Mayo Rape Crisis Centre co-founder has had chequered career
By Tom Gillespie
THE recently appointed interim director at Castlebar’s Linenhall Arts Centre, Fiona Neary, has had a chequered career, having spent her first 10 years in London, then returning to her grandparents farm in Mayo and later co-founding the Mayo Rape Crisis Centre.
Her father Seamus’ people came from Ross and mother Chris’ people from Mulranny and Lacken.
Looking back, Fiona stated: “I was part of the typical Irish emigration Mayo story. With my parents we moved to London for 10 years. I was 10 when we moved back here. They left Ireland in 1967 and came back in 1977.
“I spent my teenage years working with my mum in Chipadora takeaway on Rush Street. It was awful having a mother who worked in Chipadora because she knew everything that was happening in town. I got away with nothing.
“The family farm was on Pontoon Road/Sion Hill - Kitty, Tom and Bobby Neary were there. We lived in North London and moved back from a massive housing estate to this farm. It was glorious and it was a shock. Mum had worked in the Ford factory and my dad was labouring on the building sites.
“When we came back here he got a job with the council. He worked in the water and sewerage treatment unit up until he retired. He was delighted to come home but my mum’s head had been turned in London as women had much more freedom over there.”
Fiona continued: “My parents got two weeks holidays every year in England but they came back here to do the hay and turf on my grandparents farm.
“As a kid who grew up in England I never saw a beach in England, because our holiday every year was home to Mayo for the two weeks.
“We moved back in ’77 and lived with my grandparents for a year until dad built our house on the family land and he is there since.
“I went to St. Angela’s NS and St. Joseph’s secondary before going back to the tech (Davitt College) to do my Leaving Cert. In the tech there was nobody like Joe Langan who was principal. He was special.
“The style at the time was the tight trouser legs with the green uniforms, which are still there.
“Some of the lads used to come in wearing jeans and this is where I thought Joe was a genius. He got the girls in the sewing class to make up trousers with massive wide legs, like bell-bottoms, which were the most awful style then.
“If any of the lads turned up with not wearing the proper trousers he would hand them a pair of the bell-bottoms to wear.”
Fiona went on: “Later I worked in Chipadora with Dolores and Paddy Burke. It was funny because there were nights I ended jump mopping the floor with Paddy and arguing with him. I was an awful lip teenager.
“I worked in sexual violence prevention for years and I was on various government committees. Once day I was up in the Dáil for some meeting and the next thing Senator Paddy Burke walks past me dressed as Father Christmas. This was the Paddy Burke that I used to mop floors with.”
She said her family had fostered for years and she grew up seeing a lot of trauma in families.
She continued: “Myself and Ruth McNeely set up the Rape Crisis Centre in Castlebar in 1993. To coincide with the opening we held an exhibition in the Linenhall Arts Centre and all the works were by survivors of abuse. At that time in Ireland these things were not out in the open the way they are now.
“That exhibition, which was opened by Monica Barnes, was so popular that its run was extended.
“I had done fundraising for Galway Rape Crisis Centre and we knew there were women and girls travelling from Mayo to Galway to take up the services there. We didn’t know what the demand would be in Mayo but we knew it was needed.
“After the banking crisis, like many community organisations, the one I was working for was savaged. We fought it off for a while but I was made redundant about six years ago.
“I started working freelance with various organisations around governance and helping them to be in good order and facilitating them to have some of the difficult conversations they might need to have, if things were not working well.
“I started working with a lot of arts organisations and I was working very closely with the Galway Arts Centre and the Taibhdhearch.”
In January, Fiona was appointed interim director of the Linenhall for a 12-month period.
She said: “I am looking forward to guiding the centre through this current period of change, bringing my expertise in leadership and organisational management, with an abundance of plans for the year ahead.
“We hope that we in the Linenhall are a cultural feast for everyone in Mayo. We are here for everybody in Castlebar. It’s arts for all at the Linenhall.
“We are very honoured that we are the caretakers of the building Lord Lucan left to the people of Castlebar.”