Joseph, better known as ‘Joe’, Deasy was born in Ballyfermot. In 1941 he was employed as a clerk in the Heuston Station (formerly known as Knightsbridge Station until 1966). He joined the Railways Clerks Association and began to read left wing authors, especially James Connolly whose writings influenced him greatly.

In 1944 he met his future wife Pat Hayden, a communist active in the Crumlin branch of the Labour Party and this led him to explore Marxist ideology. Deasy became an officer of the Inchicore branch of the Labour Party and he was elected as Councillor of Dublin Corporation (1945-1950). In 1946 he was a founding member of the Inchicore Co-op.

The Inchicore Co-operative opened a second retail unit in Ballyfermot. Deasy was the Chairman of the flourishing Ballyfermot/Inchicore Co-operative Society. Since he and a few others on the committee were IWL members, this proved controversial as the Catholic Church accused it of advocating “malignant communistic theories”.  Along with other shopkeepers they organised a picket and boycott of the two shops which forced the Co-operative’s closure in 1953.

In 1970 Deasy joined the refounded CPI which united its northern and southern sections. He was, in fact, a party propagandist. However, in December 1975 Joe Deasy resigned from the  CPI alongside a few others in protest at the party’s line regarding the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, which they opposed. They argued instead for ‘socialism through democracy’.

He rejoined the Labour Party and his old trade union in 1977, though never departing from his Marxist beliefs, including his socialist politics. Nonetheless, he was known as the stalwart of the Crumlin Labour branch and stayed in it until his last days.

Deasy became the elected President of the Irish Labour History Society (1993-1998) and was made an honorary President in 2001.

An author and lover of labour songs which he recorded, Joe died on 9 January 2013, living on St. Teresa’s Road, Crumlin.