The Founding of the Leitrim Guardian (2)
by the Committee members of the Millenium year 2000

The Committee made the major decision in 1969 to launch the Leitrim Guardian. We
can measure its success with popular reaction to it in the 1970 issue. No lesser men than President Eamon DeValera and General Tom Barry praised this literary effort.

Letters to the editor give a good indication of how the magazine was received. A lady in Baltimore writes congratulating the magazine on a masterful editorial with the stirring words, ‘my heart beat fast with pride and confidence. Leitrim has at last found a champion who together with your associates will and can arouse new interest in the lives of Leitrim people’.

In 1970 it seems that the organising committee was way ahead of its time. It had a founding editor and also a ‘Woman’s Editor’. Peggy Sheehy put together a very impressive Woman’s Section with pieces on the workings of the ICA, hobbies etc. The Leitrim woman had by now really woke from her slumber and had secured equality in this new venture. We were moving rapidly from the three-legged stool and Grace O’Shaughnessy in an article was discussing the ‘Four Ages of Beauty’. Another article with the heading Leitrim Woman in Harness showed women moving into the business sector.