Ella Young Remembered James D. Cain Author

In the early 1920s, Ella Young, a fifty-something Irish poet, was living in newly independent Ireland. Her publication of ancient Celtic myths had inspired the cultural revival necessary to ignite Ireland's separation from Great Britain. But whi... Read more

In the early 1920s, Ella Young, a fifty-something Irish poet, was living in newly independent Ireland. Her publication of ancient Celtic myths had inspired the cultural revival necessary to ignite Ireland's separation from Great Britain. But while Ella took an active part in rebellion and war, the new country offered little to a woman like herself, indifferent to husbands and priests.  Seeking solace and direction, Ella enlisted the help of friends and embarked on a speaking tour of America, where she recounted Irish folk tales to children. Her tour was popular, but it was not children who sat at her feet and listen, it was their parents: Irish immigrants hungering for connection to their culture and ancestors. Ella restoreed to them stories of struggling heroes, half-forgotten place names and ancestral landscapes. Irish Americans have never lost their thirst for these sources of connection. When her speaking tour ended, Ella traveld as far west as she could. She never returned to Ireland. Instead, she lived a wandering life among artists and poets, beatniks, and weirdos of California. Through the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, she adapted her Irish mystical tradition, teaching that the world contains creatures wiser than ourselves, and that nature is sacred and deserves our protection. These are familiar notions now, but not so then. Dressed in purple robes, rings on every finger, Ella Young delivered lectures and told Irish stories at UC Berkeley for many years. By the end of her long life, she had partied with bishops, chanted rituals at Shasta, debated with vegans, rode horses with millionaires, picnicked with laureates, and encountered fairies at Point Lobos. The most famous photograph of herself was taken by her friend Ansel Adams, an artist she recognised and promoted. Ella Young is an invisible connecting thread between the artists, poets, and visionaries of her time and our own. They created the fertile culture that birthed innovations in conservation, new spiritualities, and California's unique contributions to modern literature. Despite her influence and timely message, very little documentary evidence of Young's life exists. About ten years after her death in 1956, historian James Cain interviewed several of Young's friends, recording first-hand memories. Although his research was never published, he made the recordings available, and they are now on archive.org under a Creative Commons license. Tulsk Productions, as part of our mission to promote the life and legacy of Ella Young, has published the Cain interview transcripts as Remembering Ella Young. Interviews with: Ansel Adams, Chester (Gavin) Arthur III, W. W. Lyman, John and Gudrun Grell, Jane Thompson. Less