Patrick Desmond McMahon was born in Killanule Co Tipperary, but was known all his life as Des. He was a qualified accountant and spent all his working life with Bord Na Mona until his retirement in 1994.
During his working life Dad had many hobbies, he was not the type of person to sit in front of a TV. Instead he would be out making kitchens from scratch, rewiring houses, taking engines apart and putting them back together to see if they would work.
Also installing central heating systems, relocating boilers, building extensions and sheds. All these skills were self thought and appeared to come so easy to him. For thirty years, he was continuously being requested by relations and friends to “build this”, “make that” or “fix this”. Another hobby was his garden where he loved to grow flowers and tomatoes. Although Dad always loved working with timber, he never ventured into woodturning until after he retired.
In 1996 Dad met Peter Mulvaney at a car boot sale in Deansgrange where they started talking about woodturning and the Guild. After one lesson with Peter, Dad was off; he embraced this new hobby with all the vigour and energy that he gave to all his other hobbies. He went out and bought his first lathe, some tools and retired to his shed and started to practice and practice. He had found a hobby that he loved and he wanted to be as good as possible at it, as he was with his other skills. He loved going to the Chapter meetings in Terenure where he could learn from other people and enter the competitions. He got such great satisfaction out of what other people thought of his work, this was his reward. After a demonstration, he would retire to his shed until he had replicated the piece. Within a couple of years, he had gotten the knack of woodturning, was chairman of the Dublin Chapter and had won the Experienced Competition, all of which he was very proud of. Subsequently he became ‘’Turner of the year’’ in the Advanced section two years running
In 2002 Dad was diagnosed with a blood disorder, which would eventually lead to weekly blood transfusions; he was also finding it increasingly painful to work at his lathe due to very bad blood circulation in his legs. After standing or walking for a couple of minutes he said he would get a pain as if he walking on glass. No matter how bad he felt, he would always drag himself out of bed to get to the monthly Chapter meeting so that he could meet his friends and to enter his competition piece. He turned his last piece of timber in June 2003 when he made a bud vase and egg. He really missed going to his shed to turn a piece of timber but despite his illness he took to oil painting for the last months of his life, at which he was also very good. Over the years we would get clocks, bowls, lamps as Christmas presents, this year we all received paintings. Dad died 8th January 2004.