“Money never made the man nor wealth a happy home”

Contributor :

Sandra Boeuf-Martyn

Author : My grandfather John McLoughlin

My grandfather John McLoughlin was a man of many talents and well known around the village of Derrycoosh in county Mayo for advice on buying cattle and other agricultural matters. He was a member of the old IRA and had the tricolour on his coffin in recognition of his efforts in the fight for freedom.

Looking up this expression, I it is also a line in the poem “The boatman of Kinsale” by Thomas Davis.  In my grandad’s day, poetry was very much on the curriculum in schools and I’m sure this is where the expression came from. Thomas Davis was himself a poet, writer and politician – the main organizer of the Young Ireland movement and which surely appealed to my grandfather.