By Andy Spearman
The Augustinian Church in Shop Street was full to the rafters yesterday as the Drogheda community gathered to say goodbye to Jimmy Weldon.
From beggars to legal eagles, politicians, community leaders and top business people, they were all there cheek by jowl to pay tribute to a man who was a friend to all and a judge to none.
When the news broke that Jimmy had died of cancer last Thursday, April 14, it was a genuine shock to many because everyone knew the man but not many knew he was ill. Thankfully that illness did not last too long.
Even during his Chemotherapy treatment Jimmy remained cheerful and worked right up until he was brought back into Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital where he sadly died a few days later.
The Male Voice Choir played a large part in yesterday’s ceremony, they really are an excellent choir and most of them would have been friends or at least well known to Jimmy as he had accompanied them to Rome to cover their visit to the Vatican in 2018.
As Jimmy’s coffin was being carried into the Augustinian Church local Tds and Councillors of all political persuasions formed a guard of honour.
Across the road from the Church are two business premises that played an important part in Jimmy’s Life – the former office of the Drogheda Independent who had published so many of his photos down the years and the studio and shop of the late Bill Crimmins who had been a good friend and mentor to Jimmy.
As Father O’Mahony said during the Mass, “We are all Jimmy’s people, we’ve all been photographed by him whether we liked it or not. “Jimmy has gone in peace to God now.”
The Male voice choir followed up with a song that I am unfamiliar with but which contained the very apt chorus line for the funeral of a man who made his living from light and shadow: “In the shadows I search for the light.”
Another man who had been photographed many times by Jimmy and was a good friend is Fr. Iggy O’Donovan who had launched the last book that Jimmy produced “Jimmy’s Times as a Photographer.”
“Little did we know” Fr, Iggy said, “that we’d be looking back at that book and remembering Jimmy so soon. It is an example of how unpredictable events can be.”
Speaking about the legacy that Jimmy has left behind with the photographs and the books, Fr. Iggy quoted the Roman poet Horace who wrote in 23 BC:
I have built a monument more lasting than bronze,
higher than the Pyramids’ regal structures,
that no consuming rain, nor wild north wind
can destroy…’I shall not wholly die”
“Jimmy is one of those who has bettered the monument” Fr. Iggy said. “He was always present and he always caught the moment.”
On an equally profound note Conor O’Dowd, a young man who had befriended Jimmy through a shared love of photography and with whom he had worked a day a week as he learnt the craft, said:
“He was a great boss.
He was very kind.
Sleep well Jimmy.”
As the coffin was carried from the Church to his final resting place, a group of ten or twelve local photographers stood in formation to say to honour their erstwhile friend and colleague and to say “God speed” on his final journey.
