Ireland

Death announced of author and journalist Hugh Oram

Oram’s titles included works on South Dublin localities and aspects of Irish life such as railways and newspapers

Hugh Oram was a prolific writer whose books ran to more than 85. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw

Mark Hilliard
Mon Mar 11 2024 - 20:01

The death has been announced of the author and journalist Hugh Oram.

Oram was a prolific writer on Ireland and Irish history as well as a journalist and broadcaster. He died at Wicklow Hospice on Sunday, March 3rd.

Among his dozens of published titles were works exploring pockets of South Dublin and other parts of the country and examinations of aspects of Irish life such as railway and newspapers.

His 2018, his Little Book of Merrion and Booterstown, his 86th, looked at how the two suburbs evolved into centres of academia, finance and influence.

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Oram was born in Plymouth and began contributing to The Irish Times in the early 1980s. He later filed for the Irishman’s Diary column in the 2000s, publishing a collection of those works in 2020.

Over those years, he wrote on an eclectic range of topics from the coaches used by the Lord Mayors of Dublin to the world of old grocery shops and Turkish baths in Blarney. He reflected on the history of mills and milling, of whiskey distillation and consumption, and covered Dublin architecture and its changing streetscape.

Discussing Grafton Street in 2019, he noted that what had once been home to interesting locally owned shops had “become an identikit Main Street” where the shopfronts of some 40 multinational retailers “are replicated in similar main thoroughfares in numerous other countries”.

Oram also presented Paper Tigers, an RTÉ radio series exploring Ireland’s newspapers and the people who worked on them, the first episode of which was aired in September, 1992.

He was married to Bernadette and is survived by sisters Kate, Sarah and Emma, brothers Rod and James and extended families.

A private funeral service has taken place.

Mark Hilliard

Mark Hilliard

Mark Hilliard is a reporter with The Irish Times

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