It’s sad to think that this week’s Letterkenny Reunion celebrations will be the last ever such event for the town.
A celebration that began back in 1991, has been a wonderful success on so many fronts.
The Reunion was the brainchild of local friends Jimmy Sweeney and Johnny Joe McCollum who found themselves wondering how they could organise an event to attract emigrants back to visit the town of their birth and to meet up with friends and family members living here.
So good was the first Reunion that it was held every three years thereafter and many people living abroad organised their visits home to coincide with each reunion celebration.
The photographs and video footage from those early Reunions bring back special memories as friendships were rekindled among so many.
Inevitably, many featuring in those photographs have since gone to their eternal reward and they will surely have been in the thoughts of their surviving family members and friends as the last Reunion took place this week.
Dickie McGranaghan arriving at the Letterkenny Reunion Mass at St. Eunan’s Cathedral. Photo: Brian McDaid
It was nice too that Fr Stephen Gorman celebrated the memories of the many people who were involved in the organising of the Reunions over the years during Sunday evening’s Reunion Mass in St. Eunan’ Cathedral.
Their contribution should never be forgotten and great credit must go to the current committee for organising another brilliant programme of events this week.
Many people might be wondering why the Reunion has to come to an end.
Perhaps it’s because so many of the generation that were involved in its success, and others who would have come back home for the Reunion, are no longer with us.
Whatever the reason, the Letterkenny Reunion will always be remembered for the unique event that it was – bringing friends and folk together again in their home town.
And you never know, if the demand is there for another Reunion in the years to come, there are enough good townies around who could step up and take on the challenge of organising its return.
Diarmaid Doherty, Editor
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