1pm readings; 2pm reception
Burns Library
As part of the Boston College annual Arts Festival, Burns Library is pleased to host the annual Creative Writing Concentration Senior Reading. The Creative Writing Concentration is a special track of the English major. Seniors will read briefly from their work with a reception to follow. All are welcome to attend.
5:00pm talk, 6:00pm reception
Burns Library
As the repository for Margaret Heckler's archives, Burns Library is pleased to celebrate the publication of A Woman of Firsts: Margaret Heckler, Political Trailblazer with a talk and book signing by author Kimberly Heckler. A Woman of Firsts offers a rare view into the behind-the-scenes world of American politics from the 1960s through the 1980s.
The daughter of Irish immigrants, Margaret O'Shaughnessy Heckler (1931-2018) rose to become a congresswoman, presidential cabinet secretary, and ambassador. She mastered the seemingly unbeatable game of being a woman in a man's world and a Republican in a Democratic state, becoming a champion for others against all odds.
Following her graduation from Boston College Law School in 1956, the sole woman in her class, Heckler became the only newly elected woman to Congress in 1966. She went on to represent Massachusett’s 10th district for eight consecutive terms. Her landmark legislation, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, gave women the right to credit in their own names for the first time. As President Reagan's Health and Human Services Secretary, Heckler was one of the most powerful women in America, responsible for the third-largest budget in the world. She took the lead in addressing the AIDS crisis and commissioned the Heckler Report to address racial inequalities in health care. She was later appointed by Reagan as the first female ambassador to Ireland, a highly sought-after diplomatic post.
A Woman of Firsts is a tribute to a woman who helped break the glass ceiling and fought to provide equality and justice for millions of Americans.
Kimberly Heckler is a native Washingtonian and the daughter-in-law of Margaret Heckler. She is a member of The
Authors Guild and the Library of Congress Women's History and Gender Studies Group. Her passion for reading and writing has taken her on a ten-year journey of discovery through the publication of debut book by Lyons Press, an imprint of Globe Pequot, the trade division of Rowman & Littlefield.
Light refreshments will be served following Kimberly Heckler's talk. Copies of A Woman of Firsts will be available for sale and signing.
Presented by Boston College Libraries with support from the John and Ruth Galvin Fund. This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome.
Contact Caroline Pace (pacecar@bc.edu; 617-552-3282) for more information, including accessibility and parking needs.
Watch Kim Heckler's interview with Kelly Sullivan on Boston 25 News (3/17/25)
Watch Kim Heckler's interview with Fox News 5 Washington DC (3/27/2025)
Read the BC Law Magazine's article about A Woman of Firsts (4/2/2025)
5:00pm reception, 6:00pm lecture
Burns Library
‘The spring bed will rock when we get out’, republican prisoners during the Irish Civil War told each other, an erotic imaginary of their longed-for reunions with their wives. The Irish Revolution of 1916-23 brought seismic political change to Ireland, but also wrought a transformation in personal relationships, creating new affective bonds and breaking others. Love in a time of revolution was not just a matter of deep affection, economic rationale or social place-finding, it was also a political declaration. Through revolutionary organisations, men and women met, courted, and married, sharing political as well as romantic passions. Yet the Revolution was also a moment of rupture in personal relationships, as imprisonment or death separated husbands from wives, sons and daughters from parents, and brothers from sisters, and severing friendships. In this lecture, Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid will explore the various forms of love which existed during the Irish Revolution - romantic, platonic, familial - and ask what a closer reading of affection and intimacy in these turbulent years might reveal about Irish revolutionary dynamics.
Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid is Professor in Ir
ish History and Faculty Director of Education for Arts and Humanities at the University of Sheffield, where she has taught since 2013. She works primarily on Irish history, in particular the Irish Revolution, and more broadly the history of political violence and terrorism since the nineteenth century. Her current research engages the cultural history of the Irish Revolution, focusing particularly on the history of emotions. Her publications include two monographs: Terrorist Histories: Individuals and Political Violence since the 19th Century (Routledge, 2016) and Seán MacBride: A Republican Life, 1904-1946 (Liverpool University Press, 2011).
For further background on Professor Nic Dháibhéid and her Burns Visiting Scholar residency, please visit the Burns Visiting Scholar in Irish Studies web page.
Burns Library will host a complimentary beer, wine, hors d'oeuvres reception beginning at 5:00pm, with Prof. Nic Dháibhéid’s lecture to follow at 6:00pm. All are welcome.
5pm reception, 6pm talk
Burns Library
LAUNCH OF THE NEW DIGITAL ANNOTATED EDITION.
Please join us for an exploration and celebration of the work of the English Department Early Modern Reading Group in collaboration with the John J. Burns Library an the BC Digital Scholarship Group.
Light refreshments will be served.
Fulton Hall, Burns Library
On Sat
urday, March 29, 2025, Boston College will host the conference “Jane Jacobs and Climate Readiness in Boston” on campus to focus on the work of Jane Jacobs, who is most well known for her monumental book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, though she also wrote 9 others books of impressive ambition. She is also known for her activism, especially in stopping plans for expressways that would have gone through the center of Washington Square and that would have cut across southern Manhattan. The conference considers what Jacobs’s work offers to the City of Boston as it plans to accommodate the ongoing challenges posed by climate change. The conference will be comprised of panels on urban planning, urban forestry initiatives, and community-based learning. The reason the conference is being hosted at BC is because the Burns Library houses the Jane Jacobs Papers as well as several related collectionsLinks to an external site., which makes us a magnet for any scholar interested in Jacobs’s work.
This event is free and open to the public. Please register to attend.
Tuesday, March 25
5:30pm - 7:30pm
Burns Library
In collaboration with the Romance Language and Literatures department, Burns Library will host programming and book display for the celebration of "Dante Day" ('Dantedì'), an annual commemoration of Italy's most celebrated poet and writer, Dante Alighieri. March 25 was chosen as it is recognized by scholars as the day the poet started his journey in the afterlife in the Divine Comedy.
5:30pm: Lecture: "The Poet's Blessing and Dante's Divine Comedy", Laurie Shepard, Professor Emerita, Boston College
6:00pm: Book display
6:30pm: Lecture: "No Child's Play? Childhood in Dante's Divine Comedy", Professor Erminia Ardissino, Università di Torino-Harvard Divinity School
Light refreshments will be served throughout the evening.
For more information, please contact program organizer Maria Sole Costanzo (Romance Languages) at costanmh@bc.edu or 671-552-2064.
12:00pm
O'Neill Library Reading Room
St. Patrick’s Day, the 17th of March, is the single biggest national day celebrated globally. This lunchtime talk by Professor Mike Cronin will show how St. Patrick’s Day was born in the United States as a visceral demonstration of Irish American ethnic power. It will then explore how the Irish state (and associated business interests) have leveraged St. Patrick’s Day globally to market the state and make Ireland one of the most readily recognized national brands.
Professor Mike Cronin is the Academic Director of Boston College in Ireland and a member of the Irish Studies faculty. As an historian, he has worked extensively on the creation and dissemination of Irishness. His publications include (with Daryl Adair) Wearing the Green: A History of St Patrick's Day (with Daryl Adair, 2002), The Routledge International Handbook of Irish Studies (with Renee Fox and Brian O Conchubhair, 2022), and Revolutionary Times: Ireland 1913-23 The Forging of a Nation (with Mark Duncan, 2024). He has held fellowships across the world and is currently a Visting Professor at the University of Queensland and at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture in Leicester.
Before and during the talk, attendees will be invited to enjoy a complimentary buffet lunch featuring traditional St. Patrick’s Day fare and vegetarian options. All are welcome.
For further information on BC in Ireland, visit the webpage for Boston College in Ireland.
5:30pm
Burns Library
Burns Library invites you to celebrate the publication of The Enchanted Bay, edited by Cormac O’Malley and Patrick Mahoney, and Reflections of an Irish Grandson by Vincent J. Quealy, Jr. Both books explore themes of Irish folklore and heritage, which attendees will have the chance to learn more about during short talks by the authors.
Light refreshments will be served at 5:30pm, followed at 6:00pm by readings and remarks. Books will available for sale and signing.
For those who may be interested, Guy Beiner, Sullivan Chair of Irish Studies at Boston College, will lead a panel discussion on engagements with Irish folklore in Burns Library at 4:00pm with Ray Cashman (Indiana University, Bloomington) and Hilary Joyce Bishop (Liverpool John Moores University). See the BC Events Calendar for more details.
Presented by Boston College Libraries in collaboration with Boston College Irish Studies, the above events are free and open to the public. Contact Caroline Pace (pacecar@bc.edu; 617-552-3282) for more information, including accessibility and parking needs.
Edited by Cormac K.H. O’Malley and Patrick J. Mahoney
It is a little-known fact that Ernie O’ Malley, renowned for his role in Ireland’s revolutionary struggle, was also a passionate collector of Irish folklore. Centered on O’Malley’s native Clew Bay and its environs and transcribed by his son Cormac, The Enchanted Bay presents a rich tapestry of tales that showcases the enduring power of oral tradition in Ireland. A testament to O’Malley’s multifaceted legacy, several of the stories in this compilation were gathered while he travelled Ireland as an Irish Republican Army organizer.
Vincent J. Quealy, Jr.
In 1885, Peter Meade leased a small ten-acre farm in Miltown Malbay, County Clare. He and his wife, Ellen, raised a large family of fourteen children, including the author’s grandmother, Bridget, during a turbulent time in Ireland that led to its independence, but also civil war and partition. Like many young women, Bridget came to America to seek a new life while some of her brothers fought and one even lost his life supporting the Irish Republican Army.
12pm
Burns Library
"I entered my reading the way an echo enters a sound.” ~ Eavan Boland
One small island, one giant treasure trove of artistic talent. The island of Ireland has had four Nobel Prize laureates in Literature: William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney. It has also produced many extraordinary women poets, including Nuala Ní Domhnaill and Eavan Boland.
In collaboration with John J. Burns Library at Boston College, the Charitable Irish Society and the Eire Society of Boston, with funding from Ireland's Emigrant Support Program, are pleased to host an evening of Irish poetry readings, featuring in particular poems by Eavan Boland in tribute to her recent passing and renaming of Trinity College Dublin's main library in her honor. Please bring a poem by your own favorite Irish poet to read, or just come to listen and enjoy.
The program of readings will begin at 7:00pm, following a complimentary beer, wine, and hors d'oeuvres reception beginning at 6:00pm.
This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome. No registration required.
For directions and advice on parking and accessibility, please see: https://libguides.bc.edu/burns/visit/events
