Obituaries

An Appreciation: Vera Hughes

Prolific letter writer to The Irish Times for 60 years on a variety of subjects has died at 98 years-old

Vera Hughes was one of the most prolific letter writers to The Irish Times since the 1960s, she died aged 98 in October, two weeks after she wrote her last letter
Vera Hughes was one of the most prolific letter writers to The Irish Times since the 1960s, she died aged 98 in October, two weeks after she wrote her last letter
Mon Nov 07 2022 - 00:00

Born: August 15th, 1924

Died: October 8th, 2022

One of the longest serving contributors to The Irish Times Letters page, Vera Hughes (nee Jennings) was a skilled writer with forthright opinions on a wide range of topics.

Born and brought up in Cully, Co Sligo and one of 12 siblings, Vera was a gifted student and a committed Gaelgóir – she was awarded a gold medal for the best national essay in Intermediate Certificate Irish in 1938. She won a scholarship to Galway University in the early 1940s, where she studied English, Irish and Latin. While there, she translated Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night into Irish, managing to preserve the iambic pentameter in which the original verse was written. Her work was then performed at the national Irish language theatre in Galway, An Taibhdhearc.

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After her Arts degree, she and two of her sisters embarked on a tour of Europe. She subsequently lived for two years in La Baule, France and then in Barcelona, where she worked as an English teacher, while becoming fluent in French, Spanish, Italian and German. She returned to Dublin to take up a teaching post in Castleknock. While there, she was sent to Moate, Co Westmeath in 1956 to supervise Leaving Certificate exams in the Convent of Mercy for a week. She stayed at the Grand Hotel, where she was spotted by Alec Hughes, a newly-arrived doctor from Dublin. It was a whirlwind romance: he asked her out on a Monday, proposed on Wednesday and she accepted his offer of marriage on the Friday!

Three months later, Alec and Vera were married and became the owners of the house where Alec had been a lodger – a rambling old Georgian building in total disrepair which they gradually converted into a comfortable home.

Vera became actively involved with local cultural organisations and events, and attended the annual all-Ireland drama festival in Athlone for six decades, never missing a performance.

She wrote copiously throughout her life – poems, short stories, articles for the Westmeath Independent and Medical Times, hundreds of letters to The Irish Times (from the mid-1960s right up to the weeks before her death) and The Sunday Times.

[ Lord works in mysterious ways ]

[ Theresa May’s impossible task ]

In 1988, she published a meticulously researched local history book, The Strange Story of Sarah Kelly, a detailed account of the life of a much despised English-born landowner who was assassinated in 1856 on her land near Moate. In 2004, her book was adapted by Roscommon man Tom Costello into a stage play called To the Manor Born which played to packed houses at Roscommon Arts Centre and Tuar Ard Arts Centre in Moate. It was also the subject of a 2006 Leargas docudrama on TG4, with Vera herself supplying the voiceover, in flawless Irish.

In 2006, Vera was asked to write a broader history of the town of Moate, a place she cherished deeply despite her western roots. The Years Between chronicled the many changes that she had witnessed during her 50 years as a resident of Moate and an active member of the local community, especially with regard to the Tidy Towns Committee which was another of her enduring passions.

Her collection of letters to the editor of The Irish Times expressed strong opinions on many issues, from the dearth of women in politics, the demise of the Irish language, and the need for a Border poll, to abortion legislation, same-sex marriage, compulsory celibacy for priests, poor grammar and shoddy pronunciation in the media.

Many of her views defiantly challenged the increasingly liberal agenda that had evolved in Irish society. Imbued with the sense of moral authority and nationalist mindset that had prevailed during the de Valera era (he was one of her heroes), she felt it was her duty to express opinions that represented the binary world view of her conservative, Catholic upbringing.

Her keen interest in local and international politics provided fodder for many of her contributions to the Letters page. No world leader was safe from Vera’s acerbic commentary. Pity poor Boris Johnson, who on August 23rd, 2019 was the subject of this missive:

Sir, – If Boris Johnson were to straighten himself up and wipe that silly smirk off his face, it might be easier to watch him on TV as he rambles on with his usual blather and waffle. Now, where’s the mute button?

Neither was US president Donald Trump shielded from the barbs that Vera lobbed mercilessly in his direction, writing on November 7th, 2020:

Sir, – The petulant childishness of the president of a democratic country, who declares victory in an election when many votes have yet to be counted, is preposterously and almost laughably deluded. Mr Trump should be sent back to playschool.

These two examples of Vera’s witty and succinct commentary are all the more notable when one considers that they were written when she was well into her 90s.

An especially prolific contributor to the Letters page during the late 1970s to the early Noughties, Vera’s “hit rate” may have declined somewhat in recent years (this she attributed to the ease and immediacy of email, resulting in greater competition for limited space) but she continued to put pen to paper right until the end of her long and active life.

Two weeks before she died at 98 years-old, perturbed by the elaborate ceremonies that accompanied Queen Elizabeth lying in state and eventual funeral (she was ferociously anti-royalist but held a begrudging respect for the queen, especially following her use of the cúpla focail at Dublin Castle on her visit to Ireland), Vera penned this final, unpublished missive:

Sir,

‘Sceptre and crown must tumble down/and in the dust be equal made/with a poor crooked scythe and spade’

So wrote the poet James Shirley in the 17th century. The recent death and burial of Queen Elizabeth II was celebrated with enormous pomp, splendour and ceremony, but the outcome remains the same.

Yours, etc,

Vera Hughes

In the early hours of October 8th, Vera left this world gently and peacefully at home, in the company of her daughter, Emer. Predeceased by her husband Alec and son Niall, she is also survived by her daughters Mary and Niamh, her son Conor, and six grandchildren.