3 Photos
Chief of Department Alfred Callahan, Lieutenant Michael Adamczyk, Dublin Fire Brigade Officer Dan Fynes and Southampton firefighters Nick Maddock and Graham Fynes at the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Southampton firefighters with Alison Gilliland, Lord Mayor of Dublin.
The Fynes men -- Southampton Firefighter Graham Fynes, his father Damien, a retired District Officer and current Drum Major of the Dublin Fire Brigade Pipe Band, and brother Dan, an officer in the DFB Social Club.
Alfred Callahan, chief of the Southampton Fire Department, joked that he and his traveling companions “brought the sunshine” when they sojourned to firefighter Graham Fynes’s hometown of Dublin, Ireland, to walk in that city’s beloved St. Patrick’s Day parade earlier this month.
Callahan said he was moved by the reception and hospitality the Irish people offered him and fellow firefighters Lieutenant Michael Adamczyk and Nick Maddock.
Nearing the end of the two-hour walk on St. Patrick’s Day, in the last stretch of the parade, the Dublin Fire Brigade parted, opening up a path to let the Dublin Fire Brigade Pipe and Drum band march the Southampton visitors through the middle of the fire brigade.
“We were there to see them, and they were there to see us,” Callahan said, admitting to sights on the trip seen through tears of gratitude — the reception they received was so overwhelming. “Lined up on both sides, [the fire brigade] cheered us through to the end of the parade. … They did a presentation thanking us for being there.”
Fynes, meanwhile, was proud of his hometown of Dublin, and proud of his current home, Southampton.
“I’ve been included in Southampton, my second home, since day one,” he said. “A lot of honor comes with that uniform, and being able to march in it in my hometown.”
Offered a job in the States, Fynes moved here from the Emerald Isle about six years ago. Volunteering with the local fire department, he felt immediately welcomed.
That was to be expected, for the Irish lad already had a history with the fire service. His brother, Dan, is a station officer with the Dublin Fire Brigade, and his father, Damien, is a retired district officer and current drum major of the DFB Pipe Band.
Graham Fynes joked that the biggest difference between the two communities — the city of Dublin and Southampton Village — is “mainly the weather.”
“We were told that it rains every day in Ireland, but we go and for six days it was warm, beautiful and sunny, with not a drop of rain,” Callahan reported.
The firefighter “exchange” started in 2018, when Graham spoke with his brother about the idea of locals visiting and walking in the annual parade. “My brother said it’d be great to have the guys from here go over. The first couple of years, we had good numbers going over,” Fynes said.
About 40 members of the department made the trip in 2018, and another 30 visited in 2019. That year, counterparts from Ireland came to march in Southampton Village’s annual Fourth of July parade. Callahan said they’re trying to work out housing so Dublin Fire Brigade members may visit this summer.
COVID-related restrictions this spring kept the number of travelers from Southampton down. But Fynes hadn’t been home in over two years, so he was determined to make the trip.
And Callahan wanted to go during this, his last year as chief. He hadn’t been able to go the other times because of family obligations. “Every time I wanted to go, my wife was pregnant,” he said. “This year, she booked the tickets for me. I left my wife home with four kids. It was a real special treat for me — I can’t say the last time I went anywhere without a couple of kids.”
Pictures he saw and stories he heard from other fire department members who visited, he said, didn’t begin to adequately depict what Callahan found in Ireland. Marveling at the welcome he and his men received both during the parade and across the country, he said, “This was the most incredible week of my life.”
At the Dublin parade, the first since the pandemic shutdown, the crowd of 400,000 was overwhelming, Fynes recounted.
“You turn that first corner, and you see the crowds, 100 people deep and up on the roofs, on the buildings,” Callahan said, adding that he and his comrades tried to high-five every kid along the route. “Words really can’t do justice to the feeling.”
Fynes said he saw people standing 15 deep at the barriers along the route: “It was incredible.”
Beyond parade day, Callahan was impressed that the fire brigade’s high-ranking officers took on the duty of tour guide, picking them up for breakfast and taking them around. The Southampton Fire Department members were treated to tours of the countryside, a round of golf at The Island Golf Club outside of Dublin, and VIP treatment everywhere they went.
Among renowned local celebrities they met were Lord Mayor Alison Gilliland, Chief Fire Officer Dennis Keeley and Kellie Harrington, an Irish Gold Medalist boxer. A 911 dispatcher, Callahan was given a tour of the fire brigade’s dispatch center.
The last day before heading to the airport, the group stopped outside The Mansion House, the residence of the city’s Lord Mayor, where they were offered an impromptu personal tour.
“Dan Fynes casually asked us if we wanted a tour,” Callahan recalled. He knocked on the door, and the person who answered the door knew Fynes and treated the group to an unexpected expedition through the 18th century manse.
The trip proved, said Callahan, that even an ocean is no barrier to the friendship, fellowship and camaraderie of firefighters:
“It’s a smaller world than you imagine, sometimes.”
