Mayo memories: Mikuf a legend in the entertainment business
By Tom Gillespie
MICK Cuffe, along with his band members Brendan Smyth (guitar) of Lucan Street, Castlebar, and Mick Golden (drums) of Breaffy, were one of the top entertainment groups on the Mayo circuit for many years.
Here they are pictured during a Friday night session in Gerry Tolster’s pub on Spencer Street, Castlebar.
The full-house signs were a regular feature wherever Mickuf played. Patrons could be assured of a great night’s entertainment from the trio as well as side-splitting jokes from Mick, who was a master of comedy as well as being an accomplished musician and singer.
This week marks the 22nd anniversary of Mick’s passing.
Noelene Beckett-Crowe, on the Mayo Genealogy Group website, says Mick Cuffe had an extraordinary voice as well as a stage presence that he shared with millions during his 30-plus years career.
His voice was described as akin to Roy Orbison and his extraordinary wit to that of Brendan Grace.
He was a gentle person, always kind and helpful to all. He was affectionately known in Mayo as Mickuf.
From Ballydavock in Belcarra, he was son of Tom and Margaret (known as Peggy) Cuffe.
He began his working life with his father in the family garage business. He married Paula in the 1970s. They had two sons plus two daughters. Mick later married Maura O'Toole, Ballintubber.
Mick Cuffe’s amazing talent on bass guitar and his ambition to perform as an entertainer led to his many public performances in Ireland.
He captivated audiences wherever he sang or played his low-slung guitar while he also entertained with his wonderful tales.
He joined the famous Brose Walsh Showband during the 1970s. In later years he was to appear on TV on Hughie Green’s ‘Opportunity Knocks’ and ‘Stairway to Stardom’.
During the 1980s he was persuaded to perform in Dublin but returned to his home county where he continued his career.
Mickuf recorded a CD entitled ‘Mick Cuffe Sings for You' that on release raised a huge amount of cash for Cancer Care West.
Sadly, Mick Cuffe was affected with a terminal illness but his last years were lived as usual with music, singing and jokes.
When he died at the young age of 50 years his funeral Mass and service was as musical as his career had been.
His funeral day was music-filled at the Church of the Holy Rosary, Castlebar, where his daughter sang, friends played instruments, and the whole congregation sang the beautiful ‘Blowing in the Wind’.
His uncle Fr. Bernard Cuffe joined his wife’s two uncles, among local clergy, to celebrate his wonderful life. A piper played bagpipes as Mick Cuffe entered Ballintubber Abbey for his last resting place.
There have been very many tributes paid to this extraordinary talented man, including the following: ‘He was a man of many talents, humour, generosity and fun’.
‘The legend may be gone but he will not be forgotten’.
'Just to be around him was a tonic’.
‘The world is an emptier place without him’.
I once had the pleasure of travelling to Dublin with Mick Cuffe and the late Paul Waldron, who was involved with Mayo RehabCare. It was in the late 1970s.
Mick was a car salesman then and was visiting the capital to invest in some secondhand vehicles while Paul and I were to meet with President Patrick Hillary who was to attend a Hats of Ireland workshop. The enterprise was part of the RehabCare centre and their salesman Tom Kitterick made a presentation of a hat to the president, a photograph of which appeared with my report in The Connaught Telegraph the following week.
We had arranged to meet up with Mick Cuffe at 6 p.m. in, I think, the Parnell Mooney pub in Parnell Square.
Mick was a few minutes late in arriving, but boy didn’t he make his presence known. By the time we departed for Castlebar two hours later, he had an audience of customers around him. He perched himself in the centre of the lounge and in rapid succession he told joke after joke, much to the delight of the Jackeens.
On another occasion, an October bank holiday Monday, Mick came into Johnny McHale's pub in Castlebar. It was packed with regulars and a visiting Dublin football team. How I remember the date so well was because earlier in the day I had the task of cleaning the chimney in my parents home in Marian Row.
Again Mick stood in the centre of the floor and had the entire pub in stitches with his rapid-fire jokes. During the session one of the visitors asked Mick how did he remember all the jokes.
So great was his repertoire that he told the man to pick anything he saw in the pub and Mick had a joke to match it.
Mick was a member of the organising committee of the Castlebar International Song Contest committee. The event was staged in the first week of October with heats on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, with the final on Friday. On the Thursday night the committee held a function in Breaffy House Hotel. One particular Thursday night the committee had gathered but the event lacked atmosphere. It did until Mick arrived from playing a gig locally.
He read the scene as only Mick could and he put on a one-man show that had the audience clapping and shouting for more. Many of the jokes were rather ‘blue’ but no-one cared. They were just enjoying themselves.
His ability to read an audience and react exactly to what their requirements were was his trademark. Likewise, the musical bonding between Mick, Brendan and Mick (Golden) was legendary. This came back to me recently when a track from Mick’s CD, California Blue, was played on Midwest Radio. What a memory.