ICA News: Nora Hennessy kept the show on the road at Galbally ICA
“I got to the meeting, and the other members were around the table with their minds made up. I was very disappointed. I was the only one who wanted to keep it going. The information officer was there, and she told me she’d be in touch.”
When Nora went home that evening, her brother said she simply couldn’t let the guild go, if only for the sake of their late mother, Brigid Ryan.
“She would have turned in her grave if it was let go, because she did everything she could to keep it up. Years ago, she’d go down to the old school where the guild met then, and there might only be one or two there, and she’d light the fire. She was a great craftswoman, from dress-making to rug-making to tapestry to lumra, she did it. She went to An Grianán so many times.”
Galbally Guild was founded in 1946, and its first president was Kit Quane. “She lived ‘til she was over 90. She had the most marvellous pair of hands [for craft],” says Nora, whose own initiation into ICA, aged 15, was due, unsurprisingly, to her mother.
“My mother sent me to An Grianán when I was 16. You could spend a month there then, doing courses. I learned everything from killing a chicken and curing sheepskin to poetry and gardening. I did embroidery. I had to make a dress for myself. It was like boot-camp, just not as gruelling.”
After 16-years in the UK working in a shop and cooking in a restaurant, Nora came home in 1978 and joined ICA again the year after. Rather than let the guild close two years ago, Nora did everything she could to keep it going. Today, it has 14 members, and many of them are Nora’s relatives.
“My two daughters are in it. So is my sister, Kitty McGrath, also my three sisters-in-law and Marian Maher, my son’s girlfriend. I have four nieces in the guild, my mother would be delighted to know her grandchildren are members.”
Helen O’Donnell, a member of the ‘old’ Galbally Guild has returned, and Nora’s neighbour, Marguerite O’Mahony, has also joined. “About half the members are in their 30s and 40s. About four have school-going children.”
The close-knit guild plays a vital role in catering for community events. They bake for the Galbally Community Council garden fete in August. The guild hosts a fair in October, selling their own home-made goods.
More recently, they catered for the Team Limerick Clean-up event; a local 1916 commemorative event on Easter Sunday; and a GAA celebration last summer that marked Galbally’s 1994 win. Galbally meets at 8pm on the second Tuesday of the month in the community centre. New members are welcome.
