O' Captain, My Captain- Leo Swan Remembered

Leo Swan

There were few people about Tallaght in the 1970s with a civil aviation licence. There were also very few people driving convertible sports cars with the hood down. And unselfconsciously wearing aviator sunglasses hadn’t really caught on around Tallaght in 1979. The number of reputable archaeologists hovering about the place with any regularity was, well decimal!

Enter Mr. Leo Swan- Headmaster of one of the largest national schools in the country, aerial archaeologist, buccaneering aviator, lecturer, raconteur, convivial company and committed campaigner. Adventurous, dapper and mysterious to many, to those who didn’t know him, Leo Swan could appear somewhat aloof, somewhat intimidating. To those who did- he was an amiable wit, international expert and bon vivant. Mr. Leo Swan was to many of the parents of boys attending Loreto Boys National School in Tallaght in the 1970s, of another world- an older world perhaps. And to the young boys of the school, of another world entirely – a world of classic cars, leather coats and international adventure.

Leo Swan did not dress like any other man in the district. Sporting a polo-neck jumper, leather gloves, occasionally a cravat or fleur-de-lys scarf- he was more like something out of a Second World War movie than a teacher training college. Nor did he sound like anyone else- A middle class Meath accent, with a hint of both British gentleman and US aviator, acquired on his prolonged stint as an international cargo pilot. His accent, his vocabulary and his fashion sense- all set Leo as a man apart from the crowd.

Any young school boy could be somewhat intimidated by his headmaster. But when your headmaster shared the principle attributes of Indiana Jones, Walter Mitty and James Bond- it is perhaps advisable to keep your head down! And so it was in Loreto Boys National School in Tallaght in 1981- the year “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was released. Mr. Leo Swan, a qualified and experienced archaeologist, arrived to school in a Triumph Herald convertible with the hood down. While his students were doing their homework in the evening- an assignment on the adventures of Walter Mitty, Leo Swan was likely to be flying about overhead taking photos of the local landscape. He was the proud owner of a share in a Tiger Moth plane.

He was our Headmaster. And I more often than not, had not done my homework! For a nine year old boy, the threat of being sent down to “Swannie’s Office”- was a very meaningful one indeed. And I became better acquainted with the inside of that office, than my mother, or indeed I would have wished.

***

Daniel Leo Swan was born on the 20th May 1930, the son of Michael Swan from Ceanannus Mor (Kells), and Sarah Josephine Swan (Nee Healy) from Mallow Co. Cork, both National Teachers in Kentstown N.S, Co. Meath.  One of seven children he grew up in a distinctly catholic household.  He was called after his grandfather Dan Swan, who had been an active member of the Fenian Brotherhood.  He would later become known as Leo, to distinguish him from several cousins, also called after their grandfather.  His father Michael had trained at De La Salle College in Waterford, and had held teaching posts in Kilkenny and Ballyjamesduff, before being appointed Principal at Kentstown National School. 

Leo’s father was 26 years older than his mother and was not a young man, when Leo was born in 1930.  Michael Swan had graduated from De La Salle in 1902, and became Principal in Kentstown in 1905- 25 years before Leo was born. Michael would retire in 1938, when Leo was only 8 years old.  Leo’s maternal grandfather had also been a national school teacher.

Two of Leo’s four brothers and one of his two sisters would pursue religious vocations.   In August 1948, Leo Swan, having been a student in Heronstown N.S., and then St. Finian’s College in Mullingar, passed his leaving certificate with honours.  The following month the 18 year old passed the medical examination held on the 21st of July 1948 for the role of Male Clerical Officer with Coras Iompair Eireann (CIE) and was shortlisted to be called up, as a suitable vacancy arose.   It was a prospect not relished by Leo or his father. He was, it was supposed, to follow in his father’s footsteps and pursue a teaching career, perhaps one day becoming a National School Principal, or follow a family tradition into the priesthood.  But Leo’s restlessness, ambition and need for adventure would propel him in another direction.

By 1954, having studied for 2 years in St. Patrick’s teacher training college in Drumcondra,  Leo was a qualified National School teacher and he secured employment in his native Lobinstown.   He reported to his previous headmaster, Mr. Thomas Marron.  Leo was hungry for adventure.

A founding member and Honorary Secretary of Drogheda (Boyne) Gliding Club in December 1953, the club would quickly grow to 40 members the following year.  Only three members were qualified to fly when the club purchased its first machine, a “Cadet Training Glider” in the spring of ‘54. 

Leo commenced training in early 1954 with the Dublin Gliding Club, in preparation for the arrival of the The Boyne's glider. The ‘Boyne’ club would hold weekly meetings on Wednesday nights in Frank Mc lvor’s premises on Johns street, Drogheda.   On Easter Sunday 1954 the Glider Club took their first newly acquired glider to the skies for the first time.   The arrival of the glider, really marked the beginning of the end of the Club, before it really got off the ground.  An early series of mishaps and accidents resulted in the club folding within a year- but not before Leo Swan had taken his first flight and found his passion for aviation.   Throughout that summer, Leo, his brother Desmond and about ten other members, would take the glider out over Termonfeckin and Navan, Drogheda, Dundalk and Balbriggan.  As other working members of the club had to confine their airtime to weekends or late evenings, as a National School teacher- the summer break provided Leo and three other teachers in the club with an opportunity to amass significant airtime and experience.  Leo Swan, finding like minds locally and in the Dublin Glider Club spent much of that summer immersing himself in the finer details of aircraft maintenance and navigation.  And he would be elevated like never before.

This would set him on a course- which would ultimately lead him to spend more time in a cockpit than a classroom the following decade.  While other members of the Glider Club pursued the joy of flight for it’s own sake, Leo Swan was already exploring the utility of gliding- and started taking a diligent interest in the local landscape around  Killucan, Meath  and the Boyne Valley. From his earliest flights he had started taking a camera with him- profiling the local topography and noting features of interest.

On Wednesday night the 11 May 1954- the first public screening of “The Valley of the Boyne”- a prize winning, 22 minute film shot locally by the Navan Film Unit, was shown in Drogheda.   The unit had been established in 1950, and over the winter months gave regular talks on film production and technologies.   That night was a ‘light-bulb’ moment for Leo Swan and the film would leave a lasting impression on him.  With an interest in archaeology, photography and flight- the stars appeared to be aligning.  He was very much the right man in the right place at the right time.   On Leo’s doorstep, was a steady pensionable job- commended by his father, a glider and the most extraordinarily rich archaeological terrain in all of Europe.   Having spent a number of years teaching, in the late 1950s, he undertook a radio-operators course at Bolton Street where in future years, he would lecture on several evening courses.  Leo would pursue aviation before later embarking on studies in Archaeology by night.

As a newly qualified primary school teacher Leo found little fulfilment in the day job.  In exploring other options he had tried his hand, briefly, at hotel management.  In 1956 it was with minor embarrassment he was charged with driving a car without tax and with no driving licence.  In March 1958 Lobinstown, Co. Meath got a newly built National School with three classrooms.  Leo would teach in one room, while his mother would teach in the other.  Leo’s old headmaster, Thomas Marron would teach in the third.  Sadly only days after the opening of the new school, Leo’s mother, Sarah Josephine passed away.  She was only 58.

The following year, Leo would again be charged with driving a car without tax.  While one charge was a minor embarrassment- an oversight, as a national school teacher in the district, a second charge did not reflect at all well.  Having taken to the skies, Leo Swan recognised that the horizon had no limit. While fate might have dictated he was destined, in time, to become the Principal of a small three-room national school in County Meath, initiative still had a card to play.   It was time to spread his wings. He would leave Lobinstown, leave Meath and leave Ireland.  With what was by now significant flight experience, Leo Swan would head to London to embark on an adventure in international aviation.  The swinging-sixties, the cold war and international adventure beckoned. Following qualification in 1960, he got a job with The Flying Tigers and worked in Germany, Turkey, and the United States. During this time, he further developed  his interest in photography.

The Flying Tiger Years

Adventurous by nature, as a young man Leo sought and found it by joining “The Flying Tigers”- a motley crew of international military veterans turned cargo pilots.  By the early 1960s Leo was flying about the world, with some of the most experienced and aging veterans of the Second World War, among others.  He was regaled by stories, tall tales and adventures from many who had worked in the most tumultuous of times and exotic regions.  Leo would bank the stories for future reference- and for entertainment – on his own journey as a raconteur.  They would be valuable currency- 20 years later, as a lecturer in Bolton Street, in Rathmichael Summer School and in speaking engagements throughout Ireland.

By 1965 Swan was working for D.A.C Air Services operating out of London Airport.  His brother Brendan was with Alitalia Airlines.   Leo’s 91 year old father died in 1965.   On returning to Ireland in the late 1960s with his wife and a young family, he returned to primary school teaching, initially in Raheny.  Leo enthusiastically pursued a bachelor’s degree by night, studying Archaeology, under Rauiri De Valera in U.C.D.  He cut a dash among the other students.  Rocking up in a convertible Triumph Herald (the first of many), black leather coat, aviator sunglasses, and armed with an endless stash of Flying Tiger stories, he was not your typical national school teacher.

In 1972 Leo Swan was publicly noted has having made an important archaeological discovery and by 1974 he was already being referred to as “an archaeologist of international repute”.  His combination of skills and knowledge (in Aviation, Aerial Photography and Archaeology), allowed him to make an immediate and significant contribution to Irish archaeology, and his rising reputation would be  further bolstered by his confidence and elegance as a teacher and speaker.  After graduating with his BA, Leo embarked on an MA thesis that drew together his interests in archaeology, photography and flying. His thesis The Recognition and Recovery of Ecclesiastical Enclosures by Aerial Observation and Air Photography illustrated the importance of aerial photography in revealing archaeological features not visible from the ground. 

Leo’s particular interest was churches whose outer enclosures survive as cropmarks or can be traced in street patterns, field boundaries and low earth works.  Swan was later credited with taking, arguably, the most important photograph in Irish archaeological studies:

“Spending many hours in the air as a member of a Co. Meath flying club he discovered many new monuments in the Leinster region. It was on one such flight that Leo captured what is probably the most significant aerial photograph in Irish archaeology. Flying over Tara in low sunlight his stunning photograph published in Vol. 108 of this Journal captured not just the well known and recorded above ground monuments but, in addition, numerous other features not previously identified. (Caulfied, Seamus. The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 132 (2002), pp.151-152)

"Swannie"- The Headmaster
 and later Chair of the Association of Principals of Primary Schools

Loreto Boys 1976
Enrolment in the boys school would peak that year
with over 1100 boys 'on the rolls'.

But by now, as Principal of a large and growing National school in Tallaght, the day job was becoming increasingly demanding. The local parish record, details the following:

"Our Lady of Loreto Boys’ School was established on July 1st, 1970 and began operations in a prefab classroom in the old Tallaght Vocational School. On that first day there were two teachers Mr. S. Feeney, principal and Mr. D. L. Swan and nineteen pupils. When school re-opened in September of that year Mr. Feeney had died and the location had moved to the grounds of St. Damien’s School, Crumlin. This was to be its home for the following few months until April 1971 when it moved in to a six prefab classrooms hastily set up on a partly prepared site in Tallaght. The succeeding years brought an extraordinarily rapid expansion and by 1975 there were well over 1,000 children on rolls. At this time “Loreto” was catering for children from such widely scattered districts as Tymon, Springfield and Old Bawn as well and for the more immediate areas of Bawnville, Seskin, Avonmore, Avonbeg, Bolbrook, Homelawn and of course St. Dominic’s and Millbrook Lawns. By 1973 the parish had been handed over by the Archdiocese of the Dominican Order which now also took over responsibility for the management of the school and pressed ahead with the building programme. That year also saw the occupation of the first part of the new school building which was completed in the following year and formally opened in September 1974. Enrolments continued to increase rapidly and as a consequence the vast majority of classes continued to be accommodated in prefabs. At one stage the total numbers of boys and girls were such that they constituted the largest single Primary School Complex in Britain and Ireland and as such merited an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. In 1975- Our Lady of Loreto School had 2,300 Pupils".

Leo, as head of “The Boys” school was overseeing about 50% of these or over 1,100 students.  In addition to dealing with a rapidly growing staff team of teachers, over 1100 students and commensurate number of parents- the school had a problem with a growing population of mad and dangerous dogs in the locality.  After several serious attacks on students by stray dogs, Swan appealed to the Gardai for assistance. 

It is reasonable to presume that for Leo Swan, the summer break in 1975 could not come soon enough.  In the summer months from 1975 to 1978, Swan would lead an archaeological dig on behalf of the Royal Irish Academy, in Corbetstown, Killucan.  He had identified the site in 1969 when he had conducted an aerial survey of the area.

By 1978 Swan had his M.A. in Archaeology and was lecturing in the evenings in St Patrick’s Training College, DIT Bolton Street, Kevin Street and Cathal Brugha Street.  A “Friend of Medieval Dublin”, Leo became an active champion and campaigner for a variety of causes, including one of the most high profile cases of the decade- that of the Wood Quay development in Dublin.

Loreto Boys & Girls National School, Tallaght

Shot by Leo Swan from his Tiger Moth plane.

 The Boys 'side', for a variety of reasons, was  by 1980
 referred to by many of the boys as "The H- Block". 

The Wood Quay “9”

In 1979 Leo Swan was named as one of the “Wood Quay 9”, the defendants in a case in which the developers of the Wood Quay development site sought a restraining order against the group.  Along with Fr. F.X. Martin, Bridie Rosney, Michael O’Brien, Pat Healy, John Gallagher, Seamus O’Reilly, Richard Hayworth and Seamus Kelly, Swan was in good and reputable company.  They, with others, had reportedly locked the guard dogs on the site into their kennels, chained various doors and gates shut, and obstructed the closure of others. In short they did all they could do, reasonably, to obstruct the development of the Wood Quay site. As a consequence, John Paul Construction were reportedly losing £3000 a day.  It would be grossly unfair to suggest that Leo Swan neglected, at any time, his duties as Principal of Loreto Boys National School in Tallaght.  But it is perhaps not unreasonable to suggest that the school, might not have been front and centre of Leo’s mind around this time.

In 1982 Leo was conferred with “The Freedom of Duleek”, a quaint and curious ceremony which involved him being manhandled and having his rump rubbed against an 17th century tree in the town- or a "Bump of the Stump""  He was awarded the princely sum of 50p with which to buy himself a drink!  In May 1985 he was animated by the Kells Market Cross preservation committee, who wanted the Cross in Kells maintained in its original location  While a long time out of Meath, Leo retained an affection for, and strong links with, the community there.

Leo remained actively engaged as a headmaster and as Chairperson of the Association of Principals of National Schools in the late 1980s, expressed public concern about the rising pupil-teacher ratios, particularly in larger urban schools.  He retired from his headmaster role in Tallaght in 1990 and focused on the development of “Arch-tech” a consultancy partnership, which specialised in the archaeological assessment of threatened sites.    He was at 60 years of age, finally pursuing singularly and in earnest, his passion.  In 1995 he established a consortium, seeking to develop Swords Castle.

He would enjoy a number of very active, industrious and productive years of ‘retirement’,  in field-work, researching, lecturing, publishing and mentoring, before being diagnosed with cancer in the late 1990s. While ill and ailing, through a long period of declining health, Leo Swan remained engaged to the last.  In October 2000, less than five months before he died, he wrote to the letters page of the Irish Times to take Kevin Myers to task for his views, regarding Ireland’s maritime capacity in 1066!

In the last months of his life, he knew that is time was short. He exhibited a dignity and spiritual resignation, characterized by his celebration of life itself.  A resident for many years of Howth Road, in the parish of Kilbarrack, he died on the 5th of March 2001.  He was survived by his wife, Verity and three sons.

Paying tribute to Leo Swan after his death, Michael Ryan, in a wonderful and humorous obituary in the Summer edition of Archaeology Ireland, noted:

“His linguistic range was much wider and his grasp of poetic insult in the dialects of Meath and Fingal was complete: he could pronounce whole catalogues of fine invective for hours without repeating himself and entirely without offence to the Men of Erin. He was notorious for singing- his rendering of 'James Connolly' was . . . challenging, while his duets with the late Tom Delaney deserve some kind of place in a musical archive. His succession of disreputable Triumph Heralds (had he a private stash of them?) and even more disreputable Landrovers required a fair amount of courage on the part of his friends despite the attractions of his company. He was colourful and he enjoyed what he did-everything that he did, and it showed. For all his social enjoyments Leo was a worker….But it is as a lecturer that he will be best remembered by colleagues and the public alike. He had a remarkable ability to explain and enthuse- his talks, at first sight simple overflights of the subject, were full of insights, and in not a few cases subtly subversive of cherished myths. It will be difficult to explain in years to come the peculiar effect of a Leo Swan lecture. It never left the audience indifferent, but it did leave most people asking for more.  A showman to his fingertips, he was learned and articulate and incapable of keeping the humour from breaking through. (Vol. 15, No. 2 (Summer, 2001), p. 19)”.

For one who was passionate about history and the importance of it to a community, it seems appropriate that his own role in the history of Tallaght, should be remembered.  It is fair to say Leo’s contribution to archaeology and history in Ireland exceeded his contribution to education in Tallaght.  His interests extended beyond any one discipline and any one community.  But he left a lasting impression and an indelible mark on the community he had served for 20 years.  He was a man clearly interested in all that was on the ground, but could never resist the temptation to rise above it.  And for that, I am grateful.

Thank you Mr. Swan.

Albert Perris 

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Following his death, a number of publications were produced in Leo Swan's memory:

·     Tom Condit and Christiaan Corlett (eds) Above and beyond: essays in memory of Leo Swan (Bray, 2005)

·       Fionnbar Moore (ed.) Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland, 20 (2008).

Leo’s Extensive Photographic Archive, which he donated to the National Museum, can be found here:

https://lswanaerial.locloudhosting.net/collections/show/2

Tallaght Historical Society, of which Leo Swan was a founding and active member, celebrate his legacy with an "Annual Leo Swan Memorial Lecture".