Our stand-out stories of 2025: Trailblazing Limerick bus driver bids farewell to the schoolchildren

IT'S not often that a community goes out of their way to mark someone's retirement but that's exactly what happened for Josephine McDonnell.

When she climbed into the bus driver’s seat for the final time it marked the end of her time as a school bus driver for Ballyagran NS following five years of service and after almost half a century as a full-time driver.

The Bruree resident spent 47 years behind the wheel of buses in Ireland and abroad. Josephine’s career began in the late 1970s, at a time when few women were seen driving buses.

Josephine has seen it all in her career, bombings in London, bus stowaways and near thefts. “I was in London the day that Charles and Diana got married and London was electric.”

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She continued: “I was coming back through Pembroke and the staff were all drunk, the customs crowd, and somebody had left a bottle of whiskey on the bus and two customs officers came onto the bus and they accused me of smuggling a bottle of whiskey.”

In London, she drove for Slattery’s of Tralee, and later worked across Ireland with various operators. For the past five years she was employed by Kilmallock Coaches.

Being one of the first women in the job wasn’t without its challenges. Josephine remembers one passenger in Killarney refusing to board her coach because he wouldn’t trust a female driver. “One man said ‘God, I'm not going with you, Mrs’. I said, why? ‘I wouldn't let my wife drive the car. Why would I go with you?’”

It's the local school run that has brought her the most joy. “I'm dealing with 31 or 32 kids on one route. I've 17 on another one and every one of those kids are like a little diamond, their father and mother's diamonds, that I'm taking around and they have to be minded.”