Emily name appeared in the newspapers on many occasions throughout her lifetime, and after her death too. She still to this date appears from time to time especially in connection with Scoil Acla and the Easter Rising. The last series of articles she appeared in during her lifetime were in 1944. The event could have been called the “Last Gathering of the Great Republicans” because unbeknownst to Emily and friends that is what it turned out to be.

At the ripe old age of 76, Emily and her lifelong friends Eva O’Flaherty and Anita McMahon, along with others, fund-raised for, commissioned and erected a monument dedicated to the Patriot Priest of 1798, Fr. Manus Sweeney near his birth place in Dookinella. This event was the last time that the Republicans of her generation got together, for in a decade or so most of them would be no more.

The local papers, Mayo News, Connaught Telegraph and Tuam Herald, all reported on the event. Emily’s good friend Anita McMahon, a retired journalist wrote the below article for the Mayo News. This would be her last report as old age had begun to take it’s toll on her. Indeed this would be the last big event for her and Emily as within the next few years both friends would be gone. Eva the younger of the three would live on for a decade after her friends, but she would be the last survivor of that generation reaching almost 90 years.

“…The Westport L.D.F, who sent the town’s Brass Band down to Achill in honour of the occasion; all the Emergency Services who with courteous efficiency kept order during procession and ceremony, to the Keel and Bunnacurry Fife and Drum Band under the direction of Mr Anthony Lavelle of Keel, which in addition to melody supplied a not of colour with their beautiful banners and sashes…”

Eva. Thanks to Mary J Murphy

Anita

Emily Courtesy of National Library of Ireland

Sources

Mayo News 1893-2004*, 26.08.1944, page 3

Thanks

Mary J Murphy; http://achilltourism.com/shop/achills-eva-oflaherty-forgotten-island-heroine/

Emily had a natural talent for letter writing, not surprising as her father did too, he wrote on religion, she on culture, politics and perhaps her biggest passion social justice. Her earliest known letter was to the Irish Times in 1896, donating a collection she had made during a stay in France for the families of the Kingstown Lifeboat tragedy. A decade later, when she first arrived on Achill with her husband Edward Weddall, she began a regular correspondence with An Claidheamh Soluis, an Irish Language Revival newspaper published by the Gaelic League. Read more: https://www.cnag.ie/en/2016-commemoration/an-claidheamh-soluis-online.html

She also wrote to the local paper the Mayo News about cultural activities and social issues unfolding on Achill at the time. When a social issue particularly incensed her, she took to writing to the national papers. The Irish Independent published some some such letters.

For her times, gender and position in society Emily made the papers quite a lot over her lifetime. Her first newspaper appearance was in 1896, when she collected for the Kingstown Lifeboat Disaster, and wrote to the Irish Times, thanking the contributors, which will be the subject of a late post. The first society event she was recorded attending was a Aestiva  (old word for Summer Festival) Fete, and Grand Bazaar in August 1898. The event was organised in aid of the funds for nearby Glasthule Schools in the People’s Park Kingstown, modern day Dun Laoghaire.Emily helped on with the “Cead Mille Failthe Stall”, not surprising on two accounts, the first that she would naturally be part of a welcoming committee especially if conducted through the Irish language. This event was the first in what would be many that Emily attended and indeed organised over her lifetime.

Sources

Dublin Daily Nation 18 August 1898

When the Scanlons left in the early 2000’s, the building began to slowly deteriorate. Little by little the elements chipped away at it’s structure, but Mother Nature still took her time to ravage the Amethyst completely. In early September 2016 the grand old lady of Keel was demolished to make way for the new, giving closure to an era.