Kevin McHugh: Kevin McHugh, who has died aged 60, was a pioneering, if controversial, fishing skipper and fleet owner, and a leading player in the international seafood industry. "If the Dutch can do it, we can do it" was one of his mantras influencing his decision to build one of Europe's largest factory ships, the €63 million Atlantic Dawn, in Norway.
At 144 metres in length, the vessel was multiples of anything his fellow Achill islanders had ever dreamed of fishing when he was growing up on the Mayo coastline half a century ago.
He was born overlooking Inishbiggle island and the Atlantic at Bullsmouth, Achill. He and his brothers, Éamonn and Michael, were introduced to the sea through their father, who was an ESB maintenance engineer. In the mid-1960s he travelled to Iceland to study its fishing industry - a trip that was to leave a lasting impression.
He trained for his skipper's certificate through Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), which was then nurturing development of an offshore fishing fleet, and he was only 21 years old when he bought his first boat, the Wavecrest, financed with BIM's help.
Former BIM chief executive Brendan O'Kelly remembers McHugh as a "bright young lad from Achill" at a time when Ireland was under pressure to extend its fishing activities offshore and when the first European common fisheries policy was "coming down the tracks".
From an early stage, McHugh's approach was identifiably different, according to BIM's Richard McCormick, who fished with him on the Wavecrest from Howth harbour, Co Dublin. McHugh put great emphasis on quality and standards, regarding fishing as a business.
A fair employer, he was "never one of the lads", but inspired tremendous respect and loyalty. Eight years later, he was proud owner of his own steel vessel, the Albacore, which he partly designed.
The closure of the Celtic Sea herring fishery prompted him to move northwest to Killybegs, Co Donegal, to concentrate on the new quarry - the fast-swimming protein-rich mackerel migrating between Norway and the Scottish and Irish coasts.
He moved with his wife Vera, whom he married in 1978, to the south Donegal port, along with a generation of young skippers equipped with refrigerated salt-water tank boats who became known as the "mackerel millionaires".
He moved from boat to bigger boat, but when he placed an order for a £12 million craft which could steam farther to meet the growing demand for fish, there were those who questioned it.
Nevertheless, the new Veronica attracted almost the whole cabinet to visit it when it eventually arrived back from Norway in the late 1980s.
In June 1992, the ship was destroyed by fire while in Harland and Wolff in Belfast. Once the insurance was settled, the skipper ordered a 104-metre replacement, also called Veronica, which returned to Killybegs in January 1995.
Several years later - by which time he was developing business interests onshore in fish-processing and hotels - he went one step farther with the 144-metre factory ship, Atlantic Dawn. It was equipped to carry 7,000 tonnes of fish, equivalent to more than 18 million meals. His 87-year-old mother Nora was among the visitors to Dublin Port when it steamed in there in September 2000.
Joey Murrin, close friend and former Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation chief executive, remembers being as surprised as everyone else at the move. "People thought I was Kevin's mentor, but while he always asked me for advice, he never took it," Mr Murrin said. "I was so cautious that if he had listened to me, he'd still be in a half-decker."
The plan was to avail of EU "third country agreements", then costing up to a third of the EU's fishery budget, but Brussels took a dim view of the new vessel at a time when it was cutting back on overall fleet sizes and infringement proceedings were initiated against Ireland. After 18 months of negotiations involving former marine minister Frank Fahey, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and former EU commissioner David Byrne, the European Commission reversed its stance and allowed the vessel to be placed on the Irish and EU register, in return for taking the sister ship Veronica off the register.
Controversially, McHugh was allowed to retain the Veronica's tonnage - an essential requirement for vessel owners seeking to rebuild or modernise vessels under EU/Irish licensing arrangements.
The "understanding" was that this would be sold to regulate any over-capacity in the Irish pelagic (mackerel/herring) sector, which meant that other colleagues who had purchased new pelagic vessels found themselves having to buy this at full market price.
It was estimated that McHugh stood to gain between €50 to €60 million from this.
While McHugh's company was proving to be highly profitable, there were several serious setbacks. In October 2002, the Atlantic Dawn's deck boss, Michael McGuinness, died from injuries sustained on the deck of the vessel.
Two years ago, an accounting error resulted in the resignation of the company's auditor, by which time an investigation by the Comptroller and Auditor General was under way into the Government's involvement with the Atlantic Dawn.
The Veronica, which had been re-registered, was moved to Australia where the government refused to license it before its own general election. It was subsequently put up for sale.
The Atlantic Dawn, which had been fishing off the west African state of Mauritania under a private agreement criticised by environmental groups, was eventually forced to leave that coastline altogether earlier this year. Late last year, after a government coup, the ship was apprehended and fined $250,000 by the Mauritanian authorities.
McHugh, who turned 60 last May, was unassuming, modest, keen on personal fitness and a family man who was always "thinking ahead".
The courage with which his wife Vera, sons and daughters faced his brief and undiagnosed illness was "matched by his own", according to several close friends.
He is survived by Vera, sons Paul, Karl and Kevin, daughter Noreen, granddaughter Lauren and extended family.
Kevin McHugh: born May 26th, 1946; died October 31st, 2006