Makers: Frances Kelly and Trisha Coulomb

Panel number: 515

Petition sheet number: Did not sign 1893 petition

Person honouring: Mary Dalton

Relationship to makers: Grandmother – our father’s mother

Mary Dalton was born in Ardoughter, County Kerry, in 1875. 

As the petition signatures were being collected in New Zealand, Mary had a son, Edward [in Ireland]. In 1894 she left him in County Kerry, and sailed for New Zealand, changing ships in Sydney to the SS Wairarapa. She was on board when the ship was wrecked near Miners Head on the north coast of Great Barrier Island as it was coming into Auckland. She was fortunate to survive, given half the passengers and crew were killed. 

She never saw her son again. He took his father’s surname, Greaney, and was one of the last group killed in the Irish Civil War in 1922. Mary Dalton married in Hawera in 1908 and had four further children.

Panel materials: The wool was from our stash, bought originally from Te Toko Station in the Waikato. The cross stitch was worked on Dublin linen. The pictures were printed onto Craft Web, fused onto fabric, which was in turn fused to the crocheted backing.