Melanie Ward writes about famous Irish baker, Barney Hughes

Barney Hughes was a successful businessman and the first Catholic to be elected to Belfast City Council. He also gave the world the ‘Belfast Bap’, a bread roll about half the size of a small pan loaf, with which he helped to feed Belfast’s poor during the Great Famine.

Born in 1808 to Peter Hughes and his wife Catherine, Barney grew up in Blackwaterstown, Co Armagh. Raised as a devout Catholic in an Irish speaking household, Barney was apprenticed to a baker at the age of 12 and in his late teens moved to Belfast to pursue his dream of opening his own bakery.

Working first in a bakery in Church Lane, he moved on to the largest bakery in Belfast, the Public Bakery in Church Street, which had been set up to stop bakers overcharging for their bread. Here he earned eight shillings a week, plus his keep. Barney married Jane Beatty, a Presbyterian who converted to Catholicism, in April, 1828, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

In 1833 he was appointed Manager of the Public Bakery, but his employment there came to an end in 1840 after he attended a fundraising dinner for Daniel O’Connell – which didn’t please his bosses.
Barney Hughes must have been of good standing in Belfast though, as he was able to borrow £1,400 to set up his own bakery in Donegall Street. In 1841, he installed two new ovens, doubling production and employing two teams of bakers.

Within a few years his bakery was producing £600 worth of bread a week and in 1846 Barney was able to open a second bakery in Donegall Place, known as ‘The Railway Bakery’.
Tragedy struck in 1847 when Barney’s wife, Jane, died in the Typhoid epidemic which struck Belfast, leaving him with three sons. He remarried two years later and went on to have three daughters with second wife, Margaret Lowry.

 

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