CK Heritage Blog
John (Sean) O’Connor, Principal of Piltown National School, told a great story from the 1950s when Waterford had an outstanding hurling team. Some older people will remember Ned Power, Austin Flynn, Tom Cheasty, Frankie Walsh, Johnny Kiely and Philly Grimes. They won the All-Ireland in 1959.
Cumann na mBan or the “Irishwomen’s Council” was founded in April of 1914 at Wynn’s Hotel, Dublin and was a Nationalist organisation which aligned closely with the Irish Volunteer movement. Initially much of their activities on a local level involved fundraising and providing first-aid training for their members, but their primary objective of “advancing the cause of Irish liberty” and to “assist in arming and equipping a body of Irish men for the defence of Ireland” would ring more and more true as Ireland approached the revolutionary events of Easter 1916 and latterly during the War of Independence.
