West’s Awake

The life and death of Joe Owens

The plaque erected in honour of Joe Owens

Joseph Charles (Joe) Owens was born in Strokestown, Roscommon Ireland in 1941. As he approached manhood he was confronted with a scourge common to so many young Irishmen during the period 1940 to the mid 1970s – unemployment. There were no Celtic tigers flashing their stripes across Ireland’s hills and by ways back then. There was, instead, an environment of depression which witnessed mass immigration of the cream of Ireland’s youth to many lands in search of a job. The chosen spot for the vast majority was the old foe – perfidious Albion.

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