I grew up listening to my mother's stories of her childhood back in the Calton, Glasgow, Scotland. She and her family grew up in poverty and discrimination, but the love she bore them made it sound like Disneyland. She was one of nine, and her youngest brother's name was James.

When I was about 16, I said to her, quite innocently, "Mummy, it's so funny the way you and all the other McGinns look so much alike, except for Uncle James." That was when she told me that the man I'd always thought was her brother, and my uncle, was in actual fact, my cousin.

My mother's sister Nellie had fallen pregnant as a teenager, and in a Glasgow Irish Catholic family in the 1940s, felt she had no choice but to hide the growing evidence of her "sin" under loose clothing and mounting depression until she went into labor. (If my Grannie's capacity for denial was where my mother got hers, this deception wouldn't have been hard to practice.)

Her mother, my grandmother, had just lost her oldest son, James (the First), to an accident. He was about 15 years of age. The shock of this loss prompted my Grannie to miscarry the baby she herself was pregnant with at the time (imagine a time in which women could become grandmothers while still becoming mothers). Nellie's newborn son was folded into the brood living in a room-and-kitchen in a Gallowgate tenement; "another potato in the pot," as my Grannie would say.

Nellie eventually married, and had three "legitimate" children; Michael, Eileen, and John O'Reilly. (Yes, readers, THAT John O'Reilly.) My mother and father emigrated to the US, where I grew up with my American-born brother and sister. We visited our family as often as my father could afford to fly us all over there, where we were the "glamourous" American cousins. Gradually, our relatives began to prosper, and the happiest times of my childhood were when they visited us in New York, or we were able to fly "home" to visit them.

James McGinn grew a successful business from a rag stall. He sold antiques and secondhand goods. He married and had three children of his own, and became the patriarch of our family. Last week he died, after a long illness, and my sister and I received a call from our cousin, Elaine, who lives in England now, but would be in Glasgow for the funeral. She'd been asked to deliver a eulogy. Would Pattie and I write something?

I was honored; I had started life thinking he was my uncle. Then I found out he was my cousin. When I married his brother, John O, he became my brother-in-law. Think what you will; I love belonging to the kind of family in which these things can happen!

God rest you, Uncle James.

James McGinn was one-of-a-kind. To me, and to many of us here today, he was an uncle, but he was also a son, a husband, a father, a cousin, and a friend.

He was not a perfect man—which of us is perfect? But he was the perfect son, husband, father, and friend for us. As one of his American relations said, on hearing of his death, “he was a good and generous man.” Good and generous are two words that any one of us would be proud to have ascribed to us at the end of our journeys here. James McGinn was, indeed, a good and generous man.

 

He had his struggles and his triumphs. His wife, Chrissie, can attest to that. His beloved children, Paul and Helen, will also carry in their hearts the many memories of the good and generous father that he was. His oldest son, James, preceded him in death, and it comforts us to know that they are reunited today. His grandchildren were a great source of joy to him, and they can be assured he will watch over them as they continue to grow and prosper.

His spirituality grew in later years, and he hoped for a life beyond this life. So many conversations with him in recent years ended, not with him saying “good-bye,” but with him saying, “God bless you.” And God blessed James, if not with an overly long life, with a very full one.

 

James McGinn came, like many of us here today, from the humblest of beginnings. So many of our family’s tragedies and triumphs have been commemorated in this church; St. Alphonsus in the Calton. Through hard work, James pulled himself up and out of poverty, married a fine woman, started a family and a successful business. He enjoyed reading (especially about gangsters!), Celtic football, the music of his brother, Matt McGinn, his family, and life itself. He stood for his family members as a godfather and a best man. He did much good quietly and without fanfare, and if he had a flaw in this regard, it was that he couldn’t accept the generosity of others as easily as he could give generously to us. What a loss we have had—we won’t really know the extent of it until we realize how much we miss him in our day-to-day lives.

 

James touched lives on both sides of the Atlantic. His sister Pat and her family in New York, who are now scattered throughout the US, were blessed by his kindness and generosity throughout the years. He has a nephew in North Carolina who bears his full name: Max James McGinn Schmidt! He has nieces and nephews as well as great-nieces and nephews all over the world who’ve let me know they want to convey to you their condolences on the loss of an uncle they wish they could have known better.

 

James McGinn was indeed one-of-a-kind. We are poorer for his loss, but in heaven today, he’s busy explaining to someone, “Aye, ye know, thon hingmie!”