The sad news was conveyed to me in a telephone call from Bobby Love [Donegal] on Saturday, August 11, 2012 of Liam Harkins passing. Liam would have been in his eighties I’m sure. A wee man who had travelled the world in his younger days spent a lot of time in America and only came into the draughts family late in life at Biddys Ty. I have to say when I saw Liam first, he didn’t look so good, but amazingly draughts seem to give him a new lease of life.

His family is well known in the Donegal Town area and the chapel in Mountcharles have stain glass windows dedicated to some members of his family. A religious quiet little man was Liam and he had a persona to match. I remember a postcard he sent me one time addressed simply Tommy Canning, Strabane, “Draughts player”… and I got it.!!!!.

He was well known in circles here as the “Most travelled draughts player in Ireland “because he didn’t drive but had the “bus pass” and if we went to a Ty in Carlow, Dublin, Kildare or Derry to my amazement Liam would have been there before us and had made arrangements for B/B or a hotel room himself. He went everywhere on that bus and heard of him at times taking a taxi even as far away as 40-50 miles just for one nights play. That's how much he loved his draughts. In fact the only place we went that he wasn’t there was Las Vegas.!!!

I was so happy for him when he was called upon once to play on the Ireland B team in a contest and he was proud as “punch.”  He had been attending the doctor off and on.

Through the years that I knew him he was always a courteous, mild mannered person. Bobby Love and John Givens usually looked after him, lifted him for local Tys and left him home safe. He lived alone and had a niece or nephew look in on him daily, I was in his house on the Main street several times. God Bless, good friend, Liam Harkins… R.I.P. [tc]