South Tipperary Federation is rich in ICA history including the first ICA Summer School on the slopes of Slievenamon in 1929 – an enterprise that led, years later, to the foundation of our ‘all-year round’ Adult-Education College at An Grianan. Among the first pioneers of that first school on Slievenamon was the late Alice Ryan of Knockarron and Emly Guild, who was National President of ICA from 1
952 to 1955. Phyllis O’Connell joined the Fethard Guild in 1933 and went on to become Chief Organiser in 1943, having served as county and local organizer meantime. Her dedication to her task is proven by the recording in the minutes of Emly Guild in 1945 that “Phyllis O’Connell travelled from Fethard (to Emly) by bicycle to attend a meeting (over 30 miles). In the early days of her outstanding work the bicycle was here usual mode of travel to outlying areas. She and her sister Helen were experts in the art of Lumra-rug making (their father Dr. O’Connell hired a New Zealander, who was teaching the craft in England at the time, to come and teach his daughters).
