View from the Big Hills

Ella Young was a rare breed indeed. An Irishwomen, she was brought up in a Protestant family as a Presbyterian, later becoming an ardent Irish Nationalist, who helped hide ammunitions and weapons after witnessing the "terrible beauty" of 1916 the Easter Uprising.   Friends with many trail blazers in the Emerald Isle's rocky history - Maud Gonne, William Butler Yeats and George Russell (known to most as the poet and visionary "AE") - she collected a vast array of Celtic stories, legends and myths from country folk. We can be grateful for the treasure trove of material she collected and saved for perpetuity. When the Treaty between England and Ireland was signed on 6th December 1922 creating the Irish Free State, she felt betrayed and hatched a plan to emigrate to the United States. She believed the conditions of the proposed Free State broke up and destroyed much of the magic of the Emerald Isle. By 1925 Ella had come to the United States, bringin