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Matt Regan, ‘Pillar' of Jenkintown Irish Community, Dies at 87

Regan served as the general manager of The MacSwiney Club, an Irish pub and meeting place.

A pillar of the Jenkintown Irish community and a prominent member of the Jenkintown social club The MacSwiney Club has passed away.

Matthew T. Regan Sr. -- known as "Matt" or "Matty" -- passed away Tuesday at the Chelsea at Jenkintown. He was 87.

The son of Irish immigrants from County Mayo, Regan had lived in Jenkintown nearly all of his life, according to his obituary. There, he worked hard to rally the Irish community both in the United States and abroad.

In Jenkintown, he served as the general manager and an officer of The MacSwiney Club, an Irish club that his father helped establish. Regan tried to make the bar feel as much like home as he could for people of Irish heritage.

“It was a place where Irishmen came in and they felt like they were walking into a pub in their hometown,” his son Matt Regan Jr. said.

The club also became a second home for Regan’s children who grew up right across the street.

“I remember coming in here, playing the piano, doing things kids would do,” his stepson Mike Foy said.

For Regan Sr., the club was both a social and a political space. Meetings of the Clan Na Gael, an Irish political organization of which Regan was a member, occurred in the club, according to his sons.

Regan also raised money to send back to Ireland and held letter-writing campaigns to help Irish political prisoners. He was recognized for his work with the Ring of Honor in 2016 at the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

His knack for helping others extended beyond the Irish community he cherished. Regan also served as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War, according to his obituary; he also worked with the Pioneer Fire Company of Jenkintown and aided striking coal miners.

“He was a union man,” Regan Jr. said. “When the coal miners were on strike he’d have food and clothing drives [at the club]. For about a year, he drove the supplies down to the miners in West Virginia.”

Regan Sr. will be missed by regulars at MacSwiney’s and the Irish community throughout the East Coast, his sons said. His sons said they expected members of the community to travel from Boston and New York for their father’s memorial service and funeral next Saturday.

“On our Facebook page people have been saying things like ‘pillar,’ ‘gentleman,’” Regan Jr. said.

“He was a driving force,” Foy added. “If an organization needed help doing something they called my father.”

Regan also leaves behind a sister, a daughter and one grandchild, as well as "scores of nieces, nephews, cousins and in-laws," his obituary says. His wife, Marie Patricia “Pat” Fitzpatrick Foy, died in 1989.

His sons plan to honor Regan at MacSwiney’s after the funeral service with an Irish wake.  That did not stop them, however, from honoring his Irish heritage in the moments after he passed away.

“We were sitting there in his room [after he passed] having a couple beers and toasting, having a small Irish wake,” Foy said.

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