Treacy’s of The Heath has long been a welcome home for a variety of vintage car and tractor enthusiasts.
Between the Laois Vintage Rally and the Gordon Bennett Rally, the famous hostelry on the old main road to Dublin has become synonymous with that scene during the summer months.
The pandemic over the past year and a half has effected that obviously but there’s no doubt it will return to relative normality in time.
In 2006 The Laois Vintage Run, which has been a brilliant fundraiser for Laois Hospice over the past quarter of a century, attracted a huge crowd, with Kevin Farrell’s 1969 VW Beetle getting a lot of coverage in Seamus Dunne’s report in that week’s Leinster Express.
Also on display were a 1930 Ford Model A, owned by Noel Ryan and driven by Neville James, with Noel in a 1937 Mercedes.
The lads told Seamus how their route that day to Birr and back – across the Slieve Blooms in a fog was an eventful one – with the 1937 Merc running out of petrol and having to be towed to Birr where it was refuelled.
The tractors went to Portarlington and back with Michael Dunne in a 1971 Ford 2000 and his son Enda in a 1963 McCormack International.
Paddy McAuliffe, a stalwart of the annual Rock Inn Vintage Rally, drove his 1965 Wolsely 1500.
Seamus Dunne reported that the Hospice Run ended with a live show by entertainer Richie Kavanagh.
“He’s great,” enthused one listener went Seamus’s report. “He’d give a headache to an aspirin,” argued another.
You can check out a selection of Alf Harvey’s images from the 2006 event below.
SEE ALSO – Check out more photos from our Moment in Time series here
