John Jackman, who died on Saturday 10th December 2022 in his 83rd year, was admitted to the Order in 1995
Confrère John was husband to his beloved wife of 60 years, Dame Janet DCHS and father of six grown up children. He was born in December 1939 and when only three years of age, his father Peter was killed in a tragic accident, aged 29 years.
John was a successful businessman and industrialist, whose company John Jackman Engineering Ltd employed up to 350 people at the height of its success. However, John’s introduction to employment began at the young age of 13 working in a hotel in Kilkenny before he emigrated to Birmingham, at the age of 17, to seek better employment opportunities.
John was gifted at working with steel and in Birmingham worked for the prestigious lighting company Lucas, where he was an exemplary employee and attended night school to study welding and engineering. His natural leadership led to him starting his own steel fabrication business in Birmingham, where he also met his wife Janet, whose family came from North Wales.
John and Janet were married in Birmingham in June 1965, where their two eldest sons Pat and Martin were born. In 1970, John and Janet moved back to Ireland when he established John Jackman Engineering a major employer in Wexford Town, exporting steel products to Europe, the USA, Australia and even Papua New Guinea.
Demonstrating entrepreneurial skills, John took over and operated an established Supermarket and Service Station in 1987 and established also a manufacturing company producing metal coat hangers.
Confrère John was a man of strong Catholic faith and his dedication to religion and charitable works resulted in him being invested as a Knight Commander of St Gregory the Great and a Knight Commander of the Equestrian Order and elected a Knight of St Columbanus rising to its third most senior office as Supreme Chancellor.
Both John and Janet participated in Order Pilgrimages to the Holy Land and were recipients of the Pilgrim Cross. Confrere John’s Funeral Mass took place in The Church of the Immaculate Conception with burial afterwards in Galbally cemetery, Wexford Town.