{"id":629410,"date":"2026-09-19T09:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T09:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/629410\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T09:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T09:04:14","slug":"catherine-connolly-meets-the-donegal-diaspora-in-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/629410\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Connolly meets the Donegal diaspora in Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Winnie McHugh\u2019s brief conversation with President Catherine Connolly<\/a> came some 75 years after she left Co Donegal<\/a> for Scotland in search of work, but the 92-year-old\u2019s command of the Irish language has never waned in the interim. <\/p>\n

You never forget the language, she told Connolly in Irish, sitting in a room in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow on Thursday. The President held McHugh\u2019s hand as they exchanged c\u00fapla focal. \u201cDeas bualadh leat [good to meet you],\u201d Connolly said as she moved on. <\/p>\n

The President was visiting an exhibition in the library celebrating people like McHugh \u2013 young men and women who left Donegal for Scotland to earn a living and, often, to send money home to families struggling in poverty. The exhibition, titled \u201cWorking Over By\u201d, was named for the colloquial term used to describe those who had left for Scotland. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have any earnings in Ireland so we had to come over here to earn our living,\u201d McHugh said, sitting with her daughter and granddaughter, Noreen (61) and M\u00e1ir\u00e9ad McEnroe (25). <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were always sorry leaving home. It was sad, sad, sad,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always looked forward [to] going home then at Christmas, we would be stroking off all the days to Christmas, to get back home to see our people,\u201d she added, laughing gently.<\/p>\n

McHugh was the eldest of the 13 Gallagher siblings, from Tully, Dungloe in the Rosses. All of them worked in Scotland for a period, with some \u2013 including McHugh \u2013 opting to settle in their adopted home. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey all had to work for a living to make sure that they earned enough money to keep the rest of the family going, and sending money home,\u201d said her daughter, Noreen.<\/p>\n

Standing across the room were Mairi Boyle (64) and Anne Doherty (67), the daughters of a Buncrana-born \u201cTunnel Tiger\u201d, a nickname given to Donegal labourers who worked on the underground sections of the British road and rail network.<\/p>\n

The pair became emotional as they spoke about their father, Jim McLaughlin, and Boyle\u2019s father-in-law John Boyle, who left \u00c1rainn Mh\u00f3r, also to work on the tunnels. <\/p>\n

McLaughlin, who emigrated at 16, almost died when he fell down a trench while on a job. When he recovered, he went straight back to construction work. \u201cAs it so happens, this is his anniversary today,\u201d Doherty said. <\/p>\n

Boyle pointed to a 1955 photograph in the exhibition, of her father-in-law. He is smiling widely, posing with colleagues during a break from tunnelling work. \u201cHe worked really hard, he was always smiling,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou wonder where they\u2019d have been without the Irish. The people from Donegal in particular. Not only the men, but the women too,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Packie Bonner, the former Republic of Ireland and Celtic<\/a> goalkeeper, was standing by photographs capturing him during his playing days with the Glasgow club where he spent his entire career.<\/p>\n

\"PackiePackie Bonner, President Catherine Connolly and Brian McEnery at Mitchell Library, Glasgow on Friday. Photograph: Maxwells <\/p>\n

People from Donegal, for many decades, have had \u201ca huge impact here in Scotland\u201d, he said. \u201cScotland was good for them, so they contributed to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exhibition seeks to celebrate the working lives of the Donegal migrants whose occupations might have been seen as ordinary, according to Joseph Gallagher, heritage officer at Donegal County Council. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou just see the strong ties that are still there, and that have persisted over the many generations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winnie McHugh\u2019s brief conversation with President Catherine Connolly came some 75 years after she left Co Donegal for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3656,2675,1485,30206,61,60,43,9036],"class_list":["post-629410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-catherine-connolly","tag-celtic","tag-donegal","tag-donegal-county-council","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-scotland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629410","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=629410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}