Omnibus – Family history

WEâ€Ë†ARE fond of using the phrase â€Å“in living memoryâ€Â from time to time. Itâ€â„¢s usually in a sentence along the lines of â€Å“Such an event has not happened in living memoryâ€Â. It often means that we donâ€â„¢t know if it ever happened before, but if we say that, some smart aleck out there will write in to say we are sadly misinformed, etc etc. And being smart enough alecks ourselves, we donâ€â„¢t need the competition.[private] However, we can be fairly sure that the living memory phrase can be applied to a former employee of this newspaper, Michael McHugh. Thatâ€â„¢s because he left Tuam and us in 1900 and went to work for the Freemanâ€â„¢s Journal. I never heard of Michael McHugh, but I suspect that my father knew the name. His father joined the paper in 1900 and it could well be that he got the job when Michael McHugh left. John Burke was a printer who served his time in the Tuam News, was a journeyman in the Mayo News in Westport, went to New York for a couple of years and then came home to Tuam and a job in the Tuam News. One day there was a breakdown in The Tuam Herald, and help was sought from the rival. It was refused (the rivalry was bitter) but John Burke said he would help when he had finished work. He duly did so, and was told there would soon be a job for him. He took the job, rose to become manager, and bought the paper in 1930. Could that job have been Michael McHughâ€â„¢s? Weâ€â„¢ll probably never know, but there is a lot more to Michael McHugh than his time as a printer in Tuam. He was a native of Caherlistrane, where his father Thomas was postmaster for 45 years. Born in 1873, he was taken on as an apprentice compositor (typesetter) in the Herald in 1888 and was in the Freemanâ€â„¢s Journal by 1901. Michael McHugh is to feature in a TV programme, The Genealogy Roadshow, on RTE this autumn and itâ€â„¢s not for his craftsmanship he is noteworthy. He was a staunch republican, and was involved in the IRB and in Michael Collinsâ€â„¢s inner circle from 1914 to his imprisonment by the Irish Free State in 1922. I donâ€â„¢t want to spoil the programme, so we will pass over his exploits in the Collins network, but we can say that he was lucky to escape execution during the Civil War. He was picked up along with four other men who were executed in Limerick Prison in January 1923, and the speculation is that he was spared owing to the personal intervention of Collins. He was transferred to the military detention centre in the Curragh, known as Tintown because of the corrugated iron huts the prisoners were housed in, and unfortunately contracted TB there. He collapsed and died in June 1924 outside Kavanaghâ€â„¢s pub in Stonybatter, while walking in the street with his son Sean, who was aged only five at the time. Seanâ€â„¢s daughter Miriam and her husband Kevin Ball called to the office last week and saw some of our old wooden type, which could well have been handled by Michael McHugh. One of Miriamâ€â„¢s aunts was Maureen Oâ€â„¢Carroll, who was the first ever female Labour TD. She was involved closely in the campaign to have women admitted to the Garda Siochana, and when she visited this area in 1955 she was reported as having been told by her doctor to take a rest. The Herald went on to say that she was a cousin of Mr MJâ€Ë†McHugh, Weir Road and was related to the â€Ë†Mitchell family of Ballinderry. Students of Irish church history will remember that Monsignor Gerard Mitchell was President of Maynooth College from 1959 until 1967. His mother, Mary Ellen McHugh, was a sister of Michael. As well as being an accomplished printer, an Irish language enthusiast, and a committed nationalist, Michael was a local historian and poet. He published a sketch of the history of Caherlistane in The Tuam Herald of January 10, 1891, with a poem on the legend of Lough Hacket which is worth publishing in full, but for which I do not have space here. So we will go back to Caherlistrane and Lough Hacket next week, and in the meantime take a short wander around the markets of Tuam in bygone days. â€Â¢ â€Â¢ â€Â¢ YOUâ€Ë†may remember that last week I told how a letter from America with money for a fridge was delivered safely to â€Å“Tom Murphy, Bonham Market, Tuamâ€Â. The man who told me that has enlightened me further on the locations of the various markets around the town. Potatoes and oats were sold at the Square; hay, straw and turnips at Bishop Street near Geraghtyâ€â„¢s shop; turf on Vicar Street near the Connacht Arms; chickens and fish by the Town Hall; vegetables on the Square beside Butlerâ€â„¢s shop (now Duffyâ€â„¢s pharmacy); bonhams on High Street at the exit from the Mall. Fair days were the second Tuesday of the month on the Fair Green for cattle and sheep, and pigs on the third Wednesday in the town centre (â€Å“Hold your nose,â€Â says PJ McGrath, my informant, who also remembers catching rabbits in the Palace Grounds.) Think of those market days when next you are enjoying the comforts of supermarket shopping ... â€â€ David Burke[/private]