Obituary: Patrick Moran

The life of my great-uncle, Pat Moran, who has died of a heart attack aged 85, took in coal and diamond mining, travel and adventure. But it was a hard life too, and his search for work took him to England, Canada and the US. Pat was born to a poor rural family in Clonkeen, near Tang in the centre of Ireland, and was the oldest of the nine siblings who survived to adulthood. It was a four-mile round trip to school by foot. He was clever, but at 14 he was working on the bogs in Bord Na Mona, a Kildare peat factory. During the second world war Pat was recruited to work in the Yorkshire mines, and after it he moved to northern Canada and its diamond mines. The equipment there had to be brought in over frozen lakes during winter. The only way the workers could leave was by plane. But his family, like many others, depended on... [read full story]