50 Golden years with the Mothers’ Union

One of three women to join that night five decades ago, Anna became the youngest member they had in Templemore MU.

“A friend was joining and she invited me to join it with her and I thought it would be interesting,” she said.

Back in the 1960s, women attending the MU meetings attended in much the same way you would have attended church, she recalled: “We went as it we were attending church. You had a service or a talk and it wasn’t until 1971 that I became more involved. My first introduction to sewing was when the MU was asked to do a table cloth for the President Shield. So I was involved in that and we still have the table cloth and we call it our ‘good cloth’. It is embroidered and has hand-made lace and is still used for the Mothers’ Union table.”

Anna keeps the ‘good cloth’ upstairs at her home in Kilfennan and despite the detail and work involved in it, the ladies won nothing for their efforts.

“We was robbed,” she quips.

Anna has many memories of her years with the MU.

“I have good memories of the MU and all those competitions...and the catering. We catered for groups and that’s how we made our money for the Foreign Missions and MU missionaries.. I am involve in knitting and I have done all sorts of sewing projects for the church,

“My favourite project was competing in the Coal Advisory Rose Bowl competitions, they were always very interesting. The competition was usually based on a nursery rhyme and we usually had to do a flower arrangement or a cake. We were the runners-up in 1986 and we won the Rose Bowl in 1991 with ‘There was an old woman who lived in a shoe’.

“For that competition I had to knit 35 different wee dolls and my friend made a cake in the shape of a bed and she made a quilt from icing which was put over three ‘babies’ in the bed,” Anna said enjoying the memory.

While she did not say what happened to all the knitted children, the cake ended up being taken to a playgroup operating in the Creggan area.

Asked if she would recommend joining an organisation like the Mothers’ Union, Anna did not hesitate: “I would very much encourage people to get involved. It gives you a great sense of belonging,” he said.

In her day Anna not only got involved in the creative projects associated with the MU, she has at various times served both as secretary and as treasurer, and since 1991 she has dutifully taken the minutes for the meetings.

In addition, Anna is a founder member of a women’s group affiliated to the Mothers’ Union and she also been responsible for taking the minutes for that group too.

“Do you know, you have one meeting a month in the Mothers’ Union and the month just flies by,” she said.