This article is from page 14 of the 2006-04-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 14 JPG
ENNISTYMON woman Aloma McKay is in the running to become one of the most powerful women in rural Ireland.
She is campaigning to become the president of the Irish Country Woman’s Association.
Mrs McKay, who has been a member of the Ennistymon guild of the ICA since 1992, will be up against Peg McMeel from Dublin and Carmel Dawson from Carlow, when the voting takes place later this month.
Mrs McKay believes that a number of challenges in her life have prepared her for the election campaign and her responsibilities as president, should she be successful.
“It is a difficult and demanding position, but I enjoy a challenge,” said Mrs McKay, who came to live in Clare, in 1989.
“We were only here for six months when my husband died and left me with six young children in a foreign country.
“I am also a team player and I work well with others.”
American by birth, she settled with her family in the Ennistymon area. She hopes to use her cosmopolitan background to help improve the image of the ICA, which has, in some quarters an image of being old fashioned.
“The people who have negative images of the ICA, or who think that it is old fashioned, are usually people who have never been involved in it,” she said.
“We now live in a multicultural country. Ireland is moving with the times and the ICA is moving with it.”
Aloma has held many offices, both locally and nationally in the ICA. She served as secretary of the Ennistymon branch from ‘92-’95, chairman of the National Arts Committee from 2001-2003 and the Federation President between 2000 and 2003.