While in the capital, "McDonough’s name was placarded conspicuously in Dublin as the celebrated Irish piper from Annaghdown, County Galway, especially on the bridges crossing the Liffey.
While playing on the streets one evening, to the keen delight of an appreciative audience, some well-to-do gentry who came along were so captivated by his inimitable execution that they took him into a clubhouse or hotel in the vicinity.
McDonough himself was reduced to dire poverty by Great Famine, forcing him to leave Dublin and die in Gort poorhouse.
O'Neill remarks "His splendid instrument, made specially for him by Michael Egan, the most famous of all Irish pipemakers, while both were in Liverpool, was treasured by his widow for seven years after his death.
Necessity however forced her to sacrifice her sentiments, and though costing originally twenty pounds she disposed of it for a trice to a pipe-repairer named Dugan, of Merchant’s Quay, Dublin."