Upcoming talk on fascinating Kilkenny connections of Bridget Aylward, 'Queen of Alaska'

South Kilkenny Historical Society has announced details of its next lecture, which takes place on Friday, April 25.

Bridie Kineavy will speak about the South Kilkenny connections of Bridget Aylward, the 'Queen of Alaska'. Bridget Mannion from Rosmuc, Galway was born in 1865 and emigrated circa 1883 to St Paul, Minnesota. She went to Alaska with John Healy and his wife in the early 1890s where she met and married Edward Aylward of Kilkenny. After mining for gold in Napoleon Creek for a few years, they settled in Seattle and invested in properties. Edward died in 1914 and is buried in Seattle.

Bridget moved home to Rosmuc in 1949 and died in the 1950s. She is buried in Rosmuc. She left money in a Trust Fund for the education of the children of Rosmuc, which was used to pay for scholarships until free education came in the 1960s.

Since then, the Trust Fund is used by the local secondary school Coláiste na bPiarsach to pay for cultural activities. In 2009, the school opened the Bridget Aylward library using money from the fund.

Bridie Conneely Kineavy is one of the last generation to grow up on the tiny island of Inis Treabhair in Cuan Cill Chiaráin, Na Gaillimhe.  Her background as a Science and Maths teacher brought her on her teaching journey to the Meath Gaeltacht of Rathcairn, Inis Oírr (the smallest of the Aran Islands) and ending up for almost 25 years in Coláiste na bPiarsach in Ros Muc where she also had the role of school librarian and archivist.
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While in Coláiste na bPiarsach she began her research into the story of Bridget Mannion Aylward – the ‘Queen of Alaska’. She has since journeyed in Bridget’s footsteps to the city of St Paul in Minnesota, on to the gold mines of Napoleon Creek on the Fortymile River in Alaska, where Bridget mined in the 1880s with her husband Edward Aylward of Weatherstown, and then to the city of Seattle where the Aylwards retired when their mining days were over.

Bridie’s most recent research has brought her back to the tenant farm holdings of the Aylwards of Weatherstown, Glenmore in the mid-late 1800s.

A lecture will be held in Mullinavat Parish Hall (opposite St Beacon’s Church), at 8pm. On Saturday, May 31, the society has organised a coach trip to Fethard and Clonmel in County Tipperary.