Katherine Hughes

Katherine Angelina Hughes (November 12, 1876 – April 26, 1925) was a Canadian journalist, author, archivist, and political activist. She founded the Catholic Indian Association in 1901 and was the secretary of the Catholic Women's League of Canada. She was the first provincial archivist for Alberta. As a journalist, Hughes worked for the Montréal Daily Star and the Edmonton Bulletin. Greatly affected by a visit to Ireland in 1914 and by the 1916 Easter Rising, she became active in the Irish War of Independence, and was tapped by Éamon de Valera to be the Canadian National Organizer for the Irish Self-Determination League. Hughes established branches of the Friends of Irish Freedom while touring the southern United States. Early life and education Hughes was born on November 12, 1876, in Emerald, Prince Edward Island, to John Wellington Hughes, the owner of a livery yard and shop, and Annie Laurie O'Brien. Her family was Irish Catholic. She had four siblings: two brothers, P. A. Hughes and Mark Hughes, and two sisters, Mrs. Robert H. Kenll and Mrs. James O'Regan. Cornelius O'Brien, an uncle of Hughes', was the archbishop of Halifax from 1883 to 1906. She received her education in Charlottetown, at the Notre Dame Convent and the Prince of Wales College, graduating in 1892 with a first-class teacher's license.