Westport’s first ever post-woman is turning heads

Cathy Scanlon, Westport’s first ‘Post woman’ is pictured outside Westport Post Office last week with An Post mail manager, Ger Dawson.?Pic: Michael Mc Laughlin

Westport’s first ever post-woman starts delivering


Edwin McGreal

It shouldn’t be that remarkable that a woman would deliver post yet it has taken until 2011 for Westport to have has its first ever post-woman.
There are some jobs that are mainly the preserve of one sex. There’s not too many male beauticians out there and hardly a whole pile of female mechanics, but you wouldn’t rationally think that a postal operative - to give it its genderless official title - would be almost exclusively the preserve of men.
But ask yourself when did you last see a female delivering post? There are only a few in the county and Glenhest native Cathy Scanlon last month became the first ever in Westport.
“I would be walking up to the door of a house and, from a distance, whoever sees me might say something like ‘oh, here comes the postman’ but then I’d get closer and they’d go ‘oh!’ and then go silent because they wouldn’t know what to call me!
“It does turn a lot of heads and an awful lot of people are surprised by it, probably because I’m the first postlady they’ve seen,” Cathy told The Mayo News.
Cathy started off work with An Post behind the counter in Westport and Castlebar before spending 15 months working in the GPO call centre in Dublin. She then decided to go on the road and now delivers post via bike to the eastern side of Westport town, the route known as the Cois Abhann delivery route.
“I’m really enjoying it. It is a great barrel of laughs. It is an early start but I don’t mind that. I leave home at 4.30am and start work at 5am and am finished by 11am. I don’t find it tough, I’m used to it now. I don’t cycle up High Street but I doubt I’m the first person not to do that,” she added, laughing.