Robert McCullagh, who died on April 10th aged 95, had a long association with the Feis Ceoil, going back to 1928, when he first competed as a tenor and won a silver medal. He was also its president until five years ago and a long-time treasurer.
He won the tenor solo competition in 1929 and was runner-up 11 times in various classes and was the oldest surviving Feis Ceoil winner. He also had a long association with the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society.
Robert (Bob) McCullagh was born in Dublin on October 22nd, 1905, to Jack, a building contractor, and Emma (nee Barber) McCullagh. He grew up on Annesley Bridge Road opposite what is now Fairview Park and attended Howth Road National School. He went on to Skerries College to learn commercial skills and began working for the Great Northern Railway at Amiens Street in the secretary's office dealing with the transfer of the company's shares.
In 1945, after 20 years in the company he felt the need for change and applied for the vacant post of secretary-manager at the Rotunda Hospital. In an interview in The Irish Times in 1996 he said he knew he would not get the job because one of the interviewers was the deputy chairman of the GNR. However, some months later a similar position became vacant at St Patrick's Hospital for the mentally ill and he was appointed secretary-manager. He remained in that post until he retired in 1970 on his 65th birthday.
He recalled arriving at a mental hospital "with the doors and gates locked" and leaving when St Patrick's had evolved into a modern psychiatric hospital.
While there he became fascinated with Dean Swift, who had founded the hospital. "I had never thought much about him before, but it's impossible to be there and not to think about him. "The matron was convinced that the spirit of Swift lived in a cupboard in my office. Every time she heard a noise, she'd say `There's the Dean'," he recalled. After his retirement, he continued to give regular lectures about Swift and St Patrick's to patients.
Robert McCullagh then became secretary to the Harding Home on Lord Edward Street which offered temporary accommodation to young men arriving from the country to work in Dublin. He filled that post for 10 years until 1980.
But singing and music were his life-long passions. He recalled singing at eight or nine years of age at temperance meetings in Dublin "at which we were warned about the evils of alcohol". He sang in the choir of St Ann's in Dawson Street and after his voice broke, moved to St Patrick's Cathedral. After about seven years he moved to the choir in Christ Church Cathedral.
He competed in the Feis Ceoil from 1928 to 1933. He won a gold medal in 1929 for his singing of Sullivan's Come, Margarita, Come.
In 1927, he joined the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society - an association which continued for more than 60 years. In his lecture, "Seventy-Five Years of the R & R", at the RDS (of which he was an honorary life member) in 1988, he claimed he was the oldest living member of the society. While membership was first confined to residents of Rathmines and Rathgar, he said, it became so successful that it had to cast its net wider. "And they even accepted members from as far away as the northern frozen wastes of Clontarf - and that's how I got in." He appeared in 28 productions for the company.
Robert McCullagh sang whenever he got the opportunity. He began broadcasting with 2 RN (Radio Eireann) in 1929 and has given interviews about what it was like to work in the primitive early days of the service. He was also a member of the oldest musical club in Europe, the Hibernian Catch Club, which was founded in 1680. He was especially proud to have attended its millennium dinner in Trinity College in March last year with his wife Betty.
As an 11-year-old, Robert McCullagh, witnessed scenes in the 1916 Rising. Some fighting took place around the family home, leaving the house marked by bullets. A family friend was shot on the street outside and died in their kitchen.
As a boy scout Robert McCullagh used to greet soldiers at the docks returning on leave from the Western Front, directing them to trains which would bring them home. He also attended an international jamboree in London, where met the movement's founder Robert Baden-Powell.
Robert McCullagh is survived by his wife Betty, daughters, Joan and Meriel, and sons, Derek and Ian.
John Robert (Bob) McCullagh: born 1905; died, April 2001