Born June 30th, 1967
Died March 12th, 2025
Fiona McHugh, who has died aged 57, was a former editor of the Irish edition of the Sunday Times, and co-founder of the Fallon & Byrne restaurant and food hall.
Her interests in both journalism and food could be traced back to her nomadic childhood in the Middle East. Her father, Frank, a garda, worked with the UN, which led the family to live in countries Cyprus, Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. She was born in Nicosia, the fourth of five children. Her mother, Norrie, was a talented cook and picked up recipes and novel ingredients as she moved around the world.
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Like her siblings, Fiona attended international primary school before returning to Ireland as a boarder for her secondary school education. She attended Ring College in Waterford, and Loreto College on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin. Her schoolfriend Deborah Pearce recalled that she was one of the brightest in the class, but also mischievous and great fun.
During one school holiday, she visited the McHugh family in Jerusalem and, on seeing where they lived, later thought it was no surprise she became a journalist. “It was a very divided city,” she recalled. “They were in the Arab quarter but they could see all sides of the conflict. Everyone’s story was interesting to Fiona.”
After studying English and philosophy in UCD, she did an internship in Brussels and honed her journalistic skills at Reuters, the Economist and Bloomberg. She was working with Bloomberg when she was recruited as business editor of the Irish edition of the Sunday Times in 1998. Her editor, Rory Godson, said he had heard of her before he met her. “The older McHugh siblings were smart, sociable and well known,” he said.
“She had a steely determination to land good stories and enlisted allies through intelligence and warmth. It was a golden age and she was at the heart of it.”
Among the stories she broke were Irish Life’s merger with Irish Permanent, and British Telecom’s bid to buy Esat Telecom.
She succeeded Godson as editor, making her one of the few women in Ireland to edit a newspaper. Former European ombudsman Emily O’Reilly was a political journalist with the newspaper at that time. “Fiona was a wonderful editor when I worked in the Sunday Times,” she said. “She was thoughtful and calm, with a great sense of humour and brought incredible style to everything she did”.
Her picture editor, Eileen Martin, said she was an open and generous boss. “As editor she created a collaborative, inclusive and supportive environment and I always found her both extremely approachable and decisive,” she said.
Her former assistant Brenda McNevin recalled an editor who was unflappable, despite the pressures of the job. This was epitomised by her handling of the death of former Fianna Fáil deputy Liam Lawlor in a car crash in Moscow in the early hours of Saturday, October 22nd, 2005. In the rush to print, several Sunday newspapers published unfounded rumours about the woman who was travelling with him and they were subsequently sued for libel, but she stuck to the confirmed facts. “It emphasised her absolute integrity. She was a trailblazer. Nothing was impossible for her,” McNevin said.
Chairman of Times Newspapers John Witherow said she led a formidable team by good example and grace. “We missed her when she went into business but enjoyed her reflected glory,” he said. She left the newspaper to open Fallon & Byrne with her husband, Paul Byrne, and restaurateur Brian Fallon. Her husband had admired the New York delicatessens such as Dean & Deluca and Gourmet Garage when he had worked in the US, and one day when they were passing the old telephone exchange on Exchequer Street in Dublin, they agreed it would be a perfect premises.
McHugh was expecting the second of their three children when they opened the food hall, restaurant and wine cellar. In an interview in this newspaper in 2011, she said it was a big leap of faith. “We threw everything we had at it – including money from the sale of Paul’s house – without really thinking about the risk involved. We ran dry several weeks before we were due to open.” Some family savings got the project over the finishing line.
Staff who worked with her recalled her energy, leadership and professionalism, while customers noted how Fallon & Byrne brought a breath of fresh air into the Dublin food scene. Many of the condolence messages on RIP.ie were left by people who had worked alongside her during those early days in Fallon & Byrne.
Restaurants Association of Ireland chief executive Adrian Cummins said she was “an extremely hard worker, a pioneer of the restaurant trade and creative force in hospitality”. The business took off, winning awards and garnering very good reviews, but it also faced several challenges. These included the economic downturn and the misappropriation of company funds by an employee and subsequent financial woes. An examiner began working with the company in early 2012 and Fallon & Byrne recovered and went on to open two more outlets, in Dún Laoghaire and Rathmines. However, those two outlets later closed.
In 2019, McHugh and her husband opened the stylish Lenehan’s restaurant and bar in a former hardware shop in Rathmines, and the couple sold their share in Fallon & Byrne the following year. However, the timing was unfortunate for their new venture. Just as Lenehan’s was finding its feet, the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered the business. It struggled to recover and eventually closed for good in 2022.
After this she turned her attention to her husband’s construction company and was also a member of the Institute of Directors Ireland. She had begun a chartered director programme with the institute before illness got in the way. The director of the programme, Eileen Gleeson, said she was a part of their community and had a great cohort of colleagues. “I knew her as a journalist too, someone always interested and always interesting,” she said.
Despite her cancer diagnosis a few years ago, she retained her energy right to the end and was as interested in everyone’s lives as she had always been. Friends said she never felt sorry for herself, and her strong sense of positivity and joie de vivre was inspirational.
Her final editing job brought her back to her childhood. Her brother Peter wrote a novel, Fragmented, inspired by their lives in the Middle East, and she acted as his chief editor. Her feedback was invaluable.
Speaking at her funeral, her husband said she was the strongest and bravest person he had ever met. “There is a lot to be said for optimism, and I think it was one of Fi’s most enduring characteristics, that and her sense of adventure,” he said.
Fiona McHugh is survived by her husband, Paul Byrne; their children, Kate, Rory and Jack; and her siblings, Peter, Karen, Orla and Emer. She was predeceased by her parents Frank and Norrie.
