Jimmy Jelley, from the Market area of Belfast, was best known as the reliable and cheerful bus driver who ferried countless families to visit republicans in Long Kesh, Armagh and Portlaoise prisons during the worst years of the conflict.
Known to many as ‘Jimmy Jolly’, he was just two years short of the four score when he died on December 12.
There are fond memories of Jimmy as a regular feature of Sinn Féin’s Sevastopol Street headquarters, where he was often to be seen with other veterans like Joe ‘Bingo’ Campbell and Paddy Loughran, one of those shot dead by an off-duty RUC officer at the offices in 1992.
Jimmy himself was a survivor of more than one attack launched by loyalists against the same building, but he was always irrepressible.
His wife Elizabeth Anne, known to us simply as Anne, was another great character and Jimmy was predeceased by her and by their children Catherine and James and grandson Mark.
Jimmy, in his earlier days in the 1970s, when his cravat and pocket hanky set him a cut apart from other patrons, would have been a regular in the Holy Picture in Alfred Street, the Market Social in Russell Street and the Trocadero in Cromac Street.
He did, however, eventually get his passport and reached the Falls Road via Short Strand.
Jimmy Jolly, another of Belfast’s dwindling supply of characters, will be sorely missed by his family and by those countless other families whom he helped keep in contact with their imprisoned relatives in the worst of times.
Jimmy’s funeral took place from St Malachy’s Church in his native Market district on Monday December 16.
He is survived by his children Eileen and Annie and by his grandchildren Kerry, Daniel, Jasmin, Jamie-Lee, Nathan and Katie.
Ar Dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal agus go luífidh seanfhod na hÉireann go bog ar a ucht.
Conchúr Mac Siacais