Hughie O Donnell

910 Columbus Avenue was a wonderful place to live as a child. During the hot summers without air conditioning both children and adults took to the outside. While our parents exchanged stories and news from the homeland; we as children amused ourselves with balls, sticks, ropes, chalk and our imagination.

My uncle Hughie also lived with us at 910 Columbus Avenue, affectionately called the Donegal House. On a Sunday, his only day off, he would take my brother and me to Riverside or Central Park for the day.

Hughie had a great talent for cutting hair and often he would put a chair sitting in the bath tub and, one by one, would cut the boys hair.

We met in the Tuxedo Cub on 3rd Avenue NY 1950 on a Sunday night. I was wearing a pink dress and Hughie was well turned out in a chequered sports jacket and grey slacks. He was a great dresser and had a good eye for style.


He was my first date in New York; I couldn't meet up with him the following Sunday night as I had to work my restaurant job on 5th Avenue, instead we planned to meet up the following Monday night. However in the meantime I heard he had made off with another girl on the Sunday night at the Tuxedo Club while I worked my shift. Naturally when he came calling for me on the arranged time on Monday night I made my-self unavailable. I remember sitting at the top of the stairs listening to my room mate tell Hughie at the Door " No Kathleen's not at home; why she has gone into to town on a big date, with who? Oh a guy called with a big car" Any way this little game put an end to looking at other girls; I had his devoted attention from there on in.


When we got married, we honeymooned in Chicago where we were robbed of every dollar we had got as wedding presents. It was a rough start to married life but we just prayed that all our bad luck went with the robber.


We were very happy in New York, as both of us had our brothers and sisters living in the city. We also made many good friends, all of them Irish like ourselves trying to make a new life in the United States.


Rockaway beach was a great escape for us as a family to retreat to on a hot weekend when temperatures would soar up intto the nineties. New York in the 1950's was great for family life and was very much where Ireland is at the moment. Every thing was centered around the family and men were great at doing their share of work in the home, as both parents tended to hold down jobs.


St. Patrick's night was a great night in the social calender in New York. Willie Joe Cunningham would always book a hotel in the Bronx for the Donegal contingent to have a dance. He would act as MC on the night going around meeting and greeting every one as they came into the room. I could never get over the shock when I met his nephew, Noel Cunningham, some 50 years later in Killybegs and witness the resemblence and the same showmanship. I am convinced we never really go away but keep reappearing in different guises!

When I look back and remember my dad, I remember a man that could almost do anything; and the things he couldn't do never deterred him from trying. He could wallpaper a room, was a great painter, had good carpentry skills, trained as a butcher. He could help a ewe with a difficult birthing, could rescusitate a poor lamb, knew how to foster a twin lamb with a bereaved mother ewe. He had great people skills and loved the hustle and bustle of business life.


He was a great giver of his time to us as children. When I went to boarding school, some 70 miles away from home he would always make the journey on the first Sunday of every month to visit, take me out as an escape from institutional food and treat me to a great gourmet delight in McFadden's Hotel in Gortahork. We would talk as I ate with my mouth full and I would share with him the ups and downs of living away from home; and he would listen and give advice. He saw education as an important gift, one that he had been deprived off as a child growing up.


My father brought with him, home from New York a cine camera and he was an assiduous film maker. He carried it with him every where there was a social occasion. In fact by today's standards he was a great social archivist of life in New York amongst the Irish in the 1950's to life in Donegal from the 1960's onwards. In his treasure chest of film there are movies of Corpus Christi Parades, The annual Blessing of the Fleet, First Holy Communions, Local Weddings and all our birthday parties while growing up. He also owned an old reel to reel tape recorder and recorded impromptu recitations and singing sessions that took place in the bar down through the years. In fact if you look closely at the last photgraph of him at a UCD Graduation you will see his little cine camera in his right hand; quite proud to see and record us receive the greatest gift of all; an education.


To my father that gave me many things he gave me the greatest gift of all; unconditional love.

One of my fondest memories of my father was the time he made me a weather cock. I was in 3rd class in Niall Mor N.S when one day we were doing a geography lesson which featured a picture of a weather cock in the textbook. At the end of the class the teacher announced that each of us was to bring in a weather cock the next day. At the time my father was very busy with lambing but he never complained when I told him what the teacher wanted. That night as I was going to bed he was out in the cold bottling shed measuring and hammering. The next morning there was a fully functional weather cock on the kitchen table. When I arrived at school I was the only one with a weather cock and it was given pride of place on a pillar in the school yard. I was so proud of my father.

In later years I was in Boarding School in Ballyshannon. Whenever there was a concert or school play on where I was taking part he would always travel from Killybegs to support me. Sometimes I used to be embarrassed to see the old brown wolsley car arriving smelling of sheep dip and bits of hay sticking out the back. But now I have treasured memories of the sacrifices he made and the greatest love he showed me by giving of his time.
Deirdra.
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If a customer had a half pint in front of him for too long Hughie would say ' How do you expect me to make a profit with that half pint in front of you for so long' He said this to a particular customer from Largy one night. He was joking and his wry sense of humour went down well with his customers. One night a customer told him to put the 2 old pence change in the poor box and Hughie put it in the till; the customer said I meant the poor box, Hughie replied that's the poor box, of course he took it out later after the joke was played. One night a he asked a man are you finished with that pint, to which he replied No! why do you ask? I want to make up a bucket of Guinness for my lambs in Largy and they wont be as long drinking it as you.