The final school run: School bus driver bids emotional farewell to County Limerick pupils

WHEN Josephine McDonnell climbed into the bus driver’s seat for the final time it marked the end of her time as a school bus driver for Ballyagran NS following five years of service and after almost half a century as a full-time driver.

The Bruree resident has spent 47 years behind the wheel of buses in Ireland and abroad, most recently ferrying children to Ballyagran NS. But at 70, the Moyvane, Co Kerry native is being forced to retire by Bus Éireann regulations, something she admits she’s finding “absolutely impossible” to accept.

“I spent the last three weeks crying over this,” she said. “The last few days, all I'm getting is presents every day... We're like a big family.”

Josephine’s career began in the late 1970s, at a time when few women were seen driving buses. After helping on the family farm and caring for her father when he became ill, she turned to bus driving to make a living.

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Josephine explained: “I'd to stay at home and help on the farm and my father got sick eventually and I wasn't let go to school. When my dad got sick, I went driving a school bus locally... Six months later, I got an offer of a job to start driving to London. I married into buses and out of buses.”

Josephine has seen it all in her career, bombings in London, bus stowaways and near thefts. “I was in London the day that Charles and Diana got married and London was electric.”

She continued: “I was coming back through Pembroke and the staff were all drunk, the customs crowd, and somebody had left a bottle of whiskey on the bus and two customs officers came onto the bus and they accused me of smuggling a bottle of whiskey.”

In London, she drove for Slattery’s of Tralee, and later worked across Ireland with various operators. For the past five years she has been employed by Kilmallock Coaches and she worked for Bus Éireann in Limerick for 19 years.

Being one of the first women in the job wasn’t without its challenges. Josephine remembers one passenger in Killarney refusing to board her coach because he wouldn’t trust a female driver. “One man said ‘God, I'm not going with you Mrs’. I said why. ‘I wouldn't let my wife drive the car. Why would I go with you’.”

On another occasion, a Bus Éireann driver was so shocked to see a female driver and was so intently staring at Josephine that he took the mirror off her bus. “He couldn't get over that he saw a woman driving a coach,” said Josephine.

It's the local school run that has brought her the most joy. “I go back and make sure that their seatbelts are on and sometimes the seatbelts might get twisted... I do have kids that'd be sick there on the bus and right away I go back and I look after them. I have kids that get nose bleeds. I know exactly what to do.

“I'm dealing with 31 or 32 kids on one route. I've 17 on another one and every one of those kids are like a little diamond, their father and mother's diamonds, that I'm taking around and they have to be minded.”

Josephine was emotional ahead of retiring from her position as school bus driver, saying she hadn't “slept a wink” in three weeks. She feels very strongly that her forced retirement is ageist, explaining: “I'm one of the drivers now out of probably 600 or 700 that's forced into retirement by Bus Éireann because we're contracted through a contractor by Bus Éireann and their rule is that once you're 70, you're out the door.”

Josephine said that the parents of the pupils she drives to Ballyagran NS have contacted every TD in a bid to keep her as a bus driver but said it's “totally fallen on deaf ears.”

“It's total discrimination against age. Some people, I suppose, once they reach 60 or 65 they want to finish and they want to retire... I've been doing this all my life. I intend to do, if God grants me good will, I'll probably do another five years but I just find it so discriminating.”

Josephine feels they need to change the law on this and suggested introducing a medical examination every six months to ensure bus drivers past the age of 70 are in good health. “If they're that concerned about safety, why don't they say, ‘will you do a medical every six months?’ I would have no problem doing a medical every six months.”

While she may be leaving the school run, Josephine has no intention of sitting still. She plans to work part-time with the Local Link bus service and spend more time with her grandchildren. Travel and dancing will also keep her busy.

What she will miss most about working as a bus driver for the school is the relationship with the children and their families.
“They're so good to me... they spoil me to the moon and back. I have never in my life seen people so good, so kind.”

Her approach to the job has always gone beyond transport. “They'll hold my hand coming out of school... If they tell me they've a pain in their tummy, I'll rub their tummy.”