A stone will honour Eva, a remarkable woman

EVA Oâ€â„¢Flaherty shares a seventh great-grandfather with hair-flopping, pseudo foppish, Tory London Lord Mayor Boris Johnson; she called Oscar Wilde â€Å“my cousin Oscarâ€Â; Brendan Oâ€â„¢Carrollâ€â„¢s maternal McHugh grandfather came from her Caherlistrane home parish; the famous poet Eva of the Nation was her first cousin; she liked to hear extracts from the Oxford Book of Verse whilst eating breakfast; a maternal Oâ€â„¢Gorman ancestor was born in Bunratty Castle; Grace Oâ€â„¢Malley was related through marriage; another ancestor was one of the biggest wool merchants in Ireland in the early 1800s; she modelled veiled hats for motoring cars in Paris and in London at the turn of the 19th century, and one of her favourite recitations was â€Å“Nell Flahertyâ€â„¢s Drakeâ€Â. An astonishing, contradictory mix of intellectual, fashionista, member of the gentry, milliner, cultural aficionada, admirer of literature, patron of the arts and a refined, lady-like rebel to the depths of her soul, Eva Mary Oâ€â„¢Flaherty of Lisdonagh House (now a select guest house owned by John and Finola Cooke) in Caherlistrane will be 50 years dead on the April 17. To mark that occasion a commemorative stone (carved by Declan Jennings) will be unveiled and blessed by Fr Pat Oâ€â„¢Brien at the Oâ€â„¢Flaherty family vault in Donaghpatrick cemetery on that date, a Wednesday, at 7.30 pm. All are welcome. Eva was born on March 31, 1874 to lawyer Martin Oâ€â„¢Flaherty (an agent in the 1840s for the Young Irelanders and solicitor for John Mitchel during his 1848 felony-treason trial) and his wife Mary Frances Barbara Oâ€â„¢Gorman. Thanks to historian Anna McHugh we learned that Evaâ€â„¢s mother had been married before and that pairing â€â€ with Nicholas Lalor in 1857 â€â€ gave Eva seven ready-made stepsiblings. Her own younger brother, Brian Oâ€â„¢Flaherty, died at 18 when Eva was only 21 which was a terrible blow coming on top of her motherâ€â„¢s death when she was just seven years of age. Lisdonagh House was auctioned in 1886 â€â€ Eva was 12 â€â€ and from then on she lived with family members in Limerick (the Quins), following her education in Mount Anville and Alexandra Colleges in Dublin. Although she called Achill home for the 50 years before she died, we know precisely where her heart lay all her life because she always said that she wanted to die in Galway. Indeed according to her nurse-companion for her last six months, Mary Timlin (née Noonan), Eva made a final pilgrimage to Lisdonagh House and to her Clarke cousins in Thomastown House, Belclare, just months before her death. We were told too that Eva kept a photograph of Lisdonagh House with her throughout her life. She stayed in Tuam During her penultimate visit to Galway from her home in Achill in late 1962 Eva stayed in The Imperial Hotel in Tuam. We know that thanks to Bridie Gannon, retired nurse and sister of Brendan Gannon of Caherlistrane, both of whom knew Eva Oâ€â„¢Flaherty in the late 1950s when they had occasion to visit her on the island. At Evaâ€â„¢s deathbed in 1963 were her friend and employee of decades, Mary Glynn (one of four Glynn sisters from Kiltimagh who worked with Miss Oâ€â„¢Flaherty over the years), Mary Timlin, and a few family members. Her funeral was one of the biggest ever seen in the area, many came from Achill to pay their respects, her coffin was draped with a tricolour and she was buried with military honours. President Eamon De Valera sent Senator Mark Killilea Senior to deliver the oration on behalf of the government, Brendan Gannon coordinated the funeral arrangements and solicitor Henry Comerford attended to Evaâ€â„¢s final legal wishes. A truly extraordinary person who packed an unbelievable amount of living into her 90 years, Eva Oâ€â„¢Flaherty will probably be best remembered for having co-founded Scoil Acla in 1910 with Claud Chevasse, Darrell Figgis and Anita McMahon, and for running St Colmanâ€â„¢s Knitting Industries on the island for five decades. A salon in Achill Garments made in the factory were sold in the finest stores in Dublin, London and beyond, and Evaâ€â„¢s salon in her cosy lamp lit home in Dooagh became something of an unofficial HQ for artists and intellectuals for years. Some of her friends on the island included Paul Henry, Marie Howet, Ernie Oâ€â„¢Malley, Graham Greene and Heinrich Boll. Numerous family members visited her over the years too, two of the most frequent guests being her stepbrother, Colonel Nicholas Purcell Oâ€â„¢Gorman Lalor and his son, John Oâ€â„¢Gorman Lalor, who had been a Jesuit priest for a time. Weâ€â„¢ve learned of late, thanks to Anne Tierney of the Old Tuam Society and to Mary Timlin, that Eva Oâ€â„¢Flaherty was a good friend of Judy Coyne of the Knock Shrine Association. Along with other leading lights of the day, such as Senator Eileen Costello (wife of Tuamâ€â„¢s Dr Thomas Bodkin Costello) and the remarkable Anita McMahon, journalist, translator, co-founder of Scoil Acla in 1910 and prisoner in Galway Gaol in 1920 for carrying â€Å“seditiousâ€Â documents, Eva was involved in the Mayo Industrial Development Association in the early 1930s. Now retired in the UK, Mrs Timlin (a sister of Arthur Noonan, the former RTE correspondent) said that Eva spoke often of Judy Coyne and of their high hopes to encourage cottage industries, like St Colmans. Mary Timlin gave us a wealth of new information about Evaâ€â„¢s life including the fact that she cycled into Dublin city during the 1916 Rising (she may have been staying with Clarke cousins in Blackrock), bluffed her way past a sentry by pretending to be in tears looking for a family member and ended up as a courier at the GPO, where she hid behind sandbags. Mrs Timlin said also that Eva was a good friend of Dr Kathleen Lynn, one of Irelandâ€â„¢s first women doctors, the Chief Medical Officer during the Easter Rising, and founder of St Ultanâ€â„¢s Hospital for Children in 1919. Belle of the Ball Before World War I took the gloss off the carefree lives of the well-heeled and well-connected in London, Eva Oâ€â„¢Flaherty was something of a belle of the ball in places like The Café Royal in Regent Street, the haunt of aristocrats, writers and artists. Frequented by the likes of Oscar Wilde, WB Yeats (Evaâ€â„¢s favourite poet), and artists Paul Henry (who was Evaâ€â„¢s friend on Achill for years), The Café (which reopened at Christmas 2012) was Evaâ€â„¢s spiritual home for a number of years. Thanks to Anne Tierney of The Old Tuam Society again, we know that Eva lived in London c1913 on Chelsea Street and was involved in a millinery outlet. She was subsequently left money by an elderly woman, perhaps a companion, and that money may have set up St Colmanâ€â„¢s Knitting Industries. Prior to that Anne placed Eva in Limerick in 1901 with Quin relatives but by 1914 she had left London and was in Dublin in Cumann na mBan with the likes of Louise Gavan Duffy, daughter of Charles, who had been in the Young Irelanders with Martin Oâ€â„¢Flaherty 50 years earlier. Model for Dunhill Because of Mrs Timlin we discovered that Eva modelled for Dunhill cigarettes in Pall Mall in the early 1900s (introduced in 1899 as a luxury premium item for the upper class!), and gratis of Henry Comerford, we learned that Eva modelled hats in Paris around the same time where she was friends with Countess Markievicz and Maud Gonne. Henry also tells of how his solicitor father â€â€ who knew Martin Oâ€â„¢Flaherty well â€â€ often harumphed about many of Evaâ€â„¢s acquaintances, particularly the busy-body bunch of Cumann na mBan women who would have included his own relative, Máire Comerford, plus Maud Gonne, the Countess, Anita McMahon, Dr Kathleen Lynn and the aforementioned Louise Gavan Duffy. As a by the by, Director Joe Comerford is a nephew of Máireâ€â„¢s. He made Reefer and The Model in 1988. Dolores Keane sang the title song in that film, and her two aunts, Sarah and Rita, were great Cumann na mBan women fadó fadó. Thereâ€â„¢s a 1929 painting of Eva, done in Achill by Belgian artist Marie Howet, shown to us by Brendan Gannon, in which she is holding a cigarette as bold as brass so it wasnâ€â„¢t all pose and poise in London, she liked her ciggie. Mrs Timlin explained that above all else, Eva was fun, fun, fun, and remained a livewire to the very end with the effervescent spirit of a young girl at almost 90 years of age. â€Å“She was unique,â€Â said Mary Timlin, â€Å“and it was a privilege to have known her.â€Â Based on ancestral research carried out by Richard Carruthers-Zurowski, it was historian Declan Barron of the Newpark Inn in Ennis who told us that Evaâ€â„¢s maternal Oâ€â„¢Gorman ancestor (James, born c.1688 in Bunratty Castle, it is thought) was Boris Johnsonâ€â„¢s seventh great-grandfather. The high-born links continue with Mary Oâ€â„¢Gorman, Evaâ€â„¢s mother, who was herself a grand-daughter of one of the biggest wool merchants in Ireland in his time, Richard Oâ€â„¢Gorman. Mary Oâ€â„¢Gorman was also the grand-niece of pivotal United Ireland activists, the Oâ€â„¢Gorman brothers of Ennis (James, Purcell and Richard) all of whom were friends of Daniel Oâ€â„¢Connell. As if that wasnâ€â„¢t enough, King Dan himself was an ancestor of Anita MacMahon, one of Evaâ€â„¢s many lifelong friends. Purcell Oâ€â„¢Gorman (the elder) was Oâ€â„¢Connellâ€â„¢s second during his famous 1815 duel with Mr dâ€â„¢Esterre, so little wonder then that Eva had green blood pumping through her veins â€Â¦ Through his links with Miss Oâ€â„¢Flaherty, Caherlistrane and Achill, Brendan Gannon was hugely instrumental in the book, Achillâ€â„¢s Eva Oâ€â„¢Flaherty: Forgotten Island Heroine being written. He is one of the guiding hands behind the commemorative stone being erected at her family vault to honour her 50th anniversary on April 17, and he is also one of the main movers behind Caherlistraneâ€â„¢s plans for The Gathering celebration in the community next August 18-25.