Eamonn Hughes obituary

My grandfather Eamonn Hughes, who has died aged 87, was proud of the contribution he made as an Irishman to building modern Britain by working in the postwar construction industry. He started out in the late 1950s as a labourer in the Leeds area, progressing to supervise civil engineering projects with the Yorkshire firm Ogdens of Otley. There he played his part in many big enterprises, including the building of the south stand at Leeds United’s Elland Road ground in 1974. Later he moved into Ogdens’ coal reclamation operation, where he was responsible for various sites across Yorkshire, the Midlands and Scotland, before taking early retirement in 2002. Born in London, Eamonn was the son of Bridget (nee Nolan) and Denis Hughes, Irish farmers from County Longford who were visiting England at the time of his birth. He was raised in Ireland in a bilingual household, speaking Irish and English, and attended Scoil Mhic Dhara in the Gaeltacht area of Galway, where his uncle served as headteacher. His first job, in 1954, was as a car-breaker in Drumlish. After further work in a garage, on road maintenance for Longford council, as a labourer for the Irish Peat Board (Bord na Móna) and then