12 February 2009 Edition

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Fógraí bháis: Ellen Coveney

ELLEN COVENEY, known to her friends and family as ‘Cove’, died on 2 February after a long illness.
Born and bred in Cork City, Ellen was a lifelong republican, first as a young woman in na Fianna Éireann, the republican youth movement.  She joined Sinn Féin in the early 1970s, concentrating on raising support and awareness of the plight of republican prisoners and their families.
Ellen was a remarkable woman.
Her husband, Christy, died in the early 1970s and Ellen, with a family of six young children, had to cope and care for them on her own. It was a measure of her commitment that she still found time for her political activities in support of Sinn Féin and the Prisoners Dependants’ Fund. Indeed, Ellen was a central figure and was at the core of republicanism in Cork.

LIMERICK JAIL
Speaking at Ellen’s funeral in St Michael’s Cemetery in Cork City on Thursday, 5 February, Sinn Féin General Secretary Rita O’Hare paid tribute to that commitment and recalled how she first met Ellen.
“Ellen Coveney was given a prison sentence in 1976 for selling Easter Lilies. She arrived into Limerick Jail, a widowed mother of six children. There were only a few women political prisoners in Limerick so we were quite isolated. Ellen walking in with her big smile was a great boost to us all. This was Ellen’s strength: her positive, forwarding-looking attitude to life, to her family, her friends and to the cause of Ireland that was so important to her.”
Ellen’s removal and funeral was attended by hundreds of people from Cork City but also from people from all over Ireland. She touched many people’s lives in the course of her own life and it was fitting that this was demonstrated at her funeral.

THE GREEN FLAG
A piper played by her coffin to the graveside and Mary Byrne sang Wrap the Green Flag Round Me, Boys before the playing of Amhrán na bhFiann.
To Ellen’s family — Catherine, Eileen, Sandra, Michael, Denis and Finbarr, to her 20 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren — our deepest sympathy at the death of a much loved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.
Ellen made a difference and she will be missed.

An Phoblacht
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