Alice Reilly is calling it a day

HAD Fáilte Ireland ever employed a consultancy company to provide them with the perfect prototype for an employee to meet and greet the thousands of tourists that visit Ireland each year they would only have had to travel to Bridge Street in Westport where they would find Alice Reilly working away with her colleagues promoting everything that's good and great about holidaying in this part of the world, writes Padraig Burns.

Alice has been an ever present in the Westport Tourist Office for the best part of the last 20 years, working first in the James Street office before moving to Bridge Street some few years ago.

Today (Friday), however, will mark her last day working in the office and when she closes the door for the last time behind her the organisation will be saying goodbye to both a wonderful colleague and a wonderful ambassador for the tourism sector here.

Being fortunate enough to have grown to know Alice well over the years I can vouch for her utter dedication to her job. No task was too much for her and you would see her going to extraordinary lengths to help and assist those who visited the office looking for some advice.

She always had the ability to make people feel at ease and even the most stressed of tourists would leave the office feeling so much better for having encountered Alice Reilly.

Once upon a time Alice Reilly was Alice Cawley from Ballina and she moved to Westport to work as a telephonist in the local post office. Her friends there back then are still her friends today and doesn't that say everything about the type of loyal person she is.

Alice had the good fortune to meet a proud Westport man, Tommy Reilly, and they married and had their children, John, Georgina and Gillian.

After working as a telephonist Alice spent some time in Westport House before moving to the tourist office twenty years ago.

We wish her well as she brings down the curtain on this stage of her life and for the future.

* Read Padraig Burns' Under the Clock column in the print edition of The Connaught Telegraph every Tuesday