auxiliaries on September 22, 1920.
The combined force had been ­coming for his father, John 'Jackie' Jones, who was the IRA's local head of intelligence, and a close friend of Ignatius O'Neill, in retribution for the Rineen ambush led by O'Neill earlier that day just north of Miltown. The ambush on an RIC lorry killed five RIC constables and a Black and Tan.
Hours later, shots were fired into the Jones's house, lodging a ­bullet into the kitchen table. Fleeing into the back fields, the Jones family then watched as their home and business was burned down.
The family began rebuilding in 1923 and Jones kept a six-inch-long piece of timber from the rescued kitchen table to show history enthusiasts and display during memorials.
In January 2020, Jones came out in support of a decision by then ­mayor of Clare, Cathal Crowe of Fianna Fáil, to boycott a national commemoration service for the RIC that had been due to take place that month at ­Dublin Castle. The event was eventually dropped.
Jones was educated at St ­Flannan's College in Ennis. After boarding school, he joined the family ­business. In a 2019 book he wrote with his wife Patsy, called Lovely Old ­Miltown ­Malbay, Jones recalled an 'illegal' jaunt with his shopkeeper father during the 'Emergency' to buy wheat in Kilkenny, due to shortages in ­Miltown; the pair kept on minor roads to avoid detection.
The cargo facility on the west Clare railway proved a boon for the Jones business, until the railway's closure in 1961. The family had a yard off ­Miltown's Main Street that it once used to distribute Guinness, tea and coal to the entire region.
After marrying Patsy Burke, whose own family run the Armada Hotel in nearby Spanish Point, Jones took over the family business.
A lifelong pioneer, he ditched the bar to focus fully on developing the grocery business. In the 1960s, he linked up with Musgraves to join the fledgling VG retail group, eventually turning it into a SuperValu store. His son John and daughter-in-law Claire moved the grocery business to a large greenfield site in 2013.
Jones is also remembered for his success on the field — he was a sub for the Clare minor football team that reached the All-Ireland final in 1953 and played senior football for Clare from 1956 to 1963. He was a leading Clare goalkeeper and won titles with St Joseph's ­Miltown GAA Club, including the 1959 Clare senior football championship.
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After retiring from the sport, he moved on to coaching and managing Miltown and Clare. He spent six years successfully campaigning for the introduction of smaller goals and pitches for Clare underage teams in the 1980s and roped in Pat Spillane in a campaign for a coaching course.
At his funeral, his local club gave Jones a guard of honour as his coffin was brought down Church Street.
'As a mentor, Cyril guided underage teams with an in-depth knowledge of the game allied to a determination to improve each and every player he coached, his quiet unassuming character creating bonds with his players that have stood the test of time and added greatly to the character of our club,' St Joseph's said in a statement.
Jones's son John took over the reins of the grocery business in the 1990s. Cyril started researching wartime plane landings and crash-landings in west Clare, seeking out eyewitness accounts.
In the book he co-wrote with his wife, Jones recalled being at the scene in April 1945 when a ­Canadian pilot, who had run low on fuel, crash-­landed a spitfire outside the town.
The pilot was taken to the local ­garda ­barracks, where he was given a welcome meal by the wife of a local ­garda. Fifty years later, Jones tracked down the pilot and exchanged letters with him.
This fascination with wartime ­aviation prompted him to learn how to fly and he secured a private pilot's licence at the age of 50. In 1991, he was a co-founder of the Spanish Point Flying Club.
Until his death, Jones was often to be found on the SuperValu floor, where visitors and locals alike would seek him about to find out more about their ancestral homesteads and local heritage.
While fighting prostate cancer, he set about replacing the cast-iron street signs in the traditional Irish script — known as cló Gaelach — that had gone missing since the Gaelic League erected them at the turn of the 20th century.
Cyril Jones died peacefully at home on April 3, surrounded by his family and under the care of Milford Care Centre. He is survived his wife ­Patsy, son John, daughters Majella and Sinéad, brother Brendan, eight grandchildren, his daughter-in-law Claire and sons-in-law Matt and John. ­Funeral-goers noted Jones had died the same day and at the same age as Kerry GAA great Mick O'Dwyer, who he once faced on the field.