A little like Charlie Haughey, I like to lay claim to a number of clubs around the country, but the first game I ever attended was a Clontarf match at Castle Avenue. Indeed, they would have been the first few games I ever witnessed. That was where my love of rugby first started.
The reason was entirely due to the Clontarf outhalf being Johnny Hughes, my uncle and, as my dad died when I was young, without doubt the man I have most admired in my life. I wish I had told him that more often, or even at all, as he passed away this week.
Maybe the memories are tinged with bias, but in my mind he was an uber cool, stylish outhalf – and that’s perhaps because he was an uber cool, stylish man. He very much marched to his own beat, and if memory serves he retired from playing at 29 or 30, which seemed utterly unfathomable to his adoring nephew.
Then, Johnny being Johnny, he took to running and seemed to get fitter after he stopped playing. Being the youngest of five to John, from Armagh, and Dympna, from Leitrim, he was the darling of the family, not least to Dympna senior, as well as his siblings, the eldest being my mum Petria.
One day, after listening to his sister Mary eulogise about Johnny, I overhead Petria say to her: “Johnny’s not perfect you know.” To which Mary responded: “Well, he is actually.”
Truly funny, warm and a pacifist who loved birds, Johnny was also very handsome. There’s a black and white picture of him in which he could pass for James Dean. And he aged gracefully and coolly, in a Paul Newman kind of way. His son Aengus, who is also a Clontarf RFC man, is a credit to Johnny and Breda.
After retiring, he remained a keen rugby fan; indeed his passion for the game seemed even to grow. If matches were on pay-per-view, he regularly called over to my mum’s house to watch each and all of the provinces in action, and any Ireland games that weren’t on terrestrial television as well.
The successes of the Irish team, especially in latter years, gave him real joy. It’s because of the millions like Johnny that the Six Nations should always be on terrestrial television, and why, by contrast, the Champions Cup has lost its reach.
He always retained his personal perspective on the game, like he did on journalism, politics and pretty much everything else. He was never, ever dull; not for a minute. At extended family gatherings, everybody wanted to chat with Johnny and listen to his articulate and witty take on life.
That’s probably why John Dinan and his old Clontarf buddies used to always ask about him. So too did journalists as, luckily for me, Johnny was a subeditor for the Irish Independent, Irish Press and, latterly, The Irish Times.
When, at the influence of my mum and the help of her cousin Jim Downey, I got my toenail into journalism, my first ‘marking’ was a 6-all draw between Monkstown and Young Munster in Sydney Parade. I took my notes, raced home and both Johnny and Petria helped me write my two paragraphs before I phoned the report into the Sunday Press.
He always remained a sounding board and a wise counsel. Like all of that generation in my family tree, and probably in most others, he was very intelligent and extremely well read, as well as being progressive in his thinking and his politics.
Johnny had loads of wise words. In the immediate days after my mum and his eldest sister died, I said to him: “She was the biggest influence on my life.”
To which he said: “And she always will be”.
And so will you Johnny.
– A short service celebrating Johnny’s life will take place in Glasnevin Crematorium on Saturday afternoon at 1.30.
