Funeral of emigrant who died alone: ‘Joe would take solace from fact his story may help others’

When he was around five-years-old, Joseph Tuohy was ripped from his mother’s arms. It was a moment that shaped the rest of his life.

Originally from the village of Toomevara in north Tipperary, Joseph, a skilled tailor, who remained private all of his life, was one of the forgotten Irish emigrants who returned to the land of his birth just once, to marry an Irish girl and to see his institutionalised mother one last time.