Tributes to the late Miko Ralph, Tuam

THE DEATH of Michael (Miko) Ralph, Bishop Street, Tuam last month caused widespread regret. In his 80th year, Miko was one of the best known, most popular and highly respected businessmen in the town and he was equally well known around the county and in many parts of Ireland. He died peacefully at the Galway Clinic on Wednesday, September 21st. Predeceased by his wife Patricia (née McEneaney, from Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan) in February 2008, Miko is survived by his sons Kenny and Paul, brother Tommy, sisters Peggy and Kathy, and a large extended family including four grandsons and three great-grandchildren. He had a great relationship with his daughters-in-law Mary (née O'Dwyer) and Margaret (née Mulvey). Mary O'Dwyer-Ralph (Kenny's wife), who lived near Miko as a child and again in the closing years of his long, happy life, says he played a marvellous, life-enhancing role for everybody in the extended family, particularly children; he adored them. 'We were all able to have a very loving relationship with Miko and I feel he will stay with us in spirt forever and mind us well and look after us all,' is Mary's heartfelt tribute to a man she always regarded more as a friend than a father-in-law. - J.C.     Miko Ralph was a very important link with the business and social life of Tuam town, stretching back over sixty years from the time he joined his father (of the same Christian name) in the family fish business - as recalled here in this tribute written by a lifelong friend, Tommy Varden.   IN a town bereft of characters, where the ubiquitous 'Dort' and D4 accents can be heard from young girls in our schools, I shudder to think of what they are missing compared to my time growing up in the 1940s, â€Ëœ50s and â€Ëœ60s. Tuam was then full of characters, and a month ago we lost probably the last of Tuam's truly great characters, 'Young' Miko Ralph. He was called Young Miko to distinguish him from his father, who we always called Big Miko. Like Biddy Mulligan of Cockles and Mussels fame, Miko was a fishmonger and so were his father and grandfather (Old Mike) before, and his own sons and grandsons have carried on the family tradition, selling fish - or 'swimmers' as Miko liked to call them - at the Square in Tuam every Friday and also supplying fish to a small number of shops in the wider North Galway area. This writer is old enough to have seen five generations of Ralphs selling fish to very satisfied customers at Tuam Square. My earliest recollection of Miko is of him driving a van, when there very few vehicles of any description on the roads, and of being envious of him; he was a fine-looking man with a shock of long red hair. Like so many more in the 1950s, he was lost to emigration. He went to England but he came home in the â€Ëœ60s with his lovely wife Pat ('Mam' as he always called her). In Young Miko's years in England, Big Miko carried on the business, not only of fish but also vegatables and he sold barrels, and indeed anything else he could sell. I was working for Coca-Cola at the time (my first job) and one day I called to a place called Nogera, about three miles on the Co. Clare side of Kinvara. Mrs Fahy was the owner of the shop and she told me she'd had two Tuam men there early that morning, selling barrels. 'One of them was the biggest man I'd ever met,' said Mrs Fahy, 'and the other was the most peculiar-looking little man I'd ever met.' I knew it was Big Miko, and the other man a great Tuam character called 'Crook' O'Neill. Big Miko was an entrepreneur, long before the word became fashionable, and Mrs Fahy bought 30 barrels from him. They were used for the drawing of water to spray potatoes against the threat of blight. Kinvara was great potato-growing country. Big Miko always knew where there was a market for whatever he was selling. Many years later, Young Miko used to laugh when I'd remind him of the day his father sold the Kinvara woman 30 barrels. During the golden era for Galway football, the All-Ireland Three-in-a-Row, Miko travelled all over the country supporting the team and I would meet him in Castlebar, Sligo or in Dublin, but his personal hero had always been the great Seán Purcell. Miko was generous to a fault. I myself saw his generosity at first hand. I started at my own business in the early 1970s and while, in all fairness, things are not good at the present time, in Miko's time and mine there was always a recession. Miko asked me: 'What are you doing, Sham?' I told him I was selling disinfectant, washing-up liquid and hygiene stuff. 'I'd need some stuff like that as the health crowd are on to me about where I fillet the swimmers,' said Miko. 'Call up to me some evening.' I duly called and Miko bought 40 pounds' worth of disinfectant and other stuff off me, in 5-gallon drums. 'Are you sure you're charging enough for it?' Miko said next, and then he gave me five pounds 'for luck.' I had a profit of 25 pounds on the whole transaction, a good week's wages at the time. Many years later I called in to Miko's place to get fish from him and discovered the original goods were still there in the corner where I'd placed them, untouched. He hadn't needed all that stuff at all; he bought it to help me get off the ground in business. That was Miko, generous to a fault. Perhaps his outstanding trait was his pride in his family, in his sons Ken and Paul, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and he was proud that six generations of the Ralph family carried the Christian name Michael. He said to me when I visited him in hospital in July: 'Tomeen, if I reach 79 years of age in August, I will have lived 20 years longer than my father did.' Miko had his 79th birthday on August 9th. No longer will I hear him on the phone: 'Is that Peter Varden's lad from the Curragh House?' No longer will I get the news about someone from Bishop Street who has died in England or America. I quoted John Millington Synge's Maura from Riders to the Sea when I gave a graveside oration at Seán Purcell's funeral. The mother said her son Bartley had got a clean burial in the sea up the far North. He was the last of her sons lost to the sea, and she said: 'They're all gone now ...'   KEVIN DWYER'S eulogy, delivered at the Requiem Mass at Tuam Cathedral, opened with four lines from a poem written by Michael D. Higgins. Time will never make a boundary that could contain Nor space enclose Those moments you turned to gold, With a light that will always be your own.   Those lines could have been written about Miko Ralph, R.I.P. We all have wonderful memories of those moments that Miko constantly turned to gold with his magical sense of humour, his creative use of language, his immeasurable generosity, his beautiful spirit and, most importantly, his amazing ability to love. We all know what a great storyteller he was and what great stories he told, most of them laced with that special brand of humour that was essentially Miko. He was a genius with language. He could turn or use a phrase with such effect and ease. He often spoke with a plain man's tongue but they were always words of great wisdom. He wouldn't, of course, want us to be speaking about him like this. I know what he would say: 'Stall Sham, hedge the bugle, stall the gees and wheeze choice about my jills,' which translates as â€Ëœshut up and don't tell them anything about me'. We know he was a successful businessman but how he managed to become one I can't figure out because I reckon he gave away more fish than he sold. Those of us old enough to remember the really bad old days, when money was scarce and people had very little, remember well Miko's extraordinary generosity when you went to buy some fish off him in the Square. Miko always looked after those in need. And if you ever did Miko a favour, a salmon would magically appear outside your door the next day! Miko had so many friends and they all loved meeting him, with his bright eyes and his constant endearing smile. He lit you up when you encountered him, he was so engaging. His warmth just wrapped around you. He was a true Christian spirit and he believed in doing his best for and by everybody. Miko was so loving and so lovable. He always said he was a Lotto millionaire. The prize was his family. He was so proud of all his family and their love was priceless. He adored â€ËœMam' - his beloved wife Pat, and after she passed away he thanked her every morning for giving him another day. He visited her every day in the graveyard and told her all the news. He loved his sons, Kenny and Paul; he loved his extended family, his grandsons and his great-grandchildren. He loved his daughter-in-law Mary, and he truly appreciated everything that everybody did for him. He loved his siblings, Tommie in Australia, with whom he was in regular contact with, and Peggy in London, both of whom were indisposed and could not attend the funeral. He loved his sister Cathy and her husband Seán Kearns, who travelled from England to attend the funeral. They shared their home with Miko and family when he went to London in the Sixties and he was always grateful for their generous hospitality. He loved his nieces and nephews and all his cousins. Miko loved them all with a great passion and he was extremely proud of them all. And he would be even prouder on hearing of the birth of another great-grandchild with the arrival of Lilyann's and Micheál's son Naoise Patrick, born on the day of Miko's funeral. It led Kenny to wittily remark 'We were down a man for awhile but we have a sub on now.' So, when you love like Miko did you have to have a big heart. Miko had the biggest heart of all and even when it was only partially functioning as an organ in his body it was still pumping away at a full 100 per cent pouring out so much love. In later life Miko's health was not always the best but he bore his illnesses with great fortitude and patience. He retained that great sense of humour. I recall meeting him one time and asking how he was and he replied: 'For a fella that's only middlin' I'm powerful!' He had many interests but music and sport were his fondest passions. He loved music especially â€Ëœbig bands' like Benny Goodman's but he wasn't old-fashioned in his tastes and he would listen to more modern artists if he thought they had â€Ëœclass' - like, for instance, Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions. He was the mascot for the Galway senior football team playing in the 1938 All-Ireland final, which they won, and he was affectionately known as â€ËœMascot' in his younger days. He was great friends with his neighbour 'The Master', Seán Purcell. After Seán retired from playing in the early 1960s, they travelled the country together, attending many games of football. And the first time I saw a hurling match was when I was about nine years old and Miko put myself and Kenny into a packed car and brought us to Kenny Park, Athenry to see a County Cup final. When I visited Miko in hospital a few hours before he passed away, Kenny said to me when I entered the ward that his passing would leave a big hole in their lives and these beautiful words from a Bob Dylan song came to me: Yer gonna have to leave us now, I know, But we'll see you in the sky above, In the tall grass, in the ones you loved. You're gonna make us lonesome when you go.   Miko, may you rest in peace.