A light has gone from Manulla following Sadie’s death

THINGS just aren’t the same in Manulla these days without Sadie and her shop.
When Sadie McEllin (nee Gilligan) died recently a light was extinguished in the community.

Her shop, which she had run meticulously with her husband, Thomas, for 57 years, had already closed. For all of those 57 years since the late 1950s, Sadie and Thomas ran the grocery shop and petrol pumps just across the road from the old John Tom’s public house. For a period, they also ran the local Post Office from there.

'The Shop’, as it was simply called, was the place where local people could buy anything from a pound of butter to a carton of milk to a newspaper to a ball of string. Now with Sadie gone, and John in less good health than he used to be, anybody wanting provisions has to travel to either Balla or Belcarra.

Back in the '60s, Sadie was a star player on the Manulla camogie team,
Throughout her long life she was always regarded as outgoing, 'a great character’.

Sarah is survived by her husband, Thomas, sons, Noel, Adrian, Declan, Tomás, and a daughter, Fiona, and a legion of devoted grandchildren.