"Mother of the Civil Rights"-Memorial Mass -- Stormont Watch

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Date Posted: Sun, Jun 15 2008, 20:43:49 PDT
Author: Report to Derry Journal
Subject: "Mother of the Civil Rights"-Memorial Mass

If possible, could the Civil Rights veterans group have the below press release published in Tuesday�s Journal? Word count: 570.

�Mother of the Civil Rights� Memorial Mass

The death occurred this time last year of Mrs. Mary Ellen O�Doherty of Crawford Square. Only in latter years were her personal and diverse contributions to Derry and a wider national community publicly recognised, both at home and abroad.

She was described as �Mother of the Civil Rights� by leading veterans of that era and several journalists. On her 99th birthday she was nominated for the prestigious Celtic Cross Award by Irish-American groups in Boston. At the time she insisted that she would only accept the award if other Derry recipients included Women�s Aid in memory of its local founder, the late Cathy Harkin, in addition to some other families and individuals whom she believed deserved similar recognition.

Previous recipients of the Award included Raymond Flynn, a former Mayor of Boston who became the U.S. Ambassador to Vatican City. The Awards Committee in America had never before experienced such a �demand� but agreed to duly deliberate upon such.

Alas, as a result of her unprecedented request, Mary Ellen never lived long enough to personally receive the award. Four months after her death, as she had wished, 14 others, including Women�s Aid, the family of Noel Peace Prize laureate John Hume and Bishop Edward Daly received the award at three different venues; Derry Guildhall, Nazareth House and the Museum of Free Derry.

Tomorrow evening, a memorial Mass to celebrate her long, fruitful and community-orientated life will be celebrated St. Eugene�s Cathedral at 7.30 pm. The celebrant will be Fr. Gerard Mongan who officiated at Mary Ellen�s funeral on the same date, June 18th last year.

Mrs. O�Doherty (nee Hegarty) was born at Balee near Strabane in 1908 and died in her one hundredth year. Speaking at a private ceremony at her graveside to mark the centenary of her birth on April 28th, Mr. Ivan Cooper, a former Mid-Derry MP, who became Minister for Community Relations in 1974, said:
�This was an ordinary, kind and very intelligent lady, who led an extraordinary life. I and many who had the pleasure and privilege to know her would all agree she was fiercely anti-sectarian. Although always a quiet and friendly person, with an unforgettable smile, she was a very determined, heroic and articulate advocate for the feminist cause and full civil rights. There was no march she wasn�t on, from Coalisland to Dungannon and Duke Street forty years ago, to Burntollet in �69 and Bloody Sunday. In January �72 in the Bogside, where her family once lived, she and her late husband, Harry, went to the aid of the dying and wounded. She, and other women such as the shirt-factory �girls� were the real backbone of the civil rights movement, and all of them should never be forgotten when history is spoken or written of those remarkable and turbulent days. She spoke for many ordinary people when she and other, mainly working-class, women cried out to Stormont, as if with one united voice, �End all your bigotry and discrimination now! Enough is Enough!�

Presiding at the short centenary commemoration in Derry Cemetery was Vincent Coyle, the son of the late �Vinny� Coyle. His father became an iconic figure because of his position as Chief Marshal of over 700 civil rights stewards. �Vinny� with two of his late brothers, Joe and Johnny, voluntarily acted as personal bodyguards to several prominent civil rights figures. All three were fully conscious of the dangers inherit in stepping into such a role.

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