The Ulster History Circle has erected a blue plaque on his former home at College Square North, to commemorate Barney Hughes (1808–1878), the master baker and philanthropist who inspired one of Belfast’s most famous street songs.

In order to keep bread affordable during the Great Famine in the 19th century, Hughes, who supplied a high proportion of the staple diet of the city‘s then rapidly expanding working class, supplemented expensive flour with a cheaper blend made from peas and beans.

Although highly nutritious and beneficial for the digestive system, these ’economy’ loaves tended to create flatulence stimulating the widely remembered rhyme about Barney Hughes’s bread, sticking to your belly like lead.

The blue plaque has been erected at 11 College Square North, where three generations of the Hughes family resided from 1863 until 1949, after he bought the late-Georgian style terrace house at the height of his considerable prosperity.

Cllr Michael Browne, the chairman of the Belfast City Council Development Committee, who unveiled the plaque, said: ‘Belfast City Council is delighted to sponsor this plaque which commemorates a man who made a lasting and considerable impact on the development and life of our historic city. Barney Hughes was not only renowned as a baker and businessman of great distinction. He was also a philanthropist of outstanding generosity and played a distinguished role in the public life of the city at a pivotal stage of its development.’

Hughes’s former residence is now owned by the Hearth Housing Association which is committed to providing social housing by restoring and conserving listed buildings of architectural and historical significance.

Karen Latimer, the Association’s Chairperson, said: 'Visitors to a place always admire its historic buildings, as they contribute greatly to what makes the experience of each city different. However the history of buildings requires explanation, and the blue plaques add depth to the experience of visitors and locals alike in exploring their environment.'

Jack Magee, who published a biography of Hughes, said, in a message from his home in Australia: ‘He liberally supported all kinds of charities regardless of religion or politics. He sacrificed profits during the potato famine, when all food prices soared, to keep prices as low as possible, forcing competitors to follow suit. As a result Belfast enjoyed the cheapest basic food in Ireland during times of great hardship. Bread was central to the diet of the poor. This was probably his greatest humanitarian act.’