http://www.cooganresearchgroup.com/crg/index.htm 23 December 2010 Obituary of Oliver Coogan ____________________________________________________________________ (extracted from "?", DD MMM 2005, PAGE ?) OLIVER COOGAN Navan / Dunshaughlin A profound sense of shock and an overwhelming feeling of sorrow settled on Navan and Dunshaughlin as news spread of the sudden death of Mr. Oliver Coogan, 25 Beechmond Avenue, Navan, a highly popular and much respected teacher in Dunshaughlin Community College. Aged 52, Mr. Coogan, or Ollie to his many friends and acquaintences, died after taking ill at his home on Wednesday afternoon. His untimely demise was as sudden as it was shocking and has left his family, friends, teaching colleagues and his students reeling as they tried to come to terms with the loss of a man who touched the lives of so many young people who massed through his classroom during a career spanning over 30 years in Dunshaughlin. Ollie Coogan was born to be a teacher, and he turned out to be one of his profession’s finest. A son of John and Julia Coogan who lived at Brews Hill in Navan, his father ran a successful general convenience shop in the area and his mother was a highly regarded teacher at Nobber Vocational School for many years. Ollie was educated at Scoil Mhuire, Navan and received his secondary education at St. Patrick’s Classical School in the town. He graduated from UCD and began a brief stint teaching at Kells Vocational school before being assigned to the then Dunshaughlin Vocational School in 1974, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. History was his speciality and he had a deep and abiding love for the subject. Not only was his breadth of knowledge astounding, but also the forensic detail of historical minutia which he could recall relating to events that happened perhaps hundreds of years ago. What made Ollie Coogan unique, however, was his ability to impart this information in an interesting, informative and often entertaining way to his teenage students. One teaching colleague recalled last week how one could hear a pin drop in Ollie’s history classes as he held his students in the palm of his hand. How much those students of Dunshaughlin Community College thought of Mr Coogan was evident last weekend from the scores upon scores of heartfelt testimonials and messages written by them which lined the walls of Room 4, Mr Coogan’s room. Words and phrases like ‘legend’ and ‘greatest teacher ever’ were repeated in so many of the hand-written notes that it is apparent Dunshaughlin Community College has lost someone very special indeed, a person who commanded unequivocal respect not only among his teaching colleagues, but among the student population as well. Ollie had a particular love of Irish history which extended to his writing several books, the best-known being ‘Politics & War in Meath, 1913-1923’. He also wrote on the 1798 Rebellion in the county, in addition to a local history of Dunshaughlin, Culmullen & Knockmark. European history was his other forte and he delighted in taking his students to many of the famous World War II battle sites along the Rhine during school trips to the Continent. Ollie was also able to see the benefits of new technology as it emerged in recent years and embraced wholeheartedly the world of IT, email, websites and PowerPoint as he transformed the way he taught history to his students in latter years. Some of his classes were as much lessons in technology as they were on Stalin’s Russia. For many years he was instrumental in training GAA teams from the school at various levels, with great success. Indeed, the men who made up the Dunshaughlin SFC side that won the senior county championship in 2000, 2001 and 2002, were all put through their paces by Ollie while playing for various school sides at some point or other. At the time of his death, he was chairperson of the Meath Vocational Schools Football Board. A mark of the man was that he always would ensure reports of his team’s games made it into the local newspaper in order to gain recognition for and to encourage his players, but he never was anxious to take any of the credit for their success himself. His instruction when the report was being faxed or emailed to the Chronicle would invariably be: “Leave my name out of it”. Ollie was passionate about gaelic football in general and he never missed a match at Croke Park when the green and gold took to the field. He revelled in the glory days for Meath in the late 1980s and ‘90s and was despondent whenever the county side exited the Leinster or All- Ireland Championship. In latter years, he became an inveterate traveller, particularly after meeting and marrying his beloved wife, Ann in 1995. Together, they visited many of the beautiful cities of central and eastern Europe, the Baltics and Scandinavia during the past decade. He also took up cycling and was often to be seen on the back roads of Meath, particular at weekends. He ran several marathons, too, in the mid to late 1980s, including those in Dublin and Galway. Ollie Coogan packed so much into his relatively short life that it would take a book to record even half of it. A genuinely self effacing man who never promoted himself, even when he had good reason to, he always preferred to remain in the background. He loved languages - teaching himself German and Spanish - the Irish language, Irish music and culture and he was an accomplished fiddle player, but above all, he loved history. And he gave himself wholly and selflessly to his students during his 30 year career; nothing made him prouder than when his young charges achieved good grades in the Leaving and Junior Certificate exams. Ollie is survived, in addition to his wife, by his brother, Tony, principal of Cortown NS, and other relatives, to whom deep sympathy is extended in their inestimable loss. A guard of honour was provided by students of Dunshaughlin Community College at the removal of his remains from the Fitzsimons Funeral Home, Navan, to St Marys Church on Friday evening. Many present day students, and a great many past pupils, also were among the large attendance at the funeral on Saturday, bearing ample testimony to the esteem in which he was held. Burial took place afterwards in the old and picturesque Martry Cemetery, between Navan and Kells, from where his father’s people originated. Ar Dheis Dé go raibh a anam. http://www.hoganstand.com/meath/years/2005.aspx ____________________________________________________________________