Postman Anto finishes his round after 55 years

THE LONGEST serving postman ever has hung up his satchel for the final time, after a staggering “55 years, four months, and some change” worth of service.

Anto Moore (70) has retired from his position as a postman with An Post and been honoured at a special ceremony on Friday, June 24 for his decades on the doors.

“It’s been a ball,” Anto tells The Echo.

“It has been some laugh over the years. You’re in an office with 60 guys and the stuff we’d get away with, we’d pull some serious stunts.

“I’d pull out this thin whistle, couldn’t play it at all, but it was good craic.

“The last few months now a few lads would break into chorus singing ‘please don’t go’ because I was retiring. It’s stupid stuff like that, that I’ll miss.”

When asked about what brought him to the service, the Walkinstown native has a simple answer.

“I just didn’t want to go to school,” he smirks.

“At the age of 14, I wanted to get out. There was no going to secondary or tech school for me.

“So me and a friend of mine did the entrance exam… he ended up in the airport and I placed 104th, so I went into the post office.”

Anto Moore with his work colleagues at a going-away party on Friday morning

Having worked out of Pearse Street and Sherriff Street, Anto has been deployed out of the Dublin Mail Centre off the Naas Road in recent years and enjoyed a great time serving Edmondstown.

On his final day, they closed the road in the estate that he worked in and all the resident’s gathered to surprise him – although he was an hour and a half later than usual after suffering a tire puncture.

“You’re on the road and you’re your own boss,” he explains.

“If you get the head down and get through the work early, your time is yours then for the rest of the day.

“It’s a great career option. Most postmen are very healthy because of all the exercise as well.

“I walk 15 to 20km a day. So, I’m still very fit for my age.

“I’ll probably go out for a lot of runs to keep myself going. See I was thinking I probably had about five good years left on the motorbikes, and that was a factor in not going again for another year.”

Motorbikes have always been an integral part of living for Anto.

When he was a small boy, Anto’s father Jack would bring the family over to the Isle of Man, and all-around Ireland, to watch motorcycle races from the 1950s on.

Jack’s inherent love of bikes was passed down to Anto, and he fostered his own love for the machines through his adulthood.

“A gang of us would head down to Clara in County Offaly every weekend and that’s where I met the Sheila one,” Anto says with a chuckle.

“So, I met my wife through the motorbikes. We’ve the three kids together and seven grandchildren now.”

When asked what his all-time favourite bike is, without hesitation, Anto says it’s the Suzuki Katana 1100.

In 1983, Anto had to sell his beloved bike to get up the money for a deposit to buy the house in Virginia Heights with Sheila.

While he is fit as a fiddle, Anto did admit that he hasn’t had the energy as of late to jump on one of his six motorbikes with the demands of the working day.

Now, he has the bit between his teeth, he is looking forward to blowing the dust off them, and opening them up once again around Europe.