Sally ‘the Cope’ Gallagher’s ‘Her Story’ is a fresh take on the extraordinary success story of the Templecrone Co-operative Society, founded in 1906 and still thriving from its base in Dungloe, the Rosses, to this day. Written from a woman’s perspective, it brings out the inside story – and Sally’s important role in it – with re-imagined scenes from her stories created with black and white line drawings by local artist Kevin Gallagher.

Sally the Cope (Sarah Gallagher, 1877-1948) married Paddy the Cope Gallagher in 1898 and was with him in Scotland and then back in Cleendra, Maghery, outside Dungloe, in the centre of the action, as Paddy and his neighbours set up the Templecrone ‘Cope’. Sally wrote her own version of the Cope story in secret in the mid-1940s; Paddy only discovered them after her death in March 1948. The stories shine a quite different light, a woman’s perspective, on the success story of the Cope in which Sally herself, as Paddy himself acknowledged, played such a big part. Paddy could not read or write, having left school at the age of 9 or 10; Sally had more education and was able to deal with the local cooperatives in Scotland 1898-1901 and from 1903-05, the I.A.O.S (Irish Agricultural Organisation Society).
The publication will be on sale for €15 and all net proceeds will go towards Templecrone Church Conservation project in Dungloe.

More information will be available at a future date.

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