End of an era as Pat Tangney retires from CRL Oil after 47 years

Well-known and widely respected sales representative Pat Tangney has officially retired from CRL Oil following 47 years of service with the Killarney company.

Pat joined the Lissivigeen-based home heating oil business when it was founded in 1979 having initially worked summer job with sister company C&R Frozen Foods in Ballycasheen.
He began his career as a delivery truck driver before working across nearly every area of the business, eventually serving as the company’s primary travelling sales representative.
He recalls that the current Lissivigeen site was a green field when operations began in 1979, with the original office operating out of a caravan.
Over his nearly five decades in the oil trade, he experienced the complete transition from handwritten paper invoices to digital systems, as well as the shift away from an era before mobile phones when drivers relied on local post offices for directions to rural homesteads.
CRL Oil holds a long-standing historical connection with the Killarney Advertiser. Pat recalls visiting the publication’s original founder Danny Casey in a portacabin on Woodlawn to book an advertisement on page three, a position the company maintains to this day.
A feature on Pat Tangney’s career will appear in an upcoming edition as part of the popular Marie Meets column.

By Sean Moriarty

Our news report on Page Six confirming Killarney’s selection as one of seven towns nationwide for a new State-backed childcare centre offers our community a clear opportunity to do the right thing.

Reports indicate that unused local property will be purchased and converted for this project, with target completion set for 2027 in time for the new academic year.

Step forward potential locations: Áras Phádraig, St Columbanus, the old District Hospital site, the Pretty Polly property, or the Trade Union Hall on Park Road. All have stood vacant for years awaiting viable community purpose.

We can already predict the path ahead. Months will be wasted in endless deliberation searching for a suitable venue, allowing momentum to stall. Now is the moment to act decisively.

What is required is immediate, collective action between property owners, council management, local municipal district councillors, school boards of management, and Minister Norma Foley. They must sit down together, identify an unused, vacant building, and advance this project without delay.

Current experience paints a sobering picture. The delays surrounding the opening of the new Killarney Community Nursing Unit serve as a prime example of red tape holding back public progress. Without direct intervention, we will spend years discussing this early learning initiative while bureaucratic inertia prevents a single brick from being moved.

The time to deliver this vital facility for local families is now.