Following in Margaret's footsteps

New book and album celebrate the resilience of Carrigallen woman

There’s an image in the book ‘Margaret of New Orleans From Carrigallen to America’ of two children, possibly orphans, gazing longingly through a bakery window.

Written and illustrated by Jon Berkeley, the boy and the girl are outside, looking at what could be theirs if they had the funds for such delicacies; biscuits, cupcakes and sweets galore of all shapes and colours.

It’s New Orleans, some two centuries ago, and Margaret Gaffney is watching the pair and many like them gazing in her window, she’s viewing her own past in the lives of others. She sets herself on a stool outside her shop and passes baked goods to those in need.

Margaret emigrated from Ireland to Baltimore with her parents and two siblings when she was five years old, enduring the hardships that no child should have to experience. The year without a summer, 1816, compelled the family and many others across the sea, leaving their three eldest boys behind. Her baby sister died soon after they arrived, and in 1822 Yellow Fever took her own parents. Later in life, she lost her baby girl and her husband.

You could say Margaret had plenty of reasons to give up, but she never did. She went on to establish several orphanages and her own bakery business in New Orleans. She became well-known for her kind nature, and her smart mind. She never learned how to read or write, but this didn’t hold her back. Above all, she humbly sat outside her bakery, sharing loaves with those in need.

Legacy

It is these traits that the Margaret of New Orleans Community Association are keen to spread around the community of Carrigallen, which was Margaret’s birth-place. Her home cottage in Tully was lovingly re-constructed by the efforts of the entire community in 2008, and her legacy continues to be felt through the community, from the schools through the pubs, into the Cornmill Theatre and beyond.

It was after Maureen Williamson, a committee member and fierce promoter of arts and heritage, penned and performed her plays ‘Our Storys of Margaret of New Orleans’ and ‘The Other Side’ with help from her fellow committee members and Leitrim Youth Theatre, that the committee decided to tell Margaret’s story through a children’s book and a collection of songs. The play was accompanied by lyrics penned by Tony Fahy.

“Our ethos is to follow in Margaret’s footsteps and to get her story out there,” Maura told the Celt.

In 2023, after receiving funding from the Leitrim Arts Office, the group set about taking that path from Tully in Carrigallen to New Orleans, and sharing their journey with the wider community and beyond.

“We always said that we’d love to have her story in a book form and particularly in a children’s book.”

With the help of Dublin-born and Barcelona-based writer and illustrator Jon Berkeley, who came back home to learn about Margaret’s story, the book was launched in May.

However, the community there took their story telling techniques one step further with Tony Fahy and Drew Burns, along with other members of the community, putting the tale into CD format. The lyrics and music were written by Tony, who tells the story through song.

Charting Margaret’s life the album opens with ‘The Ballad of Margaret’s Birthplace’.

“That’s when the story starts and continues right to the very end when she’s in the heart of New Orleans, where she dies,” explains Tony.

Resilience

“The thing that stands out mostly for me is how Margaret came through such a difficult life and was such a strong person. She never gave up even though she had reason to many’s a time,” Susan O’Rourke, who is a committee member tells the Celt.

“Her resilience is what really shines through always.

“As a group we would say her resilience helped us to get through many troubled times and dark days.”

As a teacher in Carrigallen primary school, Susan believes the story is important to share with young people, as it “echoes how someone from such humble beginnings who went through such hardship, can get through it all and then at the end became such a renowned person.”

Now the community in New Orleans, where the publicly funded statue to Margaret of New Orleans stands, are embarking upon a mission to have the Leitrim woman beatified, which is something the committee greatly support.

“She looked after everyone, it didn’t matter what religion, what colour, what race, anything like that and I think that’s a message in today’s society that has to be shared,” Susan praises, describing how in their own community now, there are a number of people of different nationalities who are embraced.

The committee speaks to the Celt in the ‘Margaret’s Corner Community Centre’, a space they created with Margaret’s ethos in mind. There, everybody in the community can gather and socialise. During the hour the Celt visits, an English class for non-native speakers is going on upstairs. On the same lines of inclusivity, there are games nights, fitness classes, birthday parties and more organised which allows people to come together.

What the community have done there is a fitting tribute to Margaret, who according the book, had a “brave soul and a big heart.”