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This week we learnt of the passing of Tadg O’Donoghue of Barraduff village. Tadg was the well-known proprietor of O’Donoghue’s Foodmarket in Barraduff village.

My first encounter with Tadg was as a teenage cyclist. Tadg had the Raleigh Cycles agency at this time. As a young cyclist in the mid-eighties, Tadg’s shop was a stop off point for refreshments on our route. Ever the salesman, he was always on hand to upsell the latest offerings in the Raleigh Cycles range.

Tadg was always very proud of his cycles business, boasting his status as Kerry’s number one Raleigh agent.

On many an occasion Tadg would have helped a few of us cash-strapped budding cyclists with a puncture repair kit or inner tube to see us home and trusted payment would be returned in due course.

Today I am a customer of O’Donoghue’s Foodmarket and always mindful of Tadg’s generosity in my youth.

As parents, we always like to share with our kids experiences we had as kids, and Tadhg delivered the same generosity to my kids as he delivered to me some 30 years earlier. A visit to Tadg’s for my kids raised the high probability that if the man himself was behind the counter, the ‘penny’ sweet counter was within their grasp. I was powerless over Tadg’s open invitation to the ‘penny’ sweet counter, the bag was full in seconds. I’m confident he never charged the full value of this bulging bag of sweets but he got great satisfaction in seeing the joy in the faces of these sugar fiends.

Tadg was never short of a word even when the shop was busy. He was a hive of information - NOT gossip, mind you. Tadg had the facts. Visiting on quieter occasions we would get stuck into a topic or two and time would disappear. I remember on one occasion I went to Tadg’s to get popcorn for movie night. By the time I got home the movie was over, the kids were asleep in bed and a search party was on the brink of deployment.

His genuine generosity and interest in people was at the heart of his business and community. He will be missed.

Our deepest sympathy to his wife Ursula, daughters Augustine, Maura, Martina, Ave, Julianna, sons Donal and Michael, grandchildren Picabia, Jonathan, Rhiannon, Tadg Óg, Seán and David.

May he rest in peace.