Éamon de Valera, the face of Ireland in America for most of the 20th century, will be the subject of the October meeting of the Irish Cultural Society. The meeting will convene on Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. at the Garden City Library, located at 60 Seventh St., across the street from the Garden City Hotel. The meeting is free and open to the public.
Speaker Dave Hannigan will talk about Éamon de Valera in America, a lecture that will touch on the 18 months in 1919-20 that de Valera spent in New York and across America. Hannigan is a native of Cork City and is a professor of history at Suffolk Community College in Selden. His interest in de Valera stemmed from a photograph he saw online of Fenway Park in Boston filled to the rafters for a de Valera rally. Irish-born and Irish-Americans came to hear the future Taoiseach speak, knowing that de Valera was a fugitive from British justice. Americans treated de Valera as if he were a visiting head of state wherever he went.
Inspired by that photograph, Hannigan wrote a book about de Valera’s time in America. He is also the author of eight books and two children’s novels. The audience at the meeting will be introduced to the most influential political figure during the time of Ireland’s struggles to become an independent nation.
—Submitted by the Irish Cultural Society
