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A personal tribute to Aidan McCaul (1938-2024) by his eldest son Aodán McCaul

Aidan Joseph McCaul was born 26-Jan-1938 on a farm in a place called Corrinshigo, near
Cootehill in Cavan, the youngest of 8 children. With the passing of Aunty Maggie early last
year at the remarkable age of 100, he was the last surviving sibling. Suffice to say, that hit
Aidan very hard. Aidan was probably treasured even more so by them because his
immediate older brother Hugh died at the age of 1 after a botched cleft palate operation in
Cavan hospital. At each family occasion – usually weddings – they always insisted on having
a photograph of all the siblings together, which came to mark the passage of time, as their
numbers dwindled. Remembering them all – May, Maggie, Nan, Tessie, Pat, Thomas, Hugh
and now Aidan, along with his father Hugh & his mother Mary-Anne. His love of all things
Cavan never left him and he still read the Anglo Celt newspaper every week. He loved nothing
more than going back to Cavan and visiting all his nephews and nieces there.
He was also very fond of my mother’s side of the family, especially our grandparents Michael
and Hannah O’Mahoney who lived in Church Street here in Millstreet in the late 1970s after my
grandfather retired, in a house rental arranged by my father in a house owned by James
Manley. Also, Joan Bennett – our mother’s sister, who died during Covid, who we weren’t
able to say a proper goodbye to at the time. He made a particular point of mentioning that
the two remaining O’Mahonys who are still alive – Pat O’Mahony in Waterford and Denis
O’Mahony in San Francisco be mentioned in his death notice.
Aidan went to school first in Mahera national school, and when that school closed, Lisarney.
His educational career was short and as it had been all through Irish initially, in his own words,
not very beneficial. Well, to be honest, those weren’t really the words he used. However,
there was an innate intelligence there, notably in maths where he never needed a calculator
throughout his life. He had an incredible memory for figures – phone numbers, car
registrations. Life in general, and his interest in current affairs – the paper was a daily staple of
his life, for a long time The Irish Independent, but there was a late in life switch to The Irish
Examiner with The Sindo on the Sunday. That was his real school along with the RTÉ News.
Having left school at 11, he worked on the rural electrification scheme in Cavan. That was
still going strong in 1949. Later, he worked in various hardware shops throughout the country
learning his trade before joining Duffys in Hacketstown, Co Carlow.

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