Anne Gallagher McKenna
The Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame inducted three people and gave a special award to a fourth person in a ceremony Sunday at the Irish Center in Philadelphia.
Honored were businesswoman Eileen Lavin, founder of the Tara Gael Dancers; Robert M. Gessler, president of the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Observance Association and founder of the Hibernian Hunger Project; and the late Anne Gallagher McKenna, who turned her skills in and love of Irish knitting into a thriving business (McKenna’s Irish Shop in Havertown). Attorney Joseph T. Kelley Jr. received a special award for his work with the board of the Commodore Barry Club (The Irish Center).
Anne McKenna’s daughter, Nancy, accepted her mother’s award and graciously shared her speech with us, which is printed below.
See photos from the event here.
Nancy Durnin’s speech:
As I recall, it was a bittersweet moment when I knew for certain that Mom, Anne Gallagher McKenna was going to posthumously receive this recognition tonight. This week last year Mom passed away yet tonight her spirit in this room is palpable.
Many songs have been written about those who came with “dreams and visions and educations too” but Mom didn’t have that formal education the Wolf Tones wrote of. This didn’t slow her down from taking that dream to fruition. After raising a family of 5 children she stopped trying to sell Aran knits to wealthy Main Liners from our already too small dining room.
In 1980 she opened a retail shop that sold wool’s and hand knits from around the globe. At the start while cautiously sensing that she could and should attempt her dream she said to herself, ” Why not me ….I’ll never know unless I try.” This journey was into unknown territory, she had no one to mentor. Slowly she problem-solved and took the necessary steps to build an inventory from the best knitters she could find in Donegal ,Derry and surrounding counties. And believe me it took a lot of time to build an inventory. Unlike today with the click of a button you can visit a showroom to view and purchase new items the showrooms. She went to the kitchens and sitting rooms of the knitters in her beloved homeland. If fact after completing the days business she often sat and had dinner with the family. To many she was like family.
Before she set of onto the next home she would leave balls of wool with the knitter and details of the next designs she would need. It seemed she was always waiting on a parcel wrapped in brown paper from home. Her knowing that helping to keep small cottage industries in trade and sending a few shillings their way was comforting to her. From age 12 she personally knew of the benefits as she had been knitting mittens for the local Aran sweater shopkeeper in Ardara, Donegal.
It was these first earned shillings that helped to purchase her ticket to Philadelphia. Anne’s shop remains open today 33 years later. Many Irish shops have followed since 1980, all trying to preserve Irish artisanship, culture and entrepreneurship, , but hands down all of the original North American Celtic Buyers Board knew there was nobody who knew the Aran knit product like her.
In 1947 at 17 she was the first in her family (6 more followed ) to make North Philadelphia her new home. Soon she was working in rectory’s in West Philadelphia and in 1955 she married Joe Mc Kenna from County Monaghan. I mention this because all persons of talent with dreams to pursue always seem to have support and love encouraging them. Our Dad like many other spouses of former Irish Hall of Famers went along with her journey…sometimes like myself wondering, what is she at now and for God sake’s why? It took many many years to really get it. . .artisans think differently.
And Anne was an artisan like no other. She knew what it was to card, spin and weave in their loom house behind their cottage on the Loughos point road in Ardara. The “Two Posts of Poverty” is what she would call her knitting needles and they clattered virtually till the night before she died with her final Aran knit sweater and hat being worn by her great niece while sitting inside the Sam Maguire Cup brought here on tour by the victorious Donegal team in this very room.
There are so many accolades and stories that bear mentioning and in order to best describe what Anne McKenna was really about I must tell you that she was prouder when she completed mittens made without a thumb for an elderly stroke customer then she was when she finished three custom hand knit Aran Sweater for none other than Jackie Kennedy Onassis. These three sweaters were ordered by a famous New York shop and knowing the importance of the client, Jackie O, they asked Mom to knit these. She just treated this like any other order, got the measurements, and knit the sweaters.
People loved her because she was so humble, never sought attention, was always for the underdog and how you were was always more important then how she was. In fact she most likely would think that the award she is getting tonight is wasted on her and should be given to some person who actually did something. Such was her humility.
Granny Annie was so many things, a woman of incredible faith, a wife, mom, teacher, entrepreneur and an artisan. And it all began when in 1947 a beautiful young Irish girl arrived in the USA put her talent, dreams and drive into action thus paving the way for future women in the design and textile industries.
All of us here tonight from the Gallagher, Ferry, and McKenna families thank the Delaware Valley Irish Hall of Fame.
