The Worker and Publicist.

Jessie Mackay is a very practical idealist and apostle of the political and social reforms that have engaged her pen for so many years. She was and is a keen pleader for improvement in the lot of women. She was a pioneer feminist, and she worked hard in the election which resulted in the return of her friend Mrs. McCombs as the first woman member of the New Zealand Parliament. For about ten years she was the woman editor of the “Canterbury Times,” and she put an immense amount of thought and effective writing into that work. She wrote much also for the “Otago Witness” and often for the Auckland “Star.” Educational methods and ethics engaged her pen; she had practical experience, for she taught in country schools for some years.

Miss Mackay's visit to Europe and to Ireland, Scotland and England in 1921–22, on her mission as a delegate to the Irish Conference in Paris, enabled her to realise the hopes of a lifetime, to see the lands of her ancient race, and to meet the leaders of Scottish and Irish thought.

(Thelma R. Kent, photo.)
A scene on the road near Lake Taupo, North Island, New Zealand.

Her work and her genius were thoroughly well recognised. A colonial Scots-woman, she was yet thoroughly at home among the Irish politicians and writers, and she contributed appreciably to the successful issue of the gathering of enthusiastic Celts and Erse scholars.

The sunset of life gives one mystical lore, said a poet of the Gaels. Miss Mackay, we all hope, is still far from the sunset of, life, but mystic vision has found expression all her writing years. Long ago she peered like a priestess into the sunlit mists where the faerie land of Tir-nan-oge may lie.