Slán/Goodbye - 2014-2024
Amherst Irish Association / Cumann Gaelach Amherst
A Chairde/Dear Friends
We, the Association's directors, decided the fall program of events from September - December, 2023, including the Margaret Maher Award 2023 in October, was our last offering. From the outset, we committed ourselves to 10 years of work with the organization. Our aim was to present events exploring aspects of Ireland's history, culture, and society, to counter the negative association to Ireland and matters Irish resulting from the drunken student riots in the town of Amherst around St. Patrick's Day, in 2014 ("Blarney Blowout"), since reports of those riots were carried on national news bulletins in the USA and Ireland.
We are of the view that as a limited lifetime association, run by volunteers, we have consistently delivered a high-quality program of events annually for 10 years. Therefore, the Association has been enormously successful. We closed in December 2023, having presented 63 events to our community from 2014-2024.
Our main sponsor, Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs' Emigrant Support Program, managed by the Boston Consulate team, have been stellar supporters of our work. We would like to acknowledge former Consuls General Breandán Ó Caollaí and Fionnuala Quinlan, and in particular Laoise Moore, who visited Amherst to present the annual Margaret Maher Award (named after the Irish immigrant who worked as a servant with the poet Emily Dickinson's family for 30 years).
In addition to this support from the homeland, our various speakers, performers and presenters, all contributed on a voluntary basis to demonstrate their support of our Association's mission. We are grateful to all of them and wish to acknowledge their kindness.
At the heart of our work is our membership, people who also wish to explore positive associations to Ireland and matters Irish, to learn more about Ireland, its culture, history and language. We have gathered at a beautiful venue (Unitarian Universalist Hall) with like-minded people for ten years now, some of whom have an ancestral link to Ireland, many with none. We've kept our membership fee low, at $25 year, and offer complimentary tea and scones after each event, as our resident musicians, Le Chéile, perform Irish tunes.
During the COVID pandemic, we transitioned to online offerings and presented via Zoom, with the recordings available on our YouTube site. As a result, our audience expanded to areas beyond the Pioneer Valley area, and in some cases, included attendees from Ireland! Check our Amherst Irish YouTube site for video recordings and our website, http://www.amherstirish.org (available until December 2024 only) for photos from ten years of our events. The Jones Library in Amherst has kindly agreed to archive our materials.
When we began in 2014, there were few Irish-related resources in our area. Now there are several organizations and cultural centers offering regular Irish events. See list provided.
Slán ó / Goodbye from:
Íde B. O'Carroll,
Samuel T. Hannigan,
Timothy S. Goodhind,
Annie G. Rogers,
Amanda Bernhard,
Jonathan Hohl Kennedy
Irish Heritage & Culture- Local Groups: Northampton St. Patrick's Association, PO BOX 723, Northampton, MA, https://www.northamptonstpats.org/; John Boyle O'Reilly Club, Springfield, MA, https://jbo-club.com/; Irish Cultural Center of Western New England, https://www.irishcenterwne.org/; Irish-American Heritage Museum, Albany, NY, https://irish-us.org/; Gaelic League, Brattleboro, VT. Irish language classes, https://www.gaeilge.org/brattleboro.html; Greater Easthampton St. Patrick's Day Committee, information available via John and Maureen Sheehan and the committee's Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=greater%20easthampton%20St.%20Patrick%27s%20Day%20Committee.
