international women’s day

We need your detective skills to help us find out more information about the women in the Daly collection which we recently acquired from the Kerry Library Archives. We have already processed some of the Daly letters which are available to read and transcribe. We are working to get the rest of this expansive collection online.

The letters concern Irish republican Charlie Daly, who rejected the peace treaty with Britain and was subsequently captured and imprisoned at Drumboe Castle in County Donegal, where he was executed on 14 March 1923.

As explored the collection, we discovered that women comprise approximately 70% of the correspondence. Although extensive research has been conducted in Charlie Daly’s background and life story, many of the women within the network remain unknown.

What we know so far

Throughout his life, Charlie Daly regularly corresponded with his mother, Ellen Daly, but his sisters and female friends of the family also exchanged letters with him and with each other.

The women in Daly’s network pursued different careers. For example:

Katie Maria O’Sullivan, a distant cousin of the Dalys, was a teacher at a local school
Katherine (Kattie) Allman entered a religious order and became known as Sr. Gertrude.

One thing which they all had in common was that they actively responded to the events of their time, for instance Mary Daly (May), Charlie’s oldest sister, was active in the Irish Republican movement and ran as an election candidate in North Kerry for Sinn Féin in the 1957 general election.

We have added what we know so far to the table below. If you can help us fill in any of the gaps, please get in touch.

The women

Name	Also known as	Date of birth	Date of death	Information to date
Ellen Daly	Ellen Healy	1869	1964	mother of Charlie Daly
Susan Healy	Gran	c. 1846	1932	mother of Ellen Daly
Mary Daly	May Daly	1900	1982	sister of Charlie Daly
Susan Daly	Susan Casey; Susie Daly; Susie Casey	1902	1983	sister of Charlie Daly
Nora Daly	Hanoria; Norah	1907	1928	sister of Charlie Daly
Ellen Daly	Nellie Daly; Ellen Mary	1910	1930	sister of Charlie Daly
Nancy Daly	Anne	1912	1993	sister of Charlie Daly
Katie Maria O’Sullivan	K.M; Katie	c. 1892	unknown	teacher at local school and distant cousin of the Daly family
Josie O’Sullivan		c. 1901	unknown	sister of Katie Maria
Judy Daly		unknown	unknown
Lizzie Kelliher	Elizabeth Daly; Lizzie Daly	1881	1938	neighbour of the Daly family
Katherine Allman	Kattie Allman; Sr Gertrude; Cáit	c. 1908	unknown	friend of the Daly family / Catholic nun
Mollie O’Connor		unknown	unknown	friend of the Daly family
Sheila Doogan		unknown	unknown	friend of Charlie Daly / possibly from Kingstown/Dún Laoghaire
Mrs MacFeely		unknown	unknown	friend of the family / possibly from Daisyhill
Mrs Mary Kelly		unknown	unknown	friend of Charlie Daly
Kathleen Durcan		unknown	unknown

Share your information with us

You can see that there are lots of gaps in the table above & we hope you can help us to fill in these gaps!

There are a number of different ways to get in touch with us to share any leads you might have. You can:

leave a comment below this post
email us
tweet us @Letters1916 and include the #DalyLetters hashtag
send us a message on Facebook

a note to the O'Dálaigh family | Letters 1916-1923 — a note to the O’Dálaigh family

Thanks to:

Fiona Hughes for information about Charlie’s sisters (Susan, Nora, Nancy, Ellen) and Susan Healy (via tweet 1 & tweet 2), as well as follow-up information about Lizzie Kelliher and May Daly.

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