News release from the Forbes House
The Charitable Irish Society, the Eire Society and the Forbes House Museum will hold a lecture and reception on Sunday, 5 May 2013, beginning at 1:30pm at Fontbonne Academy, 303 Adams Street, Milton. The lecture, “The Irish Servant Girl in America,” will be presented by Professor Maureen Murphy.
Dr. Maureen Murphy is the Joseph Dionne Professor of Curriculum and Teaching at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. She was a senior editor of the prize winning Great Irish Famine Curriculum Project and served as the historian for the Irish Hunger Memorial in Battery Park in New York City.
A reception will take place at Forbes House Museum immediately following the lecture. Guests will be treated to a performance of traditional Irish music and special tours of the Museum. Irish artifacts, given to Captain Robert Bennet Forbes in 1847 as a gesture of thanks from the citizens of County Cork, Ireland, will be on display.
Captain Forbes and his brother, John Murray Forbes, China Trade merchants living in Milton, Massachusetts, took the lead in an effort to transport tons of food and provisions from Boston to Cobh, County Cork, Ireland in March and April of 1847 at the height of the Great Famine.
The Museum will also have on view its copy of the Atlas of the Great Irish Famine published in 2012 by the Cork University Press in Ireland. The 710 page Atlas was compiled by John Crowley, William J. Smyth, and Mike Murphy of the Geography Department at the University College Cork (UCC).
The program at Fontbonne will include a presentation by FHM Executive Director, Robin Tagliaferri, who will provide an overview of oral history interviews conducted last year with descendants of Irish workers. From 1833 to 1962, thirty-six people, immigrants from Ireland, worked and/or lived at Forbes House.
Tagliaferri will discuss a number of rewarding events from 2012 in which the Museum partnered with Irish Famine history scholars. The Forbes House was visited by Marita Foster, historian and acting Head of the International Education Office at University College Cork, and Laurence Geary, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at UCC. Both Foster and Geary are experts in 19th century Irish history.
Dr. Catherine Shannon, Professor Emeritus at Westfield State University in Massachusetts, an expert on Forbes’ voyage and the New England Relief Committee, invited the Museum to participate in weekend series of events on 5 and 6 May 2012, in which Irish President, Michael Higgins visited Boston for Famine commemoration ceremonies.
It is through the initiative of Dr. Shannon that the lecture and reception will be offered for the second year in a row.
Edward Duffy and Barbara Fitzgerald, members of the Eire Society and residents of Milton, with FHM Executive Director, Robin Tagliaferri and FHM Assistant Director, Rebecca Wright, at a reception in honor of Irish President, Michael Higgins on 5 May 2012 at the Seaport World Trade Cente
Pre registration is required for the lecture and reception. Call the Charitable Irish Society at 617- 330-l737 or e-mail them at charitableirishsociety@gmail.com, or call Barbara Fitzgerald of the Eire Society at 617 698-8758 or e- mail her at barbara.s.fitzgerald@gmail.com. Admission is $15.00 per person payable at the door. Deadline for reservations is 1 May 2013.
For more information on programs, events and group tours, call the Forbes House Museum at 617- 696- 1815 or e-mail info@forbeshousemuseum.org. For more information on Museum programs, special events and group tours, visit the website www.forbeshousemuseum.org.
Photo (jpeg file) attached: from left to right, Edward Duffy and Barbara Fitzgerald, members of the Eire Society and residents of Milton, with FHM Executive Director, Robin Tagliaferri and FHM Assistant Director, Rebecca Wright, at a reception in honor of Irish President, Michael Higgins on 5 May 2012 at the Seaport World Trade Center.