Born December 15th, 1959
Died October 13th, 2023
Mourners at the funeral of Irish Olympian Hugh Russell, who has died aged 63 after a short illness, heard how the three passions in his life were boxing, photography and family.
The capacious St Patrick’s Church on Donegall Street in Belfast city centre was thronged for the funeral Mass of one of the city’s best known and most popular individuals who at 5ft 4in and with a mop of red curly hair was given the title Little Red.
Officiating priest Fr Michael Spence told how his wife, Kathy, and their children and grandchildren, were his chief love and how boxing had brought Kathy and Hugh together.
It was 1980 and he had just returned from Moscow with a flyweight bronze. This was a big moment in Ireland as it had been 16 years since an Irish competitor had last won an Olympic medal – Jim McCourt, another Belfast boxer also taking bronze, in Tokyo in 1964 – but it was an even greater occasion for the city and particularly for the nationalist New Lodge area of north Belfast, where Russell was reared and boxed for the local Holy Family club.
So there was going to be a celebration. Russell was exhausted, as Fr Spence recounted, and wasn’t up for such a grand local reception, but his mother, Eileen, told him that regardless of how fatigued he was, he wasn’t missing the party.
And it all worked out well as it was there he met the love of his life, Kathy, who later wasn’t slow about telling him, “You may have brought back bronze from Moscow, but you struck gold when you met me.”
Light on his feet and brave, Russell enjoyed success from his junior amateur days all the way to 1978 when, aged 18, he won a flyweight bronze at the Commonwealth games in Edmonton in Canada and two years later gained his Olympic medal.
During his televised fights in Moscow, as Russell was informed on his return, the regular sectarian street violence was put on hold for a while: “The streets cleared for 15 minutes and afterwards the rioting started again.”
He turned professional in 1981, winning British titles at bantamweight and then at flyweight. Two of what were described as “epic” bouts were against another Belfast boxer, Davy Larmour from the loyalist Shankill.
In October 1982 he emerged victorious by the narrowest of margins after a 12-round contest against Larmour in the Ulster Hall in Belfast. A photograph by Irish News photographer Brendan Murphy of a bloodied and battered Russell reaching out through the ropes to embrace his mother captured the brutal fervour of the gladiatorial tussle. Murphy later became his picture editor and mentor at the Irish News.
The following March, Larmour took the honours after he dropped Russell to the canvas in the fifth round, a defeat that prompted Russell to return to flyweight, where he won more battles. Despite the rivalry, Russell and Larmour became firm friends.
Russell’s most coveted professional award was winning and being allowed keep a Lonsdale Belt for making three successful British title defences. He said, however, that his proudest memory was his Olympic bronze medal.
After the Olympics, Russell had a pile of spare roubles, but could not take them out of the Soviet Union, so he invested in a Zenith camera and “that started me in photography”. Probably his best-known photograph in a 40-year award-winning career was of a fired-up Gerry Conlon punching the air as he left the Old Bailey in London in 1989 when his wrongful conviction for the Guildford pub bombings was overturned.
The press pack had been cordoned some distance from the Old Bailey but here Russell had the help of an Irish builder who recognised the boxer. He took him to a work site opposite the Old Bailey, handed him a paintbrush and told him if anybody asked any questions “just start painting the wall”. He was perfectly placed when hours later Conlon exited the court.
Another standout and poignant image of his was of a young girl in her nightdress standing at her bullet-ridden front door after a gun attack in west Belfast.
His boss Brendan Murphy said he was as courageous a photographer as he was a boxer. “Photographers all had each other’s backs; it was a close community and we looked out for each other.”
That camaraderie was evidenced in how his photographer colleagues did one of the coffin lifts at the funeral and also formed a guard of honour outside the church, many with their cameras slung over their shoulders.
His former Irish News colleague Alison Morris, now crime correspondent with the Belfast Telegraph, told a story illustrating how boxing was a sport that crossed the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland, with Russell playing a central role.
They were first at the scene of a loyalist feud shooting when their car was immediately surrounded by “angry-looking men who weren’t exactly rolling out the red carpet for a nationalist newspaper ... I got out of the car to try and smooth things over, when one heavily tattooed loyalist said, ‘Is that Hugh Russell, if I go and get a boxing glove will he sign it for me?’ I replied that he most certainly would, and that was us sorted.”
Noel Doran, editor of the Irish News, in similar vein spoke of how following their first fight, Russell was driven to the Mater Hospital in north Belfast by Davy Larmour so they both could be patched up. “Anyone who wants to get to the essence of our city’s dark humour needs to listen to Davy’s tale of how he was placed behind screens in the ward, and examined by a doctor who looked at his many cuts and asked, ‘Who did that to you?’ before Davy pulled back the curtain and pointed to Hugh, who was waiting his turn on the other side, announcing ‘He did’.”
Russell was also a senior official in the British Boxing Board of Control, overseeing many big fights in Belfast. In 2019 he was inducted into the Belfast City Council sporting hall of fame.
Hugh Russell is survived by his wife, Kathy; children Hugh, Hayley, James and Calum; grandchildren Aodhan, Archie, Charlie and Freya; and family circle.
