Heroine of Irish famine will be celebrated at Garden City Library

The first meeting of 2015 of the Irish Cultural Society will celebrate the life and accomplishments of Asenath Nicholson, one of the many selfless people who helped during the Great Irish Famine. The meeting convenes on Feb. 11 at 7:30 p.m. at the Garden City Library, 60 Seventh Street, across the street from the Garden City Hotel. The meeting is free and open to the public.

The speaker will be Professor Maureen Murphy of Hofstra University who will read selections from her book about Nicholson, Compassionate Stranger. Asenath Hatch Nicholson, an Evangelical Christian, after an earlier tour of Ireland visiting the poor, returned in 1846 to bring relief to the most stricken districts of Ireland. Her account of her work, Annals of the Famine (1850), captures the individuals and events of those turbulent years.

Professor Maureen Murphy is a frequent guest speaker and an advisor to the Irish Cultural Society since its founding. Indeed, Dr. Murphy has judged the Society’s writing contest for over twenty years and is a frequent guest at its Writing Awards Ceremony. She teaches in the School of Education at Hofstra where she is the co-director of the Irish Studies Program. Dr. Murphy was the Director of the Great Irish Famine Curriculum for New York State and is a past president of the American Conference of Irish Studies. Professor Murphy was one of the senior editors of the nine volume Dictionary of Irish Biography published jointly by the Royal Irish Academy and Cambridge University Press. Well respected as an Irish Studies scholar, Professor Murphy writes and lectures extensively. She is always a welcome guest at Irish Cultural Society meetings.

President Martin Kelly will invite all of the Society’s members to march on March 1 in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Mineola.