Noreen McHugh, the wife of James, has passed away following a collision in Cavan on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
1992 All-Ireland SFC winner McHugh, 62, died in the crash, which occurred shortly before 2pm on the N3 at Drummallaght\u00a0 between Virginia and Cavan town.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His wife, a passenger in the car, had been airlifted to Dublin\u2019s Beamount Hospital with serious injuries but was pronounced dead on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed\u00a0have appealed to anyone who may have witnessed the collision or who was travelling in the area, particularly between 1pm and 2pm that day, to come forward.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed are also appealing to any motorists who may have dashcam or other camera footage of the area during this time to make this footage available.<\/p>\n
Anyone with information is asked to contact Bailieboro Garda Station on 042 969 4570, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda station.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Tuesday, tributes had mounted for McHugh. Donegal GAA hailed McHugh as a key member of Brian McEniff\u2019s pioneering team from 34 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many people across our county, James was one of their first heroes. James was part of the generation that changed Donegal football forever when he and his teammates brought Sam Maguire to the hills for the first time in 1992. The generation that showed us all that anything is possible,” they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA proud Donegal man, he was perhaps prouder still to be a Kilcar man. James\u2019s unprecedented achievement on the turf of Croke Park that September day was made all the more special by the fact that he shared the field with his beloved brother Martin.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see the brothers from Kilcar soldier together as Donegal finally reached the summit is a memory that will live forever in the history of our county.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The county board praised his work in Chill Chartha\u2019s hosting of this year\u2019s Com\u00f3rtas Peile na Gaeltachta and expressed condolences with the McHugh family.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Donegal\u2019s 1992 All-Ireland winner Anthony Molloy told Donegal Daily: “James was a great family man, was so close to Noreen and was so proud of Eoin and Emma. He was a great character also behind the footballer we all knew him for.<\/p>\n
” He had a great memory and was great at telling stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We will miss him deeply but I will remember the wonderful times we had together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
McEniff said he was \u201cjust broken-hearted\u201d. He told Donegal Live: \u201cJames was such a fine man. I had a great friendship with him. He is the first player from the 1992 panel we have lost \u2014 we had also lost selector S\u00e9amus Bonar.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is just terrible. I don\u2019t know what to say. James had the heart of a lion. I can still remember him in Clones in the Ulster final nipping in before big Brian McGilligan and getting the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo words can say what I feel and what I feel for the family as well. It is a terrible loss for them and for the Kilcar community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Noreen McHugh, the wife of James, has passed away following a collision in Cavan on Monday.\u00a0 1992 All-Ireland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-590460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}